Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 19 - Dragon´s Teeth

How embarrassing! What would she say now?

“Now, now, that is not a catastrophe,” she babbled. “There will be other opportunities. Now take off those sticky pants and let Stina get to work to make our friend come back to life again!”

And that’s how it went. He had no idea how he managed it, but she was very experienced and played and caressed and sat on him and let him touch, and then he was simply there and the only thing he was aware of was that he was lying in the warm embrace of a woman and that he had apparently managed to give her pleasure too, because she had started to writhe and moan and cling to him, and everything was just so heavenly and he wanted his life to be like this always!

Stina was all friendly smiles and promised to come back whenever the young man wished her to.

He gazed dreamily at her rather plump, rustic-looking face. The dreaminess was mostly due to his own pride in the fact that he had actually managed it. He was now a man: he had passed the test of manhood.

Yes, of course, there was a good chance that he would send for her again if the occasion arose and no one discovered them. But she was definitely not his ideal woman! The world lay at his feet now: all the women in the world could be his if he wanted them. That was how confident he felt, and in his frenzied joy he pulled her to him and hugged her wildly and without restraint.

Stina, who assumed that he was madly in love with her, let out a maternal laugh as the experienced woman that she was. What an impressive amount of energy he had displayed, that little boy!

And he was certainly handsome, young master Sölve. Brown, almost black eyes and luxuriant eyelashes that she herself would have liked to possess. A mass of dark brown curls that fell across his brow and a mouth hungry for life. There was something blunt and careless about the boy! He was still perplexed and childish, but once he became an adult he might turn truly dangerous! She thought he could actually become anything he wanted. He had a look of adventurous recklessness in his eyes, which she may have been the first one to glimpse. Only now, in his moment of victory, was it possible to vaguely discern it.

That madman, he had jumped out of bed and started doing cartwheels out of sheer joy! Goodness, it looked crazy, particularly because he wasn’t wearing any clothes! Stina had to laugh. Then he threw himself on top of her again and kissed and hugged her in a frenzy, but it was as though he wasn’t fully aware that she was there. He could have been dancing around with any girl. This could have been a little humiliating, but Stina wasn’t the type to take offence at such things. She had enough men to choose from!

“You fool,” she smiled. “And now I thank you for the entertainment.”

After she had left, Sölve lay in bed in a daze. His dreamy state lasted for a long time, but when it began to wear off, he started to ponder things ...

Memories from his childhood, as fleeting as the whispers of spirits from the past, flashed before him. A kitten that he had wanted more than anything in the world ... he had acquired it contrary to all common sense, because his mother loathed cats.

A boy whom he had fervently hated, so much that he had wished him to burn in hell. That very same day the boy had stumbled and fallen into a bonfire in the park where they were burning wood. He had been so badly burned that Sölve had a guilty conscience and feared that it was his fault because he had wished for it.

But imagine if that had been the case. He tried to recall other episodes, but it was all too vague. Because he had never considered the possibility ... Sölve got up quickly and sat down at the table. The summer night was receding – outside it was light as day.

On the other side of the table there was a plate with a loaf of bread: his breakfast, since everyone else was away.

He clenched and opened his hands, clenched and opened them, while he ceaselessly licked his lips and beads of sweat trickled down his face.

Thoughts were racing around his head like a whirlwind, as though they refused to come out clearly into the open. Thoughts about the Ice People. About his generation, the one that had been spared. No one in it was cursed! Brown eyes, I have dark brown eyes. I look good, I have no defects. No one has ever uttered a word about me being special in any way, never ...

He took a deep breath, as though he were sitting in a room without oxygen, slow, tortured and trembling. An inexplicable dread made his chest ache. Then he said loudly and clearly: “I want that bread. Now!”

His whole body was shaking with excitement. His chin quivered so that his teeth clattered. What am I doing? What am I doing?

Grandmother Ingrid ... who had once claimed that Ulvhedin ... that Ulvhedin ... that old beast, had talked about dragon seed?

Sölve was well read. He was familiar with the Greek myths. The ones about Cadmus and Jason who had planted dragon’s teeth. Ulvhedin had insinuated that the Ice People were by no means rid of the curse.

Ulvhedin, that monster from the underworld, that friendly man with the glowing eyes who knew so much.

New memories flashed before Sölve.

He had not always been a good boy, no! On the outside he seemed a perfect son, of whom his parents had every reason to be proud. But how had he actually managed to get away with maintaining that image, when every now and then he had wanted to use the benefits that came with having special abilities?

“You lucky duck,” his father Daniel had laughed many times. “Fortune is certainly on your side, Sölve. You seem to be able to manage everything!”

Now Sölve was seeing it in a completely different light. Yes, it was easy for him to get his way, but then he had always considered it to be perfectly natural for everything to go his way.

But what if it really wasn’t so natural after all?

It was hard to tell, because it had mostly been to do with small things, small occurrences that could just as well have been due to coincidence as anything else.

Coincidences?

The pistol with the silver mounts? Stina?

Good God, save me from this evil!

No, what rubbish, it was just a game!

“I want that bread, now!”

He stared intently at the bread plate on the far side of the table. Madness, madness, have I lost my mind? What am I thinking?

“I want that bread now!” he said with clenched teeth, stressing each syllable.

Nothing happened. Of course not, what had he expected?

But back then, when they had played games and he, Sölve, had won them all, even the ones it would have been more natural for the Oxenstierna boys or Ingela to win? How had that really come about?

He recalled that he had been overcome with an overwhelming desire to win. And that was what he had done. Yes, because Sölve was one of those who wanted to assert himself and be the best. To have power – hadn’t that always been a wonderful dream of his? Wonderful until now. Then it had been just a modest, childish dream.

It had all been so insignificant that he had never considered what he had wanted or how he had got it.

But that time with the pistol? And now Stina?

The clear, searching morning sun settled on the deer pasture outside. No one was up yet and he assumed that Stina had crawled into bed in the girls’ chamber on the other side of the courtyard.

The rowanberries glowed intensely in the beautiful trees at the head of the ditch that crossed the field. They could expect another hot August day.

Sölve sensed that he was beginning to feel hungry.

Now I actually do want that bread, he thought. It’s no longer something I am just saying to prove something to myself. I am hungry and I want food, now!

A light shuffling, scraping sound made him flinch. The silence had emphasized it, making it sound very sharp. He felt his cheeks burning and his heart pounding.