“I had no complaint of my father’s treatment,” Alea said slowly, “but outside the home, the boys were forever insulting me—and, for that matter, the girls were, too.”
She told a little of the constant insults and slights she had suffered at the hands of her peers, then told them of her treatment when her parents had died, ending in her few days of slavery—the constant insults, the beatings for minor mistakes and for talking back, and the sexual threat. By the time she was done, she was leaning inside the circle of Orla’s arm, fighting back tears, and the women were livid.
“We have heard of such things,” Riara said darkly. “Tell us his name, so that we may send word to all the giants to take him prisoner if he comes with a raiding party.”
Alea stared in surprise.
“Don’t worry, little sister, we’ll save you the leavings,” Orla said, smiling.
“But … but … would your own men let you beat him?”
“No grown giant tells another what to let or not, my dear,” Isola said gently. “But as to our men, we dare not tell them why we want the fellow, or they would grow so angry that they would simply squash him, and that’s far too quick a punishment for any man who abuses a woman’s love.”
“It is indeed,” Alea said, round-eyed, “and I thank you for saying it!” She had suspected that many women felt as she did, of course, but had never met any who dared speak it aloud.
When the ox was fully roasted, the giants gathered around, chatting and laughing, bringing wooden plates with slabs of bread on them as wide as Alea’s arm was long. They took turns cutting slices off the roast for one another.
Gar came up, eyes shining, but sat down beside Alea without saying a word. Frowning up at him, she could see his mind was still busy with the sight of wonders. She felt the same way, but also felt somewhat insulted that he didn’t seem to notice her. “Was it so wonderful as all that?”
Gar looked at her in surprise, then looked rueful. “My apologies—I hadn’t meant to be rude. But yes, it is wonderful, when you see it in the midst of a medieval village.”
“What is it?” she asked, visions of fairy treasures filling her mind.
“Radio,” he answered, “a transceiver—a magical box that lets you talk to people a hundred miles away and more, and lets you hear their answers. Only it’s not magical, really, just a very clever sort of machine.”
“It sounds magical to me,” Alea said, wide-eyed. “No one I’ve met has ever spoken of such a thing! Well, perhaps in the wonder-tales about the ancestors coming down from the stars…”
Gar glanced at her keenly. “So they remember that much, do they? I must admit that the giants were surprised that a Midgarder should know about radio.”
“Well, you’re not a Midgarder, really,” Alea reminded him. “I asked how they knew,” Gar went on. “They told me that in the early days, only a generation or two after their ancestors came from the stars, the first giants grew so big they scared the Midgarders, and the smaller people drove them out, village by village, all along the western border—but villages were tens of miles apart in those days, so they went about in small bands, not even knowing there were others like them.” Alea stared in surprise; she’d never heard the tale from the giants’ side.
“One band, though, stumbled across the remains of a cabin made of a shiny material the Ancestors used, a sort of way station for wanderers who might become lost in the wilderness. It had food and drink stored away, and fuel for heating—but most wonderfully of all, it had a radio. They were sick with loneliness, so they listened to the Midgarders talking to one another. They tried to talk, too, but once the Midgarders knew who they were, they refused to answer. The ancestors played pranks on them anyway, starting conversations, then revealing that they were giants—and learned how to use the device. Then, wonder of wonders, another band of giants answered! They found several radios they could carry with them, and by using those, they were able to find one another.”
“So Jotunheim started because of radios?” Alea asked. “As a nation instead of dozens of small, scattered bands, yes. Once the first two bands had joined together, they were able to search for others. They set about studying the books in the way stations and learned how to make radios of their own. Then bands of explorers went out with transceivers. Some died, but they called back to tell what was happening to them every day, so the ones who followed them were able to avoid the dangers, or be ready to fight them off.”
“Packs of wild beasts?” Alea asked.
“Some. There were whirlpools and quicksands, too, and mountain trails prone to rockslides. But most of the explorers found other bands of giants and gave them radios, then fell in love and brought home wives and husbands. With radios, they were able to set up periodic meetings, and the separate bands were able to join together to become a nation. They were also able to call up soldiers to fight when they saw a raiding party coming, and the radios helped them mightily in coordinating a battle—one reason why the giants have managed to survive when they’re so badly outnumbered. Then they answered a call seeking someone to talk to, and found it was a dwarf. Now they trade their labor, building stone walls in return for dwarf-made radios. They can build their own, but they say the dwarves make better.”
Such cooperation went against everything Alea had been taught about the other nations. In a desperate attempt to hold onto one of her childhood illusions, she demanded, “They trade, even though a few giants have always known how to make these radio things?”
“Everyone does!” Gar exulted. “They have schools, actual schools!”
Alea frowned. “What are schools?”
Gar sobered, staring at her. “Don’t your peo— Don’t the Midgarders have schools for at least some of their children?”
“If they did, would I ask what the word meant?” Alea asked impatiently.
“A school is a building where children, and sometimes adults, are taught how to read and write and … oh, all sorts of things. How do your leaders learn?”
“The barons have scholars come to teach their sons,” Alea told him, “and any boy who wants to be a priest goes to live in his village’s temple. But buildings just for learning? What a waste!”
“Scarcely that,” Gar said, “though I can see it’s one of the ways your barons keep their power. The hatred they teach you is another—if they can keep you angry about dwarves and giants, no one will think to be angry at the barons.”
“Angry at the barons?” Alea stared, scandalized. “But that would be wrong, that would be…” She ran out of words as she realized what he meant.
Gar read her eyes and nodded. “None of your people could even think of speaking against the barons, could they? That might make you weaker if you had to fight off a giants’ raid. But the giants’ government doesn’t worry about holding onto its power—there aren’t enough of them. They are the government, all of them, and they can’t afford to waste a single person’s talents. Their schools teach all the children, girls and boys, and new giants, outcasts from Midgard, at night. They learn how to read and write, how to use the numberlanguage called mathematics, and all sorts of other things about how to make and build, things I learned under the names of chemistry and physics. They learn literature and history, too—what they know of it.”
“Well, everyone knows how to tell stories.” Alea was clutching after familiar words.
“Yes, but I think the giants learn a number of stories Midgarders don’t know,” Gar told her. “The giants do know where the Midgarders found the names for the gods, though—the giants, and the dwarves.”