Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 14 - The Knight

But it was also exciting. The mystical had appealed to them ever since they were children, and now here they were in the middle of the worst they could imagine. So they fought their anxiety and took part in the ceremony, although it often made them uneasy to watch it.

The man on the other side of the well spoke an incantation in a language they didn’t know. It sounded archaic, pagan, guttural. The young men knew that this was the language that was written on the secret manuscripts they had found. It was the language they believed the bog men had used.

After he had spoken for a while, whirling steam began to rise from the well. This was something they had seen many times before, and they were no longer frightened by it. But the voice that rose from down there always sent shivers down their spines. They would take an unconscious step closer to one another. Then one of the three frightening men would immediately shoot a look towards them from his lizard eyes under his cowl.

The two young men knew it. They were being closely watched. The others didn’t really trust them.

A dialogue began between the man on the other side of the well and the voice from deep down inside it. The vapours almost hid the man, the voice from below was deep and hollow, expressing cold words with an exaggerated, clear pronunciation.

The man who stood by himself replied. Then the conversation stopped.

The man turned towards his brothers in the order while he appeared increasingly clearly as the mist drifted away.

“Our friends demand a sacrifice,” he said. “At the next full moon they want proof of our loyalty.”

“What do they want?” one of the others asked.

“A blood sacrifice,” the man answered coldly. “And not an animal this time.”

“Do they mean ... our greatest sacrifice?”

“No. The time has not come yet. They want young blood. The blood of a virgin.”

One of the two young men was scared. The other had to suppress a giggle with a cough.

The rest gave him a stern look. He managed to save the situation, but it was a narrow escape. He couldn’t help finding all this exaggerated and theatrical.

Nevertheless, he knew that the matter was serious. Sacrifices had taken place here, that he would rather forget ...

Later, cold fear came creeping out of the stone walls, enveloping him in a nauseating cloud. The rituals that followed were nothing to giggle at.

Definitely not! He felt icy cold all over as the pagan song slowly rose from the depths of the shaft.

And up in the hall, the dance and flirtation continued. Their Majesties treated their courtiers to entertainment, music and dancing. Meanwhile, little notes about secret meetings were smuggled back and forth between men and women – married, but hardly to each other. The court was at play, in vain lavishness.

Chapter 3

However hard young Marina tried to screw up her eyes, she just couldn’t forget the horrible experience in the armoury.

He was probably downstairs in the ballroom. Oh, God, please let him stay there all evening! Please let him not come up here!

The armoury ... Was it a week ago now? Maybe longer, she couldn’t remember.

“It’s dark in here,” she had said. “I can’t see any...”

“Wait a moment and then you’ll see,” he had whispered back.

A few of the weapons clanked as they walked past. “Look where you’re going,” Ruckelberg had whispered.

“Uncle Paul ... Wouldn’t it be better if we went back? They’re bound to be looking for me.”

He had stopped. She could smell the warm reek from his body; she accidently touched his silk waistcoat and could feel his fat body inside. She quickly drew back her hand; she felt nauseous and scared.

“Wait,” he had whispered, aroused, impatient, and then she could hear how he was busy with his clothing and now he was breathing in that intense, heavy way once more.

Marina didn’t want to think about it; she swallowed and trembled, feeling the tears drip over her nose as she lay on her side, but the memory about it was stronger than everything else.

He had searched for her hand.

“Put your hand here,” he had whispered in a quavering voice, and his hands, which were shaking and smooth with warm sweat, had led her hand in the right direction. Marina was forced to take hold of something that was warm and big, and she didn’t understand it. She tried to pull her hand away, but he had it in a firm grip, almost desperate. “This is what a man is like. Can you feel it? Isn’t it nice and big?”

Marina had felt the nausea rise in her; she moaned and tried to break loose, but he had her hand in his, forcing it to move the way he wanted. He moaned and hissed so that Marina thought he would die – and finally she had managed to break loose; she heard his disappointed exclamation as she ran out of the armoury. She almost stumbled in her eagerness to get away. But he hadn’t followed her, he had just stood there, as if he was unable to move. All she heard was his heavy breathing, then she was out in the corridor.

She was too scared to go to bed that evening. She had sat by the window and had fallen asleep there. She hadn’t said a word to anybody, because Uncle Paul had said that Mum had done something that he would tell the King about, and then Mum would lose her head if Marina wasn’t nice to him. So how could she tell?

He hadn’t come to her room the following night. And no matter how much Marina asked her mother if she could sleep in her bedroom, she wasn’t allowed to because it might make her father cross. Dad had smacked Marina several times and Mum wouldn’t run the risk again, so she asked Marina to please understand.

But the armoury was just the beginning. A few evenings later he came to Marina’s bedroom again.

“No, no,” she cried in despair.

“Be quiet. Do you want the executioner to come and take your mother away? But I can keep quiet,” the count had whispered. “Don’t be afraid. You don’t have to touch me if you don’t want to. All you have to do is lie still.”

“I want to go to my Mum.”

“She’s asleep. The whole castle is asleep. Just lie still; nothing will happen. Uncle Paul just wants to pat you a bit.”

Marina lay there, stiff as a board, trembling all over and with a sense of having been let down by life while he put his hand down under the blanket and touched her breasts. He groaned with delight.

“Please stop it,” she asked quietly.

“I shan’t put my hand there if you don’t like it,” he said in a velvety voice. “Everything for the little doll!”

Then he moved his sweaty hands farther down. They glided over her skin, down to the most secret place in the world! And Marina had screamed heartrendingly from humiliation and anxiety ... Then he had slapped her hand and left.

The memory was too horrible for her and she put her hands to her ears to keep it out, but she was unable to do so.

Hildegard woke to many people buzzing around her, trying to get close. The heat, the humidity, the stickiness in the air with so many people around her ... where was she and what had happened?

A voice said a few words that cut through her. It came from the back of the crowd:

“She won’t live long.”

A soft, kind voice answered: “Please don’t speak about things you know nothing about in the presence of the invalid.”

It was a man’s voice. Hildegard liked what she heard, so that the tears that had been about to fall after the first, cold words were replaced by tears of gratitude.

The strong arms of several people lifted her. She wanted to protest and say that her skirts were riding up so that she looked ridiculous, but she wasn’t up to it.

Now it had happened; she had fainted in public.

“Where’s her husband, where’s Prince Jochum?” another voice shouted; she recognized it as the Queen’s voice.