Read Online The Monstrous Child by Francesca Simon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Francesca Simon
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Worlds. The gods, the great tormentors, came afterwards.
Odin and his brothers create Midgard out of the void from the body of the unlucky giant Ymir.
Giants fight gods.
The treacherous gods imprison the frost giants in the ice.
The treacherous gods kidnap my brothers and me and take us to Asgard.
I meet Baldr.
The source of all evil, Odin, hurls me into Niflheim.
Bronze.
Fighting.
Iron.
Fighting.
Steel.
Fighting.
Fighting.
Fighting.
Gunpowder.
Lots of fighting.
The stirrup is invented.
Next the canon.
Snorri Sturluson writes horribly about me in his book called The Prose Edda . (Do not read his lies!)
Snorri Sturluson is murdered by his son-in-law â serves him right. He did not get a warm welcome from me when his sorry shade shambled down here.
Guns invented â yes!
Plague â yes.
Black death â yes yes yes.
Flying chariots.
Bombs.
Antibiotics â boo.
Vaccination â boo.
Space chariots.
War.
Midgard heats up.
The Frost Giants break free of the ice. Unfortunately, the gods defeat them.
Axe Age, Sword Age.
The Gods die.
End of World.
Have I missed out anything important? I donât think so. When you live forever, you get a perspective on how little most things matter.
You imagine youâre special? Youâre not.
22
THE SERVANT PROBLEM
Y DEATH HALL was ready. For a long moment, I took in the silence, Eljudnir’s desolation before the pit opened and the dead flowed in. My home would never be empty again. I listened to my breath, soft in the shadows. Fog to fog. My shuffling footsteps echoed in the vastness. My doors would be ajar for eternity, open to the howling wilderness.
I didn’t want this peace to end. But since when has anyone cared what I want?
Let them come in.
I was tired and needed to rest after my great labour, but I stumbled towards the massive doors and pushed them open for the first and last –
Wait. What’s wrong with that sentence? Not the exhaustion – even gods need to take it easy occasionally –
Why am I opening the doors? I’m the queen. Where are my servants? Who will get out the buckets, unpack the drinking horns, set the holders on the tables, start brewing the mead and kick the goat who at this moment is gnawing on a table leg and splintering it?
Who’s going to collect and sort and stack all my grave goods? And change my bedlinen? And freshen my drink? Someone’s got to milk the mead goat and fill the horns. That someone isn’t me.
I needed a man and maidservant.
When I lived with my mother in Jotunheim, we had servants. I had no idea how they came to live with us, orwhere they came from. I never asked. They were slaves, and beneath my notice.
How was I to find servants down here?
I sat on my uncomfortable throne – I would seek out cushions from my tribute as soon as possible – and watched the dead pour through the open doors and spill into my hall, stumbling as they crossed the threshold, ducking their rotting heads and stooping at the entrance, accustomed as most of them are to low hovels. (I told you I get the riff-raff.) It’s like emptying a bottomless chamber pot; a river of corpses which never stops flowing, the way the dead slop in here. They shivered in the cold, dripping with hoar frost.
The rich ones brought their tributes of gold and jewels and ivory and swords. The poor held tight to their useless wooden cups and needles and buckets. I took it all. Every night down here will be my birthnight, a feast of never-ending gifts. I’d never had a gift before. I lurched off my throne and grabbed an arm bracelet, heavy with bright gold, then another and another. I sieved throughthe growing pile of grave goods, tossing aside the broken pottery and soapstone bowls and dried fish, snatching up earrings and a silver buckle. I snatched like Fen after rats.
I placed the jewels on my wrists and fingers, pinned a filigree brooch to my robe while the newly arrived, bewildered and angry, flailing, smelly and
Odin and his brothers create Midgard out of the void from the body of the unlucky giant Ymir.
Giants fight gods.
The treacherous gods imprison the frost giants in the ice.
The treacherous gods kidnap my brothers and me and take us to Asgard.
I meet Baldr.
The source of all evil, Odin, hurls me into Niflheim.
Bronze.
Fighting.
Iron.
Fighting.
Steel.
Fighting.
Fighting.
Fighting.
Gunpowder.
Lots of fighting.
The stirrup is invented.
Next the canon.
Snorri Sturluson writes horribly about me in his book called The Prose Edda . (Do not read his lies!)
Snorri Sturluson is murdered by his son-in-law â serves him right. He did not get a warm welcome from me when his sorry shade shambled down here.
Guns invented â yes!
Plague â yes.
Black death â yes yes yes.
Flying chariots.
Bombs.
Antibiotics â boo.
Vaccination â boo.
Space chariots.
War.
Midgard heats up.
The Frost Giants break free of the ice. Unfortunately, the gods defeat them.
Axe Age, Sword Age.
The Gods die.
End of World.
Have I missed out anything important? I donât think so. When you live forever, you get a perspective on how little most things matter.
You imagine youâre special? Youâre not.
22
THE SERVANT PROBLEM
Y DEATH HALL was ready. For a long moment, I took in the silence, Eljudnir’s desolation before the pit opened and the dead flowed in. My home would never be empty again. I listened to my breath, soft in the shadows. Fog to fog. My shuffling footsteps echoed in the vastness. My doors would be ajar for eternity, open to the howling wilderness.
I didn’t want this peace to end. But since when has anyone cared what I want?
Let them come in.
I was tired and needed to rest after my great labour, but I stumbled towards the massive doors and pushed them open for the first and last –
Wait. What’s wrong with that sentence? Not the exhaustion – even gods need to take it easy occasionally –
Why am I opening the doors? I’m the queen. Where are my servants? Who will get out the buckets, unpack the drinking horns, set the holders on the tables, start brewing the mead and kick the goat who at this moment is gnawing on a table leg and splintering it?
Who’s going to collect and sort and stack all my grave goods? And change my bedlinen? And freshen my drink? Someone’s got to milk the mead goat and fill the horns. That someone isn’t me.
I needed a man and maidservant.
When I lived with my mother in Jotunheim, we had servants. I had no idea how they came to live with us, orwhere they came from. I never asked. They were slaves, and beneath my notice.
How was I to find servants down here?
I sat on my uncomfortable throne – I would seek out cushions from my tribute as soon as possible – and watched the dead pour through the open doors and spill into my hall, stumbling as they crossed the threshold, ducking their rotting heads and stooping at the entrance, accustomed as most of them are to low hovels. (I told you I get the riff-raff.) It’s like emptying a bottomless chamber pot; a river of corpses which never stops flowing, the way the dead slop in here. They shivered in the cold, dripping with hoar frost.
The rich ones brought their tributes of gold and jewels and ivory and swords. The poor held tight to their useless wooden cups and needles and buckets. I took it all. Every night down here will be my birthnight, a feast of never-ending gifts. I’d never had a gift before. I lurched off my throne and grabbed an arm bracelet, heavy with bright gold, then another and another. I sieved throughthe growing pile of grave goods, tossing aside the broken pottery and soapstone bowls and dried fish, snatching up earrings and a silver buckle. I snatched like Fen after rats.
I placed the jewels on my wrists and fingers, pinned a filigree brooch to my robe while the newly arrived, bewildered and angry, flailing, smelly and
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