"Nicola Griffith - A Troll Story" - читать интересную книгу автора (Griffith Nicola)

Originally published in the June 2000 issue of Realms of Fantasy

A Troll Story

by Nicola Griffith Illustration by Web Bryant

Lessons in What Matters, No. 1


No, don’t turn on the lamp; who I am is not important. The lamp wouldn’t work, anyway. If you shout for your parents, they won’t hear you. Are you afraid? There’s no need, I’m here only to tell you a story. If you wish you may pretend I’m a figment of your imagination, product of a fever dream. Oh, yes, I know about your fever. Your mother thinks you’re coming down with something, but it’s not that, is it? It’s guilt. You feel bad and there’s no one to tell. Such a small thing, too, to punch a boy on the nose and make it bleed, and in a noble cause, for what else can a person do but step in when a bully is hurting the weak? Unexpected though, the sound of breaking bone, eh? That noise, that meaty creak, makes it all real. Tomorrow you’ll pluck up the courage to tell your mother, and she will wipe away your tears and snot and tell you it doesn’t matter, to forget it, that you did the right thing. Which is why I’m here. It does matter, you see, and nine is not too young to learn these things. Everything you do is a step toward who you will become. We are born in blank ignorance, a kind of darkness, if you will, and every act, every thought is a little piece of knowledge that illuminates the world and leads us farther from the nothing of our beginning. We don’t always like what we see but it is important that we look, otherwise the steps mean nothing, and we become lost.

I see your hand by the lamp switch once more. Very well, try it if you must. You see? I told you the truth. Everything I will tell you is true, at least in the ways that matter. There’s no need to scrunch up in a heap like that, no reason to fear me. Perhaps the light bulb simply needs replacing.

But light can be such a comfort, can’t it? There are some times and places, some circumstances which only make it more so. I am here to tell you about one such time and place. Listen carefully; it matters.

In Norway a thousand years ago, all dreaded morketiden, the murky time of winter when the Sun hides below the horizon for weeks on end and the very rock sometimes stirs to walk the steep fjell in troll form. Families lived in lonely seters, and in winter, trapped by snow and darkness, the only comfort was to lift a burning twig from the hearth and touch it to the twisted wool wick floating in a bowl of greasy tallow, to watch light flare yellow and uncertain, and to hope the wind that howled down the fjell would not blow it out, leaving nothing but long twisting shadow from the fire, whose coals were already dying to deepest black tinged with red.

In the Oppland lived one such family, a hard-working man called Tors and his strong-minded wife, Hjorda, and their sandy-haired daughters Kari and Lisbet, better off than most. They had a fat flock of sheep and fine cows for milk, their seter was large and well covered with living sod and surrounded by sturdy outbuildings, and in addition to their bond servants, they could afford a shepherd in winter, two hired men to tend the fields and mend the walls, and a dairymaid. At this time it was the end of summer and the livestock were fat, the grass green, and the storehouse full, but Tors and Hjorda were worried. Oh, it was not their daughters, who ran about the fields like little plump geese, not a care in the world. Nor was it the hired men or the dairymaid they both mooned after. No, it was that even as the nights began to draw in, Torsgaard did not have a winter shepherd.

Hjorda decided that Tors must go to the All-Meet, the Thing, that year. “For while it is not always true, more heads may on occasion lead to greater wisdom.”

So Tors went to the Thing, and he and his neighbors from Gjendebu and Leine and other places as far away as Dragsvik talked of fields and sheep and the price of oats. On the last night they drank vast quantities of mead. “Last winter trolls came to walk the fjell,” Tors said. “Our shepherd disappeared and no local man will be persuaded to watch the sheep this year.” This was very bad, and no one had any advice to offer. Eventually, many horns of mead later, Grettir, a farmer from the richer lowlands of Leine, stroked his beard and said, “There is a man, a strange, rough man, Glam by name, who might watch your sheep. But I would not want him watching my sheep if I had daughters.” Despite the mead, Tors was not a stupid man, and he agreed that it is better to lose one’s sheep than one’s daughters. Especially if you have a woman like Hjorda to deal with at home.

The next day, he woke up feeling as though his head were seven times too big for his hat and his legs three times too weak for his body and, to top it all, his horse was gone. None of his neighbors could spare him even a nag; he would have to walk the long, long path home. Mid-morning found him tramping the springy turf of a narrow valley between two hills. Autumn berries grew bright around him but the air was chill, and he worried about what Hjorda might say when he returned to Torsgaard not only without a shepherd, but without his horse. And then, crossing his path, was a man, a huge bundle of faggots on his back. If the bundle was huge, the man was more so.

“What is your name?” asked Tors in amazement, looking up at the massive brow, ox-like shoulders, and the muscles of his bare arms which were plump as new-born piglets, but white.

“They call me Glam.” His voice was harsh, like the grinding together of granite millstones, and he tossed the bundle to the ground as though it weighed less than his hat—a greasy leather thing. His hair, too, was greasy, black and coarse as an old wolf’s. The face under it was pale and slippery looking, like whey, and his eyes were a queer, wet, dark gray-green, like kelp.

“Well, Glam, I need your help.” Tors had been about to ask for directions to a farm or settlement where he might buy a horse, but his head ached, and he felt out of sorts, and thought perhaps if he didn’t tell Hjorda about Grettir’s warning, all might be well. “Grettir tells me you might be persuaded to work for me at Torsgaard as my winter shepherd.”

“I might, but I work to please myself and no one else, and I do not like to be crossed.”

His harsh voice made Tors’ head ache more. “Name your terms.”

“Where is your last winter shepherd?”

“We are haunted by trolls. He was afraid.” No need to mention the fact that he had disappeared on the fjell, where the trolls walked.

“A troll will provide me with amusement during the long winter nights.”

They bargained, and Glam agreed to start work on haustblot, the celebration that marks the first day of morketiden. As soon as they spat on their hands and shook, Glam slung his bundle up onto his back without even a grunt, and though his walk was shambling and crablike, it was fast, and he was gone behind a stand of aspens before Tors could think to ask about a nag. But scarcely was Glam out of sight when from behind the very same stand of aspens came trotting Tors’ very own horse. Its eyes were white-ringed and it was sweating, but it seemed pleased to see Tors, and it was only later that he began to scratch his beard and wonder at the odd coincidence. So he went home a hero, with his horse and his promise of a winter shepherd, and waited for morketiden.

The people of Torsgaard and the surrounding farms went to the hov to celebrate haustblot: to welcome the winter season and implore Thor to protect them against disease, sorcery, and other dangers, and Frigg to ensure warmth and comfort and plenty in the home during the time of dark and bitter cold. With all the fine white beeswax candles lit, the strong light showed men in their best sealskin caps and women with dried flowers woven into their hair. All made merry, for soon the dark would come. Amid the singing and laughter and drinking came Glam.

He wore the same greasy hat and despite the cold his arms were still bare. All his possessions were bundled in a jerkin and slung over his back. He walked through the suddenly quiet people toward Tors, and Tors’ two hired men stepped in front of the dairymaid, and Tors himself looked about for Hjorda and his girls, and people moved from Glam’s path, from his queer gaze and hoarse, ill breath. Hjorda appeared from the crowd and stood at Tors’ elbow. “Husband,” she whispered, “tell me this is not our shepherd.”

Glam stopped some distance from them and folded his arms. He shouted, so all could hear. “It is morketiden and I am come to look after Tors’ sheep.” A murmur went up in the hov, and Hjorda said privately, “Husband, look how the very candles sway from his presence. Send him away.” But Tors did not want to be gainsaid before his neighbors, so he turned to Hjorda with a ghastly smile and said, “Hard times need hard remedies.” Raising his voice he called to Glam, “Welcome to Torsgaard. Now our sheep will be safe.” And it was done.

The rest of haustblot passed uneasily, with Glam tearing into a great ham and draining horn after horn of feast mead, and Tors telling people Glam would no doubt be on the fjell every day with the sheep, and manners after all were not everything.