Читать книгу The Ice People 17 - The Garden of Death - Margit Sandemo - Страница 6

Chapter 1

Daniel Ingridssøn Lind of the Ice People.

Conceived because of a witch’s potion. Born in disgust. Abandoned, newborn and helpless, to a baby-farmer. Saved from death by a magical herb. And since loved by all for his confident smile, his tolerance of other people’s weaknesses, his belief in what life could give him – and what he could give to life. The cold wind from the Arctic Ocean blew in his dark hair and he heard the gusts in the bare bushes as he stood there, looking out over Arkhangelsk. How had he arrived here? He hardly knew. The journey to Finland with the Swedish army. The battle at Villmanstrand on 23 August 1741. His father taken prisoner. He, Daniel, had fled – into the country of the enemy, into eternal Russia. Why?

He had a vague idea that he was predestined for this. To try to solve the enigma of the Ice People, seek the origin of the puzzle and destroy the destructive power in their blood, the curse that held them all in a crushing embrace of fear and despair.

In order to do so, he would have to walk in the footsteps of Vendel Grip. To a country by the outer rim of ice and cold, to the very core of the Ice People’s secret. To the source of life. Nobody knew where this source was. The only one who could tell them about it had passed away: Tun-sij, the shaman, who also had the blood of the Ice People in her veins. But she had had a daughter and Vendel Grip had fathered a child by that daughter. Daniel’s second task was to try to find Vendel’s child. Vendel and Daniel had become good friends in recent years, exclusively by letter since they had met for the first time. He had learned a great deal from Vendel.

He had imagined that this correspondence would be a way of learning Russian, but he had been forced to learn something totally different. The journey from Villmanstrand to Arkhangelsk had taken an entire winter. He had mostly kept quiet at first because he was horrified at how bad he was at the language. But he had absorbed a lot, and in places he had had to work for a little money so that he could move on. People had probably taken him for deaf and dumb or just not too clever.

But now that Daniel had reached Arkhangelsk, his first objective was the mountain land of Taran-gai. Giving an account of his experiences, adventures and brushes with death on his journey would take too long. The mere task of exchanging his Swedish soldier’s uniform for ordinary clothes had taken time. He had solved that problem in Finland because he knew he would be pretty unpopular in Russia if he waited until he arrived there. How he managed to find food on the journey, avoid wild animals and the Russian authorities is a different story ... No, that will have to wait!

Vendel’s lessons in Russian had been a foundation that he could build on, which was why he learned the language extremely fast. Now that he had reached Arkhangelsk, he was brave enough to walk down to the harbour and look for work. This was his best chance of finding out how he could progress; so many languages and dialects were spoken there that people would hardly notice him, and he might be able to earn a few kopeks.

He had spent about a week there when he met a man who had roamed a lot around the coast of the Arctic Ocean. Daniel told him that, if possible, he wanted to try to reach the region of the Nenets. The Russian laughed: “Nenetsy? What do you want to go there for? By the way, we call them Yurak-Samoyeds.”

“I know,” Daniel nodded. “I have promised to take a greeting to them if I reach their part of the world.”

“Their part of the world?” The Russian roared with laughter. “It’s not a part of the world where you just drop by. It’s the end of the world!”

“Have you been there?”

“No, you must be crazy! I haven’t even been halfway to Naryan-Mar, their principal city.”

Naryan-Mar! Vendel had mentioned that place. Was it the place he had passed on his homeward journey?

“Can you reach it by sea?”

“I suppose you can. I don’t know. If so, it’s bound to be a hell of a roundabout way.”

“A roundabout way? Isn’t there a direct route?”

“Probably. But wait till tomorrow, till I have had a word with somebody I know, so that I can tell you the way.”

Daniel thanked the man and the following day they told him that he had to follow the Pinega River inland to the village with the same name. There, he was to leave the river because from there a kind of road led across to the Mezen River. He was to follow it right down to the Arctic Ocean once more, to the village of Mezen. From there, he would have to journey due east to Safonovo and on to Ust-Tsilma. This was beside the Pechora River, which he was to follow to the Naryan-Mar estuary.

Daniel wrote it all down but was careful not to show the others what he had written. His Roman alphabet would probably startle them ...

The following day, Daniel went to his employer and explained that he would have to continue his journey. After some objections, he was paid his salary. He got hold of food and warm clothes and a pistol with ammunition in case he came across wild animals. Then, he began travelling eastwards across the vast tundra, which seemed endless!

He reached Naryan-Mar without any serious incidents, and now he started to hear the other language, that Vendel had taught him. The language of the Yurak-Samoyeds.

Daniel had not expected them to be so short. He was more than a head taller than the tallest of them! And they were so kind! They smiled from ear to ear, and when they heard his clumsy and helpless attempts at speaking their language there was no end to all the good they would do for him. Naryan-Mar was no city, only a small settlement, so the news of Daniel’s arrival spread quickly. They stared at him and admired him, and he got some idea of what a sensation Vendel Grip must have been. Vendel was blond and so much taller than Daniel, who was not exactly short.

After having eaten his way through several feasts in which reindeer meat and fish were the main ingredients, he could, at long last, open up about what he wanted to know. The worst thing was that he had no idea of the name of the place where Vendel had been.

He tried to explain. He spoke about the Yamal Peninsula and the estuary of the River Ob, and said that Vendel had come from there and had been led across the river at the foot of the peninsula to the summer camp of the Samoyeds by the Kara Sea.

The crowd looked at him questioningly. They knew the Kara Sea but all the place names were Russian, not in their own language.

It was not until he mentioned Taran-gai that he got a response. A gasp of horror went through the crowd. Now he had something as his point of departure.

“The summer camp that I am talking about, is situated east of Taran-gai. In a bay.”

Then they all knew what he was talking about. Now a unanimous “Aha” could be heard in the large tent. And then, they mentioned a place name he had not heard before. Either Vendel did not know about it or else he had thought it too insignificant to mention. They called the place in the bay Nor.

“Well, how do I reach Nor?” Daniel wanted to know. “Is the tundra accessible?”

They shuddered. “No, no, you can’t cross overland,” they all said at once. “It’s Taran-gai, don’t you see?!”

It was obvious that reaching this place would not be easy.

“You’ll have to travel by sea,” a man said. “It’ll take a long time, and it can be dangerous to get there. But it’s the only way.”

“All right. Then I must get a boat.”

They laughed. “You can’t go on your own!”

Then, they began to talk among themselves, so fast that Daniel, with his scant knowledge of their language, was unable to follow them.

Finally, one of the short men with the broad faces turned to him and nodded. “Isu and I will join you. Don’t worry. We’ve been there before.” It was not difficult to guess who Isu was. He was brimming with good nature, like a rooster.

“Thanks, that’s very kind of you.”

Then Isu said something that made Daniel start. “We’ve attended the annual games up there. A white man revived the traditional open competition. Many, many years ago.”

“A tall, fair-haired man?”

“Precisely. A good man!”

“He was my relative: Vendel Grip. That is why I want to go there.”

The crowd was delighted. There was a renewed serving of food and drinks. Vendel had certainly made himself popular. Daniel said cautiously: “I believe he married a girl – Sinsiew?”

Isu and his friends looked sad. They said that Sinsiew had passed away. She died in childbirth.

Oh, dear! Daniel felt cold all over. Was it the curse that had struck once more? But had not a boy been born in that generation up in Taran-gai? Then surely ...

He dared to raise another careful question: “And the child? What happened to it?” The men looked at one another and smiled. Then they said conspiratorially: “Just you wait and see!”

“Surely you can give me a clue?”

Isu turned serious again. “Remember that her maternal grandmother was from Taran-gai. And her father was of a foreign race.”

“Then it’s a girl!”

“Yes. Her name’s Shira. And you don’t even need to ask for her. The very moment you see her you’ll know who she is.”

Daniel breathed deeply. His first task – which was to find Vendel’s child – seemed to have been accomplished.

Only the wonderful people here did not know that he – and Vendel – were also related to the people of Taran-gai. So this Shira was of the Ice People on both her mother’s and her father’s sides.

They had no time to waste, because the summer was short by the Arctic Ocean. As yet it had not even begun, but Daniel had a lot to accomplish in a short time so they left the following day.

The boat was terribly small, made of walrus skin stretched over thin birch poles. Daniel could see that it was a beautiful piece of work, but how on earth were they going to cope at sea with it? He could not help feeling slightly uneasy.

First they sailed out through the vast delta of the Pechora River until they caught sight of the open sea. It sparkled cold and green, dotted with icebergs: they were not so large in the bay but Daniel could discern some majestically big ones away to the north. They also passed between ice floes, lingering after the winter, but these posed no problem for the Samoyeds. Daniel alternated sitting in the stern, keeping a lookout, with helping the others paddle and occasionally row the light boat.

The trip took much longer that he had expected. Most of the time they stayed close to the shore. Daniel was pleased that he had got hold of warm clothes, because the nights were cold. They travelled day and night because there were three of them, so one could rest while the two others sat at the oars.

Daniel had a bad conscience because he had absolutely nothing to pay the men with. He told them so. No, that did not matter. On the way back, they planned to do some hunting and fishing, and in this way they would earn some money. It was true that he had seen many sea animals, both big and small. He was grateful that they were waiting to hunt until the return journey. He did not want to take part in any of it.

They had already decided how he was to get back. The previous year, a seal-catcher boat had come to Naryan-Mar bound for Nor. It was to return to Arkhangelsk in late summer and then Daniel would probably be able to sail back with it. Then I will undertake the same journey as Vendel, he thought. I only hope I won’t lose my legs the way he did. But it was a long time since the first boat had arrived in this part of the world, and great progress had been made since then. The sailors had probably learned more about the dangers of the Arctic Ocean.

One day they had an unpleasant experience, when they suddenly caught sight of a polar bear drifting on an ice floe. The men shouted in agitation, clearly unprepared, and eyed their primitive weapons – the crossbow-like harpoon and the knives. Daniel made a dismissive gesture. He felt exceptionally safe.

“It won’t attack us.”

The others looked at him in surprise.

“I just know it,” was all he said.

He touched the mandrake under his shirt. Of course, he was taking a huge risk. He knew that. The polar bear was now so close that it only needed to jump into the water and swim up to the boat, and with a single blow from its great paw they would all be lying helpless in the water.

But Daniel – and the two men – knew very well that their weapons were not of much use against this huge animal that was staring them in the eye. The harpoon would only wound it, provoking it even more. In order to use a knife, the men would have to get very close to it. This was not a prospect that tempted them.

“Just go on rowing,” Daniel said quietly.

He did not need to tell them because they were already paddling for dear life.

Daniel sat in the stern, looking the polar bear right in the eye. The critical moment had come ...

Then the bear tossed its head. A deep rumbling came from the animal’s throat, then it turned and lumbered across to the other side of the ice floe, away from them.

In a few minutes, they were far away from the polar bear. While the men took a breather, they stared at Daniel with big, puzzled eyes. “What did you do?” Isu asked. Daniel hesitated. But these people who lived in such close proximity to nature wanted to understand. He opened his shirt and showed them the mandrake. They gasped and came over to take a closer look and to touch it. Their awe was great, and they exchanged words that Daniel did not understand, but he assumed that it had to do with their faith in gods and charms and witchcraft.

Anyway, he had risen enormously in their esteem. All day long, they laughed and were happy, offering to take him hunting with them. He was bound to bring luck with such a mandrake! Daniel told them that he couldn’t go hunting with them, but he wished them lots of good luck. It was fine if they wanted to touch the mandrake once more to be assured.

He was not sure whether it had been such a good idea to show it to them. To be on the safe side, he asked them not to say anything about the mandrake in Nor. They promised that they would not, but he wondered how strictly they would keep their promise.

They passed through a narrow sound where the men went ashore to meet other Samoyeds and brought more food on board. Daniel was allowed to stretch his legs, which he found blissful. Then they were off again.

Early one morning, Daniel got the first hint of what awaited them. He heard the muted, albeit excited, voices of the others and opened his eyes. Looking south, he could see the land rising to low hills. However, an incredible sight lay directly ahead. A mountain that rose straight out of the sea, blue-black and frighteningly tall, had broken the monotonous horizon. The four sheer sides ended in four pointed pinnacles at the very top – like a crown jutting out against the azure morning sky.

The men saw that he had woken up and immediately satisfied his curiosity. “The island is called the Mountain of the Four Winds,” one of them said. “It’s sacred.”

Yes, I can well believe that, Daniel thought. Vendel could not possibly have seen it, or he would have spoken about this rock. At that point in his journey, he was probably still drugged after having drunk Sinsiew’s mystical potion.

They approached the island, which towered over them. The shadow of the Mountain of the Four Winds fell on them, and for Daniel it seemed as if a cold giant’s hand was lowered over him, squeezing all zest for life and willpower out of him. The mandrake stirred. He could see that his two fellow travellers felt the same gloom. They paddled feverishly to get away. It’s just an illusion, he thought. Because the mountain is so intimidating and threatening, and we have travelled in sunshine for so long. And the mandrake ... Never mind, it’s just because I’m moving that I can feel its claws scratching a little.

Then they were out of the long shadow again. He heaved a deep sigh of relief. Nevertheless, he was frozen to the bone, even in the warmth of the sun. He did not want to turn around, but felt as if this eerie island was sending penetrating glances towards him from somewhere high up under the four pointed pinnacles of the crown.

Then he discovered something else: the coast was rising higher and higher. Farther away, he could see real mountaintops, rising quite unexpectedly from the endless, flat tundra.

He had an inkling of what it might be.

“Taran-gai?” he asked.

The little Samoyeds nodded. The smiles had disappeared from their eyes. They shuddered violently instead. He could well understand why. As the boat worked its way through the green icy water, the mountains rose taller and taller. Finally, they were gliding along with Taran-gai’s steep slopes to the east of them, and none of the three said a word. Perhaps it would be wrong to say that the boat sailed along the coast, because the two Samoyeds stayed as far out at sea as they dared. They had no wish whatsoever to get too close to the shore, and Daniel did not blame them.

Despite the summer heat, the cold from Taran-gai’s many glaciers radiated a more than cooling breath of air towards them, and the icebergs that glided past in unfathomable silence also took some of the warmth. Daniel was fascinated by the coast’s cold dark colour, and the sharp, bare rocks that protruded between the glaciers. There is also beauty in this, he thought. Wild, stark and inaccessible. The beauty of it all was intimidating.

After a while he caught sight of a distant, jagged mountaintop that appeared to rise inland and which was considerably taller than the others. It must have been the tallest mountain in Taran-gai.

Their voyage continued. Daniel relieved one of the men at the oars. New, frighteningly gloomy summits appeared towering over Taran-gai’s massif.

This was something that Vendel had not spoken about. But then, he had not seen the mountains from the sea, and it had rained on the day he went inland. The summits had probably not been visible. They rowed as quickly as they could, silent and persistent.

The entire horizon to the south was filled with brooding massifs and jagged, eroded mountaintops. Daniel shivered, and told himself that it was because of the cold air from the glaciers.

Then, all of a sudden, they reached the end of the mountain landscape. The eastern slope was steep and tall, and behind it the tundra began again.

Thank God, Daniel thought, breathing a little easier.

They had entered the gulf of the Kara Sea, that the Russians call Baydaratskaya Guba, but which the Samoyeds just speak of as Nor. Once more, they could relax and row at a normal speed. They still had a good way to go.

Now it was Daniel’s turn to be relieved. He leaned back in the stern. There were no ice floes in sight so he could take it easy.

So Vendel Grip’s child was a girl, he thought. The hypothetical child had come alive and had a name. It was perhaps a good thing that she was a girl because, apart from Ingrid and Christiana, only boys had been born in the family in the last three generations. It was very alarming that the mother had died in childbirth. And the Samoyeds’ “Just wait and see! As soon as you see her, you’ll know who she is,” did not bode well either.

Daniel’s only consolation was that a cursed boy was said to have been born up in Taran-gai before her. Since Daniel was now twenty-five years old, Shira had to be twenty-six. And the cursed boy a few years older, roughly thirty.

An adult – and probably dangerous, as most of the afflicted ones were.

From a distance, he could see smoke rising inland from the bay.

“Is that Nor?” he asked. Yes, it was.

Daniel’s heart beat faster. Now he was close to his objective. After a long winter full of hardship, he stood face-to-face with his actual task – to try to lift the curse that had lain on the Ice People for centuries. His only aid was the root of a plant. The gallows flower. The mandrake.

As they approached the camp, which was much bigger than he had expected, he saw children and adults swarming down to the beach to meet the strange vessel. He saw that the seal-catcher was also there. That was the boat he would be boarding for his voyage back. Daniel dreaded that journey. He hoped that they would not hunt seals on the return journey. That was something he did not want to witness.

Vendel had not believed Daniel would succeed in getting to Nor so quickly, so Daniel did not know what to do with Shira. Take her home to Sweden? That was what Vendel dreamed of, but could you tear a Yurak-Samoyed up by the roots and replant her in Scania? And Sinsiew had strongly opposed that idea. Neither of them was pure Yurak – they both had Taran-gai blood in their veins. But Daniel had a suspicion that the difference between these two peoples was not very great.

But then, Shira was half Swedish ... That was worth taking into account. However, if one was being precise, her father was not entirely Swedish either. Vendel had both Norwegian and Danish blood in his veins, English from Jessica Cross and German from Alexander Paladin. And most importantly, he was of the Ice People! Just as much as Sinsiew had been. How exciting it would be to meet Shira! What was it her maternal grandmother, the shaman woman from Taran-gai, had said to Vendel?

“Your child will have the best of both branches of the Ice People: our art of magic and your art of healing go well together.”

If only it were that simple! Daniel had his doubts.

Even before the boat had moored, the two Samoyeds began chatting away with the men and women who were standing on the bank. Daniel caught the name “Vendel” several times.

The children – small, sweet, snotty-nosed urchins – looked at him with their black eyes. The grown-ups gave eager and surprised exclamations, running out into the water to pull the boat up on land.

Daniel glanced quickly over the crowd. Could one of them be Shira? A couple of young girls were standing over there. They had broad faces and were short, very curious to see what sort of person he was. With a shiver down his spine, Daniel recalled Vendel’s story about the five small, erotic creatures. He had no intention of repeating Vendel’s accomplishments in that regard. Daniel was a far more serious young man. No, he did not think that Shira was there, but you never knew.

He was virtually dragged on to land by eager Samoyeds. They all spoke at once, so it was impossible to catch a single word. The crowd that followed the three men up from the water was big and dense. Some of the children had run on in advance and spread the news. Women and the elderly looked out from their tents. The men were dragged in one particular direction. Towards a particular tent.

The crowd of children had fetched a man out of the tent. He stood there gazing at the group that was drawing nearer. He was elderly and grey-haired, with a straight back and wise eyes so narrow that you could hardly see them.

Daniel came to a halt in front of him. For a moment, everything was totally quiet. Then Daniel plucked up courage and guessed.

“Irovar?” The old man nodded. Daniel smiled at him. “I’m Daniel, Vendel Grip’s relative,” he said, clumsily, in the Samoyeds’ language. “I bring greetings from him.” Irovar’s face lit up in a smile as he stretched out his hands.

“Do come in,” he said. Then he drove all the curious people away. They went off to take care of Daniel’s two companions.

The tent was neat and clean and showed that a woman had put her mark on it. They sat down and the old man asked: “So Vendel is alive?”

“Yes, he’s back in his own country. But his journey home took six years, and he lost both his feet on the way.”

Irovar looked down at the ground for a while. Then he said: “My son and daughter treated him very badly. He was a fine man. Far too good for Sinsiew.”

“All the while, Vendel’s thoughts were focused on the child that Sinsiew was expecting,” Daniel began cautiously. “He thought a lot about it and was very worried. He hasn’t found peace in all these years, which is why I’ve come now. But I haven’t come directly from home. I managed to flee from one of the numerous wars, that are ravaging the world outside your quiet region. For this reason Vendel knows nothing about my journey, otherwise he would have sent gifts to the girl. Gifts and lots of money.”

“I can well imagine,” Irovar replied. “But Shira is fine, and I’m sure she’ll be happy to say hello to you. She has thought a lot about her father.”

“I hear that she’s an orphan?”

“She’s living with me. But right now she’s out collecting wood with a few others; she should be back soon.”

“Maybe I could go out and look for her?”

“Yes, by all means do! But please come back here. Do my house the honour of living here during your stay, which I hope will be long.”

“Thank you. I’ll have to wait here until the seal-catcher returns home because I also have another task, but we can talk about that later. What does Shira look like?”

“You’ll know her immediately.”

As he walked out of the tent, Daniel thought that she was bound to be blonde. A slight difference in the quality of the daylight told him that it was now evening. A big fire was burning in the middle of the camp and he walked in its direction.

Many more people were out now. They had probably come home with wood. At one point he started, certain that he had found Shira. She was a tall girl with long, black plaits and eyes as dark as forest lakes, and she met his glance with eager curiosity. But just as Daniel was about to speak to her, somebody shouted a strange name and she responded immediately. She was obviously not Shira.

Several young people were standing by the fire. Shouting and laughing, they were trying to see who had the courage to get closest to the fire. Daniel gave them a smile and they willingly made room for him, regarding him with unveiled interest, giggling a bit among themselves. But Daniel was not annoyed. From what Vendel had told him, he knew their giggles were never spiteful.

He was staring into the fire when suddenly somebody seemed to be watching him. Then she disappeared. No, there she was again!

Daniel could hardly breathe. He saw a figure who seemed to be one with the fire, with the sky behind, who reappeared and disappeared again according to how the flames danced. She stood by herself, completely still, on the other side of the fire, frightfully close to it, staring pensively into the dark, red flames closest to the ground. Daniel could not understand how anybody could stand so close to the fire without getting burned. Then she looked up. Her eyes were big and serious and of the same colour as the sea ...

Then the fire flared up again, and she was gone, only to reappear against the evening sky, now looking down on the ground where the birch branches glowed and burned. A fragile, ethereal figure with dreaming, slanting eyes and an elf-like grace. Almost unreal.

Daniel walked around the fire to say hello to her. She waited for him with a vague, almost inquisitive smile. Once more, he was struck by her shifting, glistening eyes and her light, clear forehead. The impression of something supernatural was probably just an optical illusion triggered by the dancing flames and the mirages created by the heat. Or ... was that actually the case?

He realized that the mixture of European and Oriental in her was extremely successful. With the delicate, oriental grace of her demeanour and her square face, and the light colours of her skin and eyes, she seemed perfect. Her hair was long, as was the custom, and of a shade, that was difficult to determine. It almost seemed to take on the colours of its surroundings. One moment, it was a deep red like the flames, at the next it was as dark as an autumn evening at home in Uppland, and occasionally it reflected the clear yellow glow of sunlight. However, Daniel understood that he was mistaken on one matter – he had thought that she was bound to be blonde. He had forgotten the other, typical hair colour of the Ice People: auburn. This was the main shade of her hair. Her face was a strange mixture of zest for life and sadness.

Daniel stood there for a moment before he pulled himself together to walk over to her. Now he did not have to ask any more. Now he knew that he had found Shira.

Fortunately, his misgivings were put to rest. Shira was not one of the cursed. She was chosen!