While Hans Peter laughed and slapped his thighs, the tenderhearted lass hurried over to her pet. “Now, Rollo, that’s enough,” she scolded. “You’ve scared the poor thing. Let it go.”
Rollo gave his mistress a pleading look.
“Don’t you try that with me, wolfling,” she said in her most withering tones. “You get plenty to eat; you don’t need to add mouse to your diet.”
“But they’re vermin,” Rollo reminded her. “If they get in the house, they’ll chew holes in things and eat our food.”
“Well, this one isn’t in the house. It’s outside. And it belongs outside.” The lass put her hands on her hips and tapped her booted foot. “Rollo.”
Heaving a huge sigh, the wolf opened his paws and the little mouse staggered away. Its nose was twitching so fast that it was a blur, and it kept stopping every few steps to sway, as if faint. Taking pity on it, the girl bent over and gently scooped it up, then put it down just at the mouth of the little hole where it lived with its family.
Sighing again, Rollo stood up, shook out his thick pelt, and wandered nonchalantly over to the woodpile to sniff at the kindling that Hans Peter was stacking. “A lot of wood” was his comment.
“He says that it’s a lot of wood,” the lass reported.
Hans Peter brandished a stick at the wolf. “You’re the one who told the lass a storm was coming.”
Rollo made the little yipping noise that stood for yes. He and the lass had managed to work out some signals for Hans Peter, so that he could, to a certain extent, understand the wolf. Jarl thought it most clever of his daughter and her pet, and he himself would speak to the wolf often, and try to interpret his answers. Frida thought the situation unnatural, though, so Hans Peter and the lass made it a point to treat Rollo as they would any other dog whenever Frida was around. Rollo understood, and played the part of the goofy mutt for Frida. He would chew on old slippers and whine at the door whenever there was a noise outside, even though he didn’t like the taste of slipper and knew full well that it was only the wind.
“It’s an awful lot of wood, and outside,” Rollo said, and the lass translated. “I don’t think you’ll need this much, but some of it should be inside, so that you can get to it.”
“I see.” Hans Peter looked at the pile. “Does he know how high the snow will be? Or how long the storm will last?”
“Deep and long,” the lass translated. “But how deep or how long he isn’t sure. But he thinks that it will not be as bad as the storm his first winter.”
“Well, that’s a blessing at least,” Hans Peter said with a grunt. He was transferring the wood to a large canvas sling so that it could be carried into the house.
Sixth months after Rolf Simonson had brought the lass the pup, a blizzard had come down on their valley. For ten days the family huddled in their cottage, praying for the snow to stop. When it did, it was higher than the roof of their cottage, and it was another week before they could tunnel their way across the yard and check on the reindeer. Jarl made his living cutting down the large trees deep in the forest, but it had been over a month before it was safe enough to return to his work. They’d had to kill three reindeer to make up for the loss of income. No one living could remember a storm as terrible, and it had made even Frida cross herself and mutter about trolls as they dug their way to the barn.
Now the lass hurried to load a sling of firewood. Rather than flinging it around to her back as her brother did, though, she simply slid hers along the hard-packed snow to the front door. They both kicked their boots against the doorframe as they went in, to knock off the snow, and Rollo daintily shook his feet before stepping onto Frida’s clean-swept floor.
They had timed their entrance right: the last of the candles was cooling on the table, and the herbs had been put away. The lass sneezed three times in quick succession and hurried to make dinner.
As the first snowflakes fell, they were sitting down to eat when the door to the cottage suddenly banged open to reveal a huge, white, furry creature. Frida shrieked, and the lass leaped backward off her bench. Rollo sprang from his position by the fire and stood between the people and the monster in the doorway, hackles raised, and snarled.
With a guffaw, the fur-clad figure pulled aside the high collar obscuring its face. It was Askeladden, up from the city. He laughed again at their expressions, and then shook himself so that the snow fell off his parka and hood and revealed the gray fur underneath.
“You’re getting snow all over the floor,” the lass told her brother, recovering quickly.
“Then get the broom and sweep it up before it melts, girl,” her mother ordered. “Come in and sit down, son; have some stew. Einar is helping Nils patch their roof; we have plenty to spare.” She fluttered around her favored third son. “How nice of you to visit. I’ve missed you.”
“This isn’t just a visit,” Askeladden said, shrugging off his snow-clogged outer clothes and leaving them on the floor for the lass to care for. “I’ve come a-hunting.”
“Hunting? Here?” Jarl shook his head. “There’s naught worth hunting in these parts but snowfoxes, and I’ll wager you have enough of those outside the city.”
“Not snowfoxes,” Askeladden said with his charming grin. “Isbjørn. Giant white isbjørn. A creature they say makes the white reindeer seem like poor game.”
“Isbjørn? There’s no ice bear in these parts,” the lass said as she swept up the snow scattered over the floor. She rolled her eyes at Hans Peter, but he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were fixed on Askel, and his face was gray.
“There is a bear in these parts,” Askel said. “A number of hunters have seen it. A massive beast, and whiter than the snow.” Askel’s hands described the proportions of the bear in the air over the table, and his eyes shone. “The royal furrier in Christiania is offering five hundred gold crowns to whoever brings him the pelt.” His eyes shone even brighter at the mention of the money, and so did Frida’s. “The king wants a bearskin parka,” he added. “And I’m going to provide it for him. Imagine if I was the man who brought down this mighty bear . . . the king himself might want to meet me!”
“This is your chance, son,” Frida said, laying her arm around Askel’s broad shoulders and giving him a squeeze. “You’ll make your fortune with this hunt. I can feel it in my bones.” She kissed his cheek.
“Hans Peter, are you all right?” The lass had gone to her favorite brother and laid a hand on his shoulder. He looked as if he were going to be sick. He had let his spoon, with a piece of carrot still on it, fall to the table beside his bowl, and his hands were limp in his lap.
“Do not hunt this isbjørn,” Hans Peter said in a strange, hollow voice. “It is not a natural creature.”
Askel’s voice was thick with derision. “How could you possibly know anything about this animal? Why, none of you had even heard of it until I told you of it just now.”
“Bears do not come here,” Hans Peter said. “White or brown. For an isbjørn to wander this far south . . .” He trailed off. “Do not hunt this bear, Askeladden.” A shudder passed through Hans Peter, and the lass tightened her fingers on his shoulder. “I know more of isbjørn than I ever care to. No good can come of this.”
“What nonsense is this?” Frida shrilled. “What do you know about bears, shut away here by my hearth day after day, as though you weren’t a man grown who should be off making his own way in the world?” She shook her finger at Hans Peter. “Askeladden is going to make his fortune, and I’ll not have your jealousy ruining things for him.”
“Now, wife,” Jarl began. He reached across the table to pat her hand, but she shook him off; he grimaced. “Hans Peter does his part with the farmwork and his carvings. And let us not forget that he once sailed the northern seas on a trading ship.”
Frida turned away from her husband and her eldest son to make her point clear: this was not enough for her. A slow anger boiled in the lass’s stomach. She had been rejected by her mother when she was born, and
was used to being dismissed as worthless. But Hans Peter . . . that was something else. It angered the girl to think that Frida could be so cold as to turn against her eldest son this way. True, Askeladden was the lucky third son, but what had he ever done in his life? Trapped a few foxes, shot a few wild deer, flirted with a few foolish farmgirls, and not much else.
“If you want to sit here by the fire like an old woman all your life, brother, that is your decision,” Askeladden said in his haughty way. “But I have chosen a different road, one that will lead me to riches, and fame.”
“The third son’s birthright!” Frida said.
“It is a fine thing, to set your sights on crystal towers and golden thrones,” Hans Peter said quietly. “But first you had better see what lurks within those towers, and what sits on those thrones. Every palace needs a foundation, Askeladden. Make sure that yours isn’t of human bones.” And with that, Hans Peter got to his feet, his every movement as slow and jerky as an old, old man’s. The rest of the family watched in stunned silence as he made his way up the ladder and into the darkness of the loft.
“He’s mad,” Askeladden said quietly after a moment.
“He’s hurting,” the lass said fiercely. “He’s hurting, and none of you care.” She was still standing, her fists clenched. Rollo stood beside her, pressed against her thigh, uncertain what to do to comfort his beloved mistress.
“Pika, pika,” Jarl said softly. “I care. But there’s naught we can do.” He smiled sadly at his youngest child. Then, turning his gaze to Askel, his smile faded. “I have never known your brother to speak madness—”
“Until now!”
Jarl held up one hand in a sharp gesture to silence Askeladden. “I have never known Hans Peter to speak madness. His counsel has always been sound, and he knows far more of the world than I ever hope to. You should listen to his advice.”
“Jarl, don’t talk nonsense!” Frida pounded on the table with her bony fist. “Hans Peter is a good-for-nothing, and my Askeladden is a strong, brave man. He’s a fine hunter, and if he says that he will bring down the isbjørn, he will!”
“Thank you, Mother,” Askeladden said in a lofty tone. “I think I shall sleep here tonight, to rest up while this storm blows itself out, and then I shall be off after the bear.”
“An excellent plan, my son,” Frida said. “Here, have some more stew, and some bread and cheese. You need to keep up your strength. And before you leave tomorrow, I’ll pack you a bag with plenty of dried meat and cheese and bread, for the hunt.”
“You will regret this,” the lass said.
She was speaking to Askel, but she never knew if he heard her. Her gaze was fixed on the little window beside the door. The shutter had flapped loose when Askel had come in, and she had not yet closed it. The greased reindeer hide pane barely let the light filter in when the sun was shining, but now she thought she could see the snow swirling outside. It seemed to make shapes: an isbjørn and the shambling form of a troll.
“You will regret this,” she repeated, her voice no more than a whisper. “We all will.”
Chapter 7
When Askeladden had been gone three days, even Frida began to worry. The storm had been fierce, but after the skies cleared, the pristine snow looked welcoming. Askel had tested his skis and found the chill temperature had made the snow perfect for travel. He loaded up his knapsack with food, his crossbow, bolts, and knives, and waved a cheery farewell to his mother.
Hans Peter sat by the fire and said not a word to anyone, not even to the lass when she pressed him to eat something. He ate reluctantly and didn’t carve a single piece of wood. Rollo sat beside him, his head on Hans Peter’s knee. His silence affected the entire family, and added to it was a strangeness in the air.
Jarl went out and about his work, as usual, skiing through the trees and pulling back a great sledge of wood at the end of each day. The lass and Frida milked the reindeer and made cheese, and the lass found a squirrel’s cache of nuts and ground them into meal. But all this was done in silence. Though not a talkative woman, Frida had a sharp tongue and enjoyed giving orders to her husband and remaining children. But for three days she said almost nothing. The lass did not sing, Hans Peter did not tell stories, and Jarl did not share the details of his day.
And then another storm descended.
The wind raged around the little cottage, and there was not even time to secure the animals. Jarl tried, but the snow had turned into needles of ice, and he hardly made it two steps out the door before he was forced to come back in. The skin around his eyes, the only part of him exposed to the weather, was stung raw.
“There’s no way to bring the chickens in,” he panted as the lass helped him remove his ice-covered outer clothes. “We may lose them all. But the bigger animals should do all right: the barn is tight, and they had water and feed.”
“I made sure of the chickens,” the lass told him, trying to reassure her father, whose expression was as bleak as she had ever seen it. “They’re safe enough.”
“You’re a good girl,” he said, patting her head absently even though she was only a handspan shorter than he.
“And who is making sure that my Ash-lad is safe?” Frida demanded. “Where is he sheltering from the storm?”
“I don’t know, wife,” Jarl said, sagging down on a chair by the table. “All we can do is pray.”
“Is he not the lucky third son?” Hans Peter spoke for the first time since making his pronouncement to Askeladden. “Is he not, as you call him, the Ash-lad? Surely he will ride out this storm in some fabulous palace, and will return triumphant tomorrow with a princess and a chest of gold.” His words would have been insulting if his voice hadn’t been so drained of emotion.
“And so he shall,” Frida said, giving her eldest son a defiant look. “He is the best and brightest of all my children, my lucky third son, and he shall return in triumph, as you say.”
The young lass didn’t say anything. She wanted her mother to be right . . . not about the gold and the princess, although that might be nice. No, she wanted her brother to return in safety. She was not half so fond of him as she was of Hans Peter, but he was still her brother, and the lass could not bear to think of losing even one member of her family.
Lost in these dire thoughts, everyone jumped when Rollo lunged to his feet and streaked to the front door. He stood before it, hackles raised, his growl cutting through the silence in a most unpleasant way. Hans Peter also got to his feet, drawing his sharp whittling knife, and moved between the door and his youngest sister.
“Rollo? What is it?” The lass didn’t care if her mother heard her talking to the wolf. She was covered in gooseflesh and thought that she could see a shape moving outside the little front window. A shape not made of wind and snow.
Rollo’s growl rose in pitch, and he took a stiff step forward just as the door burst open. A great, white, fur-covered figure barely managed to squeeze through the door, shoving Rollo aside as though he were a puppy. Frida started to laugh, to say something, obviously thinking that it was her darling Askeladden come home.
But it was not Askeladden, wrapped in furs and coated with snow. It was not a human at all. It was an isbjørn, a great white ice bear of the North, and it was standing in the middle of their cottage and looking right at the lass.
“Rollo, don’t you dare,” she hissed.
The wolf, more stunned than hurt, had regained his feet and looked ready to pounce on the bear. Never mind that the creature outweighed him by more than a ton, where his mistress’s safety was concerned, Rollo had no fear.
“Rollo, I mean it, come here,” the lass insisted, slapping her thigh.
Snorting to show the bear that he was not afraid, Rollo backed his way over to the lass and took up his position beside her. None of the other humans moved. Frida was frozen in place, a ladle in one hand and the pot of stew in the other. Jarl stood beside the table, one hand on the bread knife and the other clenched in a fist. Hans Peter was still
standing protectively in front of the lass and their mother, his short woodworking knife drawn. But his hand was shaking so badly that it looked as though he would drop the knife any moment, and his face was the blue-white of frozen cow’s milk.
“What do you want?” The lass’s voice was shrill. “Go away!”
The bear swayed from side to side, blinking its black eyes. The wind blew gusts of snow through the open door that drifted around its massive paws, and the lass could see that the bear was, indeed, whiter than the snow. The gleaming quality of its fur reminded her of starlight, and moonlight, and the pelt of the white reindeer, who had given her a name.
“Go away!” She made a shooing gesture.
“Can you understand me?” The isbjørn’s voice was deep and rumbling, and it caught a little, as though it was unaccustomed to talking. Frida gave a little squeak, and Jarl lifted the knife off the table at what sounded like a threatening growl.
“Yes,” the lass replied shortly.
The bear’s eyes closed, and it came a little farther into the cottage. It was crowded against the table now, within reach of both Jarl and Hans Peter and their knives, but it did not seem to care. The black eyes opened.
“Come with me,” the bear rumbled.
“What?” The lass felt like her skin was shifting over her bones.
“You. Come with me.”
“What’s it saying?” Hans Peter’s voice was barely a whisper.
“What’s it saying?” Frida’s voice was much sharper, but not much louder. “It’s a bear! Kill it!”
“He wants me to go with him,” the lass said. Her voice shook, and she didn’t bother to whisper. She knew from the bear’s voice that he was male, and from his eyes that he did not mean to harm anyone. “Why?” This last she addressed to the bear.
The isbjørn swayed from side to side. A low moan issued from its throat. “Can’t say.” Its brow furrowed and it moaned again. “But. Need you. You come now.”
“He says he needs me to come with him,” the girl said in a bewildered voice.
Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow Page 4