“My child!” whispered Matt. “My child!”
Then he shouted, “I have my child!”
Ronia wept into his beard and asked, sobbing, “Am I your child now, Matt? Am I really your child again?”
And Matt cried and answered, “Yes, as you have always been, my Ronia! My child, whom I have wept for night and day. My God, how I’ve suffered!”
He held her a little away from him so that he could see her face. Then he asked tenderly, “Is it as Lovis said, that you will come home only if I ask you to?”
Ronia was silent And at that moment she saw Birk. There he stood among the birch trees, white-faced, his eyes full of sadness. He must not be so unhappy—Birk, my brother, what are you thinking when you look like that?
“Is it true, Ronia? Will you come home with me now?” Matt asked.
Ronia was silent, looking at Birk—Birk, my brother, do you remember Greedy Falls?
“Come, Ronia, we’re going now,” said Matt.
And Birk knew as he stood there that now it was time. Time to say good-bye and let Ronia go back to Matt, with thanks for the loan. It had to be; he himself had wished it. And he had known it for a long time, so why did it hurt so much? Ronia, you don’t know how it feels, but do it quickly! Go now!
“Though I haven’t asked you yet,” said Matt. “I do it now. I ask you, Ronia, with all my heart, come home to me again!”
Nothing in my life has ever been so hard, Ronia thought. She must say it now—it would crush Matt, she knew, but she must say it. That she wanted to stay with Birk. That she could not leave him alone to freeze to death in the winter forest—Birk, my brother, nothing can part us in life or death, don’t you know that?
Only then did Matt catch sight of Birk, and he sighed heavily. But then he shouted, “Birk Borkason, come here! I want a word with you!”
Birk approached reluctantly and no closer than necessary. He gave Matt a defiant look and asked, “What do you want?”
“To give you a beating, really,” Matt said. “But I’m not going to. Instead, I ask you with all my heart, come back to Matt’s Fort with us now! It’s not because I like you—don’t think that, whatever you do! But my daughter does—I know that now—and perhaps I can learn too. I have had time to think about this and that these last months!”
When Ronia fully realized what he had said, she began to quiver all over. She felt something break free within her. That awful lump of ice she had been carrying inside her—how was it that with just a few words her father could make it melt like a brook in spring? How could the miracle have suddenly happened and she no longer had to choose between Birk and Matt? The two she loved—now she need not lose either of them! The miracle had happened, just here and just now!
Full of gladness and love and thankfulness, she looked at Matt and then at Birk. Then she saw that Birk was not happy at all. He looked confused and suspicious, and she grew frightened. He could be so stubborn and pigheaded. What if he did not know what was good for him? What if he would not come with them?
“Matt,” she said, “I must talk to Birk alone.”
“Why?” asked Matt. “Oh, well, I’ll go and have a look at my old Bear’s Cave meanwhile. But be quick, because we must go home now. “
“We must go home now, ” Birk said scornfully when Matt had gone. “What home? Does he think I am going to be the whipping boy for Matt’s robbers? Never! “
“Whipping boy! How stupid you are, ” said Ronia, and now she was furious again. “Would you rather freeze to death in the Bear’s Cave? “
Birk was silent for a moment; then he said, “Yes, I think so! “
Then Ronia became desperate. “Life is something you have to take care of—don’t you realize that? And if you stay in the Bear’s Cave for the winter, you’ll be throwing away your life! And mine! “
“Why do you say that? ” asked Birk. “How can I throw away your life? “
Ronia shouted furiously, “Because I would stay with you, you numskull! Whether you liked it or not! “
Birk stood silently looking at her for a long time. Then he said, “Do you know what you’re saying now, Ronia? “
“I know, ” Ronia shouted, “that nothing can part us! And you know it too, numskull! “
Then Birk smiled his brightest smile, and he was handsome when he smiled.
“I don’t want to throw away your life, sister mine! It’s the last thing I want. I will go with you wherever you go. Even if I have to live among Matt’s robbers until it chokes me! “
They had put out the fire and packed everything. Now they were leaving the Bear’s Cave, and that was hard. But Ronia whispered to Birk, so that Matt would not hear her and begin to worry unnecessarily, “Next spring we’ll move back again!”
“Yes, because we’ll still be alive,” said Birk, looking as if the idea pleased him.
Matt was pleased too. He walked ahead of them through the forest, singing so that all the wild horses in their way fled off, startled, through the trees. All but Villain and Savage. They stood still, waiting, probably imagining that they were going to run some more races.
“Not today,” said Ronia, stroking Villain. “But tomorrow, perhaps. Perhaps every day if there isn’t too much snow!”
And Birk patted Savage. “Yes, we’ll be coming back! Just you stay alive!”
They could see that the horses already had thicker coats: soon they would be all shaggy for protection against the cold. Villain and Savage would also live to see another spring.
But Matt was far ahead of them, walking through the forest singing, and they had to hurry to catch up with him. And when they had walked for a long time, they came to the Wolf’s Neck. There Birk stopped.
“Matt,” he said, “I want to go home to Borka’s Keep first and see how things are with Undis and Borka. But I give you my thanks for allowing me to come to Matt’s Fort and meet Ronia whenever I like.”
“Yes, yes,” said Matt. “It won’t be easy for me, but come!”
Then he laughed. “You know what Noddle-Pete says? The old fool thinks that the sheriff and his men will win in the end if we don’t watch out. And therefore, he says, the best thing would be
for Matt’s robbers and Borka’s robbers to join forces—yes, he has plenty of crazy ideas, the old idiot!”
He gave Birk a look of sympathy. “It’s a shame that you should have such a dirty devil of a father—otherwise one might at least be able to think it over.”
“Dirty devil yourself,” said Birk kindly, and Matt laughed appreciatively.
Birk gave Ronia his hand. It was here, below the Wolf’s Neck, that they had always said good-bye.
“I’ll be seeing you, robber’s daughter! Every day, you know that, sister mine!”
Ronia nodded. “Every day, Birk Borkason!”
You could have heard a pin drop among the robbers in the stone hall when Matt and Ronia walked in. No one dared to cheer; it was a long time since their chieftain had allowed any cheers in Matt’s Fort. Only Noddle-Pete made what was for his age an unnaturally high leap of joy.
“There should be some sort of greeting when folk come home,” he said. And at that Matt laughed so heartily and so long that the robbers’ eyes filled with tears of happiness. It was the first laughter they had heard from Matt since that miserable morning at Hell’s Gap, and the robbers hastened to join in. They laughed until they doubled up; Ronia as well. But then Lovis came in from the sheep pen, and there was silence. You could not laugh at the sight of a mother greeting her lost child who has just come home, and the robbers’ eyes filled with tears at this too.
“Lovis, can you bring in the big washtub for me?” asked Ronia.
Lovis nodded. “Yes, I’m already heating the water!”
“I believe you,” said Ronia. “You’re the kind of mother that thinks of everything. And you have never seen a filthier child!”
“No, never,” said Lovis.
Ronia lay in her bed, full and clean and warm. She had eaten
Lovis’s bread and drunk some milk, and then Lovis had scrubbed her in the washtub until her skin glowed. Now she lay there in the same old bed, and between the curtains she saw the fire slowly burning down on the hearth. Everything was as it used to be. Lovis had sung the Wolf Song for her and Matt. It was time to sleep. And Ronia was sleepy, but her thoughts were wandering.
It will be very cold in the Bear’s Cave now, she thought. And here I lie, warm right down to my toes. Isn’t it strange that such a little thing can make you feel happy! Then she thought about Birk and wondered how he was getting on over at Borka’s Keep. I hope he’s warm right down to his toes too, she thought, and closed her eyes. I’ll ask him tomorrow.
There was silence in the stone hall. But then came an anxious cry from Matt.
“Ronia!”
“What is it?” she murmured, half asleep.
“I just wanted to hear that you were really there,” said Matt.
“Of course I’m here,” mumbled Ronia.
And then she slept.
Seventeen
The woods that ronia loved, the autumn woods and the winter woods, they were her friends again now. In the last weeks in the Bear’s Cave she had felt them to be threatening and hostile, but now she went riding with Birk in a frosty forest that gave her nothing but joy, and she told Birk all about it.
“As long as you know that you are going to be warm right down to your toes when you come home, you can be in the woods in all weathers. But not if you have to lie shivering in a cold cave afterward.”
And Birk, who had planned to spend the winter in the Bear’s Cave, was now very glad to warm himself by the fire at home in Borka’s Keep.
That was where he must live, he knew, and Ronia knew it too. Otherwise there would be still more enmity in the fort on Matt’s Mountain.
“And you know, they were so extraordinarily glad, Undis and Borka, when I came home,” said Birk. “I would never have believed they cared so much about me.”
“Yes, you must live with them,” said Ronia. “Until spring!”
It was welcome news to Matt, too, that Birk was to stay at home.
“Of course, of course,” he told Lovis, “that little thief hound can come and go here as he likes. I invited him to come home with us, after all. But it’s a relief not to have to see that red head of his all the time!”
Life in Matt’s Fort went on, and now it was jolly there again. The robbers sang and danced, and Matt laughed his bellowing laugh as before.
And yet the robber life was not exactly as it had been. The fight against the sheriff’s men had grown tougher, and Matt knew that they were really after him now. And he explained why to Ronia.
“Just because we took Pelle out of that miserable dungeon one dark night—and two of Borka’s thieving dogs at the same time.”
“Little-Snip thought Pelle was going to be hanged,” said Ronia.
“No one hangs my robbers,” said Matt. “And now I’ve taught that rascally Pelle that robbers don’t stay where you put them!”
But Noddle-Pete shook his bald head thoughtfully. “And that’s why we’ve got the soldiers swarming through the woods like cattle flies. And the sheriff will win in the end, Matt—how many times must I tell you?”
There he went again, old Noddle-Pete, nagging about Matt and Borka being reconciled before it was too late. A single, strong band of robbers might be able to handle the sheriff and all his merry men, but never two separate bands who wasted most of their time cheating each other and fighting over the plunder like wolves over morsels of flesh, said Noddle-Pete.
This was not the kind of thing Matt liked to hear. It was quite enough for him to worry about it from time to time.
“You speak what you think, old man,” said Matt. “Of course, you’re right in a way. But who do you think would be chief of that robber band?” He gave a jeering laugh. “Borka, eh? I, Matt, am the strongest and mightiest robber chieftain in all the mountains and forests, and I intend to remain so! But we can’t be sure that Borka will understand that.”
“Show him, then,” said Noddle-Pete. “You ought to be able to win in single combat with him, you great ox!”
This was what Noddle-Pete had thought out in lonely hours of scheming. A single combat that would put Borka in his place and make him reasonable; then they would have a single robber band in Matt’s Fort, with everyone helping to lure the soldiers onto the wrong track and lead them a dog’s life until they got tired of hunting robbers. Wasn’t that a cunning idea?
“I think the most cunning idea of all would be to stop robbing,” said Ronia. “I’ve always thought so.”
Noddle-Pete smiled his friendly, toothless smile at her.
“You’re quite right about that, Ronia. You’re very bright. But I am too old and feeble to drum something like that into Matt’s skull.”
Matt looked at him in annoyance. “And you can say that—you who were once a bold robber yourself, first under my father and then under me! Stop robbing! What would we live on then—have you thought about that?”
“Have you never noticed,” asked Noddle-Pete, “that there are people who are not robbers and yet they manage to live?”
“Yes, but how?” Matt said sourly.
Well, there were several ways, Noddle-Pete explained. “I know something I could teach you if I didn’t know that you are and will remain a robber until you’re hanged. But all in good time I’ll tell Ronia a nice little secret.”
“What sort of secret?” Matt asked.
“As I just said,” said Noddle-Pete, “I’ll tell Ronia so she won’t be left helpless on the day you’re hanged.”
“Hanged, hanged, be hanged!” Matt said angrily. “Now be quiet, you miserable old croak!”
The days passed, and Matt did not listen to Noddle-Pete’s advice. But early one morning, before Matt’s robbers had gotten around to saddling their horses, Borka came riding up to the Wolf’s Neck and asked to speak to Matt. He came with bad news. And since his archenemy had so generously rescued two of Borka’s men from the sheriff’s dungeon not long ago, he wanted to render a service in return and warn Matt. Today no robber who valued his life should poke his nose into the woods, said Borka. Things had reached a pretty pass again. He had just come from Robbers’ Walk, where the soldiers had been lying in ambush. They had managed to capture two of his men, and a third had been badly wounded by an arrow when he tried to escape.
“Those brutes begrudge a poor robber his living,” Borka said bitterly.
Matt frowned. “Well have to teach them to mind their manners!
We can’t have this sort of thing!”
It was only afterward that he realized he had said “we,” and he sighed heavily. For a while he stood in silence, looking Borka up and down.
“Perhaps we should… join forces,” he said at last, although his own words made him shudder. Fancy talking like that to a Borka! How his father and grandfather and great-grandfather would toss and turn in their graves if they heard him!
But Borka looked more cheerful. “For once in your life you said something quite clever then, Matt! One strong band of robbers— that would be good! Under one strong chief! I know one who would do,” he said, drawing himself up. “Strong and resourceful as I am!”
Then Matt let out a terrible laugh. “Come on, you, and I’ll show you who would do as chief!”
So Noddle-Pete got what he wanted. There would be a single combat; Matt and Borka had finally decided it was a good idea. The excitement grew among their men as this remarkable news reached them, and on the morning of the fight Matt’s robbers were making such a noise in the stone hall that Lovis had to drive them out.
“Out!” she shouted. “I simply can’t listen to this row!”
It was enough to listen to Matt. He was striding up and down the stone hall, grinding his teeth and bragging about how he was going to batter Borka to bits until even Undis would not recognize him.
Noddle-Pete sniggered. “Brag when you’re riding h
ome—that’s what my mother always said.”
And Ronia stared with displeasure at her hotheaded father. “I don’t want to watch when you’re doing the battering!”
“You won’t be allowed to,” Matt said. Women and children were kept away; that was the custom. It was not thought to be good for them to see what happened at a “wild beasts’ match,” as trials of strength like this were called, and the violence that went on at them was reason enough for the name.
“But you’re going to be there in any event, Noddle-Pete,” said Matt. “I know you’ve been feeling poorly, but a wild beasts’ match will put heart into you. Come on, old man, I’ll put you on my horse. The time has come!”
It was a cold, sunny morning with frost on the ground, and in the open space below the Wolf’s Neck stood Matt’s robbers and Borka’s robbers with their spears, forming a ring around Matt and Borka. Now they were going to find out who would make the better chief.
On top of a rocky outcrop close by sat Noddle-Pete, wrapped in a fur. He looked like a bedraggled old crow, but his eyes were shining with expectation, and he was eagerly following what was happening below.
The two champions had removed everything except their shirts and were now stamping around barefoot on the frosty ground. They felt and tensed their arm muscles and kicked out with their legs in all directions to limber up.
“You’re looking a bit blue around the nose, Borka,” said Matt. “But you’ll be warm soon, I promise you!”
“And I promise you the same,” Borka assured him.
In wild beasts’ matches every kind of trick and dirty hold was allowed. You could break and bore, rip and tear, bite and scratch; you could kick with your bare feet, too, but not between the legs. That was regarded as an outrage, and anyone who did it lost the fight forthwith.
Ronia, The Robber's Daughter Page 13
