Page 62 of The Devils

So Much to Live Up To

Vigga was bored out of her mind.

The endless singing and praying and blah, blah, blah by the boring old men. Any desire she’d had to be saved was ebbing fast and she was thinking she’d much rather be a pagan after all. At least when pagans prayed it was over before you needed to piss.

Some bastard with the biggest beard you ever saw had droned on about planting a field so long you’d have thought they were crowning a plough. And when he finally shut up and Vigga was breathing a sigh of relief some other bastard with an even bigger beard got up and told a story about fish.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ she muttered, squirming in her seat. ‘Are we crowning a fish?’

‘It’s not really about fish,’ whispered Brother Diaz. ‘It’s about charity.’

‘Why not just talk about that, then?’ asked Vigga, baffled.

She wasn’t the biggest lover of Odin or Freya or Freyr and the rest, they’d done her no favours, but at least she understood them. They were as petty and lustful and greedy as everyone else, if not a bit more so. What’s the point of being gods, after all, if you’re not a bit more so? But the Saviour was so much to live up to. Vigga stared at her in the coloured glass, arms outstretched on the wheel like she couldn’t wait to be carved. All the virtues and sacrifice and forbearance. Vigga could never forbear anything. Even before the bite.

Jakob was a hell of a forbearer. All he did was forbear. Look at him, next to her on the pew, scarred jaw clenched, forbearing away. No drink, no lies, no fucking. He hadn’t sworn an oath against fun far as Vigga was aware, but he might as well have. Why live for ever if you’re not going to live ?

Beyond him Baron Rikard lounged, arms spread across the back of the pew like it was a couch in a brothel. The lady on his far side kept glancing at him, breathing like she’d run a mile and sweating like it, too, fanning herself with her hand and doing everything short of begging to be bitten. Vigga had no idea how anyone could want that smirking corpse, and she pretty much wanted anything male when the mood was on her, but then lemmings love cliffs, don’t they?

She squirmed again. Hers was not an arse made for warming a pew. ‘Odin’s fucking balls, I’m bored. Or wait, if I’m baptised … should it be Saviour’s tits? Can I say that?’

Brother Diaz rubbed at his temples. ‘Not in a Basilica, ideally.’

Now Alex sat on a stool or something while the priest with the biggest beard of all stood behind her, still droning on. Two of the girls came in and draped a purple cloak around Alex’s shoulders, and the other pair pinned it shut with a great square golden brooch. Lady Severa put a sheaf of wheat into Alex’s left hand, and Duke Michael put a gilded spear into her right, point wobbling about so Vigga started to hope she might take the Patriarch’s eye out, which would’ve livened things up a bit, but no such luck.

All nonsense but, looking at the rapt faces of the audience, Vigga wondered if she saw a point to it after all. Choosing to be ruled by a seventeen-year-old girl who could scarcely hold a spear just ’cause of the room she’d been born in was, on the face of it, a bit silly. But wrap it in this much gleaming pomp and solemn ritual, you might mistake it for a gleaming, solemn notion.

‘What’s hard to make,’ she muttered to herself, ‘is hard to break.’

The Patriarch poured oil from a golden spoon onto Alex’s head. Then he took a crown from a boy with a cushion, held it in both hands, and lowered it, slowly, slowly, drawing out that moment, jewels twinkling and winking in the inky darkness, slowly, slowly.

‘Drop it on her and let me piss!’ hissed Vigga, likely heard from the back row the place was so silent.

She felt a change as the Patriarch settled that weight of gold on Alex’s head. That restless tug in the pit of her guts that had dragged her all the way to Troy, dragging her back now towards the sea.

‘So that’s it.’ Balthazar rubbed at his stomach, and Vigga knew he felt it, too.

‘That’s it,’ said Rikard, closing his eyes. They all felt it.

Four noblemen leaned down and Vigga realised Alex had been sitting on a golden shield, and now they hoisted her up to their shoulders, displaying her to the crowd like the goods at an auction. Everyone shifted from their pews and knelt, sending up a great rustle, and Vigga was grateful at least to get some movement in her legs. Alex teetered under all that crown, eyes flickering up like she was worried it might fall off and she’d end up dropping her spear and wheat and juggling the damn stuff all down the nave. But the crown stayed on, and the girls started singing, and bells started ringing, and Vigga had to laugh, ’cause she’d always loved the bells, since she first heard one being smashed by Olaf on that raid, and the clang of so many filling that grand space made her wonder if she might prefer being saved to being a pagan after all. She’d never been any good at sticking to a choice. Even before the bite.

‘Time we were gone.’ With a pained grunt Jakob stood and led them out in single file. Vigga caught one last look back at Alex, Duke Michael and Lady Severa smiling up at her, and wondered how it’d all turn out. But she never got to see that part. The Chapel of the Holy Expediency was like the corpse cart, and not only ’cause of the smell. People were happy enough to see it in a disaster, but no one wanted it sitting by their front door once the danger blew by.

The bells were still ringing as they stepped from the grand doors, past the many guards and into the dappled daylight.

‘Shame we couldn’t stay for the wedding.’ Vigga ducked off the road to wriggle her trousers down and squat among the bushes. ‘Though this crowd could probably make a boring business o’ that, too.’

‘Must you?’ Balthazar rolled his eyes. ‘Here?’

‘Well, I could’ve gone in there, but I expect it would’ve pooled on the pew, and no one would’ve thanked me then.’

‘She has a point,’ said Baptiste.

‘Why is it … when you’ve really got to go … it’s sometimes hard to go?’ And Vigga grunted as she finally managed it, careful to get her hips at the right angle so she didn’t piss all over her own trousers, which wouldn’t have been the first time. What with the bells and the binding satisfied and the simple pleasure of a draining bladder, she was quite enjoying herself at last, but no one else seemed to be. With Jakob it was no surprise, but Baptiste could usually raise a smile, and even Baron Rikard looked less smug than usual.

‘Freya’s arse,’ grunted Vigga as she slapped the drops off with one hand then wiped it on the nearest leaf. ‘Look at the long faces on you lot.’

‘Well, we embark at once for the Holy City,’ snapped Balthazar, walking on. ‘To return to captivity, resentment, and contempt. To return to enslavement .’

‘Ah.’ Vigga frowned. ‘I forgot about that.’