Chapter 4. The Village of Ataitchuaq
After what seemed like mere minutes Magda was awakened by Volpo's voice:
"Wake up! The blizzard has quieted, we should go."
He shoved her a piece of meat, already boiled and even with added sea salt, and Magda got up and sat on the snow.
"Why must we go?" she asked sleepily. "Isn't it better to stay here, near the fire? Wolves can bring us wood to keep it."
"For how long? Are you planning to spend the rest of your life right here? If you are, anyway, I'm not. I'm going to find some human settlement."
Magda sighed and murmured a few things addressed to Aurora Borealis, who spared Volpo's life.
"Stop mumbling and have your meal, then we'll go," Volpo said impatiently.
"Are you sorry for what we had been doing in the Gold City?" Magda unexpectedly asked. "Would you go back to that time, if given a chance?"
"Never in the world," he snapped. "When we were banished into the vortex – for the first time, I mean – you promised to make me powerful. Instead, you used my ideas as your own and made me a scapegoat for every outburst of anger. You enjoyed luxury and, save for stealing the childhood, did practically nothing – after the Gold City was finished. While I had to watch, spy, control Skank and Skism and the goblin police, and do countless other things. And I bet you that if you hadn't lost your memory, you wouldn't be sorry for anything."
"But as I have lost my memory, I regret all of this," Magda whispered. "I think I'll never be able to live with this."
"Well, you are living," Volpo said. "I think you will continue doing so. Not everyone knows us by sight, so we can live in the same places as humans. So let's go!"
Magda reluctantly got up, and they walked away from the fire. Volpo ordered his wolves to bring them two polar bears' furry skins, and they both were now wrapped in these warm white mantles. Magda's ache was a little better after her sleep, as was her sore throat. She would have felt calm, had it not been for her grief for her past and the future perspective of marriage with Volpo.
They walked for several hours, until they noticed several lights of some village on the horizon.
"We'll pass as European adventurers who want to settle in the Wild North," Volpo said. "It's relatively close to the former Gold City, so we must use fake names. Our faces may not be known, but our – ahem! uncommon names will be outstanding. Let's say I'm Leopold, and you're Margaret. And we both are Germanic."
He briefly looked at himself, then at Magda.
"Your hair," he commented. "It's odd. We must dye it black or at least some other color than silvery. With a face in its twenties and hair in its seventies you'd look quite extravagant."
He whistled for his wolves.
"Bring some flints, a wide concave bone, and several handfuls of brown clay," he ordered. The Chief (Magda shortly called the leading wolf so) nodded, and soon the pack returned with everything requested.
The flints were used to make a fire, and the clay was put into the bone and fused, then mixed with melted snow. Magda cried:
"Are you going to paint my hair brownish red?"
"It's no better than silvery, but it will look natural for your youthful face," Volpo said. Despite her protests, soon her hair indeed painted the exact color of bricks.
In an hour, Albert and Hilda Ernholt, the owners and hosts of The White Walrus Inn in the village of Ataitchuaq, heard a knock on the door. Hilda opened the door to reveal two people, a man and a lady, clad in bear skins. The man's complexion and hair were not unlike Inuit, but his facial features were much broader. His ears were pointed, and his teeth, when he smiled, unusually white and sharp. The lady's looks were much more difficult to examine, because she was apparently frozen and kept her face hidden in the fur. Hilda could only see her hair that were of an ugly dirty red color, and her ears – pointed as well.
"Hello, ma'am. We're traveling from Schwartzwald, and would like to settle in this village. Until we built our own house, we'd want a room in your inn," the man said authoritatively. "We can't pay you right now, but Margaret has some jewels for sale, and soon we'll have enough money for a fresh start."
"Very well, sir," Hilda smiled welcomingly. "I'll send a maid to prepare your room right now. What are your names?"
"Leopold Wulfen and Margaret Schmidt-Guldengard," the man said. "Or better to say, write down the names already as Leopold and Margaret Wulfen," he glanced at his companion. The woman didn't react.
"Alright, sir. But how many rooms should I prepare – one or two?"
"One, we're going to be officially married today evening."
"I see. My congratulations."
"Thank you."
There had never been such odd guests in the small and quiet village of Ataitchuaq. Not a minute had passed after the couple was shown to the room, and Hilda and Albert were already discussing them with the local gossips.
"The lady is the strangest of the two," Hilda said decidedly. "She never raised her face, let alone spoke, since they arrived."
"They must have eloped," Rekko, her friend, guessed. "Hence their secretiveness and the lady hiding her face."
"Or perhaps he had kidnapped her," Albert added. "She must be a Germanic aristocrat. Her surname is double: Schmidt-Guldengard. She is hiding her face from shame."
"Oh, no, no!" Hilda laughed. "The woman has nothing aristocratic about her. Her hair is done in a simply terrible way! And it looks as if it hasn't been washed for months. I'm also sure she's ugly. A good-looking lady – whether aristocratic or peasant – will never keep her hair in such a state."
As the villagers were conjuring guesses about the couple, each guess wilder than the previous, Volpo was quietly telling Magda about his plans for the further future:
"I think I'll open a shop. I'll sell meat and also carve knifes and other useful things from bones and wood. You can learn to weave, sew, and embroider, and we will prosper. For now, you'll have to sell your jewels. I've looked at the list of guests of this inn. I saw there a name of one Sir Joseph Moore, an English explorer, sent by His Majesty to study the culture of Northern tribes. I bet you he'll give you a fine bit of money for your jewelry. Honestly, apart from the engagement ring, what else do you need?"
Magda said nothing, only nodded. She didn't want to anger Volpo, he appeared to be mad at her after how she treated him before.
"Then take off your jewels, and I'll go and sell them right now," Volpo said. "That Sir Moore can leave any moment."
Magda took off every piece of jewelry save for the engagement ring, and Volpo went to sell them.
Finally alone, Magda was free to cry in despair. She was afraid she would burst if she always hid her despair. And she was obviously doomed to despair for eternity. Her past, the past of a cruel tyrant witch, was, to put it mildly, nothing to be proud of. Her future was the future of an unloving and unloved wife of a controlling fierce man.
"I believe I deserve my future," she whispered in hysterics. "For what I did to poor elves and the people of the Gold City… But it's so hard to accept – especially since I barely remember anything from my life!.."
"Fraulein Schmidt-Guldengard?" a maid knocked on the door. "Would you and your groom like a ceremonial meal for your wedding?"
Oh well, a ceremonial meal is exactly what I need now, Magda thought sarcastically.
"I'm exhausted and trying to sleep," she said, imitating a sleepy voice. "Please let me rest. Just let me rest."
"Of course, sorry," and the maid left.
In ten minutes, Volpo returned with a large bag, full of gold coins.
"Sir Moore thought I was a fool," he laughed. "Pretended the gemstones were glass. Wanted to send me away with a few copper coins! Naturally, I wasn't like that."
Magda opened her mouth to comment on it, but Volpo cut her short:
"Come, let's have dinner."