“Aye,” the troll agreed. He had only one good eye; the other was covered in a patch that looked like a whole rabbit skin. “Each shall request and grant one boon. She must wash the shirt. Without magic.”
“And if she doesn’t, the marriage is void?” The prince’s voice was blank, as though it didn’t matter to him one way or the other.
“Aye.”
“Thank you, Lord Chamberlain.”
“I think I might faint,” Tova whispered without moving her lips.
“You might?” was the lass’s tense reply.
Tossing her head, Princess Indæll strode over to the washtub. A snap of her fingers, and a chair was brought to raise the tub up for her convenience. From the basket she pulled the nightshirt and a bar of soap and dipped them both in the washtub with clumsy hands. Seeing the fearful look on the troll princess’s face, the lass could almost feel sympathy for her.
Almost, but not quite. She thought of Hans Peter and Asher, and all the others who had gone before. She thought of Erasmus, Fiona, and Mrs. Grey, swept away in the night. She remembered the three mosters and the endless cold that the trolls had brought to her homeland. Clutching Tova’s hand—Tova, who must remain behind while Asher escaped—the lass leaned forward to watch.
The stain on the white shirt did not wash away. Instead it turned black and began to spread across the linen. The harder the princess scrubbed, the darker and larger the stain grew. The princess’s face turned an ugly puce color that rivaled her rouge. Some of her curls straggled down from her coiffure and she tossed them angrily over one shoulder. The rings on her fingers snagged the soft fabric, so she ripped them off and threw them aside.
Rollo bent down and picked up two in his mouth, pressing them into the lass’s free hand. The lass looked over and saw the centaur putting several in the pocket of his tunic. He gave a ghost of a smile when he saw her watching.
Princess Indæll threw back her head and howled. As she did, her crown fell off her head, taking her hair with it. The red curls were nothing but a wig, and underneath, her scalp was sparsely stubbled with coarse gray hairs. The lass couldn’t suppress a gasp of surprise, loud enough that the princess looked up at her.
“You!” She pointed one long, dripping finger at the lass. “This is your fault, I know it! You horrible thing, why did you have to come here? You’ve ruined everything!” She lunged at the lass.
Rollo leaped in front of his mistress, hackles raised and teeth bared. Tova pulled a small knife from her own belt and took a step forward. The lass, for her part, stood her ground, clenching her fists and raising her chin.
“How is it my fault that you cannot perform a simple womanly task?”
With a shriek, the princess reached out her clawed hands for the lass. Rollo snarled and snapped at Indæll, catching a fold of her skirt in his fangs and tearing it free.
“Daughter, control yourself!” The queen’s voice was a whipcrack. “There is no need for all this unpleasantness.” She put a soothing arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “The humans will be dealt with in good time, each in their own way.” She bestowed an oily smile on Asher, and then a more menacing one on both the lass and Tova. “But for now, let us try again.”
Both mother and daughter plunged their hands into the soapy water. Each grabbed half of the blackened shirt and scrubbed it as hard as they could against the washboard. Within seconds the nightshirt was black as pitch all over. The queen scrubbed so hard that she knocked her own wig askew, revealing bristling white hair. Her nose ran with the effort, dripping into the wash water and befouling it further.
“Stop!” The prince raised his hands. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face that you cannot do even this one simple task,” he told Indæll. “By the laws of your own people, this marriage is invalid. I will have no wife but the one who can clean this shirt for me.” Over the roars and howls of the troll court, he turned and beckoned to the lass. “Why don’t you try?”
The lass gulped. This had not been part of their arrangement. The shirt looked ruined to her eyes, and she wondered if this was the prince’s way of getting rid of any obligation to her as well.
Tova nudged her, and she stumbled forward. Princess Indæll was threatening to make a pair of boots out of the prince, and a belt out of what would be left of the lass when she got through with her. The queen glared at the lass and growled, but then her sickening smile returned. She nodded agreement, clearly certain that the lass would not be able to undo the damage the trolls had done to the shirt.
“Please bring me fresh water and more soap,” the lass asked the centaur.
He trotted away and came back a moment later, smiling broadly. Another chair was brought, and the washtub settled on it. The lass asked Tova for her belt knife, then plucked the stained nightshirt out of the foul water and laid it gently in the clean. Locating the original spot of hardened tallow on the shoulder, she used the knife to carefully scrape it away, as Jorunn had taught her. She handed back the knife, rubbed the soap across the shirt, and then dunked it in the water. Drawing it up against the board, she scrubbed it with the firm but gentle pressure that she had learned as a child, and then dunked it again to rinse.
Through the dingy, foamy water, the lass could see that the shirt was growing whiter. And so could Princess Indæll.
“He’s mine,” the troll princess screamed, and pointed a knobby finger at the shirt. There was a crash of thunder as the power Indæll directed at the shirt, in defiance of her promise, backfired and struck her in the face.
The troll princess crumpled to the ground, dead.
“No!” the queen screeched and lunged at the lass, who held up the now-snow-white shirt like a shield. When the queen’s hands tore at the shirt, she screamed even louder. “It burns!” She sank to the floor, clutching her daughter’s twisted body in her burned hands and howling, quite mad.
“My daughter, my beautiful daughter,” the troll queen moaned. Her face was so pale that the lass could see the blood pulsing in it. “My daughter, my daughter.” A long string of green drool trailed from her chin.
Nauseous with horror, the lass had to cover her ears. The trolls howled and stamped their feet and rushed the dais. Someone crouched beside the lass and wrapped his arms around her: Asher. Then she felt Rollo pressing against her, and another pair of arms joined the embrace.
“What will we do?” Tova whispered.
“Stay still,” Asher said in reply. “Let’s try to slip away as soon as they—”
“Kill the humans!” shouted one troll, and the others began to take up the cry. “Kill them, kill the humans!”
They all let go of one another and jumped to their feet. Rollo bared his teeth, and both Tova and the prince produced knives now. The lass had nothing but her fists, and she slipped the princess’s rings onto two fingers to make her punch more painful, a trick learned from Askel.
“No!” The one-eyed chamberlain pushed his way onto the dais. “It isn’t because of the humans that we have come to this; it is our own vanity!” He glared around the room with his one eye. “The fine clothes! The jewels! Keeping servants and living in palaces! And even worse: taking human consorts! For three thousand years our queen has reigned in the far north, and now because of her daughter’s perverted tastes she has lost her reason!”
The younger trolls took exception to this, and attacked the chamberlain. His followers, dressed in moss and skins as he was, defended him. Not that he needed defending: the lass saw him reach out and rip the head off a young troll bravo in lavender silk without any sign of strain. Some of the trolls in human clothes ripped off their coats and gowns and joined the chamberlain, until the whole ballroom was a mass of howling, biting, snarling, wrestling trolls.
“Come on!” Asher had to shout to be heard over the din.
Ducking down, he took the lass by one arm and Tova by the other, hurrying them to one of the long windows. The centaur was already there. Turning, he kicked out with his hindquarters and shattered the
panes of glass, since the latch was at troll height and none of them could have reached it.
They climbed through, the centaur waiting until Rollo had leaped out after the three humans to jump himself. Other servants were fleeing as well: a steady stream of blue-clad fauns, centaurs, pixies, and other creatures were making their way out of the golden palace and toward the southern shore of the icy island.
“What will we do about the ribbons?” The lass’s voice came in a gasp as they ran over the sharp hillocks of packed snow.
“The power is weakening,” the centaur explained. “I felt it when the queen went mad.”
With a scream, Tova collapsed. She had tripped on a protruding spur of ice. The lass knelt beside her and raised Tova’s skirt. There was a long gash in her stocking, and her shin was raw and bloody beneath it.
“And I think my ankle’s sprained,” Tova said. Then she gave a gasp and her face darkened with blood. She clawed at the ribbon around her neck.
“Cut it off!” the lass shrieked to Asher, horrified. All around them, the servants were falling to the ground, choking. The centaur went to his knees, coughing.
“It will be better to die,” he gasped.
Asher drew his belt knife and cautiously slit the ribbon around Tova’s neck. Instantly, she sat up, breathing freely. She tossed the thing aside and shouted for joy.
The lass snatched Tova’s knife and freed the centaur, then the faun who lay nearby. He in turn freed others, until all the servants were once more running for the shore, exulting.
Behind them, the mayhem of the troll palace increased. Tova shook her head. “Just leave me,” she said. “I can make my way later.”
“I can carry you,” the centaur said. He reached down and grabbed her, twisting to seat her on his broad horse back. “We need to get clear before the rest of the queen’s magic fades.”
“Why, what will happen?” the lass asked.
It was Asher who answered her. “The palace was made by magic. So was this island. As the queen’s magic fades . . .”
He didn’t need to finish. Hand in hand, the lass and her prince ran over the slick, sharp hills and hollows. Rollo was right beside them, with the centaur and Tova keeping pace.
“Ouch!” Now it was the lass’s turn to stop and cry out in pain. But it wasn’t her legs, it was her fingers. The princess’s rings were white hot. Before she could take them off the gold melted and trickled between her fingers and the gems turned to dust. There were red burns in the shape of the rings on her fingers, but they were not severe. Asher scraped up some snow to soothe the burns. The lass clutched it in her fists as they continued to run.
They did not look back until they reached the shore. By that time, the trolls’ shouts had turned to cries of pain and fear. The gold palace was melting just as the lass’s rings had. Turning red and then white with heat in the light of the pale northern sun, the magnificent palace slumped and ran like tallow.
On the shore, standing in a cluster of blue-liveried servants with her eldest brother’s true love and her own true love on either side of her, the lass watched the fall of the great troll kingdom. When it was over, all she could think was that she was cold, and there was no way for them to get home. Already, long cracks were appearing in the island: it would not last another day.
A young male faun approached the lass with a shy smile. He swung her unwieldy pack from his own back, and offered it to her. Tied to the top was Hans Peter’s parka.
“I found this when I was cleaning the prince’s chambers this morning, my lady,” he said in a soft voice.
“Oh, thank you!” The lass started to put it on, then stopped. “But really, it’s yours if it’s anyone’s,” she said to Tova, offering her the parka.
“And you can wear mine,” Asher said. Another faun had come up to them, holding up a brilliantly white parka with red bands of troll embroidery on it. “I doubt that it will turn you into a bear.”
“Perhaps, though, if you wouldn’t mind,” the lass said, hesitant.
“Yes?” He took her hand.
“Perhaps you should put it on and carry us away from here.”
The prince’s jaw tightened at the idea, but finally he nodded. He pulled on the parka, then the boots that another servant—a brownie—brought him.
Nothing happened.
“The spell is broken,” he said. He took off the parka and wrapped it tenderly around the lass. “We’ll have to find another way. If we swim to the nearest ice floe, then warm ourselves as much as possible—”
“You’ll all freeze to death,” said a voice that came swirling around them.
“North wind!” The lass clapped her hands and then winced as the clapping hurt her burns. “You came back!”
He took on his human form, standing before them white and silver and proud. “I felt the troll queen’s hold loosen, and had to come and see what had happened.” He smiled. “Truth be known: I wasn’t far off. I hoped that you would succeed in defeating her.”
“And she did,” Asher said, smiling at the lass with pride.
“I can carry you south,” the north wind said. “Not all of you, though.”
Frowning, the lass looked at the creatures assembled around them. They all stared back, faces screwed up with various emotions, from hope to dismay to grim resignation. She shook her head.
“How many of us could you take at a time? I won’t go if even one of these poor creatures has to stay.”
“I agree,” Asher said.
“And I,” said Tova.
The north wind whistled thoughtfully. Tendrils of air curled around the servants, lifting a few of them off the ground as if to test their weight. Then he surveyed the ice floes floating in the frigid water off the shore.
“I’ll lift you all onto the ice floes and blow you south. I don’t know how long it will take, but I’m sure I can get you to civilized lands. You’re on your own from there, unless one of my brothers will carry you farther.”
“Thank you!”
A great gust of frigid air picked up the lass, her prince, Tova, Rollo, and the centaur. Some five others that were near them shrieked as they were gathered up as well. Without another word, the north wind commenced dropping them onto ice rafts for the long journey away from the island of ice that lay east of the sun and west of the moon.
EPILOGUE
Princess of the Palace of Golden Stone
By the time the lass reached her old home in the forests and valleys of the North, the troll queen’s winter had broken. Everywhere there was green; flowers bloomed beneath the fir trees and birds sang in their branches. Their companions had dwindled, going off to their own homes until only the lass, Rollo, Tova, and Asher remained. As they came around the side of the mountain where once Askel and the villagers had hunted the white reindeer, Tova stopped.
“I can’t,” she said. Her face was white and still. She put her hands up to her cheeks. “I can’t.”
The lass went to her and put her arms around the other woman. “Of course you can!”
“It’s been too long. For the past ten years, I’ve lived among trolls and talking bears and centaurs and—”
“And what wonderful stories you shall have to tell your children,” the lass said, interrupting her increasingly hysterical rant.
“He won’t want me,” Tova wailed. “Look at me!”
They looked. Even Rollo stopped chasing butterflies to study her. Her cheeks were rosy as ever, albeit a bit chapped from the winds. Her hair was coming loose from its braid, and the blue livery she wore was sadly tattered and stained.
Asher began to laugh. He held out his arms, displaying the rents and stains that marred his white wedding finery. He gestured at the lass, who looked just as bad. Rollo shook himself, and dust and fir needles flew out of his coat.
“We’re all a sorry sight,” Asher said. “There’s nothing we can do about it.”
“That’s not true,” the lass said. She was looking down the side of the mountain, where s
he could see a large black boulder and a fast-flowing stream.
“What is it?”
“You stay here, and don’t you dare look,” she said to Asher. Then, taking Tova by the hand, the lass led her to the stream. “In my pack I have soap and a comb. And in your pack, there are two beautiful bunader.”
While Asher and Rollo tidied themselves as best they could, the two young women laughed and splashed and washed off the dirt of travel in the cold stream. They combed and braided each other’s hair, and then the lass put on Tova’s old everyday clothes, while Tova dressed herself in the wedding bunad.
“Are you sure?” Tova’s voice was barely a whisper as they made their way back up the path to the prince. “Are you sure?”
The lass hugged her again. “Oh, yes. He’s been waiting for you.”
They rejoined Asher and Rollo. Farther down the path they could see a lazy swirl of smoke that came from Jarl Oskarson’s cottage.
“But I don’t have a dowry,” Tova said. “All those years living in a palace of gold and I don’t have a coin to my name.”
“Do you really think that it will matter to Hans Peter?” The lass clucked her tongue. “But if it will reassure you . . .” From her bodice she pulled the string of puce satin pockets. It was so worn that the belt had frayed beyond repair when she took it off to wash. “Not all of the troll’s jewels were illusion.”
Taking one of Tova’s hands, she poured out a king’s ransom in rubies. “Do you hear that whistling? That’s Hans Peter, up on the roof mending the shingles.” She took Tova’s other hand and filled it with pearls. “Take your dowry, and go.”
Tova paused only a moment. Then she pecked the lass on the cheek and raced down the path. The others watched from the top of a small rise as she ran into the clearing in front of the cottage.
Up on the roof, Hans Peter had stopped to peer down at the woman who had just come barreling into the yard. His white hair gleamed in the sun, and his face was ruddy with work.