Excerpts from
St. Mark's Night
By Helle Stangerup
A fire-belching dragon zigzagged up into the night sky, and the guests gasped, thrilled as the huge head with two black eyes spread out high above the rooftops. Little glowing demons skipped around above the gables, pirouetting serpents twirled around themselves over the paving stones, and flaming roses unfolded like autumn flowers. Mette stood surrounded by darkness with showers of sparks above her and circling wands leaping from stone to stone, and she stretched out her hand.
But her hand stayed straight out in mid-air. She had completely forgotten it. Steen was preparing for his journey to Torgau, where he was to lead five horses far down the line in a vast train behind a princess and four empty gilded carriages.
"Is the princess beautiful?" wondered Mette as the illuminated lights detonated. But immediately forgot about it, for suddenly something went wrong.
A comet flew horizontally over the stones. Gentlemen leaped into the air like gigantic frogs. In a flash the roofwas hit by a beehive, and a red-hot demon struck the chestnut tree. It went hissing up the trunk and whirled around among the branches.
Steen would have laughed and put his arm around her if he had not been on his way to Torgau, and he might have given her another friendly kiss as well. No one could see them in the dark.
A voice came from behind her:
"Explosions seem to dog our path, Miss Mette."
Mette turned round slowly. She saw flashes of light. And the lights flickered over the face of Peder Oxe. His eyes were clear, and they smiled, and the smile went deep inside her.
Suddenly Mette forgot all the noise and wanted to talk. Just to say something. It was as if his eyes demanded that. The words came leaping out of her:
"It isn´t right that my ancestors swam behind Noah´s ark. Only Noah and his family survived and landed on Mount Ararat."
"I think its allright, all the same," said Peder Oxe, looking very solemn. He stood quite still while the fight fell down on him like rain:
"I have given a lot of thought to it. I really believe that the Rosenkrantzes swam and floated so far to the north for all of forty days and nights that they came ashore at Køge Beach."
For a moment Mette was confused:
"But doesn´t it say in the Bible that all the other people perished?"
"The writers of the Bible probably didn´t know Køge Beach. And what happened there. "
Now it was fun. As it had been when she went to Peder Oxe´s cold house for dinner. And speaking words suddenly seemed like planting something. Karen planted her herbs and flowers, and Peder Oxe planted strange ideas. Mette couldn´t refrain from asking:
"Where did the Oxes come from then? Where did they go ashore?"
Peder Oxe looked as if he had thought about that problem for a very long time:
"I think they arrived later."
"By themselves?"
"If you dig a big hole in the ground and fill it with water, a border of rushes and reeds and yellow flags will gradually grow up. Then you have a lake."
He hesitated for a moment:
"But after a few years there are fish in the lake too. And they come by themselves as well."
"But the Oxes didn´t come from a little pond, surely?" asked Mette.
"Perhaps they did. Brought by birds´ feet as tiny Oxe fry."
Mette was speechless, she couldn´t get a single word out.
"Then they crawled out," Peder Oxe said almost wistfully, "to admire the Rosenkrantzes, who had come first, as we saw, because they swam for all forty days and nights to reach shore and settle down just here."
At that moment it grew dark. Mette had not noticed the crashes and explosions behind her. There was nothing but the light on Peder Oxe´s face and in his eyes. And she had felt herself beautiful in the mirror of his gaze.
"And most of all..."
She could hear him breathing:
"... most of all to marvel at a dearly beloved maiden."
Translated by Anne Born
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