Fleming carried over two tumblers containing a dark liquid. He handed one to me and then took his seat.
“I have to confess,” he continued, “that even though I love them all, the retriever is my favourite.” On cue, a darker mass of hair extricated itself from the carpet and padded over to his master to have his ears fondled. The sleek black dog closed its eyes in delight.
“So,” he said, raising his glass. “Skål!”
“Skål.”
He drained it in one. I did the same. The viscous black liquid was vile. It tasted like gasoline mixed with tar. I grimaced.
“Gammel Dansk,” he chuckled. “You’d better get used to it. Over at Grenholm, old Claus has everyone start the day with one of these.”
“An acquired taste perhaps.”
“Like many things. But very Danish,” he added. His gaze turned to the fire, then rose to the ceiling above our heads. I watched him, waiting for him to speak until he seemed to remember himself and turned back to me. “Now what brings you to Grenholm. How do you know them over there?”
“Well, actually I am half-Danish. They’re old family friends of my father and grandfather. My father couldn’t make it so I came instead.”
“Why can’t you speak Danish?”
“Ha! Yes, I’m a little embarrassed about that. Really my whole family were raised as Englishmen. My grandfather Henrik moved to England before the war.”
“Henrik? Ah wait, yes,” his old face flashed some long-forgotten thought. “Aha! So old Henrik is your grandfather. Yes. I know him well in fact. From long ago. We were in the Guards together, you know.”
“Really?” The thought somehow delighted me. “Yes, I’ve seen pictures of him all dressed up in the uniform. I think he’s quite proud of them actually.”
“Yah, he was back then too. He could be insufferably vain at times. Ha! You don’t mind my saying so?”
“Not at all,” I smiled.
“I doubt he’s told you this though. He was much shorter than the regulation height for the Guards, but somehow he got himself in. But the girls used to have fun teasing him about it, asking him whether real Guards weren’t supposed to be much taller.” We both laughed a little at that. “In fact, we were good friends for a time. People would see us walking along together, and sometimes called us kegle og bold .”
“What’s that?”
“Skittle and ball. I didn’t care so much but it made your grandfather mad. Oh, he could get angry, that one.” He seemed amused for some moments, then the smile slowly slid from his face.
“You’ll send him my regards, won’t you?”
“With pleasure.”
There was a pause, and he reached over and refilled my glass. Resigning myself to his hospitality, I accepted.
He leaned back in his chair with his glass in his hands, and once more his gaze returned to the ceiling. I watched his profile in the firelight, imagining that this mountain of a man really had begun to turn to stone.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m rather distracted this evening.”
“You don’t need to apologise. I’m sorry I had to disturb you. Walking in here like a vagrant.” His eyes were still on the ceiling.
“Perhaps it’s best that you did come,” he murmured. With a sudden lurch, he sat up in his chair and his grey eyes were on me. “I should have told you this earlier. But … well, I’m telling you now. Tonight, you have arrived on a very … let us say, a very unusual night. Some might say inconvenient.”
I began to apologise again, but he flapped it away with his big hand.
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” He nodded his head at the spot in the ceiling to which his gaze had kept returning. “You see, my wife is up there. She is in our bedroom. And she is giving birth.”
My earnest nod concealed utter astonishment.
“Yes, she is up there with two nurses and the doctor. I suppose they have everything under control. I was up there earlier for a time, but they sent me away. They said there was nothing I could do, that it may be a difficult birth, and it was best if I waited down here. I didn’t want to get in their way, so here I am. Waiting and waiting. It has been many hours now.”
I searched for something sympathetic to say. “I’m sure everything will be fine.”
“Are you, by God?” he barked. I looked down at my drink, confused at whether I had offended him.
But then he just said, “Skål.”
“Skål,” I returned, happier this time to drain the dreadful stuff in one go.
“So now we wait.”
I imagined this was a cue to settle into a period of silence. Instead, he became suddenly animated. “Since this storm has brought you here, may I confide in you, young man?”
“Of course. Please do as you wish. If I can be of some help …”
“I don’t think you can, but you can at least listen. That room up there, where my wife now lies, has seen a great many sons and daughters bearing the name Trolleskjold come into the world. This house has been the family seat of the Trolleskjolds for many centuries. Can you guess when it was first built?”
“Well, I don’t know. I would guess it’s sixteenth century maybe.”
“Wrong!” he declared. “The first house was built here in the twelfth century. Trolleskjolds have lived here for nearly nine hundred years.”
“Remarkable. Was it a castle?”
“Was? It still is,” he said defensively.
“I suppose … I mean, what is its history?”
“Well, the first man to bear the name Trolleskjold was not born with that name. No, he was given it by the King of Denmark. King Sweyn Grathe was that fellow’s name, the bastard son of Eric the Second. My ancestor’s name was Arve. He was a companion of Sweyn and fought with him in Norway, and then helped him secure his throne against Canute of Jutland in the civil war between them. He was given these lands in Jutland as a reward for his loyalty. Of course, they’d been confiscated from some rebel count or other who no doubt got the chop.”
“How interesting. And Arve built the first castle?”
“Yes. But the building of the castle was connected to another story. Have you noticed the shape of this house?”
“Some kind of cross?” I ventured.
“So it is. Well, the old part is, at least. Old Arve turned to religion, you see. He started his life a count and ended up a bishop. But the story goes that Arve thought he had good reason to turn to God. He was sure he was under a curse.”
“A curse? Why would he think that?”
“Well, that is connected with the name Trolleskjold. This was the name King Sweyn gave him to honour his great deeds in Norway in their younger days. He had the reputation of a great warrior. Of course, don’t they all? But the story connected with him was in the realm of legend. Or myth, you might say. He was supposed to have fought the Troll King.”
“The Troll King? Really?” I couldn’t help smiling.
“Well, that is the story. And this is at least where the name comes from. Trolleskjold – ‘troll shield’. Look up there.”
He pointed back up to the spot that he had used previously to indicate the room where his wife was, even now, in labour.
“You see that boss at the point of the arch?”
“With the coat of arms?”
“That’s it. That is the Trolleskjold coat of arms. They say that that is the original boss that was made with the building of the first house. Put up there by Arve himself. You see the three features?”
I twisted my head to see it at the right angle. There was a stylised cross in the middle with a crown wreathed around its top, and a kind of coil of rope around the lower vertical arm.
“I think so. The cross, the crown and the rope.”
“That’s not a rope,” rasped the old man. “It is a tail. It represents the troll. The troll’s tail. In Old Norse folklore, the tail is where the true evil of the troll is supposed to lie. On the Trolleskjold crest, this symbol represents Arve fighting the Troll K
ing.”
“But trolls aren’t real, are they?” I asked, sounding more cynical than I had intended.
“Who can say? The stories are there. Perhaps they were some befouled race of men and the stories grew out of their doings. Perhaps monsters, or mythical creatures of evil? Who knows? Of course, we don’t talk of them anymore. If the modern world would doubt even God, there’s surely no stomach to believe in trolls.”
“I suppose. I have to admit I’m not very religious.”
“Well, you’re still young. When you’re my age you may find you think differently.”
“So what happened to the Trolleskjolds after that?”
“Well, Arve built his castle in the shape of a cross, and for four centuries, the Trolleskjolds sat here as bishop-counts. Trolleholm became an episcopal see. Then the Reformation came and suddenly it wasn’t such a good idea to be a Catholic bishop. But they knew which side their … ach, how do you English put it?”
“Which side their bread was buttered?” I offered.
“Yes. That’s it! They figured holding fast to their eternal salvation wasn’t going to stop them making their way in the world. So they gave up being bishops but continued as counts.”
“Very expedient.”
“Indeed. Even today I carry the title of Count.”
“So the line has continued right up to you. That’s extraordinary.” I shook my head, sincerely impressed. “But then the Trolleskjolds as a family have prospered amazingly well. I guess old Arve needn’t have worried about any curse after all.”
A shadow crossed his stony face. “The curse?” he repeated.
“Yes, the curse from slaying the Troll King.”
“I didn’t say it was from slaying him.”
“I thought that, after he was supposed to have killed the Troll King, Arve thought he was under a curse.”
Fleming didn’t answer. Instead he rose and walked over to one of the chests. “Let me show you something.”
Within a few moments, he was back by the chair holding an enormous old book in his hands. He tugged his chair closer. The wolfhounds stirred before the fire at the scraping of the chair over the stone. There was some scratching, a collar jangled, a yawn, then they settled again. I pulled my chair a few inches towards his as well, and he held the old book towards the firelight.
It must have been a foot and a half tall, over a foot wide, and four inches thick. Bound in rich but worn dark leather, and the pages, once gilt-edged, had long since faded to a musty pale yellow.
“This is the Trolleskjold family Bible.” I could just make out on its cover faded black lettering in Danish – Bibelen .”
“It doesn’t go back as far as Arve, naturally. But this one came into the family in the sixteenth century so it is still very old – one of the oldest printed bibles in Denmark. See here.”
He turned to the opening pages. Instead of the printed text that began further on, these were filled with careful handwriting in faded but still legible ink.
“This was the original owner of this book. Count August Klamper Trolleskjold, died February 23rd, 1587. And then his son, Caspar. And his son, Petrus. And so the list continues – in these front pages and then the more recent generations at the back. Here, have a look.”
I took the book. It must have weighed five kilos. I turned the leaves carefully, which were stiff with age, and ran down the lists – page after page – that encapsulated dozens of generations and hundred of years, till I found myself turning onto a half-filled page at the bottom of which was his name: Count Fleming Ulrich Trolleskjold, the only entry without a date beside it.
I looked up at him and found him looking at me intently.
“Do you notice anything?”
“Other than there’s a lot of you?”
“No. Something else. A pattern.”
I shook my head.
“Look again.”
I went down the pages once more, scrutinising every detail this time. Names, titles, dates of death – some entries had birth dates inscribed as well. Between each name in smaller script was a single word, “ søn ”. I knew this meant simply “son” in Danish. So the title of Count went from father to son, father to son, over and over.
Then I saw another word, sometimes scrawled between the names: “ brodersøn ”. And then another, “ søstersøn ”.
“Here. These other words. Are they ‘brother-son’ and ‘sister-son’? Just different ways of saying ‘nephew’ I guess?”
“Yes. And?”
I shrugged.
“Look again.”
I passed my finger down the list. Name, son, name, son, name, son. Then every so often, one of the words for nephew would interrupt this flow. I carried on down the list, and soon sensed a rhythm to these interruptions. I began now to focus not on the names but on the words describing their connection. Was there a pattern?
I started counting: one, two, three, four, five, six sons, then brother’s son; one, two, three, four, five, six sons, then sister’s son; one, two, three, four, five, six sons, then sister’s son again. Over and over, six sons, then either brother’s or sister’s son. It seemed the title of Count would pass six times, and then go to a nephew.
“I’ve got it!” I said triumphantly, and looked at Fleming hoping he would be pleased. But his face was like a death mask.
“So?”
“Every seventh generation the title of Count passes to a nephew.”
“But why?”
I paused, then shook my head.
“Because every seventh generation, the oldest line dies out.”
“Dies out? It’s not just because there are no sons.”
“Dies out,” he repeated.
I turned to the last page. At the top, under the first name was the word “ søstersøn ”. I counted the names down. My finger came to Fleming’s name as I reached the number seven.
I looked up quickly.
“You are the seventh.”
“I am the seventh.”
“But then …”
“There, young man, is Arve’s curse.”
For a moment, I was speechless. “But surely,” I stammered, “this must be some kind of coincidence.”
“Bah! Coincidence – ha!” He spat the words in disgust. “One of my ancestors was a famous mathematician in his day. This Trolleskjold calculated that the probability of this happening precisely every seventh generation from the first date in this book till then was equivalent to one grain of sand against the number of grains on a beach two kilometres long. Two kilometres!” he exclaimed. “Of course, the pattern isn’t only in this book. The tradition within the family is that it extends back even as far as Arve himself.”
“And you believe it will happen to you?”
“Let me tell you something. There have been members of the family who, in their day, have poured scorn on the idea, men who have fallen at the second or third or fourth generation. It is different for we who are seventh. The hand of something bigger overshadows you. Something beyond you. Something out of your control. With that comes a dread. A dread that I have lived with, yet run from, all my life.” He sank lower into his chair. “Not everything is known about every Trolleskjold who was the end of their line. Only this. However he chose to face his fate, not one of us has overcome it.”
“And you? How have you faced it?”
“My father showed me this when I was twenty-one. He told me, ‘You are the seventh, and you should accept that you will be the last.’ I knew it could still be no more than superstition, but I refused to risk inflicting this tragedy on any woman whom I allowed myself to love. Instead all my life I resisted marriage and love, avoiding this possibility, though just as surely fulfilling the curse.” He looked at me. “Are you married, young man?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, one day I hope you will be. You know, you could do far worse than marry a Danish girl.” His clear grey eyes seemed to twinkle as he said this.
“My grandfather tells al
l his grandchildren exactly the same thing,” I said. He smiled at the thought.
“Yah, well, maybe he knows what he’s talking about in this case.” His smile soon faded though, and he turned to gaze into the fire. “But I … Well, for years and years, I watched my friends and cousins, meeting each other, falling in love, building families. But I was always alone. Of course, there were women in the early part of my life, whom I might have married. There was enough there for love. But this idea, this shadow of tragedy I could not shake, nor would I give in. I became stubborn. Resolute that this was a burden that I should bear, and I alone. No one else. I remained resolute despite those long decades of isolation and loneliness. And by my choice!” He choked out the words.
I tried to imagine what it would be like, year after year being master of this castle, alone and empty, the finality of his line as cold and unbending as its granite walls.
“Of course, people thought I was just a loner. That I had decided that women and marriage were not for me. But that wasn’t true. I suffered. And meanwhile, I made arrangements. I have a sister. Or had. She is dead now. But she had a son, Johan. He’s a fine man already. Perhaps a little older than you. He is named as my heir. He will be the next Count Trolleskjold and the first in his line of seven generations.” He sighed. “But then … then there was Malene.”
“Your wife?”
“My wife. She came into my life only five years ago. She was much younger than me – thirty-five years younger! Imagine. Cynic that I was, I thought her interest in me was only for my money, but I knew already it was going to Johan. Everything was. But she persisted. I don’t know what she could see in me. But she saw something. Something that was there that even I had never seen. But she drew it out of me. Like Michelangelo drawing his David out of a cold block of marble, she brought my heart to life … I was seventy-five when we met. Seventy-five! An old man. Yet I found my heart loving like I was a boy of twenty again. It was agony, and pure bliss. She walked right through all the barriers I had spent decades building up just like they were no more than paper.” He nodded. “And so I reasoned with myself. An old man of seventy-five – to know happiness like I’d never known, so late in life. And yet the promise I had kept so carefully and painfully to spare any woman the tragedy of the Trolleskjolds – what was I to do with this? Perhaps, I thought … perhaps I have found a way to beat the curse. My body was so old and decaying, how could new life possibly come from this creaking old frame? Surely, it could not. Indeed, even Malene was not young. The curse could have its due – Johan would remain my heir, but I would have my love. And so I married Malene.”
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