Witch-Hunt

by Margit Sandemo

  ‘And finally, Master Tengel,’ she said formally, ‘we must make sure all the papers are signed and sealed.’

  He froze. Wasn’t this just what he had suspected all along – it was all too good to be true! Now came the rub – but what form would it take?

  He frowned slightly. ‘Which papers?’

  ‘Why, the deeds to the house of course. They will show that you have purchased the house for a certain sum, but that is a mere matter of form. Naturally you will not be expected to pay anything at all.’

  Tengel had stopped breathing. He had remained standing respectfully during their discussions, despite being offered a chair, but now he slumped gratefully into it.

  ‘You mean that the little home farm will be ours? Properly?’

  ‘Indeed I do. I thought that was understood.’

  He went quiet again. Charlotte waited, yet despite her businesslike expression there was a tiny hint that she had discovered the joy of giving and the thrill of expectation.

  ‘Mistress Charlotte, we simply cannot accept! You have already done so much for us.’

  When she spoke her words were full of passion. ‘Do you know, Master Tengel, how it feels, having taken the life of a child and bitterly regretted the deed for so long. Then to have the child restored to you in good health and happy. Do you know how that feels, Master Tengel?’

  ‘I do.’ he said softly. ‘I know well. For SiIje’s own sake I tried both times to take the life within her. First it was Liv – and now I love that girl more than myself. Then …’

  ‘The new baby?’

  ‘Yes, but Sol stayed my hand. I understand very well what you did those five years past.’

  Charlotte considered this curious man with so many facets to his character. ‘You have also treated me with exquisite courtesy, by not informing the authorities that I had abandoned a living child.’

  ‘That never came into our thoughts. To that I can swear!’

  ‘Thank you! Thank you so much.’ Charlotte paused for a moment then continued. ‘Sol – is a remarkable child, but I must tell you that I am a little afraid of her.’

  ‘You need not be Mistress Charlotte. She would go to the grave for those who are dear to her.’

  ‘Yes, I had already realised that.’

  She began arranging the flowers in a vase that had been placed on the table a little while earlier. Tengel watched the young noblewoman from the corner of his eye and realised that he had a lot of sympathy for her. She was by no means a pretty woman and to have been so mistreated and become so embittered in her young years must have hurt her so much. Yet she remained so warm-hearted. He decided there and then that he would be a true friend to her as long as she needed him.

  ‘But our discussion has strayed,’ he said swiftly. ‘I – I cannot accept such a great gift.’

  ‘Try to see it as I do. My life has been a wasteland of nothing but anguish for these last five years. Nor is my gift entirely unselfish – I will be close to my son, and when the time comes he shall inherit Grastensholm.’

  Had Tengel not already been sitting down, he would have done so now. ‘This great estate? All of it? Castle, farms, pasture and woodland too?’

  ‘Master Tengel, let us look things in the eye. I shall never be wed, but this boy has brought meaning to my life. If God permits, then one day he will come to stay here with me. But mark well, this shall be a gift, it is not offered as barter. He will come only if he wishes it for himself.’

  It took a little time before Tengel could find the words to say what he had been thinking. ‘You are an uncommonly fine person, Mistress Charlotte,’ he told her, quietly and deliberately.

  ‘Am I?’ She sounded bitter. ‘If that is so, then it is because you and Silje, and your little family, have shown me how.’

  When all the papers had been signed, Tengel rose to his feet and made to leave. He bowed his head formally towards the noble woman in a final gesture of gratitude that still betrayed his sense of disbelief at his good fortune.

  ‘Is there anything else I can do?’ asked Charlotte very quietly.

  Tengel stopped as he was walking towards the door, turned to her and smiled. ‘As if all this were not enough!’

  Then suddenly a thought came to him, and he said earnestly. ‘There is perhaps just one thing.’

  ‘Pray tell.’

  ‘l could probably manage it all myself, but l need your advice and your help to ... Well, let me explain. Silje once had a dream that she would live in a house with an avenue, an allée, of linden trees leading to it. It was but a dream of course, and could never be real while we lived such a meagre life in the Valley of the Ice People. But now? Could you help me to give her this happiness? To find some small linden saplings for us?’

  ‘With pleasure! I shall make enquiries. It ought to be easy to arrange.’

  So, a fortnight later, Tengel was to be found digging deep holes on both sides of the track leading to their house. He dug only six, because they had been given that number of saplings. But he fully intended that they would get more later. As he completed his digging, Silje and the children were all gathered round watching.

  ‘This one is for me as father of the house,’ he announced with a big smile as he placed the first young tree in its hole. The children pushed the earth back round its trunk and merrily tramped it down. ‘And this one is for Silje,’ he said crossing over to the other side of the drive. ‘Then Sol gets her tree – then Dag – then Liv. And what about the last one?’ He gave Silje an enquiring stare.

  ‘The last one is for Mistress Charlotte,’ she said instantly.

  Tengel chuckled. ‘You’re not taking anything for granted. I see.’

  ‘No,’ she smiled back at him, shivering slightly.

  ‘For Mistress Charlotte!’ he said with great ceremony.

  ‘Because she is kind,’ added Sol.

  Afterwards, however, Silje became slightly concerned by Tengel’s behaviour. While she and the children walked back up to the house, he stayed behind with his few small trees. He moved to each one in turn as she watched – and Silje became certain in that moment that he was reading incantations over all the saplings.

  Chapter 7

  It took a long time for Tengel to accept that a house and farm of such proportions really belonged to them – and that his name was written officially on the deed papers. When at last he had accepted his good fortune, he spent a whole evening quietly walking around and touching the walls. He had waited until everyone else was asleep and was overwhelmed with feelings of amazement and wonder.

  ‘This is mine,’ he said to himself running his fingers over the woodwork. He wandered out into the yard and leaned on the fence; then he walked over to the well, strolled through the empty outhouses and barns, and all the time he felt he could scarcely contain the happiness inside him. Although he had inherited and owned the tiny hillside farm in the Valley of the Ice People, it had been nothing compared with this. This was larger than anything he could ever have conceived in a dream. Now in the back of his mind he found he was beginning to think of things he could do there.

  It was late when he finally went back to the bedchamber and snuggled down alongside Silje’s sleeping form. He stroked her hair tenderly and pulled it back from her brow. Thank you, dear God, for our salvation, he mused, and bless Charlotte Meiden!

  It soon became apparent that the Grastensholm estate had not been managed very well while the Meiden family were living in Trondheim and Tengel found he had a sizeable task in bringing it back to a fit state again. But this was work he enjoyed and he felt as though he was doing something worthwhile. Slowly, but surely, the estate began to get back on its feet.

  Silje relented and allowed a few animals to be kept in the farmyard, on condition that she had nothing to do with slaughtering them or ‘anything like that’. Tengel, smiling, promptly agreed.

  ****

  The death of Baron Meiden came unexpectedly, as the result of an apoplectic fit following an eighteen-co
urse dinner. Not long afterwards, the now Dowager Baroness moved down to Grastensholm, complete with her household and belongings. This was a pleasant turn of events, welcomed by everyone, including herself social life started to improve, as distinguished folk came to visit from Oslo and Tonsberg and even farther afield.

  Then one day a surprise awaited Tengel. The Baroness had enjoyed boasting to all and sundry about her ‘astounding physician’ who had cured her gout by no other means than laying his hands upon her shoulders. Unexpectedly Tengel was summoned to Akershus Castle. Full of misgivings he saddled his horse and set off.

  The wife of one of the Lord Lieutenant’s closest men had sent for him. She was suffering from poor health in general and had heard tell of the Baroness Meiden’s wonderful healer. The couple were waiting – the woman’s husband being equally curious – when a guard escorted Tengel across the bailey to their drawing room.

  The woman stared wide-eyed as he entered and the young Danish aristocrat with her exclaimed, ‘How can anyone look like that!’

  Thinking that he may be dusty and dirty from his ride, Tengel was about to apologise, but the insolent young man continued, ‘Were you born like that?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Looking like – that?’

  ‘Our face is our own,’ Tengel said abruptly. ‘I am sorry if mine offends you.’

  The nobleman decided he ought to change the subject of conversation. ‘Would you please examine my lady wife? She suffers from a variety of ailments of which she reminds me constantly.’

  Tengel nodded his assent and asked him if he would kindly leave the room. ‘No! Why should I? Do you plan to seduce her?’

  Tengel’s anger was beginning to show. ‘Do I look like a seducer of women?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ laughed the man nervously, finally realising that he had gone too far. ‘No, you most certainly do not!’ He left the room, leaving Tengel alone with his eminent patient.

  Tengel helped her as best he could, although sparing her vanity, he held back from telling her the harsh truth, which was that all her problems were the result of too much good living. He named several foodstuffs that ‘her delicate and sensitive personage could not endure’ with the intention of reducing her excessive intake of food. To humour her he asked her to lie down and he placed his hands on her belly, allowing the feeling of warmth to radiate through her body. I am behaving like a charlatan he told himself, but this woman needs to be influenced by suggestion to make her obey me.

  Last of all he told her to take a walk along the battlements of Akershus Castle every day, because this would improve the quality of her blood. The lady was delighted with her treatment and showed her appreciation with a purse of silver coin that Tengel received with gratitude and a not-too-sullied conscience. They would need a lot of money if they were to do everything they wanted with the home farm.

  As he was leaving, the woman’s husband met Tengel in the anteroom. ‘Well? Did you manage to cure her delusions?’ he asked, with a sneer.

  ‘It was hardly a delusion. I believe that she will start to get better.’

  ‘If that is true perhaps, as you are here, you might be so good as to take a look at old Broms, would you? He complains constantly about his leg.’

  Tengel agreed and was taken to another part of the castle. What confronted him there was far worse. It was a marvel that the blood in the veins of the old and vastly overweight Broms managed to move at all. It circulated at a snail’s pace.

  ‘You do understand that you may well lose this leg!’ Tengel told him quite brutally. ‘You must begin to walk about on it. And you are much too heavy. I shall do what I can to help you, and with your permission I shall come back once each week for more treatments.’

  The old gentleman, sweating profusely and frightened, nodded and swore to follow Tengel’s instructions diligently.

  ‘Good living,’ thought Tengel as he rode homewards.

  ‘While peasants are suffering hunger and misery all around us, these people are dying from excess!’ But when he arrived home again, he revealed in telling Silje about his experiences at the Akershus Castle.

  And so it began. The Lord Lieutenant’s friends had been so happy with him that, before long. Tengel was receiving summonses from one noble family after another. Occasionally he travelled to see them – and he could not fail to notice that it was the women who were especially curious about him. They called him the ‘Demon Physician’, a title he did not care for at all. Silje had decided to call these excursions his ‘glory trips’.

  On his return from one such trip, Sol came into his room and told him that a little old woman had been sitting for several hours in a nearby room, patiently waiting for his help in treating her ailment. ‘Tell her that I have no time for her now,’ he said abruptly. ‘Doesn’t she know I have been very busy all day.’

  ‘No, she doesn’t – and she won’t pay very well either,’ retorted Sol sharply and left.

  Tengel stopped what he was doing instantly. Images of his recent successes with wealthy nobles and dignitaries flashed through his mind and he was suddenly overcome with shame. Turning he hurried out to catch up with the girl.

  ‘Thank you, Sol!’ was all he said, as he hastened to see the old woman.

  ****

  Tengel soon made it known to his growing list of aristocratic clients that he would not be able to make trips away from the farm as often as before – in fact he would travel in future only in cases of dire need and emergency. So instead they began to come to him, those high-born and wealthy people who had learned of his reputation for wonderful healing. Despite the shock that his patients felt the first time they saw his face, they all soon warmed to his sympathetic manner and their confidence in him quickly grew. Soon he was receiving patients from every class and walk of life, not just the aristocracy. However, it remained an unwritten rule in the family that words like Ice People, sorcerer or witchcraft should never be spoken in the company of the sick and suffering.

  Life continued happily for them all and in the autumn Silje took her husband to one side. ‘Tengel – if some fate should befall me ...’ she began hesitantly.

  ‘No!’ he interrupted. ‘Nothing can happen to you.’

  ‘No, no. I know,’ her voice softer this time. ‘But let us say that it did, then I should wish to know that my legacy is in safe hands.’

  He didn’t answer, but just looked at her in despair.

  ‘Would you care for the children, Tengel? All of them?’

  ‘You know full well that I would,’ he said in a tormented, choked voice.

  ‘But they would need a mother.’

  ‘I can care for them myself l’ he blurted out. Then, almost in an act of desperation, he reached out and threw his arms around her; pulling her tightly to him. ‘You know that I should never take another wife, Silje. I was alone for thirty-three years until I met you. And after you there can be no other.’

  She never doubted his sincerity Tengel was the sort of man who would only ever belong to one woman. There and then she decided not to voice her suggestion, knowing at once that it would have been impossible from the start. Furthermore she had to admit that she was quite happy with his answer.

  ****

  October had painted the groves of trees on the estate a burning gold that gleamed beneath azure blue skies. Returning home one day, amidst this beauty, from a rare visit to a patient – this one had been unavoidable because the person was too ill to leave their bed – Tengel was overcome with a sense of unease and he suddenly urged his horse on as fast as he dared.

  From a distance he saw Sol running towards him down the approach to the farm, the long track that would one day become an allée. When he saw her expression, his blood ran cold. ‘Father! Father!’ she yelled. ‘Hurry! Hurry please! Mama is very sick!’

  This was the first time he had ever heard Sol call him ‘father’ or Silje ‘mama’. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and she looked completely distraught.

  ‘Now?’
he called back. ‘Do you mean she is sick right now?’

  ‘Yes, please hurry.’

  He spurred the horse on. When he reached the yard, he saw a carriage and realised that Sol had been to fetch both the midwife and an old field surgeon whom they had asked to help when Silje’s time came. He jumped from the saddle and ran to the door. The midwife came onto the porch and stopped abruptly when she saw him approaching. She tried to hide some disturbingly dark red sheets in a corner and gasping, Tengel rushed past her to the bedchamber and threw open the door.

  As he stood there, for the first time in his life he knew how it felt to lose consciousness. He had vague impressions and noted odd details of the scene that confronted him: the field surgeon, a wrinkled, hardened old warrior who had seen service on most of Europe’s battlefields, but who had also brought children into the world; a woman, it must have been Charlotte, but he could not see her clearly; and blood, blood everywhere! From the corner came the sound of someone’s angry, abandoned, weak cries. And there on the pillow, Silje’s pale and lifeless face.

  There was something primitive, primeval even, about Tengel’s deep, choking sobs. Suddenly he was the man-beast once more, conscious only that he might be losing his mate, his woman, his life, his one and only happiness. ‘Silje!’ he howled, falling to his knees at her bedside.

  He took her unfeeling hand and pressed it to his cheek, letting his tears run over it. He did not look up, even when the midwife came back into the room. ‘We are doing the best we can, Master Tengel,’ she said softly.

  He managed to find his self-control and looked up at them. ‘Does she still live?’ he asked breathlessly.

  ‘We believe she does,’ the old surgeon answered. Tengel jumped to his feet. ‘I shall fetch my medicaments. Keep her alive a while longer! For God’s sake, keep her alive! And try to stop the bleeding.’