The Troll Wife

by Sarah Bayen

 

Katia stepped slowly forward into the clearing. There was nobody there. Neither had she been expecting anyone; she was early. She walked across to the broken tree in the centre, and sat herself down on one of the broad branches that sprang from the trunk. Placing the heavy bag she had brought with her down by her side, she waited.

It was summer, and the air was full of insects and their humming. The sun shone bright and warm into the little glade, and in the distance, she saw a rabbit nibbling at the browning grass, before it spotted her, and dashed for cover. A bird lazily arced across the deep blue sky above her head, before wheeling towards the cover of the surrounding trees.

She had often come here over the past four years, to do what she was doing today; meeting Ivan. Poor Ivan; he always seemed so pleased to see her, and listen to her stories of what was happening in the village, about the friends he had once known. He would not be happy with her news today, she knew that. She fingered the knotted string around her left wrist; the string she had accepted from Karl to signify their betrothal. No, Ivan would not be happy today.

There was a rustle in the undergrowth from the direction she knew Ivan would be coming from. Nervously she looked towards it, but saw nothing. It was not Ivan; he would not be early, it would not be allowed, she knew that.

For the want of anything else to do, she opened the bag she had brought with her, and examined the contents. She hoped she had remembered everything. There were three fine dresses; the best the village could offer, together with fine undergarments brought all the way from the market town by the peddlers, and paid for by a levy raised by the village elders. Exotic cosmetics too, from some distant city, and shoes that the Duchess herself would not have been embarrassed to wear. No, she had not forgotten anything.

This finery might at least offer some solace to Ivan, given that she must tell him the news of her betrothal. This was not the first time she had had to bring him bad news. She remembered back two years, to a day, similar to this, when she had had to tell him that his mother had died. The poor widow Schlesnig; she had been driven mad by the death of her husband at the hands of the troll, that and what had happened to her son, a fate that was perhaps in some ways worse.

Ivan had listened to that news with his eyes turned away from her. She had sensed his pain and loss as a constriction to her chest that day. His mouth had firmed, and although his eyes became watery, he did not shed any tears; not at first. She had put her hand on his shoulders to remind him she was there, and then, feeling the tightness of his muscles, and the quivering of his frame, and gently forced his head onto her shoulders for the inevitable sobs to break free. After some time, he had lifted his head, and told her that he was glad that his mother was now free, and smiled.

Katia yearned to be free of this responsibility, and the guilt that lay behind it. She had grown to hate these monthly visits to see Ivan, her childhood friend. She thought back to when they were neighbours. She, always laughing and getting into trouble, and leading him on in pranks to annoy their elders. He had been a pale and delicate child, taking after his mother rather than his father, who had been a large and muscular man. He had fine blond hair, and a thin, rather solemn face, which, even in those days, before the troll, looked as if it held tragedy within it.

They had been inseparable. In fact, she remembered now, she had made him promise that he would marry her when they grew up, one autumn evening when they had been about eight. The thought of this made her smile. He had refused at first, saying it was a stupid thing to promise. This had made her angry, and she had forced him to the ground in the barn they were in, and, pinning his arms down, and held him fast until he at last agreed. Poor Ivan.

A flock of crows wheeled burst from the trees and into the clearing, bickering and cawing to each other, before coming to rest, quarelsomely in the branches at the far side. A bumble bee busied itself around the flowers near to her, and she listened to its buzzing, and she watched it move from blossom to blossom. She was nervous of it; a bee had stung her once, sitting in this very spot, as it gave its life for the sake of the nest.

Yes, she had always been getting poor Ivan into scrapes, but his position now was not her fault she told herself. The elders had decided it, after her father had made the suggestion. He had not even consulted her, as she lay, sobbing inconsolably on her bed for day after day. He had come up with the idea himself to save his daughter, and taken it straight to the council meeting. Everyone had assumed that it had been her who had thought of it, since she was the immediate beneficiary, but she had not, and she had told Ivan that. He believed her, she was sure. So why should she feel guilty or responsible? She was determined that she would not any longer.

She had not seen Ivan until the matter was decided. She had wanted to as soon as her father had told her she was now safe, before she knew of Ivan's part in the plan. She wanted to share her good news with her closest friend, but it was forbidden. She did not know why at the time. Later that night, she heard his mother screaming, and peeking through the window of her tiny room, she saw the men taking Ivan away from her, and others holding the widow Schlesnig back. Eventually one of the men had slapped the poor woman, and she fell into the mud in front of the houses, sobbing and wailing like one possessed.

She had never recovered. The villagers provided her with food, and wood for the fire, but she just sat in her cottage alone, staring at the walls, as if the loss of her son had allowed the demons to take nest in her shattered mind. She never spoke. Katia remembered the leaders of the village coming to speak to her; to tell her of the great deed her son had done. How his sacrifice had made them all safe, not just now, but for years to come. Whether she heard them or not, Katia never knew, and, after a while, they did not bother to come any more. It had been a relief to them all, and an easing of their conscious, when she had passed away some two years later, a fragile bag of bones that had once been a proud woman.

Katia looked down at herself. She was sixteen now, and a woman too. Her dress was brown, and serviceable, not like those in the bag, but she knew she cut a fine figure in it. Tomboy or not, she was the prettiest girl in the village, she knew that, and so did all the rest. Soon, she mused, she would be prettier still, in the fine white gown and flowers that befitted a bride. Her father would be so proud, and the tall handsome Karl would be at her side. That was her future, and she was not going to allow Ivan to ruin either it, or the prospect of it, for her.

He was late now, and she was cross with him. She had rehearsed what she had to say many times, so that it would go smoothly. If he was late, she might forget some of it, and the meeting would not go as she planned. She went over it all in her mind again, as the warm sun shone down on her. It was all perfectly reasonable, he could not object. He was in no position to object. She was, of course, very grateful for the sacrifice he had made for her, but she could not live her life on the basis of that gratitude. He had made the sacrifice in order that she could live her life as normal. Marrying Karl was just the first step of that, and Ivan would, in time, come to see the wisdom, the inevitability, of her actions.

What else could he expect? She had dutifully come to this clearing every month for the past four years. She had brought him everything he needed, everything he had asked for, and chatted to him and given him all her news. She remembered how he had reacted last year when she had told him about the travelling show, and how, one balmy evening, one of the dark, strong showmen had kissed her. Ivan had looked away, shaken, as he had when she had told him about his mother. This time, she had not tried to console him, but quickly turned the conversation to other news, and resolved never to mention boys to him again.

That had changed their relationship. Previously there had been no secrets between them. Now, her romantic liaisons were things that were never touched upon when she came here. He never asked, and she never told; they became a gulf between them, and she looked forward to these visits less and less with each passing month.

And yet he seemed as pleased to see her as ever, almost pathetically so. She knew that the moment he entered the clearing, a smile would fall across his face, and light up his soul. He would ask her for the village news, listening intently to all the tedious detail, while she kept silent about the things that interested her most. He would avoid answering her questions about what he might need next month, knowing it was a signal for the end of their meeting. Every time, she would have to force him to consider the matter, and suggest, by looking at him, what he might be in need of. Then, as she left, the smile would leave his face and his soul, and he would stand there, by the tree on which she now sat, watching sadly as she walked back into the forest.

And he never told her anything. Nothing of value anyway. He would briefly mention the troll, and its disgusting habits, but she knew that there must have been more disgusting things that he never mentioned, things that might have been part of her life but for him. He told her if the old blind troll mother had visited, and occasionally how he had tricked her, and evaded her questions. He had mentioned once that a passing knight had tried to kill the troll, but had been killed himself instead. But there was nothing of himself in what he said. What did Ivan think; what did Ivan feel, living with the troll that had killed his father? She had once wanted to know, but not any more. It was boring, a thing of the past; her future was with Karl, and she wanted to think of that.

Then she heard him coming, the rustle of the grass over to her left. A wave of anxiety flashed across her mind like lightening across the valley at night. She stood, and tried to control her breathing as she heard him coming closer. She saw his head first through the long grass, or at least his headgear. She remembered bringing it on a visit two or three months past, a tall conical hat in the palest pink, with a long flowing veil of white hanging from it. Then he came further into view, moving as fast as his restrictive costume would allow, holding the skirts of his dress in front of him impatiently, and striding as long as their weight would allow.

"Katia!" he gasped, breathlessly, still moving towards her. "I'm sorry I'm so late. I couldn't get away until the troll went to sleep."

His face broke into the smile she had known it would. A smile that said that she was the most important thing in his life, and lit his features from under the hat, standing at least two feet above his head. She hated him in that moment, but she put a smile on her mouth in return, as she waited for him, moving far faster than was appropriate to the way he was dressed. His hair, now almost down to his waist, was untied; she had never been able to convince him of the need to deal with it neatly.

He reached her, and hugged her. She was immediately away of the heady, flowery scent of his perfume on his neck as they embraced.

"How are you?" he asked eagerly, as they separated, still holding hands.

"Fine," she nodded, looking at him, knowing she held the dagger that would soon pierce his heart. "What have you been doing to your hair?"

"Nothing," he replied, with an amused irritation. "I brush it through every morning and evening like you said, but I wish they'd let me cut it off!"

She stared at him, and the eager smile on his face. He had made more effort with the cosmetics; his eyes, cheeks and lips were lightly painted, like the ladies of the town. She had taught him to do that, and now, with more opportunity to practice, he was far better at it than she.

"That dress suits you," she told him, looking at the pink gauzy creation he was wearing. She remembered it well. When it had arrived from the city last year, all the girls in the village had tried it on, and paraded for each other in it, before it was put back in its box, and brought here, to the clearing, for Ivan.

"Thank you!" he said, genuinely flattered, and twirling a little in it for her. "The bodice is a bit tight though," he added, trying to pull it down a little. It certainly looked tight, and it gave the impression, by pressing against the skin of his chest, that he had the first blossoming of bosoms growing.

"Does the troll like it?" she asked.

Ivan pulled a face. "The troll does," he replied. "And so does the troll's mother."

"She's blind. She can't see how good you look in it." Katia observed.

"Yes but she feels it. She says that the material was expensive, that's what she cares about most."

"That and babies." Katia observed.

"Yes." Ivan looked away from her, with embarrassment in his demeanour. It was not an easy subject for him, she knew that. If the blind old troll mother realised that he could never give her son babies, it would be bad for Ivan, bad for Katia, and bad for the village. Katia decided to change the subject.

"Come and sit down," she said. "I'll brush your hair for you, and you can ask me all you want to know about the village."

He looked at her, and his smile returned. His eyes flashed at her, reflecting the sun overhead. "I think you like my hair like this," he said, flicking it forward across his chest petulantly. "I'm like the sister you never had!"

This pained her strangely. "I never wanted a sister," she replied. "Come on. Sit down."

He did as she asked, taking her place on the branch, and carefully arranging his dress as he did so, and holding his legs delicately, and more ladylike than she had managed. She walked to the back of him, and carefully removed the hat from his head, placing it on the broad trunk of the tree. His hair was truly majestic, as it gushed out, now free from its restraint. Long and golden, it hung in thick tresses down his back, and glistened in the sun. She could smell it too, a wave of sweet open air and summer meadows enhanced by the heat of the sun. He had been washing it with the costly unguents that she often brought reluctantly up from the village; reluctantly, because she would never be able to afford them.

She ran her hands through his locks, separating the abundant strands from each other, and feeling, in spite of herself, a pang of jealously that nature had endowed someone other than her with such bounty. She took her hairbrush from the pocket of her dress, and began gently to brush his hair through.

"So what can you tell me?" he asked eagerly, his face now hidden from her.

"What do you want to know?" she asked.

"Everything!" he insisted. "You know that I want to hear everything!"

She thought about this. When would be the best time to tell him her own news? Not now perhaps.

"Well," she began slowly. "We have a new priest."

"So Father Igor is dead?"

"Not dead," she said, brushing his hair through, and stroking it with her hands. A movement in the corner of the glade caused her to glance around. It was another rabbit.

"So what happened?" he asked, impatient for her to continue.

"I thought you hated Father Igor?" she reminded him.

"I just didn't want him coming here to talk to me," Ivan explained. "He wanted me to pray for forgiveness and goodness knows what. I told him that it was him who needed forgiving."

Katia winced. Father Igor had been part of the council that had sent Ivan here. "Well, he's retired, and gone to live in the monastery," Katia explained.

"Good riddance!" Ivan said, ungenerously. "So I suppose the new priest will be up here to pester me at some stage."

"I don't know," she told him. "I'm not sure." She was about to say that she wasn't sure whether anyone had told the new priest about Ivan, but perhaps that was a little unkind. She stopped herself, and carried on brushing.

"And what about your news Ivan?" she asked him. "What have you been doing?"

"Same as usual," he replied. "Cooking, cleaning; all the things a good wife should."

The mention of wife made her twitch; she would be a wife soon, and she needed to tell him this.

She chattered on about the village and its people as she brushed his hair. She paid little attention to what she was saying, passing on only trivial news, and barely listening to his questions for more detail. Eventually she was finished, and idly braided some of the luxurious locks together for him. He really was a beauty, which, four years ago would have pleased her. Now she was less certain.

"Come," she said at last, "Don't you want to see what I've brought up for you?"

She walked around to the front of him, and saw him shrug. "It's stockings I need most," he said. "They get ruined all the time."

"Then you should be more careful," she said.
"It's not me, it's the troll," he said, petulantly.

This made her blood run cold. She did not want to think how the troll might ruin Ivan's stockings, or how, but for Ivan, the troll would have been ruining hers.

"Well you've got about a dozen pairs in here I think," she said, opening the bag. "And some lovely new dresses." She pulled one out for him to see. A long red satin gown, with a panelled front in gold. Red would not suit him as well as pink, but he would still look better in it than most of the village girls who had already tried it on.

"What do you think?" she asked, holding it up in front of herself.

He stood, and looked strangely at her. "It's nice," he said at last. "You should keep it. It'll look better on you than me."

"I doubt that," she said, dismissively, and quickly folding the dress over her arm. "Anyway, you know the council would punish me if I didn't give it to you."

"You could tell them I gave it back to you," he suggested.

She thought about this for a moment, and was tempted. "No," she said at last. "They wouldn't believe me."

He shrugged again, and took the dress from her, looking with an expert eye at its cut, colour and length.

"Did you want to try it on?" she suggested. She knew from the trials she and the girls in the village had done that some of the expensive dresses sent up for Ivan were designed to be put on with the help of a maid. Not that she was his maid, she reminded herself. Ivan shook his head a little sheepishly, and put the dress back into its box.

"There's other stuff too," Katia told him, taking out some of the underwear. She picked up a pair of white lace underthings, and looked at them wistfully. Being a poor village girl, she did not own such garments; she rarely wore anything under her dress.

"They're all right," Ivan commented. She glanced at him, and then back to the soft, silk garment. It looked so small, so delicate. An idea came into her mind.

"You know you said I could have the dress?" she asked.

"Yes," Ivan answered, absently, as he picked up a long petticoat, and held it out to examine it.

"Well," Katia began. "Could I have these instead?"

He looked at her, and then the pants. "Sure," he said. "I've got hundreds."

Katia smiled at him genuinely for the first time that day, and placed the pants into the pocket of her dress. They would do nicely for wearing on her wedding day, a day when she, not he, deserved such things.

Ivan seemed not to notice her quiet pleasure. He had found one of the bodices that had arrived that month. Jenna had tried it on, Katia had refused; these whalebone riddled monstrosities were restrictive and uncomfortable. Even on her wedding day, she would not wear one of those. She looked at Ivan, who was examining the stitching on the hem, and testing the strength of it by pulling the elastic panels. He would, she supposed, need something like this to enhance his bosom. She had no such problems.

Suddenly he laughed. "Do you remember the first time you made me wear a dress?" he asked.

She was surprised. She remembered the time she had made him put on her May Day festival dress, just a few weeks before the troll had come. Her mother had made it for her especially, but she had hated it. It was hardly the thing a tomboy like her should wear, she had thought. To spite her mother, she had made Ivan wear it the morning of the festival. If her mother hadn't caught them on the way to the square, and made them swap clothes, maybe Ivan would have been the May Princess that year, instead of her.

"No," she answered him, quietly.

"You must do!" he insisted. "You wanted to climb that tree, do you remember?"

He wasn't thinking of the May Day incident. He was thinking back even earlier in their lives, to an innocent time. "You tried, but you couldn't do it in your dress, so you made me swap clothes with you so you could climb right to the top!"

She did remember, but vaguely; obviously more vaguely than him. "You were never very good at climbing trees," she reminded him.

"No, but no one was as good as you Katia!" he went on. "You could climb better than anyone."

She smiled at him; he was right, she had been the champion tree climber by some distance. His innocent smile flashed back at her, and racked her heart. She knew that by the time she left, there would be no smiling left for him. But she had to do it. She did not belong to him, whatever he might think. And look at him, she told herself, standing there in his pink frock, and long blonde tresses, looking all the world like the fairy tale princess that she had been told she should wish to be! And he was so good at it, so natural, and in some ways, so happy. He took genuine delight in some of the fine clothes, the strange cosmetics, and the exotic undergarments. There was no way a woman like her could be tied to someone like him.

He had taken out a pair of the shoes, and was trying them on, lifting his heavy skirts to gain access to his feet. She felt a whole range of emotions drifting through her, but decided, resolved, to put into action the plan she had determined and rehearsed.

"You'd best tell me what you'll be needing for next month," she told him. His face immediately fell. He knew that this meant the meeting, the tryst, was coming to an end.

"Not now," he said, looking with satisfaction at his foot in the new shoe. "These are nice."

She did not respond to this, but pressed on with her plan. "It may not be me who brings the stuff next month," she said, as matter-of-factly as she could.

He stared at her in disbelief, him mouth opened, and reddened lips parted. "What?" he said, obviously not believing what he had heard.

"I said it may not be me who comes next month," she repeated patiently.

"But it's always you!" he bleated. "I don't want to see anyone else!"
She held herself firm. "I have other things to do you know."

His lips now fell into a pout, and he looked away from her, towards the path he would have to tread to return to the troll. Her eyes followed his, but she did not allow the thought to shift her from her purpose.

"So what do you think you might need?" she pressed on.

He was silent for a long time before replying. "If it's not you, who will it be?" he said, still pouting.

"I don't know; Jenna, or Kara, or someone. I don't know."

He still would not look at her. She sighed; he was making this much more difficult than it needed to be. "So what do you think you might need?"

He shrugged again. "The usual," he said, with obvious disinterest.

"Will you need more underwear?" she asked, hoping something specific could force him to answer.

"Probably," he replied, kicking at the grass with his new shoes, making the pink of his dress swirl around his legs and swish.

She hesitated. "Well I'll draw up a list shall I?" she asked. "Do you want me to decide?"

"If you want," he responded. "Why won't it be you next month?"

His eyes stared into hers, daring her to tell the truth. "I didn't say it wouldn't be. I just said that I might not be able to come," she stammered.

"So you might come?" he said, with renewed hope in his voice.

She felt cornered. "Well I might. If I have time."

His eyes drooped again.

"Come on," she said, "Let me brush your hair through again, just for a minute."

"You've only just done it!" he protested.

"I know," she said. "But I like it." And, she thought, it meant she didn't have to look into his eyes when she told him her news.

He dutifully sat back down on the tree, and she found a ribbon that would match his dress, and began to prepare to tie into his hair.

"Oh I forgot one bit of news," she said, absently, as she separated two strands for the ribbon to go into. "Do you remember Karl, the miller's son?" She had pulled the dagger from its scabbard, and now prepared to strike.

Ivan thought for a moment. "Yes, I remember him. He was a bully."

"Well he's different now," she said, defending her betrothed more rapidly than perhaps she might have. "Anyway, he is to be wed."

"Wed?" he said, incredulously. "He's a bit young for that isn't he?"

"Well he's four year's older than when you knew him," she went on. "And since his father died, he's been running the mill, so he is a man of means!"

As she tied the ribbon into an elaborate bow for him, she could see that he was considering this.

"Who is he to marry?" he asked.

She paused for a moment, and then plunged the knife. "Me," she responded. She felt his whole body tense. Then he jumped up, and turned to face her, with something between anguish and fury on his face.

"You?"

Taking a deep breath, she nodded. He continued to stare at her, his painted eyes full of accusation. "You are to marry Karl?" he went on, as if repeating the words would somehow make them untrue.

"Yes," she said, her voice a little shaky, although she tried to keep up the appearance of calm.

"But you were to marry me!" he spluttered. "Don't you remember? We promised each other when we were children!"

She swallowed. He did remember. "That was a long time ago."

"But I still remember it!" he insisted. "I thought you meant it."

"Don't be silly Ivan," she said, trying to dismiss his outrage as mere childish foppery.

He looked at the sky, and then back to her, his chest heaving under the tight bodice of the dress. "Katia, say it isn't true!" he pleaded. "Say that it's a joke."

She looked at him levelly. "No Ivan, I can't say that. I can never marry you. You're married already anyway."

His bottom lip quivered, whether from sorrow or anger, she did not know. But she could not allow him to divert her, although she took on a gentler tone. "I know that it's partly my fault," she told him. "You've taken my place up here, as the troll wife, that's why you're the way you are."

He stared intently at her, his eyes filling with what looked to her like hatred. His voice, when he spoke, was quiet and measure. "I always thought that when I was free of the troll, I would come back to the village and marry you."

"Well you were mistaken," she told him curtly. "And you'll never be free of the troll."

"I might be," he muttered, as if to himself. "If his mother decided I am barren, she'll send me back, and ask for another bride for him."

For the first time, she felt a stab of panic, a loss of control of the moment. She recovered herself however. "That won't happen though will it Ivan?" she said, as quietly as he. "It takes a long time for troll wives to conceive, you told me that, remember?"

And it was true. On one of the rare occasions when he had mentioned his life on the mountain, he had told her about the troll mother's concerns about the lack of an heir; how the blind old woman had told Ivan that it was difficult to conceive with a troll, and that he must be patient. Sometimes, she had said, and he had passed this information on to Katia, it could take ten years or more.

His faced was flushed; she could see that even under the blusher he wore. "Anyway," she went on. "The old woman could well be dead before she gives up on you providing her with a grandson."

She knew she had hit home by the look on the boy's face. A part of her wanted to reach out to her childhood friend, to offer him some comfort, to make him realise why things had to be this way. But this was not the time; he was too angry. She would get Jenna to come the following month, and the month after that. One day, when he was over his anger and frustration, she would return, and perhaps they could be friends again.

He stood, looking back towards the path he would need to tread to return to the troll, and his life as the troll wife. "I shall go now," Katia announced, proudly. "Take care."

He made no response, and did not turn to look at her. She gave him some minutes to do so, or to say something, but he just stood, staring into nothingness on that warm summer's day. At length, Katia turned, and walked back down the path she had arrived on, and walked back into the thickness of the trees, and down towards the village.

  

  

  

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