North Child (26 page)

“
The old woman must stand at the tub, tub, tub,

The dirty clothes to rub, rub, rub;

But when they are clean, and fit to be seen,

She'll dress like a lady and dance on the green.
”

Estelle recited the words as we alternated slapping together our right hands and then left hands, clapping in between. I found my thoughts drifting to my makeshift washing room at the castle, and to all the times I had carefully washed that white nightshirt. I blinked back tears and lost the beat of the clapping.

Estelle scolded me.

“Teach me another,” I said, swallowing hard.

Estelle happily launched into another rhyme, with another whole set of handclaps and rhythms. Then we did another, and another. At one point Estelle asked me about the silver ring I wore on my thumb. I said that the man who had been a white bear had given it to me before he disappeared. And I took it off my thumb and showed her the word
VALOIS
inscribed on it. Estelle did not know what it meant (nor did her mother when I asked her later). Putting the ring back on my thumb, I returned to the hand-clapping game with Estelle.

The last rhyme Estelle taught me went like this:

“
The sun shines east, the moon shines west,

and pigs turn somersaults in a bobolink's nest.

The sheep jumps the sun, the cat chases the moon,

and they eat strawberry jam from a gold-plated spoon.
”

She repeated it over and over, and it seemed as if she could go on for ever, but finally on the tenth chorus of the cat chasing the moon, Sofi returned and it was time for supper.

When I lay on my straw-filled mattress that night, Estelle's rhymes echoed in my ears. Sheep jumping over the sun and cats chasing the moon…
I might as well chase the moon myself,
I thought,
as find my way to a land that lies east of the sun and west of the moon.

And then it struck me, like a great, ringing kick to the head. And I sat up.

“
East of the sun and west of the moon
” meant nothing. It was nonsense, like one of Estelle's rhymes. Neddy would have called it a
conundrum,
his fancy word for riddle. But it was a riddle with no solution. When the stranger with the white bear's eyes told me he was going to the place that lay “east of the sun and west of the moon”, he was telling me he was going nowhere, to a place I could not follow him to. Why he chose those words, I did not know. Perhaps it was all he had been allowed to say. Or perhaps it was all he had been told.

Well, it didn't matter. Whether or not the words were a fraud, he was
somewhere.
And I would find him. I decided I must leave the next day.

“It is too soon,” Sofi protested. “You need more time to get better.”

“I have to go,” I said.

“Then Estelle and I will go with you,” Sofi replied, her tone as definite as mine had been.

I stared at her. “I don't even know where I am going.”

“I will start you on your journey then. Surely you know which direction you will begin with?”

“North,” I replied. “The sleigh was going north. And the man Tuki spoke of a land of snow and ice. I think the pale queen took him to her home in that land.”

Sofi nodded, then said, “I have something that might help you.” She left the room.

She returned bearing a rolled-up sheet of parchment. I guessed immediately what it was. A map. It had been her husband's, brought back from a sea voyage. He had been a sailor; it was at sea that he had died.

It was a good map, made by a Portuguese mapmaker.

“It is yours now,” Sofi said with a smile.

“Oh no, I cannot take it.”

“Yes,” she replied, and would not let me refuse.

She unrolled the map, flattening it on the table in the kitchen, and pointed to a spot in the southwest of Fransk. “This is where we are,” she said.

I found Njord on the map and couldn't believe my eyes. The distance the white bear had travelled was fantastic. In seven days he had journeyed through most of Fransk, at least half of Njord, the countries of Tyskland, Holland, and Danemark, as well as the sea that lay between Njord and Danemark. Such a journey, on foot, would take me a year or more, and that did not take into account getting across the waters of Njordsjoen.

Sofi was watching my face, seeing the wonder and then the dismay there, and she put a comforting hand on mine.

“
Courage
,” she said.

I studied the map for some time and decided that I would travel to the port town of La Rochelle, where I hoped to find a ship to take me north. I had no idea how I was going to pay for such a journey but thought maybe I could work for my passage. It would be much faster to travel by ship than to make the long trek north on foot. It turned out that Sofi's brother lived in La Rochelle and knew the harbour well. She thought he might be able to help me. And Sofi and Estelle were going to take me all the way to La Rochelle. Sofi had not seen her brother for a long time, she said, and accompanying me was the perfect opportunity for her and Estelle to visit.

We set off the next morning.

Our arrival at the palace was all I could have desired. There was a large assemblage to greet us, everyone brilliantly attired. And I was told that Simka had been working night and day on the sumptuous feast that we will enjoy this evening. (Simka's prowess in the kitchen more than makes up for her foul disposition.) The only thing that marred the homecoming was a trace of unease I could read in the eyes of my closest advisers. No one dared to say anything out loud when I said that the softskin man would be given the suite of rooms beside my own, but I sensed their displeasure.

Urda – sour, complaining Urda – is the only one who would ever dare to say that I am making a mistake in bringing the softskin here. All the way home in the sleigh she griped at me, saying that my people will never accept a softskin in the palace. I finally had to stop her tongue with my arts. (How she loathes it when I do that!)

Urda is wrong. I have always been able to bend my people to my will.

I will present him to the entire court at the feast this evening. But I will not tell them that the softskin man is to be their king. Better to wait, give them time to grow used to his presence here, before I tell them to prepare for a wedding.

As for me, to see him walk through the gates of my palace is the culmination of all my dreams, my plans. The joy I feel is immense; it burns inside me as though I have swallowed a piece of the sun.

The journey to La Rochelle took less than a fortnight. I was glad of the company of Sofi and Estelle, though I worried about taking so much from them and giving so little in return. Sofi brushed aside my concerns, but I vowed I would find some way to repay her.

At one point during the trip, Estelle said to me, “Are you not afraid to go to
la terre congelée
?”

La terre congelée
was what Estelle called the Arktisk region. I thought for a moment and then said, “No.”

“Ah,” Estelle said with a broad smile, “you are just like Queen Maraboo!”

I laughed. “I'm not too handy when it comes to ghost-wolves and creatures with no bones.”

Estelle laughed, too, and our talk turned to La Rochelle and her uncle Serge. But it was true what I had said to Estelle. I was not afraid. I had always had a secret desire to someday go to the lands of the far north. When I was little Father had explained to me that the world was round, and he described the lands of ice and snow at the farthest points to the north and south of our world. He even demonstrated this for me on a small leather ball, painting two splotches of white at opposite ends. It was amazing to me that there were places in the world where for part of the year the sun never shone at all, and for the other part it shone all the time. And where the snow never melted away. And where there were more white bears and snow owls than people. Knowing that I was a north-born, it made sense that I should be so fascinated by the Arktisk region; it was in my nature, the direction I naturally gravitated towards.

When I was a child one of my favourites of Neddy's old stories was of the goddess Freya, and how she journeyed through the world, looking for her lost husband, Odur.

“
Odur is in every place where the searcher has not come. Odur is in every place that the searcher has left.
”

It was one of the stories I had told the white bear in the castle, and I knew it was one of his favourites as well. He would hold his head up, eyes alert, especially when I came to the part about how Freya searched everywhere, even going to the frozen land of the far north, the land called Niflheim, where she came upon a grand ice palace. Freya was imprisoned there, in that palace, and had she not been one of the immortals, she would have been frozen alive. But she escaped, using her cloak of swan feathers, which carried her swiftly through the air whenever she put it on, and she soared along the northern lights until she was safely home in Asgard. She never did find her husband, Odur. And I remember thinking as a child that she gave up way too easily. He was somewhere, I had thought, and she ought to have found him.

I made Neddy tell me that story so many times that he finally got tired of it and refused to tell it ever again. But I continued to dream of frozen wondrous Niflheim and pictured myself travelling there on my white bear. How strange life was, I thought, that it should turn out that I would go to the frozen lands not
with
my white bear but in search of him.

Sofi's brother, Serge, was happy to see his sister and niece. He and his wife were very generous, giving me food and lodging. Serge said he would find out about ships travelling north, though he warned me that passage would not be cheap. When I suggested I might work for my passage, he was polite enough not to laugh outright, but he did say that there wasn't much call for young girls as shipmates.

I was silent a moment, thinking, then asked, “Is there by chance a shop in La Rochelle that might be in the market for fine dresses?”

Both Serge and Sofi looked at me in surprise. I repeated the question.

“There is a haberdasher in the centre of town,” Serge responded with a sideways glance at his sister. “But I don't know…”

“Please tell me how to get there,” I said firmly.

Serge gave me directions, and Sofi and Estelle insisted on accompanying me.

We entered the shop. It was a tidy, well-kept establishment, and the dark wooden shelves that lined the walls were crammed with bolts of fabric in every imaginable hue. There were also gowns displayed but not many. I approached the proprietor of the shop, a stout woman with a lace cap. “I have a gown to sell,” I said.

She studied my travel-worn clothing with a sceptical eye. “I do not trade in farm-made clothing,” she said frostily.

When I fished the leather wallet out of my pack, she looked even more scornful. But as I pulled out the square of silver fabric and began unfolding it, her eyes opened wide.

I smoothed and shook out the silver dress, which was just as shimmering and beautiful as I remembered it, and Estelle cried out, “
C'est magnifique, Rose!
”

“I did not realize…I am very sorry if… It is very nice indeed,” the proprietor stammered, her manner suddenly fawning. “I should be very glad to buy it from you.”

Sofi helped me bargain with the woman, for I was unsure of the value of the Fransk coins that she offered. And I came away feeling very rich, although Sofi claimed that the woman should have paid even more.

We returned to Serge's house, and Estelle told him all about the “
magnifique
” dress.

“What have you learned about ships travelling north?” I asked Serge.

“There are only two,” he said. “One is a run-down vessel with a poor excuse for a captain. Not something for you even to consider,” he said with a frown. “The other, however, is a Portuguese caravel helmed by a captain named Contarini. Captain Contarini has a very fine reputation. He is said to be a bit on the stern side but an excellent seaman. And Contarini is willing to take you to Tonsberg, although the cost will be high.”