by Adrian Selby
The moment wasn’t lost on me that I last landed here on the Gellessens’ wharf in a neck trap and was spat on, and now I meet Thornsen in rather more finery than I’m used to. Oh Aude, you should have seen them all at our sheds. We were all crying for I’d missed them so badly and I could tell as well how upset they were about what happened to Mosa. I could see also they thought I’d changed, and it upset them to look on me, I knew, though of course they wouldn’t say it out loud. They all asked after you and sent you their love, glad that you’re alive and have survived. They all still called me Master, though I told them Thornsen was the one deserved the title. He’s proved to be as good and canny a merchant as anyone. It was such a delight to see him and his family again.
I followed Tusahl to Othbutter’s chamber, where she had laid out the terms under which her king would continue trading with Othbutter and the merchants of Hillfast.
The terms were that Nazz would be given up and his operation transferred to me. Likewise I was to be given rein over rooting out corruption on the docks with the other merchants’ help. I expect you’re thinking this might have been met with some resistance, and you’d be right. Fuck them anyway, it’ll be good to see them have to work for their profit. More than that is that I hate gangers, always have, doing honest people out of coin by putting a sword to their neck, or the threat of it. Whether it’s droopers or those who want a fuck, or want to sell a fuck, you got gangers making them all miserable while they make themselves rich. I have plans for changes in that regard that’ll really get Hillfast’s rich gritching.
So the soldiers that had come from Farlsgrad fetched Nazz out of his office that was in a droopjoint and tavern he owned. I waited in the street with Tusahl. His gangers didn’t have much grit about them in the face of a crew of soldiers shining with colour and ready for war. A crowd gathers of course, shutters open up all about us, including from his tavern, and whore, sailor and drooper alike cheered as he was brought out in chains, Talley and all.
He hid his surprise well at seeing me.
Tusahl read out for his benefit what it was he had, in her word, stolen, and what the punishment would be. He came up to me then, bit of a strut as he tried to play the crowd as he always does.
“You tell them Othbutter was behind it all, did you? I don’t see him here in chains.”
“Might be Ru and Three and Caryd, Salia too would have lived had you not betrayed the purse, abandoned the plan to kill Khiese. Now all this is mine, you cunt. Mine.” He was about to say something to that when his chains got pulled and he choked. Talley I had no words for.
Soon as I could, after seeing him put on board that galley, I went to see Tarrigsen.
He’s not well. The best plant keeps him comfortable, but he can’t walk about much, no puff in him. As long as he’s still he seems himself and like everyone else he sends you his love and Sillindar’s blessings, which he knows you’ll hate and he said it with a wink.
Shortly after, I went to see Cherry’s family, Helsen’s too, and I gave them a sum to help with the future and to say how brave they were and what good they did.
Then I went up to Bridie’s farm. She comes out of the house, seeing me hobbling up, and she falls to her knees. She’s crying for I come alone without Ru. Jol steps out then, looks down at her. Then she gets up and pushes past him and goes in the house, and he comes down the road to me.
I ask to be let into the house to tell Bridie and Ilda and the boys, for they deserve to know it and hear it from me who can give an account of how brave their uncle was. Jol tries to say I shouldn’t bring such news in there, that he can take care of them. I put my hand on my sword hilt, tell him he needs to find somewhere else to be, and he moved sharp. I expect I’m a monster to worms like him.
I was able to tell Bridie that Ru loved her and I was able to tell them all what he meant to me. I had with me a bag of coins, his purse paid in full and a lot more besides. Jol came in later with a couple of his Hillfast friends, trying to make things awkward, but I saw him off. He wasn’t going to fleece this farm or do anything wrong by them, and she held my hand and we sang a bit after Jol and his friends left, drank and laughed till we were sick, and it was a good night, best I’d had since last I saw you.
Also, I saw vanner Leyden appear at the sheds the other week, who was broken when he heard about Cherry for they spent months on the roads together. I told him he should go down with a roll making a promise of payments to the almshouse the Kelssen orphans were in. I’m surprised, though I shouldn’t be, with how much I think about them. He said Thornsen had taken care of it, as I’d asked him to do when I was last in Hillfast, a prisoner in the Coffins. I’d forgotten that I asked him, though I was a mess then. One more reason to add to the thousands that make me love the man.
Two more things worth telling you anyway in terms of how I aim to advance the road. Crutters were occupying Faldon Ridge, as I told you. Othbutter gave authorisation and some soldiers to help me get them out of there, so I went with them to do that. I think I made some more enemies of course. I’m sure those men will send that back to Old Crutter. Faldon Ridge is again mine and I have work to do to make sure it can run as well as Omar ran it, for there are few in the world better than he was at the role of castellan.
On our way back we got ambushed. They were desperate enough and on a brew so I lost four men in all before we could rise enough to fight them off. I am sorry to say that while I had the Oskoro fightbrew and wore a fieldbelt I found I couldn’t bring myself to swallow the brew. I haven’t spoken of what happened to me when I escaped the buffalo. I had two fightbrews in me and I was dying, like they were turning me to mush on the inside, and that is what must have caused my bones to bend as they did. As I lay there I lost all sense and tumbled through a darkness, that awful feeling when you jump from somewhere high. The countless thousands of the frenzied herd stamped out all thought and memory. Then I heard others, Oskoro, speak to me, speak together as one. My armour was being taken off, my woollens. Desperate to end the spinning emptiness, I sent my fingers down into the earth and found its hot veins and its cold fields of bones, worms and seeds that wait for another world to come. I fled into the earth, barely tethered to the skin and bones of me. I called out to Mosa, to comfort him so far from his bloodlands. He couldn’t hear me, nothing could with the crashing of hooves above us. Silence followed that, though there was no ability to reckon time. Knives of warm bone were put on me, then hands moved inside me, leaving their gifts to work and grow, draw me back.
As with so much in life, these words are frail against the experience. But it was this experience that froze me and stopped me from fighting, the fear I might fall into that place again and never come back. I expect you’ll say I should be thankful if it means never again choosing to do something stupid with only one good leg.
Turns out those that attacked us were from Families sworn to the Crutters, men who had profited for a time stealing or extorting from the few travellers or refugees who had come out of the Circle. They were burned, not buried. I will take extra guards in the future so do not worry.
Write soon, my love. I have to leave it here despite everything to tell, for I have tallies and scrolls as tall as you to work through, and no you to work them through with!
Your Teyr
468OE
For Teyr
A year since last I saw you, bluebell, or near enough. It’s hard to believe.
I am glad you felt able to speak of your suffering at the reckoning with Khiese. You’ve a strong heart to endure the war of those brews with your body. Few could have withstood it. You cannot and must not blame yourself for not drinking a brew in defence of those whose purse was to defend you. Your wars are with your quills now, my girl, not your sword, and your quills are quite sharp enough, going by your account of your plan to play Othbutter and Nazz and strengthen your hand with Farlsgrad at once.
It must have been a relief to see Nazz taken away. I look forward to your plans for his interests. I know
you’ll do right by the people that deserve it. You always have. Sometimes the right things happen to the right people.
The girls Lina and Nietsen I’ve taught letters to, and you should see Vuina and Jelmer, such proud parents. Their aunt Ruisma’s asked if I’d teach her as well so that is under way. She thinks that she might become a teacher to others and put the Drunessen clan in good standing in these parts. Of course, when Beddy Drunessen, the chief, heard about me and what I’d done, he asked if I’d visit there to help with his clearks and his interests, so I have gone along, hoping that I could speak well for Jelmer’s Family and improve their standing as thanks for their making me part of their lives.
It appears that, talking to Drunessen, he’s lost a Family to the Amersens to the south. Seems he’s not given justice well enough in their interests these last few years for their liking. It took me, being an outsider, to tell him that was my reading of it, and he was grateful for it.
He also has trouble to the north. Whiteboys have been seen.
You might wonder why I am telling you this, for these are small matters when put against your current concerns. There are still challenges on this road you wish to build. You have killed Khiese but the Circle is still a dangerous place. It is this work with the chief, this guidance that he’s begun to look to me for that has stopped me from taking one of the two vans that have come through here for Hillfast, one of them yours, as you surely know. I might be of use to you, bringing some harmony to the clans out here so that you have fewer problems when your crews do manage to drive trails out this way.
I must warn you that if you return here you are likely to be given a hero’s welcome, for word has travelled regarding your killing Khiese and his brother.
I would also reassure you that I am much more settled, more myself these days than I was last summer. I find time enough for solitude and have taken to wandering further and further from the theit. I have enclosed my observations of the land hereabouts, which may also help you with your planning of the road, and I have included the accounts of those who have seen bandits to help also in advising your vans if they come this far east in the near future.
Please send news of the children in Port Carl if you hear any. Although I was much moved to see you talk so happily of them and their characters, they have made an impression on me and I would see them make something of themselves.
Aude
468OE
For Aude
It was lovely to receive your letter. It was also worrying to hear that you’ve taken to travelling far from the theit in what are still dangerous lands. I know you are finding the wilderness to be good for your happiness. All I want is for you to be happy. Still, you see anyone outside the theit, run or ride back. Don’t trust anyone you don’t recognise.
Last I wrote to you it was spring, and now autumn is here and the Crutters run the citadel. The council met as they always do in high summer, and this time there was widespread agitation that the Othbutters be removed. Almost the whole north and northeast clans came out for the Crutters. A lot of merchants about me in the gallery looked on with pleasure and knew well that it could harm my interests, for they had their claws in the voting for sure. A lot of clans could expect reward for their loyalty, and the Crutters surprised me in that regard, for it must have taken some modest level of organisation on their part, though they don’t lack ambition. Not many families came out in favour of the Carlessens, but it’s their fault and I’ll speak to them on it when I get a chance. They might be the only clan capable of making Hillfast a bigger interest in the Sar and I mean to see that interest find its way to all the clans.
Not one of the merchants except for Tarry’s interests speak to me since I took over Nazz’s own interests. I put the whores in charge of their own houses and supplied their security at a fixed rate agreed in scrolls. I am the “queen of whores,” “the cocksucker general” and worse. Merchants meanwhile have had to pay me for the use of the same guards that Nazz supplied them, but the guards now have more money to take home.
I write this from my outpost in Faldon Ridge. My hope is that I can see you soon, perhaps before midwinter. I miss you. I would have left sooner but for the matters to attend to at Hillfast but also because, given you asked after them, I have been down to Port Carl.
Sorry to say the Kelssen children were in an awful state when I saw them. The almshouse was badly run, the children worked to the nub by an evil old fucker, and that was another thing I’d then ask the Carlessens to change, for they made good coin off the efforts of these duts, who were mostly rope making. Aggie, Litten and Dottke’s hands were in a state from the hatchelling, and they had Brek spinning. Least they weren’t tanning. All their heads were shaved for the lice of course, but they were thick with them in their clothes and stinking besides. They all shouted and came running at me when I was brought through to the barracks they were kept in with about fifty other children and some young men and women who had the minds of children. Brek was bruised and his eye closed over from fighting, and I learned about how he got into all kinds of trouble, whipped as well, for doing what he could to stop some of the older ones from picking on them. Dottke asked if I’d go and kill the four or five been causing them their grief, and they were shaking in their boots when I walked over and they thought I’d do it. Dottke had been telling them that Blackeye was coming for them the whole time, and it got her a few beatings, so now they saw it was true I think they feared the worst, me being there with my soldiers and all for I go about with a lot more of a crew after being attacked here.
I was never going to leave them there of course, and I brought them here to Faldon. Aggie asked me if she could call me Ma and the others started saying it too. Course I cried at that.
We took the trails up through Ablitch and we got through a few jars of cloudberry jam, and they told me about their lives and I told them a bit about mine. I told them a lot about you and they all wanted to come with me to meet you, but the Circle is still the Circle and I couldn’t bear it. The girls aren’t sure what they’ll do now. Brek though, he was after learning his letters. He wanted to pay me back, he said. When Dottke heard that there were those about Faldon calling me War Crow, however, she said I had too many names and none was very nice! Call me Teyr then, I said, but she said Ma will do.
We head out tomorrow, north from the Sedgeway to the Khiedsen land that was promised by Othbutter and has been upheld by the Crutters and the clan that has replaced the Khiedsens, the Jamessens. I then hope to come south through the Almet to see Skershe and Drun before heading east to you.
I know I have talked much of my plans for my interests in this letter. I tell you because you would see this road and all of these interests serve that purpose. If you think I have not thought of much else you would be wrong. I said I missed you and I do. It makes me sad on the one hand to think you might have come to Hillfast if not for the Drunessens and their chief, but on the other you are happy there and you do much for us and Mosa’s road. I look forward to riding out with you if winter allows it. The foretellers seem to agree on a mild winter for once. Who are we to dispute them?
Your Teyr
469OE
For Teyr
Midwinter has passed and you have not arrived. The foretellers are wrong once more, it seems, for it has been hard on us all here. The iron, oil and coin you sent with your last letter were most welcome to us all, and the clan sends its thanks to you.
I had hoped we might see you while at the Auksens and at your home in Amondell for we visited Skershe and your nephew Drun. Drunessen asked if I would go along as he was keen to repair relations with Chief Auksen. Ruisma came with us as well, for you have much inspired her, and she is determined to do what she can to help unite the clans for a Walk.
When I spoke to Chief Auksen he said he had banished from their bloodlands six men who had hunted the Oskoro on the plains not a month ago. Seems the Oskoro had come a bit further south than they might usually, I expect in part due to your efforts, a
nd were blamed for a number of missing deer. Other families, fearful for their own herds, went hunting them, and the chief found in one of his theits the head of one of the Oskoro.
It’s easy for him as it is for us to understand that they might not be a threat, but this is winter in these lands. A few of the men banished spoke of Khiese’s plan to burn the Almet, which you might not have been aware of. They spoke of it as a good, for they think the Oskoro to be animals.
I suggested we go to the Almet, and your sister-ken Skershe wished also to come. Chief Auksen was shamed into going for he did not seem happy to suggest accompanying us.
The buffalo had gone through by then. We camped under the eaves of the Almet, boldly perhaps, though not far from the Offering Stone. The morning after the first night we awoke surrounded by ten of them, though they bore no weapons. One of them, one of the least changed, spoke Abra lingo, snatches of Common even. He, or she, for it was not clear to me which, said that the Oskoro wished to send a delegation of their number out to the theits and clans around the Circle. They hoped that with our help they might meet the clans and prove they have no use for people’s children or babies or even their animals, for they do not eat meat, or much of anything as far as I can tell.
I was much moved by your writing of the children of the Kelssen theit calling you their ma. It’s certainly better than Blackeye, isn’t it? I want you to know that it gives me great comfort, your managing to save them from Khiese’s whiteboys, save them and give them a good and secure future. They’ve lost more than you and I have lost, if we’re honest with ourselves. I think they understand their debt to you, or will as the years go by.
Finally, Auksen wanted you to know he had no truck with the Crutters in the vote for the high clan, but could not bring himself to support the Carlessens, who as everyone knows don’t pay their dues.
Best wishes,
Aude