Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 11 - Blood Feud

“How are you tied, then?” she shouted. “I can’t see anything.”

“I’ve tied the rope under my arms so I’m alright. Don’t worry, I have a good amount of rope but made sure there’s some left for you, miss.”

“Thank you for doing this! I’m sure you can understand how much it means to me that you are here.”

“Yes, I suppose I do,” he said calmly.

They both fell silent while they waited.

“Are you Martha’s Dad?” Villemo asked down towards the rushing river.

“Yes.”

She couldn’t think of anything else to say. There was no point in saying that she could identify with his daughter now. That would just cause him pain and therefore serve no purpose.

Martha’s dad hesitated and then said, “Did you do this all by yourself, miss?”

“Oh no, not at all!”

“Oh?”

He was probably waiting for an explanation but Villemo wasn’t sure what to say. At that very moment they heard voices.

“They’re here!” the peasant exclaimed, somewhat relieved.

Several voices shouted down. They were men and they sounded reassuringly strong. Thankfully, another rope was lowered. Villemo heaved a sigh of relief and shut her eyes. Now her nerves were giving way to the strain. Her whole body was trembling impatiently while she felt Martha’s Dad tried to tie the second rope around her as well.

The tree trunk and the branches were cutting so horribly into her flesh that she feared that the marks would be there forever. Forever? She was not yet on solid ground.

Villemo opened her eyes and once again cold horror shot through her at the sight of the churning water below. She managed to control a panicked urge to scream, to throw up, to make a move that would spoil it all. She quickly closed her eyes again.

Then there was shouting and answering. Everything was ready. The undignified hoisting began. For a long time, she hesitated to loosen her grip on the birch, but finally she had to do so. She whispered a thank you. By this time her feet were already far up in the air.

Martha’s Dad had a firm grip around her waist so that the strain on her ankles wouldn’t be too intense, but even so she felt a horrible pain. She flexed her feet so that the rope wouldn’t slip off.

They swayed back and forth as they were pulled up, hit the mountain wall then swung outward again. Villemo was very much aware of the fact that her skirts didn’t cover her legs. She felt the man’s face against her knees and his legs against her face. What did it matter? She was on her way up, assuming the ropes could carry them both. Once more she said one of her extremely rare prayers to a God she didn’t believe in except when she really needed him.

She would see all her loved ones again, and she would tell them how much they meant to her. She had her life back again.

The ropes were making terrible creaking sounds.

“Careful now!” Martha’s Dad shouted.

Villemo felt hands grabbing her poor, painful ankles, and her rescuer was being pulled up too. Both were pulled up and over the edge. Men who she didn’t know were crouching on the horribly steep edge where nobody was able to stand firmly, risking their lives for her sake. She was so touched that she almost burst into tears from gratitude.

Slowly, she was pulled over the prickly grass, then she lay with her face down in the grass without having the strength to even lift her head. A few of the women quickly straightened her clothes as they turned her around.

Villemo looked up at the black tree tops of the fir trees, and the dark sky behind them. She looked at the serious, worried faces gazing down at her.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you all, thank you for my life. You see, I want so much to live.”

“How long have you been down there, miss?” Martha’s mother asked, rubbing Villemo’s frozen hands between her own. While the men loosened the ropes around her legs, Villemo could feel how drenched she had become from the damp air above the waterfall and how cold it actually had been. She had hardly noticed the cold in her agony of fear.

“How long?” she whispered, her face stiff from the cold. “I don’t know. Since noon I think.”

“Good heavens,” one of the men mumbled. She recognised him; he was from one of the farms that belonged to Graastensholm and lived next door to Martha’s parents. “Do you think you can stand?”

“I think so,” Villemo answered, getting up clumsily. But the next moment, her legs gave way under her.

“I’ll bring the horse,” the neighbour decided. Then he turned toward his sons. “Off you run, then, to Elistrand and tell them. No, to Linden Avenue, it’s closer.”

“That’s not necessary,” Villemo began, but the boys were already on their way.

The only ones left were Martha’s parents and herself, who sat helplessly on the grass. Villemo felt so strangely numb. By her feet lay a small bouquet of autumn flowers intended for Martha’s memorial cross.

The dead girl’s mother followed Villemo’s glance. “We usually come here a few times a week to honour Martha. After all, she doesn’t have a grave. They called it ‘suicide’ and wouldn’t give her a resting place in the churchyard. She was never found, so this has become her resting place,” she said.

“She was never found?”

“No, the river never let her go. And nobody can get down there to fetch her.”

Martha left down there? Villemo was overcome by sorrow and nausea.

“How do people know what happened?”

Martha’s Dad sighed heavily and said, “Two men from another village saw her fall. They were fishing in the river some distance away. She screamed for her life. How did it happen to you, miss?” the father asked. “Did you just fall down?”

“No, not at all,” she blurted before she had time to think.

The dead girl’s parents exchanged glances.

“Just like Martha?” the father asked slowly. “But he’s dead and gone. They say he was killed at Romerike.”

Villemo blushed.

“Are you thinking of Eldar Black Forest? No, he wasn’t the one! He didn’t do any harm to your Martha. That’s nothing but evil gossip.”

The girl’s parents were ill at ease and the father answered,

“The fishermen saw Martha fall because they looked up when they heard her scream. They ran up here to the edge and saw a man making his way toward the forest. They saw him among the trees. They said that he was exceptionally blonde and had wolf’s eyes.”

Eldar. Villemo’s stomach tightened.

“And it was his child that Martha was carrying,” the mother added. “We know that for a fact.”

Villemo curled up with her knees to her chest, motionless, struggling with all the complex emotions inside her. Martha’s parents waited tactfully.

Finally, she got up, her legs trembling as she breathed heavily to get rid of the suffocating feeling she had in her chest. She hesitated for a while and then walked over to the fir trees in the forest. A cluster of half-frozen autumn flowers were still growing below them. Villemo picked them slowly and carefully, making a beautiful bouquet and keeping one big single flower for herself.

She placed the bouquet by Martha’s grave, sinking for a moment to her knees in quiet tribute. Then she got up, tossing the big flower over the edge and out into the river. As she turned towards Martha’s parents, they could hear that she was hardly able to speak due to her emotional state.

“I threw the flower into the water to bury a needless love. A needless, useless love of one year.”

Martha’s mother said quietly, “Love is never in vain, Miss Villemo. Love makes you strong and pure even if you love a wretch. We all knew that you had a soft spot for Eldar Black Forest, and in our hearts we suffered so much for your sake, because our Martha had also had a weak spot for him. But we didn’t feel that we were the ones to say anything to you.”