Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 25 - The Angel

Arvid was flattered at being regarded as an expert, so he promised to come over to the stable in half an hour’s time. All Olle Creep had to do was wait in the stable.

There he made his preparations. A snare around the lad’s neck, then away with him into a hole Olle had dug in a corner of the stable, then pour earth into the hole immediately afterwards. No trace. Nobody would even know that the boy had walked into the stable, for the simple reason that all the servants were at a party and all the labourers were in the forest.

Tula was alone in Grandfather Arv’s house. Her grandfather had gone into the forest and Grandmother Siri and her mother were in the laundry room. So Tula thought it wouldn’t matter if she opened Grandfather’s exciting chest of drawers and had a look at all the priceless objects he kept there. There was the medal for long and loyal service. She couldn’t use that. There was the commemorative coin that the king himself had given him. Grandfather had told her about it many times. The coin looked a bit peculiar, and Grandfather had said that you couldn’t use it as money.

What about this one, then? Tula’s chubby little hand held a big, shiny coin that Erland had sometimes told her about. It could be used to buy the whole world!

Tula firmly believed this. She had inherited her father’s tendency to brag. She closed the drawer without the least pang of conscience and, with the coin held tightly in her hand, she ran outside. The coin was so big that she could hardly close her fingers around it.

I’m sure Grandfather will forgive me, she said confidently to herself.

Young Arvid Mauritz Posse was heading towards the stable when he met an eager, panting Tula, who stopped him. Her sweet, innocent face was flushed.

“Arvid!”

Tula was the only one among the employees and their families who could get away with addressing the councillor’s sons informally.

“Arvid, the farmhand asked me to tell you that he has been summoned to work in the forest. But if you could take a look at the calf tomorrow ...?”

The thirteen-year-old hesitated. “I could go over and see for myself. Only I don’t know which calf he has in mind ...”

“Perhaps it’s best to wait until tomorrow then?”

“Er, all right then. I’d better do that, hadn’t I. Thank you, little Tula.”

He gave the dear little thing a pat on her golden head and turned around. As soon as Arvid had gone, Tula ran over to the stable.

Olle Creep was getting impatient. Would that rogue never turn up? Here he was with the snare in his trouser pocket. The lad wouldn’t be able to see his hand in front of him in the dark corner by the calves’ stall. And then ... a quick yank!

But where the hell was Arvid Mauritz Posse?

Something – a movement or a sound or a sensation – made Olle Creep turn his head.

That little diabolical girl was there again!

She was sitting on the edge of the large fertilizer container, which was Bergqvara’s latest innovation. She sat with her head tilted, gazing one moment at Olle and the next moment at a big, shiny coin she held in her hand as she hummed quietly to herself.

Olle Creep had never seen such a big coin, had never stolen anything even half as valuable, and he knew what it was worth! My word! With that coin, he wouldn’t have to work any more for the rest of his life.

That was an exaggeration, but to Olle, the coin seemed the solution to all his humiliations. He forgot young Arvid Mauritz Posse. His eyes were popping out of his head.

“Where did you get that from?” Olle asked with a husky voice. He couldn’t take his eyes off the coin. His hands were literally itching.

All Tula said was: “It’s mine!”

“Give it to me!”

His voice was so hoarse that it was hardly possible to understand what Olle was saying. This little brat was the only hindrance to his eternal happiness. It would be the easiest thing in the world to ...

Just as he was getting dangerously close to Tula, she said: “Well, take it then!”

She tossed the coin into the huge, bubbling pool of slurry as she jumped elegantly down from the edge, just out of reach of Olle’s hands as he tried to grab her.

Olle Creep let out a cry of anxiety. The coin! It might be lost! It mustn’t, it just mustn’t!

Wealth! A wonderful life of idleness was now disappearing into the dark brown manure. He could still see the shining coin floating on top of the mass but soon it would ...

Without hesitation, Olle Creep climbed up onto the edge and jumped as far into the slurry pit as he could. This was during the spring thaw, when the container was full of thawed winter dung and the whole lot was one big, stinking, rocking mass. But Olle worked his way determinedly across it for the few yards he needed until his hand locked triumphantly around the coin, just before it sank below the surface. It was his, it really was!

Then everything became very strange. Suddenly he was aware that he couldn’t touch the bottom. Oh, well, never mind. Surely he could work his way back and grab the side. It was really yucky. He hadn’t thought of that before he jumped into the container.

But he had the coin!

That brat! Now she was sitting on the edge once more, looking down at him. He would damn well give her a hiding as soon as he got out of this muck!

As soon as he got out?

No matter how hard he tried to reach the edge of the container, it was as if it receded farther and farther away from him. He could not turn around because the mass was far too thick. So he didn’t know how close he was to the far edge.

Olle was finding it harder to stay upright in the container. His arms were beginning to feel limp and his legs were deep in the dung.

The girl’s eyes ...

They were so strange. So ... but ... ?

He opened his mouth to shout but got a whole mouthful of liquid manure.

Tula jumped down from the edge of the container and ran out of the stable.

“You see, Arvid is my friend. One day, he’ll be a very important man,” she said to the air.

Which did indeed. Young Arvid Posse became Sweden’s prime minister. But that’s a different story.

They found Olle Creep a few weeks later when they came to fetch some manure to spread on the fields. He was still holding Arv Grip’s big silver coin in his clenched fist.

“Oh, so he was the one who was so light-fingered,” said Arv to old Count Posse. What a relief for us all, he thought. I know Gunilla was very worried that it might be Tula. How could she think that of this sweet little angel?

Count Posse said: “Don’t speak ill of the dead. I just need to be more careful about those I employ. But how on earth did he end up in the slurry container?”

“I think it would be best not to think too much about that,” muttered Arv Grip, not knowing how true that was. “I can just scrub the coin clean in boiling water and put it back in its rightful place in my chest.”

“I think you should do that,” Count Posse replied.

Under the craggy apple trees, young Tula was half-carrying, half-dragging an enormous black cat, which, just like the Midgard serpent in Thor’s arms, almost trailed on the ground in Tula’s arms. Like a true descendant of the Ice People, Tula really loved animals.

Chapter 2

It was this love of animals that would often nearly ruin Tula – or, more precisely, betray her. Each year at killing time she would make a big scene, because she knew every single animal in the barn and considered herself their friend. One year she had been unable to control herself and had wished death on those committing this “atrocity” against one of her four-legged friends. The four men who helped to slaughter the animals were bedridden for several weeks with a life-threatening illness, while Tula huddled in a corner, grieving over the friend she had patted and talked to in the barn so often. No one connected young Tula to the four men’s illness, of course, because they could see how she was suffering. So when killing time came round again, Gunilla moved to the small farm with the little girl in order to spare her unnecessary mental pain.