by Edith Pattou
I breathed a great sigh of relief when I found myself back at the stairs leading up to the kitchen. I ran up them, and headed directly to the weaving room. I found a large spool of pearly white wool and, taking it with me, ran back to the beginning of the maze.
I started again, and this time I laid down a trail of the wool thread behind me.
The farther I went, the colder and deader the air became. I came across more rooms filled with ancient, dusty artifacts, including a pile of rusting swords. In one room I spotted what appeared to be mounds of gold and treasure, topped by a gleaming crown studded with blood-red jewels.
It was like a puzzle, with dead ends, loops, and tunnels that branched out and then rejoined. There were countless times I had to backtrack, rewinding the thread and starting again. I began to worry there was no solution, that it was an infinite maze, with no beginning and no end.
I kept walking, and after a long while, I saw that the yarn was beginning to run out.
I had lost track of time. It had been hours, perhaps even an entire night. I thought of my horse, Ciuin, tethered outside the entrance of the castle, waiting for me. I was confident there were no predators out there, but she must be getting hungry.
The weight of the rock above me began to bear down, making my breath shallow, my legs leaden. I was also getting hungry.
Finally I realized that I must take a break. I sat down on the cold rock and got out a skin bag of water. I drank deeply.
It felt like I was in some underground city, and I was sure that somewhere down in the streets of this city was my white bear.
And then I heard it. The sound of a flauto.
At first I was sure I was imagining, or wishing, it. I listened closely. Yes, I could just barely hear it. I jumped to my feet and started walking again, with more energy. And the farther I went, the clearer it became.
I stopped abruptly, holding very still, listening. It was a melody I recognized, one that Charles sometimes played. A favorite from his childhood, he had said, though I didn’t remember the name. My heart started pounding.
I continued on through the maze of tunnels, listening, letting the sound guide me, continuing to unspool the thread as I went.
There was something odd about the flauto music. I couldn’t place it at first, but soon it dawned on me. The playing was rougher, somehow less polished than I was used to hearing from Charles. The notes were more tentative, as if the player was a beginner, unlike Charles, who was an accomplished flautist.
One set of turns seemed to be taking me farther away from the music, so I retraced my steps, rewinding the thread as I went back. I was in an agony of impatience, terrified that suddenly the music would vanish.
But finally I turned a corner and it seemed close at hand. I spotted a closed door, which was made of a dull gray metal. There was a key in the lock.
I laid my ear to the door and could clearly hear the sound of the flauto. I took a deep breath, my heart beating wildly.
I paused. This could be some kind of trap, I thought. Jaaloki’s words echoed in my mind.
She plays with you.
I swung my pack from my shoulder and drew my sword.
I took hold of the key and turned it. It moved smoothly in the lock and clicked. The music stopped.
Slowly I opened the door.
Mother
ARNE THOUGHT WE SHOULD BE MAKING some kind of written record of this time we were living through, but the thought of forming sentences, much less setting them down on paper, defeated all of us.
We were like shadows of ourselves, moving dreamlike through a landscape of unbearable horror and loss. Every day there was at least one new death, more often as many as ten or even more. And that many bodies to bury.
At first they would toll the bell at Nidaros Cathedral when someone died, but it became too frequent, and the mayor made the decision to silence the bell. I didn’t know which was worse, the constant dolorous sound of the bell or the silence.
We in Trondheim had been slow to realize what was happening, despite hearing rumors from sailors who had traveled to Anglia. It was after the death of Havamal’s wife that he in particular began to sound the alarm. As a historian, he was keenly aware of the lessons of such quickly spreading diseases in the past, like the Black Death that took so many lives nearly two hundred years ago.
The day we lost our son Willem’s wife, Annette, was only the latest in a series of losses. So many friends, so many neighbors had gone before her. Willem was undone but managed to stay strong for the sake of their children. Keeping them safe was the only thing that mattered to him after Annette died.
And then Sara’s two-year-old daughter, Lissa, fell ill.
I was there when Lissa first started showing symptoms. She complained of her head hurting and began shivering. We knew the next stage was a high fever followed by the sweating, like nothing any of us had ever seen.
Unlike other influenza epidemics, such as the one that carried off my own parents, the Sweating Sickness didn’t seem to target only the most vulnerable—the very young and the very old—but felled the strong among us just as rapidly.
The fear in Trondheim began to escalate. There were edicts by local officials to establish quarantine, to close the ports, to set a curfew. But there were many who were desperate or lawless and didn’t heed the rules.
I was most worried about Estelle and Winn, and did not allow them out of the house. I could see Estelle was frightened, but she was also a restless young girl, and she chafed at having to stay indoors all the time. She longed to be with Gudrun and the other children.
Even though I missed Rose and Neddy and Sib sorely and sometimes had the selfish wish that they were here to provide comfort and aid, overall I was grateful that they were far away and spared this devastation and horror. I prayed that wherever they were, they were safe.
Rose
I ENTERED. THE ROOM BEFORE ME was barely furnished, and I could see at once it was empty. The music, which had resumed, came from beyond it, and there was a door at the far end, standing ajar. A soft yellow light, and the notes of a flauto, streamed through. Softly I crossed to the second door and peered through the opening.
I saw him immediately. Charles. He was sitting on that old red couch I knew so well, and he was playing the flauto, his eyes closed in concentration.
My heart was flooded with joy. He was alive. My white bear was alive. And he looked well, uninjured. I took a step forward, but stopped. Something wasn’t right. At first I could not figure it out, and then I remembered. The music. The music wasn’t right.
This wasn’t the way my white bear played the flauto. I had heard it from a distance. The notes were hesitant, almost clumsy. I must have made a small noise, because Charles suddenly stopped playing. His eyes opened, and he saw me there in the doorway.
“Charles?” I said. And I took several steps toward him. I could see his face clearly. It was pale and thin, but it was his face, the face of my white bear.
Yet something else was wrong.
“Charles,” I said again, louder.
He was looking at me, straight in the eyes, and I was horrified to see nothing there. His expression was completely blank. There was no joy, no spark of recognition.
“Hello,” he said politely. He set his flauto on the couch beside him and stood. He gave a little formal bow, and said, “I was told someone would come for me.”
I stared at him, frozen. I didn’t understand. For a brief, terrifying moment I wondered if this was a troll shape-shifted to look like Charles. But his voice was my white bear’s voice.
“Charles!” I blurted out. “Do you not know me? I’m . . .” But I stopped. I could see in his face a look of deep panic, even terror.
He did not know me, and he was frightened. Had he sustained a head injury during the shipwreck? Was that what had happened? I could see no sign of a wound.
Or, I thought with a shudder, the Troll Queen has done this to him.
All at once I could not
breathe and there was a roaring in my ears. The room tilted and the sword fell from my hand, clattering onto the stone floor. I sank down, unable to stand. The snake venom, I thought. Or maybe it was shock.
Charles came and knelt beside me.
“Are you unwell?” he asked. His expression again was one of polite concern.
“I’m fine,” I said, my voice trembling slightly. “I was bitten by a snake, not very long ago. Sometimes it still affects me.”
“I am sorry,” said Charles. “I will bring you water. There is wine too,” he added, gesturing to a table at the side of the room. It had dishes and goblets and a large pitcher. There was a good deal of food there, as well, bowls of fruit, loaves of bread.
“Wine please,” I whispered.
Charles rose and crossed to the table. He poured wine from the pitcher into a goblet and brought it over to me.
I drank. It was a rich, red wine. It cleared my head a little, and I sat up straighter.
“Thank you,” I said, then blurted out, “What is your name?”
“I am Charles,” he said. “The son of Charles VI of Fransk.”
My eyes widened. “King Charles?”
“Yes.”
“And how did you come to be here?” I asked.
Charles’s face clouded. “I . . . I don’t know. I woke up here. On that couch. I have been here some time. I lost count, but many weeks. Food is brought, but only when I am sleeping.”
His voice sounded young, and it trembled slightly, as if he was trying to hide the fear I had seen in his face.
“Who told you someone would come for you?” I asked.
“A man. I only saw him once, at the beginning. He was like a skeleton with hard gray skin. I didn’t like him.”
I drank more from the goblet, trying to keep my breathing slow.
“He gave me the flauto, too. At least I saw him put it on the table in its bag. I was just beginning to learn to play back at the palace.” His voice cracked slightly. “It has helped pass the time.”
Still holding the goblet, I got to my feet.
“Perhaps you can help me,” Charles said. “My thoughts are confused. I cannot remember things. The last I do remember is being home, outside the castle, playing a game with friends, but I lost the ball and . . .” He trailed off.
“That is the last I can remember. Playing with a red ball, with other children. But it is the oddest thing.” He gestured at his body. “I can see that I am not a boy.”
I let out a muffled cry. Playing with a ball. A red ball.
This man who stood before me, my Charles, my white bear, had the mind and the memory of a nine-year-old boy, Prince of Fransk, 153 years ago.
Troll Queen
I HAVE CHANGED, AND NOT JUST BECAUSE of the scars on my body, those whorls and ridges caused by the burning heat of the sun’s power, which I unleashed back when all was lost. Back when the magnificent wedding I had planned to my Myk was ruined. Back when my ice palace splintered and fell. And all because of the softskin girl.
There is one scar that is vast, a long, deep crevice on the right side of my face.
I could have filled it using my arts, returned my appearance to the way it was before, but I chose not to because I wanted the proof of what was done to me. Every time I look in the mirror, or run my finger along the valley in my skin, I am reminded. And I want to be reminded. For it hardens me, each time, a little more.
My skin, too, is harder and stiffer even than before. And when I think back on the lengths to which I once went, the complicated spells I wove to try to soften my skin, I think what a foolish, wasted, blighted misuse of my arts it was. That I did so, that I was reduced to such contemptible behavior, of trying to look like a softskin, kindles the heated rage-wave inside me.
But I am getting better at controlling the rage-wave. I need to control it, focus it.
When I first crawled out of the rubble of my ice palace and Urda was tending to me, the rage-wave was unbridled. I wanted nothing more than to blast everything and everyone into oblivion. But my arts had been damaged. I needed time to heal, with help from Urda and Jaaloki.
I am glad of the hardness in me now, inside and out.
For now I can remember the boy with the red ball, with his melting soft smile. And it no longer affects me. He no longer matters. It is the bairn, and my revenge, and Aagnorak. They are what matter now.
Aagnorak will come. And from the ashes I will rule all.
Neddy
WHEN SIB AND I ARRIVED IN TRONDHEIM, the streets were deserted. The air was heavy and hot. We could smell smoke and an underlying odor of rot and decay. Sib suggested we put on our muslin masks. I saw an occasional flutter of a curtain being lifted and a neighbor’s eyes staring out at us, but no one came out to greet us. I think to steady me, Sib reviewed the precautions we would be taking once we got home. I had an overwhelming feeling of dread as we approached the house.
The door opened, and there stood Mother. She looked exhausted, ravaged. When her eyes lit on us, I could see the different emotions go through her. Happiness that we were there in front of her, but also horror, fear that we were walking into danger.
Sib stepped forward. She hugged Mother to her and said simply, “We are here to help.”
First we made sure Winn was safe and well, and then we set to work. Over the next few hours, Sib took charge of the household. She had Mother gather herbs and cook them up on the hearth for a healing concoction. Father was sent to the well to pump buckets full of water, and Estelle was given the task of handing out muslin face coverings to everyone. Sib also taught her how to make more of them so we’d have some in reserve.
Sib instructed everyone on the importance of thoroughly washing hands after being in contact with anyone who had the sickness. She even produced the soap we were all to use, a strong concoction made of lye distilled from the ashes of the barilla plant, as well as animal fat and goat’s milk.
Sib, Sara, and I tended to Sara’s daughter Lissa, who was dangerously ill.
As we worked, Mother brought us up to date on what had been going on in Trondheim, the death toll so far, the panic and fear, the curfews. She also told us how Willem was coping with the loss of his wife. Everyone was terrified of what might happen next.
Sib and I exchanged a grim look. Things were even darker than we could have imagined.
Rose
PULLING MYSELF TOGETHER, I turned to my husband. “I have come here to take you on a journey,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as I could.
He nodded. “I will be happy to leave here,” he said. “Do you think I might take the flauto with me?”
“Yes,” I said. “And we should pack as much food as we can.” My provisions had been running low, and it would have been a shame for all the food to go to waste.
“What is your name, if I may ask?” Charles said to me suddenly.
I froze, caught off guard. I felt tears start in my eyes, and I blinked them away angrily.
“My name is . . .” I paused, my head spinning.
Names are odd things, I thought. Charles had desperately needed to know his, after he was no longer a white bear. I had been given a name that was a lie, Ebba Rose, though my father had secretly called me Nyamh in his heart. The name we had given our bairn, Winn, felt like a temporary one, since Charles and I hadn’t been able to make up our minds. What name would I tell my white bear who was not my white bear?
“Nyamh,” I said impulsively.
“Well met, Lady Nyamh,” Charles said, with his princely bow.
I laughed harshly. “No, not a lady. Just Nyamh,” I said.
He nodded and went to gather up his flauto, placing it in a velvet pouch.
I stowed as much of the food as I could in my pack. I filled one of my skin bags with wine and another with water.
Why had I told Charles my name was Nyamh? I knew it was partly because I couldn’t bear to hear him say Rose in that distant, polite voice. But perhaps it was also because I thought it m
ight help me with what lay ahead, to think of myself as Nyamh, the wild north name Father had originally chosen for me.
For just a moment, I thought about telling Charles everything, that I was Rose, his wife. That we loved each other, that we had a son together. But then I glanced over at him. He was sitting on the red couch watching me, looking lost and young. And all at once I became convinced that if I were to tell this man who believed he was a boy that I was his wife, the panicky, wild-eyed look I had seen before in his eyes would explode into a madness from which there may not be a way back. For now I must keep the truth a secret and find a way to help Charles regain his memory.
When I had packed all I could carry, I gestured to him and we left the room. I looked back once, at the red couch.
The Troll Queen. She had orchestrated this, all of it.
My white bear was gone, but not gone. In some ways it was worse than if he were dead. Here but not here. I shook my head savagely. No. I could not give in to despair. Where there was life, there was also hope.
White Bear
I WALKED BEHIND THE LADY, marveling at the sure way she followed the white thread. She must have laid it down to guide her back through all these twists and turns. She had come to find me.
I didn’t know why, but I trusted her. She wasn’t like the skeleton man.
It frightened me to think about all that I did not know or remember. When did I grow into a man’s body? How had I come to be in this place, and why?
When I first woke up on the red couch, I was terrified.
I did not know who I was. Or where I was. I couldn’t remember anything. And panic had filled me. The place was damp and cool. Was I in some kind of prison? Had I been stolen by some enemy of my father?
Then I realized I had remembered something. I had a father. Who was I? My head hurt. Tears threatened to come, but I wouldn’t let them. Someone had told me once that a prince did not cry.
