The Tale of Oriel

by Cynthia Voigt

  Oriel walked almost into the face of the man.

  He was too surprised, almost, to recognize the man as human—as a young man—and then he backed away as there came four faces in front of him. There were four of them, two beardless boys and two men, two short-trimmed beards and two hooded heads. They traveled cloaked and all carried packs on their backs. Oriel hadn’t heard their approach.

  He backed into Griff, backing away from the four surprised faces. If the four hadn’t looked as surprised as he felt—and alarmed—he would have turned and run into the woods, trusting Griff to follow, trusting that as long as he was near to the sea he could never be lost for long. But the strangers backed away uneasily, and if they had weapons, they weren’t drawing them.

  Oriel thought then that he would see how those four dealt with the encounter. Let them show him what was the appropriate conduct towards traveling strangers. If they were to threaten, he would run. If they were to thrust along on the path, he would step aside without protest. If they were to offer food, he would eat. If they asked questions, then he could learn from their questions what it was one traveler might ask another. If they were to flee from a meeting, he would go on his own way. Of all the possibilities, Oriel thought he would prefer food.

  Both of the men were dark, dark hair and dark eyes, although they didn’t look alike. The first had a big, square-toothed smile, the second had a squinting way to him, as if the sun shone full on his face. The two lads stood behind in shadows. “Good day to you,” the first man said.

  Oriel answered, “And to you also, a good day.”

  “Where might you be bound this morning?”

  “Westwards, to a town called Selby. And you?”

  “To the walled city of Celindon. Do you know it?”

  “I’ve been to market there, two or three times. I’ve slept two or three nights there. Perhaps four,” Oriel said. “Do you know Selby?”

  “Aye, but we’re on our way east, up from the southern hills. We’ve heard there is always work in Celindon, and safety within its double ring of walls. Come you from the east?”

  Oriel had thought what his answer to this question might be, thinking it must be asked of him. “From seaward, a small fishing island with not even a village on it.”

  “At Selby they told us islanders were poor, puny men, but you aren’t, and he—” the man’s eyes went to Griff, “looks underfed but he’s tall enough.”

  “And I’m strong enough, too,” Griff said.

  The second man squinted at Oriel, and then at Griff behind him. He put a hand on his companion’s shoulder, to speak. “We were about to break our fast. If he knows Celindon, they don’t seem dangerous, they might prove useful to us.” The first man nodded and the second asked Oriel, “Will you eat with us? What food we carry is simple enough, but if you’re hungry, simple is as good as the feast. We can give you news of the south and west in exchange for yours.”

  “Gladly,” Oriel said. “There’s a rock a few paces back, where we might all sit down together, and we are hungry—but we can tell you little of the east, and north.”

  “Little,” the first man laughed, “will be double what we know. Come, lead us.”

  THEY ATE CHUNKS OF HEAVY dark bread and onions that dripped sweet juices when they were cut. The two lads sat apart. The men faced Oriel and Griff, passing the bread first to their lads, then to the strangers. “We have nothing to eat,” Oriel told them. When he was seated and still, he could hear the sounds of the woods—rustlings, and occasional birdsongs, a creaking of branches almost like the creaking of a mast pulled by the windy sail. “We can only offer thanks in exchange for food,” he said.

  “It’s no matter to us if you add nothing,” the man said, smiling broadly. He seemed a man more than contented with his lot in life. “We’ve plenty, as you see, and where we go there is plenty more—if you’ve the coins to buy. We’ve the coins, and we’ve the skills to earn more coins when those are gone—so eat your fill. Then tell us how things stand, to the north and east.”

  Oriel passed Griff half of an onion and took the rest for himself. He bit and chewed. He had no reason not to believe the old woman and he had heard rumors for years, in the markets. “Things stand at soldiery,” he said. “The old quarrels over who will inherit the Old Countess’s lands.”

  “That is as we heard,” Griff added. “We saw neither soldiers nor battles ourselves. We were warned, though, and I believed the warning was truly meant.”

  “And of Wolfers?” The man was not smiling now.

  “Wolfers?” Oriel echoed. “What are Wolfers?” He didn’t ask Griff. What Oriel didn’t know of the world beyond the island, Griff wouldn’t.

  The smiling man smiled more broadly, but didn’t answer. Instead, he rose to his knees, and leaned out a hand to pull one of the lads to him. The boy’s cape fell askew to reveal long dark hair, wound tight around itself and fastened close to her scalp. It was a girl, who looked frightened to be so disclosed. “Don’t fear, lass,” the man said, his voice tender now, and glad. “We’ll give them no names, and if they should hear of a journeyman who took his master’s daughter with him when he journeyed away . . . How should they know who we are, to set your father on our track?”

  The second lad had followed close on the heels of the first. She pushed back her own hood and said, “Don’t forget me.”

  The two girls clasped hands, seated close.

  “You give us no chance to forget you,” the squinting man said. “If we wanted to. If we dared to try to get rid of you.”

  “And I’ve no desire to forget you,” the first girl said. “Are we not sisters, in all but birth?”

  “I’m not afraid to tell my name,” the second girl said. She had a big face, friendly as a dog’s. “Jilly.”

  “Woman,” the squinting man warned, “when we’re wed I’ll teach you to govern your tongue.”

  “That’s if I wed you,” Jilly answered him without hesitation. “That’s if I find no one more handsome—as this lad is more handsome,” and she grinned at Oriel. “Aye, sit still, you great fool, you know I’ll likely wed you, and we four will live our lives out together. Here’s something a woman knows,” she said, leaning toward Oriel in mock secrecy. He leaned toward her, making it a game the two of them played against the others. “A man comes along, he’ll come along, and a woman needs only be careful to take a good man. But a companion for the days, someone to be my sister—to hold my hand in the pains of childbirth, as I will hold hers; to come with me to see starflowers when they bloom in the long grass and have the same gladness at the sight; to know the demon-fears that come at night, and not mock them—a man will turn up, as any woman knows, but a true companion . . .” Jilly didn’t finish her sentence. She sat back on her heels, with a mocking glance.

  They hadn’t been playing the game together after all, and Oriel didn’t know what to answer without giving her reason to laugh at him, too. He was spared the necessity of speech by the smiling man’s impatience. “These two come from the islands, and have never heard of Wolfers,” he said to the dark-haired girl. “That decides me. I’d rather live long and thin on the islands than fat in my homeland only to end my brief days at the end of a Wolfer’s blade.”

  “Aye,” the squinting man agreed. “But how do we get there? And do we know that the islands have need of a ropemaker’s skill? What if they haven’t?”

  “Then we learn another trade. If you have the time to learn a trade, and live to ply it, there’s no trouble to changing the trade you ply.”

  “I don’t like the sea,” the man objected now.

  “You know nothing of it.”

  “I’ve heard. I’ve heard the sea throws its dead back up into the air. Give me the land, where the dead stay where you put them.”

  “You great lummox,” Jilly said, “the dead have nought to do with the living.” But for all that, her words were sharp, her voice was gentle enough.

  “You know what I meant,” her man mumbled.
r />   “Aye,” the first man said, with a smile that showed his big square teeth. “You can have your land, land you can dig your fingers into for planting, but first let me put deep water between us and the Wolfers.”

  “Who are these Wolfers?” Oriel asked again.

  The four looked at one another.

  “Terrible,” the squinting man said at last. “They are terrible, all men fear them.”

  “I can tell you what everyone knows,” Jilly added. “They live in the north, in a high and barren land, and they know nothing of farming, sowing seeds and reaping grains, or animal husbandry. They are wandering hunters, following the herds of wild beasts. They come south and east, because mountains block them to the north. The mountains guard the Kingdom, people say, if you believe there is a Kingdom. The mountains are real, although the Kingdom they protect is likely fantastical, and the Wolfers can’t cross the mountains. So their raiding parties move towards the sea. Trailing blood.”

  The first girl spoke now, in a whisper, as if she didn’t dare to name her thoughts for fear naming might bring them closer. “The Wolfers take children and feed them to the mountains. If they have no children from others they have to give up their own children. They carry off girls of childbearing age, to get them with child, and feed those children to the mountains.”

  “That’s only a story.” The smiling man put his arm around her shoulders.

  “They eat their meat uncooked,” she continued, big eyes staring at Oriel. “The blood drips down, while they eat.”

  “Wolfers like isolated hamlets, lonely farms.” The smiling man’s face had grown grim, and his lass took his free hand in both of hers, as if now he needed her to comfort him. He spoke grimly on. “I once lived on one of those lonely farms. Just as I once had parents, brother, sisters, and an inheritance. Before the Wolfers came.”

  “And what did you do?” Oriel asked. He’d never had parents, brother, sisters, but he could feel in his own heart the urge to track after their killers, and take their revenge—or die in the attempt. “Did you ever find them? How is it you escaped?”

  “I’d been sent out before first light, to gather honey. My brother had found a honey tree, which we thought was great good fortune. Perhaps it was. When I returned in the afternoon . . .” He didn’t finish the thought.

  “Then how did you identify the murderers when you found them?” Oriel asked.

  “You don’t think I chased after them? What good would that do?”

  Oriel felt it in his heart and his hands, the good that would do—but he didn’t know, and this man who did know understood it differently. He tried to open his mind to this new understanding, to give room to it. He had a warning of his own to give. “Among the islands there are pirates. The pirates come seldom but when they do they are merciless. The islands aren’t entirely safe. Also, there can be hunger, there is the danger of storms at sea, illness and accident.”

  “But no Wolfers,” the first man said. “Wolfers know nothing of boats and can’t swim. They fear water, though they fear nothing else.”

  “Aye, and so do I,” the squinting man said.

  “You can learn to swim, learn to use boats,” Oriel assured them.

  “There’s sure to be need of a ropemaker among boats,” Jilly said.

  “And how do you know we won’t be taken to the Dammer’s island, and the lasses dropped into the water to drown, while you and I serve our lives out in the slavery of that place?” the squinting man demanded of his companions. “Do you know of that hellish place?” he asked Oriel.

  “I think we might,” Oriel said carefully.

  “Where the only law is the Dammer’s law, and all the others serve his comfort, and no women can live. For he hates them. He’ll bring in a boatload of women—for his pleasure, and those he sends back decked in jewels, for he has the first Dammer’s treasure at his hand, he knows where it is hidden. Aye, the man who could lay hands to that would be a Prince for the rest of his life, but even pirates dare not assault the Dammer’s island. They say, the island smokes, the land itself burns, with all the evil done there. They say, you can hear the cries for miles across the water— Aye,” he shook himself, “do you know where that place is? I’d not be carried there and die screaming.”

  Oriel saw no reason to contradict the tales with truth. “Here’s what I know: If you hire a fisherman to carry you from the harbor at Celindon back to his home island, you should be safe. If as you approach, you see many houses along a harbor where more boats are tied up, and if the island is large enough for many farms and much woodland, then you can be sure you are safe. The island you fear has only a single house on it, high on a bare hilltop. Only a few boats are moored there, and those no larger than might carry one or two men. No fisherman from the islands goes to that place.”

  The man took a while, making up his mind, and then he turned to his companions. “I say, we should go to the islands. What say you?” The squinting man agreed and the thing was settled. The four rose to their feet, impatient to get on with their lives. “A season’s work in Celindon, to fill our purses, and then we’ll to the islands.”

  “And once there?” the squinting man asked.

  “Once there, we’ll live long. Live, work, build, breed sons—and learn to swim, too,” he laughed again. “It can’t be so hard, not if so many can do it. Am I not correct, stranger?”

  “I think so,” Oriel said. “But before you go, tell us— If we travel south to Selby—”

  “The Wolfers have never come as far as the coast before. They’ve found enough booty inland, westward,” the smiling man assured him.

  “Those soldiers of the four claimants who fight for rule over the cities of the coast are men like ourselves,” the squinting man promised. “No worse than ourselves, no more to be feared.”

  “Keep your own counsel,” the first man said. “That’s my advice. For lodging the Captain at the Gate deals fairly. You’ll find it just alongside of the sea gate. Other than that, I know nothing of Selby. We slept there only the one night,” he said. “And now,” he silenced Jilly with a look, “we go on our way.”

  As she moved by him, at the end of the small troupe, Jilly spoke to Oriel out of the side of her mouth, softly, so none would hear. “They’re closer than he’s told you, the Wolfers. Go cautiously among those who live in soldiery, for they are accustomed to killing. These are parlous times,” she said, and was gone before he could thank her.

  When they were alone again, and the woods silent around them, Griff asked him, “Do you go on?”

  “For the time,” Oriel said. He was thinking over the meeting, thinking of questions he might have asked, thinking of what he knew about the two men and their lasses, and how much of what they had told him he could believe. “For the time, we go to Selby.”

  Griff didn’t protest.

  Oriel thought, but did not say, that he suspected now that it would be harder than he’d thought to win their way on the mainland. He would have to be as clever as a river, he thought, to do well. But he could twist and turn like water, and go his own way, however hard the world tried to drive him along another—or, he thought he could do that. “Come,” he said to Griff, with such a lightness in his heart at what the day might bring that he could become a smiling man himself. He jumped down from the rock and returned to the path. “Let’s see this town of Selby, and its people. Let’s try the ale at this Inn. What was the name they gave?”

  “Captain at the Gate,” Griff said.

  “And let’s find work,” Oriel said. “There is much to be done today.” He led the way, knowing that Griff followed.

  Chapter 9

  SELBY BASKED IN SUNLIGHT. ROOFS and chimneys were visible within the walls, red tiles and grey stones, and sand-colored stones. The little houses nestled back against the wall were hung with fishing nets and faced out over the bright blue bay. Boats had been drawn up onto the beach and lay on their sides, as if asleep. The whole scene was washed over with mild spring sunlight. />
  Oriel and Griff approached the fishermen working around the deep-keeled boats. One man stepped forward to meet them. Bearded and sunbrowned, he wore a bright yellow kerchief tied around his neck. The others, also wearing yellow kerchiefs at their necks, went on with their work. A woman walked out of one house to enter another; a yellow kerchief bound her hair.

  “You’re strangers here,” the fisherman said.

  There was no answer needed.

  “Where from?”

  “The north, and east, a place too small for you to know of it,” Oriel answered. “We met an old woman, just beyond the woods. She told us this town would be Selby.”

  The man nodded. “That’ll be Mad Magy.”

  “Likely enough she was mad,” Oriel agreed.

  “Or near to it,” the man said. “It’s been years she’s lived out there—”

  “And it’s been years troubles have passed Selby by,” a voice said from behind him.

  Nobody spoke for a time. The men on the beach studied the two strangers. Oriel kept his eyes level whenever one of them engaged his gaze, until the other’s eyes dropped or turned to look elsewhere. Sunlight fell over his head and shoulders like a cloak. The water rustled along the edge of the beach, and after a while the man before them spoke. “Work, then, is it?”

  “We’ve our livings to earn,” Oriel answered. He didn’t need to consult Griff, for he and Griff were of one mind.

  The man looked at Griff. “Know you anything of fishery?”

  Oriel wasn’t sure how to answer this. It would be dangerous to spend their days on the same waters where Nikol, or another from Damall’s Island, might see them.

  The man took his silence for consideration. “If you’re a man with the courage to live outside of the walls our merchants have built to protect themselves. A man who likes to keep his eye on dangers, who thinks it wisdom to live beside the dangers, and to know them.” His arm gestured to the sea, quiet that day.