Evil Legacy

by Margit Sandemo

  “Oh, go to HELL!” he hissed so that only she could hear him, and without saying anything further, he stormed out of the room.

  Liv had her suspicions about the truth of the matter. So she wrote a letter to Cecilie in which she described their deep despair and told her how they were still clinging to a faint hope that Mattias might still be alive; how he might be lost or lying somewhere injured and in need of help, and how they feared he might not be found until it was too late. She ended her letter by saying:

  Dearest Cecilie, can you please come home as soon as possible? We have strong misgivings about Kolgrim and believe he might know something. You’re the only person who’s ever managed to tame him. Please come home to us. Our dear little Mattias has now been gone for five long weeks and Yrja’s beginning to lose her reason. Dad and I can’t stand this torment any longer.

  Cecilie had only recently returned home to Gabrielshus from attending to Anna Christiane at Court as she lay on her deathbed and, more than anything else, needed to rest in the company of her small family. But she soon decided that she had to travel urgently back to Norway.

  “And no, Alexander,” she told her concerned husband, “I shan’t take the twins with me to Graastensholm. I’m quite certain that Kolgrim’s behind all this. I’ll never allow Gabriella or Tancred to fall victim to his predatory gaze!”

  “But surely he wouldn’t ever try to harm them, would he?” asked Alexander in alarm. “Do you really think he might?”

  “Kolgrim was very attached to me as you know – and he thinks I betrayed him when I had children of my own. I’ve always doubted the sincerity of his apparent goodwill towards Mattias. So you can rest assured that no matter how much I would wish it, I shan’t ever take our little ones back to my home. Mum and Dad have been here to see them, as has Tarjei. But the rest of my family have never met Tancred and Gabriella, and it’s all because of Kolgrim.”

  “I think you’re being a little unfair towards the boy,” said Alexander, “but then you know him better than I do. We’ll have to wait until the next time. I do hope you find Mattias. He was such a fine young chap.”

  Cecilie sighed deeply. “If only we had Grandpa Tengel to help us! Or Sol. They always seemed to have the gift of finding people who were lost. Mind you, Sol would probably have sided with Kolgrim as he’s her grandchild. Anyway, I’ll stay with them one week but after that I’ll have to rest. It took a lot out of me being with the Princess during her final days – and now Mattias, dear little Mattias, has somehow disappeared!”

  When Cecilie arrived at Graastensholm a week later, she was horrified to discover for herself how the grief and anxiety had affected everybody. On the very day she arrived, she took Kolgrim aside and spoke quietly to him, but she was dismayed to find that she no longer had his confidence. Besides, it was immediately clear to her that he was much more interested in something else, something that he considered much more important – and minor matters like Mattias didn’t concern him.

  “When will Tarjei be back?” was almost the first thing that he asked her.

  “I don’t know,” replied Cecilie. “But he’s not been home for a long time, so it will probably be soon. Do you like Tarjei?”

  Kolgrim’s eyes darted around the room. Inside his head, he was thinking: ‘Tarjei? What use is he? It’s the things he owns that interest me.’ But out loud, he said with feigned enthusiasm: “Oh, yes, I like him very much! Tarjei is so wise!”

  Later that day Cecilie sought out her mother and asked to speak to her in private. With a very serious expression on her face, she took her mother’s hand.

  “The boy knows something. I’m sure of it. But he’s far too difficult to control just now – I can’t reach him. I’ll keep trying for the rest of my stay here. But I can’t promise anything.”

  Liv Meiden stared at her daughter for a long while in a horrified silence. “This is like our worst nightmares come true,” she whispered at last with a tearful sob. “It’s like living in a dreadful dream. I keep hoping we’ll all wake up and find it isn’t true – but I know that won’t happen.”

  Cecilie nodded, close to tears herself. “I’ve never known Kolgrim’s expression to be so unyielding. It makes me sure that he knows more than he’s telling us.”

  Although Cecilie stayed at Graastensholm as promised for a whole week, she was unable to make any progress with Kolgrim. The constant searching for Mattias also proved to be in vain. After seven days she very reluctantly left her distressed and grieving family to return to her twins and Alexander at Gabrielshus. Summer at Graastensholm and Linden Avenue dragged on into the most miserable autumn for them all.

  The only family member who remained calm and unaffected by events was Kolgrim himself. He settled down quietly to wait for Tarjei to come home, confident now that he was the only true heir to those things that were worth more to him than all the gold on earth.

  Chapter 2

  Tarjei had no plans to turn up at Linden Avenue as Kolgrim was hoping. At least not for the moment.

  Fortunately, he’d survived the smallpox epidemic he was treating and he’d graduated from the University of Tübingen with flying colours. This enabled him to choose among several very attractive job offers.The Ice People had never been short of money since Tengel the Good had practiced his skills as a healer and physician. On top of that, Silje’s oil paintings and tapestries had fetched more money than she’d ever needed. So Tarjei had felt that he was free to choose whatever path he wanted without worrying about money. He had turned down a tempting offer to teach medicine at Tübingen and for some obscure reason decided instead to accept a less lucrative post in Erfurt as assistant to a very learned physician, who was researching a number of different illnesses.

  During his time at Tübingen, one of Tarjei’s childhood dreams had been fulfilled. He’d met Johannes Kepler, the famous mathematician and astronomer, who had visited the university towards the end of his life. He and Tarjei had been drawn into profound personal debate that went on long into the night.

  During those final years, Kepler, who by then was troubled by illness and exhausted from people’s ignorance and obstinate foolishness, had become very disillusioned. But he found the conversation with the young and idealistic Tarjei revived his spirit, and the two of them discussed science and philosophy until their eyelids drooped.

  Almost as soon as they began talking, they found that they had something in common. It turned out that Kepler’s mother had died in 1622 after having been denounced as a witch and put in prison for thirteen months. Tarjei told the great man how his relation, Sol, had suffered a similar fate. The discussions that started on the subject of the witch hunts had ended with Kepler’s latest hobby horses: logarithms and atmospheric refraction.

  Tarjei had already been in Erfurt for a while and was enjoying his work despite such obvious risks as the recent smallpox epidemic, which he’d come through unharmed due to great care in hygiene and some good fortune. His mentor was very pleased with his progress and considered that he had a brilliant future ahead of him – as long as their churchmen and great leaders, in their stupidity, didn’t burn him at the stake for heresy because of his wide knowledge and skills. After all, they’d burned Jan Hus, a Czech religious philosopher and reformer at Prague’s Charles University. And they had judged the Italian astronomer Galileo guilty of heresy, hadn’t they, for propagating the theory that the earth revolved around the sun? Because of all these things, Kepler warned that Tarjei would need to be careful.

  When he had the time, Tarjei would make occasional visits to his old friends at Löwenstein Castle. There he found that Countess Cornelia Erbach am Breuburg was no longer the chubby young girl he’d first met. In the intervening years she’d grown into a very pretty, strong-willed and self-confident young lady of seventeen. Her benevolent aunt and uncle had planned to arrange a marriage for her to a redundant German duke, but Cornelia was having none of it.
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  Little Marca Christiana was eight years old. She was a bright and well-behaved child who would sit close to Tarjei’s chair whenever he was visiting, listening intently to the exchanges between him and her parents without understanding very much at all. Cornelia, on the other hand, often involved herself in the conversations, making confident assertions that Tarjei found a little irritating.

  One day Cornelia asked her uncle: “Tarjei has a great future ahead of him, isn’t that right?”

  “A brilliant one, I should think.”

  “Then wouldn’t he be a fine match?”

  “For the right girl of his own class, certainly. But not for you, Cornelia, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Why not?” Cornelia demanded.

  “Because, my dear Cornelia, you’re a countess and Tarjei isn’t even a nobleman.”

  “But the name Lind of the Ice People would fool any of those old fossils who decide who’s to be included on the list of royals and landed gentry in the Almanach de Gotha.”

  “A match between you and Tarjei is out of the question, Cornelia! Does this mean that he’s proposed to you?”

  “No, but ...”

  “Well, there you are! Maybe he doesn’t even want you.”

  “Of course he does!” she retorted. “I’ll just have to elope with him, then!”

  “Don’t be so stupid, Cornelia! If you do that, you’d destroy his future.”

  “Wouldn’t you be able to grant him a noble rank, uncle?”

  The Count of Löwenstein and Scarffeneck shook his head.

  “Only a noble of princely rank can do that.”

  “Princely?” repeated Cornelia thoughtfully. “Tarjei has a cousin who’s married to a prince.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, well almost - if one has to be more precise. His name is Paladin and he’s a marquis, although his grandmother, or some such, was certainly a princess.”

  The Count nodded. “Paladin is a good name. It must be the sovereign house of Schwarzburg.”

  “Yes, that’s it! Then I’ll ask him.”

  Her uncle smiled “I doubt that he can do very much. And in any case it would be better first to ask Tarjei what he thinks.”

  “I intend to – you can be sure of that!”

  Unfortunately, Tarjei reacted unsympathetically to her plans. “Why in all the world should I be ennobled?” he asked her.

  Cornelia’s jaw dropped and for a few moments she was speechless. She could only stare back at him, shaking her head in a little gesture of disbelief. Unaware of the effect of his question, Tarjei continued his line of thought: “Besides, I could never approach Alexander with such a request – you must understand that! Even if he was able to persuade his princely relatives in Schwarzburg, I should be mortally ashamed to have shown such bad manners! I’m sorry, Cornelia, but today I really don’t understand you.”

  Cornelia flew into a rage and turned on her heel, shouting: “Oh! You’re so stupid! So stupid.” Half-sobbing with anger and frustration, she stormed angrily out of his presence, grinding her teeth.

  “Have I ever been anything but stupid in your eyes?” he called after her.

  After that exchange, she refused to speak to him for several weeks, deliberately keeping herself out of his sight whenever he visited. She did, however, spend a lot of time up in the gallery, watching him from behind a drape, whenever he came to visit. So a stalemate developed between them that for a time seemed unbridgeable. Then, quite unexpectedly, misfortune came to her rescue.

  Tarjei had never quite understood what it was that made his time at Löwenstein so enjoyable. But during his last few visits he’d felt ill at ease because something was clearly missing – though he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was. It only became clear to him when disaster struck.

  Mercenaries, who had served under Wallenstein, were heading for Erfurt – a large marauding band of them. News of their approach went ahead of them, saying that they were completely undisciplined and spurred on solely by a desire to plunder and pillage. On hearing this, the Count, as Commander of the Erfurt garrison, set off to prepare the town’s defences and hastened to meet the rampaging throngs – but by doing so, he inadvertently left Löwenstein vulnerable to an assault.

  The Count anticipated that they would make directly for Erfurt, which offered richer spoils, so he believed that the castle would be of no interest to them because it was situated a long way outside the town. So he’d not expected them to strike from that direction.

  With only a handful of servants and the Count’s own family left behind, Löwenstein was, to all intents and purposes, undefended.

  When it came, the attack was as unexpected as it was brutal. Countess Juliana took the women and children with her to hide in one of the towers, but she hadn’t been able to find Cornelia. She’d sent one of the servant girls off on a search, only to hear the poor girl’s anguished cries from below the tower as she was raped by the soldiers. Unable to leave Marca Christiana, the Countess had been powerless to save her servant.

  Tarjei was on his way to the castle when he discovered he had company. He spotted a large group of mercenaries on the road ahead of him and reined in his horse. As he came to a halt, he saw a frightened young boy of about fifteen lying half hidden in the ditch where he’d managed to escape being seen by the men on foot.

  “Here, quickly!” Tarjei ordered him. “Take my horse and ride straight to the Garrison Commander – he’ll most certainly be in town by now. Tell him that soldiers are on their way to Löwenstein and that I’ll do what I can. My name’s Tarjei.”

  The boy was in the saddle and galloping away almost before Tarjei had finished speaking. When he and the horse were out of sight, Tarjei remained standing in the road, his heart pounding. He’d never had any burning desire to play the hero – intellectual challenges appealed much more to him. He could see that there were a great many soldiers and they’d already broken through the castle gate, but what could he do? He was on his own, with no experience or training for such a situation.

  Then his thoughts turned to those unfortunate souls left in the castle. Even though he could do very little, it was still his duty to try and help them. He shuddered and took a deep breath.

  “Don’t lose heart!” he muttered to himself.

  It was not difficult to enter the castle unseen and he could hear the men yelling and shouting while he was still some way off. It sounded to him as if they were ransacking the banqueting hall and, keeping an eye out for anyone he knew, Tarjei tiptoed warily around the inside walls. Had he not been feeling so worried and frightened, he would have thought his antics quite ridiculous. Then all of a sudden, he heard a young girl’s terrified screams.

  “Oh, dear God, it’s Cornelia!” he whispered to himself in horror – and it was at that very moment that he realised the reason for his low spirits in recent weeks. The reason was indeed Cornelia and her absence during his visits! Now she was helpless in the brutal hands of the marauding troops.‘Cornelia, my dearest! My dearest!’ he repeated in his mind over and over again as he raced towards the sound, his thoughts in turmoil. If he’d taken the time to listen more attentively, he would have realised that those whining, pathetic screams would never have come from Cornelia, but in his anxiety, Tarjei was no longer thinking clearly.

  Running down a long wooden-floored passageway, he could tell he wasn’t far from where the girl was screaming. It had occurred to him that no matter how courageous he might be where Cornelia’s life and virtue was concerned, alone against an armed bunch of mercenaries he could do very little.

  He saw a bardiche – an ancient long-poled axe – standing against a wall, part of a decorative display, and he grabbed its handle and started banging it violently on the floor. At the same time, he stamped his feet as hard and as fast as he could, to make it sound as if he wasn’t alone. In no time at
all, the passageway was echoing with what sounded like dozens of running feet.

  “This way, Commander!” yelled Tarjei at the top of his voice, addressing imaginary castle defenders. “Here they are, the mercenary blackguards! Shoot them down! Show them no mercy!”

  The sound of Tarjei’s voice, apparently giving orders, took the invading soldiers in the banqueting hall by surprise and they began bumping into each other as they ran helter-skelter to leave by the far door. They shouted raucously to each other: “The garrison troops are here! Flee!”

  Tarjei continued banging and stamping his feet for a few more minutes until he considered it was safe to stop.

  Then he went quickly to the distressed girl where she lay sobbing in a heap. He saw at once that it wasn’t his Cornelia, but any relief he may have felt was swept aside by his concern and pity for the disheveled and trembling young girl huddled on the flagstones in front of him.

  “Aah, my dear child,” he said softly, “let me help you up. Here, hold my arm. Where’s your mistress?”

  “In the tower,” she said, holding back her tears.

  “Is everyone there?”

  “No, not Miss Cornelia. I was sent to see if I could find her – and then without any warning they broke in!”

  “Well, you hurry straight back to the tower now,” he told the girl. “And leave it to me to try and find Cornelia.”

  Tarjei’s heart quickly filled with dread as he contemplated what he might do next. He was quite sure that he knew where Cornelia would be hiding. She’d once shown him her secret little hiding place on the second floor, close to the large spiral stairway that led to the battlements.On remembering this, he raced through the castle like a madman, taking no notice of what was happening outside. If he’d done so, he would have noticed that the panic and uncertainty he’d started was spreading through the mercenaries’ ranks and they’d already begun to flee the castle. Unfortunately for them, they met the Count’s troops as they crossed the drawbridge over the moat.