Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George [42]
“At least we aren’t yet,” Rollo said darkly.
“How do you know?” The lass was curious. She didn’t feel cursed, but who knew what that felt like? Rollo had sounded completely certain, though.
“Because I tried to leave the palace,” Rollo explained. “I got quite a ways before I thought I’d better come back.” He yawned, showing his long white teeth. “But I didn’t feel anything forcing me back. So I think that we’re free to go.”
“You are,” she said primly. “But I gave my word that I wouldn’t leave.”
“And I gave my word to your brother that I would stay with you,” the wolf countered. “So I shan’t leave you, even if you are enchanted. But I don’t think that you are. You don’t smell like the others.”
“That’s because I’m the only human,” she said with a shrug. She went back to her sewing.
“No, it’s because you’re not enchanted,” Rollo argued. “Everyone here smells different, that’s true enough. But there’s also another smell, over their regular smell. That rotting meat smell.” His long nose wrinkled. “You don’t smell that way, though.”
“But the servants do?”
“And the isbjørn.”
“Maybe they just don’t bathe,” the lass said, but it was only a halfhearted joke. She believed Rollo; his nose was too keen. “So I don’t have to stay.”
“Only to honor your word,” Rollo agreed. “Which, as you know, is a completely arbitrary custom,” he added.
“A ‘completely arbitrary custom’?” The lass looked at Rollo in amusement. “Who taught you that?”
“Hans Peter told me that before we left,” Rollo said. “He said to use it if things got bad; to help convince you it was all right to leave. And if you still wouldn’t come, I’m supposed to bite you.” He sounded uncomfortable.
They were both silent while they digested this information. For Hans Peter to tell Rollo to bite their beloved lass meant that he expected dire things indeed.
“Well, he has been here before,” the lass pointed out. She grimaced. “It makes me wonder how bad things were for him, that he would even suggest it. Something tells me he wasn’t draped in satin and fed such wonderful food.”
At the mention of food, Rollo’s stomach growled. “I have been out running on the snow plain all day,” he said with great dignity. “And it is time for supper.”
“Very true.”
So they joined the isbjørn for supper. The lass had read a play that the isbjørn had recommended, and they discussed it at length. The lass thought that the main female character was too histrionic, but the isbjørn argued that when the part was performed right, it was very moving. The lass wanted to know where a bear would have seen a play, and the isbjørn changed the subject to poetry, of which he was also fond. The lass knew only a few of the old eddas, so the bear suggested some modern poets for her to try. She promised to read one of them aloud to him at luncheon the next day, and they said their goodnights.
When the lass undressed and went to bed, she checked her little magic book one last time, but there were no new messages from her family. She tucked it under her pillow, along with the diary and the dictionary she was making, and went to sleep.
Tonight her midnight visitor did not snore. During a dream, however, the lass kicked him, then found herself half-awake and patting him on the shoulder in apology. He just grunted, and she rolled over and went back to sleep.
Chapter 16
The days passed in much the same way after that. The lass would read and discuss poetry and novels with the isbjørn; she would make notes in her diary and dictionary and meticulously search the palace for clues. She started visiting the kitchens and talking with the other servants, and continued to be waited on in her rooms by Fiona the sullen selkie.
She learned that the minotaurus was from a small island near Greece, and that Erasmus was from another Greek island. She discovered that Mrs. Grey looked as if she had been carved