Margit Sandemo: The Ice People 06 - Evil Legacy

“I made it,” panted Mattias when he arrived. “Nobody saw me, but I was worried because they said that you’d gone to Christiania. I thought you might not be here.” Then with a frown, he added: “But I didn’t like telling a fib to Mum.”

“Did she ask anything?” asked Kolgrim harshly.

“No, but not saying anything is almost like fibbing.”

Kolgrim had never been burdened with such scruples so he didn’t understand Mattias’s feelings at all. Besides, he cared even less for his stepmother, Yrja, who’d always painstakingly tried to show him the same love as she had for her own son.

“We’ll be gone such a short while that they won’t notice anything,” said Kolgrim firmly. “Now climb up behind me.”

It took a little effort but as soon as Mattias was clinging on behind him, Kolgrim turned the horse and spurred it forward. Like all younger brothers, Mattias worshipped his older sibling. He was the hero, the one who could do anything and who knew everything. Kolgrim tended to regard this adulation with contempt rather than pride.

As they rode through the forest, Mattias said happily: “This is so exciting, I couldn’t even fall asleep last night!”

‘Excellent,’ thought Kolgrim, another ugly smile appearing on his face. ‘That’s exactly what I’d hoped.’

“I’ve brought some food for us,” continued Mattias in the same excited tone of voice. “We can eat it later, can’t we?”

“You did what?” Kolgrim’s voice was like an explosion. “Did anyone see you?”

“No. I snuck into the kitchen when nobody was there.”

Kolgrim relaxed. “Good! Yes, we might get hungry.”

For a while they rode along in silence through the green shadows of the forest, two young brothers apparently idyllically happy in the middle of the wonders of nature.

Then at one point, Mattias whispered in Kolgrim’s ear:

“Listen to the wind in the leaves. It sounds sad and beautiful at the same time – just like the requiem in church.”

“A requiem? What’s that?” asked Kolgrim, who was unfamiliar with the peculiarities of religious rituals.

“It’s a service for the dead.”

‘That’s very apt,’ thought his elder brother, grinning to himself again as he guided the horse carefully forward through the trees along the path he’d carefully explored days before.

“It’s a very long way, isn’t it?” Mattias said a little while later. “How much further is it?”

“We’ll soon be there,” promised Kolgrim. “It won’t be long now.”

“But they rode on deeper and deeper into the forest for a long time without any signs of where they were headed for.

Finally, Mattias said: “Please don’t be angry with me, Kolgrim. But my bottom is beginning to hurt. Can we rest, do you think?”

Kolgrim ignored this request. His heart was beginning to race with excitement and he spurred the horse on a little faster.

“Don’t worry,” he told Mattias, “we’re almost there!”

By now they were following a path so overgrown and green that it was barely distinguishable from the forest floor all around them. It had clearly not seen many feet that summer and if Mattias had noticed any sign of hoof-prints, he would never have connected them with Kolgrim’s mysterious absence from home a few days earlier. They crossed small clearings, some edged with rotting raspberry canes, and once or twice they passed little groups of long-abandoned cottages huddled together.

At last the trees began to thin and open countryside appeared in front of them again. The wooded areas now consisted mainly of oaks, but as they moved on these were replaced by aspen and alder, which Mattias could see were growing along the edges of a broad stretch of water.

“Is this where we’ll be seeing the fishes dance?” he asked eagerly.

Kolgrim didn’t reply but rode on in silence until he turned the horse’s head towards the shore and urged it down a narrow path that led to a small jetty jutting out from the land. There he dismounted and helped his brother to the ground.

“Ooh! Look out there – that’s the sea, isn’t it?” exclaimed Mattias.

Far out, between rocky outcrops and islands, he could see a great body of blue water glittering in the hazy sunshine.

“Of course it’s the sea – that’s the only place where the fishes dance. They’re called dolphins and they’re very big. We need to cross the fjord first. Come on! I’ve got a boat.”

“Have you?” Mattias stared at him wide-eyed as he tied the horse to a tree. “Where?”

Kolgrim pointed to a small rowing boat, moored close by, which was almost hidden beneath overhanging trees.

“Over there, look.”

He’d been very thorough in his planning and knew that the little boat was seldom used. Leading the way along the jetty, he helped Mattias jump on board. Then he cast off and began rowing directly away from land, knowing that the curtain of overgrown alders along the shore would prevent whoever owned the boat from seeing them.

The oars splashed rhythmically and Mattias at first leaned over the side, watching the small whirlpools left in their wake. Kolgrim wasn’t hurrying and as he continued to pull slowly and calmly on the oars, while his tired young brother, Mattias, settled himself down in the stern, his eyelids growing heavy.

“Why don’t you take a nap if you feel like it,” said Kolgrim in a low, hypnotic voice. “It’s a long way out. I’ll wake you when there’s something to see.”

Mattias nodded drowsily, made himself more comfortable and tried to fall asleep.

When they reached the headland beyond which the fjord widened towards the open sea, Kolgrim quietly shipped the oars and let the boat drift towards a small beach. He made sure Mattias was still fast asleep. Then he gently slid both oars into the water and watched them drift away. Climbing quietly onto the shore, he stepped round to the bow, leaned on it and pushed hard, sending the little boat back into deeper water.

He watched the little boat drift steadily out to sea, helped by the retreating tide just as he’d planned. There was still no sound or sign of any movement on board.

After watching it for a few moments longer, with a grim smile of satisfaction spreading across his face, Kolgrim ran as fast as he could along the beach and round the rocky shoreline back towards the jetty where his horse was waiting. To justify his evil deed, he repeated to himself over and over again as he ran. “I haven’t killed him. No, I haven’t killed him.”

Were his childhood memories of Cecilie’s tales about how the “Great Troll” judged the good and bad deeds of small boys coming back to him? Maybe – it was unlikely that there could be any other explanation for Kolgrim’s ‘humane’ elimination of his troublesome little bother, Mattias.

***

Later that afternoon, Kolgrim returned back home to find the family and servants nervous and agitated. They all looked pale.

“Kolgrim, have you seen Mattias anywhere?” Liv asked him in a frantic voice as soon as she saw him.

Kolgrim jumped down from his horse, clutching a small package in his hand.

“Mattias? No, I’ve been in Christiania all day.”

“But what about early this morning?”

“He was still sleeping when I left,” replied Kolgrim, his face a picture of innocence.

“No, he was at breakfast with us,” broke in Tarald. “He disappeared after that – Kolgrim had been gone long by then.”

Yrja was pale and drawn. Her face looked like a death mask.

“Mattias took some food with him,” she said, “enough for two. I’m sure he did!”

“How can you be sure?” asked Tarald.

“Because of the way Mattias always uses the butter knife – and he took bread, cheese and meat for two people at least.”