Did he manipulate events as he claimed? Mostly, Ragnar figured not, but it never hurt to take out insurance. Because there were many times when William knew things he could not know. Sometimes she would be going to catch the train and he would tell her that she would miss it, so he would wait for her in their secret place. And the train mysteriously would not come. Other times he would tell her it was going to rain when she was dressed lightly and, sure enough, by the end of the day, it would be pelting down.
Coincidence? Maybe. Ragnar did not believe she was a princess in exile. Not really. Though she did feel as if she had been born for more than this bit of barren land. One part of her looked at her father when he was drunk with his mouth open, a thin ribbon of drool falling from his lips, and knew she had been born of nobler blood. Sometimes when she was sitting in class, knowing the answers, but never speaking out because being too smart could bring you into the Public Eye even more than being too dumb, a little voice would whisper to her that she was special and destined for greatness, just as William said.
Sometimes when she and William sat at the very end of the land watching the sun fall in a haze of gold into the ocean, he would ask her if she felt the magic, and she would nod, lifting her chin and holding back her shoulders as regally as a princess, proud even in exile. Greedy would shiver on her lap, as if for a moment remembering his life as a mighty hawk hunter, bane of mice and small birds and even of cats.
It had been through such a sunset of molten gold that Torvald came to them. The day was uncommonly still and a sea-mist was shot with bloody gold and red lights as the sun fell. Ragnar saw something shimmer and all at once could see a young man with golden hair flying in the wind, and a proud handsome face, coming on his boat out of the mist, and her lips had parted in breathless wonder. Then she heard the whining stutter of the speedboat engine and realised he was coming across the water to Cheetham Point from the Ridhurst Grammar School jetty.
She felt foolish the way she always did when she entered a little too deeply into William’s world of myth and magic. Just the same, sitting in the back of the boat with one hand lightly on the tiller, long pale hair about his face, there was no denying he looked marvellous. She wished she could see what colour his eyes were, for her daydreams, but of course he would turn back before he reached the Point because of the shallows.
Only he did not turn. For a moment she thought he had miraculously managed to sail over the sandbar even with the tide out, but then he had come suddenly to a grinding halt, beached until the tide rose again. After making some useless attempts to get the boat off the sandbar, he looked back, obviously concluding it was too far to swim. Then he turned to face the Point.
I will always see him that way, Ragnar thought. Him turning that first time to face them, so tall and handsome, the sky all gold and glorious behind him.
‘We must help him, Princess,’ William had announced.
Ragnar had been shocked, because one of the rules was that they should never seek out the Public Eye or any other eye. During the holidays when boat people came, they stayed away from the Point during the day, mostly within Goodhaven grounds. And they always stayed away from the rich spoiled Ridhurst students who would do anything for a dare, including tormenting a small boy.
‘He’s from Ridhurst,’ Ragnar hissed, remembering how William had shivered when he told her how a group of students had ridden around and around him in ever smaller circles on their roaring motorbikes.
‘He is one of us,’ William had announced, though he looked paler than usual.
Ragnar stared at him incredulously. ‘One of us?’
‘Aye, Princess. He is the golden-haired voyager from over the sea whom you are destined to wed. His coming is a sign that the way will open soon for us to return. We must save him because there will only be one chance for all of us to cross.’
‘William, he is not from over the sea. He came from Ridhurst . . .’
But he was running across the sand and shouting to the young man to wait and that they would help him. The handsome stranger waved back, and sat on the edge of the boat.
‘We’ll get the Longboat,’ William cried out over his shoulder.
The Longboat was a slim wooden boat to which its owner hitched his larger boat when he came to the Point each Christmas. It was bolted to a post outside the shed that housed his bigger boat, but William discovered that with a bit of wriggling you could get the chain off in spite of the lock. They often used the Longboat to fish or to go for short jaunts, but never in broad daylight.
‘William, stop, I . . . order you to stop!’ She only used her Royal prerogative to stop William from his most dangerous schemes, because it did not seem fair to take advantage of his illusions that way. But on this occasion he seemed not to hear her. He was wriggling the chain out from its bolt and dragging the boat towards the water, straining his skinny arms.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Ragnar muttered, then bent and helped him. The sooner they got this over with the better. They rowed out to the sandbar and up close Torvald was as handsome as he had been from the distance. His teeth were perfectly straight and white and his eyes as blue as the sweetest summer sky. He was a picture-book prince, which may have explained what happened next.
‘Hi,’ he said, smiling right into her eyes. ‘Thanks for the rescue. No one warned me about the sandbar.’
Ragnar had melted at the sound of his voice, deep and soft, with just a touch of an accent. But she managed to say, ‘It wasn’t me . . . I mean, William got the boat.’
‘I meant thanks to you both. William, is it?’ He held his hand out but William bowed.
‘I am William and I am the pledged protector of Princess Ragnar in her exile.’
Ragnar could have died. Her face felt as if it had third-degree burns.
‘Really? Well, I am Torvald the Curious from over the seas,’ the stranger answered and bowed low to William and then to Ragnar. ‘I am pleased to make the acquaintance of the beauteous Princess Ragnar.’
William gave Ragnar an ‘I told you so’ look as Torvald the Curious stood up and smiled at them both.
‘Come aboard our humble craft, my Lord Torvald, and we will bear you to shore and give you what humble sustenance we can offer in this place of exile until the waters allow you to depart,’ William said.
Torvald’s smile deepened and without further ado, he gave their boat a push to free it from the sandbar, and climbed in. William rowed them back and Ragnar looked steadfastly towards the shore, refusing to look at Torvald, whom she could see staring at her out of the corner of her eye.
The humble sustenance turned out to be her leftover school lunch and a rather shrivelled looking trio of apples that was William’s offering. Torvald lowered himself to sit in the sand, stretching his long legs out in front of him, and when William solemnly offered him their picnic, he smiled a little and chose one of the apples.
‘It looks as if you were expecting me. And this . . .’ He held up the apple. ‘This seems appropriate, somehow.’
‘Truly,’ William agreed. ‘Eve offered the apple of knowledge to Adam, and Aphrodite offered an apple to Paris.’
‘Ah, but he should have taken the apple from the Goddess of Wisdom, shouldn’t he?’
‘Perhaps,’ William said. ‘But some things are cast in the stars and love is one of them. It will have its way, no matter what tragedy it calls in its wake.’
Torvald’s smile faded properly for the first time then. Perhaps that was the moment he realised this was no game to William. His eyes shifted to Ragnar questioningly, and she forced herself to meet his gaze with no expression, because to show what she felt would be to betray William, and to act as if she believed what William believed would be to betray herself. Also if she started talking, this golden-haired young man would begin to ask questions.
Torvald’s expression of puzzlement grew more intense. ‘So . . . you are both in exile?’ he said at last.
‘Truly your name fits you,’ William sa
id.
Torvald looked confused until he remembered the name he had announced himself with. ‘I am afraid I am curious to the point of rudeness. My father said I will never make a politician unless I learn to tell lies sweetly.’
‘No,’ William said. ‘You will not be a politician.’
Torvald frowned at him. ‘You think not?’
William shook his head. ‘Politicians cannot afford to be curious. You will always be a seeker of the only true beauty which is truth.’
Torvald blinked, much as Ragnar thought she must have done the first time she encountered William the Sage. That, he told her, had been his role before he was sent to her. He had been a seer of things to come. A Merlin.
‘You are a strange boy,’ Torvald said. ‘Do you live here?’
Ragnar plunged in hurriedly. ‘No. We just came down for the day. We live over in Calway.’ That ought to put him off since it was a Housing Commission area.
‘That is a long way. Did you walk?’
‘We came around the beach.’ She pointed vaguely to the route she walked after catching the train from town on school days.
‘Past Ridhurst?’
She nodded. ‘You go there, don’t you?’ Better to turn the talk back on him. She found that a useful way of dealing with curiosity.
But he just nodded and said, ‘You are brother and sister?’
‘I am the servant and protector of Princess Ragnar,’ William said calmly.
Ragnar wanted to strangle him. ‘We’re friends,’ she said.
‘I have that honour also,’ William agreed.
Torvald looked from one of them to the other.
‘Your father is a politician?’ Ragnar asked, somewhat desperately.
‘He is a politican of sorts. A diplomat.’ His eyes crinkled deliciously into a smile again. ‘He lies for his country rather than for a political party.’ Now his eyes were on William and they were serious. ‘But why did you say I will not be a politician? It is what my father wishes and I am not averse to the idea. He sent me here so that I will make important connections for the future. The sons and daughters of many influential people come to Ridhurst but it seems to me they worry about cricket and parties and the right clothes more than important matters. But perhaps I misjudge them as trivial and shallow because I arrived only last week. When I know them better, things might be different.’
‘Maybe,’ Ragnar said, thinking of the young women in their pale uniforms lifting their brows at her high school uniform when she got off the bus at their stop. The trouble was it was the closest stop to home, and even then it took a good half hour to walk round the beach to Cheetham Point.
Somehow, she had managed to get him talking about his father the diplomat and his appointment to Australia. His father was in Canberra but he had decided to send Torvald to the highly recommended Ridhurst as a boarder, at least until his mother, a doctor, followed a year later.
Ragnar was relieved when William announced suddenly that they must go back out or the Ridhurst boat would float free of the sandbank without him.
The trip back was conducted in relative silence, but as Torvald climbed out of the boat, he smiled at them both. ‘I thank you again for saving me from sitting like a fool in the boat until now. No doubt that is what was intended by the students who suggested I might enjoy a boat ride across to Cheetham Point.’
‘It was our pleasure to help you thwart your tormentors, Lord Torvald. Farewell.’
‘Perhaps we will meet again?’ Torvald’s eyes shifted to Ragnar and she felt the blood surge in her cheeks.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Come on, William.’
‘As you will, my princess.’
Ragnar cringed.
She thought that would be the end of that, but Torvald proved true to his name. He waited on the path a number of days and even wandered around Calway in the hope of bumping into his two offbeat rescuers. She, having some inkling perhaps, had gone a roundabout way through the wetlands to avoid the walk by the school, but one afternoon came home to see Torvald and William deep in conversation in the dunes near the boathouses.
Her heart lurched in sick fear.
‘Princess Ragnar,’ Torvald said, getting to his feet.
Ragnar’s fright was swamped with rage at the thought he was mocking William.
‘What are you doing here?’ she snarled.
William looked worried. ‘It is well, Princess. Truly. He will bring you no harm. He is your . . .’
‘What do you want?’ Ragnar demanded, cutting off whatever William would have said for fear he would start talking about future weddings.
‘I am Torvald the Curious.’
Ragnar did not know what to say in the face of that, especially with William sitting there beside her looking stricken. She calmed herself because maybe he had not said anything to this Ridhurst student about where they lived. Though it must look queer for them to come down here again like this.
‘My father owns a boathouse and we were planning to camp out for the night, but it’s not allowed. I’m sorry if I snapped at you.’
‘William is right. I mean no harm to you, Princess Ragnar.’
‘Don’t call me that!’
‘Being noble-born, you may address the princess by her name if she is willing,’ William interpreted.
Ragnar sat down, speechless.
‘Then I shall call you Ragnar and you will call me Torvald, or Tor. I prefer the latter.’
‘Thor . . .’ William muttered.
Oh great, Ragnar thought. She glared at Torvald and asked William to leave them alone for a moment.
He rose at once, saying he would look for Thorn.
‘Thorn?’ Torvald asked.
‘A crippled seagull that William thinks is a reincarnated hawk. Just like he thinks I’m a princess and you’re some sort of lord,’ she said angrily. ‘What are you doing here sucking up to him and pretending to believe what he says? Are you going to write a paper for Ridhurst on the local feral kid?’
‘William is a very interesting boy. I think he can see into the future sometimes. It’s often the way with those society deems to be mad or simple. They see what most people do not. You are angry because you fear I will harm him, but I am not a student with a motorcycle and no brains or compassion.’ Torvald’s voice was mild and serious.
‘He told you about that?’
‘He told me many things, and he was right when he said I will not harm either of you.’
Ragnar was frightened again. ‘What did he tell you about me?’
‘Nothing that I would ever use to harm you. I swear it on the honour of Torvald the Curious.’
‘Don’t mock him!’
‘I do not mock. You mistake me. I have honour and I have sworn by it. And who is to say that William is not right?’
‘What?’
‘He says we are destined for one another, and that my soul was the soul of a god who loved you, and has followed you into exile.’
Ragnar’s face was burning. ‘You don’t love me.’
He did not answer for a long moment, but only let his eyes hold hers. Then he said, ‘How do you know I did not fall in love with you the first moment I saw you coming towards me in that little boat, your red hair gleaming like molten copper and your face as fair as any goddess’s? How do you know that the moment I saw you all the hungers and longings of my life were not answered?’
Oh, his words were as beautiful as his face, and they had gone through her defences like a hot knife through butter. And in those months that followed she had come to love him body and soul; she had come to believe that William saw a different reality and in it, she was truly a princess and Tor her destined love.
And then two nights past, she was on the train dozing, catching the late train home from school because she was rehearsing for a school play in which she was one of the King of Siam’s lesser wives. She woke out of a deep sleep to hear Tor’s beloved voice, and for a moment she revelled in the sweetness of it,
until she realised she was not dreaming and his words were anything but sweet.
‘I am telling you, Rosco, you or any of your friends mess this up for me and I will throttle you. I have a sweet set-up for myself and that red-haired peach is ripe and ready to drop into my hands. I gave her romance with a capital R and she ate it up along with her ferrety little friend.’
‘Should’ve run right over the gruesome little creep, cursing us, and two days later I broke my arm and Tristam fell over and slipped a disc.’
‘Yes, well, I think William the Wacko loves me enough to kill for me. He thinks I am some sort of king which means he has class, even if his brains are scrambled.’
‘Just so long as you’re not getting soft on them. If it wasn’t for you playing the girl out, I would’ve reported the soak of a father for living in the sheds weeks back.’
‘Idiot.’ Tor’s voice held a serrated edge of scorn Ragnar had never heard before. ‘I said the girl pleased me. I did not say I would introduce her to my parents or bring her to a school dance. She is a pig, but I prefer her in her shack where I can get at her – until I am bored. After that you may have what revenge you want on the boy.’
‘After you finish shacking up with the Pig Princess, eh? Ha ha ha.’
Torvald had laughed too. Hard cruel laughter from a Torvald she had been too blind to see. Ragnar sat there in her corner as the train pulled up, praying they would not spot her. She stayed on until the East Potter stop, and then walked the seven kilometres back along the highway to the Cheetham Point turnoff, driven by the viciousness of her self reproaches and taunting echoes of Torvald’s words.
‘I loved you the first moment I saw you . . .’
‘She is a pig but I prefer her in her shack where I can get at her . . .’
‘I will never harm you . . .’
‘I would not introduce her to my parents . . .’
She might not have told William, but he was waiting for her in a T-shirt that said ‘Shit Happens’. It does, she thought, savage and half-mad with despair. She let William encircle her with his thin hard arms, and told him everything. And when there were no more tears, and the ice had begun to form over her emotions, she looked up into his face and found his pale eyes curiously blank.