“Well, and who’s nosy now?” The lass put her other foot in bed and gave the wolf an arch look.
“Just tell me,” Rollo pleaded, embarrassed.
“Well, from what I can tell it’s the story of a princess who lived in a palace and dreamed of finding a handsome man who would love her. But the man, or it might be men, she found insulted her, and she was very sad. Or maybe it was bitter.” The lass drew up her knees under the comforter and wrapped her arms around them.
“Humph” was Rollo’s comment. “That’s not that interesting. Humans are always doing things like that.”
“Who said they were humans?” The lass raised one eyebrow at him.
“What are they then?”
“I don’t know what the princess was; it just says that she’s a princess. But all the other symbols for people have a mark underneath that Hans Peter told me meant, well, people. It says that she’s looking for a handsome man. Very clearly. But on the pillars there are stories about warriors and princes and ladies, and there are different marks underneath, which I think mean they are different creatures. Like Erasmus and the rest of the servants.”
“What are the other stories about?”
“Well, there’s one about the beautiful princess seeing some maidens in a forest. I’m not sure, but I don’t think they’re human. The princess speaks to them and they run away, screaming. Except for one, who taunts the princess. The cruel maiden is stricken dead, and her betrothed attacks the princess. She has mercy on him, however, and takes him to live in her palace so that he can learn what goodness and beauty really are.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“It does?” The lass gave Rollo a surprised look.
Rollo nodded. “First of all, why did the maidens run when the princess appeared? What did she do that scared them?”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“Sounds to me like this princess isn’t all that beautiful, if all her lovers betray her and other females run screaming when she appears.”
“Well, maybe it’s just like when I saw the servants today. They’re all very strange, you know, but once you get over the shock, they are quite striking in their different ways.”
“Maybe,” Rollo said, but he sounded doubtful. “But then I don’t think what the princess did next was very nice, either.”
“Taking the betrothed to live with her?”
“To teach him a lesson, you said. His lover just died, and this strange princess whatever-she-is takes him away from his home to her palace to be her slave.”
“I never said he was her slave, just that—”
There was a crash from the doorway of her bedchamber. Rollo leaped to his feet and the lass shrieked before she saw that it was Erasmus. He was staring at her in shock, and at his cloven hooves was a dented tray and a broken mug. Hot chocolate was seeping into the rug.
“Erasmus, are you all right?” The lass hopped out of bed and hurried over to the faun.
“Who—where—how—do you know that story?” he gasped.
The lass was temporarily offended by the thought that Erasmus had been eavesdropping on her. “Why?”
“I—n-no reason,” he stuttered. “It sounded . . . familiar.”
“I read it off one of the pillars in the great hall,” she said, her mood softening. Erasmus looked gray with shock.
“You can read the—the language of the tr—of the pillars?” He stared at her in a mixture of awe and fear.
“Yes, my brother taught me,” she said, taken aback by his reaction.
“Your brother?” The faun looked openly astonished now.
“My eldest brother, Hans Peter,” she clarified, though it seemed silly, as the faun didn’t know her brothers’ names, or indeed that she had any.
“Hans Peter Jarlson?” The faun’s voice was barely a whisper.
The lass grabbed Erasmus’s slender shoulders. “How do you know him?”
Erasmus slipped from her grasp. “A terrible mistake has been made. She will be so angry.” His face was white and tight with fear.
“Who will?”
The faun shuddered. “I hope you never know.” His voice was bleak. “I will send Fiona to clean up.” He scurried away.
Fiona entered a few minutes later. The lass had stacked the pieces of the broken mug on the tray and set it on a side table.
The selkie used wet towels to blot the stain and carried away the tray of broken china without saying a word. The lass had started to make several comments, but Fiona’s grim expression caused the words to die in her throat.
When her bedfellow came in at midnight, the lass was still awake. Annoyed, she hopped out of bed as soon as he got in. She tripped over her slippers, struck her arm on the divan, and shouted in anger.
“I am not in the mood for you,” she said between gritted teeth. “One of us is going to sleep on the divan.” She waited, but there was no answer. Of course. “Fine then, I will,” she snapped. She yanked the white bearskin off the bed, dragged it over her shoulders, and lay down.
Her visitor didn’t even wait until she had gotten comfortable before he got out of bed, picked her up, and tucked her in on her side of the bed. She tried to jump back out, but he pinned her down. When she finally relaxed, he let go and went to his side of the bed.
“If this is part of the enchantment, it’s a very stupid part,” she griped. But, tired and wanting to think over all that she had seen that day, she stayed in the bed. Her bedfellow heaved a sigh that reminded her of Rollo and went to sleep.
The lass was awake until nearly dawn, thinking about princesses who made people run screaming from them, and the expression on Erasmus’s face when he had heard the story.
And the fact that Hans Peter had most certainly been a guest in the palace of ice.
Chapter 13
The next morning, feeling irritable and out of sorts, the lass leaned over to pummel her bedfellow’s pillow. Her irritation vanished as she spied a dark hair on the pillowcase. She fingered it, but it felt exactly like one of her own. Finally she coiled it around one finger and put it in the wooden box with her stash of lace and pearls.
She did not see Erasmus all that day. Instead, Fiona served luncheon and dinner and brought the lass her nighttime cup of cocoa. The next day it was the same: no Erasmus, but the sullen selkie instead. The isbjørn was now ignoring her questions about both the carvings in the ice pillars and Erasmus’s whereabouts. She felt like she was being punished for something, but she didn’t know what. What did it matter how many questions she asked? Especially if no one answered them.
It was almost a week before she saw the faun again. Walking through the great hall, she came upon him standing with his nose just inches from one of the pillars, hands behind his back. He rocked back and forth on his black hooves, and the lass deliberately scuffed her kid slippers on a rug to announce herself.
“Oh!” The faun whirled around. “My lady!”
“Where were you?”
“N-nowhere.”
“Well, I’m glad that you’re talking to me, now that you’re back,” the lass said. “I’m sorry if I upset you before.”
“It is not your fault, my lady,” the faun said, edging away from the pillar.
Realizing that he couldn’t read the language inscribed upon it, the lass pointed to another pillar. “That’s the one,” she said quietly.
“Oh.” Erasmus glanced at it, licking his lips. He looked over his shoulder, and then past the lass, but there was no one else to be seen. Rollo had gone for his morning “constitutional.”
The lass walked over to the pillar in question, and after a moment’s hesitation Erasmus joined her, his hooves clicking loudly on the ice floor. She read the story out loud, pointing to each symbol with her finger.
“I don’t know what this means, but I know that the sign above it means that they were young females,” she said.
“Faun,” he breathed. “That must be the sign for faun in . . . this language.”
“Then do you know what this is?” She pointed to the symbol that was under the sign for princess. “I know that this”—she traced the “princess” symbol—“means ‘princess.’”
“I can guess.”
“What is it?”
The faun paused, his face white. “Troll.” He breathed the word into the still air, not looking at the lass, but staring at the symbol her finger touched as though it were poisonous.
The lass didn’t know what to say. “I thought that trolls were all ugly,” she said finally. “But I suppose that even troll princesses are beautiful.”
The faun only shuddered.
A thought struck the lass and she felt her stomach drop into her slippers. “Troll magic built this palace, didn’t it? It’s a troll’s enchantment that holds the isbjørn here.”
Another shudder. “I’ve said too much,” Erasmus said, real fear in his voice. “I must go.” He clattered away.
“No, wait! Please? Tell me more!” But as fast as the lass ran, he was faster, and he only shook his head without looking around.
When he reached the door that led down to the kitchens, he started down the steps but then stopped and half turned. The lass stopped as well, a few paces away, one hand outstretched in apology or pleading, she wasn’t sure which.
“The name of the faun maiden,” Erasmus said suddenly, his voice strangled. “The one who defied the troll princess and died because of her wicked tongue.”
The lass had to lick her lips to make any word come out. “Yes?”
“It was ‘Narella.’ In our language, it means ‘bright one.’ “ And then he hurried down the dark stairway to the servants’ domain.
“Narella,” the girl said. It was a beautiful name. She had a natural envy of beautiful women’s names, having gone so long without one of her own. She stilled the envy by thinking of the name bequeathed by the white reindeer, which to her was the most beautiful name of all. She stilled it, too, by thinking that the faun maiden, Narella, was dead.
“The white reindeer,” she breathed. “The white reindeer,” she repeated, louder this time. She smacked the side of her head, feeling like a fool. So many years had passed, and so much had happened since then, that she had forgotten what she had first asked the reindeer for: a cure for Hans Peter. And the reindeer, upon seeing the embroidery on the white parka, had drawn back and said that Hans Peter was troll-cursed. “I should have put these things together long ago,” she muttered to herself, feeling both foolish and frightened now.
Subdued, she went back to her apartments, where Rollo lay in his usual position before the fire. His middle was noticeably thicker from the rich steaks and sweets he had been eating and he barely stirred when she entered. She sat in a chair by the fire and put her slippered feet on his rib cage.
“Narella,” she said.
“God bless you,” he replied.
She rubbed her feet in his fur in irritation. “I’ve just been talking with Erasmus. You remember the story of the maidens who were frolicking, and then the princess discovered them and they fled? The one who didn’t run, the defiant one, was named Narella. She was a faun.” The lass took a deep breath. “And her betrothed was named Erasmus. Our Erasmus is the person being taught goodness and beauty.”
Rollo rolled out from under her feet and sat up. “Did he tell you this?”
“No. And yes. I found him looking at the pillars, and I showed him the right one, and he said that the symbol I couldn’t figure out, beneath the symbol for maiden, means faun. Then I asked him what the symbol under the one for princess meant.”
“What does it mean?” Rollo’s ears were pricked forward, and he was leaning in close to her, his chest pressed against her knees.
“Troll.” Saying it again made her shiver.
It was nothing compared to the shudder that racked Rollo, raising his hackles and curling his lips over his white teeth. “Then that rotten smell is the smell of troll,” he said.
He went into the bedchamber. The lass, following, saw him go through the chamber and into her dressing room. He stood in the middle of the rug there, looking at her.
“What are you doing?” She stopped in the doorway, putting one hand on the frame. She felt tired, drained, and sick. Troll magic.
“Put on your old things.” The wolf’s voice was tense. “We’re leaving.”
“We can’t.”
“Nobody said anything about having to live in a troll’s lair.” Every muscle in Rollo’s body was tense.
“Rollo, I gave my word that I would stay here for one year. It’s only been two months.”
“And the bear promised that you would not be harmed.”
“But I haven’t been. We’re perfectly safe.”
“It’s not safe. How could it be safe? Trolls! Trolls!” He paced nervously. “Erasmus is trapped here, the isbjørn is trapped here, Erasmus’s female was killed—we need to get out!”
“I can’t. I’ve given my word!” She clung to the slick doorway. Rollo’s fear fueled her own and her knees turned to water. She thought she might be sick. This was a troll’s house.
“We were tricked! A promise given to a liar is no promise,” Rollo argued.
“But he didn’t lie. He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t; he’s trapped too! We have to help him!”
“Why? What is he to you?”
“Nothing . . . no! He’s my friend, and yours,” she said. “I won’t leave the isbjørn here to suffer under this enchantment. And if I can help him, I can help Hans Peter.” She felt a strange stirring in her breast, though, and suddenly knew that even if it weren’t for Hans Peter, she would not leave the isbjørn.
Rollo whined and pawed at the door of the wardrobe where his mistress kept her old clothes. “I don’t like this. I think we should go.”
The lass’s attention went to the wardrobe. Everything else faded away. The wardrobe. Her old clothes. The white reindeer’s words. Hans Peter’s coat.
“The troll language,” she blurted out.
Rollo stopped midwhine. “What?”
“The embroidery on Hans Peter’s coat is in the troll language,” she said, racing over to the wardrobe and ripping open the doors.
Pulling out the white parka, she sank to the floor with it. The bands of embroidery glared at her, the whorls and spikes at last taking on meaning before her eyes. The symbols here were more jagged, and more menacing, than those she had seen carved, and embroidery was harder to decipher than carving. She looked over her shoulder, certain that she was being watched, but there was only Rollo, whining and pacing.
The blue ribbons, embroidered with white, told a story about love, and loss, and a strange place “beyond the moon.” The red ribbons, also embroidered with white, told a similar story of love and loss, but this one was full of betrayal and anger. For the first time she noticed that the blue ribbons overlapped the red, obscuring some of the symbols, and that they seemed to have been embroidered by two very different hands. The blue bands were marked with small and skillful stitches; the red were larger, coarser, and yet more forceful in their execution.
“What does it say?” Rollo crowded in close, nudging the parka with his nose.
“It says that the wearer lived here, in the palace of ice,” the lass choked out. “No, he . . . must . . . live here. One year, and one day, with a maiden as a . . . bride . . . who never sees his face.”
“Like the isbjørn,” Rollo butted in, “except you are the wrong species to be his bride.”
“Also I’ve seen his face,” she pointed out absently, still reading. “That’s what the red parts say. They say that he will be betrayed, and then he must go to the princess and . . . love her always,” she finished in a rush.
“The troll princess?”
“Yes,” the lass said. “That awful troll princess again. I agree with you: she is not a good person.”
“She’s not a person at all, she’s a troll,” the wolf said, as if that settled the matter.
For
the lass it did. This poor, misunderstood princess who was only looking for love, according to the stories, was really a hideous creature trapping innocents with her magic. She had enslaved Hans Peter, but he had somehow escaped. Or had he?
“There is still some trollish curse on Hans Peter,” the lass said. “That is why he is still so unhappy. And why his hair is turning white when he is still so young.”
“You won’t let us leave until you break this enchantment, will you?” He groaned. “We’ll never get home!”
“What makes you think that I can’t?”
“Because it’s a troll. You can’t fight a troll. I can’t fight a troll. No one can, and live.” He shuddered and shook himself. “Look at the carvings all around this palace. It’s nothing but stories of creatures who have been killed or enslaved by this troll.”
“Well, perhaps they didn’t know what they were facing. But we do,” the lass said, feeling rather insulted. If Rollo didn’t believe in her, who did?
“Gaaah,” Rollo said. Then he changed the subject. “What does the blue part say?” He nosed the parka.
“Oh, yes.” The lass frowned down on it. “It’s not as articulate as the red. It says ‘love you always, miss you always’ and then something about running, night and day, leaving the place of sun and moon, of ice and snow. ‘Never look back, never forget.’ “
Chapter 14
The lass was so caught up in trying to read the story from the parka that she didn’t notice the time passing. Just like when she had deciphered the pillars in the great hall, she worked through luncheon and tea, poring over the markings. When she grew frustrated with the way the blue bands crossed over the red, she took out her little sewing scissors and delicately snipped the threads that held the blue ribbons in place. Carefully lifting up the loosened blue ribbons, the dire message of the red grew all the more clear.
“There’s something strange here,” she told Rollo. “I don’t quite understand it. Something about trapping him without chains, making him beautiful and terrible where before he was only beautiful. I can’t figure it out.”
Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow Page 9
