“So Lars-Goren has destroyed the Devil!” Liv Bergquist thought. She smiled, raising her head. She’d known when she married him that Lars-Goren was no ordinary mortal. Otherwise, she’d never have consented to be his wife. She could have had any man she pleased.
She smiled at her son, who stood with his arms folded, beaming as if he himself had killed the Devil — and he could have, she thought; he would have.
In Stockholm, King Gustav was seized by a sudden thought. “No,” he said, “stupidity!” He had a vision which he scarcely understood and, in the heat of it, tore the parchment to shreds. “Let the Riksdag decide,” he thought. “’What concerns all should have the approval of all.’” He smiled, pleased with himself. With his printing press, he’d write a letter to his people, and he would make the press available to his people for response. They’d be reasonable, he knew. They would not dare behave otherwise.
The sky outside his window was as red as blood, whether the blood of God or the Devil Gustav Vasa did not think to wonder.
“Who’ll tell the story?” said the child to the magician. “People should be told.”
“Never mind,” said the old man, smiling like a beaver. “For centuries and centuries no one will believe it, and then all at once it will be so obvious that only a fool would take the trouble to write it down.”
Now the red of the sky was fading. In Russia, the tsar, with ice on his eyelashes, was declaring war on Poland. “Little do they dream,” he said, “what horrors they’ve unleashed on themselves, daring to think lightly of the tsar!” All around him, his courtiers bowed humbly, their palms and fingertips touching as if for prayer.
And now, like wings spreading, darkness fell. There was no light anywhere, except for the yellow light of cities.