Читать книгу The Ice People 08 - Under Suspicion - Margit Sandemo - Страница 6

Chapter 1

The executioner’s assistant had many names: the executioner’s smith, the executioner’s boy, the horse skinner – and the Night Man. No matter what he was called, he was despised by everybody. The executioner himself was at least the object of a certain respect mixed with horror, which was certainly not the case with his assistant, who was the lowest of the low.

He was usually recruited from the vast crowd of condemned criminals, which was why he often didn’t have a tongue or ears, but hands and feet he had because these he would need in for job. He was forced to lead a shady existence and would only venture out at night, otherwise people would throw stones and spit at him. That was probably why he was called the Night Man.

The executioner’s assistant in the parish of Graastensholm was much the same. But this man had been allowed to keep his tongue and ears. It was a choice many of the criminals faced instead of sentencing: become the executioner’s assistant and keep your tongue and ears. He was a stooped, worn out, grumpy man who stumbled around his hut at the edge of the forest, letting his daughter, Hilde, be the target of his resentment.

At some stage during his youth, Joel Night Man had been married. He became a criminal, but when he came face to face with the law, he became horrified and begged that he be spared his punishment. He had to wait in jail until the dubious office of executioner’s assistant became vacant. When he was released after spending a year behind bars, he discovered that his wife had died. His bitterness had just become greater over the years, and turned into an ugly hatred which was directed at his daughter.

Sometimes you would see Hilde, now a young woman, scuttling between the hut and the outhouse by the edge of the forest or when she returned home with freshly picked berries from the forest. However, she would never go near other people and the handful of drinking companions that had previously frequented the Night Man’s house had never seen her. Nobody dropped by anymore because they were fed up with listening to Joel’s bilious remarks. His employers were the only ones who would visit occasionally, and Hilde would hide from them.

It was now a cold and dismal spring day in 1654. Andreas Lind of the Ice People had been ploughing a small patch of soil by the forest above the other fields that belonged to his farm. He had been interested in the small meadow for quite some years and thought that it could be turned into good arable land. There didn’t seem to be many stones and the underwood would be easy to clear. Finally, he had got started on converting it.

Andreas was now twenty-seven and he was still a bachelor. He hadn’t come that far. He had certainly looked at the girls in town but none of them had set his heart ablaze. He much preferred to walk behind his horse, as he did now, with his hands on the plough, watching the good, black top soil turn under his gaze. This would be a fine piece of land in time. He decided it would probably be best if he started off by sowing barley ... a stone hit the ploughshare and he stopped the horse. It wasn’t a very big stone, so he was able to lift it easily to the edge of the field.

Andreas decided to take a break. He climbed to the top of a ridge so that he could look out over the village. He sat down on a boulder with his arms wrapped around his knees.

Linden Avenue looked fine from here. The buildings were well-kept. His Mum and Dad and Granddad still worked on the farm and made it a point of honour to keep everything in the best possible state. Although Linden Avenue was not one of the biggest farms in the parish, it was still regarded as an estate.

Graastensholm looked just as good. Better, of course, because it was grander, but this was only for as long as Tarald and Yrja and Liv were still able to manage it. How things would turn out when young Mattias Meiden took over was difficult to say. Mattias was a physician by profession and could do nothing else. But if he could get a good farmer to manage it all, then it would be all right!

Mattias hadn’t married either and he was now thirty years old. Just thinking of Mattias made Andreas smile. It would be almost wrong of Mattias to marry and belong to one person. He seemed to belong to all of humanity. Marriage might tie him down so that he wouldn’t have the time to care for others.

But these were selfish thoughts on Andreas’ part. After all, Mattias should also have the chance to experience the close love and devotion of a caring relationship, even though it didn’t seem that he missed being married.

Andreas happened to gaze at a small, miserable hovel at the edge of the forest not far from where he sat. He shivered. He knew that this was where the Night Man lived with his daughter. At that moment he caught sight of a woman on her way to the outhouse. Then she was gone. That must be Hilde. Andreas had never seen her close-up. She had always stayed out there, ignored by everybody.

He remembered many years ago when the young people in the parish would meet during the bright midsummer evenings to dance in the forest. Hilde was a silent figure who kept close to the trees – at a far distance from the happy, noisy throng. You only saw the Night Man’s daughter as a silhouette. If anybody got too close and tried to tease or mock her, she would immediately disappear into the shadows of the forest, not to return for the rest of that night. Just like everybody else in those days, he had laughed at the strange girl. He felt a pang of guilt. He was older now and understood more.

The whole village lay calmly in the grey light down below. The church looked like it was in a slightly tumbledown state. The vicar had mentioned that the church tower needed to be repaired this year, but the congregation had turned a deaf ear because the farmers couldn’t afford to pay for anything like that. However, sooner or later the job had to be done if the tower was not to collapse.

He caught a glimpse of the roof on Gabriella and Kaleb’s farm. They and Eli now had an orphanage there. They had never had children other than their one stillborn daughter, but they had adopted Eli and no parents could have been more devoted to their child than they were to her. It never occurred to anybody any more that she was not their biological daughter. They were a happy little family. Andreas smiled to himself. There were exactly ten years between them down there – Kaleb was 36, Gabriella 26, and Eli 16. If the child had lived, it would have been 6 years old. But it was a good thing that it was stillborn – it would not have been easy for Kaleb and Gabriella to have to bring up one of the evil creatures of the Ice People.

Andreas was now confident that he would bear healthy children so perhaps it was about time that he had some... But that meant he would have to find a wife. Oh, well, he was not in such a great hurry after all.

Andreas took a deep breath and got up. All his joints creaked. It was time for him to get started once more if he was to be finished by supper.

He continued working for a long time. ‘I think I can manage another furrow,’ he thought. ‘And another one. And one more ...’

The rainy clouds, which touched the top of the fir trees, had already turned into a dark twilight hue as he ploughed the last patch between some boulders, turning over some fresh turf.

The plough struck a soft obstacle.

He tried again.

No, something was stopping it. It wasn’t a stone and it wasn’t a root either. It was softer. Andreas bent down and removed a lump of earth. It followed willingly as if it had been placed there recently. Under his feet he glimpsed something that looked like a piece of material. It was dark, thick, homespun.

He removed a tuft of grass and a rotting face looked up at him.

Andreas jerked backwards. He feverishly got the plough free of the soil, lifted it over the macabre find and drove on the horse. When they reached the edge of the small plot, he unharnessed the plough, jumped on the horse and rode home, bareback.

He knew perfectly well that whatever it was he had found, it was not lying in consecrated ground. Sinners were buried outside the churchyard wall, but that hadn’t happened for a long time. This couldn’t be an accident - this was something covert.

This was as far as he wanted to think before he could talk to someone about it. What a shame that Judge Dag Meiden had passed away! Now he would have to contact the bailiff, and he was not the world’s most pleasant man. What about Kaleb? He knew a lot about law and order! Yes, he would also summon Kaleb. That was a comforting thought.

At the farm, they saw Andreas riding as if the Devil were at his heels and they went out to meet him. Grandpa Are, 68, but upright like a young man, Brand, his Dad, calm and broad-shouldered, with a hint of grey hair, and sweet Matilda, his Mum. She had always been stocky and she’d not gotten thinner as the years went by... They looked enquiringly at Andreas as he jumped off the horse.

“But Andreas,” said Brand. “You’re quite grey in the face. What’s the matter?”

“I’ve found a corpse in the soil up there. We’d better summon the bailiff immediately so he won’t accuse us of keeping a secret.”

“I’ll send the stable lad immediately.”

The bailiff lived in the neighbouring town, but it wasn’t far.

“Please bring Kaleb as well,” said Andreas.

“Of course.”

Soon the whole farm knew about the discovery and people ran in small clusters up towards the forest path, some curious, others absolutely intent on not looking – but they still wanted to go along! Andreas halted the rushing throng up by the forest.

“You mustn’t walk on the ploughed patch. You might tread on something and then you’ll be in trouble with the bailiff,” he shouted. “If you must see, do so from the ridge there!”

Brand and Are looked at the corpse.

“Yuck,” said Brand. “I can understand why you were shocked, Andreas.”

“Look at the pieces of turf, all neatly arranged around it,” said Are, ”This was done in the spring!”

Now the servants had arrived, regarding the find with horrible delight. Some left quickly, pretty pale in the face.

“Who could it be?” asked the stable lad.

“It looks like a woman,” answered Andreas. “Has anybody gone missing in the parish?”

Nobody had heard anything.

Are was still looking intently at the grass. He strode carefully across the tufts.

“Look,” he whispered, and everyone listened excitedly.

“Can you see how the grass is divided into patches? Each patch is bound to be a piece of turf that’s been put in place, right?”

They nodded. That was easy to grasp.

“And it’s obvious that it was done this year. But then look at this!”

They all looked in the direction he was pointing. Even fresher patches could be seen next to the deceased.

“Would anybody care to move them?”

Nobody showed any interest in doing so.

Another man, who stood a bit closer to the forest, pointed eagerly. “It looks as if there are square patches here as well!”

Are and Brand walked over. The man was right – you could see faint traces of square patches in a long row here and there.

“We’d better wait for the bailiff,” decided Andreas. “Will somebody please get hold of Mattias?”

Everybody knew that Mattias was Doctor Meiden. Two servant girls set off, relieved to get away from all the unpleasantness.

“Please find the vicar as well,” shouted Brand after them. “We must consecrate this place before some spirit or other gets the better of us,” he explained to the others.

Suddenly several of the women remembered that the dinner was probably getting burnt, that the cows were waiting to be milked, and so on. A couple of the men also disappeared.

Mattias was the first to arrive. With his usual empathy and gentle gaze, he had a calming effect on everybody. He wouldn’t touch anything until the bailiff had given him permission to do so, but he agreed with the others. It was a woman, not very young as you could see some strands of grey hair, but well-dressed in the very best homespun fabric.

But he did something the others had hesitated to do. He removed a piece of turf next to the woman’s head. Several people in the crowd covered their faces with their hands then peeped between their fingers.

It was, as they had feared, another corpse. A woman who had been killed quite recently. Insects dashed away from the almost unharmed face when the piece of grass was removed. This woman was somewhat younger. She hadn’t been handsome and she appeared to be in her mid-thirties. Her hair was still in neat waves.

Nobody said anything. They just lifted their eyes towards the two other spots where you could see squares in the grass.

“No,” said Brand. “There must also be something left for the bailiff to do.”

The people from Graastensholm had arrived now. And at the edge of the forest half a mile away, those who stood on the ridge could see the lonely figure of a woman. She stood completely motionless, taking in the crowd in amazement. The bailiff’s assistant was nowhere to be seen.

“It’s getting dark,” said Are, looking at the clouds.

“It doesn’t normally get so dark at this time of the year,” mumbled one of the men.

“No, but it’s rainy, which means something.”

The bailiff and the vicar arrived. The people of the village followed them in small, scattered groups.

“What’s happened now?” asked the bailiff grumpily. Like most bailiffs he was German and spoke Norwegian badly. He was a big man, both tall and stocky. He was absolutely revolting to look at with his small pig’s eyes and large, weak mouth. It was as if all he expected was hatred from his surroundings - and hatred was all he radiated. They said that his great passion was money, wealth and power. He was not particularly gifted in any way.

Andreas explained the situation. The bailiff looked as if this was nothing more than what one could expect of Norwegian peasants. The vicar was wringing his hands, clearly ill at ease.

“Won’t you please say a prayer for these dead souls and clear the air of any stray spirits, Vicar?” asked Brand.

“But we still don’t know who these women are,” moaned the vicar. “I can’t say requiems over fallen women.”

“Then there’s even more reason to say requiems over them,” said Are bluntly. “Jesus didn’t turn his back on sinners.”

You didn’t argue with a son of Tengel of the Ice People in this village. Even the new vicar knew this. He just cast a glance at Are and then prayed that the unblessed spirits would be given peace. When that was done, everybody breathed a little easier.

But it didn’t last long because the next moment the bailiff lifted the head of one of the women and said. “Good God! Could this be ...?”

Then he calmed down again. “No, of course it can’t be!”

But they had all heard him. Kaleb’s calm, confident figure appeared, and many instinctively went over to him.

“What are you talking about?” asked Brand bluntly.

“No, it can’t be.”

“Speak up!”

“In the wilderness up here, in the small valleys... people have been speaking in recent years about a wolf-like human being. We call it a werewolf. About a year ago, a woman was flayed, and a three-legged wolf has been seen in the forest ... “

A young girl put her hand to her mouth and screamed: “Oh, Mummy!”

“A werewolf,” said Are with an angry glance. “Now you must be careful that you don’t scare people.”

“What I’m telling you is just gossip.”

“Nevertheless there seem to be four graves here that haven’t been consecrated,” one of the men said slowly. “Maybe all the deceased are women? Maybe this is where the werewolf lives and catches lonely women? During the full moon ...”

A few of the girls let out loud screams. Some looked up to find out in which phase the moon was in, but the moon couldn’t be seen. Others looked over their shoulder towards the forest.

“A three-legged wolf?” another man said. “Why does it have three legs?”

“Don’t you know that?” barked the bailiff. “The werewolf is a human being that changes into a wolf at full moon - and other times. Since he’s a human being, he has no tail. That’s shameful for a wolf. And that’s why he stretches out his one leg backwards like a tail – and then there are only three legs left to run on.”

“Ugh,” shivered someone in the crowd.

The bailiff looked sternly at the crowd. “So keep an eye on your husbands, women! If they’re out at night, you must summon me! Look carefully at his teeth. Maybe there’s a thread from a piece of garment – or maybe he has traces of blood on his face ...”

Are moaned quietly.

“And pregnant women should stay indoors in the evening,” the bailiff continued. “The werewolf finds them particularly attractive.”

“Oh, stop with all this nonsense!” Andreas blurted out thoughtlessly. “It’s something you’ve brought with you from Germany. We don’t have werewolves in Norway.”

“You’re absolutely wrong,” said the bailiff, who had turned quite red in the face. “You even have bears who can flay women and children to death, which we don’t have.”

“Yes, Andreas,” said Are calmly. “Even the old Vikings told of wolf-like humans. Only I don’t think there’s any reason to make a lot of fuss about it before we know more about these women. And I’d like to know – if it is a werewolf that is rife – why he’s dragged unknown women here?”

“But are the women unknown?” asked another man.

“What about Gustav’s Lisen? She left home to look for work last year at harvest-time and she promised to write home. No letter was ever received and she didn’t return home for Christmas as she’d promised.”

“Did she leave home at nightfall?” asked the bailiff.

“I don’t know. You must ask Gustav about that.”

“Yes, I will,” snapped the bailiff.

The forest stood dark and silent behind them. Nobody wanted to stand alone. They clustered in pairs and groups. The grey-black clouds lay heavily over the fir trees. It was easy to imagine that something was hiding between the trees.

Are ordered torches to be lit as the day was waning. Men with spades came from Linden Avenue and Graastensholm and then they began to carefully dig. The spectators excitedly followed everything that was going on in the field, but more and more were glancing towards the lonely house at the edge of the forest.

However, the bailiff was interested in a larger area.

“Who lives near here? Which farms are there?” he shouted into the calm meadow.

“Linden Avenue and Graastensholm,” answered Mattias. “And the hut of the bailiff’s assistant. And Klaus’ small farm up in the forest.”

“Klaus passed away a long time ago,” said the vicar. “And so did his Rosa.”

“After his sister married, Jesper lives on his own up there,” said Mattias.

“More farms?”

“No, not in the neighbourhood.”

“Hmm.” The bailiff let his sharp-eyed gaze wander over Are, Brand and Andreas from Linden Avenue, to Mattias and Tarald from Graastensholm. He fixed his look on Andreas.

“You’re clearly familiar with this meadow,” he said inquisitorially.

“Yes, but if you believe I’m stupid enough to dig up my own, carefully hidden corpses, then I don’t know which one of us is more stupid,” answered Andreas sharply.

It seemed that the bailiff could see the logic to that answer.

“You also have another farm within the family now, don’t you? Elistrand? This Kaleb – where does he actually come from?”

“I don’t think we should get him involved in all this,” said Andreas coolly. “He’s a very fine person, and we all respect him. Why don’t you ask him himself? He’s standing right behind you.”

The bailiff turned around. He didn’t know everybody in the parish personally and he had never met Kaleb before. Now he stepped back a bit from the blond giant.

Andreas continued with a malicious undertone: “Kaleb’s a great expert on law. He can be of assistance to you in this case.”

The bailiff mumbled something about amateurs.

“You’d hardly call Kaleb an amateur,” said Andreas. “Kaleb was the apprentice of Judge Dag Meiden and he’s been an MP for many years.”

That silenced the bailiff. After that he didn’t say much during the digging. He was not used to cases like this one and put his trust in Mattias and Kaleb and the people at Linden Avenue. His authoritative voice sounded like an echo of theirs, repeating what had already been said as if the words were his own. Nobody cared much for the bailiff because they found him conceited and only interested in wringing money from people.

From the farthest spot of the meadow by the cliff projection, a low cry could be heard:

“It looks like there’s something here too!”

They removed the squares of turf carefully. Here it was much more difficult to see what had happened. Time had passed by and the bodies had rotted away.

“It’s too dark,” complained Mattias.

“Yes, now it’s too dark,” repeated the bailiff. “We must continue our investigation of the corpses tomorrow.”

“Yes,” agreed Kaleb. “But we can dig up the rest of this patch this evening. Just to be on the safe side.”

After an hour, the whole patch of meadow had been dug up. There were four female corpses. Despite a series of test digs here and there, no more bodies were found.

Four deceased. One recently, one earlier this spring. The two others must have been interred over the winter. One of them probably from last autumn, the other perhaps dating back to last summer. Who were they? Where did they come from? Who was their slayer and how were they killed?

Mattias and Kaleb were standing with Are, Brand and Andreas, discussing the two most recent finds, when the bailiff called them over in a low voice. They walked over to him. He stood bent over the woman who had been killed most recently.

“Look here!” he said. “What do you say to this?”

He had removed some earth from one hand of the woman and pulled out a dirty piece of string.

“This was tied to her hand,” he said. The string was long and trailed on the ground.

Are took hold of it. “Knots,” he said.

“Tying together nine different pieces of string,” added the bailiff sternly. "Well, that shows us the types that we’re dealing with!”

The others were feeling extremely ill at ease.

“You must keep this to yourself,” said Are in a cautionary tone of voice. “If this gets out, the whole village will turn hysterical. We’ve had enough witch trials here. Your werewolf story is better!”

“But this is irrefutable proof,” protested the bailiff. “And yesterday we caught a witch in the neighbouring village. Witchcraft is rife.”

“We’ll investigate the case carefully tomorrow. This evening we should avoid stirring up more fear, or people will take the case into their own hands. Put a guard here tonight and send all the others home.”

The bailiff gritted his teeth and acquiesced.

Night had long since fallen by the time the large crowd went back towards the village. Jesper was not in the throng. His small farm was situated deep in the forest so he hadn’t noticed the fuss. The Night Man hadn’t appeared either.

Everyone went home to sleep. Well, so they thought. Not everybody went to bed. A few shadowy figures lay in wait by the crossroads until they caught sight of their victim: the Night Man.

Finally, they had good reason to attack the executioner’s hated assistant. Who else could the werewolf be? And he was, after all, the one who lived right next to the meadow.

They placed their hands over the Night Man’s mouth to muffle his screams.

Early the next morning when Andreas was on his way to the smith with a horse, which had lost its shoe, he found a miserable figure lying in the ditch. Although the man was in a terrible state, he recognised immediately that it was the executioner’s assistant. Andreas bent down and tried to lift him up.

“Run home and fetch the cart and another horse,” he said to the stable lad who was with him. “There’s still life in him. Afterwards go over to the smith with this horse and then to Mattias. Ask him to come to the hut by the edge of the forest. I’ll drive Joel Night Man home.”

While Andreas waited for the stable lad, he sat by the roadside, gazing at the wounded man. His thoughts were grim. The find yesterday evening in the dead woman’s hand had shocked his entire family. He knew how vulnerable they were in this. For the moment, the bailiff was the only one who knew about it, but if the rumour spread to the village ...

He looked at Joel Night Man. It was quite obvious that this crime had taken place last night. It was equally obvious that it had to do with the events in the meadow. People had found a scapegoat, somebody to take their revenge out on. But the popular mood swung very easily. If they found somebody else to strike, they could do all sorts of terrible things. ‘This is just the beginning,’ he thought. ‘Just the beginning...’