Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George [73]
“Thank you so much,” the lass said. Without thinking, she stretched out one mittened hand and put it on the troll’s. He looked startled and blushed a sort of purple color.
“I do have a weakness for human girls. I don’t know what it is,” he said, shaking his head. “My grandfather would skin me for a drum, if he were alive to see how soft I am.”
“Skarp-Heðin! What have you there?”
The lass turned and saw a massive troll, like a chunk of mossy granite, stumping toward them. She made a choking noise, and shrank back against the gem-studded doors. Rollo took up a defensive stance but once again did not dare to growl.
“Another human, Captain Banahøgg,” the sentry said uneasily. He was tiny and his features were almost human in comparison to the captain’s.
“Get rid of it!” Banahøgg’s gray, craggy face crumpled into a frown, a truly terrifying sight. “You weren’t going to let another one in, were you?”
“No, sir, captain!” Skarp-Heðin raised his sword, bringing the point to within inches of the lass’s chest. “Get away, girl! Back to the southern lands with you!” One eyelid twitched ever so slightly in what could almost have been a wink.
The lass took the hint and ran, Rollo by her side. But as soon at they had gone around a snowdrift that hid them from sight of the front doors, she turned and made her way around to the west side of the palace.
The palace of the trolls was a truly magnificent place. There were windows with panes of crystal set into the walls every few paces, and the lass stood on tiptoe to peep through them. She supposed that for a troll they would be low, but even on tiptoe she could just rest her chin on the sill. It was growing darker and darker, and inside the lights blazed. From what the lass could see, there was a great deal going on. She heard music and saw servants in blue livery rushing back and forth with silver trays. The servants were gargoyles, pixies, brownies, and other creatures like the ones who had waited on her at the palace of ice. None of the servants were trolls.
But there were plenty of trolls in attendance. Male trolls and female, dressed in elaborate suits and gowns of brightly colored satin and velvet. Jewels gleamed and sparkled in the light from the hundreds of candles. The troll ladies had their hair piled in fabulous towers of curls above their hideous gray-green faces, and the troll gentlemen had caps of leather or silver or gold covering their heads.
Then she noticed that there were a few trolls who shunned this humanlike finery. These wore layers of hides from a variety of animals. Their hair stuck out at all angles from their broad faces, and the lass saw moss and other scruffy plants growing on them. One appeared to have an actual bird’s nest in his beard.
The window where the lass found the best view looked in on the ballroom itself. There was a drift of hard-frozen snow just under one of the windows, and if she stood on the very top, she could peer inside without straining. The ballroom was a sight to behold: huge beyond belief, with pillars of carved crystal and amethyst. Chandeliers with dangling pendants that were surely diamonds filled the room with light and were reflected on the gleaming black floor. At one end of the ballroom stood a dais with two thrones. One was of gold, set with rubies, and the other silver, set with sapphires. Beside the silver-and-sapphire throne was a stool, also of silver and inlaid with pearls. The lass’s heart stopped beating for just a moment and then started back up with a painful thump when she saw who was sitting on the stool.
It was her prince.
As the trolls moved about the ballroom, drinking and eating and talking, the prince sat on his stool and stared straight ahead. The lass had a childish urge to wave at him, just to see if he would look, if he would recognize her, but she quelled it. Instead she pointed him out to Rollo, who agreed that he did not look well, and they continued to watch.
After a few minutes, when the lass’s feet were starting to go numb from standing in the snow for so long, the double doors at