C14 Chapter 14

There were many stops on the way.

“Henning, if you think it’s beginning to be too unpleasant, you can go for a little walk. I’ll try to manage on my own.”

“No, not at all! You can’t do that!” he exclaimed, angrily. “I’ve helped with ... well, this, that and the other in the stable. So I know what happens. With the umbilical cord and all that.”

Saga smiled and gave him instructions about the order in which everything was to be done. If only things hadn’t been so desperately makeshift!

Actually, she was grateful that he wanted to help because otherwise she would have felt terribly alone and forsaken. No father for the children, no parents, no siblings. Now there were two of them. If the worst had happened to Belinda and Viljar – which they should probably expect – then she and Henning only had each other.

They needed to stick together.

Saga was in agony. Her pains were so sharp that the most terrifying thought finally began to dawn on her: if she gave birth to one of the most stricken ... one of the feared ones with the broad, sharp shoulders ...

Tengel the Good’s mother had died when he was born. So had Sunniva when Kolgrim entered the world. Ulvhedin’s mother, Mar’s mother ... and Heike’s ...

No, Saga wouldn’t think about that. She just had to live! For the sake of Lucifer’s child. And for the sake of young Henning.

Many other women of the Ice People had given birth to stricken children without suffering at all. There was Gunilla, whose daughter was Tula; Gabriella when she had her horrific daughter, which they allowed to die even before it had had the chance to breathe; or Sölve’s mother ... And others had had specially gifted children, the chosen ones, so why shouldn’t Saga be able to manage without any problems as well?

Of course, she would pull through!

She sensed that it would be a quick birth because of the shorter intervals between her contractions. Now they followed in rapid succession.

And giving birth rapidly often meant a lot of bleeding.

No, she really must pull herself together and take a positive view of things. Look ahead. After all, they weren’t all that far from Linden Avenue.

That’s what she believed ... she wasn’t sure.

They might have passed some houses, they didn’t know because people would have gone to bed by now and therefore didn’t have any lights in the windows. There weren’t any tramps out and about, it was too late for that, which was just as well, because not everybody was suited to helping a woman in labour.

During a break between her contractions, Saga said: “Henning. I’ve never told you who the father of my child is.”

“No,” said Henning. He was shy.

“I’d better tell you. We’ve spoken about how it will very likely be a cursed or a gifted child, haven’t we?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Henning ... you probably won’t believe me, but do you know why I haven’t mentioned who the father is? It’s because he’s an angel.”

Henning gave Saga a suspicious look. “Now you’re teasing me.”

“No, I’m not. You see, he’s Lucifer, the fallen Angel of Light. I met him in the wilderness and we ... loved one another very much. We spent some wonderful days together, but then he had to leave this earth and return to his abyss. This is why you must never tell anyone who the father is. You must tell people that it’s my former husband, Lennart, because the child mustn’t be associated with Lucifer. People around here know that I was married and that’s all. So just tell people that you don’t know anything about it at all!”

Henning was concerned. Was Saga running a temperature and therefore fantasizing? That was a bad omen. He promised that he wouldn’t say anything.

They soon had to make another stop, and Saga and Henning knew that now was the time.

When Saga had fought her way through another contraction, she took many deep breaths with her eyes closed. Then she dug out her handbag. She asked Henning not to drive on yet. She took out pen and paper and wrote.

“You see, Henning, I’ve made up my mind to tackle this. I want to survive. But if things go wrong ... then – to be on the safe side – I’m writing my will. I want everything I own to be divided between my child or children and you. You know that we’ll have to face the fact that you might be on your own. I know it’s tough to say so but this is how matters stand. You’ll have one-third, no matter whether I have one or two children. Henning: if your parents are lost at sea and you’re left alone, please write to Malin! You have the address of Christer and his daughter Malin, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Henning’s lips were quivering. “But ...”

“I have no intention of dying,” she said, thumping him on the back. “We just need to consider all eventualities, don’t we? Malin has said that she would like to come and help me. You must ask her to come if you have ... difficulties. In that case, you must share your one-third part of the inheritance with her because then you’ll have to shoulder a tremendous responsibility. Henning: if anything goes wrong – regarding both your parents and me – then I leave my children to you.”

Henning breathed heavily. For the first time, Saga saw tears in his eyes. “I don’t want you to die.”

“I won’t. Surely you know that?”

Henning nodded. “I promise that I’ll take care of ... and I’ll write to Malin.”

“Good! She’ll come immediately, I know. And now we won’t speak any more of this. Now I’ll put my will in my handbag and then we’ll be on our way again!”

This time they hardly had time to start the gig when they had to stop once more, and now things were serious!

The gig was too small, so Henning had to help Saga down from it and spread out her cape on the ground. Here it wasn’t so uneven; the grass was flat, cold and dry, but it could have been much worse. The area was quite open and there was a meadow between the fir trees.

Saga lost her sense of time and space, everything whirled around in pain that she never would have believed was possible.

“Now it’s coming,” said Henning. His voice sounded pathetic.

“Have you got the shawl ready ... and my small nail scissors?” she managed to say.

“Everything’s ready. Oh, what black hair!”

Saga smiled weakly. She had plenty to see to with her pain. Everything was going so frighteningly fast!

Henning didn’t say a word about all the blood that followed. He just got hold of the tiny creature, lifting it up in the air with its head downwards the way he had been taught, and gave it a light slap. A weak but fiery scream could be heard in the quiet forest. The horse neighed softly.

Henning said: “It’s a boy, and he’s so beautiful! So very good-looking. I didn’t know that newborn children could look so nice.”

Saga didn’t ask whether he had wings. She hadn’t expected that either, but she couldn’t help smiling.

“I’ve wrapped him in the shawl,” Henning explained. “Everything’s fine!” he said, agitated.

“Is his skin dark?” Saga whispered. She had hardly any strength left.

“Perhaps a bit more than usual, but nothing to speak of.”

She let her hand glide over her stomach. “There is another one, Henning!”

“Yes, I think you’re right. Do you want to see the first one?”

“Oh, yes!”

Saga was surprised at what a lovely, beautiful little baby she had. He looked like his father, that was very obvious, and her as well, since she and Marcel resembled one another.

She moaned heavily. “I want to call him Marco. Marco with a ‘c’. His father was Marcel while he wandered on this earth, but it’s a bit difficult for people in Northern Europe to pronounce. His name is to be Marco.”

Her body contracted again in unbearable pain. She was unable to hold back a scream of despair that echoed far into the forest. “Henning! Henning! I can’t cope with it. Oh, God, Henning, this is going to kill me!

There was no doubt what was happening now. A cursed baby was about to be born. The pain left her for a brief moment. “Henning ... The Ice People’s treasure ... it ...”

That was as far as Saga got. It was as if her body was being torn apart. Henning screamed. He was terrified but didn’t leave her. He stayed there and pulled baby number two out of her womb.

“Saga! You’re bleeding! Help, you’re bleeding very, very badly. How am I to stop it, and with what?”

“No, you mustn’t take the blanket in the gig,” she whispered, white-faced. “The babies will need it.”

My children, I can’t, I don’t want to leave my children, I can’t!

Henning moaned: “He’s terrifying. Dreadful to look at.”

Two sons, one handsome like his father, and another who was cursed. How was she to leave them?

Saga gathered all her strength to say something. Everything whirled, and she was unable to see clearly any longer. “The Ice People’s treasure ... The cursed child is to have it, provided he doesn’t become very evil, which I don’t think he will. You must try to be good to him as well, Henning. Life won’t be easy for him. His name is to be ...”

Her strength was ebbing away. “My father, Kol, was once called Guillaume. That wouldn’t do in Northern Europe. Villiam won’t do either, it’s too foreign for the Ice People, and the name is too close to your father, Viljar. No, that won’t do. Call him Ulvar, after Ulvhedin! Henning ... you mustn’t separate them! They’re brothers!”

Henning was sobbing while he tried to clean the little boy. He didn’t dare look at Saga any more. He had tried to stop the bleeding with his scarf but couldn’t.

“Henning, the mandrake ... that’s for you to have. It will protect you. And, God help me, I think ... you’ll need it.”

Saga’s final words were hardly audible. Everything went black for her. The spirits had been so anxious on her behalf ... because they had known that she would die.

Henning had wrapped the child in the woollen blanket.

“Can I see him as well?” she managed to say.

Henning lifted him up. Saga’s throat contracted. She had seen Heike once, but this child was much worse afflicted. He was really cursed.

Hardly able to move her lips, she whispered: “Dear little boy! Dear little boy! Henning, you must mix the milk. Heat it a bit ...”

“Saga! Saga, you mustn’t die!”

She couldn’t answer.

In his utter grief and despair, Henning thought at first that he was seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. His head was buzzing.

But there was a stronger sound, and wasn’t the forest bathed in a strange light? A bluish glow that hadn’t been there before? And the sound? It was the sound of flapping wings, like birds, that couldn’t possibly exist because they were so big.

Henning started. Someone was standing in the forest. Right in front of them, among the pine trees, stood two dark figures in this strange blue radiance.

The flapping of the wings had abated.

The boy just stared and stared. He couldn’t get a word out of his mouth, couldn’t move.

They came closer. Angels? Dark angels?

“Is she dead?” he whispered flatly. Angels tended to fetch the good ones, it said so in the Bible. And no human being had been as good as Saga.

But angels – shouldn’t they be white?

“No, she isn’t dead,” one of them said, smiling at him. “But she’ll die if we don’t take her with us. Our ruler has sent us to fetch his chosen one. She’s leaving you now, Henning of the Ice People. She’ll be very happy, remember that!”

Saga opened her eyes. “Then he wasn’t alone down there, all by himself,” she whispered. “Who are you? Djinn?”

“You can call us that,” they smiled. “You should know that quite a large number followed our Lord Lucifer when he was banished.”

One of the others said: “He’s expecting you.”

She closed her eyes, exhausted. “But the children?” she whispered, as quietly as a breath of air in the leaves. “I can’t leave them. Or Henning.”

“If you stay here, you’ll die,” said the angels. “Then you’ll be of no help to anyone.”

They walked over to the babies, who were wrapped in their simple blankets, and touched them. Henning, holding the shawl with one hand, could feel how it was filled with a lovely warmth that stayed in it. One djinni, or black angel, or whatever he was, touched Saga, and she was healed. The bleeding stopped, all of a sudden: all the blood was gone. The other djinni put his hand on Henning’s head. The angel said nothing, but Henning could feel the words inside himself. About taking over the lot of the chosen and many other strange thoughts he didn’t understand. Suddenly, he felt immensely strong, as if he was grown up.

Then the angel removed his hand and Henning was a lonely and confused eleven-year-old again.

He dared to ask: “You won’t take the children with you, then?”

“No, both of them are needed on Earth. They’re to help with the Ice People’s struggle against evil. They are our ruler’s gift to your brave clan. Their paths will lead to the decisive onslaught. In time, one of them will provide that person who will save the Ice People and all humankind. The other one has a different task. When their time is over, we’ll come and take them to where they belong.”

They lifted Saga and, with flapping wings, they left the earth. Henning gazed at them as they flew away towards the yellow disc of the setting sun, like black birds. Then the forest was dark around him.

Saga didn’t know whether what she was experiencing was fact or fiction. She thought they were flying over high mountains and then water, for a long, long time. She was too weak to say anything but simply allowed herself to fly away, floating on an even stream. She couldn’t be bothered to think, or feel or speculate what would happen now.

Then they were over land once more. A strange land with hardly any vegetation, with mountains that looked as if they were formed from stiffened whirls and streams, and steam that rose from the ground.

They floated downwards and landed in an area of grotesque giants and creatures, with shimmering water at the bottom of deep holes.

Dimmuborgir rushed through Saga’s mind. This is it.

She was carried downwards – they plunged down into one of those holes but there was no water. The cleft continued down and down, until she felt quite dizzy. Then she was standing in a magnificent, black, shining palace.

And there he was, walking towards her. Taller than all other creatures in the hall. More handsome than she remembered him. He gave her a smile and she slipped into his arms. That was how they stood for an incredibly long time, simply feeling each other’s presence.

Then they began to talk about the children.

Young Henning was left alone in the dark forest. The two newborn babies were quiet. They were asleep. All that could be heard was his own sobs.

He lifted the mandrake and put it around his neck. It was strange how it snuggled up to his chest. As if this was where it belonged. As if it would thrive with him. Very carefully, Henning packed everything together and placed it in the gig. He laid the newborn babies at the bottom so that they wouldn’t fall out. Then he climbed up and set it in motion.

In his childish, innocent voice, he said: “Don’t be afraid, my friends.” His voice was stifled, his nose clogged and his eyes red and swollen. “Henning will take care of you. When my mother and father get back, everything will be fine. It will only be a little while, then they’re bound to come back.”

Then he continued on his way home to Linden Avenue, where nobody awaited him.