Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 09 - Without Roots

Mikael, Tarjei’s son, had vanished in the fog from which he had emerged when Tancred met him on the banks of the Elbe. So now he was searching for his grandchild with all the means at his disposal, which wasn’t much because the war between Denmark-Norway and Sweden put many obstacles in his way.

Nevertheless, one day in 1658, he heard about a landowner in Christiania, whose sister was living in Stockholm.

Are immediately rode to the landowner. The head of the Ice People was now seventy-two years old, a true patriarch who was indomitable and had a white beard and straight back.

The landowner greeted the elderly man kindly, but there wasn’t much he could do. He hadn’t heard from his sister for quite a long time – the postal service had just about ceased because of the war.

“Anyway, please tell me what you’d like to hear,” said the landowner. “My sister has told me a lot about her life in Stockholm, and I’ve been there several times myself.”

Without much hope, Are laid out the little information he had about Mikael. He had kept the letter from Tancred as if it were made of pure gold, and now he read aloud the four things they knew about Tancred’s son:

“Well, the first point doesn’t tell us very much,” explained Are. “It mentions that the lad travelled with the Swedish army from Bremen to Ingria in 1654. But the second point is interesting: He followed his foster sister, Marca Christiana, to Sweden when she married the son of their unknown guardian. We know that the guardian was Johan Banér’s brother-in-law. I’m afraid that’s all. Mikael stayed with her also after she got married.”

The landowner lifted his head. “Marca Christiana? That’s an unusual name, and I’m pretty sure that I’ve heard it. Only I can’t remember in what context. She’s bound to be a prominent woman.”

Are nodded. “That’s also what I believe. Because in the third point of the letter, it says: Her husband is a very prominent person, both as an officer and as a civil servant. And then point 4 says: His first name is Gabriel. Here Tancred tells us that in the family of this Gabriel, all first-born sons are given this name because the grandmother of his paternal grandfather had lost twelve newborn sons. She dreamed that an angel told her to baptise her next son Gabriel, and she was allowed to keep this son.”

Now the landowner’s face lit up. “That’s a well-known story! My sister told me about it. It’s the Oxenstierna Family! Let me see ... It’s not Axel Oxenstierna’s lineage. No, it’s not a member of Count Oxenstierna of Korsholm and Wasa’s lineage. You see, there are several lineages.”

Are saw light at the end of the tunnel. Finally, he had some facts to go by. He hoped that the seemingly endless war would finally be over, before it was too late. He felt so uneasy, so restless. There was so much he wanted to tell his grandchild, and he was sitting, powerless, as time passed by.

Mikael Lind of the Ice People was, in fact, doing quite well. After the confusing family circumstances of his childhood, his life was now settled thanks to Marca Christiana, who had been the only fixed point in his life. It was a long string of events that had left Mikael rootless. It began when his parents passed away the year he was born. His mother’s aunt, Juliana, took care of him, and he grew up with his mother’s cousin, Marca Christiana.

Juliana later married Johan Banér, a Swedish nobleman. Then Juliana passed away. Johan Banér, who had three children by his first marriage, married a high-ranking German lady.

On Johan Banér’s deathbed, he handed over the responsibility for his own and Juliana’s children, including, of course, Mikael, to his sister, Anna Banér, whose husband was Reich Admiral Gabriel Oxenstierna of Korsholm and Wasa.

In 1624, Marca Christiana married the son of this house: Gabriel, Count of Korsholm and Wasa, Baron of Mörby and Lindholm, Lord of Rosersberg, Edsberg and Korporie. He had a meteoric career and in 1644 – at the age of twenty-five – he was made a judge in Lappvesi in Finland. The following year he became a Colonel in the Uppland regiment and that same year he was appointed Lord Chamberlain. And that was how he rose to the upper echelons of society.

Gabriel Oxenstierna took care of Mikael as well as he could. He wanted the boy to become an officer, which wasn’t in the nature of the Ice People. Trond was the only one who, while he lived, yearned to win honour on the battlefield by killing as many enemies as possible, but then, he was one of the accursed Ice People. Mikael did not suffer the curse but was blessed with the family’s gentler characteristics. Marca Christiana understood him and tried to curb her husband’s dreams of an officer’s career for his foster son.

Mikael was gifted and quiet: a serious young man, often an outsider, with a vague restlessness and dreams nobody knew anything about.

Marca Christiana didn’t understand how the instability of Mikael’s childhood had affected him. She was lively and extroverted and hadn’t been damaged by the many times they had moved and their succession of foster parents.

Since her husband was Lord Chamberlain, they would often stay in a small apartment at the Palace in Stockholm. Queen Christina was usually away on her travels and Mikael would roam the empty halls. When the Queen was at the Palace, her cousin, Carl Gustav, Duke of Pfalz, would also be there. She had appointed him as her successor, something that not everybody was happy about. They didn’t want a duke of Pfalz on the Swedish throne.

When Mikael was seventeen, a series of events occurred that were to change the course of his life. The great field marshals Pontus and Jacob de la Gardie had brought a great many French relatives with them to Sweden. Some of them were there only on a temporary visit, while others had stayed on. Among the guests who stayed was a young woman, mademoiselle Anette de Saint-Colombe, who, at Jacob de Gardie’s death in 1652, found herself on her own at Court. Her parents had passed away and her current guardian, a distant relative in the south of France, wanted her back home again. He had plans to marry the young girl and get his hands on her big inheritance, including Castle Loupiac, and maybe have a few heirs. But Anette would have none of it! She cried her eyes out in Marca Christiana’s arms. The two of them stuck together: They were both foreigners at the formal Swedish Court.

“What are we to do, Gabriel?” Marca Christiana said to her husband. “They say that the guardian is a horrible old drunkard riddled with venereal disease. Surely we can’t send little Anette home with such a fate awaiting her.”

“I’m afraid we’ll have to,” answered Count Oxenstierna. “Her guardian has the law on his side while she’s unmarried. Once she marries, his authority becomes void.”

“Okay, so we’ll marry her off,” said the impulsive Marca Christiana. “We don’t have to mention that we received his letter ordering her back to France.”

Gabriel Oxenstierna shook his head at his lively wife. “And who do you have in mind for her to marry?”

“I really don’t know.”

She was silent while she pondered which of the young men at Court would be a suitable match. She walked back and forth in the small drawing room, eager and excited at the thought of being a guardian angel.

The count, who had since been made Master of the Royal Hunt, had also been pondering. “Why not Mikael? The girl’s a good match for him.”

“Oh, no. He’s far too young!” protested Marca Christiana indignantly. “He’s only turning seventeen next week. That won’t do!”

“Why not? Mikael is conscientious and reliable, and you know he’s special. He’s not a nobleman, but he’s not without noble blood in his veins. He can have the small hunting lodge at Mörby. It’s empty most of the year. And I won’t give up my wish that he becomes a soldier...“