Estelle enthusiastically described the rules of the game, which she called echecs. Having done this, however, she quickly lost interest in the actual game and began making up rules of her own and stories about the small figures.
"Father carved the pieces," she said in Fransk, "and I have given each one a name."
She held up one intricate piece, saying, "C'est la grande dame, Queen Maraboo!"
According to Estelle, Queen Maraboo was a very brave young woman who met with many heart-stopping adventures, including vanquishing an impressive array of hideous creatures, among them a troll-witch with twelve heads, a slithery creature called Boneless that stole your bones because he didn't have any, and a ghost-wolf that breathed fire and could only be controlled by singing. My knowledge of Fransk was sorely tested by the tales, but I managed to follow along fairly well and my vocabulary grew.
Estelle played the part of Queen Maraboo, while I was assigned roles that corresponded to the other pieces of the board, either those who served Queen Maraboo or those who were her inept enemies. But when I was assigned the role of the ghost-wolf and my howl fell short of her expectations, Estelle decided that she was tired of playing echecs.
She then began to teach me a clapping game. It was similar to games I had played with my sisters, when they could get me to sit still long enough, but the rhyming song was unfamiliar and difficult for me. This is how it went:
"The old woman must stand at the tub, tub, tub,
The dirty clothes to rub, rub, rub;
But when they are clean, and fit to be seen,
She'll dress like a lady and dance on the green."
Estelle recited the words as we alternated slapping together our right hands and then left hands, clapping in between. I found my thoughts drifting to my makeshift washing room at the castle, and to all the times I had carefully washed that white nightshirt. I blinked back tears and lost the beat of the clapping.
Estelle scolded me.
"Teach me another," I said, swallowing hard.
Estelle happily launched into another rhyme, with another whole set of handclaps and rhythms. Then we did another, and another. At one point Estelle asked me about the silver ring I wore on my thumb. I said that the man who had been a white bear had given it to me before he disappeared. And I took it off my thumb and showed her the word VALOIS inscribed on it. Estelle did not know what it meant (nor did her mother when I asked her later). Putting the ring back on my thumb, I returned to the hand-clapping game with Estelle.
The last rhyme Estelle taught me went like this:
"The sun shines east, the moon shines west, and pigs turn somersaults in a bobolink's nest.
The sheep jumps the sun, the cat chases the moon,
and they eat strawberry jam from a gold-plated spoon."
She repeated it over and over, and it seemed as if she could go on forever, but finally on the tenth chorus of the cat chasing the moon, Sofi returned and it was time for supper.
When I lay on my straw-filled mattress that night, Estelle's rhymes echoed in my ears. Sheep jumping over the sun and cats chasing the moon ...I might as well chase the moon myself, I thought, as find my way to a land that lies east of the sun and west of the moon.
And then it struck me, like a great, ringing kick to the head. And I sat up.
"East of the sun and west of the moon" meant nothing. It was nonsense, like one of Estelle's rhymes. Neddy would have called it a conundrum, his fancy word for riddle. But it was a riddle with no solution. When the stranger with the white bear's eyes told me he was going to the place that lay "east of the sun and west of the moon," he was telling me he was going nowhere, to a place I could not follow him to. Why he chose those words, I did not know. Perhaps it was all he had been allowed to say. Or perhaps it was all he had been told.
Well, it didn't matter. Whether or not the words were a fraud, he was somewhere. And I would find him. I decided I must leave the next day.
"It is too soon," Sofi protested. "You need more time to get better."
"I have to go," I said.
"Then Estelle and I will go with you," Sofi replied, her tone as definite as mine had been.
I stared at her. "I don't even know where I am going."
"I will start you on your journey then. Surely you know which direction you will begin with?"
"North," I replied. "The sleigh was going north. And the man Tuki spoke of a land of snow and ice. I think the pale queen took him to her home in that land."
Sofi nodded, then said, "I have something that might help you." She left the room.
She returned bearing a rolled-up sheet of parchment. I guessed immediately what it was. A map. It had been her husband's, brought back from a sea voyage. He had been a sailor; it was at sea that he had died.
It was a good map, made by a Portuguese mapmaker. "It is yours now," Sofi said with a smile.
"Oh no, I cannot take it."
"Yes," she replied, and would not let me refuse.
She unrolled the map, flattening it on the table in the kitchen, and pointed to a spot in the southwest of Fransk. "This is where we are," she said.
I found Njord on the map and couldn't believe my eyes. The distance the white bear had traveled was fantastic. In seven days he had journeyed through most of Fransk, at least half of Njord, the countries of Tyskland, Holland, and Danemark, as well as the sea that lay between Njord and Danemark. Such a journey, on foot, would take me a year or more, and that did not take into account getting across the waters of Njordsjoen.
Sofi was watching my face, seeing the wonder and then the dismay there, and she put a comforting hand on mine.
"Courage, " she said.
I studied the map for some time and decided that I would travel to the port town of La Rochelle, where I hoped to find a ship to take me north. I had no idea how I was going to pay for such a journey but thought maybe I could work for my passage. It would be much faster to travel by ship than to make the long trek north on foot. It turned out that Sofi's brother lived in La Rochelle and knew the harbor well. She thought he might be able to help me. And Sofi and Estelle were going to take me all the way to La Rochelle. Sofi had not seen her brother for a long time, she said, and accompanying me was the perfect opportunity for her and Estelle to visit.
We set off the next morning.
Troll Queen
OUR ARRIVAL AT THE PALACE was all I could have desired. There was a large assemblage to greet us, everyone brilliantly attired. And I was told that Simka had been working night and day on the sumptuous feast that we will enjoy this evening. (Simka's prowess in the kitchen more than makes up for her foul disposition.) The only thing that marred the homecoming was a trace of unease I could read in the eyes of my closest advisers. No one dared to say anything out loud when I said that the softskin man would be given the suite of rooms beside my own, but I sensed their displeasure.