Chapter Text
Janne’s arms are wrist-deep inside an ewe the moment she’s informed she’s marrying the prince.
Deliberately not moving (that would startle and harm poor Astrid) Janne carefully responds in the only way she can, “What?”
Her father coughs and shifts uncomfortably, “King came over by himself and begged. Couldn’t say no. He’s royalty.”
She focuses on Astrid for a minute, pushing her lamb’s forelegs into the normal position before replying, “Did he at least offer you something in exchange for your loss? Riches? Extra sheep?”
“Was promised ‘riches for the rest of my life.’ Course, that was before I started to protest, so he may not deliver since I was difficult.”
“Ah. I see. And when am I to marry him?”
“Er — he said he’d said someone to fetch you tonight.”
Astrid seems to be birthing fine now, and so Janne stands, “Can you watch Astrid for me, Papa? I need to be alone for a time.”
“Janne —”
“I’ll be fine,” she says, giving him a weary smile, “I just need to think.”
Her father nods. His eyes are wet.
She dares not look at him again as she heads into the forest.
The forest is wild and twisted and offers no answers to her plight as she meanders aimlessly through it.
By now, with two foreign princesses lost, everyone must surely know about the King and his Lindworm son, Janne thinks, as she tramps around in circles. She had not ventured out to market since before the two weddings, but she can guess what the people must be saying.
How could the queen give birth to such a monster? Why didn’t they kill it? How could the king allow the death of two princesses? When will this end? Will there be war?
All worthy questions, and no answers.
If the king continues down his current path of choosing peasant women as brides though, he may not be king much longer. A foreign princess is one thing — the country’s maidens are another, and she doubts the people would stand for it.
Her death may be good for something, at least.
The thought makes her laugh. The sound is strange in the stillness, shocking her into awareness of her surroundings for the first time in a quarter of an hour.
Her feet have led her to her mother’s grave.
Of course.
Her mother died of a lingering illness in Janne's childhood. Janne, young, numbly hurting, and longing for someone who understood more than her father, had taken to telling her woes to the sandstone grave.
As she'd grown older and more like her father, her confessions to the cold stone had dropped off.
It all rushes back to her as she stands there again. How she would wake up early to go talk to her. How she came here the first time a boy kissed her. How she had thought she would take her children here and introduce them to their grandmother.
She will never stand here again, she realizes, and the tears she's held back burst forth.
Janne drops to her knees, hugging the gravestone that’s cold beneath her cheek.
“Mother,” she chokes out, “What should I do?”
“To begin with, you could try not cringing over a gravestone like a frightened child, and tell me what’s bothering you.”
Janne starts, then looks back cautiously. An gnarled old woman she's never seen before stands behind her.
“Ma’am?” she says carefully.
“Speak up, child. I cannot help you if you refuse to say your problem."
Mysterious old women in forests were tricky, everyone knew. They were likely witches, and if so, they could bring you great boons, or, great misfortune. If you were kind and clever, good things could happen to you. If you were disrespectful or mean, horrible things would happen to you. But what they considered to be disrespect varied. It was a gamble either way.
Janne makes her choice.
It’s not like great misfortune would have much chance to stick to her anyway, even if she did make a mistake.
“Thank you for your kindness, ma’am,” she says slowly, “I am crying because I am to marry the Lindworm, and he has eaten two brides already. I fear I shall be eaten as well.”
“No great reason to be sobbing like a babe,” scoffs the old woman, and Janne bites her tongue, “Not when there’s an easy solution.”
Janne’s heart catches in her throat, “A solution, ma’am?”
“If you have a sharp mind and can follow instructions.”
“I have handled my father’s farm for half my life, ma’am,” Janne says sharply.
The witch laughs and Janne cringes back, “A temper, eh? Maybe you’ll make it through yet. Listen close then, to the ritual you must follow.”
Janne wipes the lingering tears off her face, and endeavors to look like she's paying as much attention as possible.
“First, said the witch, “you must ask for ten snow-white shifts, a tub of lye, and a tub of milk. Oh, and as many whips as a page can carry in his arms. After the marriage ceremony, when you are brought to your bedchamber, and the Lindworm tells you to shed a shift, you must bid him to slough a skin. For each skin he sheds, take off a shift. When all his skins are off, you must dip the whips in the lye and whip him. Next you must dip him into the tub of milk, and lastly, you must embrace him.”
“Embrace him? But —”
At her interjection, the old woman simply disappears into the air. So she had been a witch, Janne thinks, blinking past her bafflement.
She stands, realizing for the first time how late it was. The sun hangs low in the sky, and the chill pricks at her arms. She needs to get back.
As she rushes through the forest, she thinks on what the witch had told her, repeating it again and again in her mind. If she was going to survive this, she couldn’t forget anything.
The witch had not explained what the purpose of this was, but Janne was no fool. It was clear this would kill the Lindworm.
Janne had butchered sheep before, but a giant snake who had eaten two princesses was quite a different matter. Her life had never rested on killing her sheep. And she cannot balk, not at any of what the witch told her to do, no matter how difficult it is.
She must not falter.