Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 06 - Evil Legacy

Later that day Cecilie sought out her mother and asked to speak to her in private. With a very serious expression on her face, she took her mother’s hand.

“The boy knows something. I’m sure of it. But he’s far too difficult to control just now – I can’t reach him. I’ll keep trying for the rest of my stay here. But I can’t promise anything.”

Liv Meiden stared at her daughter for a long while in a horrified silence. “This is like our worst nightmares come true,” she whispered at last with a tearful sob. “It’s like living in a dreadful dream. I keep hoping we’ll all wake up and find it isn’t true – but I know that won’t happen.”

Cecilie nodded, close to tears herself. “I’ve never known Kolgrim’s expression to be so unyielding. It makes me sure that he knows more than he’s telling us.”

Although Cecilie stayed at Graastensholm as promised for a whole week, she was unable to make any progress with Kolgrim. The constant searching for Mattias also proved to be in vain. After seven days she very reluctantly left her distressed and grieving family to return to her twins and Alexander at Gabrielshus. Summer at Graastensholm and Linden Avenue dragged on into the most miserable autumn for them all.

The only family member who remained calm and unaffected by events was Kolgrim himself. He settled down quietly to wait for Tarjei to come home, confident now that he was the only true heir to those things that were worth more to him than all the gold on earth.

Chapter 2

Tarjei had no plans to turn up at Linden Avenue as Kolgrim was hoping. At least not for the moment.

Fortunately, he’d survived the smallpox epidemic he was treating and he’d graduated from the University of Tübingen with flying colours. This enabled him to choose among several very attractive job offers.The Ice People had never been short of money since Tengel the Good had practiced his skills as a healer and physician. On top of that, Silje’s oil paintings and tapestries had fetched more money than she’d ever needed. So Tarjei had felt that he was free to choose whatever path he wanted without worrying about money. He had turned down a tempting offer to teach medicine at Tübingen and for some obscure reason decided instead to accept a less lucrative post in Erfurt as assistant to a very learned physician, who was researching a number of different illnesses.

During his time at Tübingen, one of Tarjei’s childhood dreams had been fulfilled. He’d met Johannes Kepler, the famous mathematician and astronomer, who had visited the university towards the end of his life. He and Tarjei had been drawn into profound personal debate that went on long into the night.

During those final years, Kepler, who by then was troubled by illness and exhausted from people’s ignorance and obstinate foolishness, had become very disillusioned. But he found the conversation with the young and idealistic Tarjei revived his spirit, and the two of them discussed science and philosophy until their eyelids drooped.

Almost as soon as they began talking, they found that they had something in common. It turned out that Kepler’s mother had died in 1622 after having been denounced as a witch and put in prison for thirteen months. Tarjei told the great man how his relation, Sol, had suffered a similar fate. The discussions that started on the subject of the witch hunts had ended with Kepler’s latest hobby horses: logarithms and atmospheric refraction.

Tarjei had already been in Erfurt for a while and was enjoying his work despite such obvious risks as the recent smallpox epidemic, which he’d come through unharmed due to great care in hygiene and some good fortune. His mentor was very pleased with his progress and considered that he had a brilliant future ahead of him – as long as their churchmen and great leaders, in their stupidity, didn’t burn him at the stake for heresy because of his wide knowledge and skills. After all, they’d burned Jan Hus, a Czech religious philosopher and reformer at Prague’s Charles University. And they had judged the Italian astronomer Galileo guilty of heresy, hadn’t they, for propagating the theory that the earth revolved around the sun? Because of all these things, Kepler warned that Tarjei would need to be careful.

When he had the time, Tarjei would make occasional visits to his old friends at Löwenstein Castle. There he found that Countess Cornelia Erbach am Breuburg was no longer the chubby young girl he’d first met. In the intervening years she’d grown into a very pretty, strong-willed and self-confident young lady of seventeen. Her benevolent aunt and uncle had planned to arrange a marriage for her to a redundant German duke, but Cornelia was having none of it.

Little Marca Christiana was eight years old. She was a bright and well-behaved child who would sit close to Tarjei’s chair whenever he was visiting, listening intently to the exchanges between him and her parents without understanding very much at all. Cornelia, on the other hand, often involved herself in the conversations, making confident assertions that Tarjei found a little irritating.

One day Cornelia asked her uncle: “Tarjei has a great future ahead of him, isn’t that right?”

“A brilliant one, I should think.”

“Then wouldn’t he be a fine match?”

“For the right girl of his own class, certainly. But not for you, Cornelia, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Why not?” Cornelia demanded.

“Because, my dear Cornelia, you’re a countess and Tarjei isn’t even a nobleman.”

“But the name Lind of the Ice People would fool any of those old fossils who decide who’s to be included on the list of royals and landed gentry in the Almanach de Gotha.”

“A match between you and Tarjei is out of the question, Cornelia! Does this mean that he’s proposed to you?”

“No, but ...”

“Well, there you are! Maybe he doesn’t even want you.”

“Of course he does!” she retorted. “I’ll just have to elope with him, then!”

“Don’t be so stupid, Cornelia! If you do that, you’d destroy his future.”

“Wouldn’t you be able to grant him a noble rank, uncle?”

The Count of Löwenstein and Scarffeneck shook his head.

“Only a noble of princely rank can do that.”

“Princely?” repeated Cornelia thoughtfully. “Tarjei has a cousin who’s married to a prince.”

“Really?”

“Yes, well almost - if one has to be more precise. His name is Paladin and he’s a marquis, although his grandmother, or some such, was certainly a princess.”

The Count nodded. “Paladin is a good name. It must be the sovereign house of Schwarzburg.”

“Yes, that’s it! Then I’ll ask him.”

Her uncle smiled “I doubt that he can do very much. And in any case it would be better first to ask Tarjei what he thinks.”

“I intend to – you can be sure of that!”

Unfortunately, Tarjei reacted unsympathetically to her plans. “Why in all the world should I be ennobled?” he asked her.

Cornelia’s jaw dropped and for a few moments she was speechless. She could only stare back at him, shaking her head in a little gesture of disbelief. Unaware of the effect of his question, Tarjei continued his line of thought: “Besides, I could never approach Alexander with such a request – you must understand that! Even if he was able to persuade his princely relatives in Schwarzburg, I should be mortally ashamed to have shown such bad manners! I’m sorry, Cornelia, but today I really don’t understand you.”

Cornelia flew into a rage and turned on her heel, shouting: “Oh! You’re so stupid! So stupid.” Half-sobbing with anger and frustration, she stormed angrily out of his presence, grinding her teeth.

“Have I ever been anything but stupid in your eyes?” he called after her.