Chapter 34: Epilogue

It was long after dark when the stage-coach finally pulled up to the great iron gates of the Finnish gentleman's estate. The black horses stamped impatiently as the gatekeeper creaked open the heavy iron portal and waved their coachman through.

A man and a woman got out under the long curved porch that sheltered man and horse from wind and weather. Their host, a florid red-faced man in his sixties, greeted them and grasped the man's hat.

"Herr Niemann, and your lovely wife! Welcome to the house of Tormalinson!"

Over his temples fell Alberich Niemann's long hair, now mostly grey except for a few streaks of black, openings to the stars through clouds covering the night sky. His wife was small, only up to his shoulder, her faded reddish-gold hair tucked carelessly under her hat. He smiled, but just faintly, enough to curl up the edges of his mouth.

His host stared, but not too much. For Alberich Niemann's face had a delicate tracery of red and silver across the top, as if he'd forgotten to take off his carnival mask. His eyes amid the intaglio decorations were warm, though, deep and brown.

"Tomorrow we'll tour the site," the red-faced gentleman said. "It will be a model for the whole community. And you will tour the factory, too, and meet the men whom you will house."

Alberich gave a small, polite bow, and Herr Tormalinson said, "Follow my man here, he'll show you to the guest house," and they took their leave.

Kristina Niemann trudged a little heavily. She had just weaned her youngest child, and was recovering her strength. But a holiday in Finland was too good to miss, even if the November air bit like the very jaws of the Northern Giants' wolf Fenrir himself.

Alberich took her carefully by the arm. His mind raced over the description of the building site where he was to construct a little town, worker housing for the Finnish chemical plant. If the soil was too damp, it would have to be drained. He had to see it for himself, and not trust entirely the Finnish engineers. It was ridiculous not to trust them, but even so. The quality of the dirt between the palms of his hands would tell him, and from that he would make his decision. Herr Tormalinson might like to think that everything was all set, but it all depended on the soil.

If it wasn't suitable for building, Alberich wouldn't build.

The guest house was old, probably the original farmhouse on the site. Tormalinson had built a great stone edifice in the French pattern, to show his newly-acquired wealth, which Kristina found vulgar. But the old farmhouse was perfect, freshly painted red, with a thick roof of fresh thatch. Cows lowed in the barn nearby.

Then Kristina clapped her hands and pulled on her husband's sleeve. "Alberich, look! They have a hot-water bath!"

"One of those Finnish rooms where they heat rocks, and pour water on them. They fill with steam."

"A sauna, right. But this looks different." She hurried to the little wooden structure and pushed the door open. "It is, come see! It's already been filled with water, and it's hot. We can sit up to our necks. Have you ever done this?"

"In the Turkish baths in Constantinople. But that wasn't a place a man could take his wife."

'It will be lovely. We can both fit."

Alberich shifted nervously. "That would probably be considered immodest."

"Well, we won't tell them. See, the door has an inside latch. Someone's thought of this before us."

Alberich scrutinized his wife as the silent porter unloaded their bags. This last birth had been hard on her, harder than before. And Lars had taken forever to wean, well, not forever, but three years. It had held another baby at bay, but Kristina looked tired, and Alberich didn't like that, nor the fading of her hair. Not that she wasn't beautiful to him, but he saw in those silver strands among the gold a little fading of her life.

But when she bounced a little on the rope bed with its red-and-white woven coverlet, she didn't look tired or faded. Her eyes sparkled and her teeth shone in her smiling mouth. "It's perfect. I don't mind that he didn't invite us to stay in the house. This is much better."

Her husband shook his head. "Why would it matter at all? This is fine."

Kristina had long since gotten used to Alberich's indifference to matters of class or estate. As a singer, she was used to being treated as a higher class of servant. Tormalinson wanted to live like a lord, but he would never be accepted as one. Alberich was the chief engineer on his expensive project, which meant he was not exactly a servant, yet not someone on equal footing as a house guest, either. Not that Alberich cared, and Kristina didn't, either. It's not as if the man was giving a ball and asking her to entertain. She did wonder where Tormalinson would have them eat tomorrow, whether it would it be in the kitchen, or the great, mahogany-lined dining hall.

A partial answer came when one of the servants knocked on the door. "A late supper, sent from the cook, Herr Niemann."

A fine supper it was: cold meats, herring, strips of pickled beets and onions, sliced boiled carrots spiced with ginger. Then there was the samovar, glowing with heat and putting out a smell of tea that filled the small but cozy room.

"I have an idea," Kristina said. "Let's have our bath first, then supper. That way it won't sit heavily on our stomach."

Alberich smiled at her, a little worried inside, but drawn into her warmth. She was already undoing buttons, and when she'd stripped down to her chemise, rummaged in the deep oak wardrobe. There she found towels, and tossed one towards him.

When he hesitated, she peeled his vest off, then undid his shirt buttons, but struggled with the cufflinks. "I can never manage these things," she complained, and so he undid them for her. But she didn't move away, and after carefully placing the studs in his bag to hide them, he took her in his arms and kissed her tenderly.

"How many years has it been since we've been away from home, in a room alone together, with the door closed?"

She closed her eyes, thinking. "Almost thirteen years, I think."

"That's a long time."

"But you love the children. Although I still miss Sigurd since he's gone away to school."

"Of course, that's understandable. If he wants to go to sea, though, it will be the best for him."

"I know, Alberich, but still."

"You have Jennie at home, and there's Lars."

Neither of them mentioned Pelle, who didn't live to see his second birthday, and whose absence still left a hole in both their hearts.

Kristina wrapped herself in one of the thick towels, big enough to almost cover her chemise entirely. "It's quiet, isn't it?"

"Ummm."

"You won't get a bath that way."

"Nor supper either, Frau Niemann."

"That hot water will melt away all the stiffness of that long coach ride out here."

Alberich adjusted the towel around his waist. "It couldn't be helped, as the railroad company won't build the train spur until Tormalinson shows progress on the factory. You'd best steel yourself, as it's going to be cold out there."

"So we walk fast."

When the November wind hit them, they flew into the little bath house as quickly as they could. When Kristina hung up her towel, all Alberich's thoughts of soaking fled, for he wanted to pick her up in his arms and take her back into their room. Smiling, she climbed into the wooden tub and gasped a little, then lowered herself cautiously down into the steam. A little bench had been built along the inside, and on that she rested her haunches.

"It's lovely. Someone's put lavender in the water."

The sweet herb smelled strong, and little bits of it clung to the hairs on Alberich's chest as he sank down. It was like Kristina's embrace, warm and fluid, but as the heat enveloped him his blood seemed to cool. She was right, the hot water did "melt" a man. He leaned back and closed his eyes, letting the hot water and herbs soothe all the aches in his bones from that long bumpy carriage ride over stony Finnish roads.

She stretched out, and rubbed his legs underwater with her feet. He smiled, but didn't open his eyes. The heat made the elaborate tracery on his face glow like stripes made of coal embers. Ever since that strange night in the greenwood, that night where time didn't seem to matter, and where they still wondered how they managed to ever find entrance, what had looked like scars and rough skin became thin and delicate and beautiful. Someone in that green and purple wood so long ago had embroidered Alberich's face with beauty, and there it stayed.

The fire beneath the tub had heated the water to the steaming point, but it had gone out, and only the rocks between the embers glowed. She raised her feet and rubbed his long strong thighs, still full of muscle even at his age, and his eyes flew open when her toes cruised too closely to his groin.

"No tricks," he said. "What if someone comes in?"

"Who's going to come in?"

He shifted, and let her foot caress him. Then she came closer, over to his side of the bench, and around her went his arm, pulling her a little under water, so that she had to lift her chin to keep it out. "We need one of these at home. In our summer house, I mean."

"It wouldn't be hard to do. We spend more and more time there every year, don't we?"

"Stockholm's starting to remind me too much of Paris, and the Royal Swedish Opera too much like the Eclectic Theater."

He sighed, not wanting to revive an old argument. "Didn't the Swedes used to bathe like this?"

"Long ago, but then it stopped. Probably something to do with the church. Because men and women used to bathe together, just as we are."

"We could build one, but I don't want to be the cause of scandal. It's hard enough, when people look askance at me because you're French."

"They treat me as if I'm French, too."

"Oh, nonsense. King Oscar himself gave you a bouquet."

"Six years ago, and a promise to some court ball or other that never panned out."

"Yes, Kristina, I know you think it's because you moved away."

"Oh, nonsense. As if no one ever moved away from Sweden. The roads leading out of the towns were rutted with the wagon wheels of the emigrants. Now that things are looking up, that the kingdom's more prosperous than ever, people are wearing out the roads coming back."

"Aren't you happy about that? You even met some of your mother's relatives, that young man and his wife who lived for awhile in Minnesota, in America, but got too homesick."

"I am. Paris spoiled me, though, and after all these years, I'm still not used to it. If I want to bathe with my husband in my own shed, on our own land, I should be able to."

"We'll see," he said, experimentally letting himself up off the bench to see if he would float, but he stayed mostly submerged. "As I said, it wouldn't be difficult to build one."

She sighed a little, but knew not to push him further. Alberich had to think everything through, sometimes two or three times. The children knew that more instinctively than she did, even. They knew that Father would carefully deliberate, but that once he decided, his word was law. Kristina said, "It's getting a bit cold. We want to be hot when we get out, or else that frozen air will make us stick us to the ground."

Neither of them wanted be the first to get out. Finally, Alberich screwed up his face and pushed himself up with a mighty shove, slopping water onto the floor. He leapt out and yelped, a short sharp cry of cold and shock.

When he slapped the towel around his waist, Kristina called out, "You're supposed to run around naked!"

"Not this foreigner!" He tried to cover as much of his body with the towel as possible, then gave up. "Here, I'll hold it for you."

"I can take it." Up she shot out of the water, slick as a mermaid. Pushing aside his offering of a towel, she ran into the house, so quickly she looked like a pale darting spirit of white and gold. Already shivering, he followed her a bit more slowly, cursing a bit to himself as the stones of the walkway pinched his feet.

She was already drying off her hair when he came into the warm room. The fire was blazing, and the dry heat encompassed him, smoothing away all the cold. Now he knew why the Finns rolled in snow, or scampered about in the cold open air after their saunas and hot water baths. Panting, he stood in front of the fire, and heard her body scrape the sheets as she slid down between them. The air smelled of lavender and her hair. He hung his towel carefully on a wooden hook, which some woodcarver had perhaps put there just for that purpose.

She pulled the feather comforter up to her chin, only pulling it down when he approached the bed. "Quick, get in."

"Patience. I have to turn down the lamps first." One by one he put them out, until only the fire's glow danced on the stone hearth, flickered on the stenciled walls, and lit up his wife's eyes as he made his way into bed.

He slid into feathers above, feathers below, and his wiggling wife put her arms around him. She sighed deeply, and for a moment both felt as if they were lost in the spirit of the green again, before they buried themselves under an avalanche of flesh and feathers like warm snow.

(the end)

(A/N: What a long, strange trip it's been, almost a decade since I first started this story. If anybody's still reading, thanks for making it this far along the journey. I know there have been many delays along the road, some serious, some frivolous, but I hope you've enjoyed Kristina as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Thank you, once again.)