by Adrian Selby
I hold a slip of linen over my mouth as I leave the alley and walk down towards the docks, keeping a note of the turns I’m taking, the square we passed earlier with the well, a flophouse with a hanging sign showing a badly painted poppy. Then, as I turn a corner above which a torch has been lit, I see a tavern opposite, The Rubber Smiles. Under the sign hangs a large piece of black leather cut into a circle. It means the tavern welcomes those of us with colour, and that is usually because we don’t like trouble ’less it’s paid for.
My head brushes the top of the doorway; it’s a solid little stone house, room enough for maybe thirty at most in there and near full as I enter. The serving tables are along one side and I see a few of Nirdde’s kegs on them, FEATHER’S SA branded on the sides.
I swerve left away from the tables before the keep can offer a welcome or pour out a cup for me. There’s two men, still wearing swords and belts must not long have come in. They’ve got a tray before them and there’s some bones and some crispy skin, the ends of some bisks.
“Please, can I take these? I’ve got some children with nowhere to live.”
The one of them is packing his pipe, fairly young, thinks he’s a bad boy. He looks over at the keep and flicks his head at me.
“Get out, no beggin’ in here. Off back to whatever whorehouse you been droopin’ in,” shouts the keep, who, to his shame, had paid colour himself.
“You’re hanging the leather. Have some pity.”
“I got plenty of pity for those with some coin, so unless you want to start sucking some cock out the back, fuck off.”
“Just these and I’m gone, sir.” I point to the dregs of the tray. I feel like smashing it in his face but I gather up what’s there into the square of linen I’d had over my face and nip out ahead of their jeering and threats. I curse when I hear the word “scar” being said. It was a chance I had to take, but now I’m running around a few corners before any of them can share whatever might have been understood as the bounty on me.
I almost run into a young man with his head down leading a pony along. I can smell the cloudberry jam he must have in the sacks that’s hanging off the pony’s back, the glass jars chitting together.
“Oh, sorry, lady, I wasn’t watching, I …” He paused, looking at my eye. My belly was turning over with the smell of the jam, I could feel my mouth wetten.
“I’m looking after some children, orphans. One jar of that for a rich man’s table could feed them for a day.”
“I’m sorry, my cleark, he’d …” He’s looking about, then back to me, he lingers on my babs, then my eye, he’s flushing a bit, nervous, pity tugging against duty and a noke’s fear.
“You’re not going to … to steal it, you’re not a thief?”
“I’m not. You know I’m not or you’d be shouting for the militia. I’ve paid colour after all.” He needs to be calmed. I need to use his nerves, his youth. I’ve got one chance at getting some jam before some militia appear and take an interest. To our right there’s a rotten gate half open and beyond it a scrap of yard and a dark doorway from which I can feel and see nothing with my black eye. It’ll do. I put my hand on the nose of his pony, whisper to it, take a step closer to him.
“You were looking at me just then, looking at these.” He takes a longer look at my babs before looking up at me.
“I … Look, lady, I’m dead if I take my hands off this rein.”
“Lead her to the doorway there. I’ve got a strong grip, I’m a very strong woman. You won’t take long.”
One punch was all it took, he’d wake soon enough.
I’m walking back to the brewery, sun’s setting. I smell the frying and baking in the houses about, there’s the smell of maple sugar, opia blocks burning from low doorways, bored-looking militia in their cups, for droopers was no trouble, feeding Carlessen’s coffers. I hear Dottke calling me, but I’m not near Nirdde’s. Ahead there’s a crossroad in the lanes, there’s a man and two older boys, bigger than Brek. They’re in leather vests, wearing gloves, bearing weapons, probably gangers. The man’s dragging Dottke along, and she’s howling and pulling. Litten and Aggie are held by their arms by the other two, their heads bowed and whimpering. None look down the lane I’m coming from and they go past. I run to the corner, judge I’m not going to be able to get near them slow, too few people, and decide to sprint at the man holding Dottke. He hears me splashing through the mud and turns, she shrieks. The others turn. He barely has time to let go of her tunic and reach for his knife before I run into him, arm at his chest and shoving him back against the wall of a house they stopped alongside. He gasps, winded, he’s big but he’s soft, a splash of colour you might have from a few dayers. I give him a right hook and I catch him clean. He staggers back a step and falls, stunned. One of the boys pulls out a long cleaver you might use to clear undergrowth out with. I put my hand to my sword.
“I punched your man here because I won’t be killing nokes that don’t know no better. These duts are with me, you’d best leave them. Don’t give me a reason.”
Dottke kicked the man in his face as he got onto all fours trying to rise to his feet. She must have caught his nose, blood pours from it.
“Wait!” says the other boy. “It’s her, the scar on her mouth. Ryigg said to let him know if we saw her.” He runs off in the direction they was headed. The boy holding Litten lets the pipe he was smoking fall from his mouth as he starts shouting for help. I draw my sword and he lunges at me to keep me off before putting the cleaver to Litten’s neck.
“Don’t you fucking try it!” he shouts. He’s shaking. I feel sick, I see Mosa for a moment, Khiese.
“I’ll kill you both if you don’t let go of him now.” He looks behind me, a tell, and I spin out to the side. The man’s dagger catches in my tunic. He’s stuck me but it’s not gone in more than an inch or so into my side. I run him through and pull the sword out with a cut to open his belly. The boy screams at the same time as Litten does. I turn. The boy’s dropped the cleaver and he’s running. Litten holds his throat and I vomit, my head’s gone light. Then he pulls his hand away and the cleaver’s made only a small cut. I put my arms out for him. A whistle sounds. The lane steepens in the direction they was going, and there’s two men running up it, helmets and spears, quite unfit. I wipe my tears away and take a breath, then take Aggie up into my arms. “Dott, Litten, run!” We head back up the lane to the brewery. Mercifully there’s no militia as we get to the end of the lane. Jorno’s there on his own, he’s been crying.
“What’s happened?” he says. He sees Litten’s got blood on his neck and I’m splashed with it from the man’s guts. I then notice Dottke is splattered too; she’d slipped on his blood as we fled.
“Where’s Brek?”
“They hit him, broke his nose. He’s gone looking for you, he said he wasn’t going to let you down.”
“Shit. You did well to stay here.”
“Hey, it’s Brek,” says Jorno. He runs over to put his arms about him, glad to see him.
He’s pinching his nose, and he’s covered in blood and all.
“We have to go, the whistles mean they’re looking for me, we have to get out of the port, into the hills, at least tonight.” I put my arms around Brek too.
“I couldn’t fight them, sorry. They took your knife and beat me. I followed so I could tell you where they went.”
“You was brave, a really brave man. Help me, take up Aggie, I’ll carry Dottke.”
Out of the port was away from the whistles. I keep my head down and we get out of the lanes and onto the main trail as it rises away to the hill and the trees about. There’s nobody following us, it seems, the whistles lost in the general noise of those around the docks getting rowdy. I put my hand to Litten’s head as we walk. He looks up at me.
“Let’s see your neck,” I says. The blood’s dried, barely a cut, but I’ve stopped walking and I’m looking into his eyes. My hand trembles on his head, and the children see I’m trying to stone that other grie
f.
“What’s the matter?” he says.
The words come between shuddering breaths. “There was a boy I couldn’t save. My son. I just remembered him, back there, and it’s upset me. But you’re here, which is good. Let’s eat this bit of food I got us.”
I share out the bits of chicken bone and pieces of bread from the tavern as we walk and then surprise them with the cloudberry jam. I offer it to Brek first, and as I guessed he refuses and passes it to Aggie, which makes me glad. We make short work of the jar, sucking our cheeks in with the jam’s sharpness and sucking our fingers with the joy of it, for it was finely made.
As we’re walking along by some of the lobelia crops a woman whistles out. She has a lantern she’s holding up and she’s walking her land with a dog, which barks at her whistle.
“What’s this then?” The dog growls as they approach, but she’s inside a fence that’s there to keep out deer. She’s about my age, leather leggings of a farmer, shorter tunic. In the lamplight I can see a fullness to her figure that speaks of comfort and a face that’s used to smiling, smooth round cheeks and dark hair tied back severely into a bun. She has a bow and quiver slung across her back and I’d bet a few coin she was sharp with it too.
“This is Blackeye,” says Dottke before I can say something back. “She killed fifty men in our village but they still killed everyone except us. This is Brek, he got hit in the shoulder with an arrow, and this is Jorno, we’re looking for his ma, who left him, but we’ll find her so he isn’t sad. And this is Litten and Aggie, they’re brother and sister. I’m Dottke. What’s your name?”
“Well, young lady, I’m Grenna Carlessen. This little yapper is Scruff. What brings you out on the main trail at night? You got no packs and you’re not anywhere near sneaky enough to be after crops.” She finishes this comment with a big smile for Dottke before she looks up at me.
“I’m Teyr Amondsen. I helped these duts whose theit was being burned to the ground and I’ve got a price on my head for killing Chief Othbutter’s brother, though it’s not true.”
Brek steps back. “What are you saying that for, Blackeye, you told her your name?”
“I did, Brek. I get a sense she takes people as I do, on what she sees, and you tell good people the truth, because otherwise you’re lost.” Truth to tell I surprised myself in saying this, and I’m saying it almost word for word as my ma said it to me when I was packing to leave her. I lost much of that faith over the years, but Grenna stands here calm and assured of herself, she’s read us right and has chosen to talk over nocking an arrow.
“This isn’t something I was expecting to hear from what I suspected were trespassers. You got nowhere to live then. Maybe I can help for tonight. I’ll get my fat old keep to put some extra broth on, neckbone it is. Go back and follow the edge of the fence round. Our hut and sheds are there, just in front of those three birch.”
She puts a couple of fingers in her mouth and gives an ear-splitting whistle before walking off through the run between the flowers.
How to speak of the rest of that evening? I cried, Grenna a bit too, after the duts were put to bed in furs in the cutting shed which was hung full of posies of mint to keep the moths and beetles away. Her keep wasn’t as fat as all that, his name was Boneit and his broth was fine; peppery with a good film of lard on it. After we washed all our tunics and put them up around the fire we shared a pipe as I told them my story. They asked me to tell it, and for their kindness I did and I decided to leave little out of it. I watched them hold hands, make each other pipes, and I told her a recipe that would help Boneit’s gammy shoulder. They told me in turn of their son going to sea, and there was little I could say to that given what I did to my ma and da. Didn’t seem time or right to talk of other stories of my life for we hadn’t the acquaintance that made it easy. I lived an interesting life, they said, and they meant no bad by it of course, for it was a saying that was meant as an understatement. Looking about us there seemed almost nothing in their only room that spoke of leisure: old tools waiting for a smith piled in one corner, firewood in another along with the rich, cosy smell of peat blocks. They had a stand for lying on and on the walls was a few rough shelves on which they put everything else. I asked them how they used their coin, for they must have earned a bit. Grenna said they kept some with Carlessen’s own clearks and she smiled to recall Boneit going into the port one day and coming back with some fine wine their second cousin, the chief himself, sold them. I kept my mouth shut on that count, for they farmed for him of course so why was he selling wine to them? I thought too that they should have been thinking more about investing the coin they made to make more, but seeing their eyes still lingered on each other as they talked, I was reminded of what was important.
I asked them about taking one of the duts, for they spoke fondly of them. We talked about which one and we agreed we’d ask them in the morning what they thought about it. I think Boneit was quite taken with Dottke, and Litten seemed to go to Grenna easily when she asked him to help put the broth in the tin bowls. It was late when I left them to join the children in the shed. She held me and kissed me, head, cheeks and lips.
I said earlier that I cried, and it was as she held me. It was because she told me I was a good woman.
We was up early, Grenna and Boneit dressed ready for their day. We led the children to the big iron bath they let fill with rainwater from their tank and we enjoyed their screeching and splashing about as we got them cleaned up for the almshouse that Grenna told me about. She said to mention her. Then with some cheese and beets they’d boiled up we got them all together.
“I spoke to you all last night about how today I needed to put you in alms,” I says. “Grenna or Boneit can’t take you so I can get away. This isn’t so much because they’re busy here, but it’s because we talked about them maybe looking after one of you. I thought it might be Aggie as she’s the littlest, but I’m not sure you’d want to leave Litten, would you, bluebell?”
She’s holding his hand and she looks up at us before giving us a shake of her head. Litten squeezes her hand.
“I want to look after her.”
“I want to look after them too,” says Brek.
“I know,” I says, “and I reckon Dottke wants to look after all of you, don’t you, Dott?”
“We have to stay together. You can’t split us up!”
“Well, you know what I was thinking? I was thinking if Jorno was willing to stay and work on the farm here, he might earn some coin and learn to sew and get himself some fine clothes and go and find his ma with Grenna. And if Ydka is in some rich man’s house, then Jorno will be clean and smart and show his ma he’s become a man and make her proud of him, and more than that, they would more likely let them see each other. Grenna and Boneit know the chief himself.”
I give it a moment, watch Jorno as his eyes fill up and he shuffles his feet and plays nervously with the ragged ends of his tunic. He’s torn between his ma and them.
“What do you think, Jorno?” says Grenna. “Me and Boneit here would be glad to look after you.”
“He’ll visit us and all?” says Brek.
“Course we will,” says Grenna. “I’ll bring him often as our work allows.” She holds out her hand. He takes a deep breath and turns to the others. They fold in on each other. Their words are the plain, clumsy things you say when you can’t get at how you feel, which is almost everything when you’re a dut. After their hugging he walks over and takes Grenna’s hand.
“Sillindar follow you,” says Boneit. I give Jorno, Grenna and Boneit all a kiss and lead the duts off out of the farm and back onto the trail. I have a mask I can put over my mouth and a cloak and hood. It looks fishy enough but might buy me enough time to get them to this almshouse, Jostein’s Haven, before someone wonders if I’m the woman they’re looking for who’s paid colour. They thought I should take the sword I had but that would make things worse. I decide to leave it here. Killing anyone while I’m near the children will go bad
ly for all of us.
Carlessen helps keep the almshouse, and I’m sure the skinning of fish, spinning wool and a hundred other things are done for the price of some food and a roof and nothing else. These duts are going to have a hard time of it.
The walk back into Carl is quiet, among us at least. I’m sucking on a vadse straw, which sharpens me up. We’re making our way in with the merchants coming to market; wagons with great sacks of wool stacked high, trail-worn vanners leading their packhorses in laden with plant in bushels, bottles and blocks; herders and their snickering sheep and deer are crossing open ground to our right to the large stock market on the edge of the port and the rapid stuttering calls of the auctioneers.
It isn’t very long before Sillindar abandons me, taking with him my saying a proper goodbye to these duts.
I’m holding Aggie and Dottke’s hands, the boys behind me. The lanes are busy; I don’t see the boy who yesterday had Litten by the throat, not straight away. The smell of the bacca he smoked I haven’t twigged right off. He had seen us of course. We walk through busy lanes, around the hot piles of dung in the mud and cobbles, trying to keep our boots clean as we move into the main runs towards the jetties. I sense a shift, a seller of shells stops his hollering a moment, his eyes lingering on something behind me. A movement to my right, a door opening out and someone behind it. I pick up my pace, recalling Grenna’s words to head for the gallows, then a lane rolling downhill to the left towards the almshouse and a big anchor they called Broketooth set outside it. We come out in the triangle that’s got the gallows stage at its heart. I turn quickly, the boy with the pipe is about thirty feet behind me and he’s pointing at me when he realises I’m looking at him. He drops his eyes and bumps into a couple of men who push him to the ground as he goes to turn away from me. From a lane next to the two a militiaman steps out and badly plays at not looking in our direction. Litten tugs my arm.