Margit Sandemo: The Ice People 11 - Blood Feud

Blood Feud

The Legend of The Ice People 11 - Blood Feud

© Margit Sandemo 1982

© eBook in English: Jentas A/S, 2017

Series: The Legend of The Ice People

Title: Blood Feud

Title number: 11

Original title: Blodshämnd

Translator: Anna Halager

© Translation: Jentas A/S

ISBN: 978-87-7107-494-9

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

The first six months after Villemo had returned from Tobrønn, she spent a lot of time at home and was as unhappy as anyone could be. She was preoccupied by it all, but wanted others to be aware of how much she was suffering. And nobody suffered as dramatically as Villemo. Niklas was probably right; her loyal love to the now deceased Eldar Black Forest was more a result of stubbornness than of heartache. But Villemo was unable to admit this, least of all to herself. She was completely blinkered.

There was malicious gossip about Eldar being the father of several children and having even murdered a young girl for that very reason. How could anybody possibly believe those rumours about him? Villemo selected the memories she had of him with care, completely forgetting all the unpleasant ones. She chose to recall the few times when Eldar had shown signs of warmth and compassion, even of mending his ways. In her mind, he had become a persecuted angel. Time and again she would let her thoughts drift back to the beautiful death scene in which Eldar had confessed his love for her, Villemo.

Although Villemo never mentioned Eldar (since he was a sacred memory), her parents, Gabriella and Kaleb, found her absolutely intolerable. She walked about with the attitude that her parents clearly couldn’t understand her pain. She would tilt her head to the side and her eyes, filled with yearning, looked like they could fill with tears at any moment. Her parents wanted their robust, cheerful and slightly crazy Villemo back – the girl who they had scolded so many times and had loved so deeply.

But when she wasn’t wallowing in her pain, she was as sweet and compliant as ever. And she was quite remarkable with the poor creatures she and Eldar had found in the basement at Tobrønn. The eight of them were determined to do good work at Elistrand, Graastensholm and Linden Avenue. Admittedly, there were problems, especially for Mattias at Graastensholm who believed that these people shouldn’t reproduce. But how could you prevent them from doing so without imposing restrictions on their private lives? So far nothing alarming had occurred, and on the three farms the group were protected from the disdain, humiliation and outright contempt of the surrounding world. This hatred was simply triggered by a lack of understanding, and a fear of anyone who’s not ‘normal’. People also whispered that the Ice People had procured cheap and unintelligent labour, but once they heard the whole story, the gossip immediately stopped.

Despite this, the eight people still struggled. They suffered from nightmares and were haunted by memories of the basement, of being slashed and assaulted, and they were terribly frightened of being sent back to Tobrønn. At those times, they would send for Villemo. She would come to soothe them, and she understood their pain because she had seen their misery and humiliation at Tobrønn.

But Kaleb, her Dad, was worried. The people at the farm would turn up again and again with reports of peculiar things happening around Elistrand. Strangers had been seen guarding the property, but they would immediately vanish as soon as anybody got closer. And people had turned up at Elistrand asking about Villemo - where she stayed and when she went out.

Kaleb had asked his daughter about it, and was worried that she may be in danger from the Woller men. But she didn’t understand what he was referring to, because she had never been told who the four men, who had murdered Eldar Black Forest, were. She believed that he had been killed in a battle as an insurgent. She didn’t know of the Woller farmer’s dogged determination to find the girl from Elistrand. His son, his only son, Mons, had been killed by Eldar and Villemo. In revenge, they must both die. Eldar had been taken care of, which meant that there was only one left to contend with.

No, Villemo had no idea why there were people ‘guarding’ Elistrand and asking about her.

“Who are those secret admirers of yours, Villemo?” her mother, Gabriella, would ask with a smile.

She would once more put on a face of insulted melancholy and profound sorrow and walk quietly up to her room. Her bed had not yet been given the inscription, ‘The happiest person sleeps here!’ – why had she been so stupid as to want to write something like that? No, Dominic’s suggestion, ‘Love is the greatest thing of all,’ had been much better. Only she couldn’t bring herself to scratch it in.

By summer, Kaleb was so fed up with his daughter’s displays of agony that he forced her out of the house.

“Old mother Sigbrit is no longer able to walk. We normally go to her home with a pail of milk and some food every other day. That’s your job from now on, Villemo.”

The daughter stifled an agonised sigh and went along with it.

Actually, it was wonderful to go out in the glorious summer weather. Only, she didn’t want to show it. If she was going to suffer, she would have to do it consistently.