The Tale of Oriel

by Cynthia Voigt

  The town built its walls thicker and taller, and cared less what color neckerchief a man wore than how honestly he dealt in his trade and how lightly he danced on the square after market days, and how straight he could stand after an afternoon in one of the Inns, and how fair his daughters were. The people of Selby cared more for Selby than for any victories among the heirs.

  On market days, after the companionship of the morning’s labor of loading a wagon and selling the wagonload of salt, after the companionship of beer and bread, Oriel and Griff and their master walked home through darkening air in a different companionship. Tamara watched for them, to offer hot food and demand the news of the day.

  Tamara was growing into her womanhood. Oriel could see that. Anyone could see the roundness of her, and the care with which she wrapped her head kerchief around her hair, and pulled two or three locks out from under the kerchief, to be admired. Oriel didn’t know if everybody could see the new way she looked at him, from under her eyelashes as if she were a little afraid of him, or the little smile that let him see the tips of her teeth, and seemed to make sport of her own seriousness, and seemed, somehow, also to make sport of him. Despite the woman’s work that kept her busy, Tamara found time and energy for more. She made Oriel and Griff teach her numbers and letters. She asked, looking at Oriel from under her lashes, if they might not have a boat. With a boat they could travel on the river, quicker than walking, and Oriel had once built a boat by himself—hadn’t he? he’d told her about it—so he could do that again. She looked down again to remark how handy a boat might be, for catching fish also, and to remark that she might be useful in the building, if Oriel and Griff would let her help with it.

  “I can work, and work hard, can’t I?” Tamara asked Oriel, who agreed. “Even if I’m not as pretty as some, I am a strong worker. Does a lad care for that as much as prettiness, think you?”

  “How could a lad not care for you?” he asked her.

  The game between lass and lad required neither of them to answer this kind of question, so that both could imagine what an answer might be. But Oriel knew what he thought: Tamara was dowried with the saltwell and its lands, she was skilled in housekeeping and husbandry, she was a round, neat person with hair that shone in the sunlight when she let it hang down to dry after washing, and she often had thoughts about him that made her cheeks pink, when he caught her staring at him.

  It was a good year for rain and sunlight, and each farmstead had full barns, grains stored, and roots, and its animals fed to fatness, their young plumping up at their sides. All of Selby counted its luck that second winter.

  This made it seem the more cruel—or perhaps made Selby feel the more lucky—when spring brought the news, from the villages upriver and the cities to the east along the coast, and the cities to the west. The news was dangerous. The news was the more dangerous for being contradictory. There were too many stories afloat on the spring air for any man’s peace.

  Celindon had been taken, its double-walled fastnesses breached and its houses burned to ashes—some said by Phillipe, some said by Karle, all disagreed about who had defended it, and one or two of those who brought news from the north reported nothing changed from earlier years except a citizenry more closely cloaked in hunger. The walls of Celindon stood, others claimed, the guildsmen counted their coins in safety, the slave markets were full, and the gold mines produced richly. Eleanore’s children had all died off in the poxy fever, rumor said, and Lucia was—at last—with child. Taddeus had taken his troops over to Phillipe, leaving Ramon weak as a beached fish. Phillipe had had his wife murdered so he would be free to marry Eleanore, and he was willing to take her sons as his heirs, over any sons he might get from her.

  If you could believe Phillipe. If you could believe rumors of him. If you could believe anything you heard.

  Danger was in the air, the very air the people of Selby breathed into their bodies.

  The men of Selby were fearful, and undecided. A few remained staunchly loyal to their colors, but most were not. All hoped that Selby was small enough, distant enough, a poor enough prize that no Captain would desire it.

  And then there came word from inland, word of Wolfers. Where Wolfers passed, they left nothing standing, not farmhouse nor any growing thing, not tree nor animal, and not man nor woman, nor child. They spoke a tongue no man could understand, baying like wolves. They ate the hearts of the enemies they killed in battle to take into themselves the courage of their foes.

  Mad Magy was given the best of the vegetables, and sweet cakes; the most tender meats were put into buckets of soup for her, just in case there was truth in the old saying. Selby remembered the old saying, that spring, and hoped. Selby will stay safe as long as Mad Magy lives on its borders, they said to one another.

  “Not in the spring when there’s little to take,” the men of Selby said to one another, glad of the distance Selby lay from other cities. “Not until the crops are grown and worth the taking,” said those of cheerful disposition. “Perhaps never,” the most hopeful said. “Perhaps there will be battles elsewhere, perhaps these tales of Wolfers are untrue, perhaps we’ll have another year of ease.”

  And the blues would no longer drink ale among the yellows, the greens spat on the reds, who had no claim under law except the law that the strongest takes what he can get and hold, and the reds mocked any man who gave his life merely because a cause was just.

  Fights became more frequent and they were welcomed. At least, Oriel thought, while the blood hammered in his heart and his closed fist hammered against some man’s jawbone, and he didn’t know if the blood he wiped from his face was his own or another’s—at least he wasn’t sitting in his fear, just waiting for danger to strike.

  The Innkeeper of the Captain at the Gate tolerated no brawls within his doors and heaved any quarrelers out no matter whose color they wore, so his was the place Vasil chose for a measure of ale and news, at the end of a market day, after which the three would go home the longer, safer way, around the town walls. Tamara would be watching out for them. Alone, she was forbidden to leave the farmyard, forbidden to take their boat out onto the river, forbidden to greet strangers. She had no desire to disobey and no sympathy for Oriel’s bruises. “It’ll be knives and daggers soon,” she worried, “and then what is the difference between the men of Selby and armed soldiers? I’m not so much a child that I don’t see the seriousness of things. Color turns against color, and the walls that should protect us cannot. If the armies come in the spring there will be no crops planted, and we will go hungry, if we live. If they come in the summer, our labor will go for nothing, and we will go hungry, if we live. If they come in the autumn—”

  “Enough, Daughter,” her father said.

  “And I’m no longer a child, at twelve,” Tamara insisted.

  “She has the right of it,” Oriel said. Until Tamara had said it, in those words, he hadn’t understood the deep senselessness of the situation. “And it’s wrong.”

  “We still have time,” Tamara said, encouraged by his sympathy. “We could take ourselves inland, upriver, until danger passes.”

  “And abandon all we own?” Vasil asked.

  “With our lives safe, we can reclaim our property.”

  “And be called cowards?” Vasil asked.

  By the readiness of the Salter’s objections, Oriel knew the man had thought the same thoughts.

  “Nobody would ever think any one of you a coward.”

  “You don’t fear Wolfers inland?” her father asked her.

  Tamara’s round, serious face turned scornful at the suggestion. “I think these Wolfers are—stories, to frighten us with. Are you frightened of stories, you three? I don’t believe these Wolfers are real. Oriel, do you?”

  Oriel was distracted by admiration of Tamara’s resolution. All over Selby, he thought, women must be talking thus to their men. “Yet you put faith in the Kingdom, Tamara.”

  “There were merchants who traveled there.”

&nb
sp; “None for years, none since the wars broke out, and many years before,” her father said.

  “But they had been there. You’ve heard such men, Father. I think there must be such a country, hidden away among the mountains, where every city isn’t the prey of armies, where every farm isn’t endangered. I could live happily in such a place, whatever—”

  “Never mind the Kingdom, or the Wolfers, Master,” Oriel interrupted her.

  A sudden thought held him in its talons and he could think of nothing else except to tell his master the shape of it.

  “If Selby could protect itself. Then it would need the aid of no armies, it would have no four-colored affrays. If the people were men of Selby, and no other man’s men. Then the town could stand. Why should the people of Selby give their coins to four foreigners, to supply and outfit armies, when they could gather the coins to outfit themselves for battle? Or to pay tribute with, if they decided that was the wiser course?”

  “Could the men of Selby fight?” Vasil asked.

  “We see it every market day, now,” Oriel said, smiling. “I could fight, and more bravely for the place where I live than for some man ambitious to be Count over cities I’ll never see.”

  “But we have no Captains,” the Saltweller said. “Although we might find a Captain for hire, to train us in soldiery.”

  “Would you not prefer Selby’s color to any other man’s?” Oriel asked, although the question didn’t need asking.

  “That isn’t what I meant,” Tamara objected. Her eyes filled with tears that spilled onto her cheeks. “That isn’t what I want.”

  “Aye, Tamara,” Griff said. “But we must make what’s best out of what we have.”

  “Can the men of Selby forget their old quarrels, to act as one?” the Salter wondered.

  “I could follow you, Master,” Oriel said. Griff agreed. “Or the Innkeeper at the Captain, he’s a man bold enough to follow.” Griff agreed. “So there’s two alrea—”

  Vasil’s deep laughter broke out, and cut Oriel off. Vasil looked at Oriel, and laughed, and laughed.

  Oriel flushed. He felt a boy again, and a small stupid boy, and as if he were back on Damall’s Island. He felt his cheeks grow hot and a desire fill his heels, to turn and run away from the mockery. He felt in his fists a clenching and a desire to strike out at this mockery.

  “Why do you laugh, sir?” Oriel inquired. He heard how stiff and cold his voice was.

  The Saltweller seemed not to hear that, or, if he did, he chose not to take offense. “Aye, you’ll laugh, too, when I tell you why.”

  Immediately, Oriel understood that there was something here Tamara should not know. Immediately, he was at ease.

  “If Selby were to stand for itself, and not for any man else.” The Saltweller turned to his daughter. “Like you, I have heard too much of the Kingdom to disbelieve, although I have a hard time believing what I have never seen with my own eyes. I think, if all is lost here, we might do well to search for your Kingdom. But I will do all I can not to be driven from my land, and I like your thinking, Oriel. I could wear the colors of Selby, and I think I know many who feel the same way. The Innkeeper at the Captain,” at which naming a huge smile cracked his face in half, “among others.”

  ALMOST EVERY MAN OF SELBY attended the meeting at the Captain at the Gate. Those who couldn’t fit into the barroom stood craning their necks at the door and passing the words that were being spoken back along, out onto the crowded street. Vasil presented the idea: “Why do we offer our loyalties to strangers? Why do we wear the colors of men we don’t know, and hope never to meet?”

  Voices challenged him, from all corners. The Innkeeper growled deep in his throat, and called for silence. Gradually, silence fell, so that the one protester who called out could be heard clearly. “Selby has no soldiers, Saltweller.”

  “And why should we not be our own soldiers, if needs must?” Vasil answered. “I’d trust you, more than your sworn master Karle, to fight well for my land and daughter. Wouldn’t you so trust me, more than some soldier hired to do your killing, who if he doesn’t live won’t enjoy the profit of his hire?”

  “Or the booty he seizes,” a voice called.

  “Just because I will fight, that doesn’t mean I can,” a voice called.

  “Will outweighs Can,” the Innkeeper answered. The crowd fell silent again. “We can hire one of these Captains to teach us to fight. Lads aren’t born knowing how to be soldiers, are they? Soldiers have learned the use of arrow and spear, sword and dagger. I already know how to use my fists and feet, and I believe I can learn all the rest, and I believe I can learn it quickly. I believe you can, too—we all can—if we would all choose to be men of Selby, and no other man’s men.”

  “Without the protection of the Count—whoever he is—where would we be?” a man asked.

  “Aye, look around you, where are we with it?” the Innkeeper called back. His cheeks were red, with heat and excitement, and his eyes sparkled. His fist pounded the barfront, for emphasis. “There was a dead man four mornings ago, a man whose only error was taking too much to drink on the same night when those who wore another man’s color at their necks had also had too much to drink. I name no names, but I have one companion less in this world, and I have not so many men I call companion that I can spare any. I name no names, and bear no grudges, for we have grown to be this way—but when I think it could be otherwise, when I think we could stand together, stand for Selby, and stand strongest that way—my heart rises,” the Innkeeper cried out.

  “There’s truth in what he says.”

  “We must be stronger together than divided into four. That’s only sense.”

  “But when there’s a victory decided and a new Count, what will happen to us?”

  “No harm, for we’ll have sided with none of his enemies.”

  “Why should there ever be a victory, when there has been none yet, not even at the start when men were fresh and well supplied?”

  “If we stand all together, then at the worst we will fall beside friends.”

  “And never serve any Count again? I don’t think I can imagine that.”

  “Imagine it,” the Innkeeper advised. “Have you forgotten the Countess’s stewards, when they came to collect her taxes? Have you forgotten what it was to give over to her luxury the coins or fish, the grains or barrels of ale, the steel blades or cloth or shoes that you had made for your own family’s keeping? To be spent on some great rope of pearls to hide the wrinkles on her neck?”

  “Also for houses where the poor might find food,” a voice protested.

  “For the keeping of priests, who fled the land as soon as she died,” another voice said.

  “For the Countess’s long peace,” someone reminded them.

  Those words, and many more of like import, were spoken over several meetings. A meeting was called, men spoke and listened, and at the end there were always more men than there had been at the meeting’s start who were convinced that it was time for change. More and more men arrived at the meetings as did the Salter and his two lads, wearing no man’s color.

  RUMORS CAME TO SELBY, ALL summer long. Rumors came closer and closer, but still Mad Magy lived in her little house and was fed by the city, the men taking in turn the responsibility for carrying food out to her. While rumor tightened like a noose.

  The men of Selby met together. Why should they not bind themselves by oath to one another, as they would be bound by oath to any man who ruled over the city? Let the common rule be the master, and the common weal. The men of Selby would rather choose one of their own number to be their Governor than give that honor to a man chosen by a Count.

  After one of these meetings, Griff suggested to Oriel that the Governor’s place might be filled not by one man but by a pair of men, or four, or five. Or that the Governor should be first man for only a limited run of years. So that, Griff said, there would never be danger that one man would try to rule as Count over Selby.

  “Bring th
is before the meeting,” Oriel advised, ignoring the envy nibbling at his heart. Griff owned the honor of the idea.

  “No,” Griff answered. “You should bring it forward. For when you speak men listen, and they want to hear the truth in what you say.”

  Oriel did what Griff wished, and brought the idea forward as his own. Oddly, it was the Saltweller’s objections that rang out loudest and quickest. “What man can serve more than one Governor? How can a council exact obedience?” he demanded.

  “What one man have we obeyed these last years?” a voice answered him. “And I do not see the city walls crumbling, and I do not see the men of Selby unable to feed their families. I tell you what men I could follow—the Saltweller for one, and our host here, for a second, and this lad to make three. The Saltweller for his wealth and the wisdom to conserve it. Our host for his courage. And the lad to keep us honest, and show us where the new ways lie. Am I the only man here would pick out these three?”

  “Oriel’s too young. He owns no land. He has no trade,” Vasil objected. “What does he know of governing?”

  The same voice put Oriel to the test, by asking how Oriel would see the oath to Selby was kept. Oriel’s answer was that paying a fine seemed enough to keep a man true to his word. Who would impose the fine, he was asked, and who would enforce it upon a reluctant citizen, and who would judge the question, and how would that man be recompensed for the time sitting in judgment took from his labors, and where would the fines be kept and to what purpose would they be kept? Oriel thought that all the men of Selby should contribute to a common fund, into which also the fines would be paid, in coin or goods, field fruits, and labor, too. The city itself might choose a man of proven judgment, to render justice; out of its own wealth the city might pay this man for his services to it, and other men also, for didn’t the citizens of Selby often complain about those houses whose waste was thrown out into the streets, houses that emptied their nightpots over garden walls into a neighbor’s yard? Did the wives of Selby not often suspect that such filth was a breeding ground for sickness, and did not everyone know it was a breeding place for vermin? What no man could do on his own, a town of men banded together could accomplish with ease—to determine a manner of keeping itself clean and sweet smelling. Common rules of conduct might easily be decided upon, as those that most men agreed to follow, and when written down, all might know what was expected of the citizens of Selby.