INTRO
 
Welcome to CHAPTER 59 of the Kinsmen Die podcast, home of fantasy fiction based on Norse mythology that’s written and read by me, Matt Bishop.

In this podcast I read my first novel, Kinsmen Die, one chapter at a time. And, with each episode, when it makes sense, I provide some commentary about the source materials I’ve referenced in the text.

We’re back with Frigg in this chapter. She had left the wounded Odin to go fetch Sleipnir which is Odin’s horse. Remember that Odin used a shaper -- basically a magic wand — that to open a tunnel through Yggdrasil’s root to access the glade in which Mimir’s Well is located.

That is where we find her now.

Chapter Fifty-Nine
Frigg
A scream like a snow bear at bay echoed through Ithavoll. Frigg knew it was Odin. A thousand questions ran through her mind, but with her hand on the shaper, she had to stay focused. The tree fought the shaper’s magic as she made a tunnel big enough for both her and the massive Sleipnir who docilely walked behind her, huge head hanging low, to pass .
At last, Mimir’s glade opened before her. Hands trembling, sweat running into her eyes, she said, “Go, Sleipnir, quickly.”
Eight hooves pounded the grasses flat, and then Sleipnir stopped to wait for her. She slipped out, made sure her body was clear, and removed the shaper’s tip from the root. The tunnel became a hole, then a deep dimple in the wood, and then it vanished.
Mimir called to her. “Hurry, Frigg, he’s not responding. I think his face is in the water.”
Shaper still in one hand, she sprinted to Mimir. A puzzling clump of dead leaves, brown and tan, lay beside the pool beneath Mimir. Her mind reeled at the sight. The fresh scent of broken grass mingled with the metallic tang of spilled blood.
With a bowstring snap, everything became recognizable. Odin was the lump of browns and tans.
She rolled him onto his back. The ragged wound where his eye had been gaped, and she recoiled as if she’d seen a snake. Blood wept from his empty black socket.
Odin drew in a hissing breath and coughed.
“Frigg, it’s all right,” Mimir said. “He did it to himself. Just drag him free and pack the wound.”
“But—”
“Look at me, Frigg,” Mimir said.
She dragged her eyes away from her husband’s ravaged face. Looking up at Mimir was hardly better. Blue and red tattoos glistened in the watery light, and lichens clung to his long gray beard. “I don’t understand. He was fine. Why wou—”
“Frigg,” Mimir snapped like a tree branch.
Of course. Time enough later for why.
She grabbed Odin by the ankles and pulled him back from the pool’s edge to lean against the brown root, just as he had before. The left side of his face was a black-red, swollen ruin.
She had to get him back to Baldr. But first, pack the wound.
“Frigg, stop for a moment and listen.”
She flung herself to where she’d left the rags of her dress soaking in the pool right beside where she’d found Odin.
“Frigg, I wouldn’t—”
An unblinking gray eye stared up at her. She gave a hoarse yell and staggered back from the gently rippling waters, hands coming up to cover her mouth and nose.
“Will you stop now?” Mimir said, his voice stony.
Had he been attacked again? She hadn’t been gone that long. Had it been the spirit again? Or maybe that draugr had, in fact, followed him back.
“He carved out his eye, cut a rune into it, then cast it into the spring,” Mimir said flatly. “He was mumbling, raving about having been blind, that he’d never be blind again. He used a magic similar to what he used on me.”
“He cut out his own eye?” She didn’t like how incredulous her voice sounded.
“I tried to stop him, but...” Mimir waggled his eyebrows in that odd, shrugging way.
Of course he couldn’t stop Odin. She couldn’t have, either. Had he intended to do this all along? Had he sent her for Sleipnir on purpose?
“But why?”
“He seems to think Loki’s behind everything. That Loki threatened him in a memory he dredged up.”
Her thoughts whirled like leaves on the wind. Behind all of what? The attack on Háls? Baldr’s dreams? Did it even make sense for Loki to be behind everything? That he wasn’t around now wasn’t unusual – Loki had been a rare presence in Gladsheim since Odin had left. It was a little odd that Loki had not returned to greet his blood brother, but this time of year Loki always visited his three exiled children.
And threatening Odin didn’t make sense, either. Loki didn’t posture or threaten or warn. He just attacked, much like Odin. That’s actually how everyone knew when Loki was joking, however malicious his mischief. If you walked away, then Loki hadn’t intended harm…though sometimes harm came anyway.
Loki’s prank against Heimdall was a good example. Loki had taught some bright-green birds in Vanaheim how to say Loki’s name. Then they took to repeating it over and over—which had been the point. Annoy Heimdall. But who could’ve guessed those birds would teach others in their flock, and presumably their offspring, until the forests rang with HAME-DALL, HAME-DALL.
Loki had effectively deafened Heimdall, which led to the watchman drinking himself into insensibility…which effectively blinded him, as well. But Loki couldn’t have known his small mischief would end up causing so much harm. 
“But what made him do this?” She pointed at Odin’s wrecked face “What did you say to him?”
“Me? Nothing. I tried to talk him out of it. He wasn’t interested in listening to me any more than you seem to be right now.”
She held Mimir’s gaze for a long moment, then raised her hands, palms out. Mimir was right. She wasn’t thinking.
She kneeled beside the pool, ignoring the naked eye staring at her, wrung out the remains of her dress, and brought them to Mimir.
Again, he soaked them with more healing water spat from his mouth. Again, she whipped her brown belt around Odin’s head and cinched it tight, holding the compress in place. Again, again, again.
She sat back on her heels and tucked loose hair behind her ears. “All right, Uncle, what did he say about Loki being involved?”
“He said Loki charmed him long ago—before, after, or during the whole sorry mess with Loki’s children. I’m not clear what he meant. He was a little unhinged.”
Unhinged? His cut out his own eye.
“Did he say anything about what exactly Loki was supposed to be behind?”
Mimir pursed his lips and looked upward, clearly trying to remember. “All he said was that Loki had sworn to destroy everything he—meaning Odin—had built. Vengeance for breaking his blood oath by exiling his children.”
She stared down at Odin, not really seeing of the slow rise and fall of his chest…and refusing to look again at the pool of water. The fresh scent of crushed grass and spilled blood made twisted knots of her stomach.
Her spies among the Jotunn had confirmed everything Baldr had witnessed in Jotunheim. The Jotunn were dying. They had a few warbands which did not pose a threat to Gladsheim’s armies or the Einherjar, let alone the two forces combined.
Still, Heimdall's crippling had made it easier for the Jotunn to launch a successful surprise attack. That attack meant that either the Skrymir had been lying all this time—which wasn’t impossible—or that Loki had allied himself with the tribe that had destroyed Háls. Which also wasn’t impossible.
Either could be true…and both could be. Perhaps Loki had intended to cripple Heimdall.
So why would the Skrymir allow an attack when he had to know how severe retribution would be? And why would Loki ally himself with the tribe?
And yet they still didn’t know how the warband had gotten to Háls. Vidar hadn’t reported back, and with Heimdall in his current state, Odin would probably have to send his ravens and wolves to Vidar.
Which left Baldr’s dreams.
Nobody beyond herself and Odin knew of Baldr’s tree and mistletoe, not even Baldr. Yet it had been cut. Which meant that somebody did know.
Was that somebody Loki? He could shapeshift. He could have followed her or impersonated someone she trusted. But she never spoke about Baldr’s secret—and she always, always, slipped away at night to bury the fruits at Baldr’s tree.
Maybe it was Angrboda who’d learned the secret. Odin and Mimir could walk as spirits, as could Freyja and who knew how many Jotunn shamans and witches, so why not her, as well.
Her eyes strayed to the waters that hid Odin’s eye. And what of that creature from Urdarbrunnr? What role did it play in all this?
“What are you thinking, Frigg?” Mimir asked.
She frowned at the wizened head. “That until I get my husband back to Baldr, I won’t get any answers.”
She clucked her tongue and beckoned for Sleipnir to approach. The huge mare lifted her head from grazing and walked over. Frigg squatted beside Odin, grabbed him under the arms and lifted him. Heart pounding in her ears, muscles screaming, she dragged Odin toward Sleipnir. Her breath rasped in her lungs, but she got him beside the big horse.
“Sleipnir…kneel.”
Sleipnir lowered herself awkwardly, front four legs bending so that her forequarters and shoulders were roughly even with Frigg’s chest.
Muscles burning, Frigg pressed Odin against the mare’s shoulder, braced him with her body so he didn’t slip too far down. With a gasp, she squatted and pushed him up. His shoulder caught on the saddle. She swore and changed her footing so she could push him up at an angle. Sleipnir leaned away, trying to make it easier. Frigg squatted again and heaved until she got his shoulder past the saddle and then his stomach above the bulge of Sleipnir’s thick shoulders.
“Up, Sleipnir,” she said. She struggled to hold his body in place as the mare slowly stood. When the big mare was up on all eight legs again, with Odin slung like a blanket across her withers. Frigg staggered back and wiped her brow.
“Better lash him to the saddle,” Mimir said.
She glared at him, breath still heavy.
“Just trying to help,” he said, waggling his brows. “After I sleep, I’ll send my spirit out and look for Loki, though he’s quite good at hiding. When my nephew wakes, have him send his ravens down. I’ll tell them whatever I find.”
She nodded once. “Thank you, Uncle.”
Then she stepped back to Sleipnir and dug through the saddlebags for some rope.
Like gnats in the summer, too many unanswered questions worried her thoughts. She was certain of one thing, though: she would not be played for a fool. Not by anyone. If the Skrymir was truly behind the deaths of all those men and women in Háls, then she’d have Tyr and Ullr take Jotunheim apart piece by moldering piece. And if Loki were involved, well, she’d make sure he paid, as well.
And regardless of what Mimir had suggested about future events being as fixed as whatever the Norns cut into the chips of Yggdrasil’s bark, whosoever should harm Baldr would pay dearly.

OUTRO
Well, folks, that was CHAPTER 59 of Kinsmen Die. I hope you enjoyed it.

Frigg came back into the glade, found Odin face down in Mimir’s pool with his eye cut out and that same eye staring up at her from the pool. Frigg’s not having a good day…but it’s better than Odin’s. Mimir related much of what Odin told him…which causes Frigg to think about how loyal Loki might actually be…and we got some backstory about what Loki did to Heimdall.

Next week, we’re back with Vafthrudnir. It’s been quite a while since we were with him — he’d been with the apprentice shaman Kali and then he’d gone through the doorway that Beli and the warband Helveg found within the snow bear nest. Oh, and remember when, Odin sent Thor into Utgard to punish the Jotunn? Payback’s a bitch.

Until then, if you have the time and inclination, please rate and/or review the podcast — that helps boost the show’s visibility. As does sharing it.
  
As always, I’m going to read from both the Bellows and Larrington translations of the Havamal, the sayings of the High One, Odin himself.

Bellows, Verse 59

He must early go forth whose workers are few,
Himself his work to seek;
Much remains undone for the morning-sleeper,
For the swift is wealth half won.


Larrington, Verse 59
He should get up early, the man who has few workers, and set about his work with thought;
much gets held up for the man sleeping in in the morning; wealth is half-won by activity.

Thanks for listening.