Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 14 - The Knight

The physician shuddered violently. “But it still doesn’t make sense to me. If they want to get hold of the bog men, surely they’ll have to search in the bogs and the moors. Not in a city. Cities are far too civilized and modern.”

“Copenhagen hasn’t always been a city,” the commandant said in a low voice.

“Do you mean to say ...?” The physician shuddered again.

“They say that they’ve succeeded in getting down to the spot where the bog men lurk. They are said to be in regular contact with these beings.”

“I’ve a relative in Norway who believes that the subterranean wood spirits are actually kindly disposed.”

“She’s probably right. So are our elves, provided you don’t fall out with them. But not the bog men. They’re utterly vicious.”

“Do you believe in them?” the physician asked swiftly.

“Of course not! I’m merely repeating the rumours, believing in all this would be something quite different. But I believe in the Guardians of the Rightful Throne. They’re dangerous because of their rituals, their adoration of evil and their belief that they’re in touch with the bog men. Frighteningly dangerous, like all fanatics.”

“Do you know of any blood sacrifices? Apart from their own member whom they slaughtered?”

“Nothing definite. I’d imagine that cockerels and other small animals might be used in such ceremonies, but I really wouldn’t know. But small children – and adults as well – have vanished in Copenhagen and we don’t know where they’ve gone. There may be natural explanations.”

“So they’re after the King then? I’ve a good mind to walk over and take a closer look at the bandits on the other side of the square.”

“That would be pointless. They won’t allow anybody from the castle to get close to them.”

“But they’re so tall. Where do they come from?”

The commandant had a strange look on his face as he answered. “You’d think that the bog men would be small, round beings living down under the ground, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, but those down there are just guards.”

“Then you haven’t heard very much about the bog men of ancient times. They were said to be exceptionally tall men and women.”

The physician stared incredulously for a while. Then he slowly turned to look out into the courtyard. The three dark shadows had disappeared. They had glided into the darkness under the trees and had dissolved away. The party was loud and noisy.

But under cover of the commotion, something was about to happen.

The physician and the commandant were right. The three men on the other side of the square had vanished, but not into thin air.

The landlord of the small, dingy inn nodded to them as they came down the stairs to the taproom, just as he had nodded to many other silent men that evening. The beer-drinking guests didn’t notice the new arrivals, who quickly glided through a door behind a curtain in the darkest corner of the room. They had heard that there was a room in here that select guests could hire.

Except that there was no room behind the door. When the guests had unlocked the door and passed through to the other side, they stood at the top of a staircase leading to the basement. They walked down the well-trodden steps. An oil lamp hissed down there and they made their way to another door, another staircase leading down – until they stood in a secret tunnel.

It was a very old passageway, as the ancient stones in the wall showed. Here and there other lamps glowed, so far apart that it was only just possible to figure out the way to the next lamp. Small creeping things darted quickly along the walls.

The tunnel was humid. They were passing under a waterway – the canal, which served as a moat for the castle.

Then the atmosphere was drier again, the walls dry but mossy. They stood in front of a new door.

They pushed open the heavy stone door with difficulty and now stood in a crypt that was so old, that the stones were crumbling.

No one in the great hall above noticed that several guests, who had remained in the background, now made themselves scarce, retiring towards the basement stairs. The chain of guards was thinning – so discreetly that the commandant would never notice that some had vanished.

Down in the castle basement, they entered a rarely used vault. There they moved a couple of heavy floorboards, exposing a stone flag fitted with an iron ring. As it was lifted, a centuries-old stench hit them. They walked down a long stone stairway to reach the ancient crypt. The old castle in Copenhagen had been built on the ruins of a long-forgotten monastery. It was to this monastery crypt that they came, and this was where they met with the men, who had arrived through the tunnel, dug under the moat in ancient times by the monks to give them a shortcut to the convent on the other side.

All this was forgotten by the Copenhageners. The Guardians of the Rightful Throne had discovered the crypt by chance. Later, when Copenhagen Castle was rebuilt, these underground chambers disappeared forever, but in King Christian V’s time the crypt and the tunnel still existed as a threat to His Majesty’s safety.

All the men changed into brown cowls, which they kept outside the holiest crypt. “Holiest” might be a blasphemous word to use here, but for them it was all sacred.

The crypt wasn’t very big. Tallow candles were burning everywhere, partly for light and partly to give warmth down in the dank basement. In the middle of the earthen floor there was a low circular wall around something like a well, and this was precisely what it was. Not a water well, but a shaft dug directly down into the soil.

There were thirteen people in the room. Thirteen – the correct number for a witches’ coven.

The figures all had something in common: they were very tall. There were therefore no women among them, because such tall women hardly existed in Denmark in the 1600s. Their faces were hidden under their cowls, which were pulled well down in front.

Twelve of them stood in a semicircle, facing the well. The thirteenth stood alone on the other side of the well.

He lifted his hands.

If you could have seen their faces, you would have seen that some of them were tough, evil and cold. Others were frightened. This moment was the worst for these young participants, who had joined the group out of a romantic love of adventure and were drawn towards the occult. They had never imagined what was to happen at these meetings. But now it was too late to withdraw. They knew the fate of the one who had been too open-mouthed. If you wanted to pull out of the order it was regarded as treachery, which was dealt with in the same macabre way.

There were two young men who had joined in error but hadn’t dared to admit it. They were terrified of the others in the order. These deadly serious men nursed a hatred so fervent and so incessant, that nothing would stop them. They were capable of anything! This magic, that stirred up things that ought to remain hidden. The two young men didn’t believe in bog men. They were no longer sure about the others in the order. Were they living creatures or ...?

The three, tall, pale men were the ones who frightened them the most. Those three never showed their faces properly, not even among their own people; now and then you could catch a fleeting glimpse of deathly paleness. Icy cold eyes that reminded you of lizards. Where did they live and where did they come from? They tended to appear only on evenings when there were meetings. Now and then, they would stand under the trees outside. Now and then they were already here in the crypt when you turned up – no matter how early you came. None of the others were as tall as these three.

You weren’t allowed to ask about the other members, nor to speak with them during sessions or afterwards. The two young men had been allowed to take part at the recommendation of the talkative youth. After his death, it was as if they were stuck in quicksand with no possibility of breaking loose. Sometimes they could sense the searching glances of the others ...