Katherine Langrish - West of the Moon

“I’ll do as I please ,” said the Gaffer, growling.

With a discordant blast, horns sounded in a corner of the Hall. The little troll came hurrying in and bowed several times, out of breath. “The princess!” it gasped. “And the prince!”

Into the Hall came the Gaffer’s eldest daughter. She was in a bad temper, for the occasion was so great: she had never been married before! She was pretty; her mother had been a nixie. Her eyes were large, slanted like birch leaves, and her tail was as delicate as a cat’s.

“The spiders haven’t finished my wedding dress,” she complained. “And look at all the dust! You should have raised the hill yesterday and aired the place. Then North Wind could have swept in here. We shall never be ready in time, and the King of the Dovre will think I’m a bad housewife.”

“He won’t think that as long as there’s enough beer,” chuckled the Gaffer. “Besides, my dear, look what I have for you! The Bride Cup you so foolishly lost, long ago.”

The troll princess looked at it carelessly. “That old thing? You’ve got it back? So at last you’ll stop fussing?”

“It’s an heirloom, my dear!”

Up came her brother the troll prince, a sulky expression on his piggish face. “Those two children you’ve got for us are terrible,” he burst out. “They won’t fetch or carry or dance or sing. They won’t do anything but scream and cry. I can’t possibly give the girl to my bride.”

“I can’t possibly give the boy to my husband!” agreed the troll princess.

They glared at their father who in turn scowled at the Grimssons.

“‘ Just what I wanted ,’ eh?” he growled, and the eye in the middle of his forehead flickered in a red blink. The two big men shuffled their feet.

“How can they sing when they’re unhappy? Where are they?” cried Hilde, imagining the children locked in some dark cave. But Peer pulled her arm and there, creeping into the Hall, holding hands tightly, were Sigurd and Sigrid. Their dirty tear-streaked faces brightened as they saw Hilde, and they raced to meet her. She grabbed one in each arm and hugged them close. “This’ll teach you to go running off,” she choked. “I told you to stay with Grandpa!”

Sigrid sobbed. Peer tousled her hair, a brotherly lump in his throat. “Don’t scold, Hilde,” he whispered.

“I’m not,” sniffed Hilde. “Don’t cry any more, Siggy. We’re taking you home.”

“Are you, now?” asked the Gaffer drily.

Hilde turned on him. “I brought you the cup!”

“And the prince and princess don’t want the children,” Peer added.

“It’s what I want that counts!” the Gaffer snarled. “And it boils down to this. I want a pair of you for the Dovreking’s son and daughter. So two of you may go – but two must stay.

“I’m feeling generous,” he added genially, “so I’ll let you choose.”

“You don’t mean it,” said Hilde in horror.

The Gaffer looked at her.

“But —” She stopped, gasping. “How can we choose?”

“Take your time,” the Gaffer advised merrily. “Think hard. Don’t decide in a hurry!”

“Can’t we go home?” Sigrid wept, her mouth turned down. “I want to go home!”

“So do I!” cried Sigurd. They buried themselves in Hilde’s clothes. She looked down at them and bit her lip.

“I – I suppose I had better stay,” she whispered.

Sick with shock, Peer opened his mouth, and closed it again, unable to say the words that would condemn him to a life of slavery. He imagined living here, trapped – never seeing Loki again, never seeing anyone but trolls – and choked. He looked at Hilde and she turned away. Peer thought it was scorn. He gritted his teeth. It was easy for her to be brave. The twins were her family!

He stole another glance. Hilde’s head was bowed, her fists clenched. Peer was ashamed of himself. Of course it wasn’t easy.

He stared dizzily around the Hall – the scurrying trolls, the white strands of the waterfall, the moving lights in the dark roof. It all seemed horribly strange and meaningless. I’ve got to get out! Out, where the sun shines and the wind blows!

Again he looked at Hilde, who still would not look at him. And then his eyes came to rest on the stupid, brutal, calculating faces of Baldur and Grim. A cold thought penetrated. What sort of life would it be, to go back to the mill with those two? How could he live, knowing he had abandoned Hilde?

I’d be as bad as they are , he thought in revulsion.

He pressed his hands over his eyes. It was the same choice he had made on the mountain, but this time it was much harder. Who would have thought you had to keep on choosing and choosing? I can’t keep running away, Father , he said silently in the blackness behind his closed lids. It doesn’t work. It’s time to stand up to them . And he opened his eyes.

“I’ll stay here too.”

Hilde shot him a look of amazed and shining gratitude. Peer turned to the Gaffer. “I’ll stay,” he repeated, bleak but firm. “So don’t give my uncles any treasure. They haven’t earned it. Sigurd and Sigrid are no good to you, and we’re staying of our own free will.”

The Gaffer howled with laughter, opening his mouth so wide he showed every jagged tooth. “Good boy – excellent!”

“Our reward – our gold!” Baldur squeaked in horror. “Besides, that boy’s my own nephew. You have to pay me for him.”

“Not – a – penny!” said the Gaffer, and his mouth snapped shut. The Grimssons looked completely confounded, Peer saw. It was some consolation.

“When can the children go home?” Hilde demanded.

“After the wedding,” said the Gaffer. “We’re busy till then.”

“And keep them quiet,” ordered the troll princess. “Or I’ll bite them!” She cast a critical eye over Hilde and Peer. “Come here!” She looked them up and down. “Humph! These two are bigger and stronger. I suppose that’s better. Oh! Look at her boots! Why, they’re better than mine!”

Hilde looked down. It was true she was wearing a good pair, made by her father and embroidered round the tops in blue and red thread.

The princess hoisted her skirts and showed a foot shod in a clumsy wooden clog.

“Let her have ’em,” Peer advised from the corner of his mouth.

“Take them,” said Hilde quietly. She pulled them off and gave them to the princess, who kicked off her clogs. Hilde slipped her own feet into them with a slight shudder.

The princess tugged the boots on. She stuck out her feet. “Now I shall be finer than the Dovreking’s daughter. They pinch, it’s true – but that’s the price of elegance!”

“Now there’s plenty to do!” the Gaffer shouted. “Has the beer come in yet?”

“Not yet. The bog wife has been brewing for us all week. I ordered twelve barrels of strong black beer. When the steam rises from her vats, the humans say, ‘Oh, there’s mist on the marshes!’” laughed his son.

The Gaffer licked his lips with a long red tongue and turned to his daughter. “Take the girl away. She can help you to dress. As for you, boy —” he waved at Peer, “roll barrels or move tables. Make yourself useful.”

They were being separated! As Hilde was led reluctantly away, Peer startled at a touch on his shoulder. He looked round into the face of a small troll with huge eyes and a long thin beak like a curlew. “Come to the kitchens!” it piped. “Help the cooks!”

It rushed him over to a dark crack in the floor. Hot air rose from it, and the strangest smells. Peer teetered on the edge; the troll pushed him, and with a cry he shot into the darkness, whipping down a natural slide, and was spat out into a lower cavern filled with a red mist of steam and smoke. The troll popped out beside him.