LITMIR.BIZ

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fine white sand. Everyone was shouting at once:

      “Fetch a high-seat for the King of the Dovre!”

      “A special table for his son and daughter!”

      “How many tubs of water for the merrows?”

      “We need to have just as many for the nixies!”

      “Couldn’t they sit on wet stones…?”

      Peer scanned the crowd for a sight of Sigurd or Sigrid. He saw trolls with pigs’ snouts, trolls with owls’ eyes, trolls with birds’ beaks. There was not a human face among them – except for the nixies whose beautiful faces were narrow and sly with curious slanting eyes.

      Then he saw them – slouching on rocks at the bottom of the waterfall – not the children, but the burly, black-haired figures of the Grimsson twins. He winced.

      “Don’t worry, Peer,” whispered Hilde beside him.

      “I’m not,” he lied. The Gaffer set off across the uneven stone floor. They followed. The trolls fell back for them, muttering.

      Cold with fright, Peer threw his head back and stared at his two uncles. They hadn’t seen him yet, and he wasn’t looking forward to the moment when they did. Baldur noticed the Gaffer and got to his feet, jogging his brother’s elbow – and then he spotted Peer. His jaw dropped. So did Grim’s. Their faces registered blank astonishment changing to pop-eyed fury. Scared though he was, Peer had to giggle.

      The Gaffer walked past the Grimsson brothers, ignoring them, and climbed on to his throne. He swept his tail out of the way and settled himself. But as Peer and Hilde drew near, the two men came out of their trance. Baldur shot out a thick arm. He caught Peer by the scruff and shook him like a puppet.

      “Let him go!” Hilde shrieked, trying to pull him free. Grim kicked her, and there was a hiss of delight from the assembled trolls: “Bite them and tear them! Pull them to pieces!”

      “QUIET!” bellowed the Gaffer. He folded his arms. “Huuuu! If we’re not ready by midnight for the King of the Dovre, I’ll look at you all with my other eye and shrivel you into earthworms! Get on with your work.” The trolls began to bustle about very busily.

      Baldur dropped Peer and turned blustering to the Gaffer. “Whatever the boy’s said to you, don’t listen to him! We’ve done what you asked, haven’t we? We’ve got you those children – just what you wanted!”

      “S’right!” added Grim. “Give us our gold – as much as we can carry!”

      “I’ll do as I please,” said the Gaffer, growling.

      With a discordant blast, horns sounded in a corner of the Hall. The little troll came hurrying in and bowed several times, out of breath. “The princess!” it gasped. “And the prince!”

      Into the Hall came the Gaffer’s eldest daughter. She was in a bad temper, for the occasion was so great: she had never been married before! She was pretty; her mother had been a nixie. Her eyes were large, slanted like birch leaves, and her tail was as delicate as a cat’s.

      “The spiders haven’t finished my wedding dress,” she complained. “And look at all the dust! You should have raised the hill yesterday and aired the place. Then North Wind could have swept in here. We shall never be ready in time, and the King of the Dovre will think I’m a bad housewife.”

      “He won’t think that as long as there’s enough beer,” chuckled the Gaffer. “Besides, my dear, look what I have for you! The Bride Cup you so foolishly lost, long ago.”

      The troll princess looked at it carelessly. “That old thing? You’ve got it back? So at last you’ll stop fussing?”

      “It’s an heirloom, my dear!”

      Up came her brother the troll prince, a sulky expression on his piggish face. “Those two children you’ve got for us are terrible,” he burst out. “They won’t fetch or carry or dance or sing. They won’t do anything but scream and cry. I can’t possibly give the girl to my bride.”

      “I can’t possibly give the boy to my husband!” agreed the troll princess.

      They glared at their father who in turn scowled at the Grimssons.

      “‘Just what I wanted,’ eh?” he growled, and the eye in the middle of his forehead flickered in a red blink. The two big men shuffled their feet.

      “How can they sing when they’re unhappy? Where are they?” cried Hilde, imagining the children locked in some dark cave. But Peer pulled her arm and there, creeping into the Hall, holding hands tightly, were Sigurd and Sigrid. Their dirty tear-streaked faces brightened as they saw Hilde, and they raced to meet her. She grabbed one in each arm and hugged them close. “This’ll teach you to go running off,” she choked. “I told you to stay with Grandpa!”

      Sigrid sobbed. Peer tousled her hair, a brotherly lump in his throat. “Don’t scold, Hilde,” he whispered.

      “I’m not,” sniffed Hilde. “Don’t cry any more, Siggy. We’re taking you home.”

      “Are you, now?” asked the Gaffer drily.

      Hilde turned on him. “I brought you the cup!”

      “And the prince and princess don’t want the children,” Peer added.

      “It’s what I want that counts!” the Gaffer snarled. “And it boils down to this. I want a pair of you for the Dovreking’s son and daughter. So two of you may go – but two must stay.

      “I’m feeling generous,” he added genially, “so I’ll let you choose.”

      “You don’t mean it,” said Hilde in horror.

      The Gaffer looked at her.

      “But —” She stopped, gasping. “How can we choose?”

      “Take your time,” the Gaffer advised merrily. “Think hard. Don’t decide in a hurry!”

      “Can’t we go home?” Sigrid wept, her mouth turned down. “I want to go home!”

      “So do I!” cried Sigurd. They buried themselves in Hilde’s clothes. She looked down at them and bit her lip.

      “I – I suppose I had better stay,” she whispered.

      Sick with shock, Peer opened his mouth, and closed it again, unable to say the words that would condemn him to a life of slavery. He imagined living here, trapped – never seeing Loki again, never seeing anyone but trolls – and choked. He looked at Hilde and she turned away. Peer thought it was scorn. He gritted his teeth. It was easy for her to be brave. The twins were her family!

      He stole another glance. Hilde’s head was bowed, her fists clenched. Peer was ashamed of himself. Of course it wasn’t easy.

      He stared dizzily around the Hall – the scurrying trolls, the white strands of the waterfall, the moving lights in the dark roof. It all seemed horribly strange and meaningless. I’ve got to get out! Out, where the sun shines and the wind blows!

      Again he looked at Hilde, who still would not look at him. And then his eyes came to rest on the stupid, brutal, calculating faces of Baldur and Grim. A cold thought penetrated. What sort of life would it be, to go back to the mill with those two? How could he live, knowing he had abandoned Hilde?

      I’d be as bad as they are, he thought in revulsion.

      He pressed his hands over his eyes. It was the same choice he had made on the mountain, but this time it was much harder. Who would have thought you had to keep on choosing and choosing? I can’t keep running away, Father, he said silently in the blackness behind his closed lids. It doesn’t work. It’s time to stand up to them. And he opened his eyes.

      “I’ll stay here too.”

      Hilde shot him

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