East (37 page)

I turned to speak to her, but she was gone, returned to her sleigh.

They fled, as fast as they could, from the palace that lay east of the sun and west of the moon....

O
NCE WE WERE OUT
of Niflheim, I thought everything would be all right. But I was wrong.

There was no Malmo to guide us. And spring had come. Which didn't mean green grass and flowers and birdcall, as it did in Njord. It meant meltwater and thin ice and the surface under our sleighs breaking apart.

That didn't happen right away, though, and I was able to lead us back to the frozen sea Malmo and I had crossed. At the edge of the sea was the ice forest in all its deadly beauty, the ice forest where I had faced the other white bear. The cracks in the surface of the ice I had seen before were larger and wider, and the groaning, creaking sounds were louder and more frequent. The sleighs were too heavy and we had to abandon them. The reindeer were eager to go their own way when we set them loose but three, including Vaettur, stayed with us.

As we made our way on foot through the maze of ice towers, fissures would narrow and widen unexpectedly, inches from our feet. It became a nightmarish dance as we darted and swerved and leaped to avoid the freezing water below. No one fell in, but by the time we got through the ice forest, we were all exhausted and wrung out. We encountered no white bears.

Crossing the flat expanse of frozen sea, I tried to remember what Malmo had taught me about melting—that you should pay attention to the puddles on the surface of the ice. Light blue water meant the underlying ice was thick enough to walk on; dark blue meant it was too thin. There were many dark blue pools of water.

But the man who had been a white bear knew how to live in a frozen world, in all its seasons, and he helped us to survive. He showed us how to walk like a white bear—legs spread out wide, sliding our feet quickly, never stopping.

When we reached the other side of the sea, we again came upon ice that was breaking apart. But the white bear led us across the ice floes and we made it safely to shore.

We had been traveling on land for a few days when an ice fog settled around us. At first it was beautiful. The sun was shining, and the sunlight reflected by the ice crystals created a shimmering golden curtain that enfolded us in its brilliance. It reminded me of the golden dress I had made in the castle in the mountain. But then the sun disappeared under clouds, and the golden curtain faded into a dense white fog. We could not see an inch in front of our faces.

We huddled together, thinking to wait it out, but the time stretched on and some grew restless. So we set out, moving slowly, feeling our way forward. This went on for what seemed days, until I thought I would go mad.

The fog finally lifted, but the sky was still overcast. I had no idea what direction we were heading. One of the women we had taken out of Niflheim slipped and fell, and she did not get up. We did all we could for her, but by the next morning she was dead. We slid her corpse into an ice crevasse and watched silently as it disappeared from sight. Then we resumed our journey, though there was still no sun to guide us. I began to picture us wandering endlessly through a frozen landscape, dying off one by one. The white bear came up beside me.

"We are lost," he said matter-of-factly.

"Yes," I replied.

"I wish I still had the senses of a white bear," he said. "Then I could lead us."

I nodded dully. Suddenly I remembered Thor's
leidarstein.
I fumbled in my pack and found the dull gray stone. Scooping up some meltwater in a cup, I rubbed one end of a needle with the
leidarstein
and floated it in the water. Lazily the needle swung back and forth, finally stopping.

"South," I said, pointing. The white bear nodded, relief in his eyes.

We had been heading due west, so we changed course. Knowing the direction helped, but I had no idea how far off course we had gotten. The slank was long gone and we were all starved and exhausted. There were several among us who were near death, and I didn't know how much longer any of us could keep going.

But we kept struggling on, and then one afternoon, as we crested an icy peak, I looked down and there was the impossible, unforgettable sight of Tatke Fjord. And anchored at the end of it was a ship.

I
SHALL NEVER FORGET
as long as I live the sight of those huddled figures silhouetted against the brilliant blue sky. One of the sailors spotted them at the top of an icy cliff and called out to us belowdecks. We had just dropped anchor not an hour earlier and were organizing an expedition to go overland in search of Rose.

And there she was.

A party of us went ahead to meet her group as they descended. There looked to be about twenty, as well as three white reindeer, and even at a distance I could see that most of the people were barely able to set one foot in front of the other.

When I got to her I took Rose in my arms and did not want to let go. But then Father came up to us and I finally unloosed my grasp. Tears in his eyes, Father enfolded Rose, saying her name over and over.

W
HEN
R
OSE
introduced me to her father and brother, she stumbled over the words, for she had no name to use. And I did not remind her that I had already met them before, under very different circumstances.

The ship was a fine one, and I saw how happy Rose's father and brother were to be reunited with her. I did not want to remember that it was I who had taken her away from them.

But it felt good to be warm again; I can't remember the last time I had been truly warm. And the food—good human food that I ate with human fingers and lips and teeth.

I should have been relieved that the journey was done, but I was not. For I did not know what was to become of me.

I have nothing to offer her. I do not even have a name.

T
HE STORY THAT
R
OSE
told was extraordinary. If I had not known Rose and known that she does not lie, I simply would not have believed her. Trolls, "softskins," shattering ice palaces, and something called
kentta murha.
Truly the stuff of nightmares.

The man who used to be a white bear was quiet and pale, and though clearly he was happy to be freed of his long imprisonment, there was still a lost look about him, as if he was not sure where he fit. He and Rose were awkward with each other, though I could tell there was much feeling between them.

On our way south we stopped at the village of Neyak. Malmo and a delegation of her people were waiting for us on the shore. It had been Malmo who had told us where to seek Rose.

We had found Malmo—or rather she had found us—as we were making our way north along die coast of Gronland. She and several of her people came out in small two-person boats and gestured at us until we understood that we were to follow them. When we had dropped anchor and gone ashore, Malmo went directly up to Father and told him where to look for Rose.

I had no idea how Malmo knew we had come in search of Rose, or how she knew where to find her, but it did not occur to me to doubt her. She gave us "maps," carved out of walrus tusks, of the coastline. (Father later remarked that they were extraordinarily accurate, some of the best mapping work he had ever seen.) Malmo also indicated we should turn inland at something called Tatke Fjord. Which is where we found Rose.

A
FTER ARRIVING IN
N
EYAK
and being greeted by Malmo, I went to look for Thor. I found him working on his ship. He was assisted by two friendly young Inuit men, to whom he had taught all his favorite drinking songs.

An older handsome Inuit woman brought a substantial meal at midday, which they shared with me, and I thought I detected a shy sort of understanding between Thor and the woman.

He told me quite frankly that after I had left, he drank up every drop of ale remaining on the broken-down
knorr,
but that he hadn't had anything stronger than reindeer milk since. Initially he got quite sick, he said, his body not being used to an ale-free diet, but the people who had become his friends—especially the handsome woman, whose name was Rekko—had taken him in and seen him through the sickness.

"I've gotten used to it here," he said gruffly. "Think I'll stick around. And once I get the
knorr
fixed up, I might even start a small trading business, between Grönland and Iseland. Should keep me out of trouble. For a while anyway," he added with a grin.

I told Thor about Gest, that he had survived the storm (it was information from Gest that had led Neddy and Father to Grönland), and Thor was amazed.

"By Odin, I'd never have thought it possible! Well, that'll be my first voyage, then. Find the old scoundrel and see if he fancies going into business together."

I smiled.

I brought the white bear to meet Thor, and for some reason they took to each other right away. Maybe because both men had been lost for so long, Thor understood him better than any of us. The white bear even pitched in to help fix Thor's ship. He had never done work of that kind before, but he was strong and a quick learner, and it was clear he was glad of something to do.

It was an odd time, our short stay in Neyak. Father, Neddy, Soren, and I were preoccupied with figuring out what to do about the people we had taken away from Niflheim. There were seventeen survivors, and they were from all over the world. The two Njorden were the simplest to sort out, because they could tell us exactly where they had lived. And the same was true of the three from Fransk. But the others were more complicated. Malmo helped with the different languages, and the maps Father had with him were useful as well, but there were two whom we simply could not figure out. One was the young woman who had been on the sleigh with me when I had first gone to the ice palace, and the other was an older woman with flame-colored hair. These two, we decided, would simply come home with us (and they both were quite pleased with the arrangement), while we would make every effort to return the rest to their original homes.

Soren suggested that once we got to Suroy, the first big port in our southward journey, it wouldn't be too difficult to find each a passage to his or her home. And he was willing to pay all expenses. I saw then just how immensely generous Soren was, and I understood how lucky our family had been to meet up with him.

I did not know how those returning home would explain their disappearance. Who would believe the true story? Even the crew of Soren's ship—those who had seen us emerge from Tatke Fjord, a motley group in animal-skin coats speaking a wide array of languages and accompanied by some rather extraordinary reindeer—even they had difficulty believing our tale.

At least, I thought, those seventeen people would most likely have homes of some kind to return to. And unlike the white bear, they knew their names.

I
HAD MADE UP
my mind. I would go away.

In Suroy we were able to find passage for all but four of the people who had been enslaved. Three were from Fransk, and the fourth from a small inland country that had no coastal port. The man called Soren had been exceedingly generous. He reminded me of a good and gentle shepherd leading a herd of stray lambs back to their folds. The three from Fransk he decided to take home himself in the ship called
Rose,
traveling directly to La Rochelle before returning to Njord. And the one who lived inland, Soren supplied with provisions and enough gold pieces to make a good start toward his destination. I was sure he would do the same for me, but I could not ask without giving away my plans. And I did not want anyone to know I meant to go. Especially Rose.

I knew that if I was to look into those purple eyes, I would not be able to leave her.

In my days of wandering the world as a white bear, I observed much about the ways of men and women—and I knew that for me to start a life on unequal footing with Rose was to court disaster.

I must at least know my name.

Fransk was where I would begin my search. The one thing I knew about myself was that I had been a prince. The pale queen had told me one day when I said to her that I felt inadequate to rule the land of Huldre. "But you have royal blood," she said. "You were a prince in the green lands."

A prince in Fransk. More than a hundred years ago.

But I thought I'd be able to find someone in Fransk who knew of a long-ago king with a son who had "died" prematurely. I had been having more frequent flashes of memory the farther south we traveled, and I thought it was even possible that I might recognize the place where I had grown up.

I had no intention of trying to reclaim a royal title. I would have been thought a raving lunatic if I even attempted to convince anyone I was Prince So-and-So of the previous century, not to mention being ushered off to the nearest madhouse. Fortunately, my brush with potential kingship in Huldre had left me thoroughly disinterested in royalty of any kind. No, whatever form my life took, I wanted it to be a simple one.

I had decided to go to the castle in the mountain, though it seemed unlikely the castle would still be there. It was possible the Troll Queen had not taken me too far from where I had originally lived. Whether that was true or not, I thought it a good place to start.

My plan was to slip off the ship after it docked in La Rochelle. I would depart well before dawn and make a good start before anyone was awake. I wanted to leave a note for Rose, but when it came time I found myself unable to. What could I say? "Dear Rose, I go to find my name. Hope to return in a year or two. Yours truly, the man who was once a white bear."

No, I decided, it was better just to go. After all, she might be relieved.

I did not sleep well that night and thus had no problem rising before dawn. I gathered the few belongings I had decided to take with me—including my flauto—made my way through the silent ship, and descended the gangplank.