West Read online

  It was slow going, and I almost lost consciousness once or twice, but somehow I didn’t, and he got us to the top.

  “You’re going to need to grab hold of the ledge,” he said. “Violeta?”

  I dimly heard his voice and tried to answer, but my mouth was dry and I couldn’t form the words.

  “Can you pull yourself up? I’ll try pushing,” he gasped out.

  Taking a deep breath, I reached for the top of the cliff just above me. I could feel one of his hands on my back.

  “I can’t,” I said, faltering, my eyesight blurring again.

  “Yes, you can,” he said.

  And I did. My hands scrabbled on the rough rocks, and I could feel him pushing, and finally I was off Julien, off the rope, lying on the rock surface.

  He fell next to me, wheezing. We lay there a few moments side by side. All I wanted to do was sleep. Some voice told me I shouldn’t, not yet, but a grayness filled my head. I was drifting off.

  “Violeta!”

  I became aware of him crouching beside me. “Rose,” I whispered.

  “Where are you . . .” he started, then said, “Your face.” He must have spotted the blood. I could feel him press something against my wound. I let out a cry of pain.

  Everything was spinning. I felt like I was being pulled down into a deep dark hole in the ground.

  “It was a snake . . . bite,” I said thickly.

  “Infierno,” he said.

  I felt his hands on my face and a wrenching pain where I had been bitten. It stopped, and I heard what sounded like spitting, then the pain again, then spitting. It lasted a few minutes, and I think I screamed.

  I could hear him breathing heavily, and more sounds of spitting.

  More breathing.

  Suddenly he stood and gathered me up in his arms, and it was then that I lost consciousness.

  Neddy

  SIB AND I WERE SITTING in the public room of the inn where we were lodging, half-eaten plates of food in front of us. Every time the door opened, we both immediately looked to see who had entered. But it was never Rose.

  “I’m worried, Sib,” I said for perhaps the hundredth time.

  “I know,” she replied, her voice calm, but I could tell she was just as concerned as I was.

  We began to get meaningful glances from the innkeeper, who clearly wanted to close for the night.

  “I won’t be able to sleep,” I said.

  “Nor will I,” she said.

  A man limped through the door. His eyes briefly searched the room, and when he saw us, he immediately made his way to our table.

  “You’ll be the brother of Vio—I mean, Rose?” he asked, his expression grim.

  “Yes,” I said in some alarm.

  “I am the soldier, Julien,” he said.

  “The one who was with Charles when—” I began, but he cut me off.

  “No, in fact,” he said. “But that is a story for another time. Your sister is ailing. I’ve taken her to the house run by the woman Hannah. You will want to come straight away.”

  He turned to leave and waited for us by the door while we settled our bill with the innkeeper.

  As we walked, the soldier gave a terse account of what had happened. He said he’d found Rose in one of the caves that lie underground along the coast of Etretat and that she was suffering from a snakebite to her face.

  “Oh, no!” I cried.

  “What kind of snake?” asked Sib.

  “We don’t know. She lost consciousness before she could describe it. Hannah is puzzled by the bite mark. It is large and doesn’t look like any snake she has encountered before. And the symptoms are different as well.”

  “I have some experience with snakebites,” said Sib. “Perhaps I can be of help.”

  When we got to Rose, Sib was also perplexed. But she was able to suggest a supplemental theriac—a paste made of castor oil, cassia wood, aristolochia, anise seed, and pepper—to put on the wound.

  For the next twenty-four hours, Rose was in and out of consciousness. She was feverish, and yet her skin was damp and cold to the touch. Her breathing was rapid and shallow. One of us was always by her side, sometimes both of us, and the soldier Julien stayed nearby as well.

  The wound across her upper left cheekbone was inflamed and jagged, and based on the little I had seen of snakebites, it certainly did not seem typical. It looked like it was made by a creature with many sharp teeth that were all the same size, with no fangs.

  Hannah said that Julien may have saved Rose’s life by sucking out whatever poison was still in the wound.

  As it was, I was very worried, watching her pale face with the livid wound, but on the morning of the second day, the worst seemed to pass. She blinked her eyes rapidly, and when she saw me, she said, “Neddy?” in a whispery voice.

  Several hours later, she was able to sit up and even swallow some beef broth.

  “There is much I must tell you, Neddy,” she said between spoonfuls, her eyes bright. “But the main thing is, I believe I know where Charles is. And I must go there as soon as possible.”

  Rose

  IT TOOK TIME TO FULLY RECOVER from the venom of the troll-snake’s bite, which gave me time to think.

  I had much to think about—all that the troll Jaaloki had said. Some of it made little sense, and some was terrifying.

  I knew one thing was certain. The Troll Queen lived. And she meant great harm to both me and the “softskin” world. I was certain she had caused the winds that wrecked Charles’s ship. But whether she had meant to kill him or only to make me believe he was dead, I didn’t know.

  The words what remains of him kept spinning in my head until I thought I would go mad. But it was clear that the place Jaaloki referred to, the one where I had spent almost a year and that he said I “know well,” was the castle in the mountain. It was indeed a place I knew well. During my year there, living with the white bear and the two trolls, Urda and Tuki, I had explored it from top to bottom.

  But what had he meant by saying I might not know it as well as I thought I did? Was there some part of it I had not discovered, or had he or the Troll Queen changed it somehow? Turned it into a prison for Charles? Or a graveyard? I didn’t know. All I knew was that I must go there as soon as I was strong enough to travel.

  And then there was the horrifying thing Jaaloki had said about “the bairn,” that it was not Charles who mattered now. Only the bairn.

  Was he talking about Winn? Did the Troll Queen intend to do harm to our son? If revenge was her aim, there would be none greater than to harm our bairn.

  If Winn was in danger, should I not go to Trondheim to watch over him, keep him safe? But I had to go to the castle in the mountain, to find Charles.

  My head spun, the room tilted, and I lay back down. No, the first thing I had to do was to heal so I could leave this sickbed.

  Neddy

  WHEN ROSE TOLD SIB AND ME the whole story of what had happened to her in the underground cavern—about the troll prince Jaaloki, who turned into a white snake, and all he had said to her—I could hardly take it in.

  That the Troll Queen was still alive and bent on some kind of revenge on Rose and Charles was terrifying. That it had spilled over into our world, with ships full of innocent people being destroyed, was the stuff of nightmares.

  Unlike me, Sib showed no surprise.

  “I knew there was something wrong about those winds. Evil,” she said with a shudder.

  None of us could guess what Jaaloki had meant by the ominous words what remains of him, but I was very much afraid that our journey would end with the outcome I had expected here in Etretat, a grave for Charles.

  “Neddy,” Rose said, “and Sib, I have a very great favor to ask of you both.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I must go look for my white bear at the castle in the mountain. But I fear for Winn, back in Trondheim.”

  I agreed that the words the troll Jaaloki had said about “the bairn” were
indeed sinister.

  “Would you be willing to return to Trondheim, to watch over Winn, while I journey to the castle?” Rose asked, her voice urgent.

  I was silent. I didn’t like the idea of letting Rose go off alone to the castle in the mountain.

  “Please, Neddy,” she implored. “It will give me some measure of comfort to know you and Sib are there, looking out for him.”

  Still I didn’t speak. Rose’s eyes were fastened on me.

  “Very well,” I said reluctantly.

  “I will go too,” said Sib. And I was glad.

  “But, Rose,” Sib went on, “what is this I see in your pack? Is it a sword?”

  I too had noticed it sticking out of the top of Rose’s pack.

  Rose nodded. “I had just picked it up when the troll Jaaloki first came into the room. And I was holding it when he attacked me. Much good it did me,” she said. “He did not want me to take it, though it does not look valuable.”

  “May I see it?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Rose said.

  It was a small sword and looked well worn. I pulled it out of its scabbard, and the blade itself was tarnished. Sib came beside me and peered closely at it. Wordlessly she held out her hand, and I put the sword handle in it.

  She bent over it. I thought she was looking more closely at the worn designs, but then I saw that her eyes were closed.

  She straightened after a few moments. There was a look of wonder in her eyes.

  “Remarkable,” she said.

  “What?” asked Rose.

  “It is . . .” She hesitated with a sidelong glance at me. “I think it is some kind of wind sword. I can hear”—again she darted a look at me—“many winds.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, mystified.

  “Sib knows a lot about wind, Neddy,” Rose said.

  “I will explain later,” Sib said to me. “But whoever crafted it, Rose, knows of wind music. Further, I am sure it is not troll made.”

  “How do you know? And if not troll, then . . .” Rose asked.

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  We both looked at Sib questioningly.

  She shook her head and would say no more, putting the sword back in Rose’s pack.

  Rose changed the subject to the soldier Julien.

  During her sickness from the snakebite, he had been ever present, clearly as worried about her as we were, and both Sib and I had grown to like him very much. I had forgotten his briefly muttered words about not in fact being with Charles when he died and was dismayed to hear what Rose had to say about him.

  “You believe he was in league with the troll Jaaloki?” I asked in surprise.

  “I know he was,” Rose responded. “And I must speak with him immediately. Can you please send him to me?”

  I agreed.

  Rose

  THE SOLDIER JULIEN ENTERED THE ROOM. He looked a little wary, but said, “It is good to see you much recovered, Violeta.”

  “Rose,” I said.

  He smiled. “As you say, Rose.”

  I did not smile back. “Thank you for saving my life,” I said stiffly.

  It was the first time we had been face-to-face since he dragged me up that rope out of the cavern.

  He nodded and seemed to want to say something, but I stopped him.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “And what is your true relation to the one called Jaaloki?”

  He gazed at me, and I saw again that hint of fear that had unnerved me before.

  Then he appeared to make up his mind and began to speak.

  “I will tell you the truth,” he said. “All of it.” And he lowered himself into a chair across from me.

  “First I must say to you that what I did was wrong, and for that I apologize. There can be no excuse, but I will tell you how it happened.

  “I was a passenger on the Hynde,” he began. “The storm hit, and it was like something straight out of hell, a horrific churning and roiling sea, with those fearsome winds. Death and terror all around me. I was certain it was the end, for me and for everyone on that ship. But somehow I grabbed hold of a piece of splintered deck, and more dead than alive, I clung to it.

  “I lost consciousness at some point, but was found washed up on the shore and taken to the healing woman called Hannah. Even then, I knew death was close. I drifted in and out, but there was a moment when I came wide awake to find a man sitting beside me. He had his hand on my leg, which was shattered.

  “He stared me in the eye, this diablo man, and his eyes were horrible—flat and of the deepest black. When he spoke, his voice was grating and at first hard to understand, but finally I heard him say that there was infection in my leg and so much blood lost that I would be dead by morning. But, he said, if I chose to live, he had the arts to pull me back from death. If he did this, however, I must agree to do him a favor in return. I will tell you the truth, Violeta, I believed myself to be hallucinating or dreaming at that point, but I said, ‘Yes, of course, I choose to live, if it is truly possible.’

  “‘Oh yes, it is possible,’ he said to me with a stomach-turning smile, and all of a sudden I felt warmth and energy coursing through my body. It was almost as if I could feel torn things in my leg, and then in my whole body, knitting together. I cried out in wonder, and the diablo man just kept smiling.

  “‘Rest now,’ he said. ‘I will be back to complete our bargain.’ When the morning came, the woman Hannah arrived to check on me, and she was stunned to find me not only alive but sitting up, with color in my face.

  “‘Quite a miracle!’ she said. And it was. Over the next few days, as I continued to improve, I thought I must have hallucinated the diablo man, that my body had miraculously healed on its own. But on the fourth day, he came back.

  “He said he was pleased to see me so much recovered and that now was the time for me to complete my side of the bargain. He told me of a man who died on the Hynde and that I was to tell anyone who asked that I had been with him when he died. I was also to write a note, which he would dictate, to that effect, enclosing a ring, which he would give me.

  “I had no idea why he would want me to do this dishonest thing, and I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off, reminding me that he had brought me back from death. And he went on to say that if that was not incentive enough, he himself would go to Spania, to the farm where my family lives in a village at the foot of the Pyrennes. He knew the name of the village, and more, he knew the names of my family members. And he said that if I did not do what he asked, my young brother and sister, Fredo and Denora, who are twins, would die.

  “I almost leapt out of the bed I lay in, but I suddenly felt my breath go short. And even though he did not leave his seat, or touch me in any way, I knew that he was causing my breath to stop. I lost consciousness, and when I came to, I saw him sitting there, still smiling. I was terrified, not just for myself, but for my brother and sister. For I knew he had the power and the will to kill them.

  “So I agreed to do as he said,” Julien said.

  I understood then the fear I had seen in his eyes. And even if I could not forgive him for the lies he had told about Charles, I could also understand why he had done it.

  He leaned forward, his eyes bright. “Yes, I was frightened. I am still. And I knew it was wrong to go along with him, but I told myself, to assuage my conscience, that the story I was to tell was most likely a true story. I was on that ship, people dying all around me. I should have died too. I reasoned that if this man named Charles was on the ship, he had surely perished, and what did it matter if I told a false version of it?”

  He looked me in the eyes and said, “I was wrong. I know. But Vio . . . Rose, if your husband was on that ship, there is no other truth. He did not survive. He could not have survived.”

  “Did you not wonder why the diablo man would ask you to do this thing, have you tell this lie?” I asked.

  “I did. But I could think of no answer that made sense. Perhaps you can
tell me?”

  I shook my head.

  “Will you at least tell me what happened to you down in the cavern, Violeta? Was it the diablo man who hurt you?” he asked, leaning forward, his eyes glittering.

  I ignored his question. “Tell me how it was you came back for me? I saw you board the ship for Spania.”

  “I meant to leave, to get back to my family, make sure they were safe. But I couldn’t. I felt remorse. Lying to one who had lost her husband as you had. I turned around and got off the ship. I tracked you down. A sailor had spotted you following the diablo, and a boy tending sheep in the pasture above saw you go into the hut.”

  I was silent for a few moments. “I am grateful that you came after me,” I said. “And I hope that doing so has not endangered your family. It is possible that the diablo man does not know.”

  He nodded, and then his eyes went to my pack.

  “What are your plans?” he asked.

  “That is not your concern.”

  He sighed, but smiled at me again. “Well, perhaps, my lovely Violeta”—and he laid emphasis on the name—“our paths will cross again, under different circumstances, and you will allow me to make amends.”

  “Rose,” I said with equal emphasis. “And you already have. You saved my life. We are even.”

  He nodded, saying, “Buen viaje, Rose. Safe journey.”

  “The same to you,” I said.

  Neddy

  I WENT DOWN TO THE DOCKS and booked passage on a ship to Trondheim for Sib and me that would be leaving in two days’ time. I found one for Rose that was scheduled to depart for La Rochelle the day after that. Rose would then either travel by foot or buy a horse to get from there to the castle in the mountain. Her journey would take her near her home, the one she and Charles had lived in since they married, the house where Winn was born. But Rose had already said she would not stop there, wanting to get to the castle in the mountain as soon as possible. I wondered too if the sight of their home would be painful to her with so much still unknown about Charles’s fate.