“Hello,” she said, dropping her hands self-consciously. She had been running her fingers over one of the doorposts.
“What are you doing?” Rollo cocked his head to one side. “You missed luncheon
and
tea.” There was no greater sin than missing a meal, in the wolf’s mind.
“Well, then, you should have come to find me,” she told him.
“The fireplace was too warm,” he said, and then stretched languidly. “And when Erasmus came to take away the uneaten tea tray, I thought I’d better follow him to the kitchen, and see if you were still down there. But you weren’t, so we came to look for you here.”
“I was worried that you were still, er, shocked from this afternoon,” Erasmus said, blushing. “But then Rollo assured me that you would be fine, since he was fine, and convinced the salamanders to give him cake.” His blush faded and he smiled at this.
“Yes, I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” the lass apologized. “For
all
the inconvenience I’ve caused.” Now that Rollo had mentioned the missed meals and the uneaten trays, her stomach growled loudly. “Pardon me!”
“You must be starving,” the faun said with a laugh. “Dinner is ready, if you are.”
“Yes, please!” She gestured for Erasmus to lead the way to the dining room. “I’m so thirsty I could lick the walls!”
“The walls taste terrible,” Rollo told her. “I tried it on our first day here. The ice tastes like rancid meat.” He shuddered and then shook out his pelt with a look of distaste.
“What?” The lass stopped in her tracks, putting out a hand to touch the nearest pillar. “It does?” She almost licked the pillar, then and there, to see if Rollo was right. Ice that didn’t melt and wasn’t cold obviously wasn’t regular ice, but why would it taste like rancid meat?
“Please, my lady, dinner is getting cold,” Erasmus said,
his face pale. “And you should not be licking the walls,” he told the wolf in a severe voice. “They are . . . you must realize this isn’t . . . the sort of ice you’re accustomed to.”
“Oh, of course.” Smiling innocently, the lass resolved to lick the wall of her bedchamber as soon as she was alone.
In the dining room the white bear was already waiting, sitting by the side of the lass’s chair. She greeted him politely, and took her seat. Erasmus served her a meal of the usual magnificence: clear soup seasoned with strange herbs, vegetables roasted with honey, fish coated in hazelnuts and drenched in cherry preserves. Afterward there was cake that had been soaked in cream and drizzled with caramel.
“Please thank the salamanders,” she sighed when she was finished. She leaned back in her chair and laid her napkin aside. “They are fantastic cooks.”
“I shall tell them, my lady. They will be thrilled.”
By the fire, Rollo rolled over and let his tongue hang out of his mouth. He’d had a fine cut of meat and a bit of the cake, which the lass had dropped into his bowl. The bear had also had a piece of cake, but otherwise had made only idle conversation while the lass and Rollo ate. He’d asked her if she’d seen the paintings in the long gallery, and did she like them (not really, they were all quite gruesome battle scenes) and had she read any of the books in the library (yes, and they were delightful).
“So you do like it here?” The bear’s voice was wistful.
“Yes, of course!” She leaned sideways out of her chair and patted one of his huge paws. “And don’t worry, I’m going to figure out this enchantment.”
“No!” He reeled back and his claws and teeth flashed at her. The lass shrank back in her chair, and the
isbjørn
relaxed. Slightly. “Be careful,” he said, his voice rough. “It would be better if you just waited.”
“Waited for what?”
“For the year to end.”
“And then will you tell me where this palace came from?”
“Yes.” He nodded gravely.
“Who carved the mantel in the great hall?”
The bear blinked at her change in subject. “I don’t know.”
“So you didn’t build this palace? Who did?”
Silence. The bear slowly shook his head at her, as though her endless questions disappointed him.
Nevertheless she forged on. “Can
you
read the carving on the pillars?”
“Sometimes.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bear eyes are not good for reading,” he said, his reluctance clear in his voice. “It’s late. Good night.” He lumbered to his feet and out of the dining room.
“Wait, please! Would you like me to read them to you?” She followed him out of the dining room. Perhaps
between the two of them they would be able to decipher every symbol. “
Isbjørn,
would you like that?”
But he just lumbered away, through a large door that locked behind him.
“Humans are too nosy,” Rollo said as he followed his mistress to their own rooms.
“Oh, hush,” the lass said, thinking hard. “If you knew what was carved on those pillars, you would be curious too.”
“I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know why the walls smell rotten. It’s only going to lead to something bad.”
“Rollo!” The lass was exasperated by his lack of curiosity. “Don’t you want to know why we’re here?”
“Yes, but I’m willing to wait until it’s time to know.”
They continued on to their rooms in silence. In silence, Rollo watched the lass take off her gown and put on a nightrobe. In silence, she brushed out her reddish gold hair and washed her face. The wolf sat beside her chair as she read a chapter of a book, a history of the first kings of the North.
Finally, when she was getting into bed, Rollo whined.
“What is it?” One foot on the floor, one foot in the soft bed, she looked at him. “Do you need to go out? The door isn’t locked.”
“No, I do not need to go out.” He sounded testy.
“What is it, then?”
“My curiosity is getting to me,” he said in a disgusted growl.
“About what?”
“About what it says on the pillars,” he snapped, as though it should have been obvious. “You don’t tempt a wolf by saying you’ve read something curious, and then not tell him!”
“Well, and who’s nosy now?” The lass put her other foot in bed and gave the wolf an arch look.
“Just tell me,” Rollo pleaded, embarrassed.
“Well, from what I can tell it’s the story of a princess who lived in a palace and dreamed of finding a handsome man who would love her. But the man, or it might be men, she found insulted her, and she was very sad. Or maybe it was bitter.” The lass drew up her knees under the comforter and wrapped her arms around them.
“Humph” was Rollo’s comment. “That’s not
that
interesting. Humans are always doing things like that.”
“Who said they were humans?” The lass raised one eyebrow at him.
“What are they then?”
“I don’t know what the princess was; it just says that she’s a princess. But all the other symbols for people have a mark underneath that Hans Peter told me meant, well, people. It says that she’s looking for a handsome
man
. Very clearly. But on the pillars there are stories about warriors and princes and ladies, and there are different marks underneath, which I think mean they are different creatures. Like Erasmus and the rest of the servants.”
“What are the other stories about?”
“Well, there’s one about the beautiful princess seeing some maidens in a forest. I’m not sure, but I don’t think they’re human. The princess speaks to them and they run away, screaming. Except for one, who taunts the princess. The cruel maiden is stricken dead, and her betrothed attacks the princess. She has mercy on him, however, and takes him to live in her palace so that he can learn what goodness and beauty really are.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“It does?” The lass gave Rollo a surprised look.
Rollo nodded. “First of all, why did the maidens run when the princess appeared? What did she do that scared them?”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“Sounds to me like this princess isn’t all that beautiful, if all her lovers betray her and other females run screaming when she appears.”
“Well, maybe it’s just like when I saw the servants today. They’re all very strange, you know, but once you get over the shock, they are quite striking in their different ways.”
“Maybe,” Rollo said, but he sounded doubtful. “But then I don’t think what the princess did next was very nice, either.”
“Taking the betrothed to live with her?”
“To teach him a lesson, you said. His lover just died,
and this strange princess whatever-she-is takes him away from his home to her palace to be her slave.”
“I never said he was her slave, just that—”
There was a crash from the doorway of her bedchamber. Rollo leaped to his feet and the lass shrieked before she saw that it was Erasmus. He was staring at her in shock, and at his cloven hooves was a dented tray and a broken mug. Hot chocolate was seeping into the rug.
“Erasmus, are you all right?” The lass hopped out of bed and hurried over to the faun.
“Who—where—how—do you know that story?” he gasped.
The lass was temporarily offended by the thought that Erasmus had been eavesdropping on her. “Why?”
“I—n-no reason,” he stuttered. “It sounded . . . familiar.”
“I read it off one of the pillars in the great hall,” she said, her mood softening. Erasmus looked gray with shock.
“You can read the—the language of the tr—of the pillars?” He stared at her in a mixture of awe and fear.
“Yes, my brother taught me,” she said, taken aback by his reaction.
“Your brother?” The faun looked openly astonished now.
“My eldest brother, Hans Peter,” she clarified, though it seemed silly, as the faun didn’t know her brothers’ names, or indeed that she had any.
“Hans Peter
Jarlson
?” The faun’s voice was barely a whisper.
The lass grabbed Erasmus’s slender shoulders. “How do you know him?”
Erasmus slipped from her grasp. “A terrible mistake has been made.
She
will be so angry.” His face was white and tight with fear.
“Who will?”
The faun shuddered. “I hope you never know.” His voice was bleak. “I will send Fiona to clean up.” He scurried away.
Fiona entered a few minutes later. The lass had stacked the pieces of the broken mug on the tray and set it on a side table.
The selkie used wet towels to blot the stain and carried away the tray of broken china without saying a word. The lass had started to make several comments, but Fiona’s grim expression caused the words to die in her throat.
When her bedfellow came in at midnight, the lass was still awake. Annoyed, she hopped out of bed as soon as he got in. She tripped over her slippers, struck her arm on the divan, and shouted in anger.
“I am not in the mood for you,” she said between gritted teeth. “One of us is going to sleep on the divan.” She waited, but there was no answer. Of course. “Fine then, I will,” she snapped. She yanked the white bearskin off the bed, dragged it over her shoulders, and lay down.
Her visitor didn’t even wait until she had gotten comfortable before he got out of bed, picked her up, and tucked her in on her side of the bed. She tried to jump back out, but he pinned her down. When she finally relaxed, he let go and went to his side of the bed.
“If this is part of the enchantment, it’s a very stupid part,” she griped. But, tired and wanting to think over all that she had seen that day, she stayed in the bed. Her bedfellow heaved a sigh that reminded her of Rollo and went to sleep.
The lass was awake until nearly dawn, thinking about princesses who made people run screaming from them, and the expression on Erasmus’s face when he had heard the story.
And the fact that Hans Peter had most certainly been a guest in the palace of ice.
The next morning, feeling irritable and out of sorts, the lass leaned over to pummel her bedfellow’s pillow. Her irritation vanished as she spied a dark hair on the pillowcase. She fingered it, but it felt exactly like one of her own. Finally she coiled it around one finger and put it in the wooden box with her stash of lace and pearls.
She did not see Erasmus all that day. Instead, Fiona served luncheon and dinner and brought the lass her nighttime cup of cocoa. The next day it was the same: no Erasmus, but the sullen selkie instead. The
isbjørn
was now ignoring her questions about both the carvings in the ice pillars and Erasmus’s whereabouts. She felt like she was being punished for something, but she didn’t know what. What did it matter how many questions she asked? Especially if no one answered them.
It was almost a week before she saw the faun again. Walking through the great hall, she came upon him standing with his nose just inches from one of the pillars, hands behind his back. He rocked back and forth on his black
hooves, and the lass deliberately scuffed her kid slippers on a rug to announce herself.
“Oh!” The faun whirled around. “My lady!”
“Where were you?”
“N-nowhere.”
“Well, I’m glad that
you’re
talking to me, now that you’re back,” the lass said. “I’m sorry if I upset you before.”
“It is not your fault, my lady,” the faun said, edging away from the pillar.
Realizing that he couldn’t read the language inscribed upon it, the lass pointed to another pillar. “That’s the one,” she said quietly.
“Oh.” Erasmus glanced at it, licking his lips. He looked over his shoulder, and then past the lass, but there was no one else to be seen. Rollo had gone for his morning “constitutional.”
The lass walked over to the pillar in question, and after a moment’s hesitation Erasmus joined her, his hooves clicking loudly on the ice floor. She read the story out loud, pointing to each symbol with her finger.
“I don’t know what this means, but I know that the sign above it means that they were young females,” she said.
“Faun,” he breathed. “That must be the sign for faun in . . . this language.”
“Then do you know what this is?” She pointed to the symbol that was under the sign for princess. “I know
that this”—she traced the “princess” symbol—“means ‘princess.’”
“I can guess.”
“What is it?”
The faun paused, his face white. “Troll.” He breathed the word into the still air, not looking at the lass, but staring at the symbol her finger touched as though it were poisonous.