“What if you don’t wake up?”
“Then you try to change it.”
Freya turned to look back out the window. “I just want to go back home where I know I’m safe,” she said. “I feel as though-it’s like in The Wizard of Oz, you know? I feel like I’ve been ripped up by a tornado and I’m just spinning and spinning and still haven’t really come down yet.”
Daniel picked at the hem of his shirt. “Anyway,” he said after a time, “let’s go find Swi?gar and Ecgbryt, and then maybe this mysterious wizard Ealdstan. I can get a brain, you can get some courage, and then we can click our ruby slippers together and go home.”
Freya gave a broken laugh and sniffed. “Okay,” she said, sliding out of the alcove. They started to walk off down the corridor.
“So what did you get? Was it a dress or something?”
“Yes. A dark-red one.”
“Go put it on. I’ll wait.”
“No.”
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
“Go on, I bet you’d look nice.”
“Be quiet.”
2
As Freya and Daniel started down the twisting staircase, a loud and lively clamor drifted up from below them.
“I hope they have food,” said Freya. “I’m starving.”
“I think they do. Do you smell that? Smells smoky. But nice.”
They reached the ground floor and looked around. The noise, a pleasant rise and fall of happy voices, was coming from a wide doorway under the opposite staircase. They walked through it and found stone tables and benches ranked down a long hall. The benches closest to the door were empty, but there was a cluster of people at the other end making a respectable racket. Ecgbryt was one of these and was the first to notice them. Standing, he raised a horn-shaped object above his head and hallooed them in a bellowing voice. “Wes ?u hale, young Daniel and fair Freya!” he called out.
Cnafa approached Daniel and Freya and motioned them to follow. He led them to the table at the end of the hall. On one side of the table sat Swi?gar and Ecgbryt, and on the other, two broad, grizzled men, with the pale, dry faces shared by all who lived in Ni?ergeard.
The table was empty save for a large clay jug and oddly shaped cups in front of each person. Ecgbryt and one of the gentlemen had clay pipes in their mouths and were smoking a rich tobacco.
They slid onto the bench with the knights. “Did you sleep well?” Swi?gar asked.
Daniel and Freya nodded wordlessly. From a door in the corner two servants entered carrying several platters. They silently approached the table and laid the strange dishes before the new arrivals. One held a dried meat sausage as big as Daniel’s arm; the next contained a pile of thin, crispy bread; the last was a plate of orange and lime slices. Shallow clay bowls were placed in front of them, along with two very sharp knives.
Freya broke off a piece of bread. “How long were we asleep?” she asked, popping it in her mouth as Daniel picked up his knife and started to saw into the meat.
“Oh, not very long,” answered Ecgbryt as he drew on his pipe.
“Only five or six years.”
Daniel’s eyebrows shot up.
Freya nearly choked on the bread she was chewing. “What?” she gasped.
“As I said, not long, not long at all-” A smile broke Ecgbryt’s solemn face and he broke into laughter. The other men at the table did as well. Daniel grinned sheepishly and Freya muttered something under a frown.
“The boy’s eyes nearly fell into his plate,” hooted one of the other men.
“No,” said Ecgbryt, bringing his laughter under control with an effort. “Hours only. Hours, not years. Forgive me, but-but this is excellent ale.” He held his silver-rimmed horn aloft and clanked it against his neighbor’s cup. They both drank.
“Glad to see you awake,” said Swi?gar to Daniel and Freya. “You will not have met these men. I will let them introduce themselves.”
“Greetings,” said the man across from Ecgbryt, wiping his mouth. He had a squarish build and a large mane of dark, shaggy hair that stuck out at every angle. His face was blunt and puckered here and there with scars. To Freya it looked as if he’d been chewed up by some giant beast and spat out. For all she knew, she reflected, he had been. “My name is Godmund,” he said, slapping his chest with a fist. The fishscale armour that encased him clanked and rattled. “It means ‘good-hand,’ and was given to me by Ealdstan himself. I am Ni?ergeard’s Shield Thane-its protector.”
“My name,” said the man next to him, a bald and thin man with a pinched face, long moustache, and wiry arms, “is Frithfroth. I oversee the order of this magnificent keep. I am the Torr Thane. If ever you have need of anything on this side of the Tall Tower’s door, but mention it in my presence and it will be brought to you with all possible speed. I give especial welcome.”
“Hi. I’m Freya Reynolds.”
The heads at the table turned to Daniel, who smiled and announced grandly, “My name is Daniel Tully. I am a student of the Isis C of E Secondary School in the town of Oxford. My mother gave me my name, though I don’t know what it means.
I greet you!” He raised up the horn in front of him in a salute to the delight of the table. He put the cup to his lips and lifted the bottom up, up, and up until it was upside down over his face.
Nothing came out, to the laughter of everyone in the hall. Even Freya muffled a small snort behind her hand.
Swi?gar reached across and took Daniel’s cup from him. He poured a small amount of pale liquid from one pitcher and some water from another. He handed it back to Daniel, who completed his toast to a cheer.
Those around the table gazed gleefully at Daniel and Freya as they ate. Suddenly, Godmund’s pipe jumped from his lips. “I have it!” he cried. “It is an onion!”
“And not before time,” Frithfroth said, smirking. “Take your turn.”
“Very well,” said Godmund, laying his pipe carefully on the table and interlocking his fingers. Clearing his throat, he spoke slowly and deliberately:
“A deadly destroyer, divinely descended,
awakes only when warring,
stirring when silent objects are struck.
He is highly borne to battle by foe to fight against foe.
Though incredibly fierce,
and madly wild, a woman will wrangle him.
Though satisfying they who serve and tend him,
the more you feed him, the hungrier you make him.
He who builds this battler up
is doubly delighted, but death follows he
who carelessly lets this warrior loose.”
“Samson,” Ecgbryt answered immediately. Godmund shook his head.
“Anger,” answered Swi?gar. Godmund smiled and shook his fuzzy head once again.
The hall was silent as the puzzler looked smugly around the table. Each in their own manner either scratched his head, silently repeated lines of the riddle, or stared into nothing. Daniel and Freya looked on with interest as they continued placing meat and bread into their mouths.
Godmund smiled and tapped out a layer of ash from his pipe. Picking up a splint of wood about the thickness of a match, he held it to the candle in front of him and then brought it up to his cold pipe bowl. He puffed a few times and then held it away. His face appeared thoughtful, gazing at the flame as it traveled up the splint towards his fingers.
Ecgbryt, his eyes flickering idly across the table, saw him gently blowing on the flame rather playfully. He thought a moment and then his eyes grew wide. “Fire!” he exclaimed. “The answer is fire!”
Godmund blew out the flame and nodded as the table applauded the guesser.
It was now Ecgbryt’s turn. “At last,” he said, stroking his long moustache. “And I have a most excellent riddle for you all-a rare and wise riddle it is as well, for King ?lfred the Great himself did teach me this riddle from his own lips.” He cleared his throat.