Copyright 2006 Trewin Greenaway ^' All Rights Reserved
To learn more about me and the genesis of this tale, visit my website http://www.cronnex.com/ .
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Chapter 1
The skalgur was almost overhead before we noticed it. And even then, it was the shadow we saw, floating across the sea. We were hauling in the net, heavy with the weight of fish, busy with that and keeping our balance in our small boat. Although neither Syllis, Faryn, nor I had ever seen one in our lives entire, we dared give it only a momentary glance. We knew even that risked the feel of old Grannell's switch. He hunched all day at the tiller, the slender, stinging strip of wood in his hand, waiting for another chance to wield it.
The skalgur was the size of our boat at least, with leather wings the size of a sail. Its beak was as long as a spear. I heard that one would seize a solitary fisherman if it could approach him unawares. It would carry him off and drop him into the sea, waiting for him to drown. Then it would pluck him out of the water and bear the body back to its cliff side aerie, for although skalgur fish they cannot swim. However, they were never said to approach a craft with more than one person aboard.
This one hadn't heard these stories, for it circled our boat, wheeling just above our heads. Then, suddenly, it swooped down at us with a terrifying speed. I watched, paralyzed by terror, as the dagger-tipped claws stretched for my face. Just before it struck, it shrieked, the sound so loud it scorched my ears, and swerved away. Faryn had taken a swing at it with an oar. The skalgur changed course in a second, swerving just beyond its reach, rose up, and circled back, leaving us gagging in its foul reek.
By now, though, I was flat on the bottom of the boat, with Syllis clutching me like a limpet. Grannell had grabbed the other oar, and was brandishing it at the skalgur while he abused it with a long stream of oaths. It circled us again and, as suddenly as it had attacked, abandoned us, sweeping swiftly off across the waves.
I got to my feet somewhat shakily but Syllis remained on his knees, absorbing all he could of the creature as it shrank before his eyes to little more than a black, flapping dot. There was a swishing sound and then a yelp of pain. He leaped to his feet, a bright red welt burning across his naked back.
Syllis was the youngest among us, only eleven years of age. Grannell thought twice before laying onto Faryn, who was seventeen and had threatened the old man with a drubbing it he wasn't careful. I myself was nearing sixteen years and still earned my share of blows, but was better than Syllis at gauging Grannell's moods. The boy had at least learned not to complain or, worse, to try dodging one, lest he bring on a flood of them, with a string of curses to keep them company.
Still, a blow from Grannell was such a common event Syllis paused only long enough to begin helping Faryn and me haul in the fish before exclaiming, "To think I saw a skalgur!"
"To think you almost saw a skalgur make off with Jessan," Faryn replied, winking at me as he did. "That would have been a story to tell your grandchildren."
"'Twas an omen, that was, and no fucking mistake," muttered Grannell. The switch had now been set aside for his club, which he used to stun the bigger fish before they thrashed their way out of the boat. He repeated the sentence, emphasizing each word with a swing of the club. At each thud a fish quivered and lay still.
Grannell was a crabbed, ugly man, mean and querulous, with as few teeth as he had hairs. But he knew where the fish were better than any man in the village, and he owned the boat. I glanced at Faryn and he at me. "What sort of omen, Grannell?" he asked.
"What sort of omen?" Grannell squinted up at us. "Ask him," he continued, glaring at me. "What is it about him that got a fucking skalgur to attack a fucking boat with four of us in it? A thing that's never been fucking heard of before?
"What sort of fucking omen?" he muttered, leaning over and spitting into the water. "No omen is a good omen, that's all I fucking know." He ended the conversation with a swing of his club, dispatching another fish.
Shortly thereafter Grannell ordered us to haul up the sail. This afternoon there was a brisk breeze to bring us in, for which Faryn and I gave silent thanks. Otherwise we two would have to row the boat back, no easy task when, like today, it was full of fish.
Now, instead, we could rest. Faryn sat back against the side of the boat and spread out his arms along its edge. I took my familiar place beside him, and he dropped one arm around my shoulder, ruffling my hair as he did so.
He and I were what is called tweren, which means a closeness that differs both from being lovers and being friends, and so permits such displays of open affection--to be someone's twere has nothing to do with any lack of interest in girls.
For Faryn this was indeed so, but for me..., well, half my waking hours were spent wishing that in a year or two, when he had his own boat, no one would man it but he and I. In truth, I ached for him. But I knew to show it would be unseemly and risk making me the fool. I had no desire to be laughed at, certainly not by him. So I closed my eyes and felt the heat of his body and the weight of his arm and tried to ignore the hunger that cried for more.
The tale I have to tell actually begins a few weeks after our encounter with the skalgur. But, when I think back, it seems fit to start with Grannell's talk of omens. He was famously weather-wise, a sign of his gift, however slight, for foreseeing.
My name is Jessan, spoken son of Pelun, the village metal smith. "Spoken" means that I'm a foundling, and, in truth, it was Peta who claimed me, since she was unable to have children of her own. Pelun humored her but he never felt any fondness for me, and there was no question I would follow in his trade. Nor could I have if I wanted to, for I was slight and slender, and smithwork is for the broad and strong.
It was rare about me to be a found child, it was rare about me to know my letters. I was taught them as a child by Grysta, my mother's mother, a wise woman who up until a few years ago came to our village for a month every winter to instruct me. Finally, it was rare about me to be almost sixteen and still have no apprenticeship.
My place on Grannell's boat was as Faryn's twere, as was accepted and which Grannell gained by, since I worked hard for no pay. In a place larger than our village I might have found some fit between my nature and the world of work, but here there was nothing. Faryn would become a fisherman and I might fish with him all my life, but it wouldn't be my work, because I lacked any calling to it.
Because of this, while no one shunned me, no one knew what to make of me either, and so most made nothing at all. Only Faryn truly enjoyed my company. Although untutored and unlettered, he was curious and quick of mind, and it was perhaps my very difference which drew him to me--not merely (as some supposed) that in a small village boys our age were in short supply.
It was Faryn, not I, who proposed we swear the oath of tweren. His life, he said simply, was empty without me, and he had no wish to hide that. This happened when he was thirteen and I eleven, and this great gift to me still brings me to tears. For afterwards, those in our village did know what to make of me--I was Faryn's twere. And since he was well regarded and, as the son of drowned fisherman and the head of his family, some of his status was reflected onto me.
So things stood on the day that my life changed for ever. It started out like any other summer morning--I arose at sunrise and hurried to the fishing boat. We fished as usual, and then headed back to shore with our catch, the same breeze hurrying storm clouds right behind us. In fact, we left off fishing early, Grannell's bones warning him of bad weather coming, and quickly.
The rain was falling by the time we tied the boat to the shambling dock and carried the fish into the shed. There we quickly cleaned it so that Grannell could sell it to the villagers who were already hurrying in to have first pick. Afterwards, I sluiced the floor with sea water to clean it and, as best I could, washed the stink of it from my hands and arms before heading up the path to home.
When I came in, I found my father sitting at the table with a small pile of silver coins before him, small ones, to be sure, but more than I'd ever seen in my life before. My mother was bending over the fire, stirring our supper, porridge as it always was, sometimes with a bit of meat. I set beside her on the hearth the unsold fish that Grannell had tossed me in my payment for the day's work. Peta would wrap it in the fragrant broad leaves of the clutchfast vine and bake it in the coals, a welcome addition to our meager fare.
Usually she greeted me with a quiet smile, but this day she had such a stricken look on her face that I stepped back in surprise. "Peta!" I said, "what's wrong?"
She opened her mouth, but before she could speak, my father said from the table, "I'll tell him." And to me, he commanded, "Jessan, come here." I crossed the room to him. Pelun was so large that even sitting on a stool he could look me eye to eye.
He stared at me for a moment, and then spoke. "A stranger came to me in the smithy today and said his name was Osfalt, a trader by occupation. He told me he desired to take you on as a bondslave and would pay me well for a term of five years. As is my right, I accepted his offer, and you will leave with him in the first of the morrow."
I was stunned. "A stranger?" I stammered. "What would he want of me?"
Pelun smiled mirthlessly. "A question that came to my mind, as well. But he needs a pack boy, and even you can carry a burden along a trail."
I looked over at my mother. Tears streamed down her face but she said nothing. Pelun saw my glance and added, "At Peta's urging I took you in, despite the ill bodement such a deed brings to a house. Things might have been different if you hadn't become a shame to us -- and likely soon to become even more of one."
I made as if to reply and he added, "Don't anger me by any attempt to deny it. You've never even tried to conceal your desire for Faryn, which shames us and insults his mother, a decent woman. What, after all, can you offer him or anyone, except the tricks of a pleasure boy?"
He waved me away, saying, "Go eat your supper, then gather your things together. Peta will give you a cloth to bind them in. The trader will come for you at the break of dawn. Be ready for him -- and be gone." He then turned his back and never spoke to me again.
After supper, I gathered together my small collection of clothing, bundled it up in the piece of cloth my mother gave me, then sank in despair onto the coarse sack stuffed with leaves I called a bed. Like everyone else in our village, we turned in at sundown and woke with the dawn; burning a light at night, even the poor waxberry candles we used, was considered an extravagance--as was burning wood for heat when we could be warming ourselves instead beneath our coarse wool blankets.
My parents slept in an alcove to one side of the fireplace where they could take advantage of its lingering heat. Soon I heard Pelun's harsh snores, announcing he was dead to the world until the cock's crow at sunrise. And Peta, even if she lay awake, would hear nothing else. Quietly I left my bed, lifted the latch to the door, and slipped into the night.
Fortunately, the rain had eased for the moment or I'd have been soaked through by the time I reached the small house at the other side of the village where Faryn lived alone with his mother. When his father had drowned the boat had been lost as well, which is why he was forced to work for old Grannell until he managed to build one of his own. His door, like ours, had no lock, and the latch string still hung outside.
Once I stepped in and closed the door, everything became pitch black again, but I knew well enough where he slept. I cautiously made my way to his bed and stood there silently for a moment, listening to the soft movement of his breath. I then slid into bed beside him, pressing my body against his, something that even in my dreams I'd never dared to do.
I felt, rather than saw, his eyes open. I put my hand over his mouth and whispered, "It's me, Jessan."
He pulled my hand away from his mouth and whispered back, "Who else would it be? What are you doing here?" I was relieved that he sounded only puzzled, and answered, "Pelun has sold me as a bondslave to a trader. I'm to leave here for good as soon as the sun comes up."
There was a long silence while Faryn digested this. Finally, he sighed and said, "Well, little one, something like this had to come, sooner or later. Pelun's loathing of you was obvious to everyone." He reached over and stroked my cheek, whispering, "I'll miss you, my sweet twere."
"Not as much as I'll miss you," I whispered back. I held him tightly for a long time. Then I began to slip out of his bed, tears streaming down my face. But Faryn seized my hand, and pulled me back. "Not so fast, little squirrel," he whispered, "the night is far from over yet."
He took me in his arms, stroked my hair, and kissed me on the lips. My body was flooded with such desire that I was shaken to my core. However, I was completely ignorant of lovemaking, with man or woman, and I thought Faryn knew little more than I. But he clearly knew something. He sat up, pulled off his own nightshirt, and lifted mine until it was bunched up around my arms. Then he lay back down and guided my hand to his sex. At the same time he tenderly began to stroke my own, and I shivered with sensations I'd never felt before.
In the end, we spent the night together, holding each other tightly. After Faryn spent, he fell into a deep sleep, but I didn't close my eyes all night. I was full of anguish and joy at once and thoughts chased themselves endlessly through my mind. I thought of what Pelun had said about me and wondered if it were true. Did I want a life of nothing else but what I'd just experienced? It was easy to believe. What else was there? I knew of nothing.
These thoughts burnt my heart as I lay there, and did so as I straightened my shirt and slipped back into the grey-pink early light. The birds were just beginning to twitter as I returned to my own bed, and the roosters would be crowing any moment. Indeed, Peta had only just started stirring among the ashes for glowing embers to start the breakfast fire, when the trader Osfalt came and pounded on our door.
Traders were infrequent visitors to our distant village, the last of several scattered along the northern coast. No one possessed money to spend on distant goods and, apart from salt fish, there was nothing here to sell. Still, there was a market inland for it and some fishermen here were skilled in preparing it.
Among these, the foremost was Grannell, who, it was rumored, had a clay pot full of copper and silver coins buried beside his hearth. Of course, Pelun, as the only smith for leagues around, was no pauper, either. Whatever he thought of me as a son, I hadn't failed to notice the pleasure he took in the little pile of coins he had come by in this transaction. I wished him the pleasure of them.
Such thoughts only made me the more suspicious of Osfalt, who was, all told, a fearsome sight. He had an untraderly gruffness about him, which suited his matted black beard, his flapping robes of dirty brown cloth, dripping with rain, and a patch over one eye he revealed when he pulled back his hood. He glared about the room until he fixed his eyes on me, scrambling out of my bed and struggling into my day shirt.
"Come, boy, come," he growled. "We have far to go and the weather is bad."
"Let him have his breakfast first," Peta pleaded, gesturing at the mound of cold porridge she had saved for me from last night's supper bowl.
The trader glanced at it and sniffed. "He can take a fistful and eat it along the way," he answered shortly, and seizing me by the shoulder, dragged me outside into the drizzle. There stood two wooden carrying frames, packed solidly with bundles of dried fish. Osfalt gestured to mine, and I fastened my own little bundle of clothing to it.
I wasn't unfamiliar with these things, and squatted down under the shoulder pieces. When I stood up the frame rose with me, and Osfalt fastened a strap around my waist to hold it in place. It was heavy and stank of fish and I wondered how far I could carry it before I collapsed along the track.
Someone gently touched my arm. It was Faryn. He took my hand and pressed something in it, saying, "I meant to give you this at your coming of age day week after next." I closed my fingers around it, not daring to look at it lest I burst into tears. He kissed me, looked me in the eyes, said, "Remember me," and was gone.
Meanwhile, the trader had taken up his own frame, which was clearly lighter than my own. He seized his staff where it lay against our house and, even as Peta was handing me my wedge of cold porridge, he was setting off down the path that left the village and headed south between the forest and the sea.
Peta kissed my cheek and released me, and I hurried after Osfalt, so confined by the frame I couldn't have turned my head if I'd wanted to. But I was struggling too hard to keep pace with my new owner--driven off to an unknown world without the chance of even a farewell glance at the old one.