Free Daughter of Fire and Ice by Marie-Louise Jensen Page B

gloomy porch.
    ‘Hello?’ I called as Erik had done before me. ‘Is there no one here?’
    I walked forward into the dark house, my eyes adjusting slowly to the gloom. The only light came from a slight glow in the central fireplace and I could make out little. The smoke caught at the back of my throat after days in the open air, making me cough. The house stank of fish, and I could just make out dried fish hanging from the roof. Strange, I thought. I saw no fishing boats in the bay.
    Something moved in the darkness behind the loom.
    ‘Who’s there?’ I asked quickly. ‘We mean no harm.’
    ‘I’m not afraid,’ came a grating voice, like the sound of iron scraping on iron. A small figure emerged, moving strangely. As it came forward into the light I could see it was a young woman, dragging one leg.
    ‘Are you hurt?’ I asked starting forward in sympathy.
    ‘Not I,’ said that metallic voice.
    As she spoke, I caught sight of her aura and recoiled in horror. She didn’t have a single pure colour radiating from her. All was muddied browns and greys, flushed through with sulphur. It would have made Svanson’s aura look innocent and playful. I’d never seen anything like it. My first thought was that this could be no human being. This must be some hidden creature, some dwarf or troll or malevolent spirit lurking in this abandoned farmstead to entrap unwary travellers. Then I looked more closely and saw it was just a woman. She was even pretty. One leg was twisted, probably broken and badly set at some time in her past, I guessed. But she was fair of face, slight and elfin-like in her looks. She had small, neat hands and very white teeth. But none of this could distract me from her aura.
    ‘What do you want?’ asked the young woman sharply. ‘There’s nothing here to steal. We’re poor people.’
    ‘We stopped only for drinking water,’ I said, spreading my hands in a gesture of humility. I had to struggle with myself to hold my ground and speak to her, facing that swirl of vicious and unhappy colours. My impulse was to flee. ‘We simply came up here to tell you so. Surely you aren’t alone here? Sorry, I don’t know your name … ’
    ‘I am Ragna. I’m alone, but not unprotected,’ she said, and there was a hint of a sinister threat in her voice. ‘Drinking water?’ she continued. ‘And what gift have you brought me to compensate?’
    ‘For water?’ I asked, bewildered.
    ‘ Our water,’ said the girl.
    I tried to see past this poor woman’s tortured, terrifying colours to the person that must have feelings of kindness and sympathy, just as I did. But I couldn’t find her. I sensed only darkness and evil. I felt fear course through me and began to back towards the door.
    ‘Don’t forget that compensation,’ she reminded me.
    ‘I’ll speak to our chieftain,’ I said.
    I left, Erik and Grim following me closely.
    Once out in the open, I breathed the clean sea air deep into my lungs, trying to clear away the smells and sights of the dreadful house.
    ‘Are we going to pay her?’ asked Erik beside me.
    I shuddered, trying to collect myself. ‘We’ll have to ask Bjorn,’ I replied, forcing my voice to be steady. ‘How does she come to be quite alone in there? She can’t live by herself, surely?’
    ‘Not she,’ replied Grim in a reassuringly matter-of-fact voice. His eyes roamed the hillside above us. ‘The others will be somewhere near. They most likely fled at the sight of two ships entering the bay, in case we meant harm. That poor girl probably can’t walk well enough to go with them.’
    ‘They’re almost certainly watching us right now,’ added Erik.
    I tried to summon up pity for the woman left to face danger alone, but I failed. It hadn’t seemed to me that she was in the least afraid.
    ‘Let’s fill the barrels with water and leave this place,’ I said.
    We headed down for the shore, avoiding the patches of sheep droppings that were scattered on the grass, stopping