Chapter Four: Brunhilde
Brunhilde the Valkyrie, the proud warrior goddess who inspired millions to kill and die in glory, despised her new broomstick shape. With her wooden body in the air and her bristly head on the floor, she was jerking back and forth all around the Dark Castle, unable to make herself stop.
“My gods, fix this quickly,” she prayed to her pantheon. “It’s torture!”
She triumphed when she first started moving, hailing her fellow gods for breaking her free. She could hardly wait to rejoin her battalion and get revenge on the Dark One. But it soon became apparent that whoever was on the task did not know what they were doing. Subverting the Dark One’s spells took a great deal of trial and error, and right now, someone was stuck in the error phase. The longer the Dark One stayed away, the more she picked up speed. Worse still, being upside-down was making her nauseous. But before the gods could get the job done, he returned.
“I’m home, dearie!” he called out in that infuriating, high-pitched giggle of his. “Did you miss me?”
He entered the Great Hall and stood there smirking as he watched her hurtle around, sweeping his floor. Oh, the humiliation! She was reduced to a common domestic tool!
“Puny, putrid wretch,” she thought as a litany of more colorful insults rushed to her mind. If she hadn’t lost the power of speech, she would have let loose with a flyting so crude, it would make Loki, god of mischief, blush.
She’d throw in a few choice words for the princess, too. That cloying voice was what jarred her awake in the first place. She’d been dead to the world after the Dark One’s curse, but as soon as the princess spoke his real name, she was rallied against her will.
It was obvious what that gutless damsel in distress was up to. She was calling for the Dark One’s help with the ogre raid. If she had her way, the skirmish would end before it even had time to escalate into a realm-wide war. Just like her dimwitted mother, she was going to rob her father’s men of their chance to fall in battle and receive a hero’s welcome into Valhalla. The only small comfort was knowing that the Dark One would demand a price of her that was sure to ruin her life.
“I suppose you believe this lovely dance of yours is being choreographed by your pantheon,” he drawled, lifting his hand and bringing her to an abrupt stop. “Well, let me put it bluntly. It isn’t. The force working on you transcends those empty idols. It’s Destiny. You brought it on yourself with your own crimes.”
He drew his fingers back and pulled her across the room. When he turned his palm upward, she was rotated brush-side-up. Her straw-covered eyes were level with his filthy, brown teeth.
His grin faded into a glower. “I’ve just come from Avonlea,” he told her, “where I’ve had an interesting conversation with the Ogre Chief. Funnily enough, you came up. Something about seducing a young ogre and rekindling a war.”
The fireplace lit up as soon as he said the word “rekindling.” The flames leapt toward her. With her body now wooden, she knew she could be burnt to ashes in an instant. She tried to jump back, but she could not. Her movements were fully under his control.
He laughed, and the flames receded. He had not let the fire reach her. She was not even singed.
“No punishment without a hearing,” he said. “You get a chance to tell your side of things. But before you begin, let me remind you that deception is what landed you here. You know what will happen if you lie to me again.”
Brunhilde knew. She’d never forget the pain of being turned into wood. Oh, the stiffening of her skin and muscles! The sharp, piercing splinters! It was the worst agony she’d ever felt in her entire immortal life.
The Dark One waved his hand over her bristles, and her golden hair returned. Then he restored her face and ears to normal. He even gave her whatever inner organs she needed in order to breathe and speak. But he didn’t give her arms or legs. Below her neck, she remained mostly broomstick.
Brunhilde shook out her dusty braids and looked down at her cursed body. What a degradation! Her blue-grey eyes fixed the Dark One with an icy stare.
“There’s only one way out, dearie, and you’re just getting started. First, you tell me your tale. Then, I decide what to do with you. I suggest you don’t squander the opportunity.”
She would not. She felt like spitting in his eye, but she controlled herself. If telling the truth would free her from this wooden trap, she would tell it to him in full.
“King Maurice is one of my most loyal worshippers,” she began. “He would have made a great conqueror, if it weren’t for his soft-headed wife. She was always opposed to his worship of me. She believed in the G-d of Mercy and Justice, and she taught her daughter to do the same.”
The Dark One’s expression changed inscrutably. “Belle.”
“Yes. The king was in despair because he was unable to expand his borders. He was praying for me to destroy you. He thought that would terminate your deal.”
“What a plan!” he snickered. “Get a Valkyrie to override the Agent of Justice!”
If Brunhilde could have flipped herself over and stabbed him with her pointy tip, she would have. Where did this unmanly braggart come up with these bombastic titles for himself? Yet she must continue telling the truth. One lie and the little bit of flesh he’d restored would stiffen back into wood again.
“Maurice paid me so much tribute, I could not leave him empty-handed, so I implanted an idea in his mind. He must forge an alliance with Lord Le Gume, who also worships me. The Le Gume army, under the command of the Lord’s son Gaston, is formidable.”
“And in return, I assume, Maurice was to offer Gaston the princess’ hand in marriage.”
“That is the custom amongst humans. And Gaston’s desire for her burned strong. She is lovely to look at. But she has perverse ideas, just like her mother. They do not recognize the glory of war. They do not value heroes as Valkyries do.”
“Indeed,” agreed the Dark One.
A bit of white lace floated over, and he examined it. Brunhilde did not know what magic was in it, but he was spinning that lace when her sweeping started.
He made it disappear and looked back up at her. “Go on.”
“Gaston is not devout like his father or Maurice, but he tried praying for my assistance, too. At first, I saw no way to help. My specialty is the battlefield, not love. But since Maurice was also praying for a union, I gave both of them an idea and the means to implement it. I released one ogre into their captivity.”
“Reckless fool,” muttered the Dark One.
“A young one,” said Brunhilde. “I thought they could manage him. If Gaston killed him, I reasoned, he would win over the princess. An ogre is a monster. His conquest would impress her. I never dreamed that her sense of mercy could extend to a ferocious beast.”
“Her Mercy will save the entire realm! Whereas you placed us all in danger!”
“I did not act wrongly. I did what is expected of me. My worshippers paid their tribute, and I rewarded them with a chance at victory. It’s simple.”
“Ach! So primitive!”
He began to pace up and down. Brunhilde knew he was deciding her Fate at that very moment. She kept silent and watched him anxiously. Then he stopped and stalked toward her menacingly.
“You have not told me the whole truth!”
“I have!” she cried, cowering.
“You have not! And now I begin to see what you were up to. It’s all becoming clear.”
He sat down at his wheel and began to spin.
“When I first captured you, you were hovering around those incompetents, the Chamberlen Brothers. I couldn’t fathom how that mismatch of a team came together. You have no power over potion-brewing, and they are a pair of quacks! But now I see. It was all for Maurice, wasn’t it?”
She nodded. It was not as though she could avoid the truth.
“Potion brewing is precision work, and anything that alters memories is especially tricky. It’s all about balancing the memories you want to retain. Take too much away, and you can change a person drastically. It is far beyond the ability of those two swindlers, and they knew it. That’s why they came to me.”
He got up from the wheel and began pacing again.
“Some wealthy customer promised them a small fortune for a memory erasure. They did not want to turn him down. So they handed over the essential ingredient: a strand of hair. They told me it belonged to a girl who’d recently lost her mother. Naturally, I asked some questions about the specifics. The death had been particularly bloody, and the girl had witnessed it. But the customer didn’t just want to erase the traumatic scene. He wanted to make the girl forget her mother altogether, to dupe her into a false memory that her mother died when she was still a baby. That way, they’d negate the entire relationship.”
He walked up close to Brunhilde. She trembled from the intensity of his glare.
“That strand of hair didn’t belong to a little girl. It belonged a young woman. Princess Belle. And now I am doubly glad I took their deal and brewed the potion my own way. The image of her mother’s slaughter will remain a complete blank to Belle. It won’t even haunt her nightmares. But I left everything else intact. I would never involve myself in so underhanded a deception, no matter who it was! Who would dare to tamper with the bond of love between parent and child?”
His accusation began as a hiss and rose to a roar, but tense as Brunhilde was, she expected him to finish with a laugh. This must be one of his jokes. Why would the Dark One care about a triviality like human love?
“What price did the brothers pay?” she blurted out. It was bold of her to ask, but she had nothing left to lose, and she couldn’t help being curious. She hated to admit it, but the Dark One was right about what an odd team they made. Her typical worshippers were either seasoned warriors or young men raring to prove their mettle, not scholars. Yet the brothers were true believers. When they gave her up to the Dark One, it was with the absolute conviction that she’d be able to defeat him. “Did you turn them into objects, too?”
“I’m under no obligation to answer that,” he replied, “but I will anyway. Perhaps you will learn something. After they turned you in, I agreed to brew the potion for them so they could deliver it to their customer. . . on condition that they’d quit potion-brewing forever after. As a safety measure, I threw in a Curse that if they ever tried brewing a potion again, they would suffer its effects before they could pass it off on anyone else.”
Brunhilde scowled, but she held her tongue.
“I know what you’re thinking, dearie. ‘Unfair! They get to retire in comfort, and I have to spend eternity as a broomstick under the Curse of the Wood Flesh! Who does the Dark One think he’s dealing with? The puppet Pinocchio? I am the mighty Queen of the Valkyries!’”
Indeed, he summed up her thoughts perfectly.
“That’s the trouble with you primitives. Tribute buys benevolent action. Simple, as you say. But your concept of punishment is equally primitive, as though punishment were all about exacting revenge. Oh no, for Justice to be served, the punishment must be tailored to fit the crime. Consider the Chamberlen Brothers. Their Dark side is greed. I let them satisfy a little of that itch, and they fell right into my clutches. Then came the important part: the deterrent. Self-inflicted wounds always work best. Repeat the crime, and you hoist yourself with your own petard. It brings the lesson right home. Nobody suffers in excess. They simply face the consequences of their own misdeeds. And that is the difference between Justice and revenge, all wrapped up in one impeccably crafted deal.”
She watched him bask in his own praise for a moment before he began delivering her sentence.
“As for you, Brunhilde, you are a special case. A minor deity with great power, you have tremendous potential to damage this world, so you will remain my captive. That will in turn limit the Valkyries you command, and perhaps there will be a little less war in the world.”
Brunhilde stared at him, baffled. Everyone knew the cowardly Dark One preferred making deals to fighting, but wasn’t it his nature to celebrate death?
“There is also the individual matter of Justice to Queen Colette and Princess Belle,” he went on. “You answered Maurice’s prayers in a corrupt and self-serving way. I know why you did it, but I want to hear you to say it. Go ahead. Make your confession.”
Brunhilde held her head high. If this was her last chance at self-defense, she would declare it proudly. “I came up with the idea of a new Ogre War because war is glorious,” she said. “I used the opportunity to have Queen Colette killed because I wanted her out of the way. Then I could continue to harness Maurice’s militant side and make more war. I tried to have the daughter killed, too, but Maurice would have been too weak to go on if he lost both of them. So I hoped that erasing her memories would be enough. Values like hers are undermining the Valkyries.”
“Just you wait till I'm through with you!” he shouted, throwing his arms into the air. The castle began shaking so hard that hundreds of his possessions fell to the floor and broke. Brunhilde guessed that many of them contained cursed souls just like her – demigods, witches and wizards, even humans – all encased in inanimate objects.
Maurice’s palace was quaking, too. She could hear him crying out for her. “My gods, help me!” But as the Dark One’s prisoner, she could do nothing for him.
With one circular gesture, the Dark One waved all his things back into place, fully repaired. Then, in total calm, he said, “Treaty for War Reparations,” and a parchment and quill pen appeared on a small table. The pen stood upright, ready to take dictation.
“Well,” he said, “it appears that Maurice’s devotion to you and your pantheon will bind you to each other forever, just not in the way you planned.”
The quill began to write as he spoke:
Brunhilde, Queen of the Valkyries, shall make the following reparations to the Kingdom of Avonlea: First, she shall command her legion to encircle the battlefield and offer everyone who died there the opportunity to enter Valhalla, whether human or ogre, soldier or peasant, adult or child.”
He paused the quill. “As you know, I have limited power in the afterlife, but I do have power over you, and you have the keys to Valhalla. I suspect that most of the dead will prefer some other form of eternal reward, but you will give them the option.”
He set the quill to writing again.
Second, Brunhilde, shall command her legion to serve as a defensive shield for the Kingdom of Avonlea, its residents and subjects, now and forever.
“I expect it to return to being a quiet little town.”
Third, Brunhilde shall command her legion to stay away from the barrier separating the ogres from the human Realms, now and forever. She shall assist Rumpelstiltskin, the Dark One, in the fortification of said barrier by providing him with complete information on the Valkyries’ weaknesses. This shall last until such time as the Dark One, in his magical expertise, determines that the barrier is impervious to Valkyries.
“An ongoing project for your stay here, dearie.”
He opened the palm of his left hand, and the parchment and quill jumped into it. Then, with his right hand, he restored her arms. He gave her the quill and treaty, and she knew what to do. After they each signed it, he made the two copies vanish and restored the rest of her body.
“Now, do whatever it takes to communicate with your legion.”
Brunhilde closed her eyes and felt her oracular powers return. She summoned the entire pantheon. “My gods and sisters, I am in the Dark One’s captivity. Do not try to break me out. You will fail. If you want me to go free, please follow these instructions.”
She repeated all the Dark One’s commands. Once finished, she looked up and braced herself for the oncoming pain.
“You need not worry,” he said. “The transformation will not hurt as long as you act in good faith, which you did just now. Besides, I wasn’t ready to turn you back yet. There’s still more.”
“More?” thought Brunhilde. “How can there possibly be more?”
“Contract of Indentured Servitude,” he said as a fresh parchment appeared on the table. The new dictation began:
Brunhilde, Queen of the Valkyries, shall make amends to Princess Belle of Avonlea by serving as her personal servant and guard.
He paused. “Listen to this next part carefully, dearie. You need to understand this.”
Brunhilde’s powers, whether divine or mundane, will be restored whenever they are necessary to fulfill Belle’s needs or wishes. If Brunhilde is in any way unfaithful in her performance, or simply uses her powers for her own ends, she shall suffer the pain of the Curse of Wood Flesh in full force and never revive again. But if she acts faithfully to Princess Belle and her values, she will feel no pain when returning to the broomstick state and will be restored whenever Belle needs or wants her.
“The punishment tailored to fit my crimes,” Brunhilde thought sullenly. She should have known she’d be enslaved to Belle the moment she woke up to her voice. But the ultimate insult came when the Dark One dictated the length of her sentence.
Brunhilde’s service shall end when Princess Belle, in her ethical judgment, determines that she has sufficiently absorbed the values taught by the late Queen Colette of Avonlea.
“How in Odin’s name will I ever do that?” moaned Brunhilde, signing the contract.
“To be honest, I don’t see it myself,” said the Dark One, adding his own signature and snapping the contract away. “I reckon you will be at it forever, but perhaps it may be easier than we think. If negotiations go as I hope, you will be very near to your mistress. I will be offering Belle a home here in my castle. I will not stand by and let a visionary of her caliber remain subject to the whims of those myopic brutes, King Maurice and General Gaston.”
Brunhilde’s mind reeled as she listened to him tie the loose strands of everyone’s Fate together. He covered every detail, even commandeering her legion. His convoluted schemes really did have a pattern to them. If she hadn’t been the one caught in the middle, she would have been quite impressed.
“Now, as to your first task. . .”
Brunhilde dreaded what he would say next, but he waved forth something that actually made her smile. Her horned helmet! She’d despaired of ever seeing it again. Now she’d be able to fly!
“In the morning, Belle will begin the last leg of her journey back to Avonlea. Your job is to guarantee her safe passage. You must stay invisible. You may not implant any ideas into anyone’s mind. All you need to do is stand guard and make sure no harm comes to Belle. Your task will be complete when I arrive to take over for you, and then you’ll return here. Think you can do that without winding up as dead wood in a ditch?”
Brunhilde shook her head. She knew what was good for her.
He gave her back the helmet. “Then good luck on the completion of your first mission for the princess.”