No, Kolgrim had never heard that before. If only he’d known when Trond was alive – then the two of them would have become incredibly powerful. Together, he thought, they would have been invincible!
Brand had been quiet for a few moments. Remembering his dead brother had made him feel sad, but suddenly he snapped out of his thoughts.
Brand whispered excitedly: “In among the herbs, plants and all, they say there’s a mandrake!”
Kolgrim knew about these sort of magic herbs. In fact, he already knew far more than anybody imagined and it all held immense interest for him. His head was filled with every detail and he was always thinking about them. Poor Brand, on the other hand, was altogether too trusting to understand the gravity and significance of what he’d planted in Kolgrim’s little black soul.
***
That Sunday, after learning the truth from Brand, Kolgrim pretended that he had a temperature so that he’d have to stay at home when everybody else would be going to church.
As soon as everybody had left for church, Kolgrim went immediately to Linden Avenue and searched quickly through the house and the outbuildings. He found nothing in this first search but he didn’t waste one minute of the long church service and continued looking around a second time. Eventually, he had to creep away when he heard the servants coming back. He had concentrated on the old part of the house, but he couldn’t find the treasure anywhere. Disappointed and in a furious rage, he returned reluctantly to his ‘sickbed’.
The town of Erfurt was so far away that he had no idea where it was – and making such a journey just to hold a knife to the throat of the treacherous Tarjei was impossible. But there was something else he could do and it was something he’d wanted to do for years. He could be free of his rival. The one person who stood between him and so many things now challenged him for the most coveted prize of all: the practical wizardry of the Ice People. He’d soon show them all what happened to those who offended him.
With these thoughts in mind, Kolgrim laid his plans with painstaking precision. Perhaps he remembered the fairytale that Cecilie used to tell him, where the Great Troll became upset when small boys did things to hurt their younger siblings. Whatever his reasons were, he decided against a straightforward killing. There were other, more subtle ways, he told himself.
One day in July he asked to be allowed to go to Christiania with his granddad. He took with him all the coins he’d saved and kept hidden over the years. They were only small amounts of money that he’d been given by well-meaning family and friends – but now at last he had a use for them.
While his granddad was busy on his various errands, Kolgrim visited a stall outside a silversmith’s workshop and bought a nice brooch that would go well with a woman’s traditional costume. Having bought it, he showed it to nobody and during the days that followed, he made further preparations. On one occasion, without saying a word to anyone, he went riding for several hours, searching out locations and routes. As he rode, he listened to the fearful moan of the wind in the treetops, all the time grinning cruelly to himself.
The next evening, satisfied that he’d got everything in place, he made his next move. As the two half-brothers lay in their beds in the room they still shared, Kolgrim whispered to little Mattias: “Have you ever seen fish dancing?”
“No,” answered young Mattias. “Can fish dance?”
“Of course. Would you like to see?”
Mattias said he would.
“But they’re in a magical place,” Kolgrim whispered. “And they only come out at a certain time. We’ll have to creep up on them - but nobody else must know about it.”
“Not even Mum?” asked Mattias thoughtfully.
“No, not Mum – of course not! That would spoil everything, don’t you see?”
His little brother nodded. “Yes, of course.”
“Then I’ll take you with me to the place where they dance – but not tomorrow because they won’t be there then. It’ll be the day after. I’ll ride out early to make sure it’s the right day and you can meet me at the edge of the woods by the great oak tree. Let’s say nine o’clock, okay? Do you know the numbers on the clock?”
“No, but I can ask dad.”
“No, for heaven’s sake. Don’t do that! When the maids clear the table after breakfast, that’s when you sneak away. But remember, nobody must see you. We shan’t be gone for long, so nobody will find out.”
“I’ll do as you say,” the good-natured Mattias answered.
The following day Kolgrim said casually to his dad: “Will you allow me to ride into Christiania tomorrow, dad? The last time we were there, I saw a lovely brooch in a silversmith’s window. I’d love to buy it for Grandma Liv so she can wear it in church on the Feast of St. Olaf.”
Kolgrim couldn’t care less about the church, and could usually create a more or less plausible excuse to stay at home.
Tarald was touched by his son’s seeming selflessness.
“But surely you haven’t got enough money for that, Kolgrim?”
“Yes. You see I’ve saved up,” replied Kolgrim, smiling proudly.
“Goodness me! Well done! But you shouldn’t be riding on your own. Maybe I should take time to go with you ...”
“I’m twelve years old, dad! You know that I’m a very good horseman. And I know that I must keep a watch out for robbers and swindlers.”
So early the following day Kolgrim waved goodbye to his concerned parents and rode off towards Christiania. But as soon as he was out of sight of the Graastensholm farms, he turned down hidden paths and byways, making his way around the parish in a large semicircle. Some time later, as he sat astride his horse by the great oak, he watched a little figure trotting across the fields to reach their meeting-place on time. As he waited, an icy calmness settled over Kolgrim’s heart.
“I made it,” panted Mattias when he arrived. “Nobody saw me, but I was worried because they said that you’d gone to Christiania. I thought you might not be here.” Then with a frown, he added: “But I didn’t like telling a fib to Mum.”
“Did she ask anything?” asked Kolgrim harshly.
“No, but not saying anything is almost like fibbing.”
Kolgrim had never been burdened with such scruples so he didn’t understand Mattias’s feelings at all. Besides, he cared even less for his stepmother, Yrja, who’d always painstakingly tried to show him the same love as she had for her own son.
“We’ll be gone such a short while that they won’t notice anything,” said Kolgrim firmly. “Now climb up behind me.”
It took a little effort but as soon as Mattias was clinging on behind him, Kolgrim turned the horse and spurred it forward. Like all younger brothers, Mattias worshipped his older sibling. He was the hero, the one who could do anything and who knew everything. Kolgrim tended to regard this adulation with contempt rather than pride.
As they rode through the forest, Mattias said happily: “This is so exciting, I couldn’t even fall asleep last night!”
‘Excellent,’ thought Kolgrim, another ugly smile appearing on his face. ‘That’s exactly what I’d hoped.’
“I’ve brought some food for us,” continued Mattias in the same excited tone of voice. “We can eat it later, can’t we?”
“You did what?” Kolgrim’s voice was like an explosion. “Did anyone see you?”
“No. I snuck into the kitchen when nobody was there.”
Kolgrim relaxed. “Good! Yes, we might get hungry.”
For a while they rode along in silence through the green shadows of the forest, two young brothers apparently idyllically happy in the middle of the wonders of nature.
Then at one point, Mattias whispered in Kolgrim’s ear:
“Listen to the wind in the leaves. It sounds sad and beautiful at the same time – just like the requiem in church.”
“A requiem?
What’s that?” asked Kolgrim, who was unfamiliar with the peculiarities of religious rituals.
“It’s a service for the dead.”
‘That’s very apt,’ thought his elder brother, grinning to himself again as he guided the horse carefully forward through the trees along the path he’d carefully explored days before.
“It’s a very long way, isn’t it?” Mattias said a little while later. “How much further is it?”
“We’ll soon be there,” promised Kolgrim. “It won’t be long now.”
“But they rode on deeper and deeper into the forest for a long time without any signs of where they were headed for.
Finally, Mattias said: “Please don’t be angry with me, Kolgrim. But my bottom is beginning to hurt. Can we rest, do you think?”
Kolgrim ignored this request. His heart was beginning to race with excitement and he spurred the horse on a little faster.
“Don’t worry,” he told Mattias, “we’re almost there!”
By now they were following a path so overgrown and green that it was barely distinguishable from the forest floor all around them. It had clearly not seen many feet that summer and if Mattias had noticed any sign of hoof-prints, he would never have connected them with Kolgrim’s mysterious absence from home a few days earlier. They crossed small clearings, some edged with rotting raspberry canes, and once or twice they passed little groups of long-abandoned cottages huddled together.
At last the trees began to thin and open countryside appeared in front of them again. The wooded areas now consisted mainly of oaks, but as they moved on these were replaced by aspen and alder, which Mattias could see were growing along the edges of a broad stretch of water.
“Is this where we’ll be seeing the fishes dance?” he asked eagerly.
Kolgrim didn’t reply but rode on in silence until he turned the horse’s head towards the shore and urged it down a narrow path that led to a small jetty jutting out from the land. There he dismounted and helped his brother to the ground.
“Ooh! Look out there – that’s the sea, isn’t it?” exclaimed Mattias.
Far out, between rocky outcrops and islands, he could see a great body of blue water glittering in the hazy sunshine.
“Of course it’s the sea – that’s the only place where the fishes dance. They’re called dolphins and they’re very big. We need to cross the fjord first. Come on! I’ve got a boat.”
“Have you?” Mattias stared at him wide-eyed as he tied the horse to a tree. “Where?”
Kolgrim pointed to a small rowing boat, moored close by, which was almost hidden beneath overhanging trees.
“Over there, look.”
He’d been very thorough in his planning and knew that the little boat was seldom used. Leading the way along the jetty, he helped Mattias jump on board. Then he cast off and began rowing directly away from land, knowing that the curtain of overgrown alders along the shore would prevent whoever owned the boat from seeing them.
The oars splashed rhythmically and Mattias at first leaned over the side, watching the small whirlpools left in their wake. Kolgrim wasn’t hurrying and as he continued to pull slowly and calmly on the oars, while his tired young brother, Mattias, settled himself down in the stern, his eyelids growing heavy.
“Why don’t you take a nap if you feel like it,” said Kolgrim in a low, hypnotic voice. “It’s a long way out. I’ll wake you when there’s something to see.”
Mattias nodded drowsily, made himself more comfortable and tried to fall asleep.
When they reached the headland beyond which the fjord widened towards the open sea, Kolgrim quietly shipped the oars and let the boat drift towards a small beach. He made sure Mattias was still fast asleep. Then he gently slid both oars into the water and watched them drift away. Climbing quietly onto the shore, he stepped round to the bow, leaned on it and pushed hard, sending the little boat back into deeper water.
He watched the little boat drift steadily out to sea, helped by the retreating tide just as he’d planned. There was still no sound or sign of any movement on board.
After watching it for a few moments longer, with a grim smile of satisfaction spreading across his face, Kolgrim ran as fast as he could along the beach and round the rocky shoreline back towards the jetty where his horse was waiting. To justify his evil deed, he repeated to himself over and over again as he ran. “I haven’t killed him. No, I haven’t killed him.”
Were his childhood memories of Cecilie’s tales about how the “Great Troll” judged the good and bad deeds of small boys coming back to him? Maybe – it was unlikely that there could be any other explanation for Kolgrim’s ‘humane’ elimination of his troublesome little bother, Mattias.
***
Later that afternoon, Kolgrim returned back home to find the family and servants nervous and agitated. They all looked pale.
“Kolgrim, have you seen Mattias anywhere?” Liv asked him in a frantic voice as soon as she saw him.
Kolgrim jumped down from his horse, clutching a small package in his hand.
“Mattias? No, I’ve been in Christiania all day.”
“But what about early this morning?”
“He was still sleeping when I left,” replied Kolgrim, his face a picture of innocence.
“No, he was at breakfast with us,” broke in Tarald. “He disappeared after that – Kolgrim had been gone long by then.”
Yrja was pale and drawn. Her face looked like a death mask.
“Mattias took some food with him,” she said, “enough for two. I’m sure he did!”
“How can you be sure?” asked Tarald.
“Because of the way Mattias always uses the butter knife – and he took bread, cheese and meat for two people at least.”
“Where is Grandpa?” wondered Kolgrim.
“Still out looking,” Liv told him with deep anxiety showing in her eyes. “We’ve been out all day searching, all of us!”
Yrja’s face hardened and she grabbed hold of Kolgrim. “You know where he is,” she shouted. “I can see it in your face. You know where he is, don’t you?”
Tarald pushed himself between them. “Yrja, my dear! You shouldn’t treat Kolgrim so harshly.”
Yrja struggled to contain her feelings, but the panic she’d been hiding all day had now taken hold of her. “I know him,” she screamed. “I know that innocent look! He’s done something to Mattias. I know it ... I just KNOW it!”
By now, Kolgrim’s eyes were brimming with the tears of the unjustly accused. “I’ve only been to Christiania,” he sniffed. “I went to buy a gift for Grandma. Look!”
He unfolded the paper package in his hand to reveal the shining silver brooch.
“Oh, Kolgrim!” said Liv, filled suddenly with emotion. “How sweet of you! You must forgive Yrja – a mother can’t always think clearly when something has happened to her child.”
Yrja was choking and sobbing uncontrollably. “The only good thing I ever did with ... my life ... was to bring ... my little Mattias into this world. He can’t be lost! He can’t be ... gone!”
“He isn’t lost,” Tarald comforted her. “He’ll be home again before nightfall, you’ll see.”
***
But Mattias didn’t come home – that night or the next day or the day after that. Graastensholm seemed stricken by grief and sorrow and Yrja could be heard calling out Mattias’s name day and night. Everybody lost count of the number of times she would rush back and forth through the forest, searching and crying endlessly.
When she managed to sleep, which wasn’t very often, she’d still wake in the middle of the night, panic-stricken, and cry out: “He needs me! He’s all alone and he needs me!” And she’d wander off once more at daybreak, walking again in circles through the forest and woodlands, asking in the cottages, searching, searching, always searching.
Liv los
t her serene, happy attitude to life and her sorrow turned her hair grey within days. Dag hadn’t been in the best of health before Mattias disappeared, but now he became increasingly frail. Tarald’s fingernails were bitten to the quick. While he didn’t often allow the despair he was suffering to get the upper hand, when he was alone he’d go to Mattias’s room, pacing to and fro, touching all his things – and sobbing until his whole body ached. There wasn’t one person of the parish who hadn’t helped in the search for the fine little boy from Graastensholm. Everybody missed him and shared the family’s sadness.
One day, Kolgrim happened to laugh at something insignificant, which made Yrja fly at him in a rage. She grabbed him and began shaking him for all she was worth.
“It makes you happy, doesn’t it?” she screamed, her voice razor-sharp. “You’re happy to be rid of your brother so that you can inherit everything!”
She had no idea how close to the truth she was. Her only mistake was in not knowing what it was Kolgrim wanted to inherit. In his turn, Kolgrim was overcome with burning hatred.
“Leave me alone, you damned old woman!” he whispered, his eyes turning a bright yellow. Then his voice changed to a spiteful snarl. “Now we see you for what you really are! You’ve never cared about me, only about the sweet little boy you gave birth to!”
Immensely shocked, Liv spoke sharply to her older grandson. “What utter nonsense, Kolgrim! No motherless child could ever have been shown more love than you. We’ve given you all our affection, every one of us – from your granddad, the notary, to the youngest stable boy. We’ve shown you love and affection at all times and pampered you. Why, Granddad and I even begged for your life when you were newly born and thought to be too injured ... to survive. We wanted you then and we cared for you, Yrja as well! I doubt that your poor, dear mother, Sunniva, could have given you greater love. That’s something you should remember.”
Her outburst over, Yrja had come quickly to her senses.
“Forgive me, Kolgrim,” she said. “I’m so distressed I no longer know what I’m saying.”
Evil Legacy Page 2