Stories about trolls said that the females had noses more than three yards long and breasts that hung to their knees. The lass thought that this was not much of an exaggeration: the queen’s nose was alarmingly long, and her wrinkled bosom threatened to burst free of her gown at any moment.
The queen surveyed the room with her glaring, scum-green eyes and sailed past her bowing subjects to take her seat on the golden throne. The centaurs—that was what the servants were, the lass remembered reading of such creatures once—blew another, shorter fanfare to herald the entrance of a second troll lady.
This, the lass thought with a gasp, was surely the troll princess. Her nose was even longer than her mother’s and had a great wart on it besides. She wore a gown of sapphire-blue velvet, to match her throne, and her hair was a gleaming arrangement of flame-red tresses and diamond hairpins. She swayed across the room with the air of a woman who knows all eyes are upon her, and stopped to plant a kiss on the cheek of the human prince before sitting on the silver throne.
The troll queen clapped her hands—her ring-encrusted fingers appeared to have another set of joints—and music began to play. The lass could not see the musicians from her vantage point, and she wondered what sort of odd instruments they were playing. There was a lot of banging, a deep echoing hoot that made the bones behind her ears vibrate, and rising over it all a shrill sound that made her cringe.
“It sounds like a rabbit being killed,” Rollo said, disgusted.
“Ugh, you’re right,” she agreed. “Oh, they’re going to dance.” The lass and the wolf pressed their noses closer to the window to watch.
The trolls were dividing into pairs and taking up positions on the dance floor. The lass noticed that the mossy, fur-wearing trolls did not join in the dancing, but instead stood aside with disapproving expressions on their faces and large goblets of wine in their fists. But the finely dressed trolls began to dance to the music with great delight.
Not even Rollo could think of a comment to make about the trolls’ dancing. It was horrible and fascinating at the same time. In time to the beat of the thumping, wailing music, they hunched their shoulders and stamped their feet, lurched from side to side, and slapped their heavy hands on their bellies to make a counterpoint to the musicians’ drumming. It was like a macabre parody of human dancing. Something about it sent a curl of terror up from the lass’s stomach and into her throat, and she thought she might scream. She had three days, three days to free the prince and get far away from this awful place and these nightmarish creatures.
“Hide!” Rollo sprang down from the windowsill and began tugging at the lass’s parka with his teeth.
“What? Why?” Startled, she slipped on the icy snow and one of her boots punched through into the softer snow beneath.
“A troll saw us!”
The lass yanked her foot free of the hole in the snow and flattened herself against the side of the palace to one side of the window. “Are you sure?” she whispered.
“Yes!” Rollo crouched directly below the window, trying to make himself as small as possible.
There was a scraping sound, and the window swung outward. It nearly hit the lass in the face, and she managed to put one hand up just in time to keep it from breaking her nose. The cold panes, leaded with gold, smacked against her hand and bounced back. She held her breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and prayed.
“What are you doing?” A female troll’s voice rang out.
“I saw something,” grunted a thick, male voice. “There’s someone out here.”
“There’s no one out there, you old fool,” the female insisted. “Close that window; it’s cold!”
This was greeted by a roar of laughter from a number of trolls. Even the lass had to admit that the female was either being very stupid or very witty: here at the top of the world, how could it not be cold?
The window swung closed, and the lass heard the latch click. Still she held her breath and prayed. When she did open her eyes, she didn’t dare move her head.
When she had counted to fifty, she looked down at Rollo. He was still huddled close to the side of the palace directly below the window. His golden eyes were wide and staring, the white showing all around. The lass slithered down until she was kneeling in the snow, and put out one hand to touch his head. He jumped at the contact, then relaxed.
“We’ve already spoken to one troll,” she reminded him in a whisper, “who was not entirely unkind.”
“There’s a world of difference between that bored sentry out there and the fish-eyed courtiers in there,” Rollo said.
He was right. The faces of the trolls within the palace were vastly different from Skarp-Heðin’s. The lass nodded. Dragging her pack by one strap, she crawled along the foundation of the palace. Rollo came behind, listening with his superior hearing as they passed each window. He hissed for her to stop only once, and they spent a terrified moment crouched beneath one of the ballroom’s other windows while a troll female, shrieking with laughter, leaned out the window to “catch a breath of air.”
After an interminable amount of time, they came to the back corner of the palace and huddled in a blue shadow. Rollo could hear no sounds coming through the wall, and there were no windows for several paces, so they thought themselves safe. Together they dug a snow cave, and the lass made a nest out of her clothes. They snuggled in to sleep, blocking the entrance with the knapsack.
Despite their strange surroundings, and the danger that lay all about them, they were both soon snoring. It had been a long day, after a series of long days, and tomorrow promised to be even longer.
Chapter 29
The next morning the sun woke them, turning the roof of the cave pale yellow. It was far away and strange here, but it was still the sun, and it brought a little warmth. It took an effort for the lass to crawl out of her nest and stretch her limbs. She felt old and cold and worn thin. Rollo grunted but didn’t wake, even when she pulled the skirts and shifts right out from under him and repacked them.
She pulled off the topmost of the skirts she wore, since it was filthy, and put a slightly cleaner one on. She had four more skirts underneath, and still she was cold. The white parka gleamed, though, without a stain or a smudge to mar its beauty. Pushing back the hood and taking off her mittens, the lass scrubbed her face and hands with snow. She combed her hair and braided it. It made her feel slightly better, and eating breakfast even more so. Of course, it was only bread, but even Rollo got up to have some, and it raised his spirits as well.
“Now what?” Rollo rolled briefly in the snow, then shook with a will. This did wonders for his fur, which was full of sand and pine needles from their journey.
“Now we have to attract the troll princess’s attention,” the lass replied.
They made their way along the west side of the palace. It was early, and the windows were still shielded by draperies. They couldn’t be sure where the princess’s rooms were, unless they ran all the way along that side.
“There’s no telling which floor they’re on, either,” the lass fretted. She counted eight levels, and thought that she saw one or two beyond that, but standing so close to the massive building made it difficult to judge.
“It’s not too late to go home,” Rollo said, pacing around the hardened drifts of snow.
“Actually, it’s far too late,” she told him gently.
It was something that she had only realized as they were walking along the walls of the palace. The north wind had blown itself out to bring them here. And then . . . what? She supposed that when it was rested, it would go back to its own lands. She and Rollo were stranded. Perhaps, if she were able to free the prince, he would know the way back. Perhaps he could change into a bear again, and carry her.
Perhaps. Perhaps not. It was too late to worry about it. She would just have to move forward, she told herself. But at the same time she was racked with a deep longing to be riding her isbjørn across the snow plain, heading toward the ice palace and a rich suppe
r.
“Well, can I at least have something more to eat?” Rollo sat on a snowbank and looked around with a disgruntled expression.
“Yes, I suppose,” the lass said. She plumped down beside him and rummaged in her pack. “An apple?”
He sneezed in distaste. “Isn’t there any meat at all?”
“There might be.” She rummaged some more. Her fingernails clicked against something hard, and she pulled out the bottle of apple jelly. “Oh, look!” She held it up to the weak light. The golden jelly blazed, and the refracted light from the crystal jar cast bits of rainbows on the snow around them.
“I’d still rather have meat,” Rollo said.
“Well, I might like some apple jelly on a bit of bread,” the lass said. “It’s not always your stomach that concerns me.”
She unwrapped a bit of bread and unstoppered the jelly with a flourish.
“What’s that?”
The rasping troll voice scared the blood out of the lass’s face. Her hands went numb, and the little jar of apple jelly fell to the ground and rolled away. A few golden globules scattered across the snow, freezing almost instantly.
“I said, what is that? Are you deaf?”
Slowly the lass turned around. The window behind the lass was opened wide, and the Princess Indæll herself leaned out of it. Today she wore peach silk, and it reminded the lass of a similar dress she had worn in the palace of ice. It made her shiver. Of course, she had not had an enormous, greenish gray bosom to pour into the bodice.
“It’s apple jelly, Your Highness,” the lass said when she could breathe. She bent over and picked up the little jar before any more could spill out. Taking great care, every movement seeming weighted with importance, she replaced the golden stopper and held up the jar so that the troll princess could see it.
A pointed purple tongue darted out of the princess’s wide mouth, and she licked her heavily made-up lips. “Did you . . . make . . . that yourself?”
“I helped the aged woman who did,” the lass replied. “I peeled apples, and she put them in the pot with the spices.”
“Ah!” Another lick. “And the jar?”
“I do not know where it came from.”
A shadow passed over the troll’s face. “A pity. But still.” She reached out one hand. Her fingers were twice as long as the lass’s and her pointed nails were gilded. “Give it to me.”
“Very well, Your Highness,” the lass said, but she made no move to hand the jar over. She had just had a sudden insight into the trollish character: they were jealous! They were jealous of humans, who could make things, when apparently they could not. The clothing, the dancing from the night before . . . the lass now saw them for poor attempts to copy human society.
Indæll grew impatient. “Give it to me now!”
The lass feigned surprise. “But, Your Highness, I was waiting for your offer.”
“My offer?”
“In the human world, no one ever gives another person something for free! We pay each other, with gold or goods or . . . other things.”
“Hmm.” The princess was plainly intrigued. At the same time, though, her long fingers flexed on the windowsill, making dents in the gold surface, as though she yearned to simply reach out and grab the jar. “Very well. What do you want?”
“I want to visit the human prince,” the lass said promptly.
Indæll’s eyes narrowed. Her wide, thick-lipped mouth drew down. “You!” She didn’t bother to speak Norsk anymore: it seemed that she knew of the lass’s gift. “You are that human wench! The one who tried to take my dear love away!”
This gave the lass pause, but she decided it was foolish to remind the princess that it was she who decreed that the lass live in the ice palace for a year. And Tova before that, and the mosters and countless others before that. “Er, yes, that was me.”
A sudden smile stretched Princess Indæll’s lips. “Of course you may spend the night in my dear prince’s chambers,” she purred. “Come to the front doors at sunset.” And she held out one hand for the jar of jelly.
Her heart in her throat, the lass held the jar out of reach. “How do I know you will keep your end of the bargain?”
The princess’s eyes flashed red. “Trolls always keep their bargains,” she said in a tight voice.
Something in the princess’s greenish gray face and bulging eyes told the lass that this was the truth. The girl placed the gleaming jar in the hands of the troll princess. “I shall be at the front doors at sunset,” she said.
Princess Indæll didn’t say anything. The jar clutched in one hand, she used the other to pull the windows shut. Heart racing, the lass walked back to her snow cave with Rollo. There was no point in lingering under the princess’s windows now; they would only risk aggravating her.
A few minutes before sunset the lass could wait no longer. For the past hours she had been poring over the symbols in her troll dictionary, in case she saw any carvings inside that would help. But now that the sun was getting lower, she couldn’t concentrate. She hurried to the front doors and knocked. The guard-troll from the night before, Skarp-Heðin, came out of his niche.
“Traded your carding combs, did you?”
“A jar of apple jelly,” she said. “Now the princess says I’m to be let in. Please?”
“I’m not to let you in until she comes,” he said. “You’re sure that you want this? There’s still time to run.”
“Why would I want to run?” The lass was almost giddy at the prospect of seeing the prince again, and the troll’s question made no sense to her. “I’m so close!”
“Not as close as you think” came the reply. Skarp-Heðin leaned down, as though to confide another secret to her. He opened his mouth just as the golden doors opened as well. He straightened and turned to bow.
Dressed all in rich purple with silver lace and bead-work, the troll princess stood there smiling. “Hello, little human,” she said. “I shall lead you to my betrothed’s room now. Of course, he will not be there for some hours. We are having a ball to celebrate our marriage.”
“But—”
“He will come back to them some time between midnight and dawn, I assure you. Of course, at dawn you must leave.”
“Very well.” The lass thought of the spindle and carding combs in the pack on her back, and the three nights left. She would find a way to get him free. Somehow.
The lass followed the princess through long hallways of gold, richly carpeted and hung with silk. There were vases of fine Oriental work, statues of marble, and beautiful paintings. There were also little pedestals displaying butter churns and cheese graters. A complete set of cooking pots hung from the ceiling of one anteroom they passed through.
A door opened as they went by and a faun in livery stepped out. Behind him, the lass could see a large loom with a half-finished tapestry still strung on it. The faun backed against the wall and bowed deeply until they passed. Seeing him gave the lass a surge of hope, but it was not Erasmus.
“Come along, come along,” Indæll said, and clicked her long fingernails at the lass, making the girl shudder.
They stopped in front of a door made of silver and set with pearls. The princess threw it open and gestured for the lass to enter. Timid, she and Rollo stepped into the room. The door slammed shut behind them.
“You will stay in this room until dawn, and then I will fetch you,” Princess Indæll called through the door.
“I don’t like her,” Rollo said when the princess’s footsteps had faded away.
The lass just snorted, taking off her parka and outer boots. Her Highness, the Princess Indæll, was ugly, overdressed, and cruel. “She’s a troll.”
Together they explored the prince’s chambers. They were in a large sitting room, richly furnished. Beyond, they found a bedchamber and a washroom. It was much like her apartments at the palace of ice, though here everything was made of gold and inlaid with jewels. There were books on a footstool near the fireplace, in Norsk and Tysk,
and a game of chess was under way on a small table by the windows. In the bedchamber, the lass found a single dark hair on one of the pillows. She wound the hair around the top button of her vest, thinking of how she had saved Tova’s hair the same way.
This sobered her even more than the situation already had. She settled in an armchair in the sitting room with Rollo at her feet. She tried to read one of the books from the footstool, and he dozed lightly. She could tell it was only lightly, because his ears moved to follow the sound of any footsteps in the corridor, no matter how faint.
The gold clock on the mantel was chiming two o’clock when the silver door opened. The lass had been nodding over her book despite her nerves, and now the sound startled her awake. She and Rollo were on their feet in an instant, the book slithering down her skirts to the floor.
A centaur entered the room. Thrown across the horse part of his body was the prince. He was facedown, his arms hanging down one side and his legs on the other.
“Is he dead?” The lass clutched at the front of her vest. Her knees were shaking and she felt her lower lip tremble.
The centaur gave her a strange look, equal parts pity and worry. “No, he’s just . . . asleep.” He paced through the sitting room and into the bedchamber. The lass and Rollo followed. With a small buck and a roll, the centaur flipped the prince off his back and onto the bed. “My lady,” he murmured, bowing. He left.
The lass approached the bed on quiet feet. Rollo stayed by the door to give her privacy. With a shaking hand, she reached out and took hold of the prince’s shoulder.
“Wake up . . . Your Highness,” she said softly.
He didn’t stir.
She shook his shoulder, and said, louder this time, “Wake up, my isbjørn!”