“There’s nobody capable of so much as you, Liv,” said Charlotte. “You’re the perfect housewife; you’re artistic and very intelligent. You’re also very good with figures.”
“And you’re filled with unending love for all living creatures,” said Tengel. “You’re always such a ray of sunshine! We’re the ones who drove you into that awful marriage, Liv. Can you ever forgive us?”
Liv gazed at them with an unhappy, almost desperate look in her eyes.
“You can say whatever you want to,” she said in a tense voice. “I can’t ever marry again!”
Dag was saddened to hear this. “Don’t you want me at all, Liv? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
Because she’d been pushed too far, Liv began to sob uncontrollably.
“There’s nothing ... nothing in the world ... I’d rather do. But he destroyed me. He destroyed ... everything for me!”
Dag pulled her gently towards him. “Come, Liv!” he said gently. “Everything will fall into place in the end. Turning to the others, he said quietly: “I’ll take Liv with me for a little walk. We need to talk to each other in private.”
They all nodded in agreement, giving them both a warm smile as they rose to leave.
Liv and Dag went into the next room. When they were alone, Dag said: “Sol told me what Laurents had done to you. The way he’d crushed your desire for physical love. I accept that, Liv. I understand that you’ll resist your feelings – or just be completely passive.”
“But that wouldn’t be fair to you, Dag.”
He gave her a tender smile.
“Let’s just say that it’ll be a challenge. You see, I know how much warmth – fire even – there is within you. Give me a chance, Liv, for me to set it free again – even if it takes many years.”
She laughed, sniffing back her tears, pressing her forehead against his cheek. “I can’t bear to be alone with my thoughts any longer. I so desperately need to be close to you, more than I can put into words.”
“This is exactly what everyone has been trying to get into your head for a long time.”
“But how can I allow myself to be so selfish! What if I’m never again as I was?”
“Liv, please listen to me,” Dag said in a serious tone of voice. “Please, just listen ...”
At that moment Silje was in the parlour, sighing loudly and shaking her head in confusion. “I’m so worried,” she said. “Both our girls are faced with big problems. It’s awful when we can’t help them more.”
Are took a deep breath, then suddenly stood up and announced: “Tomorrow I’ll ride to Oslo and try to find Sol.”
“No, Are. You mustn’t go,” said Tengel. “We need you here on the farm. I was about to say that I’ll go.”
At that moment Dag and Liv returned to the parlour, walking hand in hand. Everybody turned to look at them with expectant expressions. For a moment there was a hush in the room.
“We’ll give it a try!” said Dag. “We’ll do our very best!”
Liv said nothing, but she was no longer staring hopeless at the floor, and they could all detect a faint glimmer of hope in her eyes that made them all so very happy.
***
Tengel travelled to Oslo as he’d promised. He looked everywhere but couldn’t find any trace of Sol – at least not until he happened to hear somebody speak about the ‘cat-eyed witch who’d escaped from her final journey to the stake.’
When he heard this, Tengel was seized by feelings of panic, but he was too scared to ask too many questions. It would seem that the witch had managed to escape and had disappeared from the surface of the earth. That was enough of an answer for him. It wasn’t much to go on, but the person referred to might have been Sol. Although Tengel was deeply worried, he paused in a quiet part of Oslo and silently prayed for Sol with all his heart.
Then he rode back home where he knew he would face all the other worries that were waiting there. First and foremost, it was Dag who had problems – with the lumber business. He was bitterly disappointed by everybody and everything. He’d started with the best of intentions, improving the work conditions of his workers and the peasants who came to sell their timber. So what exactly had happened?
Other peasants had heard of his new steps, his business and his honesty and so they came to him because they wanted to sell their timber at a decent price. But Dag couldn’t buy more because he had more timber than he needed, and so in the end the peasants were forced to sell again to their usual sawmills, the owners of which were angry at Dag. The Timber Guild condemned Dag. Labourers queued to be given a job by Dag, and the authorities wouldn’t listen to Dag’s criticism of the high taxes.
So in a very short time, young Dag had learned swiftly and painfully that it isn’t always easy to do something for the underdogs in society.
On Linden Avenue, the faithful Meta followed Are everywhere like a loyal dog. She was there all through fall, plowing, helping with the calving and raking up leaves with him in the yard as eagerly as though the leaves were of pure gold.
Are often sighed at her exaggerated eagerness to help, but he never scolded her any more.
***
Sol found it amusing to live in Klaus’s primitive little cottage – for a short while. They had very little in common except at night. Sol also enjoyed tidying all the rubbish and making it cozy for Klaus. Every day he went out fishing or picking frozen cowberries. They didn’t have much to live on but they managed.
Of course, Sol knew that this couldn’t last. Klaus was happy right now but soon remorse and concern for the future would hit him. And Sol wasn’t the world’s most patient person! The old restlessness would no doubt begin to haunt her before long. Actually, she’d already had enough of Klaus – he had nothing more to give her.
There was something else that had begun to worry her. The first time she’d seen Klaus naked, she’d been shocked to see his body covered in scars. They bore terrible witness to the many cuts and blows that the poor boy had received since leaving Charlotte’s Graastensholm. The worst was a nasty, festering sore across his buttocks and one thigh where the flesh had become inflamed and swollen. Klaus said that the scars came largely from a whipping he’d been given for giving a sick horse too much fodder. After that he’d been forced to strip off and take his punishment in the most humiliating way. It didn’t count at all that the extra fodder had actually helped the horse recover – there was to be no waste in those stables!
Sol cleaned and dressed his wound as best she could, but the infection had gone deep and the wound oozed fresh yellow pus all the time. What’s more, the small supply of medicines from her bag was almost all gone.
When Klaus awoke one morning, he found that he was unable to get up. He had a high fever and his leg was so badly swollen that he couldn’t bend it. Sol gave him a real witch’s brew, using nearly all the ingredients she had left. It helped for a few hours but didn’t cure the problem.
Then came the snow.
One morning, when she stepped outside, the ground was so white that she was quite blinded for a few moments. They’d eaten the last of the food two days earlier and she’d thought of leaving Klaus on his own for a while to go fishing in the small lake. But that was impossible now.
Klaus was practically unconscious inside the hut.
Sol stood looking down at him for a long time, deep in thought.
She still had the means to end his suffering and his wretched life. He meant nothing to her any more – and had been nothing more than a bedfellow.
Even in bed he didn’t really mean anything to her because she knew there was only one who could awaken her lust, but she had to admit Klaus had been quite amusing while it lasted. He was wild and powerfully built – and in love with her. That had been sufficient for Sol for a while.
But he was still only a vulnerable innocent soul on this miserable earth.
She lifted her head and looked around the cottage, which was little more than four walls and a roof. Then memories of
the man from the inn flooded into her mind again. Why didn’t he come to find her? No, she thought, he couldn’t know that she was trapped here in this wilderness. He was probably waiting impatiently for her somewhere.
But if he really was the Prince of Darkness and had come to visit her, he was bound to know where she was. That was obvious.
So why didn’t he come?
Sol got a haunted look in her eyes and then she collected her thoughts. What was she doing here with this miserable Klaus? Why wasn’t she out in the world? She took her small leather bag of herbs, thoughtfully shifting her glance from the bag with its mystical objects and poor Klaus, who was moaning with pain. Should she end his suffering? She asked herself the question very calmly as her gaze moved slowly back and forth from her leather bag to him.
***
She made up her mind and shortly afterwards she was on her way down the mountain, moving resolutely toward a place where there was habitation.
She wasn’t alone.
The path was almost vertical and the few trees that grew there were clinging to the rocks with knotted roots.
Unable to find a proper sledge, she’d turned one of her benches from the hut upside down and placed Klaus between its upturned legs. Now she was pulling Klaus and the crude sledge slowly down the steep path.
She hadn’t given him anything that could speed up his death. It wasn’t necessary. At any rate, it seemed to move in that direction. She just felt that she couldn’t leave him alone up there and if this was to be his final journey, he was at least to have a Christian burial. She knew that he had a strong faith in God. She wasn’t yet sure that this would be his final journey, but he looked awful. The blood poisoning had spread throughout his whole body, though his young face was still smooth and handsome. The dumb sheepish expression had changed and his skin had taken on an immaculate, almost angelic colour and this reminded Sol of a quotation from the Bible:
“Blessed are the meek for they shall see God,” or something along those lines. The Bible had never been one of her strong points.
Now she had only one thing on her mind, which was to bring Klaus to Tengel before it was too late. Not only did Tengel have the most powerful remedies, her own basic store of potions was there at Linden Avenue.
Just thinking the name Linden Avenue gave her a pang of sorrow. Why had she never been able to relax there? What was it in her that drove her further and further away? And now she’d never be able to live there again – she’d lost that right in order that her family might live in peace.
Sol fought and tugged at the makeshift sledge as she tried to get it down the path without hitting trees or running off the track into the void below. She dug her heels in and slithered long stretches, holding on to its sides for dear life. She cursed when it almost collided with a stone and turned over. All the while she was worried that Klaus was being thrown around so much.
Then at one critical point things went badly wrong. The bench rolled over and Klaus was tipped out, ending face down in the snow. Sol struggled to lift him, but eventually got him back onto the sledge
The journey continued, sometimes an inch at a time, sometimes quite swiftly, so that she almost couldn’t keep up with the makeshift sledge herself. At one point, she sat up on the bench with Klaus in her arms. The snow sprayed back into her face and it ended badly when they both landed in the snow, and she had to begin the difficult task of putting him back in his place once more. While Sol did all this, Klaus was deeply unconscious – maybe already dead.
‘You’re having a grim journey to your final resting place,’ she thought as she settled him properly. She’d already lost track of the path and was now just heading in a general downhill direction.
And then the inevitable happened – a giant slope loomed before them.
She would probably be able to climb down, crawling hand over hand, clinging to roots and rock, but what about the sledge?
She stood for a while, considering her options.
“Oh, well! It’s kill or cure. At least he’ll get down,” she mumbled quietly to herself. Then she gave the bench a gentle push and it began to slide downward on its own over the ice and snow.
So long as it remains the right way up, maybe we’ll be fine, she thought. But what if it turns on its side ...?
The old bench flew down. She stood and watched it slithering down this way and that, tipping and righting itself by turns. Without realising it, Sol’s fingernails were biting into the palms of her hands and her teeth were clenched.
“Stay where you are,” she begged Klaus. “Stay still or you’ll roll into the snow and I mightn’t be able to reach you.”
Then he fell out – but by then he was on more level ground where she could get to him. The bench continued careering down a long way until it finally came to rest against a tree on flat ground.
“Hooray!” yelled Sol at the top of her voice, waving her arms in triumph. “We made it Klaus!”
***
Sol trudged the valley at dusk on her way to Linden Avenue where she hadn’t been for so long. She knew she couldn’t make it today and it looked as if it was going to be a very cold night. She’d brought with her a rope to pull the ‘sledge’ but since it was old and become tender, it had snapped many times during the trip. It was now as short as it could be and consisted mostly of knots.
So at times she’d been forced to push from behind. She was exhausted and it didn’t make things any easier that she hadn’t had food for several days.
Klaus hadn’t moved at all. She’d wrapped him up well and couldn’t see his face – and she didn’t want to see it either! After making sure that he was securely positioned between the upturned legs of the bench, Sol straightened up and looked about her. She was relieved when she realised that she knew where she was.
She stood there for a long time. If she and Klaus were to survive, they needed to find shelter for the night – and soon. But would anyone welcome them? How far had the rumours of the witch with the yellow cat’s eyes travelled now?
She could be making a fatal mistake.
Then a twinkle came to her eyes. There was one man she knew who would probably give them shelter for the night – and not let her down. Or would he? Did she dare? Wouldn’t she be walking right into the wolf’s lair?
Sol shuddered at the thought. She knew where he lived, the man that nobody spoke to, the man that everybody avoided, the man without a friend – and by now it wasn’t far to his place.
He’d come to Linden Avenue one evening and stood in the shadows, waiting until all Tengel’s patients had been given their potions and left the farm. Then he appeared, dark and awful to watch, still dressed in his ‘official’ leather hood – he was the local executioner.
He had injured his hand and Tengel and Sol had tended to the wound, asking him to come back the following night. He came the next night – and the next. Each time he’d sat watching Sol with a burning gaze while she dressed the hand. When she lifted her eyes to look at him, he’d turned his face away quickly, knowing only too well that nobody wanted to have anything to do with him. After that he never came back again.
The executioner – surely he, of all people, would report her to the authorities? Wasn’t she his prey, after all?
Sol didn’t think that he’d report her. She believed that she could handle him. Heaving a deep sigh, she took hold of the legs of the upturned bench and set off once more.
Chapter 13
Sol found the executioner’s hut without too much difficulty. It was situated some way into the forest and there were no other farms nearby. She walked boldly up the front path, banging on the door with icy hands.
“Open up, executioner!” she shouted.
“Who is it?” said a voice beyond the door.
“I’m Sol, the stepdaughter of Tengel. I once treated a wound for you. Now I’m in need of help. My friend is hurt and we must have shelter for the night. Will you take us in?”
Finally the door was opened slowly, just
enough for a burning torch to be thrust outward. It lit up her face but she couldn’t see anything.
Then he opened the door wide and let her in.
“Can you help my friend?” she asked “He’s lying on the sledge just here. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive.”
Without a word, the huge man took hold of Klaus and dragged him, then dropped him with a thump on the floor and closed the door.
“Is he your boyfriend?” asked the executioner in a strained voice.
“Boyfriend?” said Sol. “No, I’ve never had one – it’s not in my nature. He’s a dear friend and has suffered a lot because of me. Now I want to repay him for his kindness.”
The man nodded. He appeared to have a stern face – the little that one was able to see of it. His eyes were fiery and dark and, as always, he wore the hood that covered his head and shoulders except for slits that were cut into it for his eyes and mouth. He wore a belt over his tunic and his trousers were tight-fitting. It was impossible to tell whether he was young or old. He seemed to Sol to have been alive since the world began and had never changed.
They placed Klaus near the open fireplace to thaw him out and the executioner brought ale and bread for Sol and himself.
They’d been eating for a while, without speaking, when Sol finally broke the long silence.
“How much do you know about me, executioner?”
He answered without looking up. “I know more than anyone. I know who the cat-eyed witch is, the one the authorities are searching for. But I haven’t said your name.”
“Thank you,” said Sol.
“Your stepfather is a good man. You and he helped me once without turning me away or insulting me.”
They said nothing more and when they’d made a bed for Klaus – there was still some life in him – Sol was shown a bed in a tiny room, the only other room in the hut. She crawled under the covers, half-dead with exhaustion, aching in every joint.
The executioner came and lay next to her but she was indifferent. Several times during the night she realised that he was using her body, but she was too tired to protest, and let him have his wish – he was a lonely man after all. Admittedly, he gave off a variety of male odours, but he had helped her. She thought: Let this be my way of showing him gratitude.
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