Prince Umberto did not take to Mirella at all and she most certainly did not take to him. He was a conceited show-off with a silly blond beard and a sneery voice.
“You’ll have time to get used to him,” said Mirella’s mother.
But Mirella said she wouldn’t get used to him in ten years or in twenty or a hundred. “You can hang and draw and quarter me before I’ll join my life to that nitwit,” she said.
So the prince went away but that was not the end of the matter. Mirella’s father was very rich — he owned oil wells and diamond mines — and Prince Umberto’s father was poor, and he told Umberto that he had to promise to marry Mirella as soon as she was old enough.
“I’ll do it,” said Umberto, “but she’s got to be cleaned up and turned into a proper princess. I’m not living with fish and mongrel dogs and jackdaws.”
Mirella’s parents saw his point, and they began to train Mirella. They confiscated the ant nest. They took away the aquarium. They shooed out the jackdaw. And they said that the little dog had to go before the prince’s next visit.
“We’ll get you a beautiful pedigree dog like your sisters’,” they told her.
“I don’t want a pedigree dog, I just want Squinter,” said Mirella. “Please let me keep him. Please.”
But it was no use. Mirella fought and argued and threw tantrums but one day she came back from a walk and found that the little dog was gone.
“We’re doing this for you,” said her parents. “So you can become a proper princess.”
It was then that Mirella realized just how helpless children really are.
When she was very unhappy, Mirella used to climb out of a window on the top floor of the palace and crawl along the battlements to a place where she could watch the clouds and the wheeling birds, and after a while she usually felt better.
The day after the little dog had gone, Mirella clambered onto the roof and lay there.
She had always found it easy to follow the birds with her eyes and feel as though she was one of them, but today, because she was so wretched, the feeling was so strong it overwhelmed her.
A seagull mewed and whirred over the chimneys, and the sun caught its dazzling plumage. A pair of terns in from the sea swooped so low that she could see the pupils of their eyes — and high among the clouds a kestrel was hovering.
And as she lay there, Mirella felt as though she, too, was winged and completely free — a white bird in a pale blue firmament, not thinking or worrying or afraid, just feeling the wind currents beneath her wings and flying on and away… on and on…
It was in so many of the stories, the magic birds who flew high above the earth, seeing the silly worries of people below dwindle away. The wild geese who carried the boy Nils on their backs across the whole of Sweden… the Great Roc who bore Sinbad away to the Valley of Diamonds… the swallow who took Thumbelina to Africa.
Except that if she were a bird she wouldn’t carry anyone in her claws. She would fly away higher and higher, as far as she could go — but alone. Always alone and free.
After an hour her old nurse became worried and the palace was searched and a page boy fetched her off the roof.
As soon as she saw the princess, the nurse began to scold.
“You know you’re not supposed to go up there. You’ll fall to your death gawping at those dratted birds. The way you carry on you’ll become a bird yourself one of these days.”
Mirella never really listened when her nurse started to scold, but now she said, “How could I? No one can become a bird.”
“Oh, can’t they just,” said the old woman. “There’s sorcerers and monsters enough in the north to turn people into worse than birds.”
“What sorcerers?” asked Mirella. “What monsters?”
But the nurse wouldn’t say any more — she had been forbidden to frighten Mirella with stories of what went on in the far north of the island.
“What sorcerers? What monsters?” repeated Mirella. “You’re making it all up.”
“I am not,” said the nurse angrily.
That was all she would say — but it was enough. All the next day and the day after, Mirella was very quiet and absentminded.
And on the third day, the servants found her bed empty — and not a trace of her in the length and breadth of the palace.
CHAPTER 7
The Journey
The small, black-painted boat sailed over the dark water. The old man in oilskins who steered it was grumpy and silent. Occasionally he looked at Ivo and shook his head.
They had reached the last stage of the journey. They had followed the Norns’ instructions and everything had gone as it should. The ferry had taken them to the most northern port in Ostland, and after a night in a boardinghouse by the quayside they made their way to Pier Number Three, where an old man in his clinker-built fishing coble seemed to be expecting them.
When they were clear of the harbor the old man began to mutter.
“You’d best say your prayers,” he said. “There’s some dangerous ogres along this strip of coast but the one where you’re going’s the worst. There’s no one comes out of that place the way they went in.”
Ivo knew he should be afraid. What they were trying to do wasn’t just dangerous — it was probably impossible — but the only thing he’d been afraid of all along was that the Hag would find a way of sending him back.
The north shore of Ostland is famous for its rough seas. As they came out of the shelter of the harbor the boat started pitching and tossing and first the Hag, then the troll turned green and leaned over the side, ready to be sick. From time to time bursts of spray came over the side but they were too wretched to care. Ivo and Dr. Brainsweller did not feel ill; they sat back in the stern, hypnotized by the rise and fall of the waves,
They had traveled for more than two hours when there was a sudden gasp from the wizard.
“L… look,” he stammered, clutching Ivo’s arm. “Up there! It’s Mother!”
And it was. High above the heaving boat there floated a long, pale face. A pair of rimless spectacles clung to its pointed nose — its lips moved and formed a single word.
“Bri-Bri?” said Mrs. Brainsweller above the noise of the wind, and vanished.
The wizard was terribly shaken.
“You did see her?” he asked. “I didn’t imagine it?”
And Ivo had to admit that he had indeed seen Mrs. Brainsweller’s worried face.
“I don’t suppose she’ll come again,” he said. “She just wanted to see if you were all right.”
After another hour the boat came in closer to the shore, the water became calmer, and wearily the others raised their heads. They were sailing along a spectacular coastline of high jagged mountains and sheer cliffs. There were no harbors, no villages, only the seabirds swooping and crying: guillemots and kittiwakes and terns.
“How can we land?” wondered the troll.
The grumpy boatman did not answer. And then they saw a gap in the cliffs, and a small sandy bay with a rickety-looking jetty.
“Is this it?” asked the Hag. “Are we here? But there’s no castle.”
“It’s inland. You have to walk up through the trees.” And then, “I’ll take you back if you like. It’s a pity to see the little lad going to his death.”
But it was too late for that. They climbed stiffly out onto the jetty and down onto the sand. In front of them lay an opening fringed by bushes. It had begun to rain.
They were wet through and tired even before they began their trek inland along the overgrown path. It ran beside a small and sluggish stream covered in waterweeds and green slime. Every now and again a blister of gas came to the surface with a sinister plop.