The Christmas Chronicles (5 page)

Then in a shower of sprayed snow, and a cry of “Watch out!” from someone, Anna was suddenly there. She strode right over to him.

“Where can I get beeswax for my runners?” she demanded of him, as though they were resuming a conversation instead of seeing each other for the first time in weeks. And then: “It’s my first Frost Fair, you know.”

All that day Klaus and Anna spent together, going from booth to booth and pretending to be interested in the wares. And those who loved Klaus were glad to see the young man with the flaming hair and beard—it was a rich, full beard now—made so happy, even if it was by a foreigner from outside the village.

In the evening, Klaus took Anna up to his cottage, and they had a supper of bread with honey and cured meats and
winter apples. The latter, with some stored grain, made an excellent meal for Dasher, who waited outside polishing his antlers against the trunk of a bare linden tree. Anna deplored and poured scorn on Klaus’s scanty wardrobe of a few ragged and rusty-colored smocks and breeches and coats. But she marveled at the many beautiful and useful things he had made for his home: sliding pocket doors and carved shelves and a table with removable leaves. It all put Anna in mind of the parting statement she had made to Klaus on Christmas morning.

“About my proposal,” she said. Klaus swallowed hard. He had been waiting all day for her to introduce this subject and had hardly been able to keep himself from bringing it up.

“I accept,” he blurted out.

“But you haven’t heard it yet,” she scoffed.

“Oh. Yes. Go on,” Klaus said.

“Dasher needs a house. I would like you to build him one.”

It was, if not the very last thing Klaus had expected her to say, then very, very close to it. “A house,” he said. “For your reindeer.”

“And it must be a good one,” Anna went on. She looked around. “Twice as big as this one. With all your
lovely counters and shelves and a great carven bed. Twice as big as yours.”

“But he’s a reindeer,” Klaus exclaimed. Anna frowned. “A very remarkable reindeer, to be sure,” Klaus hastily added. “But still … you know …” he finished weakly.

“Yes?” she said.

“Well. A bed? Shelves? I suppose he’ll want an icebox and a cookstove and a privy out back?”

“Naturally,” she said.

“But, Anna, why?” Klaus burst out.

She smiled. “Oh, you needn’t know that. You just build the house.”

“I see,” he said.

“And in exchange, I will give you a sleigh. A very fine, fast sleigh with room enough in it for all your toys, even if you end up delivering to every house in the Black Forest. And,” she added with a slight frown that Klaus did not recall or understand until much, much later, “Dasher and I will help you with your deliveries next Christmas Eve. If you like.”

“I do! I would!” Klaus said instantly. “But what about the Christmas Eve after that?” He was trying to be sly and drive a hard bargain.

“We’ll see,” Anna replied.

Klaus looked into Anna’s sky blue eyes. For one whole half-second he considered how truly mad her proposal was. “I accept,” he said.

“Good,” she said. And they shook on it. “And you will build Dasher’s house right here beside your own.”

“You don’t wish me to build it in your own village?” he asked, surprised.

“I’m certain this is where Dasher wants his house,” she replied. “He likes the view.”

So it was that all through the frosty winter, in addition to making his livelihood, Klaus built Dasher a house next to his own. When it came time to set the crucks in place, the young men of the village came to help, and then they all toasted the frame with winter ale and spoke of their marriage prospects. And though Klaus kept silent, carrying, as he believed, his desire to wed Anna as a secret in his heart, the others grinned because, in truth, the thought was written all over his face.

And when spring came at last and with it the chattering of the millstream again into the pond, the children collected reeds there and dried them in the sun for Klaus, as they had done after the plague, and the Master Thatcher helped him make his roof. Then there was more toasting
when the roof was in place, this time with new spring wine. And so the outside of Dasher’s house was finished.

But this was only the beginning for Klaus. Because now the inside needed doing. The furnishings, all the carving and carpentry, he felt, must be done by himself, alone. Only the finest, he said to himself, for Dasher. So, through the spring and the summer, he set himself to making and carving the new, bigger bed, the shelves and chests of drawers, the table and chairs. And, most absurd of all—and Klaus couldn’t help but chuckle as he built it—the privy out back that Dasher would be unable even to enter, let alone want to use.

And because he was now also making this year’s toys as well as all the new house furnishings, and working for his own livelihood on top of that, he was busier than at any other time in his twenty-five years of living. Yet he was happy, as he always was once he knew what there was to do and was doing it. So when a delegation from a village away on the other side of Mount Feldberg, where Klaus had never been, came to tell him that his fame had reached them and to ask him if their children might possibly be squeezed into this year’s Christmas Eve deliveries, a smile wreathed his face, he said yes without hesitation, and
asked for directions. But when the delegation left, very happy with the news they would be taking back to the other side of Mount Feldberg, Klaus thought,
This sleigh Anna is giving me had better be very fast indeed.

Anna visited often. Claiming a thorough acquaintance with Dasher’s tastes and preferences, she frequently directed the shape or carving or color of a particular item. When she paid unusually close attention to the cookstove, which Klaus intended to buy at the Fall Fair, it was his turn to laugh. “Why should Dasher be so particular about the size of the firebox?” he asked. “He has hoofs! He won’t even be able to open the door!”

Anna took great offense at this. “Do not presume, Klaus, just because your hair is so red and fine, to know the ways of reindeer. The firebox must be just as I have said.”

And so Klaus shook his head of fine red hair and did as she wished. In truth it was a pleasure to him to do as Anna wished.

And when once again the snow began to fly in the village under the mountain, and the ice began to creep, day by day, from the edges to the middle of the millpond, the house was completed. And so was Klaus’s new batch of toys. This year he was featuring Noah’s Arks with animals
two by two and was quite happy with the way the lions had turned out, having copied them from the bestiary Father Goswin kept in the stone church. And, of course, there were lots of bears and tops and whistles, too.

“When will Dasher move in?” Klaus asked Anna. The reindeer’s house was now well and truly finished, inside and out.

“When there is enough snow on the ground for him to pull your new sleigh to you,” Anna replied.

So now Klaus sat in his own house and waited impatiently for the first real storm of the autumn.

At last it came, blowing in fast from the north in the night and depositing enough sugary new snow to fill all the lanes and drift up to the top step of Klaus’s cottage. Then, shortly before dawn, the storm blew itself south, and when the sun came up, it shone on a hushed, white world.

And on that sunny winter day Anna came, driving Klaus’s new sleigh.

Behind it was hitched her own, and both were filled with bags and parcels and bolts of cloth and clutches of ribbons and woolen threads all the colors of the rainbow. And sticking out behind Anna’s sleigh was a tall-case clock. Dasher made nothing of the extra weight. He trotted
briskly, his antlers trimmed with red ribbons, in high spirits to be coming to his new house. Anna drove through the lanes of the village, and the villagers, sensing by common knowledge that something special was about to happen, followed behind her.

So that by the time Anna glided to a stop in front of the two houses—Klaus’s and the new one—the whole village was following in a train behind. They crowded around as Anna leapt lightly to the ground.

“What do you think of your new sleigh, Klaus?” she asked.

“Splendid,” he replied. And it was. It was trimmed in red and gold and far larger and more regal than he needed, he thought, but so sleek and swift-looking that on any other occasion he would have longed to jump in it then and there and let Dasher take him for a ride.

But this was not any other occasion. “How do you like Dasher’s new house?” he asked Anna. And all the crowd listened anxiously, breathless to know her answer.

Anna turned to her reindeer. “What do you say, Dasher?” she asked. “Is it suitable?” The reindeer bugled his approval loudly and stamped the snowy ground. The village cheered.

But Anna smiled. “A house? For a reindeer?” she asked. “What can you be thinking, Klaus?”

Klaus smiled back. “Yes, when you come to think of it, it
is
a silly idea.”

“Can you think of a better one? Or is your head only good for growing splendid red hair?”

And suddenly Klaus
could
think of a better idea. Or rather, having been thinking of it for almost a whole year, it finally rushed up from his heart to his mouth. He got down on a knee in the snow. “Anna,” he asked, “will you come and live with me in Dasher’s house?”

“As your wife, I hope you mean,” she said.

Klaus blushed scarlet. “Yes, yes, of course,” he said quickly.

“Yes, yes, of course,” she replied just as quickly. “Dasher can live in your old house.”

Such a loud and sustained cheer went up from the villagers that it could almost be heard on the other side of Mount Feldberg. And without further ado, the crowd unloaded Anna’s belongings from the sleighs and bustled them into the new house, taking care not to damage her tall-case clock. And then they placed Anna and Klaus on two of Klaus’s new chairs and carried them down to the stone
church, where Father Goswin joined them together as husband and wife, delivering also an edifying sermon on the joys and rigors of the married state.

Finally, when everyone had gone outside and a great bonfire had been lit in the market square for warmth and jollity, Anna produced a large package. “It’s your wedding gift, Klaus. Open it.” Inside was the most splendid thing Klaus had ever seen. Indeed, it was so splendid that everyone, just on the edge of starting a very boisterous wedding celebration, stopped what they were doing and grew hushed when Klaus drew it from its wrappings and held it up.

It was a long coat, with breeches and a hat, all made from the finest, softest, thickest wool. They were dyed the deepest holly-berry crimson and trimmed in white ermine. Two leaping reindeer were embroidered on the front of the coat, one on either side of the buttons. They were, in truth, garments for a king, not a village carpenter.

“I will not have my husband cold on Christmas Eve!” Anna declared, and gave Klaus a resounding kiss.

At that the loudest cheer of the day went up, and the wedding party roared to a start.

But lurking at the edge of the crowd, because he could not stay away from the happiest day in Klaus’s life, was unhappy Rolf Eckhof. And seeing Klaus’s joy and all the village
joining in it, jealousy and rage rose in him like a ravenous hunger. For a moment Klaus’s eye happened to catch his, and Klaus saw in it all Rolf Eckhof’s malice and hatred for him.

And in the midst of all his bliss, he felt a stab of dread. For Klaus knew that now his trouble was just beginning.

T
he wedding of Klaus and Anna was so glorious and merry and filled-to-bursting with good food and drink that everyone in the village under Mount Feldberg talked about it for three months. It was simply the most memorable matrimony anyone could recall.

Klaus and Anna, meanwhile, settled quickly and contentedly into married life—just as though the two of them had been made for marriage and for each other, which of course they had. Dasher would not set hoof into Klaus’s
house but only fixed Anna and Klaus with a defiant stare when they tried to usher him across the threshold. So Klaus built Dasher a fine and sturdy stable on the other side of the new house instead, which was much more practical, and gave his old house to the Worshipful Guild of Foresters, Carpenters, and Woodworkers as a residence for retired widowers. So it was a satisfactory arrangement all around.

Now it will be recalled that Klaus and Anna’s nuptials fell just a few weeks before Christmas Eve and also that Klaus had agreed to include in this year’s delivery of Christmas toys a village on the far side of Mount Feldberg.

And so it fell that on one clear, cold evening in mid-December, Anna and Klaus were lying snug in their large carved bed doing what they so often did in those early newlywed days. That is, Anna was embroidering a scene of the bloody and drunken battle of the Centaurs and Lapiths onto a coverlet she had just stitched, and Klaus was polishing off the last of her rabbit stew with sugared almonds—for Anna had found that with her new stove she liked cooking very much, and Klaus had found that he liked it, too.