Wolf Winter (18 page)

The King couldn’t have asked for him to be removed. The priest had belonged in this little group of men who stood shoulder to shoulder around the King. He could feel the weight of the King’s hand on his arm, as it had been that time the priest and his horse had fallen into a river and he didn’t change his clothes when they
fished them out, even though it was on the brink of freezing. “Just like me,” the King had said.

Another recollection: wintertime. Stuck in a camp outside Minsk in whitest Russia. Waiting to war. Sluggish soldiers with thin faces. No food. No water. Just the eternal wait, while thinking about the fact that you had no food and no water.

One night the priest was lying awake when footsteps drew near the tent. There was a moment’s silence, then the fabric parted and a shadow sneaked in. The silhouette squatted by their clothes. There was a grating noise as their belongings were being elevated and searched. As if there were a rat with them in the tent.

No,
the priest remembered thinking this.
I’m wrong
—
this is a rat.

Enough.

He shot up and gripped his rapier. Whoever steals from our King steals from God. He stretched to his full length, and with the weapon still in its holder, he whacked the thief on the side of his head. The man fell backward. The priest struck him again.

“More soldier than the soldiers themselves,” the King will say about the priest later when they bury the traitor.

And the priest knows it is true. Any lingering trace of the dead has been purged in the marches with the Swedish army. He is a new being; one of them. No, the King wouldn’t have asked for him to be removed.

The priest remembered the bishop’s hand trembling on his breast. He couldn’t stay here; he had to go somewhere he’d be seen by the King. The King had so much on his mind, but if he just saw the priest, he would intervene and restore him; he was certain of it.

The bishop had not visited the parish one single time for almost a whole year, and then he had come twice in a row.
He’s worried,
the priest thought. Eriksson’s death matters to him. Perhaps, if the priest did find Eriksson’s killer, the bishop would become more generous. Perhaps even support his request for a new post down south.

The priest walked to get the old Church Books. He put them on his desk. The thick leather was cold against his fingers. He threw two more logs on the fire and sat down.

The previous priest had filled four volumes during his tenure. The priest opened each to look at the dates. He placed them in chronological order. He had skimmed the books upon arrival, considering what then seemed of significance. He pulled the first tome toward him and opened it, feeling the dryness of dust on his fingers.

His predecessor had not been wordy.
Spring 1705. Arrived. Recruited verger. 1706. Child lost on B.å. mountain.

Blackåsen’s forest fire the following year had, in the eyes of the Church’s man, become:
Fire on B.å. mountain.
Nothing about the extent of the damage, although the priest had heard it was vast. Later:
Vera Fearless and child missing.
A few lines down:
VF and child not found.
Yes, this too the priest had heard about. Someone had said that for months Fearless was seen wandering around Blackåsen, searching for his wife and child before finding solace and reason in God.

1710. Reports of plague in the south. Many dead.
Well, that was an understatement. A third of the population had perished.

The priest pondered his predecessor. Coming here was one thing, but staying—he calculated on his fingers—ten years? What drove the man? Priests in locations like this—it was either the adventure or a sense of righteousness, a feeling of being called. He suspected that with the old priest it had been the latter.

In 1710 Eriksson had married Elin. Three years later another child disappeared on Blackåsen, and soon thereafter Elin’s hearing took place. There were no more details.
Elin Eriksson. Examined for acts of sorcery.
The next entry was the arrival of Nils Lagerhielm, wife: Kristina, sons: Petrus, Erik, and Jacob. Then, written with different ink and in large letters, as if to exclaim or, perhaps, complain:
ELIN—INNOCENT.

The priest had been astounded when he first saw the entry. There were still the sporadic accusations of sorcery, and the Church took
them seriously—had to take them seriously—but he couldn’t even remember the last time that allegations had led to an actual hearing.

The same year as Elin’s hearing, in the autumn, a complaint had been lodged against Eriksson by the Lapps. They accused him of burning more forest than he was able to cultivate and not leaving them enough winter fodder for the reindeer. It didn’t say who had made the grievance. The priest flipped forward a few pages—births, deaths, births, deaths. The following year the same dispute around the same time. And this time the accuser was mentioned by name: Antti. The priest saw before him black brows, a young, long-haired Lapp staring at him in church with scorn on his face. Fearless unwavering in the bench beside him, balancing out the young firebrand.

The Finn woman had said the glass piece was found at the spot where Eriksson was killed. The priest had seen one of the Lapps with colored glass like that; he couldn’t remember who or in what situation. But Fearless was in control of his kinfolk.

Although Fearless was getting on in years.

The year after, Antti had again complained. This time another grievance was also listed.
K against the church.
This was not clarified. Only marked:
Investigated. Dismissed.

The last line in the Church Book was
Janssons gone?

The widow was sitting with a piece of charcoal in her hand. She put it down and rose. She was wearing a pale, snug dress, and her hair was braided down one side.

“I think I might have to go up to Blackåsen to try to understand what happened to Eriksson,” the priest said.

“Really?”

“The bishop wants to know what happened.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Anyway,” he said, “before I go, I wanted to ask you about some of the entries in the Church Books. A few years ago there was a
complaint against the Church? The initial of the other party was K?”

She frowned. “That doesn’t tell me anything. When was it?”

“Two years ago. The plaint was dismissed.”

She shook her head. “That’s strange. I don’t know anything about it.”

“And the Janssons? Who were they?”

“A family that used to live on Blackåsen. They left without telling anyone they were going.”

She gathered up her papers and bounced the stack against the desk a few times.

“What are you doing?” the priest asked.

“Indulging in a rather extravagant pastime.”

“May I?”

He extended his hand and she gave him the uppermost page. It was a sketch of the verger sitting in what might have been one of the chairs in the priest’s place of work: the straight fringe, the lifted brows—captured in a few simple strokes.

“But this is excellent,” the priest said. “Have you done many portraits?”

“I must admit, over the years, to having sketched most of the congregation.” She made a face, as if to mock herself for her own folly. “How long will you be gone? If you do go, I mean.”

“No longer than I have to.”

“Be safe.” She dropped her papers in a drawer in the desk and shut it.

“There was no birth date or birthplace in the books for Elin?” he asked.

“That’s because we don’t know them. Anvar had a good relationship with all the others, but Elin—she wouldn’t even tell him when she was born.”

Indeed, Elin had deflected the priest’s questions too. How could he not have noticed? Her knowledge at the Catechetical meeting had been flawless, though. Impossible to fault her there.

“She didn’t let me adorn her for her wedding either—she said that before God, she was fine the way she was.” The widow gave a small toss of her head.

“And Eriksson—what did your husband say about him?”

“There was always noise around Eriksson. He fought with everyone. His own brother hadn’t spoken to him for years.”

“Why?”

She shrugged to indicate she didn’t know. Well, he wasn’t surprised. Daniel had seemed to him like a sensible man, and Eriksson … Eriksson had been Eriksson.

In the doorway he hesitated. “How are you for food?” he asked, and his face felt hot.

She smiled at him, a warm smile now. “I am well provided for. Thank you.”

“Good. Well. Good-bye.”

As the priest walked down the steps of the porch he thought again about the glass piece. It could have been the Lapps who killed Eriksson, taking the law into their own hands. There were so few settlers on Blackåsen. He would much rather Eriksson’s death involved the Lapps. As long as it was a contained matter and Fearless remained sensible, it would be a good thing.

Something had caught his eyes. He slowed down. A movement in the stillness down at the base of the mountain. The priest shielded his eyes. He waited as the dots grew into four skiers. Each man was pulling a sleigh behind him.

“It’s Elin,” one of the men called as they skied into the square. “She has done away with herself and her children.”

Nils was in the priest’s office. The priest couldn’t breathe. The bundles that were the children had been so small. As if in death, they had shrunk back to infants. He walked to the window, but in the square below, Daniel, Gustav, and Henrik were standing by the toboggans and their loads. Destroying herself and her offspring. By
God, what had driven the woman to this? The priest focused on the horizon.

“All her children?” he asked.

“Yes,” Nils answered. “We brought them to you, them and the body of Eriksson.”

“Why would she do such a thing? The Church would have taken care of them.”

“Things aren’t right on Blackåsen. Not right.”

The words were carefully put. The priest turned to face him.

“I’m not certain that her death has anything to do with that of her husband,” Nils said. “Perhaps Elin was so frightened, she saw no other way out.”

“Frightened of what? Nils, we need to remain sensible.”

“Of course. And men like you and I are. But this is about them and about what they believe.” Nils nodded to the people in the square. His voice was calm.

“What are you saying?”

“A village. I want your permission to build a village on the mountain, together with the other settlers. That way we could control things and ensure the calm.”

“The others agree?”

“Yes.”

For a fleeting moment the priest was tempted to say yes without further thought. When he’d heard that the children on Blackåsen had no school building, it had been Nils and his sons who restored an abandoned homestead and presented it to the Church for that purpose. The priest could just hand all responsibility over to Nils, tell him about the piece of glass and the Lapps, and ask him to look into it. Nils would handle the matter in a similar way—efficiently, quietly.

“I’ll think about it,” he said instead.

Nils bent his head, but not before the priest saw him scowl.

“Well, I can’t bury Elin in the graveyard,” the priest said after a while.

Eriksson and the children in the cemetery. Elin not. No murderers or self-murderers in the graveyard—the rules were clear. Had Elin realized he would not give her a Christian burial? Of course she had. It was the difference between eternal life and damnation.

Nils put on his hat. The large, furred earflaps made his head seem wanting.

“We’ll take the bodies to the night man for you,” he said, subservient now.

“Ask the night man to bury Elin in the forest when the frost in the ground allows it,” the priest said. “Have him do it quietly. Tell him not to carve up the body.” There was no need to make this more gruesome than it already was. “And that if I discover that there are any transactions in parts—bones, teeth, grease, or blood—I shall, myself, see to the dismemberment of the precise same segment of his own body.”

The whole world was silent.

Frederika stood by the kitchen window. The blizzard was so heavy, their yard was swallowed in fog. But if you stared straight into it, you realized the haze was made up of thousands, maybe millions, of small white dots.