Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George [38]
“I can’t. I’ve given my word!” She clung to the slick doorway. Rollo’s fear fueled her own and her knees turned to water. She thought she might be sick. This was a troll’s house.
“We were tricked! A promise given to a liar is no promise,” Rollo argued.
“But he didn’t lie. He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t; he’s trapped too! We have to help him!”
“Why? What is he to you?”
“Nothing . . . no! He’s my friend, and yours,” she said. “I won’t leave the isbjørn here to suffer under this enchantment. And if I can help him, I can help Hans Peter.” She felt a strange stirring in her breast, though, and suddenly knew that even if it weren’t for Hans Peter, she would not leave the isbjørn.
Rollo whined and pawed at the door of the wardrobe where his mistress kept her old clothes. “I don’t like this. I think we should go.”
The lass’s attention went to the wardrobe. Everything else faded away. The wardrobe. Her old clothes. The white reindeer’s words. Hans Peter’s coat.
“The troll language,” she blurted out.
Rollo stopped midwhine. “What?”
“The embroidery on Hans Peter’s coat is in the troll language,” she said, racing over to the wardrobe and ripping open the doors.
Pulling out the white parka, she sank to the floor with it. The bands of embroidery glared at her, the whorls and spikes at last taking on meaning before her eyes. The symbols here were more jagged, and more menacing, than those she had seen carved, and embroidery was harder to decipher than carving. She looked over her shoulder, certain that she was being watched, but there was only Rollo, whining and pacing.
The blue ribbons, embroidered with white, told a story about love, and loss, and a strange place “beyond the moon.” The red ribbons, also embroidered with white, told a similar story of love and loss, but this one was full of betrayal and anger. For the first time she noticed that the blue ribbons overlapped the red, obscuring some of the symbols, and that they seemed to have been embroidered by two very different hands. The blue bands were marked with small and skillful stitches; the red were larger, coarser, and yet more forceful in their execution.
“What does it say?” Rollo crowded in close, nudging the parka with his nose.
“It says that the wearer lived here, in the palace of ice,” the lass choked out. “No, he . . . must . . . live here. One year, and one day, with a maiden as a . . . bride . . . who never sees his face.”
“Like the isbjørn,” Rollo butted in, “except you are the wrong species to be his bride.”
“Also I’ve seen his face,” she pointed out absently, still reading. “That’s what the red parts say. They say that he will be betrayed, and then he must go to the princess and . . . love her always,” she finished in a rush.
“The troll princess?”
“Yes,” the lass said. “That awful troll princess again. I agree with you: she is not a good person.”
“She’s not a person at all, she’s a troll,” the wolf said, as if that settled the matter.
For the lass it did. This poor, misunderstood princess who was only looking for love, according to the stories, was really a hideous creature trapping innocents with her magic. She had enslaved Hans Peter, but he had somehow escaped. Or had he?
“There is still some trollish curse on Hans Peter,” the lass said. “That is why he is still so unhappy. And why his hair is turning white when he is still so young.”
“You won’t let us leave until you break this enchantment, will you?” He groaned. “We’ll never get home!”
“What makes you think that I can’t?”
“Because it’s a troll. You can’t fight a troll. I can’t fight a troll. No one can, and live.” He shuddered and shook himself. “Look at the carvings all around this palace. It’s nothing but stories of creatures who have been killed or enslaved by this troll.”
“Well, perhaps they didn’t know what they were facing. But we do,” the lass said, feeling rather insulted. If Rollo didn’t believe in her, who did?
“Gaaah,” Rollo said. Then he changed the subject. “What does the blue