Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George [27]
“This is very odd,” the lass said after a minute.
“Yes. It is. Can we go now?”
She looked down at Rollo and was surprised to see that his hackles were raised and he was backing toward the door. “What’s wrong with you?”
“These smell like death. And more of that meat.”
“All right.” She sniffed the air, but all she smelled was furniture polish and wool. But knowing that Rollo’s nose was far keener, and his instinct for danger better than hers, she let him lead her out. Farther down the hall, they found the door that led to the right set of stairs and made their way to the entrance hall.
“Rats,” the lass said. She was still carrying the lamp she had taken from the upstairs hallway, but it was the only illumination in the entrance hall. All the torches had been doused for the night, and in the cavernous space, her lamp shed little light. By holding it right against a pillar and leaning in, she could read a few of the symbols at a time, but it soon gave her a headache, and she let Rollo take hold of the hem of her sweater and drag her up the stairs to their rooms.
Vanity overcame her at last, and she pulled one of the silk shifts out of a wardrobe to sleep in. It was far too long and kept slipping off her shoulders, but since no one would see her, she didn’t think it mattered.
She had just begun to dream about Hans Peter sitting atop a mountain of isbjørn pelts and weeping when a noise startled her awake. It was the sound of the bedchamber door opening.
“Hello? Erasmus?”
No one answered her. She reached for the candle by her bedside but couldn’t find it. She fumbled in the drawer of the bedside table, which she could have sworn held both matches and candles, but it was empty.
Soft footsteps approached the bed.
The lass pulled the covers up to her chin. “Rollo?” The wolf didn’t reply, and she remembered that he had gone out to sleep by the sitting room fire. Whoever this person was, they had passed by Rollo. She hoped that the wolf was all right.
The stranger pulled aside the bedclothes on the opposite side of the bed and got in. There was a sigh, the mattress shifted as the person settled in, and then nothing.
The lass was rigid with shock. It was too dark to even make out the outline of the person now lying beside her. “Hello? Who are you?”
No answer.
“Who are you?” She managed to say this in a louder voice.
The intruder made a grunting noise and then pulled the bedclothes up over its head. A minute later she heard a faint snore coming from under the bedclothes.
The lass wondered if the isbjørn had brought another human back to the palace. As company for her? Whatever the reason, she didn’t want to put up with it, she decided. She got out of bed and went to the door that led to the sitting room.
It was locked. Or stuck. The latch wouldn’t turn at all. She knocked on the door and called to Rollo, but he didn’t respond. She felt her way to the fireplace and pulled the bellpull, but there was no response. She went to the door of the washroom, thinking that she could pad the bathtub with towels and sleep there, but it wouldn’t open either. And in a room normally filled with candles and lamps, she could not seem to find one of them.
In the end, she dragged the topmost blanket off the bed and curled up on the divan by the fireplace. The fire had gone out, and the room was dark and chill. Despite the thoughts that whirled in her head, she fell asleep a little while later.
When she woke in the morning, it was to Erasmus setting her breakfast tray on the table beside the divan.
“There was someone in my room last night!” The lass looked indignantly at Erasmus. She noticed that there