Читать книгу The Ice People 02 - Witch-Hunt - Margit Sandemo - Страница 6

Chapter 1

Deep in the Valley of the Ice People, a family crossed the lake in a small boat. The oars creaked in the rowlocks every time the blades glided gently through the calm water. Three children were seated in the stern and chatted incessantly. Their shrill voices echoed over the lake. Sol sounded cocksure, as usual. Dag was calm and slightly aloof, and Liv’s fairy-tale fantasies were drowned out by the other two.

Silje sat in the middle, watching Tengel at the oars. His attention was focused on the children. He was always concerned that something might happen to them. But they were well brought up and could behave as they pleased, within limits. So Silje thought he really didn’t need to watch them quite so closely, although she understood his reason for doing so. Here was a man who had once resigned himself to an empty, lonely life but now four people depended on him. They respected him and gave him the love that he’d only imagined in his most secret dreams. Silje was so proud of her little family. Her husband Tengel, who was feared and ostracised... only she knew that his frightening, demonic appearance concealed such a fine human being. As for the children, her heart warmed just thinking about them.

Sol, always cheerful and lively, presented them with a dilemma, tainted as she was by the blood of Tengel the Evil and the threat of tragedy. Dag was a blond, intelligent dreamer and little Liv, the youngest, imitated the older ones in everything. She took after Silje in many ways. The same chestnut, curly hair, the same shy, expressive eyes and ready smile. She shared Silje’s imagination as well. She saw trolls everywhere, breathing life into shadows and everyday things, communing with trees ... Dear Liv, Silje thought, if you follow in my footsteps, your life will be rich and varied, but you’re so sensitive. I’m afraid life will deal you many hard blows.

Silje was reluctant to turn around and look at the children. It always hurt her to see how badly dressed they were. Sol’s dress was far too small. Dag’s trousers and jacket were sewn of Silje’s worn-out skirts, showing what a hopeless seamstress she was. Liv’s dark heavy woollen dress was made of Tengel’s trousers, a shapeless garment which the neighbouring wives had openly ridiculed. The mere thought made Silje cringe with shame.

They had put out their fishing net and were now returning to the shore. Since it was such a mild summer evening, the children had been allowed to join their parents, and the children were really thrilled.

As they rowed, Silje gazed at the mountains that surrounded the Valley of the Ice People on all sides. Now they were bathed in burnished gold from the setting sun. Silje saw a cleft between two peaks.

“You know Tengel, I’ve often thought there must be a way through the mountains up there.” Tengel rested on the oars and followed her gaze. “A few have managed to make a way through, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It brings you out onto the glacier on the other side. It’s a very hard route down from there.”

“So you’ve been?”

“Once, many years ago. After that I swore that I would never do so again.”

The boat touched ground and the children jostled to be the first to jump down.

“Now, now,” Tengel said sternly. This was all he needed to say. He had a power which still showed kindness and love.

Silje knew that they worshipped him.

Everybody was given something to carry on the way up to the house. The children had learned a long time ago that if they were to survive in the wilderness, everybody had to take responsibility.

Liv was tired from fighting her way through the juniper bushes, so Tengel lifted her up on his shoulders. Sol and Dag walked on either side of Silje.

Sol looked thoughtful. Her lively face, framed by her dark curls, was uncharacteristically serious.

“Why is it that I call you Silje when Dag and Liv call you Mum?”

Silje took her hand. “It’s a long story. You’ve always called me Silje.”

Now both children looked at her expectantly.

“Today the other children called Dag and me “bastards”. What did they mean?” Sol asked, her eyes wide and questioning.

Silje felt a chill run down her spine. “Did they really? They had no right to say that.” She stopped. “I think you’re old enough to hear the story now,” she decided.

“You’re seven years old now, Sol, and Dag is almost five. But Liv is only three – she won’t understand this yet.

“Tengel,” she shouted.

He stopped. Now they had reached their own land on the meadow below the house.

“The children were called bastards today.”

“What?”

“They want to know the truth,” Silje replied. She was agitated and eager at the same time. “Please take Liv home while I tell Sol and Dag the whole story. I think that now is the time to tell them, don’t you?”

Tengel hesitated and looked at them thoughtfully. “Yes, it’s for the best,” he finally said. “I’ll come back after I’ve put little Liv to bed. Come on, Liv. You’re so tired you can hardly keep your eyes open.” Silje, Sol and Dag sat down beside the stream on some old logs where the milk cans were placed to cool. The water gurgled softly as Silje began her story, and the children sat very still, eager to hear every word.

“Well, then. I’ll begin by telling you that I’m not your real mum, Sol, and I’m not your real mum either, Dag. But I am Liv’s real mum. I hope it doesn’t upset you too much?” Silje asked anxiously. “I’ve done all I possibly could so that you wouldn’t miss your real mum, and I love you both just as much as I love Liv. And the same goes for Dad.”

The children were silent.

“So Tengel isn’t our dad either?” asked Sol sadly.

“No, he’s only Liv’s dad. And Sol, you’ve always called him Tengel.”

“I haven’t,” said Dag. “I call him dad.”

“Well, that was because you were so young when we found you. Sol was bigger.”

No, this wouldn’t do. This was all too messy. She tried to explain. “You see, we wanted so very badly for you to be our children ...”

“Well, who’s our real mum then?” asked Sol with a slight tremor in her voice. “Did you just take us because you wanted us?”

It was so typical of Sol to see straight through Silje’s fumbled explanation and to get to the very heart of the matter.

“No, of course not. You don’t have the same mother,” Silje said. It wasn’t easy to explain but she knew that she was doing the right thing by telling the truth now. “Sol, your mum was Tengel’s sister. So he’s actually your uncle. And Liv’s your cousin.”

Sol sat motionless, staring into the distance. “Where’s she now then?”

“Your mum? She’s in Heaven. She’s dead, Sol. She died of the plague, which is a terrible sickness, as you know. It also took your dad and your little sister called Leonarda. But you can’t remember this because you were only two years old when I found you. You were all on your own, and so was I. So it wasn’t just you that needed me because I also needed you. And the name your mum gave you was Angelika.”

Now Sol looked eagerly at Silje. She’d always been proud of her name, Sol Angelika, and now she knew where the second part of it came from.

Silje looked worried at Sol’s far too short sleeves. The dress wouldn’t last much longer. The material was so worn in some places that it looked like cobweb. But she had nothing from which to make a new dress. Nothing at all.

She straightened up and dragged her mind back to the problem at hand: “Your mum was very beautiful, Sol. Very, very beautiful. She had dark, curly hair, just like you, and very dark, beautiful eyes.”

The little girl said nothing but her eyes were brimming with tears.

“But your eyes are lighter,” Silje quickly added. “Green or yellow, almost like Tengel’s.”

The sign that she’s one of the chosen ones, a descendant of the original Ice People, Silje thought bitterly. Oh, my dear child, what will become of you?

“What about my mum?” asked Dag. “And my dad?” He sounded slightly reproachful, as if Silje and Tengel had taken something from him.

This was more difficult. Silje couldn’t very well tell him that his mum had placed him in the forest to die. Tengel walked silently over the meadow where the grass was already damp from the evening dew. He sat down with them and Dag crept up on his lap, wanting to feel that he really did have a dad.

“Your mum, Dag, was a fine lady,” Silje continued. “A noblewoman, a Baroness. We don’t know whether she’s alive or dead, what her name is or where she lives – but when you were born, she was in great need of help and lost you. I don’t know how it happened. I just found you ...”

The two children leaned forward, eager to hear more so Silje had to continue:

“It was a strange night, my dear child. It was freezing cold, and pyres lit up the sky over Trondheim. I’d lost all my loved ones to the plague and was absolutely alone. I was hungry and tired and had nowhere to live. Then I found you, Sol, by your mum’s dead body. I took you with me because I liked you so very much and wanted to help you. You didn’t want to leave your mum but you simply had to. If not, you would have also died. Does this make sense to you?”

Sol nodded solemnly. Then Dag spoke in his serious voice that revealed his intelligence:

“Syver’s dead. They had him in the shed the whole winter. And Inga. And Svein. And then they buried them.”

Tengel nodded. “Yes, this winter has been very harsh. So now you know what it means to be dead, don’t you?”

The children mumbled that they understood and turned to Silje once more to hear the continuation of the story.

“Which farm is called Trondheim?” asked Dag.

“Farm? Trondheim is a big city. It’s situated on the other side.”

“On the other side of what?”

“On the other side of these mountains.”

The boy gave Silje a stern look. “What is there behind these mountains?”

Silje and Tengel looked at each other in dismay. Here was something which they’d obviously overlooked.

“The whole wide world lies on the other side,” said Tengel nervously. He was troubled by the direction the conversation was taking. “But we can talk about that another time. Now let’s hear what Silje has to tell us.”

A bird, probably a diver, shrieked over the lake as mist rose along the water’s edge. No one paid attention to the time because it was late. It was a mild, beautiful summer.

Silje glanced anxiously at Tengel. What was the matter with him this evening? For the last few days, in fact? What was he listening to and why did he have such an anxious expression on his face? She knew her husband and how sensitive he was. Now it seemed that there was something he couldn’t fathom, and it made her anxious.

She looked away from him and continued: “Not long after I found you, Sol, we found Dag, who was all on his own as we were. Only he was much, much smaller.”

Silje didn’t have the courage to say how young he was. She wouldn’t tell him that his umbilical cord was still in place. He was never to know anything about his mother’s crime.

“In fact, it was you, Sol, who heard him cry. So it’s thanks to you that Dag’s alive today.”

The children looked at each other inquisitively, weighing up what they had just been told. Then their small, grubby hands tentatively found each other’s.

Actually, Dag and Liv were the ones who kept each other company, Silje thought. Sol was far too temperamental and strange for the two youngest children. But there was no doubt that they were all fond of each other. And they probably felt safer out in this wilderness if they stuck together.

“So then there were three of us”, Silje continued. “I was carrying Dag, and Sol you were walking with me. I didn’t know what we were to do, and then Tengel suddenly appeared out of the blue. None of us had ever met him before.”

A shiver went through Silje as she recalled that night. Meeting Tengel for the first time. The gallows, the executioner, the stench from the pyres ... She sat upright, straightening her shoulders as if to try to shake off the unpleasant memory.

“Tengel took care of us,” she went on softly, her voice full of tenderness. “He gave us everything we needed, and we’ve all stayed together ever since – like a little family.”

Tengel smiled wistfully. He said nothing about his own loneliness that had been much more profound than theirs. Silje and the children had suffered loneliness brought on by circumstances and the need to survive, but his sense of loneliness was like a deep wound in his chest. Being so different from other human beings, he was constantly aware of how everyone shied away from him. Even now it saddened him to think about that first encounter with Silje and Sol, and the way they had both pulled back at the sight of his strange and frightening appearance. It had been difficult to forget that meeting. In his loneliness he’d seen Silje’s vulnerable, innocent eyes, how he had been drawn to her, wanting to protect her virtue... only to besmirch it himself? No, now he wasn’t fair to himself. He had wanted to protect her, unselfishly and respectfully. But when he realised that she was also drawn to him, his resolve had crumbled. Oh, what a wonderful time it had been, filled equally with yearning and pain, apprehension and desire, as each of them struggled to understand the other’s feelings. And he, who knew that he was doomed to keep away from women! But how could he ever have resisted Silje?

Now he listened to her once more. His thoughts had rushed so quickly through his mind that he hadn’t missed anything.

“Then Liv was born. You remember that, don’t you, Sol?” Silje asked.

“Yes, that was when you put on a lot of weight.”

“Exactly. You can call us mum and dad if you like, Sol. We feel like we’re your real parents.”

Sol thought about this for a while. “I could, of course,” she nodded wisely. “But I don’t feel that it’s right because I’m used to calling you Silje and Tengel.”

“I can understand that. You and I have treated each other as friends. You’ve always been a great help to me. You know that, don’t you?”

Sol climbed spontaneously onto Silje’s lap and hugged her tight. Silje smiled at Tengel. They both realised that they were accepted as parents.

Dag looked serious and thoughtful. His long, thin face was so typically aristocratic that it lent an almost comical air to his expression.

“Did my mum come looking for me?” he asked with a thin voice. It was a difficult question which Tengel answered.

“We don’t know. All we know is that you had a small noble crest on your clothes. That’s why we believe that you’re a Baron of some sort. We’ve tried to search for your mum, Dag, but I don’t think she’s alive any more.”

“Did she die from the plague?”

“It’s very likely I’m afraid, and that’s probably why she lost you. Your dad’s certainly dead.”

It was best to tell it like that. All the evidence suggested that Dag’s mum was unmarried and that Dag was the result of a random encounter. Dag seemed to be satisfied with this explanation.

“My real mum and dad are dead,” he said sombrely.

“So are mine,” said Sol, who managed to squeeze out a tear but mostly because she enjoyed the melodrama.

“I hope you’ll both stay with us?” Silje said in a low, anxious voice.

Sol and Dag both nodded sombrely.

“All the parents of the other children are always quarrelling,” said Dag in his pondering, precocious way. “It’s as if they don’t like each other. You and Tengel never talk to each other like that. It’s as if you resp... resp ...”

“Respect each other?” Tengel suggested, finishing the sentence for him. “Yes, you’re absolutely right. We do.”

His loving glance met Silje’s and she knew that her warmth was showing in her eyes.

***

Silje stayed up late that evening. After lighting one of the precious resin torches, she took out the diary which was given to her as a gift by Benedikt, the painter, so many years before. There were only a few pages left, and she wasn’t likely to be given a new one in the wilderness where she lived ...

She began the entry thus: “Todae we tolde children about ther heritage ...” As always, her spelling was hopeless.

When she’d finished, she put out the flame and went into the yard. Summer solstice was approaching and the valley was bathed in a magical, shimmering light, so typical of a Nordic summer evening. The mist from the lake was denser and had spread over the meadows where it fluttered like dancing elves, and the shrill call of the diver might easily have been mistaken for the cries of water nymphs or the souls of lost children. The breeze gently stirred the grass, finding its way into the nooks and crannies of the old buildings. In her mind, Silje imagined that it was the sound of small mischievous trolls or some other supernatural creatures. An old sway-backed horse plodded alongside the dry-stone wall, making its way back to his own farm. Could it be that the horse was also bewitched?

“This place is almost unbearably beautiful,” Silje thought, “and yet I hate it so much! I love Tengel, and I love the children, but I wish with all my heart that we could leave this valley. I hate being shut in here with these narrow-minded people. I have nothing in common with them. They call my children bastards and Tengel a sorcerer, a devil, and goodness knows what besides, although he’s never done them any harm. He never uses the powers I know he possesses, and yet he’s an outcast. There are a few that accept him though, and thank God for that!” Eldrid, Tengel’s cousin and their best friend in the valley, was leaving with her husband, and Silje longed to join them. They wanted to make a home in the outside world, hoping that their connection with the rebels had been forgotten.

“We know nothing of what happens in the world beyond the valley”, thought Silje. “Our hunger and poverty have kept us here. I want to get out and help Benedikt and his people. I’d so very much like to see the King at least once in my life. But he’s never in Norway ... My language is becoming poorer and more like that of the Ice People. We’ve tried to tutor Sol and Dag but we’re reaching the limits of our skills. Slowly, we’re beginning to forget what we once learned ourselves. Tengel wants to leave too, he’s said so, but it would mean risking our lives. Even if we do manage to get out, we’ll be arrested and my darling Tengel will be tortured to death. He and Sol will never be able to conceal that they descend from the first Tengel, the evil spirit of the Ice People.”

Silje let out a sigh of despair.

The winters ... Silje hated and feared them. Here everything froze to ice, including the food. And there was the constant fear that there wasn’t enough food, that they would run out of supplies. Last winter’s famine had been a nightmare. The bewildered look of the children when they went to bed at night, just as hungry as when they got up in the morning. Last Christmas, the bread that she’d decorated was all the food they had ...

When she thought of how many more winters there might be in the years ahead, she found it difficult to breathe. She felt an urge to run away, anywhere, just to take Tengel and her loved ones to safety.

Tengel’s gentle touch on her shoulder startled her.

“I saw your bed was empty,” he said quietly. What brought you out here?”

“Nothing,” she answered evasively.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “You yearn to leave, don’t you?”

“Tengel, please don’t think that I have regrets.”

“I don’t. I know you’ve been happy here.”

“Yes, very happy.”

“But now you’re restless and feel, just like I do, that this isolated life isn’t making us happy.”

Silje made an impatient gesture. “If we weren’t forced to stay here, I would love this valley with all my heart,” she said emphatically. “If we could just spend the summers here, it would be perfect. But we have no choice. I think I love and hate the valley at the same time.”

“I know the feeling. When I’d left the valley, I used to long to be back here. And as soon as I was back, I wanted to leave once more. But now it’s ...”

He broke off and was silent.

Silje looked at him tenderly. “You’re restless. I’ve sensed this for several days. I thought it was strange when you refused Eldrid’s offer to keep her cattle here, but it gave me some hope. What’s the matter, Tengel?”

“I don’t know,” he answered slowly while the night breeze ruffled his black hair. “I don’t know what it is, but the noises are everywhere. Haven’t you listened to the mournful wailing of the wind? Don’t you hear the terror of the grass as it rustles? Don’t you hear the houses groan?”

“You know I don’t hear such things,” Silje said. “But Sol can feel something. She’s so irritable at the moment, and she often has a faraway look in her eyes.”

“I’m haunted by this feeling of danger. If only I knew where it’s coming from.”

Choosing her words carefully, Silje said: “I think you decided to let Eldrid take all the animals with her so that some of them would be waiting for us away from the valley.”

“Maybe,” he said absentmindedly. “I don’t know what I thought. Now I remember: I mentioned something about following them ...”

“Oh, Tengel.”

“You know we can have the milk we need from the family that will move into their house. So we don’t need the livestock now.”

“They’re good people, I suppose, but I don’t like their children. They tease our children,” Silje said, and her voice expressed deep pain. “So do others. They call them the most awful things, you’ve heard it for yourself this evening, and their parents won’t let their children play with ours. It makes me so desperately sad, Tengel.”

“They’re scared of Sol, aren’t they? I know the feeling from my own childhood. Always cast out, always feared.”

“But they’re right that Sol is dangerous,” Silje said quietly. “Do you remember when that girl kicked Liv? She made a doll to look like the girl and held it over the fire. The girl burned herself on coals the same day. She suffered such horrible wounds.”

“Until I managed to make the doll harmless.”

“I still don’t know where she got the idea from.”

Tengel let out a deep sigh. “I do. I found out that when Sol disappears, she doesn’t go off to play. She goes to old Hanna’s place.”

“Oh, no,” Silje said in a hushed voice, looking terrified.

“The girls have always meant an awful lot to Hanna, which makes me happy, but it also scares me out of my mind. I don’t like that Sol visits her on her own.”

“Do you think the old witch ... tutors Sol?”

“I’m afraid so. Of course she can sense what powers Sol possesses.”

“It’s just awful,” cried Silje. Tengel leaned forward and caressed her shoulder.

“My dear Silje, what fate have I brought upon you?”

“Don’t talk like that! Nobody has made me happier than you. When I’m away from you for a few hours, I long for you so much.”

“You were only sixteen when I took you for my own. Now you’re twenty-one and have already put up with us for many years. Even I understand that you were destined for something else and not to labour and toil in a lowly cottage.”

“I hope I haven’t grumbled too much? I know that I’m still not very skilled as a housewife, and the children grow out of their clothes and shoes so fast. It makes me sad to think that I can’t get them some new ones. And it makes me depressed because I really don’t like housework, Tengel. I can’t even sew clothes for the children. I can weave, but after this terrible winter, there aren’t any sheep left in the valley, so we don’t even have wool to weave from. Sol has been mocked for the cloak I tried to stitch together last year, and I often forget to wash their clothes even though they’re dirty – and well, now I’m grumbling, which was not what I meant to do.”

Tengel’s tender smile displayed limitless understanding but also despair and helplessness. His lips touched her hair.

“Do you think I don’t understand you? That I don’t know how much you long to create things or paint pictures? Don’t you think I know that sometimes you write in your diary when the rest of us have gone to bed?”

“You know about my diary?” she exclaimed.

“Of course I do. I also know where you hide it. But I’d never dream of reading it. Just be careful that nobody else finds it. A young woman who keeps a diary – is truly the work of Satan! They’d have you burned as a witch for that in no time.”

“What an evil world we live in, and I forget how protected we are up here in the mountains,” Silje said in surprise as if she’d discovered something new. “It wouldn’t matter if you’d read my diary,” she added hurriedly. “I leafed through it the other evening, and my love for you and the children can be read on every page.”

“Do you enjoy writing?”

“Yes, I do. It’s like a little breathing space for me, and as I went over what I’d written, I was surprised at how well composed it all is.”

“I’m not surprised at all. You have such a nice way of speaking, of expressing yourself. You know that. It’s not at all like the others in the valley. Now you’ve made me curious. I’d love to see what you’ve written.”

She giggled. She was pleased and happy. “I suppose it’s all a terrible mess. I’ve never had much schooling, you know. I just write the words as we pronounce them. Oh, Tengel, what are you doing?”

His hands were all over her and, with a soft chuckle, he pressed her harder against the wall.

Silje, who was filled by a cautious hope when he’d told her about maybe leaving the valley, didn’t object.

His cheek brushed her forehead. Tengel didn’t have a beard, and she didn’t know why. But Tengel was aware that he was sixteen years older than her, and he didn’t want to look older than he was. If he grew a beard, he thought it would emphasise their difference in age.

“We really ought to keep an eye on Benedikt and his farm,” she continued now that he was thinking of moving. “I worry a lot about them.”

“Of course,” Tengel mumbled absentmindedly. If only I could make the right decision. To bring you all with me – or to let you stay here. You know only too well that we’ve nowhere to go.”

The touch of his fingers excited her skin. His caresses were creating small tremors all through her and centred on one particular part of her body. Her desire for this man who others found so intimidating was insatiable. It wasn’t just the fact that nature had endowed him so well – she hadn’t known anything about that when they met for the first time. All she needed was to glance at him for an urgent craving to sweep through her, leaving her weak and completely at his mercy.

She often had problems concentrating. “What about Benedikt? Can’t we live with him?”

“I don’t even know whether he’s still alive. And that horrible Abelone will give us short shrift. No, Silje, I’ve thought many times that we really ought to leave but I’m afraid of taking the risk.”

Silje’s voice was becoming muffled. “Honestly, I don’t think I could stand another winter after the last one.”

“I know.”

Suddenly his lips were everywhere – on her forehead, her temples ...

“What are we doing?” she chuckled as she was struggling to catch her breath. “We’re an old, sensible couple and we’ve been married for years. Actually, it’s quite exciting to be out here in the open.”

She eased herself up onto the long wall that surrounded the cottage so that she was just as tall as Tengel and pulled up her skirts. Tengel, his hands warm and probing, immediately placed them on her hips while he gave her a long, long kiss.

“This isn’t like you at all, Silje,” he whispered with a trembling voice in her ear, happy at her unexpected initiative. “You’ve been sort of ... hesitant over the past couple of years.”

“Yes, I suppose I have,” she replied, surprised that he didn’t understand the reason for her eager passion now. She leaned forward, her hands caressing his body until she finally guided him to her, letting out a silent gasp as she did so.

“I didn’t mean to turn you down, but I’ve been so scared.”

Tengel’s movements were unhurried and gentle. “I understand. You were scared of being pregnant again. No wonder you were. I was also terribly scared.”

“Giving birth to Liv was the worst nightmare of my life,” she whispered. “I don’t want to live through something like that again.”

“I don’t blame you,” he muttered. “We’ve been very careful – and it’s worked.”

“Mm,” she mumbled, which could mean anything or nothing.

She kissed his throat with moist lips, and now he recognised her once more from the first, passionate year. He pressed against her, lifted her legs up and placed them on his hips.

Silje whispered with a shy laughter: “Your spear has pierced me – and pinned me to the wall by the passion of my life.”

“You do have a way with words,” Tengel said with a smile. He was touched and happy.

Silje closed her eyes again, unable to say any more. Tengel looked at her. A gentle smile slowly appeared on her face. Now he knew that she was ready for him. It was a long time since she’d given in so completely to her desire, and he wondered why.

Then he forgot to wonder. The dark wall turned hazy before his eyes, and a familiar, wonderful dizziness took hold of him, an unbearable passion poured through his body, and it was as if he became quite helpless.

“Oh, Silje,” he whispered – “my beloved little flower! How is it that such a delicate and frail person like you can be so passionate, so transfigured?”

***

Eldrid left the valley. She and her husband took all their belongings with them from the Valley of the Ice People and set off down the tunnel in the glacier bound for an uncertain future in a hostile world.

Silje wept when they left.

Later that same evening, Silje asked Tengel: “Why didn’t you want to keep any of their livestock when they rightfully belonged to us? Please tell me the real reason.”

The children were playing outside and Tengel sat quietly repairing the fishing net while Silje was clearing the table after supper.

“Even if I did want to leave the valley, I’d have to leave on my own and look for a place where we could live. But there’s nowhere we can live apart from here, my darling. We’re the descendants of Tengel the Evil and we’re hunted everywhere. It just makes me feel such despair!”

“I can well understand,” Silje said quietly.

She looked at him from the corner of her eye. Did he really not know anything? Hadn’t he suspected her condition?

She fervently hoped that he hadn’t. Ever since Liv was born, Tengel had said: “Never again! Never, ever again! If this were to happen again, Silje, I’ll kill the unborn child in you quickly and painlessly with one of my potions. Next time, your prayers will be of no use at all!”

She had to admit that she’d been watching her food carefully to see whether he’d sprinkled a powder over it. But he obviously didn’t suspect anything. Not even when they made love outside in the yard had he grasped why she was so compliant. He was just puzzled at her recklessness.

Of course, she knew that it was crazy to nurture that tiny seed of new life. She knew what it would mean. It could turn out to be one of the Tengel the Evil’s descendants – a monster like Hanna and Grimar, or the woman by the lake. Silje had only seen her once when Eldrid had wanted some eggs and cheese brought to the woman. She walked away shocked that something so primitive, so horrible, actually existed. What’s more: the woman was also spiteful.

Now she’d passed away. But Silje understood at the time just how lucky Tengel and Sol were by not being tainted by their evil heritage – despite the fact that most people found Tengel repulsive and intimidating.

This, however, wasn’t her only risk. Silje would probably not survive another childbirth, which was what Tengel feared the most. After all, it was only thanks to Hanna that Silje survived while giving birth to little Liv. And if she would give birth to a ‘monster’ this time – with their unnaturally broad and angular shoulders – she wouldn’t stand a chance. Tengel’s mother had bled to death when she gave birth to Tengel. Sol’s mother had survived childbirth, maybe because Sol was so delicately built. But Sol had still inherited the unmistakable signs of her heritage – the awesome magical powers and those cat-like eyes, which immediately betrayed her ancestry.

And still Silje was thinking of dragging Sol out of the Valley of the Ice People and back to Trondelag where the Ice People were ruthlessly hunted down.

Eldrid was all right because she looked normal. She wasn’t one of the chosen, even though she descended from Tengel the Evil. Liv didn’t show any of the characteristic features of the Ice People either. But what did Silje know about the unborn child that she was expecting?

She was almost four months pregnant, and it had been difficult to hide. Fortunately she hadn’t suffered such awful bouts of sickness as the previous time. It was easier this time, but soon it would start to show.