She stands by the well and slowly backs up until she feels its mortar on her back. She glances down: she has seen many a newcomer creep close to the edge in the hope of escape that way, as the thought dawns in them that half a minute spent on their heads at the bottom of a watery grave seems a better future than disconsolate years of famine at the spinning wheel. Without exception, their expressions of terrified anticipation change to relieved disappointment. Inside, there is a net of heavy ropes rigged low and out of reach, allowing the pipes of the pump to pass by, but sufficient to dissuade thoughts of suicide. Pettersson closes the distance between them, and before she has time to think further, his hand is around her neck and his small bloodshot eyes are right in her face. His breathing is heavy, and in his eyes she sees something that approaches devotion, and that frightens her more than anger or desire could ever have done. The fingers that meet around her neck do not squeeze, the grip instead feeling more like a confirmation of what his eyes are telling him. He is trembling. Then he lets go, blinks a couple of times, and issues an order to his subordinates in a harsh whisper.
“Put her in solitary. I’ll see to her myself once the morning duties are done.”
Two men grab her by the arms and lead her away, accompanied by the mumbling of the prisoners. Assured hands search her, and Rudenschöld’s letter and Dülitz’s keys are both soon confiscated. A brusque shove, and then she is alone again.
The tiny space lacks windows. The floor is not large enough to fully stretch out in. It is intended in equal measure for confinement and punishment. They drag hysterics here until their rage has subsided in futile violence against the stone walls, or allow those who need a reminder about the prison rules to spend an uncomfortable night until hunger and fear have underscored the advantages of obedience. The walls are marked by previous occupants, the floor saturated with a sharp stench of urine, since there is no chamber pot and each guest only has the four corners to choose from. A broken fingernail is wedged between two stones. Pettersson takes his time. Anna Stina can’t tell exactly, but it must be afternoon already.
Down in the prison yard, Petter Pettersson feels his large chest brimming with excitement. His good mood makes him benevolent this day. The slaps he delivers for various transgressions are halfhearted; sometimes he makes do with the threat alone. All seems well in the best of all worlds. Inspector Björkman has been gone since last year, exchanging positions with the county clerk in Savolax, one Bengt Krook. Rumors of Björkman’s diligence have already circulated around the Baltic; he never set foot in his posting, instead contracting out his duties and now raising his salary to reward his idleness. Krook is a man of the same kind, who leaves the daily routine to the guards in order to be able to enjoy his new life in the capital, with constant visits to the cavalry master in Årsta. As for Pettersson, he has not held back this past year. No time has been wasted in making all of the changes he has found suitable. With Master Erik in his power, he can invite the women to dance with him as often as he likes, and has no need to invent reasons to justify the punishment.
The girl from last year, the one who got away, has eaten away at him, even before Cardell, Watchman Number Twenty-Four, came by with his strange inquiry to remind him. Anna Stina Knapp. In his dreams he has seen her furtive looks, her quiet plotting. She pretended to be like the others, cowed and docile, but he saw through the charade. He had marked her out for the next dance, played out each step in his head. He had even waited longer than strictly necessary, as he has found that a self-imposed patience yields twice the results once the dance is under way. Then she was gone, from one night to the next, and left him with a gnawing desire that no one else could satisfy. The circumstances forced him to play along and pretend to acknowledge that the corpse in the cellar, which anyone could see had been there for at least a year, was that of the girl Anna Stina, all to protect Björkman from accusations of neglect.
Now she is back. And how he has longed for this. He lets her wait, safely in his power at last, behind lock and key. He delegates his tasks to a subordinate, and instead goes to the bathhouse to wash. He wants everything to be perfect. He lathers himself up from head to toe, washing the dirt from his hair and doing the rounds with a lice comb. Once he is clean, he wrinkles his nose at the smell of his uniform and selects a fresh shirt. Only when everything is in order does he fetch the key to the cell.
The sight that meets Petter Pettersson when he makes his way to the one in solitary is always the same. The girls in that cell always do everything in their power to get away from the door. In vain, they make themselves as small as they can, crouching with their faces towards the wall in one of the piss-drenched corners, like so many mussels that yield their meat to a quick kick in the small of the back. But not this one, and he inwardly rejoices at how she presents herself. Anna Stina Knapp is different. Why else would he lust for her above all others? Now she stands in the middle of the floor as if it were the most natural thing in the world, meeting his gaze as if they were equals, causing him to pause at the threshold. She takes the opportunity to speak first.
“I have a deal to offer you.”
It takes Pettersson a few moments to collect himself enough to reply. He throws out his hand.
“As this meeting room surely indicates, your opportunities to negotiate are somewhat limited.”
He is irritated by how his voice sounds. Like a boy recently come of age reading aloud before the priest, suddenly catching his breath in his throat. He coughs. If she has noticed, she doesn’t let on.
“I can buy my freedom. Your guards took a letter out of my blouse. To the right buyer, it is worth a fortune. I will give you half to let me go.”
Pettersson stands silent for a moment, deep in thought.
“You’ve been to see her, haven’t you? Rudenschöld. Her scent is strong enough to sting your nose.”
Unwilling to confess, Anna Stina remains quiet as Pettersson continues to think out loud.
“Last year you escaped. How, I don’t know. Someone has paid you for your knowledge. You entered the same way, to seek her out. Do you even know what you’ve mixed yourself up in? You’re playing with fire.”
He reaches a hand inside his jacket and holds out Magdalena Rudenschöld’s letter, still unopened.
“What’s in it?”
She shakes her head.
“I don’t know.”
“You named a sum.”
“Two hundred daler. Half is yours.”
Pettersson’s mind spins at the very thought. He has rarely seen one such coin on top of another. One hundred would be enough to buy him all he has ever wanted: well-fitting clothes, for once, lice-free walls, and a position far from the muck of the city. But the vision recedes when he looks at Anna Stina Knapp with her defiant face, her freckles that glow as she blushes, and the tender skin that lies revealed where her shirt has been torn. He knows that his answer must be different to the one she wants to hear.
“I’m a simple man. I ask but for little. Your money is not what I want.”
His answer silences her, forces her to stare at the stone floor. But then she looks straight at him, through him, and he feels a dizzying sensation in his gut.
“You want me to dance for you.”
“Yes.”
At first he can’t manage to get a sound out of his dry throat, and must repeat himself.
“Yes.”
She stands without speaking for a moment, and when she does speak it is with a low voice that is nonetheless full of conviction.
“If we can come to an agreement, I will dance better than anyone you have ever brought to the well, you and Master Erik. Have you counted the turns? Can you remember who did the most?”
The recollection causes his lips to twitch. A thrilling sensation runs up his back, a tickling caress that rises from his manhood.
“She was a tiny little thing. Dark curls. Quiet, timid, pale. I counted a little over sixty laps. One would never have believed it from looking at her.”
“I’ll do eighty.”
He feels the hairs stand up on his log-shaped arms, his nipples scraping against his linen shirt.
“Eighty?”
“Eighty, at least, and after that as many more as I can manage. I’ll be the best you’ve ever had. My screams will be louder, my pleas more heartrending, without ever giving in. Because you want the terror too, don’t you? You’ll have it. It is here, I am afraid of you. I only hide it for the moment. But you’ll never get what you want without paying the price.”
“And what if I don’t agree?”
“Then I will lie down on the flagstones until it is over, without moving an inch. I will lie there and take every blow while I chew my own tongue, swallow my own blood, until my veins are empty and my stomach full, all to make it as quick as can be. You’ll never get me to take a single step or make a single sound, however much you want it, and however hard you hit.”
He can see that she is serious and finds, to his surprise, that he believes she is as good as her word. He sees strength enough to deny him all that he yearns for. It is the only currency she holds to which he ascribes any value, and it is enough to force a negotiation.
“So what is it you want?”
“Give me back the letter, and a week’s respite. I have given birth to two children, twins. Without me, they have no one. For the money I’ve been promised, I can secure their future. Let me go and give me a week, and then I will return to you. I swear it on my life’s blood, on their lives, by all that I have ever held sacred. Look me in the eyes and you will see that I am not lying.”
Pettersson has started to sweat, and scratches himself around the collar to lessen the itching.
“That’s what you say now, and if you are lying, you do it well. But all good liars believe what they say in the heat of the moment. Later is another matter.”
Pettersson weighs the letter in his hand.
“The lives of your children, do you value them more highly than your own?”
“Yes.”
“Two hundred daler. With such an inheritance, the little ones will do well.”
She sees his forehead furrow as he reflects. Then he dampens his lips with his tongue and tucks the letter inside his jacket.
“I’ll make you a counteroffer. I’ll keep the letter as an insurance that you will keep your promise. You have a week to see to your children. Then you will come back and pay your debt. Afterwards, I’ll make sure the letter gets to wherever it is you want it.”
Anna Stina tries in vain to find a better way. She sorts through her friends in her head and finds no one that passes the test, no one to whom she is not already too deeply indebted. Of blood ties, only one remains. Mother Maja’s words come to her: Nothing binds like blood, Anna. If your father had but seen you with his own eyes he would never have been able to disavow his responsibility. Little Karl has his father’s face. She fixes Pettersson with her gaze and clutches at the last remaining straw.
“When I return, I will give you a name and a place. Give the letter to the watchman Jonatan Löf to carry, and tell him that the money he receives is for the twins, Maja and Karl, to buy them a better world than ours. He’ll be told later where they are to be found.”
Pettersson spits back the name he has just heard.
“Löf? What on earth for?”
“He is the children’s father. He took me by force, but they are his nonetheless. Will you make sure he fulfills his responsibility if his own conscience is not enough?”
“I will. If you dance a hundred turns around the well for me and Master Erik.”
She nods because there is nothing else for her to do. He spits into his fist, a gobbet of brown tobacco juice. Across the threshold of the cell, they shake hands, hers so small it is lost in his.
“I swear by the lives of my children.”
“And I before God and the devil.”
On his way out, he can’t help seeking reassurance that he didn’t mishear, with a voice that is hardly more than a whisper.
“A hundred laps?”
“A hundred.”