Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George [43]
None of this told the lass how the servants had come to be here, although one of the salamanders did let something slip about Fiona’s vanity being her downfall. Unlike the story of Erasmus’s beloved Narella, the trolls had not felt it necessary to carve the others’ stories into the walls of the palace. The trolls, or Hans Peter.
“I remember your brother,” one of the salamanders announced one day. “He was very tall.”
The salamander came only to the lass’s knee, so she supposed that everyone was tall to him, but in this case he was correct. “Yes, he is tall.”
“Is? Is he still living?” The salamander was plainly astonished.
“Yes, of course.” The lass was startled by the assumption that he wouldn’t be.
“Well, how interesting!” It scampered back to the big kitchen fire and held a hissed conference with the three others. “How interesting,” it repeated, climbing back out of the fire.
“What else do you remember about my brother?” Then something occurred to her. She had thought that only Erasmus knew that Hans Peter was her brother. “How did you know that my brother had been here?”
The salamanders exchanged sly looks. “The faun told us,” another said, also coming out of the fire. The lass had trouble telling them apart, but that didn’t seem to bother them. “But we haven’t told anyone else.”
“No, not safe,” the first agreed. It looked around, but they were the only ones in the kitchen. “Erasmus knew we wouldn’t tell.”
“That’s very kind of you. Now, what was it that you remember? Anything . . . interesting?”
“He liked to read, when he could, and to carve. He studied the books in the libraries, then carved things into the mantel. Not the pillars, though.”
“Who carved those?”
“Some of it has always been here, longer even than we,” said the third salamander. It had a higher, softer voice than the others, and the lass suspected that it was a female. “And some was carved by one of the other poor humans.”
The other two salamanders shushed her and they all ran back to their fire. They wouldn’t say anything more, so the lass went back upstairs.
Every morning after breakfast she would write to her father and Hans Peter, and they would write back. That morning when she opened the book, there was already a message waiting for her, this time from Jorunn.
Dear sister, it said, I am sorry to tell you this, but Father has been badly hurt.
The lass gasped, and held the book closer to her eyes, as though that would help her read faster:
Yesterday the tree he was cutting fell on him. His right leg and arm were badly crushed. He was close to Haraldson’s farm; their eldest boy found him. The doctor here could do little, so Hans Peter took Father to Christiania. Father was already feverish. I wanted to go, but am too close to delivering this babe. Tordis and her husband came in their sleigh and she went on with them.
I know you cannot come, but I wanted you to know so that you might pray for Father.
All my love,
Jorunn
Numb, the young lass just sat at her elegant little writing desk for a while. Eventually, Rollo woke up from his morning nap and came over to ask what news had come. It wasn’t until he put his wet nose into her empty palm that she started and looked at him.
“I think Father is dying,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. She swallowed, then choked and coughed and began to sob. “Father is dying!”
She grabbed the little book and ran through the palace. She raced through the library, through the room filled with spinning wheels, the butter churn room, the great gallery full of tools and paintings and printing presses. As she ran she shouted.
“Isbjørn! Isbjørn!” She felt stupid, yelling this way. It had never seemed strange to her that the white bear did not have a name—after all, she hadn’t told him hers—but now she felt a pang at never having inquired. “Isbjørn! Isbjørn!”
“What is it?” He was running toward her down a long corridor, lined