The Shadows of Asgard
"And here I stand, with all my lore,
Poor fool, no wiser than before." ~ Goethe's 'Faust'
. . .
1.
. . .
There were ghosts in all the corners of the great golden hall. Loki could see each of them from where he slumped on the throne, little echoes of everything that had come before, dead haunts, old memories. The drone of the king's advisors warred with the whispers of the shades, and none of it did more than tickle an ear hidden well under a veil of illusive grey hair. He stared at the dead, veiled Frigga gliding from shadow to shadow, his gray-green eyes masked behind Odin's steely one were not quite focused right, and he knew he was tired enough to see through into his own waking dreams.
He lifted a hand that wavered just slightly, an old man's hand, a younger man's honest tremble, and from his throat came Odin's voice. "Enough for now," said Loki, gravelly and weary and still watching the ghosts, knowing they weren't really there. Knowing they were always with him. "The hour is late. I will take my rest, and I will consider these matters on the morrow."
The first among the advisors, a younger lord with a parcel of responsibility on the edges of Asgard itself, opened his mouth and then shut it as Loki's gnarled fingers flicked towards the proposals splayed across the thick goldenwood table set near the throne. He had for the last hour suspected that the king was not really listening to him, but noble propriety and good old common sense told him to not confront the All-Father with that observation. The entire kingdom knew of the king's deep-stricken griefs, one Queen and one prince lost, and they knelt before that grief as best they could. "Of course, your Majesty," the lord said instead with a slight bow of his chin. "We will be happy to leave our findings with you until you call for us."
Loki grunted just as Odin would, neither approving nor disapproving, and hefted himself out of the throne with another sharp gesture towards the royal Einherjar. He would, of course, look at the records of things he had indeed not heard at all. As a king ought, in serving his realm. An old king, to be sure, sorrowful and weary. It was an easy act now, these last several months. Wearing a skin not his own, speaking in a voice that sounded nothing like his own, sleeping in a room that was not shaped for his body. He gestured again at the golden guards, allowing them to guide his way for him, knowing that all his ghosts would follow.
In privacy, he would look at them, then. And try to sleep.
In whatever privacy a king could steal for himself, which was the sparsest of luxuries.
. . .
Only when the doors were shut and a whisper set on the bolt to alert him to any approach, did Loki let the illusion go. It stripped from him like a physical weight, and he did not pass by Odin's long mirror to see the hollows sharpening in his face. He felt no lighter with the masks gone, knowing he had only a few hours to rest and regain his mental and magical energy. Kings too seldom slept at night like ordinary men, he'd found. And the All-Father's gift of the Sleep, that trance so close to death, once a thing he'd looked at with bemusement and even a little worried distaste, now seemed in fact a godly solace.
But it was not for him. It would be impossible to even attempt that perfect resting coma, much less maintain the constant illusion he had to wear well enough to trick his way past the healer Eir as she monitored the Sleep. Then, to boot, there were secrets to accessing it he didn't know. Riddles to the magical core of that exhaustion and rejuvenation, something tied to the very essence of Kingship. And here he was, a pretender who wore a simulacra of the crown. Only the weight of Gungnir in his hand was real.
Loki was reminded of that fact every day. Seeing himself in the mirror was too much. Looking at the ghosts was bad enough. The curtains of Odin's private chamber had been drawn closed by its tenders, staff and servants who left him alone when he was in residence as demanded. He crossed to them past the chests and cabinets that held various robes and armor, and pushed the heaviest of the curtains back, leaving only a veil of silken gauze between him and the midnight sky of Asgard. Just to be sure he stayed in shadow, if anyone with a sharp enough eye thought to glance this high up. He wrinkled his nose, smelling rain on the air. A storm coming, predicted by the day's sages. One meant to cool the hot night and soothe the morning.
It didn't soothe him. Still, Loki stepped back and let the heavier curtains stay where he'd pushed them, deciding the night wind might be pleasant regardless of what he felt. Then he stayed there, wrapped in the shadows of the king's chamber, hidden from the night outside, realizing he was still restless. Too exhausted to sleep, too awake to do much except let his thoughts lead him around in circles.
He glanced back over his shoulder, seeing nothing and no one, except the memories haunting his mind, and he looked at the bed with all its silks and furs, feeling something cold steal over him. Nothing in this room was his.
So it was. Every night. All this, for what he thought he wanted. A sense of pressure struck Loki - he realized his hand had crept up to grasp at his own face, a half-mask of fingers and bone. He tore it away as if he'd burned himself, then he yanked the gold cloak from his shoulders and flung it at the mirror set tall in the corner, like he did most nights. The tangle of his own hair struck him in the face at the violence of his action, long tendrils oiled from sweat and exhaustion.
He glanced at the far wall, and the door almost hidden in it. There was a set of chambers beyond, and a staircase, and then a golden hallway sparsely but viciously guarded. On the other side of that was the queen's private tower. Empty now. Cold, even though Odin's word and his own in Odin's voice kept it and its gardens tended daily.
His feet took him towards it, one hand reaching out to touching the door as if instead it would open to the realm of Death Herself, revealing the lost queen if only she could just come back over the threshold. When it opened under his hand, there was nothing. Only the dim chamber beyond, part of what Odin and Frigga shared in private.
Loki stood there for a while, staring at the emptiness of the room beyond. Then he plunged through and on into the silent paths, still wrapped in the shadows, and mindful of where all those few but alert guards patrolled.
. . .
There was a long railing along the outside edge of the queen's solar, a beautiful parapet of whorled steel and gold, held fast by damascene pillars. Loki rested his palms on it, leaning over to look at the living garden that lay just below. Frigga herself had sometimes tended to it, alongside the healer Eir and her own handmaidens, but mostly she had been content to let the palace gardeners keep it fresh. If a new variety of flower struck her eye, she would have been down in the dirt the next morning, personally making space for it where the sun would love its petals best. And she would watch over it, of course. But Frigga was then yet the queen, and there were many things she couldn't give all her time to, even if she wanted. The flowers, her threadwork, her family…
Loki pulled his hands away, glancing down at the arrangement of empty benches on either side of him. Places where the handmaidens often sat and chattered with each other as they waited to serve the queen's needs. Nostalgia hit him with sharp violence. The sweep of rich brocade fabric and softer silks, the smell of mixing perfumes both musky and floral, whispers and glances. A chill went over him. He recognized it as the shape of all the old griefs that lived inside him, let them settle against his spine. Old friends. The only ones he had left.
There was no candle left behind at night in the empty chambers of lost Frigga. He passed into her private solar in the dark, finding that oddly fitting, and stood in the center of the silence for a long time. The ghosts were here, too. Of course they were. If he looked out at the benches again, he would see them. Loki made sure not to turn, and he made equally sure not to touch his own face again, just below his eyes. He didn't need to know what he already knew.
. . .
Ago ~
It was Loki's way to know damn well what he was walking into before he actually walked into it, whether the moment was an important one or not. He observed the solar with secret magic first, saw the three handmaidens clutched together giggling on the low stone benches that overlooked the garden, and the newest addition to the group, silent with something in her hand that kept her attention. He arched an eyebrow at that. The dawn cast the moment into a pastel display, matching rose-colored and gold-gilt gowns to match the spring flowers below. He smiled, bemused by the girls' bright energy, and when he did finally come through the doorway in a rush of his own blacks and silvers, he made sure to look as if he'd never broke stride from the other end of the hall that led him here.
The crow aloft in the springtime fields. The contrast was always striking and more than a little purposefully grim, though certainly no one ever remarked on it. To his face, anyway. He smiled at the four handmaidens as they rose as one, genuinely cheerful despite his chosen colors, and bobbed his head with its short-cropped mess of sleek black hair in response as they each dipped in rightful curtsy. "Ladies."
"Your Highness," came the chorus, followed by a trio of giggles that had nothing to do with him.
One of the girls dipped her head a little further out, the nominal 'lead' of the group. He recognized her well enough. Brigida, the one who had thus far been in the queen's service the longest. She kept her brown hair in a tight plait, and he knew she didn't like him very much. That mattered little to him, so long as she stayed as polite as her role dictated, and she did. "Our apologies, my lord. Her Majesty is not yet taking visitors."
"Of course not," said Loki, expecting that. "I'm a little early. She's still at her letters, I take it?"
"I believe so, Your Highness." Brigida tilted her head slightly. It was the normal routine for this particular day.
"A goblet of wine, Your Highness?" The tiniest breach of etiquette, chiming in like that. Mette served only a few years less than Brigida, giving her almost as much leeway. He smiled down at the lithe young girl from Vanaheim, knowing full well the jug of wine would be on the other side of the balcony, next to a finely carved golden table, overlooking an entirely different view than the one handmaidens were sharing. "A fine cask this morning, an old one from the Dwarves."
"I see you've plenty of water from the fresh springs just up the way," Loki said, shrugging lightly and not at all visibly offended. Two could play this game, and he was better at it. He didn't feel like pretending to lose today, either. He loped towards an empty space on the edge of one of the stone benches, and he settled himself on it with lazy ease. Without stopping or giving any of the ladies a chance to intervene, he reached out towards the little table and helped himself to the iced water, the smile never leaving his face. "I think this will be just fine."
"Of course, Your Highness," said Mette, knowing when to cut her losses. She settled herself on the bench next to him in a controlled rustle of long skirts, the loser's position. Brigida, rescued from whatever ploy she'd had in mind to avoid the younger prince's company, took the space next to the new girl. The last, Helena, had to stand for a little while.
Kara, he believed the new girl's name was. Only perhaps a year into service, and so far rarely seen in the public group until the queen and the rest of the girls knew she was wholly prepared. He studied her as she reclaimed her own seat, the small book she'd been reading disappearing up into a sleeve. "Poetry?" Loki asked her. Common enough guess for books that size.
Silence for a long moment that edged into accidental insult. She was new, he could ignore that and did so. He also politely ignored the sharp elbow Brigida threw her way - but not the hot crease of anger that crept down along the girl's brow. That caught his amusement and sympathy, though his own expression never changed. "I'm afraid not, Your Highness," said Kara, the crease on her brow disappearing as fast as it came. "Only a short book of old and mostly nonsense lore. It amuses me, I regret."
"Not very fitting for a new handmaiden," chided Brigida, not about to miss an opportunity to shame a new girl in front of palace nobility. He'd seen that before, too. Many, many times. Sometimes the new handmaidens didn't last very long. Sacrifices, so Brigida might keep her position a little longer. He knew she was angling for a high place once her time at Frigga's hand was done, and the longer she served the more valuable her own name would become. The Queen knew, too, of course. If Brigida pushed too hard, it would backfire eventually. He doubted she would. The young woman was just sharp enough. "You've other tomes you ought study when given time to read."
Kara did nothing but bow her head, accepting the correction silently.
"To be sure," he said smoothly, instinctively inclined to defend anyone who might pick a good story over a dull treatise on manners and tradition. "But the morning is pleasant and the day is long, and who could possibly begrudge the mind a few momentary distractions? There will be time enough to study later."
Brigida sniffed silently through her nose, unable to contradict him in any visible way. She glanced at the new handmaiden, then at him again. "As you say, Highness."
Loki had looser rules than any of them to guide his behavior, being a prince. Bend too many, however, and he would make the new girl's life miserable instead of his own. He was aware of that, and cautious of it, but still. He knew the barb hidden under Brigida's chiding. That was obviously only the tip of what was going on. The ritual hazing, another old story he'd read before. "One of Hurstwic's drier tomes, or is it one of Gaimmena's? The latter is more accessible, and that historian had a way of finding more… enjoyably spurious tales."
"Gaimmena's, Your Highness. I must agree with your observation."
A genuine smile at her dry undertone, a little bit of an actual person hidden there that the rituals of service hadn't extinguished yet. A shred of encouragement was something he could give to help the girl, then. Nothing more. "Excellent. There's a handful more books by him in the library here, you ought to examine them if this one continues to entertain you well enough."
She nodded her head in silent thanks, a quick glance at him under the ribbons and braids of dark hair shot a lighter brown towards the ends. He examined her expression as it disappeared again, her hands fussing towards the morning's embroidery work now instead, and wondered if Brigida would succeed in breaking this one the way she had the last two. He had his doubts. This one had a little fire left. But that wasn't his story in this palace, and again, if he interfered overmuch, all he would really accomplish would be making it worse.
Too often, regardless of place or privilege, things simply weren't fair. Loki leaned back, contemplating the polite if cool silence that now filled the little aerie above the queen's garden, and then rose in a smooth catlike motion when he sensed Queen Frigga emerge from the door of her private salon. He beat the ladies by a full second, another private victory. "Good morning, Mother," he said with a courtly bow.
"Teasing my handmaidens again, Loki?" Frigga had a gentle chide in her own voice, knowing full well the usual games. The power plays that tended to happen, mostly because he was not Thor, who was vastly more comely to the ladies' eyes. Little he could do about that, except smile, be polite, and fight right back in his own way.
"I would never," he lied with airy blatantness, looking her dead in the eyes and delighted with the snort she did not actually let into the air between them. "Finished with your letters?"
"I am." She beckoned him towards the door, glancing at her girls. "We'll begin the morning lessons. Brigida? Kara in two hours. Mette, Helena, the errands I spoke of at daybreak."
"Your Majesty." The words floated behind Loki as he passed within to the solar where they often spoke, and where they regularly studied magic. He looked at the Queen's face as he moved by her, and saw something serious waiting there.
Then the door shut, leaving them in that rare privacy they could share.
