Margit Sandemo: The Ice People 18 - Behind the Facade

Behind The Facade

The Legend of the Ice People 18 - Behind The Facade

© Margit Sandemo 1984

© eBook in English: Jentas A/S, 2017

Series: The Legend of The Ice People

Title: Behind The Facade

Title number: 18

Original title: Bakom fasaden

Translator: Anna Halager

© Translation: Jentas A/S

ISBN: 978-87-7107-536-6

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchase.

All contracts and agreements regarding the work, translation, editing, and layout are owned by Jentas A/S.

Acknowledgement

The legend of the Ice People is dedicated with love and gratitude to the memory of my dear late husband Asbjorn Sandemo, who made my life a fairy tale.

Margit Sandemo

The Ice People - Reviews

‘Margit Sandemo is, simply, quite wonderful.’

- The Guardian

‘Full of convincing characters, well estabished in time and place, and enlightening ... will get your eyes popping, and quite possibly groins twitching ... these are graphic novels without pictures ... I want to know what happens next.’

- The Times

‘A mixure of myth and legend interwoven with historical events, this is imaginative creation that involves the reader from the first page to the last.’

- Historical Novels Review

‘Loved by the masses, the prolific Margit Sandemo has written over 172 novels to date and is Scandinavia s most widely read author...’

- Scanorama magazine

The Legend of the Ice People

The legend of the Ice People begins many centuries ago with Tengel the Evil. He was ruthless and greedy, and there was only one way to get everything that he wanted: he had to make a pact with the devil. He travelled far into the wilderness and summoned the devil with a magic potion that he had brewed in a pot. Tengel the Evil gained unlimited wealth and power but in exchange, he cursed his own family. One of his descendants in every generation would serve the Devil with evil deeds. When it was done, Tengel buried the pot. If anyone found it, the curse would be broken.

So the curse was passed down through Tengel’s descendants, the Ice People. One person in every generation was born with yellow cat’s eyes, a sign of the curse, and magical powers which they used to serve the Devil. One day the most powerful of all the cursed Ice People would be born.

This is what the legend says. Nobody knows whether it is true, but in the 16th century, a cursed child of the Ice People was born. He tried to turn evil into good, which is why they called him Tengel the Good. This legend is about his family. Actually, it is mostly about the women in his family – the women who held the fate of the Ice People in their hands.

Chapter 1

“Good heavens,” sighed Elisabet’s mother, holding a white-powdered wig in front of her. “It may be all right for you to wear your hair like that when you’re at home. Your father is much too compliant, constantly giving in to your whims. But now we’re going to Christiania, the capital of Norway, and we’ll be in a world of rank and fashion where you just can’t look the way you do! With your own hair! Without any powder in it! You look like a tart!”

Elisabet Paladin of the Ice People shook her head so that her brown curls shone like chestnuts in the sunlight glow. “What’s the matter with my hair? I can’t stand those horrible wigs: they stifle me! Besides, haven’t you seen those adorable little chicks in their wigs scratching their necks so that the wigs slip down? And such pent-up horrors foster lice!”

Tora, her mother, gave in to her headstrong nineteen-year-old daughter. “Well, keep your hair the way it is then. It has enough volume to be put in a chignon. We can ask Mrs Sørensen to come and dress it: she can give it height with hair pads and maybe fasten it with some flowers and birds’ feathers, and we’ll powder it so that it looks quite white. I’m sure it will look very nice in the end.”

“No,” Elisabet yelled. “I’ve told you that I’m allergic to powder!”

“Nonsense!” Elisabet’s mother slapped the powder puff onto her daughter’s hair so that she almost disappeared in an enormous white cloud.

Elisabet coughed and gasped for breath.

“Don’t put on airs,” her mother said. Nevertheless, she was shocked when she saw her daughter’s eyes turning red and brimming with tears. She hurriedly waved away the powder and brought some water. She was almost cracking up with nerves. Elisabet’s nose was so congested that it took quite a while for her to utter a word. Her mother seized this opportunity to give her daughter a curtain lecture on how hopeless father and daughter were.

“Your father hasn’t come home yet and we’re leaving at four! How am I to put up with you two? He’s down by the river keeping an eye on the rafting with that obnoxious Vemund Tark. Does it never occur to either of you that you belong to the great nobility? The Paladin Family were margraves, but you walk around with your natural hair and your father’s keeping an eye on a raft! He doesn’t have to do that! Now and then, I can’t help being so ashamed of the two of you that it almost drives me crazy!”

Mrs Tora came from a good, respectable family, and she was of the opinion that she had made a good match when she married a Paladin. She was the only one who went on about the margrave title. She wanted Ulf to keep it, but he did not want to because Norway had abolished its nobility. Tora was an extremely efficient mistress at Elistrand: kind and warm-hearted in her own way and very much respected in the village. Nevertheless, at times Ulf and Elisabet thought that she could be quite a handful.

It was 1770 and Elisabet would soon be twenty. Everybody knew that Mrs Tora was scheming to get her daughter married soon, and it would have to be a good match. That was why her mother was focusing so much on their journey to Christiania, where they would get to meet the city’s notables. At any rate, they would get to see them at close range.

Elisabet had regained her power of speech. “Who’s Vebudd Talk?”

“What are you talking about?”

Elisabet blew her nose. “Who’s Vemund Tark?”

“A barbarian, if you ask me. The Tarks own an absolutely idyllic mansion outside the city boundary of Christiania, high above the crowds and shielded by a well-kept park. Charming people! If I had such a home, I wouldn’t live anywhere else for all the world. Yet the eldest son, Vemund, insists on living primitively in a little cottage deep in the forests that belong to the mansion house.”

“Tark? Aren’t they the ones who own lots of land?”

“They own an incredible amount. Forests and sawmills and timber yards and goodness knows what. We could have done likewise; we could be making a fortune if Liv, your ancestress, hadn’t been stupid enough to sell the timber yard she inherited from her first husband. You Ice People have never been able to run a business. Just look at your father! He’s satisfied with Elistrand. We might have had both Graastensholm and Linden Avenue if he hadn’t been stupid enough to insist that they belong to distant relatives in Sweden – people who are never here!”

She looked wistfully out of the window towards the somewhat more magnificent Graastensholm.

“Aunt Ingrid still lives there,” Elisabet replied, seeing a chance to hide the horrible wig behind the log basket.

“The old witch,” Tora murmured absentmindedly. This was a truth that Elisabet could not deny.