Wolf Winter (47 page)

Dawn was growing on the flat coastland. By the vast white that was the sea, the church stretched in its early light.

Snow from the horses’ hooves had stopped spraying Olaus’s face. Beneath them the runners of the wagon sang, but it was more muffled now than when they had set out. They slid more often too and caught: the tracks were softer, the surface of the snow coated with mushy crystals. The air was warmer. Spring was not far away.

As they came closer to the coastal town, charred remnants sighed of war and the enemy across the waters.

Their horses galloped into the churchyard and a boy ran out. He grabbed the reins and helped slow their animals. Olaus stepped off the cart, stiff after the long journey. He swept his cloak around him and walked toward the bishop’s palace. Before he was on the porch, the door opened. A maid curtsied, took his cape, and showed him into a room with a large fire. A bishop’s world. Servants ready to serve the unexpected as well as the expected.

It wasn’t long before the bishop entered.

“Olaus,” he said and clapped his hands together as if joyful. “What a pleasant surprise.” He made a mock face of horror. “No more ghastly revelations, I do hope.”

“You knew,” Olaus said.

“Knew what?”

“You knew what was happening to the children on Blackåsen.”

The bishop looked at him for a second. He walked two steps back to the door, opened it, and said to someone outside, “Bring us some wine. And bread—the white sort. Our visitor is hungry like a wolf after his very long journey.”

The bishop closed the door and walked to sit down in his chair. He gave a tweak to correct the drape of his cloak over his knee and
indicated for Olaus to sit down. When Olaus didn’t, the bishop tilted his head with a look of mild disappointment.

“And what is this?” he asked. “A conscience?”

A conscience?

“Children,” Olaus said. “They are children.”

“Yes, it was unfortunate,” the bishop said. He placed the fingertips of his hands against each other and nodded. “Oh, trust me, I haven’t known for that long, but when I found out, for a short while it was necessary to let it be.”

Olaus’s throat was thick. He couldn’t speak.

“More important things have been underway.”

“Nothing can justify something like that.”

“Wake up, Olaus.” The bishop’s voice rose. “For once, look to something beyond yourself. Our country is torn asunder. Our people are dying. We can change that. But we needed more time. We had to prioritize. Some things had to wait.”

“What is it?” Olaus said. His brain was running away with him; he wasn’t certain he wanted an answer. “What is it you are doing?”

The bishop hesitated.

“It’s something really bad, isn’t it?” Olaus said. “But what?”

The bishop spat out the words: “The killing of the one who calls himself King.”

Unthinkable.

“The King is instated by God,” Olaus said.

“God?” The bishop gave a short laugh. “You’re not even a priest and you’re talking of God? Ah, you seem surprised. But of course I knew. Always have done. I brought you here because, with your knowledge of the King’s habits, I thought you might be of use. That was before I realized your infatuation with him was so great.”

The bishop leaned back in his chair.

“No, whatever mandate the King had from God, it is long gone,” he said.

“What is the link to Blackåsen?” Olaus asked.

“Killing a king is not difficult. I could perhaps even do it myself. Managing the aftermath is much more troublesome.” The bishop lowered his voice. “A new constitution is already in the making that will give the power back to the people. With Kristina’s link to the old gentry, we’ll have the support of the two largest factions of the government’s four: the Church and the aristocracy. Once the King is gone, the constitution will be voted through.”

Olaus thought about the entries in the Church Books. After the one stating Elin was being examined for acts of sorcery, the next entry reported the arrival of Nils and Kristina.
That’s what happened during the hearing,
he thought. The bishop recognized Kristina and saw his chance, through her, to reach the gentry. Eriksson must have overheard the bishop and Kristina speaking about it. Or he had just guessed that there was some reason for the bishop suddenly losing interest in the hearing, and then he had opposed the bishop just to see how far the latter was willing to go.

Lundgren had moved to the region from the south, Olaus thought. If there had been a trial and they had begun to dig into his past, who knew how far the matter would go? And the last thing the bishop would have wanted was to attract attention to himself or to his region. Lundgren’s death—what a convenient incident. No wonder the bishop had been willing to write that off as an “accident.”

“Does Sofia know?” Olaus asked.

“Sofia?” The bishop laughed and shook his head. “Sofia has nothing to do with this. She is one of those rare people who is precisely what she seems—an excellent priest-wife.”

Olaus wasn’t certain he was telling the truth, but it hardly mattered.

“I will tell the King. I will warn him,” Olaus said.

“It is much too late. Besides, who do you think the King would believe? A bishop or a priest who is no priest?”

There was a knock on the door.

“Enter,” the bishop called.

Both men stood in silence as only priests can as the servant entered.

The King should never have sent him away, Olaus thought. He had loved him. He would have fought for him. He would have died for him.

“Put it on the table by the fire, please,” the bishop said.

The servant left. The door closed, and they were back with each other.

“I will have no part of this,” Olaus said. “Nobody can decide to take a life—no matter whose life it is. No matter what the cause.”

“That’s not what you used to think, I believe.”

“You were willing to sacrifice the children. It matters. I am not like you.”

“That is true,” the bishop agreed. This seemed to amuse him. “You are nothing like me. When did you ever do anything for anybody but yourself?” Then the smile on his face disappeared. “As I see it, you now have a choice, Olaus. Fight me and, by God, I shall fight you. Or we forget about this. All of …” he made a round movement with his fingers as if to make something dissolve into air, “… this.”

The bishop leaned back in his chair.

“After all, I am an old man, Olaus. I need to start thinking about who will replace me. As a bishop and in the Privy Council.”

The bishop put his hands on the arms of the chair and rose. He walked to the door. “Prepare a room for my guest,” he said.

The other settlers were already in Henrik and Lisbet’s cottage when Maija was brought there. Anna and Lisbet were sitting at the kitchen table. Kristina stood by the window.

Maija had to get back home. Would Frederika know how to care for Dorotea? Yes. She would know.

If she had not run too far away.

She recalled the slight weight in her hand, the blade. How dull it had looked leaning against white skin, and then as it cut, sawed through tissue and bone, the foot becoming something else, her hands turning red, her daughter screaming. She had tried to be fast, but the flesh had been tough.

At once her stomach was in her mouth, and she bent to vomit.

Beside her, Daniel swore and side-stepped.

She wiped her face on her sleeve.

“She’s sick,” someone said.

“It’s the Devil in her that’s afraid.” That was Lisbet.

I cut my own daughter’s toes off,
she wanted to say, but nothing came out.
And had my other daughter not fled, I might have killed her.

“Tie her so she doesn’t escape.”

Tie? Escape?

A chair was put forward and hands pressed her down onto it.

“We will have this out, here and now, once and for all.” Daniel was standing over her. His face was gaunt. He was no longer just on his own. “This is all linked to you. It ends here.”

“It happened before I came.” She looked Daniel straight in the eyes but couldn’t reach him.

“You can make barren cows give milk. You were one of the last people to see Elin before she slayed herself and her children.” His voice broke. “You killed our unborn by the herbs you had Anna drink.”

Anna had bent her head. That’s when it caught Maija. Fear.

“Daniel …” Maija said.

There was a knock on the door. Nobody reacted, but when Fearless opened the door, they still somehow jumped. Fearless looked small in the opening. He looked from one face to another, found the owner of the house.

“My people belong to this mountain too. This concerns us as well as you.”

Henrik glanced at Nils and at Daniel. Then he nodded.

“So be it,” Daniel said, “but it is a settler matter, and so I ask you to be quiet.”

He turned back to Maija. His finger touched his knife in its sheaf.

Maija looked past Daniel toward Henrik. “Eriksson’s killer is still loose,” she said.

Henrik hated fear as much as she did. He might listen. He might be the only one who would. And, apart from Daniel, he had been on the mountain the longest. He would have a say in what happened next. There was a wrinkle on his forehead, and she spoke to that suggestion of uncertainty.

“Lundgren killed Eriksson,” Henrik said.

“No,” she said. “Eriksson’s children were in the school. He didn’t know what Lundgren was up to. Had Eriksson found out, he wouldn’t have confronted him on his own. Or he would have come prepared. He wouldn’t have been taken by surprise and let himself get killed.”

“He confronted each of us about our secrets on his own.”

“That’s because he wanted something out of you and traded that for his silence. But what the verger did was too vile. Eriksson didn’t know, and thus Lundgren didn’t kill him.”

She looked around.
No, it wasn’t Lundgren,
she thought,
but one of you.
She hesitated. Something was missing. What was it?

“You are not trustworthy, Maija.” It was Nils’s voice. Kristina turned away from her husband and looked out the window.

The way Nils had said it. Slow. She met his gaze and he nodded. “It’s not only you who can ask questions about the past,” he said.

At once Jutta was there, siding with Maija’s accusers. Her bottom jaw with the underbite was working.

“This is how it always is with you, isn’t it?” Nils said. “You begin fixating on something, and then your mind takes over.”

“What are you talking about?” Henrik sounded hesitant.

“Do you want to tell them yourself?” Nils asked Maija.

She was silent.

Nils turned to face the others again. “When Maija accused me of having killed Eriksson, I asked a fisherman I know to enquire in Ostrobothnia about Maija and Paavo’s past. He returned, telling that back where Maija comes from, it is widely believed that she killed her grandmother. There was an old story of fault involved, the villagers said, and Maija found out and became obsessed with it. She spent some time in a madhouse down south, her daughter meanwhile living with her great-grandmother. Then Maija was declared healthy, returned, and meted out the punishment she deemed right on an old woman.”

There were gasps.

It was nothing like that. Maija looked at Jutta, and her eyes filled.

“The old lady suffocated to death. Nothing could be proven. Maija and Paavo stayed in the village, had a second daughter, but the other villagers were relieved when they left last spring.”

Maija tried to ignore what had just been said and focus on the clear lines before her, focus only on the picture of what had happened. Nils had a defense in the bishop. It hadn’t been Daniel, she was certain. Henrik … no, Lisbet kept him so close. Gustav … she looked around.

Gustav was not there.

Deep in her mind there was something someone had said. Elin. When he died, Eriksson had gone to see if the marsh could be
harvested further out. But had she not also said he was going with someone? Hadn’t she said he was going with Gustav? She thought of Gustav poking at the marsh with a stick. What was it with the marsh?