by Adrian Selby
470OE
For Aude
I’m so sorry my love for how late this is in arriving. I got your letter a month or so after you sent it. I think you’d left it with that fucker Auksen, and one of my scouts eventually got it back to me here in Hillfast.
I might have been near Amondell when you were there, from the sounds of it, but while I was up visiting the lands taken from the Khiedsens that are now mine I got news that Tarry had died.
I don’t expect anyone else has been out your way to tell you. I wish I was there to be able to tell you in person, wish some great eagle could have carried me there, for I know he was a da to you and saw you through all your joy and sorrow with Mosa’s ma and then bringing him up. But when I heard the news I had to come straight back, for his life’s work needed his heirs, one of them anyway, to be here to manage the scrolls and affairs, for he had more than peas in every pie you could think of, he had most of the rest of the filling and all! I say “his heirs” because he has made you and me the main benefactors of his interests. Aude, you wouldn’t believe it. His interests are worth, to us both, many thousands of gold coins. We own five ships each, were we to split it so. I know that you are not one much moved for riches, I don’t think we could have been each other’s keep if you were. But if there was a time to come back to Hillfast it would be now, bluebell, to understand better your fortune and what good could be done with it. For the present you know that Thornsen and me will keep it all going. The scrolls that come with this letter inventory your main tens, your ships and their crews as well as the farms, herds and houses along with the tenants of them. They list all of it, for I am not about to carve up what we’re given without I talk to you first about what you’d like to see done, and I’m not thinking about it like that anyway. I’m not separating me and you and I’m just saying it as it is, I’m sorry if that is forward or wrong. Me with my own interests ongoing, it’s more important that you decide what should happen to all this and feel happy with the outcome, which Thornsen and me can then arrange.
The other thing that’s kept me busy and, it feels, run all my days into one, is that the crews and vans that will continue our work on the road over the Circle are already on the Sedgeway moving east. I have found enough soldiers and workers, organised the supply and had the crews give us the lie of the land. They’ve helped me to work out what route we should sign and what roads to build. My aim is also to build an outpost like Faldon’s but at the Almet, to the southwest of it. I believe that it will encourage north and south to visit and trade, something you have told me you are trying to encourage anyway with Drunessen.
I’m going to be in a van heading for the Circle tomorrow. Theik tells me there’s trouble with the whiteboy gangs that now wander about, and others might be coming to fill with their own greed the hole Khiese left. The clans think it will help a good deal if the War Crow herself brings them to heel. Gertsen, our drudha, has made up the Oskoro fightbrew for these crews, and their first taste of it has got them excited. This fightbrew may well be better than anything in the north. They will need reminding that there’s always some way to die, however.
I won’t speak of how fucking stupid the Crutters are, how in the pockets of merchants and how prone to bribes. This also has kept me, Thornsen and our crews busy, rooting out those we found to be fucking us over across all our interests.
All of these things that have needed my attention have meant I’ve been getting my food and drink and sleep at the sheds. Easier to put up a mat there than take the trail back and fore to our house every night. I decided therefore to give Thornsen and Epny our house. They’ve always loved it up there, his boys and girls too. They protested for a while, but they’re moved in and we have had some lovely evenings there. The house seems to like them, like it’s breathing again and got some colour in it, like it had with us. We went up there after we buried Tarrigsen to finish his tapestry, sharing stories of him. Most had gone home and I was alone in our main room when Tarry’s man Luddson come in just before he was leaving, said there was one more thing he was asked by Tarry to give us. Seems that Mosa had saved all the coins we gave him over the years we went sniffing for bluehearts. He kept them all under the window in our bedroom, made a hole under the floorblocks to hide them. Then, the day before we set off for the Circle, you remember Tarry was at the house? Mosa gave him the coin and some instructions. He was to engage a fine woodworker to make us all walking staffs—him, you and me—with farlswood catches, fine steel bobs and carved into them the flowers we most treasure. They were to be ready for when we returned and then the three of us might go walking again, out beyond the farms, Krellen Woods. I use mine all the time, and you should have yours with this letter. It’s the most beautiful thing I ever saw. I would like to know what you think we should do with Mosa’s.
It might be some time before I get to you but as always I think of you and miss you badly.
Your Teyr
470OE
For Teyr
I have the staff at my side as I write this. I too take it everywhere, for he would want it used and my word it is fine, the blade keen, bob weighted just so. Your nephew Drun should have Mosa’s. They would be of a close enough age that they would have been good friends in another life. Drun should learn to sniff and to use one of these, all boys should. Mosa was a natural though, wasn’t he, a fine nose for the work.
I’ve thought a lot about Tarry of course. I enclose a letter for Luddson, one as well for his clearks, for we were good friends when I worked there. I think of him every day. I am sure you will take care of them, but my share of Tarry’s fortune must go towards ensuring their considerable comfort from hereon.
Jelmer has had his family help me build a small house on their theit, and I have taken the white cut, bloodied their shield, and a new rope was woven for the longhouse, my white thread added, sworn to defend their rope for life. My weapon is my quill of course, but I’m told it’s sharp enough in clan matters. It means I would like to live out my days here, for all that I might travel about.
This is home for me now, Teyr. I am part of a family.
Drunessen and Jelmer agreed to give me a bit of my own land I could run some hands on and help grow the theit, but I asked that I remain a teacher and sniffer for I have become happy with that life and its rhythms. Anyway, could you see me managing a crew of hands? I never had the way of talking to them when they needed a kick in the crack that you had. You only had to narrow your eyes at one of your crew and he or she would scurry off.
The house has only two rooms but a fireplace in each. Such extravagance! The main room is a good size so I can keep a desk in it, and the bedroom doubles for supplies of ink and scrolls. Getting this house built has taken most of the summer, and now autumn is here and I’ve been helping with the harvests, the air turning cold frighteningly quickly. Winter will come early this year. Keep yourself safe if you travel out in it, crew or no.
Aude
471OE
For Aude
I looked today for your last letter. It was a year ago and as you know it’s been a hard year in the saddle overseeing the trails, bridges and blockwork, as well as all the dealings with the Families to put stables along the road.
It was lovely to see you this summer just gone. You have changed, I’d say a bit weather-beaten though you might not like to hear it. The wind and the sun have baked you a good colour, I think. You’re right my own colouring has faded. It’s a welcome sight to me, though it leaves me looking strange now, the bark in my skin stands out darker, as does the plant in me, which is growing from where it was put in, while the scars all over me make me look like a dolly’s been stitched from straw and badly at that.
I’m glad you were honest with me about us. We rode out a few times, didn’t we, and as the hours went by on those rides I felt it was coming, your telling me that we wouldn’t be together again, that we’d no longer be each other’s keeps. I did my best to hide how much it hurt, and I’m sorry if my visit was difficult
or that I made it more difficult when you’d finally spoken of your feelings. It hurt so much because I found in you what I thought was my keep. You used to make so much effort to make sure I was happy, like I was the most important thing, well, Mosa and me. You never got cross with me, or if you did I deserved it and fuck knows I wasn’t easy to be with. Out there on Jelmer’s land you held yourself back, and it was the first time I realised it wasn’t grief but something else. You said it felt like a bit of you hadn’t come back though most of the rest had, some bit of the feeling that made you love me was gone but it wasn’t my fault. I don’t fully understand it but I have accepted it.
You should know, for I couldn’t say it at the time, that if there’s someone that becomes dear to you, you should not hold yourself back. I have to get on, but it would hurt me more if you didn’t go on yourself and find someone to love.
When I left you said that you hoped we might have a friendship to treasure, that we shouldn’t forget the love we had. That’s easier for you to say and embrace than me, but you’re right of course. Don’t ever stop writing to me. I will always write, there’s always so much to say besides the dry progress of our shipping and plant interests. You and Thornsen, and those Kelssen duts, are the dearest things to me.
We pushed on from your theit and arrived at Stockson safely, to talk with them of the road that I aim to bring through to them.
Stockson’s as I was told it was, as we both knew it to be—a big, stinking spread of emporia around the barracks and customs for Hillfast and Forontir’s border. Much bigger than I thought, a lot of gangers. Saw rivals’ tats all over the taverns, sheds and offices there. Soon as we saw the place I knew we had to set up an outpost, so we’ve begun the work of finding families that’ll let me buy some land from them. Course, the chiefs I’ve spoken to, merchants, tavern keeps, vanners, all of them think the road’s as stupid as they all did back in Hillfast. One or two gangers tried it on, but the black eye gives me two things, a better and better read of people, but also it gives them pause, for the word’s got out here that I’m the one they’re calling War Crow and I’m the one did for Khiese.
Thornsen will come out here soon, I hope. Things seem to go more smoothly when he’s about, but that’s normal as the north hasn’t ever taken a woman seriously.
Your Teyr
472OE
For Teyr
I hope this letter finds you well after that dreadful winter. The Drunessens lost more of their old and young than they had in many winters. I had hoped we might see each other again with you being that bit closer over in Stockson, but I can understand why you haven’t managed it. You are working yourself too hard. When you were here you were distracted constantly by the scrolls and your managing the plans in the kind of detail that you cannot maintain with such large and diverse interests as you have, on top of which I am selfishly leaving you to manage mine as well. I hope you and Thornsen have plans to bring on to a high standard your set of senior clearks? You should give my interests to one of them. If it doesn’t make all the profit it could it’s not as much of a concern to me as your health.
I’ve worried more particularly about you since we talked about us. You spoke well of it in your letter. There’s some piece of the puzzle that’s frozen and gone, as I said. You’re the same beautiful, kind and strong woman you always were, and you need telling as much now as you ever did, it seems! But the heart and blood that goes with me thinking that you were my keep, that there was an us, it’s gone.
Between the lines of your letter I saw that you suspected that I might have found somebody else to love. You probably also suspected, for the time we spent together, that it was Ruisma. She’s become my keep here and now shares my house. A letter isn’t the place to talk of it or explain it. You’ve met her. She’s been a great comfort and a good friend, and I’ll say no more for words are small.
I should tell you that Vuina’s not been well. She caught a cold while out in the winter, it got her in the chest, and while the worst of it has gone it’s left her short of breath and with coughing and muke. We’ve all helped Jelmer with the nursing, but we’re afraid that the busy woman pulling up her family and keeping Jelmer in his comforts might not come back. She gets out of breath if she moves around too much. Lina, who’s fourteen summers now, does a lot to help Jelmer while I’m not there, for I’m travelling a great deal now on Drunessen’s behalf.
There’s little more to tell for it is only the struggles with winter and Vuina’s poor health that has filled our time. I wanted only to write to be straight and true with you as you deserve and to also communicate my hope that we can remain good friends now our lives have taken their new shapes.
Aude
473OE
For Aude
Stockson’s neutrality on the border of these citadels is a curse and a favour. The troubles we’ve had are gone far beyond anything I’d have anticipated. One half-built outpost has been burned. Stone, wood, nails, rope, everything you can think of has been stolen in various amounts over the months, two crew killed in the taverns at Stockson, six more wounded, nine found pilfering for themselves or worse at the order of a couple of the gangers. All of which is the curse.
The favour comes from it having its own jurisdiction. We learned after a while which interests were behind trying to arrest my own from developing, and when we had I took a crew of mercenaries in and we butchered our way through to them and finished them in a good public messy way that’s meant we’ve had a bit of peace since. Stockson needed to see how far fucking with me gets them.
So the outpost is being built on Fullersen land, a small clan with no sworn Families of their own. Of course they didn’t trust me for a moment so I had to sweeten their appetites with some favourable terms, but they’ll see they bet right soon enough.
I don’t know if word has reached you that the Crutters have been removed as chief clan of Hillfast. The shortest reign of a chief clan in all the history of these lands, it seems. It doesn’t take much raising of tithes to turn the people against you, even those that put you there, especially if they see that you have started in on southern ways with wines and silks and the like. Justice was done rarely and poorly, so around Hillfast it’s got more dangerous as the chancers realised they could get away with a great deal more misery-making—extortion, robbery, all of it. The Crutters thought they could use soldiers to deal with the dissident voices on the council and among the merchants. Three merchants were killed, one of my sheds was burned while almost full of cargo bound for export, and seven died, for we had farlswood in there and as you know it burns thick and hotter than Aoig. Got even worse then when what must have been one of the merchants sent an assassin after Weiden Crutter and killed him, but he got killed himself trying to escape. Fucking chaos. We protected our interests. I drew back some soldiers from Faldon, and they got some order restored about our sheds and ships. Thornsen it was visited the families of all ours who died and we helped them.
We’d planned for the Crutters being useless, and Thornsen has been working with the Carlessens to better present their interests in Hillfast and actually be seen to pay their fucking tithes properly. Ah, but I’m raving about politics. You’d think I had nothing to occupy me.
There’s some news of my children. Yes, I’m calling them my children in part because they call me Ma and in part because that love is returned, though I cannot call myself a ma when I am away all the time and not seeing to them directly.
Brek has his letters, apprenticed to Theik at Faldon Ridge, and is taking his duties very seriously. I think he will make a good cleark, and it’s decided he’ll stay at the outpost there. Litten, Aggie and Dottke have gone back to Tapper’s Way. There’s an old stablemaster, Glyn, who’s putting them up in his quarters next to the stables there, and Aggie is smitten with the horses it seems so she tries to help where she can. Glyn is a Carl and had dealings with the Kelssens many years back so he has some sympathy for them. Dottke is telling everyone that she wants to be like Blacke
ye when she grows up. I hope not, though I fear for the world and everyone in it if she does. Litten’s been put to work with the smith there, but he’s being trouble. I think he’s upset that they’ve parted from Brek, but Brek’s studies are best pursued in the busier outpost.
I hope you’re not wondering what I might have said about you and Ruisma because you know well enough that for all I’m hurt, I don’t want anything but whatever gives you comfort and joy if you can now find it. She’s a lucky woman.
If I can find time I would come and visit. I think it isn’t likely. You and Ruisma I believe have been travelling about and improving relations with the Auksens, Amersens and Drunessens. It might be that a Walk in the Almet becomes possible.
Teyr
473OE
For Teyr
Winter is here, and while we were away in the summer, we did not go too far for the sake of Vuina and the girls. I’m sorry we didn’t get to see you.
We did get to see Skershe and your nephew. They are both well and Skershe is raising Drun to become head of the family, though he’s only twelve summers as yet. Drun has much to learn, but Skershe is clever and runs the Family at this time. I understand from meeting some of the Family chiefs that a council will remove the Auksens from being the high clan and the Amondsens will be raised up. Olnas is old and his boys have earned little respect.
In respect of your road, though you’ll have heard it from your own vans I’m sure, Skershe rode out with me for a few days to show me the outpost at Almet and the road coming through. It is a remarkable thing to see. I am not ashamed to say that it made me weep to see it all. So many working at the stone, the organisation of it leaves me dumb. You do not speak of such things in detail in our letters for you might think it boring, as you’ve said. It is the greatest and most inspiring thing I’ve ever witnessed, and there is a grudging acknowledgement of that fact even in the most sceptical among the work crews I shared cups with when Skershe and I stayed in their camp near the woods. More remarkable still, delightful in fact, the Oskoro venture to leave the woods to share their own strange brews with the workers, even what they cook. There are hearts and minds there, in the earthiest of folk, that are having their fear and prejudice turned by the presence and familiarity of these strange people, some of whom are losing their resemblance to us all the same. Their kindness, and I don’t know if humility is the right word, is up with the best of us.