East

Rose

KENTTA MURHA. The freezing field, or killing field, for that is what I came to know the words to mean.

This was where they brought the softskins who had outlived their usefulness.

It was like some horrible outdoor sculpture garden. Stiffened bodies, naked, frozen in all different positions, scattered across the wide valley. It had not snowed in some time, at least not since the most recent arrivals, and in the blazing light from the sky, I could see several faces that were familiar to me. The young girl with the cough that hadn't gone away. The elderly man who had lived on my corridor, who shuffled off every morning to his job in the dishwashing room.

The trolls took them out there, stripped them of their protective clothing, and then left them to freeze to death. It was cruel and barbaric, and I was filled with a bottomless rage at those monsters, those trolls. I shuddered to think how many bodies lay stacked up under the layers of ice and snow.

Human beings, taken from their families, their villages, the lives they knew. Then filled with poison that erased that which made them human but kept their bodies useful. And when their bodies were no longer useful, they were cast off in this forsaken place, to die.

At least it would be a quick death, I told myself. But that fact did not take away my rage.

Suddenly I thought of him, of the man who had been a white bear. Would he someday end up here, at kentta murha, when he had outlived his usefulness to the Troll Queen?

And then, with a sudden and intense certainty, I knew that the man I had come to know inside the skin of a white bear was not a man who could ever truly care for a creature who was capable of such cruelty. If he felt affection for the Troll Queen it was born of poisoned slank and of ignorance. He did not know of kentta murha. He could not.

And just as suddenly, it did not matter whether the man cared for me or I for him. The only thing that mattered was giving him his life back, as well as helping all the softskins whose lives had been stolen by the trolls.

I mounted Vaettur again, and we made our way up the slope to head back to the ice palace. I snuck in a back stable entrance, gave Vaettur a bag of oats, and then returned to the servants' quarters. The door to my room was shut, along with all the other doors lining the hall. I pulled open the heavy door and entered. I took off my coat, first removing the troll mask from a pocket and straightening and reforming it as best I could. Then, still wearing the moon dress, I slipped under the pile of fur-skins. I lay there, trying to make plans, to figure out what I must do, but I was too exhausted even to think. My eyelids closed.

When I awoke the next morning the door was still shut. Through the murky translucent walls I could tell the sun had climbed up fairly high in the sky. The wedding was to take place when the sun was directly above. The morning troll with his cart of slank was late.

Suddenly I remembered the tail end of a conversation between two trolls I had overheard the day before. I had only understood the words "no softskins " and "wedding " and had thought that it meant that the Troll Queen did not want softskins present at her wedding. I had assumed we'd still be working behind the scenes. But the truth was clear now. We were to be kept shut up in our quarters until after the wedding.

I got out of my bed. Before putting on my coat, I gazed down at the moon dress. Despite my having slept in it, it looked as fresh and unwrinkled as it had the night before. I straightened my hair, put on the pearly shoes, and attached the mask to my face.

Placing one shoulder against the door, I pushed. Slowly the door opened. I stuck my head out, looking both ways down the hallway. It was deserted. Moving cautiously I made my way toward the palace. As I traveled that familiar path through the connecting passageways, I did not come across a single softskin or troll.

In fact, I did not see a living soul the entire way between the servants' quarters and the banquet hall. The softskins were shut in their rooms, and the trolls, every single one of them, from servant to highborn, were attending their queen's wedding.

I was still a short distance from the banquet hall when I heard the faint sound of music; not troll music but the lovely, clear notes of a flauto as it was meant to be played. The white bear was performing. I wondered how long he had been playing and when the wedding was due to begin. I quickened my pace, the haunting sound of the flauto beckoning me forward. Then I recognized the melody as his favorite, "Estivale," the one I had tried to play back in the white bear's castle. For the first time I heard how truly beautiful it was.

I entered by a side entrance, and the few who noticed did not give me a second glance. They were too entranced by the music. The vast room was packed with trolls. And above I saw that lining the walls were several layers of balconies—which, because they were made of the same translucent ice as the walls, I had not noticed the night before. The balconies were full of trolls in brightly colored clothing. The light from the sun shone through the ice, and the refraction caused shimmers of rainbow colors to dance along the walls. It was not as spectacular as the northern lights of the night before but gentler, and perhaps even lovelier.

I made my way around the edge of the room, where trolls stood shoulder to shoulder. Movement was not easy, and many of them gazed at me with displeasure; luckily, I was small and could squeeze through the tight crowd. There was room only for standing in the rear and at the sides, but eventually I spotted rows of chairs in the front, nearest the dais and throne, in which the more important trolls were seated. Determined to get as close as possible, I took a deep breath and wiggled my way through until I came to a small bare patch of floor beside the chair of a large female troll who wore a wide-brimmed red hat covered with opulent trimmings. The hat shielded me from view, but I had an excellent vantage point from which to watch what was going on.

When the white bear finished playing his song, there was a short silence. The Troll Queen stood and gazed sternly out over her people. And then, with a great swelling noise, the trolls began to shout and stamp their feet. The floor beneath me shook. Had I not been familiar with troll language and ways after living among them for so long, I wouldn't have known they were showing approval. But they were, and the noise grew and grew. I could tell the Troll Queen was very pleased. A wide triumphant smile curved her red lips.

I couldn't see the white bear-man's face well, but what I could see was unreadable, his features still and resolute.