In a Weary World

Chapter XIX: The Curse

Adventures are all very well in their place, but there's a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain. -- Neil Gaiman, Stardust

Hjalmar spent the rest of the day jumping at shadows. He tried to convince himself that this was silly. It wasn't as if Rigmor was going to suddenly become a murderous psychopath and try to kill them all. Or was she? What did this curse actually involve? All anyone said was that it caused the deaths of every man who tried to court her, but how?

He tried to push those thoughts out of his mind. If he was nervous, he told himself, what must Rigmor be feeling now? She was the one who was under a curse.

The only person in the castle who seemed to be perfectly at ease in this situation was Solvej. Hjalmar wasn't sure if she was looking forward to fighting the Magician, or if she was just doing a good job of hiding her worries. He suspected it might be a mixture of both, especially when he walked into the library to find her waving a sword around.

"What are you doing?" he asked, staying well away from the sword. "Have you taken up fencing?"

"No," Solvej said, jabbing aggressively at the empty air. "I'm practicing in case I have to fight the Magician physically as well as magically."

Hjalmar stood in the doorway for a moment and watched her practice. It seemed to involve a great deal of hacking invisible foes to pieces. He decided that it would be best to leave her to it.

Throughout the rest of the castle, everyone else went about their day with the best attempt at normality they could manage. The servants cleaned windows and mopped floors as if the windows and the floors were the only things in the world that mattered. The cooks prepared the day's meals and planned tomorrow's menu as if the fate of the world depended on what sauce they put on the tholberry tart that would be today's dessert. The King argued with his council as if he had nothing to worry about except where a new bridge would be built.

Hjalmar might have been fooled into thinking that no one was worried about anything, if not for the way everyone kept glancing over their shoulder. Part of him wondered if they thought the Magician was going to spring out at them from behind a curtain.

Considering how nervous everyone was, it wasn't really surprising that dinner proved... eventful, to say the least.

It began when the King set down his glass too roughly. A servant who happened to be passing -- with a jug of gravy in her hands -- jumped violently. The gravy splashed over the top of the jug and splattered all over the table, the floor, the servant, and the King. An awful silence fell, broken only by the girl's mortified apologies. The onlookers were unsure whether to laugh or pretend nothing had happened.

The King brushed off the girl's apologies with a gruff, "Accidents happen. You're hardly the first to drop something."

Several of the other servants turned bright red and looked everywhere except at anyone else.

Dinner continued, but it would be hard to say if anyone truly enjoyed the meal. Hjalmar, for his part, might as well have been eating ash instead of venison.

The next excitement came as dessert was being served. A high-pitched shriek echoed through the room. Everyone almost jumped out of their skins. Solvej's braid fell into the bowl of custard that a servant had just set before her.

"What's that?" the King demanded in a voice that wavered nervously. "Speak up!"

A shame-faced guard stepped forward. "The wind, your Majesty. It blew that curtain against me," he gestured to one of the windows, "and I thought there was someone behind me."