Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 14 - The Knight

The Knight

The Legend of The Ice People 14 - The Knight

© Margit Sandemo 1983

© eBook in English: Jentas A/S, 2017

Series: The Legend of The Ice People

Title: The Knight

Title number: 14

Original title: Den sista riddaren

Translator: Nina Sokol

© Translation: Jentas A/S

ISBN: 978-87-7107-528-1

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 established 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

“And don’t just stand there, looking miserable,” Prince Jochum of Riesenstein barked at his wife, slamming the door as he stalked out.

Princess Hildegard tried to calm down after the uproar. She heard her husband’s steps fading away through the halls of the Danish royal palace. Although he hadn’t said so, of course, she knew that he was on his way to his latest mistress.

Plenty of girls were willing. Prince Jochum could be very charming when he wanted to be.

He was a younger brother of the reigning prince of the small kingdom of Riesenstein; as his country’s ambassador to the Danish royal court he was very much aware of his privileged position. Hildegard, who had been born in the Balkans, wasn’t happy in cold Denmark, where chilly winds whistled around the street corners for more than half the year.

However, the main reason why she was unhappy was the inner frost she suffered from. She didn’t understand the language; she couldn’t show off by means of her youth, beauty or quickness of wit ... And she knew perfectly well what kind of shadow awaited her in the darkest corner. The court physician didn’t have to tell her; she could read it in his evasive glance. True, he had carried out quite a lot of blood-letting, but it hadn’t led to any improvement in her sick blood, as he called it.

Hildegard walked over to the mirror, looking miserably at her own reflection. She hated her own body so much! She had never been more than quite attractive, at best, but now everything seemed so bleak that all she wanted to do was weep.

What was the point of dressing according to the ever more diaphanous current fashions, with a low-cut dress and pretty, short silk sleeves and a delicate tulle veil, when she looked the way she did? She was 43, but had quite literally already finished with her life. She had to appear at the gala dinner this evening, but she didn’t know how she was to manage it. She made another attempt to tie the emerald green dress at the waist. In vain. Her whole body had swollen up with oedema. “Your sick blood ...” The horrible bags under her eyes almost seemed to make her eyes disappear. Her feet were sore and her limbs stiff. If she pressed the skin at her wrist, the finger would sink in, leaving a dimple that wouldn’t go away.

She had become unshapely, grotesque. None of her clothes fitted her any longer. Most of all, she just wanted to sleep, to be alone with her pain, but she had to stand by Jochum’s side. His Majesty King Christian V would be very offended if anyone didn’t attend on his birthday, so she had to sit there and receive the mocking, knowing looks from the ladies-in-waiting, the indifferent glances from the men, which merely swept lightly over her with pity and disgust. “This princess eats too much,” one of them had once said when he thought that she wouldn’t overhear. “She stuffs herself like a pig. But then, she has to comfort herself somehow while her husband has his flings behind the ladies’ silk curtain.”

And she who hardly ate anything!

And her husband? Most of the time, he acted as if she wasn’t sitting next to him at the table. If he spoke to her at all, it was usually to make mocking asides. He humiliated her openly – and all she could do was give a weak smile in response while her heart was bleeding from grief and powerlessness.

The door opened and her young daughter, Marina, came in. What a dishevelled little creature! Thirteen years old, with thin, wispy, tangled hair that defied any hairstyle, huge eyes and a mouth that always seemed frightened.

Marina, my dear little child, what’s to become of you when I’m no longer here? she thought, as she stooped to embrace the girl. Your father, who doesn’t want to acknowledge you because you’re not the son he had been wanting, what will he do with you? There isn’t room for you in his life.

“Well, little Marina,” she said as she stood up. “What have you been given for homework today?”

“Nothing.”

The young girl looked more frightened than ever. What had happened to her recently? She had been walking around like a shadow of herself. Did she know that soon she would be all alone in the world?

God, have mercy on my only child! Let her not live in loneliness in a foreign country as I do! Don’t let her father marry her off in such a calculated way as my parents married me to the brother of a hereditary prince!

While the girl sat down quietly on the window seat, asking for permission to be allowed to stay in the room, Hildegard thought back to the first time Jochum had courted her.

She had been so much in love with the elegant Prince Jochum of Riesenstein, and he had adored her. Maybe this was what hurt her the most now – the fact that he had once loved her.

It hadn’t been entirely a marriage of convenience in which no love was to be expected; in some ways that would have been easier. But seeing the passionate love in the eyes of the beloved die, turning to frosty cold and disgust in the humdrum of everyday life, was crueller than anyone could endure. It didn’t make matters easier to think, that this was a fate she probably shared with many of his discarded mistresses. She was the one he was married to, she the one he shared his life with. She was the one who had to accept this humiliation for a whole lifetime.