Gar was amazed. For a medieval woman to question why she thought as she did, was almost unheard of. Alea must have been a very rare woman indeed. He suggested, “Did other people tell you the giants were harsh and cruel?”
“Oh, from my cradle!” she answered. “Everyone in the village, every traveler who came by, always spoke of the villainy of the dwarves and the cruelty of the giants. The bards’ news was always of the latest battle, and how treacherous and deceitful the giants and dwarves were in their fighting!”
Gar thought of suggesting that the giants and dwarves might tell their children the same things about Midgard’s soldiers, but thought better of it. Besides, the giants he had met had been wary of him, but hadn’t seemed to think him a lower form of life. Instead, he said, “The lessons we learn earliest stay with us our whole lives. No wonder you think the giants are monsters even after you’ve met them, and they proved to be gentle. The real question should be: will you ever be able to believe the truth?”
“I’ve never met a man who gave a thought to what small children learned,” Alea said, frowning. “That’s women’s work.”
“Not where I come from.” Gar gave her a bleak smile. Inside, though, he was shaken. What kind of culture made men ignore their own toddlers? “Some man must have been concerned about it some time, or who would have started the lies about the giants?”
“I suppose they are lies, aren’t they?” Alea looked away, shaken. “Though maybe not; we’ve only seen a few giants.”
6
That’s true, and we shouldn’t judge the whole nation by one band.”
“You’re right about some man starting the rumors, though.” Alea turned back to him, frowning. “I can’t see a woman making up horror stories like that.”
“I’ve known women who would do it.” Now it was Gar’s gaze that drifted. “Ones who wanted to heap shame on a neighbor whose son or daughter had grown too tall, perhaps, or one who wanted to make up for feeling tiny when she looked at a very tall neighbor woman.”
“Yes,” Alea spat, her face suddenly twisted with anger. “There are women who would do that.”
“Still, I think it more likely that the fathers were trying to raise sons who would be better giant killers because they didn’t see the big ones as people, really.” Gar’s gaze drifted back to her. “And wanted to raise their daughters to become wives who would urge their husbands on to mayhem out of sheer terror.”
Alea frowned, thoughtful again. “You don’t suppose husbands and wives agreed on the same horror stories for different reasons, do you?”
Again, Gar was amazed at her ability to see beyond the confines of the culture in which she had been raised. “I think it’s very likely. In fact, I don’t think the ordinary grandmother could make a story sound true if she didn’t believe it.”
“But if our ancestors told us lies about the giants,” Alea asked, “what of the tales of the dwarves?”
“Interesting question.” Gar grinned. “Why don’t we visit the dwarves and find out?”
Alea stared. “Visit the dwarves? Are you mad?”
Gar sighed, and summoned his reserves of patience—but before he could begin to explain, Alea gave a laugh. “Silly of me, isn’t it? When I’ve just worked out that the real giants may be nothing to fear, I’m still terrified of the dwarves!” The laugh transformed her face, bringing out all the beauty hidden by her bitterness, fear, and exhaustion. Gar caught his breath, but as suddenly as it had come, that beauty was gone in the hardness of the look of a woman trying to confront the truth—which amazed Gar still more, for she came from a culture in which superstition was accepted as fact.
“A visit to the dwarves is another matter completely, though,” Alea told him, “for they live in Nibelheim, far to the west, and all of Midgard lies between us and them.”
“I’m not eager to cross Midgard,” Gar admitted. “Somehow, I doubt that we’d make it through.”
Alea shuddered. “Thank you, no! I’m not about to walk back into slavery!”
Gar closed his eyes, visualizing the photographic map Herkimer had displayed for him, and the line where the darkness of pine forest gave way to tundra. “Who lives in the north, Alea? How far does Midgard go?”
“Well, there’s a land to the north of it, if that’s what you mean,” Alea said, surprised. “I don’t know how many days’ journey it would take to go there, but it doesn’t matter, nobody would want to.”
“Really?” Gar asked, interested. “Why not?”
“Well, because it’s a wasteland,” Alea explained, “all pine forest and high moors, too cold and dry to grow a decent crop. Besides, they say there are no rivers, and the brooks are few and far between.”
“Someone must have been there, then,” Gar pointed out, “or there would be no stories telling what it’s like.”
“Oh, travelers have gone there, yes,” Alea said. “Some have even come back—slave-hunters and the like. They say there are giants there, but not many.”
“Slave-hunters?” Gar looked interested. “So some slaves do manage to escape and stay free?”
Alea shuddered. “Yes, but they’re as bad as the hunters. Folk speak of whole bands of runaways, all murderers and thieves—bloodthirsty men who will do anything rather than be caught.”
“I know how they feel,” Gar said, smiling.
For a moment, Alea was angry with him, indignant that he could seem amused at the notion of such criminals. Then, though, she remembered what she had just learned about the tales with which she’d been raised, and laughed. “It does sound too horrible to be true, doesn’t it?”
“It does indeed,” Gar said. “Just the kind of thing you’d tell slaves, to make them afraid to try to escape.”
Alea sobered. “It might be true, though, and such men might not be too gentle with women.”
“Might.” Gar held up a finger. “Might not, too. I suspect the rumors have become far worse than the reality.”
“Oh?” Alea bridled at his self-assurance. “What do you think is the truth, then?”
“Probably a handful of scrawny, ragged people on the verge of starvation,” Gar said, “if what you say about the land being so poor is true. But if there really are a few giants there, then I suspect there are some dwarves—in fact, it just might be a country where all three nations live side by side. I wonder if they fight, or help one another?”
For a moment, Alea was scandalized by the thought of giants, people, and dwarves working together, shocked at the vision it raised—of all three dwelling in a single village in peace. Then she managed to accept the notion, or at least its possibility—if giants could be gentle, why not escaped slaves? She realized that having discovered the lie in one set of things she’d been taught, made her question all the rest. “It’s possible,” she said, “but what difference does it make?”
“A great deal, if we’re going there.” Gar stood up, swing ink his pack to his shoulders.
“Going there!” Alea jumped to her feet, heart pounding. “But you can’t!”
“Why not?” Gar grinned. “You’ve already told me that some escaped slaves manage to hide there and stay free. In fact, it looks like the only place where we’d really have a chance. Besides, if I want to visit the dwarves, I’ll have to go through the North Country, since I can’t pass through Midgard. To top it off, I might actually be able to meet both giants and dwarves without having to worry about permission to cross someone else’s territory.”
“But the danger!” Alea cried. “Those wild slaves might do anything to us!” She shuddered at the thought. “For all we know, they might even eat us!”