And for that she wanted to be near Birk. She crept close against him and knew that he felt as she did: better the Greedy Falls than the harpies.
Birk put his arm over her shoulders. Whatever happened, they would be together, sister and brother. Nothing could part them now.
But the harpies were searching furiously. Where were the little humans? It was time now to start clawing. Why were there no little humans there any more?
There was only a tree with a leafy crown being carried rapidly down the river by the current. What was hidden under the green branches the harpies could not see, and, howling with rage, they circled and searched, circled and searched.
But Ronia and Birk were already far away, no longer able to hear their howls. They could hear only the thunder, which grew and grew, and they knew that they were very close to it now.
“Sister mine,” said Birk.
Ronia could not hear him, but she could see from his lips what he was saying. And although neither of them could hear a word, they spoke to each other. They said what must be said before it was too late. How good it was to love someone so much that there was no need to fear even the most difficult thing. They spoke of it although neither of them could hear a single word.
But then they stopped talking altogether, simply held each other and closed their eyes.
Suddenly there came a violent jerk, which brought them to their senses. The birch had run straight into Greedy Hump. The impact made the birch branch swing around. It changed direction, and before the current could catch it again, it had traveled some way in toward the riverbank.
“Ronia, we’re going to try,” shouted Birk.
He pulled her free of the branch to which she was clinging. And in a moment they were both down in the foaming eddies. Now both of them had to fight for themselves, fight for their lives against the merciless current that was straining with all its strength to carry them to Greedy Falls. They could see the smooth water by the bank, so close. Near, but still much too far away.
Greedy Falls will win in the end, thought Ronia. She could do no more. She wanted to give up now, just sink and let herself be carried where the current took her and vanish over Greedy Falls.
But Birk was in front of her. He turned his head and looked at her. Time and again he turned to look at her and she tried again. Tried and tried until she could do no more.
But by then she had reached the smooth water, and Birk dragged her behind him to the bank. Then there was no more he could do, either.
“But we must… you must,” he gasped.
And in the extreme of desperation they hauled themselves up on the bank. There in the heat of the sun they fell asleep at once, not even aware that they were saved.
It was not until the sun was sinking that they came home to the Bear’s Cave. And there, on the platform outside, Lovis sat waiting for them.
Fifteen
“My child!” said lovis. “how wet your hair is. have you been swimming?”
Ronia stood still, looking at her mother. There she sat, leaning against the rock wall, steady and safe as the cliff itself. Ronia looked at her with love and wished that Lovis had come another time. Any time at all, but not now! Now she would have liked to be alone with Birk. It felt as if her soul were still fluttering inside her after all the ferocity and danger. Oh, if only she had had the chance to talk herself into calm with Birk and to be glad that they were alive, alone with him!
But there sat Lovis, her dear Lovis, whom she had not seen for such a long time. Her mother must not be allowed to feel unwelcome.
Ronia smiled at her. “Yes, we’ve been having a little swim, Birk and I.”
Birk! Now she saw that he was already on his way into the cave, and she did not want that. It must not happen. She rushed after him and whispered, “Aren’t you going to come and say hello to my mother? “
Birk looked at her coldly. “You don’t say hello to uninvited guests. My mother taught me that when she was still carrying me in her arms! “
Ronia gasped. It hurt to be so furious and so desperate. There he stood, Birk, looking at her with ice-cold eyes, the same Birk she had been so close to just now and whom she had wanted to follow even down Greedy Falls. Now he turned away from her and became a stranger. Oh, how she detested him for that! She had never known such rage before! For that matter, it was not only Birk she loathed, when she came to think of it. She loathed everything, just everything, everything and everyone that pulled and tugged at her until she was nearly torn in half, Birk and Lovis and Matt and the harpies and the Bear’s Cave and the forest and the summer and the winter and that Undis who had taught Birk stupid things when he was an infant and those horrible harpies… No, wait, she had already dealt with those! But there were other things she loathed until she could have screamed, even if she happened to have forgotten for the moment what they were, but scream she would, and scream she should, until the mountains rang!
No, she did not scream. She just hissed at Birk before he disappeared into the cave, “It’s a pity your mother didn’t teach you some manners, too, while she was about it. “
She went back to Lovis and began to explain. Birk was tired, she said, and then she was silent. She sank down on the rocky platform beside her mother, and with her face buried against Lovis’s knee she cried, not until the mountains rang, but just a quiet little cry that could not be heard.
“You know why I have come,” said Lovis.
And Ronia muttered through her tears, “Not to give me bread, I suppose?”
“No,” said Lovis, stroking her hair. “You’ll get bread when you come home.”
Ronia sobbed again. “I’ll never come home.”
“Well, then it will end with Matt jumping in the river,” Lovis said calmly.
Ronia lifted her head. “Would he jump in the river for my sake? But he won’t even mention my name!”
“Not when he’s awake,” said Lovis, “but every night he cries in his sleep and calls for you.”
“How do you know?” asked Ronia. “Have you got him back in your bed now? Isn’t he sleeping with Noddle-Pete any more?”
“No,” said Lovis. “Noddle-Pete couldn’t stand having him there any longer, and I can scarcely stand it either. But he has to have someone to hang on to when things get really bad.”
She was silent for a long time; then she said, “You know, Ronia, it’s hard to see someone being so inhumanly tortured.”
Ronia felt it was about to burst out now, that crying that was going to make the mountains ring, but she clenched her teeth and then said quietly, “Look, Lovis, if you were a child and had a father who denied you so completely that he would not even say your name, would you go back to him? Supposing he didn’t even come and ask you?”
Lovis thought for a moment. “No, I wouldn’t. He would have to ask—that he would!”
“And Matt never will,” said Ronia.
Once again she hid her face against Lovis’s knee and made her rough yellow gown wet with silent tears.
Night and darkness had fallen; even the worst days come to an end.
“You go to bed, Ronia,” said Lovis. “I’ll wait here and drop off from time to time, and as soon as it’s light I’ll go home again.”
“I want to sleep by you,” said Ronia. “And you must sing the Wolf Song!”
She remembered how she herself had tried to sing the Wolf Song for Birk. But she had soon tired of it, and she had no intention of singing any other songs for him as long as she lived.
But Lovis sang, and the world became as it should be. Ronia sank into the deep peace of childhood, and with her head against Lovis’s knee she fell asleep under the stars and did not wake until the morning was bright.
Lovis had already gone, but she had not taken her gray shawl with her; she had wrapped it around Ronia. Ronia could feel the warmth of it as soon as she woke up, and she breathed in the scent. Yes, that’s Lovis, she thought; her shawl smells a little like that little rabbit I had once.
; Over by the fire Birk was sitting hunched with his head on his arms, his copper hair hanging forward, hiding his face. There he sat, looking so hopelessly forlorn that it hurt Ronia. She forgot everything else, and with the shawl trailing after her, she went over to him. But she hesitated a little; perhaps he would like to be left in peace.
In the end she had to ask, “What is it, Birk?”
He looked up at her and smiled. “I’m sitting here grieving, sister mine!”
“Why?” asked Ronia.
“I’m grieving because you are fully and completely my sister only when Greedy Falls is calling you, but not otherwise. Not when your father calls through his various messengers. And so I behave like a coward, and I’m grieving about that too, if you must know.”
Who is not grieving? thought Ronia. Shouldn’t I grieve when what I do pleases no one?
“But it’s not fair of me to blame you for that.” Birk went on. “It’s as it has to be—I know that.”
Ronia looked at him shyly. “Do you want to be my brother in any case?”
“Yes, that’s just it,” said Birk. “I am your brother fully and completely and always, and you know it! But now you must also know why I wanted us to have this summer in peace without any messengers from Matt’s Fort, and why I cannot bear to talk about the winter.”
Truly, there was nothing Ronia wanted to know more. She had wondered a lot why Birk was not worrying at all about the winter. “It is summer now, sister mine,” he would say, as calmly as if winter would never come.
“We have only this summer, you and I,” said Birk, “and the way things are with me now, I don’t mind very much about living unless you are with me. And when winter comes you won’t be with me. You must go back to Matt’s Fort then.”
“And what about you?” asked Ronia. “Where will you be?”
“Here,” Birk said. “Of course I could go and beg my way back into Borka’s Keep—I wouldn’t be driven away, I know. But what good would that do? I’d still be without you. I wouldn’t even be allowed to see you. So I’m going to stay in the Bear’s Cave.”
“And freeze to death,” said Ronia.
Birk laughed. “Perhaps, perhaps not! I have worked out that you might come skiing down now and then with a little bread and salt and with my wolfskin, if you can get it out of Borka’s Keep.”
Ronia shook her head. “If it’s like last winter, I couldn’t manage to ski. I couldn’t even get down to the Wolf’s Neck. And if it’s like last winter and you are living in the Bear’s Cave, it will be the end of you, Birk Borkason!”
“Then that’s how it will have to be,” said Birk. “But it’s summer now, sister mine!”
Ronia looked at him gravely. “Summer or winter—who said I was going back to Matt’s Fort?”
“I did,” said Birk. “Even if I have to carry you there myself. I plan to freeze to death on my own, if it has to be. But as I said, it’s summer now!”
Summer would not last forever; he knew it and Ronia knew it. But now they began to live as if it would, and as far as possible they pushed away all painful thoughts of winter. They wanted to make the most of every hour from dawn to dusk and nighttime and draw the sweetness from it. The days could come and go; they were living in a summer enchantment and would not be disturbed. They had just a little time left.
“And no one is going to spoil that,” said Birk.
Ronia agreed with him. “I’m drinking in the summer like the wild bee sucking up honey,” she said. “I’m gathering it together in a big lump of summer, to live on when… when it’s not summer any more. Do you know what there is in it?”
And she told Birk, “It’s a whole batch of sunrises, and blueberry bushes covered with berries, and the freckles you have on your arms, and moonlight over the river in the evening, and starry skies, and the woods in the noonday heat when the sun is shining on the fir trees, and the small rain in the evening, and squirrels and foxes and hares and elk and all the wild horses we know, and when we swim and when we ride in the woods—well, it’s a whole batch of everything that is summer!”
“You’re a good summer baker,” said Birk. “Keep it up!”
They spent all the hours from morning to evening in their woods. They fished and hunted to get what they needed to eat, but otherwise they lived in peace with all the life about them. They took long walks to watch animals and birds, climbed rocks and trees, rode and swam in lakes in the forest where no harpies disturbed them— and the days of summer passed.
The sky was growing clearer and cooler. One or two cold nights came, and suddenly there were yellow leaves in the crown of a birch tree down by the river. They saw them as they sat by their fire early one morning, but they said nothing about it.
And new days came with more and more sharpness and clarity in the air. You could see for miles across the green woods, but now there was much yellow and red among the green, and soon the whole riverside was flaming gold and red. They sat by their fire and saw the beauty of it, but they said nothing about it.
There was more mist over the river than before, and one evening when they had to go down to the stream for water, the mist had risen over the forest. Suddenly they were in the midst of the densest fog. Birk set down his bucket of water and seized Ronia firmly by the arm.
“What’s this?” said Ronia. “Are you afraid of the fog? Don’t you think we’ll find our way home?”
Birk did not tell her what he was afraid of, but he waited. And suddenly from far away in the forest came that plaintive song he remembered so well.
Ronia stood still and listened. “Do you hear? It is the Unearthly Ones singing! At last I can hear them!”
“Have you never heard them before?” asked Birk.
“No, never,” said Ronia. “They want to lure us down to the Underworld—did you know that?”
“I know,” said Birk. “Would you like to follow them there?”
Ronia laughed. “I’m not mad, you know! But Noddle-Pete said…” She stopped.
“What did Noddle-Pete say?” Birk asked.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Ronia.
But as they stood there and waited for the mist to lift a little so they could make their way home, she thought of what Noddle-Pete had once said.
“When the Unearthly Ones come up into the forest and sing, you know it is autumn. And then it will soon be winter—oh, dear me, yes!”
Sixteen
Noddle-pete was right, when the unearthly ones came up into the forest with their laments, it was autumn. Even if Birk and Ronia did not want to admit it. Summer had died slowly. The autumn rains set in with such stubbornness that even Ronia was upset, although she usually liked rain.
They sat in the cave for days on end, listening to the endless splashing on the platform outside. In weather like this they could not even keep the fire going, and it was so cold that they had to go out into the forest at last and try to run themselves warm. They got a little warmer, but very wet. Once home in the cave again, they wrung out their soaking clothes and, wrapped in their fur skins, they sat watching for even the slightest sign of lightness in the sky.
But all they could see through the cave opening was a wall of rain.
“It’s a rainy summer we’re having,” said Birk. “But of course it will get better!”
And it did stop raining at last, but then storms came thundering over the forest. Winds tore up fir trees and ripped the leaves off the birches. The golden gleam was gone; on the slope down by the river there was nothing to be seen now but bare trees swaying pitifully in the harsh blast that was trying to tear them from their roots.
“It’s a blowy summer we’re having,” said Birk, “but of course it will get better!”
It did not get better. It got worse. The cold came, and it grew colder every day. And now the thoughts of winter could not be kept at bay any longer, not by Ronia at least. She often had nightmares. One night she dreamed she saw Birk lying embedded in snow, his face white and his hair white, too, wit
h frost. She woke up with a scream. It was already morning, and Birk was busy outside with the fire. She rushed to him and was relieved when she saw that he still had his usual red hair, with no frost on it.
But the woods on the other side of the river were now white with frost for the first time.
“It’s a frosty summer we’re having,” said Birk with a grin.
Ronia gave him a resentful look. How could he be so calm? How could he speak so lightly? Didn’t he realize? Didn’t he mind at all about his poor life? It was wrong to be afraid in Matt’s Forest—she knew that—but now she was beginning to be afraid, terribly afraid of what would happen to them when winter came.
“My sister is not happy,” said Birk. “It’s nearly time for her to leave here and warm herself at some other fire than mine.”
Then she went back into the cave and lay down on her bed again. Another fire—but she had no other fire to go to! He meant the fire at home in the stone hall, and sure enough, she longed for it in this villainous cold—oh, how she longed for once in her life to be warm again! But she could not go to Matt’s Fort, since she was not Matt’s child. The fire at home would never warm her again, she knew, and that was that! There was nothing to be done. What was the use of grumbling when there was no escape?
She saw that the bucket was empty. She would have to go down to the spring for water.
“1’11 come as soon as I get the fire going,” Birk called after her. Carrying the water home was hard work. It required two of them.
Ronia walked off along the narrow path on the mountainside, where you had to go carefully and watch out that you did not fall headfirst off the rocks. Then she ran the last little bit through the forest between birches and fir trees to the glade where the spring was. But before she had quite reached it she stopped dead. Someone was sitting on the stone beside the spring! Matt was sitting there, Matt and none other! She remembered that dark, curly head so vividly that her heart shook in her body. And now she began to cry, standing there among the birch trees, crying silently to herself. Then she saw that Matt, too, was crying. Just like the time in her dream, he was sitting alone in the woods, grieving and crying. He had not noticed her yet, but suddenly he raised his eyes and caught sight of her. At once he flung one arm across his eyes and hid his tears, a gesture so helpless and despairing that she could not bear to see it. With a cry she rushed forward and threw herself into his arms.
Ronia, The Robber's Daughter Page 12
