Yet he was the only creature who completely understood her. So why did she feel nervous? She had to admit to herself that the togetherness and belonging felt far greater during her secret rides to his kingdom.
***
One hour later, they were riding in single file along the banks of the Glomma in the autumn sunshine. The path was too narrow for them to hold a conversation, but Sol was conscious of his presence as he rode behind her. She could also sense that he was aware of her – both physically and mentally aware of her.
As she rode on, she was struck by a sudden, crazy thought – it was already obvious that this was the man for her, so maybe she should settle down properly with him here in this world? And make a home and have children? Could she then free herself of the sense of restless yearning that had always haunted her? For the first time in her life, she wanted to be like other women – know the comfort of a man and a home. But was it possible? Being together always, with someone like him? Surely it wouldn’t work – he was merely a visitor, a stranger in this world.
But she intended to ask him nonetheless. Oh, yes, she’d ask him – but not yet. First they needed to get to know each other better.
Sol had never desired anything so passionately as this, and the idea of peaceful, innocent happiness flowed through her like streams of crystal-clear water.
They rode for a long time before he called a halt. They’d passed a small village and were now in a more rural countryside. Her wandering knight pointed to a small barn up in a clearing.
“Let’s rest there for a while, shall we?”
She nodded, her heart pounding with excitement. It was midday and the sun beat down on the walls of the barn, making it warm and pleasant inside. He undressed her slowly until she stood naked before him. He studied her for a long while and then began to arouse her passion with methodical, practiced expertise.
Sol had never met such a skilful lover. Right now, he wasn’t like the Prince of Darkness in her journeys to the underworld; there he was more urgent. Here, he seemed aware of precisely what a woman wanted and when he lay naked with her at last, her whole body trembled.
Even so it wasn’t the same orgy that she’d always enjoyed so much at Blakulla. She didn’t know exactly what had changed – couldn’t pinpoint it. In the underworld, she’d never needed to be aroused, her body had always been on fire. Now, for the first time, a worldly embrace was arousing her. It was more of enjoyment but without the aching ecstasy that asked for more and more.
But he could certainly arouse her, she couldn’t deny that! As they lay exhausted next to each other, she felt a warm sense of closeness to him growing within her. At last she’d found a rock to build on – someone to live for. Softly she stroked the velvet-smooth skin on his chest.
This time I’ll do nothing to kill a possible foetus, she thought. If I become pregnant from this, I’ll welcome it with all my heart. Just imagine – the offspring of me, ‘the cat-eyed witch’ and Satan himself. I’d love and cherish a child like that – if it were possible from such a union.
“You were very good,” he said in a voice still hoarse with passion.
“So were you.”
He obviously knew this already. After all, this hadn’t been his first time – but for Sol it had been different. In fact, very different from her rides to Blakulla. He was not as well endowed physically as he’d been in the deep darkness of the underworld. No doubt, that detail was part of his earthly disguise as well.
“Now we belong to each other,” he whispered.
“Yes, but you know, I’m no angel.”
“Neither am I,” he said as he smiled.
“No, of course you aren’t.”
He took hold of her mandrake. “I want that,” he said softly.
“Why?”
“As a love token.”
Sol felt a pang of reluctance and sorrow. She couldn’t give her most treasured possession away! But on the other hand, she couldn’t deny him since all mandrakes rightfully belonged to Satan. With sorrow in her heart, she let him take it.
Then she got up and began to put on her clothes. He followed suit, slowly and leisurely.
“I’ve probably killed two or three people in my life,” she told him in a low voice, feeling that she could and should tell him everything. “But I’ve decided to stop now. I want to start a new life with you – a better life.” She laughed at him. “My foster parents have been urging me to make a new beginning for a long time, but until now I’ve been too wild and stubborn to have regard for human life. Anyway, all those I slaughtered were evil people, who tried to hurt my loved ones. I haven’t killed anybody for any other reason.”
Sol’s companion gave her a broad smile. He was very attractive to look at, standing naked against the wall. “You don’t need to apologise to me,” he smiled, “for I’ve wiped out an entire people.”
“Yes, I suppose you have,” she laughed. “Or more.”
“No, it’s true. A whole population of witches and sorcerers.”
“You’re talking nonsense.”
Somewhere deep inside her, the terrible significance of what he’d just said suddenly dawned on her. At that very moment, an icy cold force began to take hold of her. Rays of sunlight were flickering through the cracks in the walls and she stared at him, wide-eyed.
“By the way ... what’s your real name?”
“Why?” He smiled without suspecting anything. “You called me your wandering knight, right?”
“No, I want to know your real name.”
“Why?”
She was suddenly feeling dizzy, but she managed to continue speaking calmly. “I want to know your real name!”
“Why? Oh, well, there’s no harm in telling you. My name’s Heming.”
Sol’s face turned very pale. “Heming the Bailiff-killer?”
His smile vanished. “How do you know me by that name? How the hell do you know? Nobody this far south has heard of that name!”
Slowly, ever so slowly, a burning rage of awful intensity began to surge within Sol and with it an overwhelming feeling of disappointment. The rage that began as a small, involuntary cry quickly turned into a loud and piercing scream of pain. Without any hesitation, she grabbed a sharp pitchfork that stood against the wall and still screaming, she moved toward him, clutching it tightly in both hands.
“Stop!” he yelled. “Have you gone crazy?”
Using all her strength, she ran at Heming with the pitchfork. He desperately tried to avoid it, but Sol had moved with the speed of lightning. A split second later, the twin prongs struck him with terrible force, piercing his stomach and holding him to the wall. His scream filled the air.
For a long moment, Sol stood motionless, staring at him with the same uncompromising look she’d first given Abelone’s son twenty years ago.
“You’re mad, witch,” he managed to say with a violent gasp of breath.
Sol went and stood very close to him. “Don’t you recognise me? I’m Sol of the Ice People, Tengel’s stepdaughter.”
Heming stared at her with a look of pure horror in his eyes.
“No,” he cried through his pain. “You’re dead! They’re all dead!”
“No,” said Sol, now in a calmer voice. “Tengel’s alive, and so are Silje and Dag and Liv. All those you were searching for.”
“No! No!” he gasped again. “It can’t be true. “Oh, help me, please help me!” he whined. “I’m dying!”
“Yes, you’re dying!” said Sol. “I can’t tell you how pleased I am. For you were the one who brought death to the Ice People. You killed Hanna, my teacher and soul-mate. I think she knew that this would happen. I believe she could predict this.”
“Spider!” he yelled. “Yellow Spider!”
Sol sat down quietly on a log and watched him, utterly unmoved by his screams. When she spoke to him, her voice was a low monotone, and he was forced to listen although suffocating from fear and pain. Blood was pouring out of his body, running down his thig
hs. He tried to stop the flow with his hands but was barely able to lift them.
Sol’s eyes were burning fiercely, but her voice had lost almost all its vibrancy. “So you’re just an illusion. A vague memory of an unusually handsome man I met in my long forgotten childhood. Not a bit demonic!”
Of course, he had no idea what she was talking about. He knew nothing of her ‘rides’ to Blakulla – simple, ignorant, unenlightened as he was.
He might have been able to charm any woman, but he was no Satan.
Sol hadn’t understood that the ointment she used had aroused her senses during her previous trips to Blakulla. Suddenly she felt extremely tired and confused – she didn’t know what to do. All she was certain of was that she’d never hated any man as much as she hated this one dying before her now.
“Help me please! Help me,” he whispered. “I did nothing. It was the soldiers.”
“Silje also suffered because of you,” said Sol in the same lifeless tone of voice. “And Tengel suffered with her. I’ve done this for their sake, and for Hanna and Grimar, for your own father’s sake, and for the sake of all the many dead in the Valley of the Ice People. For all these people you’ll die, Heming the Bailiff-killer! And for all the children you cold-heartedly allowed to suffer the pain of death so that you could keep your own miserable and worthless life!”
Heming could hardly hear her any longer. Her voice was reaching him through a haze of pain and fear. There was a pounding in his ears; he tasted blood in his mouth and felt it trickle down his chin. He coughed and tried to shout – to beg for her help.
“For God’s sake have pity on me!” he whimpered. “Please have pity!”
“God has never stood by my side,” said Sol icily. “Only the Devil, and now he’s very pleased. You’ve been a tough opponent, Heming the Bailiff-killer. Have you ever accomplished anything since you left the Valley of the Ice People except whore with women and deceive? I suspect that your absence during the last months has been because you were in a dungeon and the men with you when we met at the first inn were your prison wardens? Satan is pleased now, Heming. He’s on my side, do you understand?”
The haze before him was thickening, but he could still see her.
Sol, for her part, sat perfectly still, hunched low on the log, watching him closely as he died. All the while, there was a fierce, yellow glow in her unforgiving eyes.
Soon all Heming saw were those yellow eyes.
Then suddenly they too were gone.
Sol rose to her feet and picked up the mandrake root from the floor where it had fallen from his hand. She quickly returned it to its rightful place around her neck and, without looking back, she walked quietly out of the barn. With Heming’s horse following behind on its leading rein, Sol rode away toward the east to seek out the hidden settlement of the Finnish lumberjacks.
Chapter 14
Winter came and went. The snow and the wind held Linden Avenue and the farm in their icy grip, and although the severity of the cold was nothing compared to what it was like in the old Valley of the Ice People, the warmer days of spring were still very welcome when they arrived.
Tengel and Silje would often look down through the avenue of linden trees, from which their farm took its name, longing for the special moment when their stepdaughter, Sol, would return. But they’d heard nothing at all since that day in late autumn when she rode away.
Both Tengel and Silje would secretly inspect her special linden tree on the avenue, and as long as it remained healthy they were relieved.
Summer returned, then gently gave way to another autumn as the seasons continued their majestic progress without pause.
At about that time, Silje and Tengel’s and Charlotte’s first grandchild was born. Without any complications, Liv presented them with a little boy, who was named Tarald, after his very proud grandfather. He’d banned them from naming the boy Tengel. It was a name that could be filled with much suffering, he said.
Silje said nothing, but in her heart she hoped that her poor daughter really had recovered after all her problems. She had given birth to a baby boy, and she seemed so happy, calm and free with Dag.
Nevertheless, in nagging moments, Silje couldn’t help recalling Hanna’s haunting words: “All your children will bring great joy. Yet one will also bring you great sadness.”
Hadn’t she experienced that sorrow already after Liv’s tragic marriage and all that unsettlement it caused?
But when she mentioned it to Tengel, he turned away and wouldn’t answer.
Why then did he react like that now that Liv was so happy? Maybe he felt that her happiness was still too short to be really counted yet?
Silje, however, was determined to count Liv’s as real happiness, and she trusted that no more harm could come to them.
Klaus, the former stable boy, had recovered swiftly thanks to Tengel’s care and experience. He was happy working at Graastensholm and never uttered a word to anyone about his great yearning. There had never been anyone else but Sol for him – and many times he’d be looking down through the two lines of linden trees hoping that he may see her returning.
Liv seemed truly happy. Dag had solemnly promised never to reprimand her for something she might have overlooked in the house, or if things weren’t in their proper place. Anyway, he’d have no need to criticise her because a better housewife than Liv would be hard to come by. Dag believed that Laurents Berenius’ greatest fault lay in the fact that he’d been driven by a burning desire to be the best and place himself above everybody else, trampling them into the ground regardless of how good they were.
One winter evening, when Are had gone to bed and Tengel and Silje sat in front of the fire, each quietly occupied with their own thoughts, there was a loud knock at the front door.
They both exchanged inquiring glances. Who’d be out so late in such a freezing January storm? Tengel got up and opened the door. Outside stood an anonymous woman, wrapped solidly in capes and shawls.
“Sol!” yelled Tengel after a moment, his voice a mixture of joy and pain. “Come in! Come in, my dearest child!”
Clearly exhausted, Sol slowly entered the warm, comforting hallway. She got a warm embrace from both her parents, and Silje’s eyes were brimming with tears.
Sol didn’t speak immediately, and her eyes strayed silently over the glazed mosaic window which Benedikt, the church painter, had given Silje many years ago. She also gazed at the four portraits hanging beside it, which Silje had painted herself. She’d painted Liv and Dag twice so that Charlotte would have a pair to hang in Graastensholm.
“We’ve missed you dreadfully, Sol,” Silje managed to say between her laughter and tears.”Have you come alone this time, then? Not another poor Klaus or Meta in tow?”
“No, I’m not alone,” said Sol, gasping for breath. I do have someone with me. Can I bring ...?”
“Yes, of course,” smiled Tengel. “Just bring in your protégé! Nobody must be left to stand outside on a night like this!”
Sol went outside and returned a moment later with a small bundle that she nervously held out for them to see. “This is Sunniva,” she said with a trembling smile. “Will she be welcome here?”
Silje felt as if the ground disappeared under her feet. “Is it your child?” she whispered breathlessly.
“Yes. She wouldn’t let herself be done away with, Dad. I tried with all the herbs I had, but she wanted to live.”
Silje swallowed hard. “Of course, she’s welcome,” she said, her voice trembling. “Our second grandchild.”
“Second?”
“Yes, Liv and Dag now have a boy – about the same age, I’d say.”
“Sunniva was born on August 29,” said Sol at once.
“And Tarald on August 25,” said Silje with a broad smile. “And a terrible business it was, too! The woman at Eikeby was due to give birth at the same time. But her child wasn’t turned properly and Tengel had to ride back and forth between Eikeby and Graastensholm.”
&n
bsp; “What? At Eikeby? Giving birth is hardly any news over there! She has a new one three times a year! What does the husband think he is – a rabbit? Did things turn out alright?”
“Oh, yes. Though they had a weak little thing in the end – a girl. So you decided to call your little daughter Sunniva. That was a lovely thing to do.”
“Yes, after my Mum – and you too, Silje.”
“Thank you.” Silje was touched by this. “She’s so sweet. Like a little elf. Have you seen how pretty she is, Tengel? But who does she take after?”
“Her Dad,” said Sol bluntly.
“I seem to recognise that face,” said Silje thoughtfully. “Have I seen it before?”
“She’s very beautiful,” said Tengel, who took some time to recover his thoughts after the shock. “But who’d have thought that you would ever have a blonde, blue-eyed daughter, Sol?”
“Can she stay here?” asked Sol quietly. “I can’t imagine any other place on earth where she’ll have a better upbringing – even if it hasn’t worked on me! But then, nobody would have expected it to work on me, would they?”
The others looked questioningly at her.
“We don’t need to stand here,” said Silje. “Come on in and sit by the fire. You must tell us everything.”
“Can she stay here?”
“Yes, of course, you know that she can,” said Tengel. “But now we want to know all that’s happened to you.”
“Can I have something to eat first?” said Sol. “I’ve almost forgotten what food tastes like.”
“Oh, goodness me!” Silje was appalled and ran at once to the kitchen. “What does the little one eat?”
“Milk ... anything will do!”
When she’d finished eating and her horse had been seen to, Sol began her tale. She lay comfortably relaxed against the sheepskin draped over the kitchen seat with the baby Sunniva who, now well fed, was fast asleep in Are’s old cradle.
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