The Extremely Epic Viking Tale of Yondersaay (5 page)

Granny was looking a little confused now. “What bear now?”

“The bear!”

“The ravenous snow-white bear!”

“The ravenous bear … the ravenous bear. No. Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“The big white bear that broke off from the land with King Dudo, the one with the fangs and the slavering and the … the … big-ness,” Ruairi said, demonstrating how big the bear was with his arms.

“Oh, right, I’m with you now.
That
bear. The
ravenous
bear. Yes, but,” Granny paused, “are you sure you want to hear about the bear?” She looked at the two of them. They nodded.

“It’s just, well, I thought maybe you’d rather not hear about the bear. Ruairi was looking a bit queasy, and Dani was getting very agitated when I started talking about the bear. Maybe you’re not old enough for the bear story yet. It can get quite gruesome. It looked like it was getting to be a bit too much for you.”

Dani and Ruairi sat down and tried to look as unagitated and unqueasy as they could.

“Oh no, Granny,” Dani said, “not at all. We were just worried that maybe the hot chocolate wasn’t chocolaty enough for you, or that you maybe needed another pie. That’s what had gotten us worried.”

“Yeah,” Ruairi went on, “not the bear. No way. I couldn’t care less about the bear. In fact, if you don’t tell us about what happened on the floe with the ravenous, slavering, snow-white bear, we won’t mind one bit, not one bit. Only—”

“Only?” Granny looked amused.

“Only,” Dani went on, “it might get a bit confusing later on, you know, if there are details pertinent to the rest of the story, and we don’t know about them. It would probably be good background, for later on, you understand.”

“Ah, yes, I see, for later on. Yes, I understand,” Granny said and flashed a quick smile at Mum.

“Well, in that case, very well.” Granny muttered to herself. “The fog, the Vikings shouting, the ravenous bear … yes, yes, I know where we are, but we’ll have to pause a few minutes. They’ve just announced our flight. This is the last one, my younglings; the next time we set foot on land, we will be on Yondersaay.”

“King Dudo stood perfectly still on the edge of the ice floe,” Granny said as soon as they were all settled on the Yonder Air flight to Yondersaay, and she had unbuckled her seat belt and lowered her tray table. “You’re both sure you want me to tell this story?”

“
Yes
!” Ruairi and Dani said.

“Well, okay, if you me want to,” Dani said more calmly.

Ruairi glanced toward the galley and saw the Yonder Air flight attendant roll the dinner cart out of the galley kitchen and into their aisle. Ruairi could see Mum looking out for it—Granny Miller had lowered her tray table mere seconds before every meal and every snack was served on every flight they’d been on all day.

“Dudo studied the bear, and the bear studied Dudo,” Granny went on. “Staying as still as he could, Dudo wondered, could he fight the bear? He looked at the massive creature. Powerfully built, sinewy and strong, it was twice the width of the king, at least. On its hind legs, it was over three times as high. One swipe of a paw would knock the life out of the biggest, strongest Viking in King Dudo’s army.

“Dudo had noted the bear’s poise and grace when it had padded so elegantly out of the woods to face him. This animal was equally at home on the ice and in the water. There was no way King Dudo could wrong-foot this magnificent creature, which had spent all of its life walking and running on snow and ice, and get it to lose its balance. Even if somehow, against all probability, King Dudo did manage to topple the bear into the water, there would be absolutely nothing to stop the bear from climbing back to where it was right now, growling and snarling mere feet from him. Nothing in the world.

“So, attacking? No. Wrong-footing? Not a chance. Escaping? King Dudo had seen what had happened to the brave but foolish warrior who had tried to save him. The king could not spend more than a few minutes in the water and survive.

“King Dudo thought and thought about what to do. He had once been told that lullabies calmed farm animals ahead of a procedure by an animal doctor. He was reluctant to give singing a go. For one thing, his men might hear him and think he was daft, even though he wasn’t sure how close they were; he hadn’t heard them calling for him in a while. For another thing, he had about the worst singing voice in the Land of the Danes.

“King Dudo counted his options on his fingers. The bear let out a low, grumbling roar. It came back down onto four legs and snarled, softly inching closer and closer across the ice. Running out of time, King Dudo, threw all his doubts out of his mind. With as much vigor and energy as he could muster, he opened his mouth and started to sing.

“When King Dudo was a little boy and was upset or low with an illness, the song his mother sang to soothe and comfort him was about the tight grip love has on the heart. About how helplessly changed you are when you meet your Heart’s True Love.

“The song was more than a simple love song. There persisted a subtle note of sadness. Though it spoke eloquently of the power and fire of love, her song also spoke of the vagaries of it, the shifts in the depths of love over the years.

“The bear was at first perplexed by King Dudo’s singing and stopped in its tracks. It cocked its head to the side as though trying to figure out what was happening, as if to say, ‘Why is lunch behaving in this strange manner?’

“King Dudo closed his eyes and sang, certain this was his last moment alive. He allowed the song to envelope his heart. He thought about his mother and the love in her life. He felt the loss she must have felt when he grew up and grew away from her. Dudo thought of his parents’ love for each other, which was still as strong now as the day they first laid eyes on each other and knew they had found their Heart’s True Love. He thought of their love for him, as unblemished and pure as the white of this bear’s fur.

“Acutely, he felt the loss of never having experienced true love of his own. King Dudo was not a married man and was not particularly young. Nevertheless, before this day, he held a firm belief that he would meet his Heart’s True Love. On this patch of ice in the middle of the northern-most seas, it occurred to him that now he never would.

“King Dudo found himself wishing a last hopeless wish. He sang, and he wished; he wished, and he sang. The wish that emanated from his heart as he sang to the bear was ‘let me live to spend a year, a month, a day, with my Heart’s True Love. Let me live just that long.’

“King Dudo was approaching the end of his song. There were at least two other verses, but he couldn’t remember anything more. He considered starting from the beginning again since it seemed to be working—he was still alive. Instead, he hummed a bit after the song had ended and slowly went quiet. He couldn’t hear anything. The snarling was gone. The growling had stopped. There was no soft padding of paws on snow and ice.

“Slowly, King Dudo opened one eye. And then the other. The bear was no longer there.

“On the ice in front of King Dudo was not the enormous, angry, ravenous, snow-white polar bear. Instead, there stood, wet and dripping, a woman!”

“The woman’s skin was as white as the bear’s fur had been. Her hair was long and wild and a shade of red King Dudo had never seen before. Her eyes, a piercing blue, were trained directly on him. She stood straight and strong, almost close enough to touch. Soaking and shivering, wearing only a simple dress, she was wet from head to toe.”

“
No way
!” Ruairi jumped up on his seat. “Did the bear turn into a woman? Did it, Granny? Did it?”

“Was it his wish coming true?” Dani asked. “Did the bear turn into his Heart’s True Love?”

Distracted by a passing Yonder Air flight attendant, Granny grabbed his arm and said, as sweetly as she could, “You wouldn’t mind grabbing me an extra few packets of peanuts, would you? I’m peckish.”

“Certainly, madam,” he said and went to get them for her.

“Granny, are you sure about all this? There was a woman there?” Ruairi cocked his head.

“Yes, I’m sure,”

The flight attendant came back with a tray of peanut packets. Granny took nine.

“Well, let’s come back to that in a moment, shall we,” Ruairi said, looking puzzled. “Answer me this, Granny—why did King Dudo’s lifeless body wash up on the shore of the hidden island?”

“Ah, that’s a very good question. And it’s very simple to answer.” Granny fanned out her packets of peanuts on her tray, opened them all up, and continued with her story.

“King Dudo could not believe his eyes. The bear was somehow gone and in its place stood a woman. The woman stretched out one arm to him and took a step toward King Dudo. King Dudo was startled out of his mind. He instinctively let out a shriek and jumped away. There was nothing behind him to land on, so King Dudo tumbled backward. He somersaulted, head over heels, round and round in the air. Seconds before his body made contact with the iciest waves he ever had the misfortune to plunge head over heels into, he smacked his head on the edge of the floating ice and was knocked out cold. The woman raced to the edge of the little white island. She knelt down and thrust her arm into the water after King Dudo to try to catch him. She almost had him when a wave came under the icy island, rocking it up, and swept King Dudo out of her reach.

“The sea had not exactly been calm, as you know, but now it was positively roiling. King Dudo and the bear had floated a long way, and the floe was now close to shore. A different shore. The tide was going in. King Dudo was unconscious in the water.

“The woman regained her balance as soon as the wave passed. She stood up and made a most elegant dive into the water. She powered down beneath the waves forming above her head. Darting after Dudo as he drifted deeper and deeper, she grabbed his hand. She surfaced, hauling King Dudo behind her with all her might, and swam toward shore. She got him onto the sandy beach and dragged him as far from the water’s edge as she could. She looked quickly around, jumped back into the water, and swam away.”

“Wow.”

“Wow indeed, Ruairi,” Granny said. “King Dudo woke up on a crisp, clear morning in a strange bed. He made to rise but felt a searing pain in his head. A wooziness came over him, and he half lay, half sat, propped up on the softest, plumpest, most luxurious duck down pillows he had ever felt. Though, of course, King Dudo didn’t know them as ‘pillows.’ They were called
downdles
back then. Pillows were not invented yet. As you know, pillows were invented in 1427 in a small hospital town in the south of France by a pioneering Polish surgeon called Docteur Tchopemov.

“Docteur Tchopemov had specialized in amputations, like most respectable physicians in Europe at the time—”

“Um, Granny?” Dani said, twiddling her thumbs.

“Yes, Dani?” Granny smiled benignly at Dani.

“I’m sure the story of Docteur Tchopemov is utterly fascinating, I really am. I’m positive, in fact, but do you think you should tell us now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe,” Ruairi said, tentatively, “you could tell us about Dudo first of all and come back to the story about how pillows were invented later?”

“Well,” Granny said, pondering this, “it’s not a vital part of the story, I will grant you that. But, actually, now that you stop me a moment, I think I would rather like to have a wee rest before we land on Yondersaay, if you don’t mind. I’m pooped.” And Granny pinned up her tray table and pressed the button on the armrest that made her chair swing back almost flat.

“But, Granny! What about the rest of the story?” Dani said.

“What about King Dudo and the woman who turned into a bear?” Ruairi said.

“Ursula?” Granny asked from a fully reclined position. She let out a big yawn. “But I’ve already told you about all of that, no?”

Dani and Ruairi shook their heads.

“It’s been a very long day,” Granny said. “And we’ll be there before you know it. A quick rest and Robert’s your mother’s brother.” Ruairi looked puzzled. “Bob’s your uncle!” Granny clarified.

“But, Granny,” Dani said. “We can’t leave it! The suspense will
kill
us.”

“And Mum’s brother is called Tony,” Ruairi muttered as Mum grinned.

“Forget it,” Dani said. “We’ll have to wait. She’s already asleep. Listen.”

Granny let out a nasal snore that sounded half like a rocket taking off and half like a kitten purring.

“Try to get some sleep, my darlings,” Mum said. “Granny’s right. It has been a long day. We’ll be on Yondersaay very soon now.”