The Ice People 1 - Spellbound (The Legend of the Ice People) (20 page)

She could feel his hand on her cheek, full of despair at what was bound to cause pain. She opened her eyes and forced a smile to him that she understood and accepted.

Naturally – and fortunately for Silje – it didn’t last too long. She saw how his face changed with pleasure, and suddenly the pain was not so bad any more. Instead she felt immensely happy that she could make him so happy. And she knew that her time would also come.

Tengel collapsed exhausted next to her. All that could be heard in the room was their breath.

“And so you imagine that we will be able to live together without having children of our own?” he whispered with a joyful and sorrowful voice.

“No,” said Silje, trying not to sound as smug as she felt. She lay quietly on her back and let his semen find its way into her, further and further inside, without feeling shame.

“Do you know what I want, Tengel?”

“No?”

“I want you again.”

Then he laughed. “You’re crazy, Silje. But I can well follow you. All this became so … selfish. This was not how it was supposed to have been.”

His voice echoed both laughter and despair.

He lay down on his back, his arms covering his eyes. “What have we done, Silje? Oh, God, what have we done?”

“The inevitable,” was her slow answer.

“Yes. Sooner or later it had to happen.”

“Do you have any regrets?”

He lifted himself up by the elbow. “Well, of course I do. But I’ve never in my life been so … so blissfully happy. What are we to do, Silje?”

She became matter-of-fact, almost hard: “Well, you could move back to your shack and hope that no damage has been done.”

“No,” he said shocked and guiltily. It was not until now that it dawned on him how much he’d hurt her with his words. “No, this was not what I meant to say. Now we’ve burned all bridges and I would never dream of leaving you. Of course not! I love you and know that we belong to one another, you and me. No, it wasn’t the two of us I had in mind but what may be the fruit of our action.”

“You told me that only very few were struck by Tengel the Evil’s legacy. And you’re struck by it yourself, and yet you’re one of the best people I’ve known. So the inherited power isn’t always evil. And if I have to keep on begging and asking you, I’ll slap you! You humiliate me beyond all boundaries, Tengel.”

He hid his smiling face in her hair.

“Silje Arngrimsdatter, I hereby ask for your hand. Will you? Dare you?”

“Yes, yes, for heaven’s sake. It’s certainly about time,” she laughed and gave him a big hug.

Hanna, she said to herself: “I’ve taken the first step!”

They lay next to each other the whole night and talked in whispers to each other while the children were asleep. But they didn’t touch each other because Silje was far too sore for that. She could hardly move without feeling pain.

“Tell me, Silje, are you really happy here?” he whispered. “Now and then I believe that this isn’t so.”

She thought very carefully before she replied: “I’m happy here because you’re here and I just want to be where you are. I feel safe here – outside there’s nothing else but anxiety and horror. This place is very beautiful and I’m beginning to feel a bit more at home here. Eldrid is a good friend but I don’t have much in common with the others. I must admit that I often feel trapped – that I long for the freedom which open spaces generate. And I think a lot about Benedikt and Marie and Grete and the foreman and I’m also concerned about them. And I think of Charlotte Meiden. Not of meeting her but I think a lot about how she’s doing. Poor woman!”

“I’m not able to follow you there, probably because you’re a woman and can better understand what’s going on in her mind.”

“I hope I haven’t hurt you.”

“No, not at all. This was roughly the answer I’d expected.”

“And what about you, Tengel? Are you happy here?”

He sighed. “I’ve settled down since you arrived. After all, this is the valley where I spent my childhood. But now that we’re one, I must admit that I’ve always longed for the outside world ever since I was quite young. You see, I feel restless. I want to
be
something. Not just a mountain peasant all my life. But someone like me doesn’t stand much of a chance anywhere without risking that the powers that be will capture me as a sorcerer. If they don’t know me, I suppose they’ll take me because of the way I look. Last year they hanged a man because he had a club foot. They said that it was the sign of the Devil.”

“Oh, dear. You oughtn’t to tell me such things, Tengel. It makes me quite sick with compassion.”

“Please forgive me. I’ll remember. But there’s a reason for my patience. Something within me tells me that I have another future than this one in the valley. That I really have the opportunity to become something great.”

Silje crept closer to him and inhaled the smell of his skin. “Is this something … you
know
? Just as with the leaded window pane?”

“Yes and the strange thing is that you also …”

“Why don’t you finish the sentence?”

“This is because it’s no use putting ideas into your head.”

She got up on her elbow and looked down at him in the darkness. “Now listen, Tengel …”

“Yes,” he laughed. “You also have a special future which we can’t imagine.”

“Outside?”

“Yes, I believe so. But right now I feel nothing but danger at the thought of leaving this valley.”

“You know a lot.”

“Not really. Not like Hanna. She can see most things. I have vague sensations, intuitions now and then. And I’ve learned to follow them. No, I’m not that special.”

Silje was somewhat skeptical about the latter remark. “Eldrid told me that she’d seen you do a bit of everything when you were a kid, which she didn’t want to think back upon.”

“”Eldrid ought to keep quiet about such things! I certainly remember that now and then I could get angry at people. And it turned out that if I concentrated on hurting them … What’s the matter, Silje? You gave a start?”

“Oh, Tengel, I thought of not telling you about it! But something happened with Sol on Benedikt’s farm.”

“What are you telling me?”

She spoke reluctantly about Sol’s anger against Abelone’s son when he’d threatened to throw them all out. Of how she’d stood in the doorway and hurried away when he cut himself. Of his accusations of how it had happened. And about her eyes when Silje had found her.

She could feel that Tengel stiffened. “Why didn’t you tell me about all this a bit before?” he asked in a flat tone of voice.

“I didn’t want you to worry and be unhappy without any reason because I didn’t believe it myself. What do
you
think?”

“Think?” he repeated wearily while he squeezed her hand so that it creaked. “I did exactly the same when I was a kid. I thought it was fun and exciting …”

“But you thought the better of it?”

“Yes, and let’s hope and pray that Sol will do the same.”

Silje lay there and then stared up on the ceiling. Sol didn’t resemble Tengel at all. She didn’t posses his conscientious sense of responsibility. Quite often she was … malicious.

But then she was only a kid, and besides, she hadn’t experienced Tengel as a kid.

She sent him a serious glance.

“Now we’re two to deal with this, Tengel,” she said with a firm voice. “Together we’ll tackle it.”

“Bless you, Silje,” he whispered.

Chapter 14

The summer came and Silje got to see the valley of the Ice People in its most beautiful garb. Now she was able to see how beautiful it was and she came to love the mountains, the sunsets, the mountain birches and the lake.

She was ecstatically happy. The chief married them in a simple ceremony, and it was evident that he was surprised and greatly shocked at her choice. But since Heming had bolted from the valley, she’d probably made do with Tengel because she was desperately hard up. The chief had never been told why Heming had cleared out – nobody had the courage to tell him. So in an indirect way, people had shown their loyalty towards Tengel. This helped to give Silje a certain peace of mind.

So now Silje was Tengel’s wife. Everybody was well – and the future looked bright. Silje found much more joy in her work after he’d moved in, and she was happy and eager when they ploughed the fields in spring, when they sowed and cut the grass in the meadows and around the village.

But they didn’t have any animals. The stable was in a bad state and Silje had enough on her hands looking after the children. Instead it was much better to lend Eldrid a helping hand. Eldrid gave Sol a kitten – and Tengel was worried when she had chosen the pitch-black kitten. Their only domestic animals were the kitten and the horse.

Although Tengel seemed completely happy, she often had to wake him from his evil dreams in the middle of night – and he’d asserted that he never dreamed! Now that they were married, they would always lie naked underneath the skin blankets, and when he woke up and was wet with perspiration, she would immediately fumble after his face in the darkness and assure him straightaway that she really was there.

“Silje,” he groaned.” Please don’t leave me! Please never leave me!”

She assured him that she’d never leave him. She drew him to her to calm him and to extricate him from the nightmares. But when he was so agitated that his whole body trembled, she would embrace him although they’d been together that very same evening because it seemed to calm him down.

It made her slightly sad because as with most women she considered the spiritual union as just as important as the physical. The result, however, was that he would drive her to dizzying heights, and when he could feel that he’d made her really happy and free, the horror scenarios seem to vanish and he fell into a peaceful sleep in her arms. Sometimes he would be so heavy that she would have to pull back a little.

This is almost like in the dream, Silje would think ironically. “I use my gender to turn a man’s cruel thoughts onto something else. But why does it always have to be the erotic side of things? What sort of a faint obsession in me makes me always seek refuge in eroticism? Oughtn’t I to be more valuable than just a target for a man’s desires? Could it be because of my own insecurity? Because I’m scared that I’m inadequate in other areas? If so, that would be a shame.”

They mixed more with other people in the valley now. After Tengel married Silje, people were not so afraid of him anymore and the peasants could talk, joke and discuss with him. Nevertheless, you could always see a certain anxiety in the corner of their eyes. They were always ready to run away at the least sign.

Eldrid also experienced the heyday of youth. She’d been spurred by Silje who’d had the courage to marry a descendant of the Ice People’s evil spirit. The result was that she said accepted a suitor who’d long shown an interest in her. Eldrid married at Midsummer Night.

Eldrid’s husband was one of those who was forced to flee from the bailiff’s men and he’d lived in the valley of the Ice People for a few years. Silje rejoiced on Eldrid’s behalf. Now she didn’t have to work so hard or to be so much on her own. Besides she was too old to have children so she didn’t have to live with this fear. She would definitely not extend the family.

Silje had so much to do that she didn’t even have time to weave, which made her rather sad. But she told herself that she experienced so many good things instead. Tengel took her and the children to his dearest haunts. This way they got a lot of fresh air and they all had a lovely tanned complexion. Tengel would carry Sol in a knapsack and Sol would walk beside them with the kitten in a basket. They were relieved to notice that her temper seemed to have abated slightly, which was probably due to the harmonious life she now lived.

But now and then she could frighten them! Like when they came to a waterfall and she got a dreamy expression in her eyes.

“Dead lady,” she would say.

Tengel was startled. “How did she know? A woman committed suicide here … well, probably twenty years ago now.”

There were other inexplicable occurrences. Another time as they were walking in the mountains, she came running towards them.

“Home!” she screamed. “Dangerous man under the tree!” Her eyes were full of horror.

In such cases, they tended to do as she said but they never got an explanation.

***

During fall, Silje began to change. She began to lose weight, lost her appetite, and her complexion became transparent and full of light-brown spots. Tengel had planned to see Benedikt and work on his house but now he didn’t do anything about it.

Instead, Tengel sent another man, the driver, and he returned rather quickly to say that everything was alright in a material sense but that Abelone still lived there, making life unbearable for them. They were all very happy to hear about Silje and Tengel’s family life. They sent their congratulations, a large packet of food and some clothes for the little ones.

“How I wish we could have done something for them,” said Silje, touched. “If only we could get rid of those parasites!”

“I agree,” said Tengel. “But I can’t do anything right now because my place is by your side.”

Silje glanced over the yard where the first frost had arrived. She closed the door to keep the place warm. “I’m scared, Tengel. What’s wrong with me?”

He cast a searching glance and had to smile at her ignorance.

“It’s a long time since you’ve turned me down because of your periods, right?”

She was thoughtful. “Well, yes, it is. I’ve had so much else on my mind. Oh, Tengel …”

She remained sitting and was dumb-founded. “Yes, of course. When it didn’t happen in the spring and early summer I just thought that perhaps it wouldn’t happen.”

Tengel’s face was grim. “I’ve feared it for a while but I didn’t have the courage to talk to you about it. When … do you think?”

Silje tried to make a rapid calculation but this wasn’t so easy because she hadn’t paid attention.

“Next April,” she said hesitant.

He looked at her for a long time. “I can … put a stop to it. A remedy.

She got up abruptly. She didn’t make the least attempt at concealing how shocked she was. “No way!”

“What if it’s a … monster?”

“A monster? Bah! Are
you
a monster? Is Sol perhaps? Or Eldrid? Or your sister, Sunniva? You must be absolutely out of your mind! I
have
certainly seen some of your other relatives in this valley, but don’t imagine that that can intimidate me. If you remove my child, you’re never to see me again!”

She exaggerated, of course, but now she talked straight from the shoulder.

Tengel closed his eyes and sighed. “As you wish, Silje!”

But he didn’t look happy.

No, he wasn’t looking forward to the baby. Instead he lay awake, terribly scared, sighing and moaning so horribly that finally Silje got a bad conscience and began to waver in her belief that she’d done the right thing, yet she knew intuitively that she
wanted
the child.

Tengel was very quiet during this period of time and what was even worse was that Silje didn’t feel at all well. She felt awful, which Tengel could certainly see but Silje never complained. She was very grateful when he put his warm hands over her loin – this eased the pains that ached all the time.

This is the punishment I get for not being pear-shaped, she thought and remembered with a smile how indignant she’d been when Benedikt had painted her like that on the church wall. Everything is much easier for women with broad hips, she thought.

The winter was harsh. The snow arrived early and it turned terribly cold at Christmastime. Everybody was forced to keep indoors because the snow lay right up to the roofs of the houses. The only roads that existed were the trails that had been dug to the outhouses.

An elderly man who’d frozen to death was found outside his house but they couldn’t bury him so his coffin had to stand by the woodshed until it was spring. A young man who’d gone hunting had a frost-bitten foot and Tengel was asked to come. Silje never asked him what he’d done but he was very agitated when he came home.

It looked as if they would run short of food so Tengel and Silje saved as best they could, which wasn’t such a good thing because Silje needed proper nourishment now. Dag had begun to crawl and he could also walk a bit when he had the wall and the furniture to hang on to. He wasn’t quite as lively as Sol but he was very clever at pulling down everything within easy reach. Silje couldn’t leave the children to Eldrid anymore because they were so difficult to manage. Despite the swaddling-clothes, Dag’s legs weren’t quite straight, which hurt Silje because she’d often loosened the clothes. But Tengel, who knew more than most people, tended to believe that this was due to his birth or the lack of vital nutrients.

Silje had to admit that once again she was feeling unhappy in the valley. This wasn’t because of all the difficulties because she would share them with her beloved Tengel, but because they were so powerless against the forces of nature. She felt trapped and plagued by the inexplicable which she’d always feared but which she couldn’t find a word for.

Once she’d mentioned it to Tengel and talked about the horror that weighed her down. “I know,” he’d answered. “This is the legacy which old Tengel left to us.” She hadn’t believed him.

Just before Christmas, she’d been to see Hanna and Grimar with some food which she could “almost” do without. This was before all that horrible snow had fallen. She’d just knocked on the door, placed the bundle outside and had left again after making sure that Grimar had taken it indoors.

And then – one day in late March, in the animating spring sun, the pains of childbirth set in unexpectedly.

Eldrid took charge of the children and Silje had a few of the neighbouring wives with her. They quickly realized that this wasn’t going to be an easy birth. Tengel did what he could to make it easier for Silje, gave her something warm and bitter to drink, which had a soothing effect, and he read some of his special prayers in secret. But it dragged out. After two days and nights, everybody was seriously afraid. Silje could tell by Tengel’s face what he thought. He’d never been able to forget that his deformed shoulders had cost the life of his mother …

Silje lay exhausted on the bed. She was wet with perspiration on her temples and swollen around the eyes. She could no longer tackle to sit in the specially made maternity chair. She seemed drained of energy.

She looked at them with a tortured expression in her eyes. “Could I have some water, please?” She was completely dry in the mouth.

Her head was lifted and the ladle and loving hands placed it to her mouth.

Silje leaned back in bed. “Fetch Hanna,” she whispered.

Tengel gave a start. “Are you completely out of your mind?”

The women made the sign of the cross.

Silje asked: “Is there anybody else who can help me get my child out now?” she asked. “It’ll die, Tengel.”

“So will you,” they thought.

“Let’s wait a bit more,” he said in a thick voice. “Maybe it’ll work out all the same.”

But there was no change except that Silje became even weaker.

It was twilight time. They lighted the train-oil lamps, which were rarely in use, and placed them around her bed. As if she’s already dead, Tengel thought with a shiver. He felt so utterly powerless. He didn’t know what he could do.

Suddenly the door was opened and everybody started.

There stood the least charming person Silje had ever seen. The women let out a loud yell and disappeared into the children’s bedroom and locked the door after them.

“Silje asked me to call,” said Hanna.

Even Tengel pulled back.

“Off you go, you fool, you can’t tackle this. And keep those useless women away too!”

He went towards the door.

Silje look in terror at the figure that plodded towards the bed on swollen legs. She’d never been able to imagine such a being. Now she could better understand why Tengel was opposed to having children of his own.

“Hello again, Mrs. Hanna,” she stammered with a trembling voice.

Tengel turned around in the doorway. Hello
again
? Did Silje have secrets which she kept from him?

He didn’t have time to speculate for very long before Hanna waved him out.

He left the room full of anxiety. But he didn’t dare to chase Hanna away. One just didn’t go against Hanna!

If Hanna had been out in the world, she would’ve been burned at the stake years ago, Silje thought to herself. This was a witch, a sorceress of the worst kind. Her eyes seemed to burn under tufts of iron-grey hair, and there was a demonic smile around her hollow mouth. Her clothes hung about her like indeterminable rags, and it occurred to Silje that this woman had been wearing the same clothes eve since her death – a grotesque thought which she couldn’t extricate herself from. She was a sickly yellow colour, grey-black from not being washed. Her eyes were the same colour as Tengel’s only much paler, and her complexion around them was older, but even so they were so penetrating in all the black that it was as if she could see right through Silje. Her head was low between her shoulders and far too much forward.

Silje felt sick and she didn’t know how to conceal her abhorrence.

“Let Hanna have a look at you,” said the strange, clear voice. “Let’s have that girl out.”

“Girl?” Silje repeated with big eyes. “Do you … know …?”

“Of course I do. Don’t be afraid – you’ve done services for me and now I return the compliment. What’s more, we want to have that child out alive, right?”