“Smoke and mirrors,” said Leonard in awe.
“Precisely,” said the old wizard.
The laughter died down, and all eyes turned to the goddess, who regarded them playfully. “Yes, yes! We will feast, my men. Let us welcome our guests.” She raised an eyebrow at Merlin. “One who we know.” She nodded at Leonard. “And one who we will get to know.”
Hel’s warriors cheered again, and the longhouse was filled quickly with the sound of unabashed feasting.
Hel rose from her modest throne and crossed the longhouse floor to Leonard and Merlin, clasping the shoulder of the old man. “Good to see you, Merlin. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“You would know that better than I, Hel. For an ordinary man such as myself, time behaves strangely in your realm and the realm of Niflheim beyond.”
The goddess ran her hand through Merlin’s hair. “You, my friend, are anything but an ordinary man,” she said wistfully. “You have aged though, Celt. I would not have recognized you were it not for your sparkling eyes. Handsome you were back in the days of your youth.”
“What can I say? My nine hundred years are weighing heavily on me.”
Leonard was just starting to feel uncomfortable when the goddess turned to him. “And who are you?”
He bowed. “I am called Sir Leonard, Lord of the Green Valley . . . from Midgard.”
“How could one of such a young age be called a lord? How old are you?”
“I am between seventeen and eighteen years of age. I don’t know the date of my birth, so I can’t say for sure.”
“He was born on the thirteenth day of Equos,” said Merlin, grabbing a flagon of ale from a servant as she passed.
Leonard looked aghast at Merlin. “You knew all this time when I was born and yet you wait until this moment to tell me?”
Merlin shrugged. “You never asked.”
“You are impossible, old man.”
"And are you the son of a deceased nobleman?”
“Well, my . . . I’m sorry, but how should I address you?”
Hel glanced at Merlin. “He’s polite.”
“Unerringly,” said the wizard, wiping some ale foam from his moustache.
“Normally, I would bid you to call me goddess,” said Hel. “But since you are a friend of a friend, you may call me ma’am.”
Leonard bowed again. “Thank you, Ma’am. I am the adopted son of Sir Ronald—”
“The bumbling ghost my men chased away? He was the very worst tormentor that ever plied his trade within these walls.”
Leonard gritted his teeth and looked to Merlin. The wizard sighed before he spoke. “Sir Ronald was sent here by accident. There was a mix-up at the central archives, and he found himself routed to your icy realm. The man is meek and hasn’t an ornery bone in his body.”
Hel frowned. “Doesn’t sound at all like tormentor material. He should’ve said something.”
“He tried to do just that when he first got here,” said Leonard, his voice a little bit more high-pitched than he wished it was. “But no one listened to him.” Leonard glanced around the hall until he found Rat Face at one of the tables, stuffing his face with bread soaked in gravy. “Then that one over there was unnecessarily cruel to him when we first arrived here and my master’s ghost sank into the ground, and we haven’t seen him since.”
Hel looked in the direction of where Leonard pointed. “Which one?”
“Which one what?” said Leonard before quickly adding, “Ma’am?”
“Which one was unnecessarily cruel to your master’s ghost?”
Leonard pointed again. “The one with the chunk of gravy bread.”
“Blue jerkin?”
“No, ma’am. The red one. He has a face that, forgive me, sort of looks like a rat’s.”
The goddess nodded. “Oh, you mean Rat Face.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Rat Face, who by now had noticed that he was being stared at by his goddess, stood and wiped his mouth on his sleeve before touching his chest with an index finger.
“Yes, you,” said the goddess Hel. “Get over here.”
Rat Face hurried over to Hel, briefly genuflecting before standing again. “Yes, my goddess?”
“Were you unnecessarily cruel to my guest’s ghost?”
“Unnecessarily, my goddess? Aren’t the ones sent here destined to suffer eternal torment?”
Hel sighed and rubbed her temples with one hand. “Were you ever told by this ghost that he was sent here by accident? And before you answer, please do make sure you are answering truthfully or I might be tempted to send you for a couple of runs through the Nidhoggr’s gut.”
Rat Face bit his lip. “Goddess, I may have heard those or similar words coming from that particular ghost’s mouth when he first got here, but, in my defense, just about every ghost or walking dead man that comes here has a sad story of one sort or the other and tries to convince us that a mistake was made and that he’s not supposed to be here. As you know, goddess, we don’t get sent Asgard-quality material. We get the murderers, thieves, oath breakers—” Rat Face stopped when he noticed a none-too-pleased goddess was glaring at him with crossed arms and a sour expression. “What can I do to make amends, my goddess?”
Hel gestured toward Leonard. “You can apologize to this young man—”
Rat Face blurted out a quick, “Sorry, young master!”
“—and find his master’s ghost.”
“Yes, my goddess.” He turned, took a step, then turned back. “Should I go right away, or—” He slowed to a stop under Hel’s withering gaze, then hurried off, calling, “I’ll go right away,” over his shoulder.
Hel shook her head as she watched Rat Face hurry out of the longhouse, then turned back to Leonard and Merlin.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
The goddess sighed. “As he said, we don’t get sent Asgard-quality material, and I work with what I get. I bring them back to life and promise them a Valhalla-like experience, on a much smaller scale, obviously, if they swear an oath to serve me faithfully. And guess what? They all agree! I draw my men from the least bad of the bad, but there’s no such thing as a pure soul in Helheim, so he probably didn’t know what to do with your master and just put him to work.”
“I’m surprised you need an armed force at all, ma’am,” said Leonard. “I mean being a goddess, and all.”
Hel shrugged. “They’re good company, for all of their flaws, and they are useful for chasing off the monsters and wild beasts that populate this world. I can’t be harmed, of course, but every once in a while one of the bigger creatures will come around and try to break things. I like my little home too much to allow that to happen.”
“It’s quite comfortable here, ma’am,” said Leonard.
“Yes, it is,” said Hel as she walked over to Merlin and put her head on his shoulder. “The only thing that keeps me from being truly happy is the lack of a good husband.”
At that moment, Merlin’s stomach grumbled loudly and he took a step back. “My goodness, what do you think of that? My stomach is growling louder than your brother, Fenrir the Wolf. What do you say we all get something to eat? Come, Leonard, the gravy bread here is particularly good.” Merlin grabbed Leonard’s arm and dragged him off toward the boar pit.