Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow - Jessica Day George [88]
Both mother and daughter plunged their hands into the soapy water. Each grabbed half of the blackened shirt and scrubbed it as hard as they could against the washboard. Within seconds the nightshirt was black as pitch all over. The queen scrubbed so hard that she knocked her own wig askew, revealing bristling white hair. Her nose ran with the effort, dripping into the wash water and befouling it further.
“Stop!” The prince raised his hands. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face that you cannot do even this one simple task,” he told Indæll. “By the laws of your own people, this marriage is invalid. I will have no wife but the one who can clean this shirt for me.” Over the roars and howls of the troll court, he turned and beckoned to the lass. “Why don’t you try?”
The lass gulped. This had not been part of their arrangement. The shirt looked ruined to her eyes, and she wondered if this was the prince’s way of getting rid of any obligation to her as well.
Tova nudged her, and she stumbled forward. Princess Indæll was threatening to make a pair of boots out of the prince, and a belt out of what would be left of the lass when she got through with her. The queen glared at the lass and growled, but then her sickening smile returned. She nodded agreement, clearly certain that the lass would not be able to undo the damage the trolls had done to the shirt.
“Please bring me fresh water and more soap,” the lass asked the centaur.
He trotted away and came back a moment later, smiling broadly. Another chair was brought, and the washtub settled on it. The lass asked Tova for her belt knife, then plucked the stained nightshirt out of the foul water and laid it gently in the clean. Locating the original spot of hardened tallow on the shoulder, she used the knife to carefully scrape it away, as Jorunn had taught her. She handed back the knife, rubbed the soap across the shirt, and then dunked it in the water. Drawing it up against the board, she scrubbed it with the firm but gentle pressure that she had learned as a child, and then dunked it again to rinse.
Through the dingy, foamy water, the lass could see that the shirt was growing whiter. And so could Princess Indæll.
“He’s mine,” the troll princess screamed, and pointed a knobby finger at the shirt. There was a crash of thunder as the power Indæll directed at the shirt, in defiance of her promise, backfired and struck her in the face.
The troll princess crumpled to the ground, dead.
“No!” the queen screeched and lunged at the lass, who held up the now-snow-white shirt like a shield. When the queen’s hands tore at the shirt, she screamed even louder. “It burns!” She sank to the floor, clutching her daughter’s twisted body in her burned hands and howling, quite mad.
“My daughter, my beautiful daughter,” the troll queen moaned. Her face was so pale that the lass could see the blood pulsing in it. “My daughter, my daughter.” A long string of green drool trailed from her chin.
Nauseous with horror, the lass had to cover her ears. The trolls howled and stamped their feet and rushed the dais. Someone crouched beside the lass and wrapped his arms around her: Asher. Then she felt Rollo pressing against her, and another pair of arms joined the embrace.
“What will we do?” Tova whispered.
“Stay still,” Asher said in reply. “Let’s try to slip away as soon as they—”
“Kill the humans!” shouted one troll, and the others began to take up the cry. “Kill them, kill the humans!”
They all let go of one another and jumped to their feet. Rollo bared his teeth, and both Tova and the prince produced knives now. The lass had nothing but her fists, and she slipped the princess’s rings onto two fingers to make her punch more painful, a trick learned from Askel.
“No!” The one-eyed chamberlain pushed his way onto the dais. “It isn’t because of the humans that we have