“OK, so if you two’ll just stand still and stay silent right there, everything will be fine.”
The speaker, a short, golden-haired Swede, had stepped out to block our path just a moment ago. There was no obvious connection between him and the red-headed Norwegian assassin who was the object of our pursuit; but people rarely wear large placards conveniently labeling their relations to one another (though some would be much happier were that the case). Hannu had actually managed to overcome this Sigrun’s wily attempts to foil our pursuit to the extent that we had caught sight of her again and were hurrying to catch up when the Swede had stepped forth.
The Swede spoke up again after a moment or two of tense, watchful silence. “I don’t want to hurt you guys, but I can’t let you go on, you know?”
Hannu had not bothered to answer; I would have asked the golden-haired Swede whether he was “trolling” us, as those beasts say, but what happened next stopped me. With a great FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM, a giant curtain of fire erupted into a circle surrounding us. This startled me enough that I allowed a word I’m not proud of knowing to escape; fortunately, the only one to hear me was Hannu, who had allowed a similar ejaculation of surprise and alarm to escape him.
We could still make out the Swede’s somewhat short form through the flames, and his next words came clearly enough. “See? Here’s a nice warm fire for you, but not so close that you’ll get hurt. Now just stay there and don’t do anything silly and none of us will have any trouble.” So saying, the Swede assumed a stance of relaxed watchfulness.
I wore my affront over this treatment like a badge of honor, but Hannu’s voice held only a detached—almost disinterested, even—curiosity when he asked, “Why are you doing this?” As I mentioned, he hadn’t spoken since the Swede stepped out in front of us; I could see that Hannu had been closely examining the boy, deliberately speaking out only now. “What is Sigrun Eide to you, or what are you to her?”
The question seemed to have caught our Swede foe off guard. He flushed and stammered for a bit before finally saying, “Well, um, you see, um—I’m her minion, OK?” He seemed to think that this statement was sufficient answer, because he nodded and repeated, “Yep, I’m her minion.”
“This little viking here’s my most best minion,” Sigrun affirmed, stepping beside him. “But now, it’s time for us to go. See you, Hannu!” With a cheery wave, she drew the Swede away.
The fire was still high around us; but since it was, as the Swede had assured us, a safe distance away, we were in no apparent danger for the moment. I turned to Hannu, my face undoubtedly asking the question my lips hadn’t formed yet: “What on Earth shall we do about this, Hannu?”
Fortunately, Hannu’s attention was still on the duo who had so recently departed, rather than on me, as he dislikes it when I “fuss”. No, something had caught his eye, something that had given him fresh data, and he was feverishly examining how this new information affected the wretched tangle we (and poor Junnu Kuitunen) found ourselves caught up in…
