grown. She is not a waif anymore . . . but a beautiful woman.” He sounded confused. “She was so small . . . bones and blue eyes . . . when I took her to Leok. And now she . . . she is grown.”
“Is there a babe in her womb?” He had to ask. He had to know.
“A babe?” Arwin asked, befuddled. “There is no babe! She is but a child.”
“No, Master. No . . . she is grown, remember? Tell me what you see, not what you remember.”
“She is slim . . . but not tall. I see the swell of breasts . . . but not the swell of a child. Her hair is woven into a golden crown. Her eyes are lifted to the sky. They are blue. So blue. She wears the robe of a keeper. She wears the robe of a keeper!” Arwin’s voice became agitated. “All the daughters wear the robes. Yet my Hod has been rejected.”
“Arwin,” Hod warned, trying to refocus his teacher, but it was too late. Arwin’s hands fell from his eyes and flopped onto the bed beside him.
“There are daughters in the temple . . . and none in Saylok. And my Hod has been rejected.”
In late spring, on a day which promised more sunshine than rain, Arwin asked, quite lucidly, to visit the grave of Bronwyn of Berne for a while and eat some berries from the bushes nearby. Arwin wearied about halfway, and Hod carried him the final distance, settling him on the big stone where his mother was laid to rest.
“This is where I buried her,” Arwin said.
“Yes, I know.”
“She was a good mother to you.”
“I hardly remember.”
“Bronwyn. Bronwyn of Berne. The fates gave her time . . . but not enough.”
Hod rose and began collecting berries from the bushes nearby.
“You were so small. And she did not want to leave you.”
He’d heard this before, but it meant little to him.
“She called you Baldr.”
Hod’s hands stilled. He had no faces in his head. But he had voices. Baldr the Beloved. Baldr the Brave. Baldr the Good. Baldr the Wise. You are all those things.
He remembered a voice saying those things. Saying that name. Sweet. Patient.
“She called me Baldr,” he mused. “I had forgotten. It doesn’t seem . . . real. It is more like a story someone once told me.”
“The Highest Keeper told her you were not Baldr. You were Hod. So that is what I’ve called you.”
Baldr the Beloved or Hod the Blind. Hod vastly preferred the first and wished the Highest Keeper had left well enough alone.
“One day the Highest Keeper will summon you. He will realize his mistake, and he will summon you,” Arwin said, and Hod kept gathering, his hands moving swiftly over the leaves, avoiding the thorns and plucking the berries.
“Hod is the most misunderstood of all the gods,” Arwin said.
“Do you speak of me . . . or Odin’s son?” he said, because Arwin often spoke as if he were the blind god.
“I believe Hod knew what he was doing when he shot Baldr. He was not tricked. One cannot trick a blind god, a god who hears every heartbeat and knows every voice.”
Hod was hardly listening. Arwin liked to ramble on. “If he was not tricked, why did he do it?”
“It was his destiny.”
“His destiny?”
“Yes. He knew that his brother’s death would bring about his own destruction. But he did it anyway. In many ways . . . it was a selfless act.”
“A selfless act?” This was new.
“Baldr’s death was necessary. It marked a new beginning . . . the death of the gods and the rise of man. The rise of . . . woman.”
Hod returned to his teacher’s side and put the berries beside him. The sun felt good on his face, and he tipped his chin upward, letting the rays rest on him. Arwin smacked his lips, eating the berries in happy silence.
“You cannot stay here, Hod. When I am gone . . . you must go too. You must save Saylok.”
“How will I do that, Master? Where will I go?” Hod asked, humoring his old mentor. It did no good to argue.
“You are Hod. The brother of Baldr. If Saylok is to free itself and rise again, Baldr must die.”
“And who is Baldr, Master? How shall I slay him?”
“Do you not know?” Arwin stopped eating.
“You said my mother called me Baldr. Must I kill myself?”
Arwin slapped at him and pulled his hair, knowing that