North Child (41 page)

He looked genuinely startled by that, even alarmed. His eyes searched my face.

“Your voice… And…” I think he had seen that I wore a mask.

Quickly I slipped one glove partway off and removed the ring from my thumb. I pressed it into his palm.

His feet kept moving as he gazed down at the ring. The edges of his eyes creased, as though he was puzzled. Then he gave his head a little shake and handed the ring back to me.

“It is very nice. But I cannot…”

“It is yours,” I said urgently.

He shook his head. “I do not think so. But thank you.” He wanted to get away from me, I could feel it.

I once more pressed the ring into his hand. “Look more closely,” I said.

“You are kind,” he said, “but I must return to my queen.”

He reached towards me, to return the ring, but I backed away, curtsied, and said, “It is a gift. Please keep it.”

Moving blindly I made my way back to my pillar and leaned heavily against it. I watched the man who had been a white bear move away from me across the dance floor. He put his hand into his pocket, and I guessed he had put the ring there. Then I looked up at the queen's throne and saw her eyes on me. I felt a shiver of fear. Had she seen? Had my mask slipped? But then her gaze shifted to the one she called Myk. I was not prepared for the look I saw on the pale queen's face. It was an expression of pure love.
Love.
Not ownership, or cruel manipulation, but wholehearted, even tender, love. And though I could not see his eyes, I guessed that her expression was reflected in his.

So that was it. They genuinely cared for each other.

Suddenly I could not stay there another moment. I had to leave. I wanted to run but forced myself to walk out of the banquet hall. Tears were already beginning to soak into the stiff fabric of my mask. The moment I was out of sight I began to run. I found my parka on the coat rack, and my boots, and, hastily putting them on, headed for the palace entrance.

I slid sideways out the front; the trolls there were busy sharing some kind of steaming beverage that was making them laugh loudly in their coarse voices, and they did not notice me. The cold knifed into me, and the mask, damp from my tears, began to freeze to my face. Quickly I ripped it off and shoved it into a pocket.

I ran around the side of the palace and made my way to the stables. The trolls there were also drinking and talking loudly as they watched over a full paddock of the visitors' reindeer. I was able to sneak into a back stall, where I found one of my favourite reindeer, a sleek white beauty I had dubbed Vaettur. Taking his halter, I led him from his stall and out one of the back entrances to the stables. I mounted him and cautiously guided him to the nearest gate. All the gates had been left open to accommodate the troll visitors. As soon as I was some distance from the palace, I gave Vaettur a kick and we were off.

Vaettur was strong and fast, and I clung to him like a drowning person. I had no thought, no plan, except to get away from the ice palace. What a fool I had been. Every inch of that endless journey, the days, weeks, months… It had all been for nothing. And the worst of it was that I knew then what I had lost.

Throughout the journey to find the white bear I had told myself I was doing it to make right the wrong I had done. It was a matter of honour, of responsibility. But that had been only part of it. The truth was I loved him. I loved him as a white bear, and I loved him still as the man who had been a white bear. I was no better than the Troll Queen, only I had cloaked my feelings in virtuous words.

And I had lost him. For the second time.

The cold seared through me, but it did not matter. Nothing mattered.

My heart felt frozen inside my chest. It was too cold a night for a broken heart, I thought irrationally. Where would I go, what would I do? “Go home,” I told myself. Keep riding until I was back with Neddy, and Father and Mother. Then I railed at myself for behaving like a spoiled child who hadn't gotten the prize she wanted at a party. And it was absurd. As strong and swift as he was, I could not ride Vaettur all the way across the frozen land of Niflheim, much less back to Njord. I would need the right clothing, the rest of my gear. But I was not thinking clearly.

Suddenly the reindeer shied and then reared back. Lost in myself, I had not been paying attention to where we were going. I looked then and saw that we were on the lip of a steep icy slope. Vaettur had not wanted to take on such a descent at the pace we were going, and I didn't blame him.

As I looked down into the frozen valley, my eye was caught by a scattering of shapes that lay opaque against the frozen background of white snow. The northern lights were still illuminating the sky, though not as bright as before, and they gave teasing glimpses of the shapes below.

Despite the jumbled state of my feelings, I was curious. What could those objects be? I wondered. There were scores of them lit up by the lights above bursting into even greater brilliance. I urged Vaettur forwards. Cautiously he began to descend the slope.

We reached a point more than halfway down where it was too slick for the reindeer to get a footing; in fact, I saw that there was a band of glittering ice about twice my height that ran around the perimeter of the valley floor.

But that was not all I saw. Dismounting, I stared into the valley, my eyes transfixed. Was it possible…? Vaettur snuffled at my pockets, looking for a treat, but I did not even notice. I just stared in disbelief and horror.

At last the dancing was done. I was so tired, my cheeks stiff from smiling at all those faces I did not know. I could not wait to leave and go to my bed.

My queen was well pleased with the evening. And even with all she had to do, was ever thoughtful of my comfort. When she saw how tired I was, she sent me off to bed, with Tuki attending. She said she would look in on me before going to sleep herself but that I needn't wait up for her, as she had to look after her guests. Before I left her my queen asked me about the troll girl in the moon dress. I told her she did not dance well but was pleasant. I did not tell my queen of the girl's odd behaviour, of her voice and the language she spoke, and of the ring she thrust on me. And that she seemed to be wearing some kind of mask. I don't know why I did not speak of those things, except that I thought it might displease my queen in some way and the girl might be punished. I do not think the girl meant any harm.

Before getting into my nightclothes, I took the ring out and gazed at it. Why did it look familiar and yet not familiar? It made no sense. I placed the ring on my finger. It fitted. Perhaps I had been wrong and it was mine, from long ago. And yet why would a troll girl I did not know have it? Or was she a troll? Her voice, and the mask… But I was too tired to think any longer.

I took the ring off and placed it in a drawer. My queen would know the answer. I would ask her in the morning, without telling her where I had gotten it.

Tuki brought my slank as usual. Then he, too, asked me about the girl in the moon dress. I repeated what I had told my queen and thought I saw a look of disappointment cross his face. I believe he wanted to talk more, but I was too exhausted. I told him to leave. I did not even care that his eyes looked bright with unshed tears at the shortness of my tone. I was so tired.

My bed felt inviting and I fell swiftly into a deep sleep.

I dreamed of the girl in the moon dress. We were dancing and I could not take my eyes from her eyes. Purple, like fleur-de-lis… In truth, I had barely noticed the troll girl's eyes while I danced with her, but in the dream they were bright and dark and full of some kind of feeling I could not put a name to. As we danced I felt happy, happier than I had ever thought possible. It was a different kind of dancing, too, flowing, moving in wide circles, my hands at her waist. I did not want the dance to end.

Then I looked down at my chest, and I was no longer sporting the handsome jacket I had been wearing that evening but instead a soft white shirt. I noticed there was a stain on the front of it and I was embarrassed, thinking I had spilled on myself during the banquet. I thought I would make an excuse so that I could go and change my shirt, but when I looked up into the girl's face to tell her I must stop dancing, I saw an unspeakable sadness in those dark eyes.

And then I woke up. There were tears on my face.

Absently I brushed at the wetness with my hand, and suddenly, out of nowhere, I remembered the shirt I had been wearing when I first came to the ice palace. In a daze I rose and crossed to my chest of drawers. At the back of the bottom drawer was a white shirt. It had a silver brooch of a flauto at the neck, and as I shook the shirt out, I saw that it had a stain on the front.

In wonderment I placed my finger on the stain. It was hard. Like dried tallow. My thoughts heaved. Suddenly I saw the girl, the girl in the moon dress, only her face was different. She was leaning over me, in a small golden circle of light. Then I felt a pain, a burning on my skin. But that was all; I could remember no more. I let out a groan, pressing my face into the white shirt. It smelled of soap and candle wax.

There was a light knock at the door to my room.

“Yes?” I said, quickly stuffing the shirt back into the drawer.

My queen entered. “You are still awake?” she said, curious.

“I was just a little restless,” I replied.

“Have you had a nightmare?” she asked.

“No,” I said evenly, thinking of the happiness in the dream. No, it was not a nightmare.

“Some slank will help you rest,” she said, making a move towards the door.

“No, thank you,” I said. “I had it earlier. I am fine.”

“Very well.” She crossed to me then and looked into my eyes. I kept my thoughts concentrated on her, on her beauty, her goodness to me, my queen who in a day would be my wife.

We embraced. And then she left the room.

I reopened the chest of drawers. I took out the white shirt, crossed to my flauto case, opened it, and wrapped the instrument in the soft white fabric of the shirt. Then I closed the case and returned to my bed.

Kentta murha.
The freezing field, or killing field, for that is what I came to know the words to mean.

This was where they brought the softskins who had outlived their usefulness.

It was like some horrible outdoor sculpture garden. Stiffened bodies, naked, frozen in all different positions, scattered across the wide valley. It had not snowed in some time, at least not since the most recent arrivals, and in the blazing light from the sky, I could see several faces that were familiar to me. The young girl with the cough that hadn't gone away. The elderly man who had lived on my corridor, who shuffled off every morning to his job in the dishwashing room.

The trolls took them out there, stripped them of their protective clothing, and then left them to freeze to death. It was cruel and barbaric, and I was filled with a bottomless rage at those monsters, those trolls. I shuddered to think how many bodies lay stacked up under the layers of ice and snow.

Human beings, taken from their families, their villages, the lives they knew. Then filled with poison that erased that which made them human but kept their bodies useful. And when their bodies were no longer useful, they were cast off in this forsaken place, to die.

At least it would be a quick death, I told myself. But that fact did not take away my rage.

Suddenly I thought of him, of the man who had been a white bear. Would he someday end up here, at
kentta murha,
when he had outlived his usefulness to the Troll Queen?

And then, with a sudden and intense certainty, I knew that the man I had come to know inside the skin of a white bear was not a man who could ever truly care for a creature who was capable of such cruelty. If he felt affection for the Troll Queen it was born of poisoned slank and of ignorance. He did not know of
kentta murha.
He could not.

And just as suddenly, it did not matter whether the man cared for me or I for him. The only thing that mattered was giving him his life back, as well as helping all the softskins whose lives had been stolen by the trolls.