Witch-Hunt
Page 23
The boy was only too pleased to take both the charmed amulet and the coin. He promised, on the sanctity of his soul, to complete the errand and ran off at once.
Master Johan gave a tired sigh and walked away from the town in the opposite direction. He handed the basket of food and clothes to a poor beggar he found at the roadside, then left the road and set off across country towards the fjord. He stopped when he had reached the edge of a high precipice and looked down across the water. Directly beneath him the waves were breaking in a creamy foam over the rocks at the foot of the cliff. The pull of the depths – it was there waiting!
Johan said a prayer begging for God’s mercy on his tormented soul. Then he jumped off the cliff. It was quick and he didn’t feel much.
****
Young Klaus was also in prayer, on his knees in the procurator’s hayloft. He begged and begged, repeating over and over, ‘God, please help me, please help me! They will come for me! She will tell – she will surely tell someone – and they will come for me. Please God, hide me! I didn’t mean to do anything to her – I should have killed her then and there, God. Strangled her! Oh no, I don’t mean that – I couldn’t kill anyone, You know that Lord, not even a fly. Oh help me! What am I to do, now that my life is destroyed? I shall never know happiness again!’
Someone shouted for him and he jumped up with a yelp. ‘They’re coming for me – where can I hide? I know – a rope!
I’ll tie a rope round that beam and hang myself.’
At that moment, a voice from below shouted, ‘Have you given the mare more hay yet?’
Klaus breathed a sigh and felt his shoulders relax. Saved, this time at least. But what about the next time? Or the time after that? Or the next? He felt his life from now on would always be lived in terror.
****
Sol was dancing in the moonlight. She had woken about midnight and seen the moon shining with a cold golden glow. Stealthily she got out of the bed she shared with Liv and went out to the meadow. Dressed in her white shift with her hair hanging loose down her back, she resembled a beautiful nymph dancing over the flowers.
It was not the moonlight that appealed to her so much, but the shadows that it cast. At night in her world there were so many exciting things hiding in the depths of the forest – so many grotesque and wonderful creatures that might emerge and she had only to call for them. But she would not do that now – not yet. Not for a few years. She had made a promise. So instead she stood and stretched her arms up towards the blue-white light.
‘Forgive me, Hanna! You know that it is only for a time. A few short years. Then, when I am grown, I shall once more serve you and our own Master. I shall be skilled in our craft, Hanna, and then I shall meet Him – just as you did on your wild rides through the sky to his mountain. To the great Witches’ Sabbath.’
She laughed at the night and danced across the meadow again – then she stopped.
‘It doesn’t count of course, what I did with Master Johan,’ she murmured to the coldness of the moon. ‘You know I remember hearing Silje and Tengel whispering about how I once made a nasty boy cut himself with a knife. It didn’t surprise me at all, because I knew all the time that I could do such things. So that’s what I did with Master Johan. I forced my will on him and convinced him he was unhappy and overcome with mortal anguish. Not because I thought it was needed – he was already finished. He was so filled with regret and remorse as he was. But still it was not a bad thing to give him a little shove. I did nothing that was forbidden, did I Hanna? I used neither powder nor thorn. I just had the feeling that his presence on this earth was no longer required. Of course, you do understand?’
Then she resumed her rapturous dance, spinning around faster and faster, feeling as though she was floating above the sleeping, dew-covered flowers.
‘Life is so beautiful,’ she whispered. ‘And it won’t be very long now! Just a little while to wait.’
The Ice People - Previous Book
The Ice People 1 - Spellbound
Winter 1581: a deadly plague outbreak robs sixteen-year old peasant girl Silje of all her family. Homeless, starving and shepherding two foundling infants, she stumbles through the corpse-strewn streets of Trondheim on Norway’s northern coast.
Heading desperately for the warmth of the mass funeral pyres blazing beyond the city gates, she encounters in the shadowy forest one of the infamous Ice People, a fearsome, strangely captivating ‘wolf man’. He offers help -- and she feels irresistibly drawn to him. But what is the terrible fascination? And where will it lead?
Spellbound, the opening volume in The Legend of the Ice People, begins a journey that spans four centuries and interweaves romance and the supernatural in narratives that are passionate, earthy, often erotic and imbued above all else with a powerful narrative drive.
The Ice People - Next Book
The Ice People 3 - Daughter of Darkness
Autumn 1599: Sol Angelica, inheritor of the accursed Ice People’s supernatural powers, runs wild at last in Daughter of Darkness, the third book of The Legend of the Ice People series. Now a beautiful headstrong woman of twenty, who has patiently waited her time to come, she travels to the remote rural heart of Nordic witchcraft to seek guidance – and discover how the erotic and the satanic invariably intertwine
Snared by the intrigues of King Christians IV’s court in Copenhagen, Sol’s reputation as a feared witch spreads far and wide and she becomes a hunted fugitive. While on the run, she comes face to face with a arch enemy of the Ice People, who caused their massacre – and in the process is forced to confront her own deepest nature.
The Ice People - Overview
The Ice People 1 – Spellbound
The Ice People 2 – Witch-Hunt
The Ice People 3 – Daughter of Darkness
The Ice People 4 – Desire
The Ice People 5 – Mortal Sin
The Ice People 6 – Evil Legacy
The Ice People 7 – Nemesis
The Ice People 8 – The Executioner’s Daughter
The Ice People 9 – The Lonely One
The Ice People 10 – Winter Storm
The Ice People 11 – Blood Feud
The Ice People 12 – Fever in the Blood
The Ice People 13 – Footprints of Satan
The Ice People 14 – The Last Knight
The Ice People 15 – The Wind from the East
The Ice People 16 – The Mandrake
The Ice People 17 – The Garden of Death
The Ice People 18 – Behind the Facade
The Ice People 19 – Dragon’s Teeth
The Ice People 20 – Wings of the Raven
The Ice People 21 – Devils Canyon
The Ice People 22 – The Demon and the Maiden
The Ice People 23 – Rituals
The Ice People 24 – Deep in the ground
The Ice People 25 – The Angel
The Ice People 26 – The Secret
The Ice People 27 – The Scandal
The Ice People 28 – Ice and Fire
The Ice People 29 – Lucifer’s Love
The Ice People 30 – Brothers
The Ice People 31 – The Ferryman
The Ice People 32 – Hunger
The Ice People 33 – The Demon of the Nights
The Ice People 34 – The Woman on the Beach
The Ice People 35 – The Flute
The Ice People 36 – Magic Moon
The Ice People 37 – A Town in Fear
The Ice People 38 – Hidden Trails
The Ice People 39 – Silent Voices
The Ice People 40 – Imprisoned by time
The Ice People 41 – Demon Mountain
The Ice People 42 – The Calm Before the Storm
The Ice People 43 – A Glimpse of Tenderness
The Ice People 44 – An Evil Day
The Ice People 45 – The Legend
The Ice People 46 – The Black Water
The Ice People 47 – Is There Any
body Out There?
About Margit Sandemo
Margit Sandemo was born 1924 in Norway. She is the daughter of a Swedish noblewoman and a Norwegian poet. When Margit was six years old, her mother moved back to Sweden with the children. Throughout her childhood Margit grew up both in Norway and Sweden.
Just after World War II, she met the love of her life Asbjorn Sandemo, whom she married in 1946 and had three children together. Margit started writing at the age of 40, and in 1964 she sent her first novel to a publisher. This was, however, turned into a weekly series in a magazine. The big turning point in Margit’s writing career came in 1980 when her publisher suggested she would write a novel series, and in 1982 the first book in the Legend of the Ice People was published.
Margit’s husband Asbjorn died in 1999, Margit is dedicating the first English edition of the Legend of the Ice People to her late husband adding simply: ‘He made my life a fairy tale.’
Today Margit Sandemo is one of Scandinavia’s best-selling authors with a total circulation of 39 million books. Her flagship multi-volume fantasy-historical saga – The Legend of the Ice People – has made her something of a living legend because it alone has sold 25 million copies all over the world.