Aloren

by E D Ebeling

  Padlimaird was working the quay, so I sat on a bench beneath a glowing linden and led the roe through my tangles. When I’d combed it all through, it hung straight and shining to the small of my back.

  Someone was selling meat pies nearby. My mouth watered; I had not eaten for two days. My stomach groaned as a little boy devoured a pie, his fingers dripping with gravy.

  “Blood of the earth,” said someone behind me. “I’ve never seen such straight hair on a Gralde.” A little woman leaned over me; she’d a gapped grin and a red cloak drawn around her head and chest. Her breath smelled of sage. “Lucky girl.” She ran a hand through my hair and asked for a price.

  I drew away from her breath. And I thought of the pies so that it became impossible to think of anything else; and I held out my hair to the woman, who smiled wider.

  She bound it into a braid and chopped it off at the base. She gave me three bronze pieces.

  The three pies were hot and sweet with cinnamon and cloves, and I ate them with indecent fervor. When I’d finished, the juice dripped off my face.

  I walked down to the riverbank for a wash. My hair felt odd enough swinging just past my ears, but realization didn’t hit until Padlimaird walked by without ever a hello. I waded into the river.

  My reflection was unrecognizable. A glowering, wild thing, eyes pulled downwards by sadness and ill use, so the world could see and wonder at what the hard mouth wouldn’t tell. And all this framed by a thatch of black. I jumped away and ran to the shore, where I hid my head between my knees and laughed.

  ***

  The ash and maple yellowed, my birthday came and went, and the brigands held the next music night after they’d looted a barge loaded with damson wine. Wille gave me a mug of the stuff. It was late in the fall and snowing. The drink steamed into my face, and I wondered, out loud, where the summer had gone.

  “Over the south hills to green the gardens of Virnraya and Aclun, and warm the fins of the Iraelde.” Nefer sat on his battered three-legged stool, smoking. A cloud of smoke floated around him, and we were becoming a bit green-faced.

  “The Iraelde don’t live in the sea, Nev,” said Padlimaird. “In’t big enough.”

  “No,” said Nefer, “not in the Benara. But they do swim in the bigger ones. I seen em.”

  “You seen the oceans?” said Oseavern.

  “Sailed em,” said Nefer. Oseavern stared at him, dark eyes big.

  “Gorn, Osh,” said Padlimaird. “They ain’t so far from here.”

  “Look at that,” said Wille. “Don’t that remind you of Mandy’s flute?”

  Begley Turnip, his pinprick eyes twinkling on the opposite side of the fire, was holding a flute that did look like the one Mandy Olen played in Milodygraig.

  Seacho looked with his sharp eyes, and said it was the very same. I wondered what had become of Mandy, who’d brought me to tears with her jigs and reels.

  Just then Toughy began pounding a dance on his bodhran. His thumbless hands turned to blurs, and Tom got to his feet with a two-stringed rebec. He played a lively but forlorn tune, like winter wind through the mountaintops. Begley took the flute up to his mouth, and blew a counterpart. After a couple of phrases he threw it over his shoulder to Miggon, and yanked Peach up by her arms. They danced wildly and the men slapped their knees.

  My feet bounced and Wille grinned. “Lally wants a dance.” I stopped moving.

  “Go on, Al,” said Seacho, who was lying on the ground, his brown hair covering a stone. “I’ll steal you a horse blanket if you dance.”

  “Don’t,” said Gattren. “Don’t let them twist you up like a spring-toy.”

  Padlimaird was still sore over an argument with Gattren. “If you don’t dance,” he said, “I’ll tell Fillegal about them pies you was eatin.”

  “Weren’t stolen, were they?” I said. But Padlimaird was as pernicious as his words, and Nefer’s bargain was picking at my thoughts.

  So I stood up and and unhappily tapped out the rhythm with my toes.

  The men jeered. Then the children began to clap, and my legs to loosen, and I lost myself in a silent scream. Hair whirled around my cheeks, and my skirts billowed past my knees. Kick-slide-ball-front, my feet went, kick-slide-ball-front. Left-weave-left-back up-weave-left-back kick twirl tear rip hack pummel crush kick choke grind and hate, hate and hate.

  The music stopped after a while. Floy was yelling at me from some tree. It had gone silent, except for snow rattling against leaves, and I saw eyes, all of them shining at me. Begley tossed Mandy’s flute in the air so that it leaped with firelight.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said. “It’s like them saebels tootin their pipes in all them old stories and the trees start a-dancin.”

  “Her feet.” Tom pulled off his stocking cap and scratched his head. “Climbing the air like stairs they was.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” said Miggon. “Can all Gralde types do it?”

  “I can’t,” said Wille.

  “I said the little girl could dance, didn’t I?” Nefer sat hunched, smoking, on his stool. Fillegal smiled at me and chewed on his tongue instead of his leaf-roll.

  ***

  “The trick,” said Nefer the next day, “it needs sweetness from the Cheldony, so it’s lucky we’re up this far north, so near to her.”

  It was dawn. Fillegal had informed us we were setting south immediately, down to thicker soil and fatter pickings, so I slipped away towards the east-west running river with an empty bladder-bag.

  I was bewildered upon reaching the Cheldony. The river ran so low she could’ve been a large creek. I hadn’t noticed back in the town––the river flowed wide and placid through that area.

  “She’s flowing shallower than she ought, Floy, in’t she?” I looked for a place to fill the pouch.

  “It’s the late fall,” said Floy. “Rivers run at their lowest.”

  “She’s sick. Can’t you hear her crying?”

  “She does sound a bit off,” Floy admitted.

  I dipped my hand in to better listen. Minnows threw shadows across my arm, and water, shade, and rock twisted into a face. My fingertips opened a mouth and I heard words, the song of a stony-hearted river-daughter:

  Our long lady spat us from dwindling meres

  When her cheeks grew exhausted with pocketed stone,

  For to polish our hearts was to beg for her tears,

  And she’d rather her weeping replenish her own.

  I pulled my hand out, shook the water from it. “She lost her heart. Floy, let’s go––I don’t like it.”

  As I walked back, I touched the trees and shuddered, hoping I was imagining them––the oaks, elms, beeches, birches, firs, fruit-trees, all of them, moaning in a deep thirst.

  ***

  The horses jostled each other to get out of the way of the switches. Most of them were laden with baggage, and the men walked alongside them, howling lewd ballads. Wille sang as loud as his pipes let him, making Emry and Osh giggle.

  “Can’t hear meself think,” said Padlimaird.

  “You wouldn’t hear a perishin thing, anyways,” said Seacho.

  The caravan stopped to rest by a pool below a slope of scree. Nefer, sitting on his old stool, began explaining to me the details of his family tree blessing.

  “Ye starts off feet standin in the dirt, in a place where you can feel the earth movin an’ talkin specially good, so she can hear ye talk back. And them seeds, they has to soak in this all winter––” He frowned, weighed the bladder in his big hand, and held it to his ear. “This water feels sad.”

  “A lot o’ rivers run sadly, mate,” Begley pointed out. “Cryin like they was all whupped bloody.” He was sprawled out on a rock, smoking a clay pipe and not looking remotely interested.

  “Not Noreme rivers.” Nefer walked over to the rock pool and submerged his head in the water. He shook it like a dog when he came up. “Somethin’s wrong.” He looked profoundly uneasy for a few seconds.

  “Anyways, lass,” he sai
d, dripping on my lap, “after they’ve soaked through winter, you take up the seeds, what’ll be as sad as the water, no doubt, and hold em in yer cupped hands––like this––an’ sing to the earth in yer own tongue, cause Gralde’s closest to saebeline.” (Fillegal’s brigands spoke an argot of mostly Rielde.)

  “What d’you sing?”

  “This:

  Norem braechlen lend melluin,

  Algarod darnd melair,

  Witna ade oed dedwyn.

  Rew elde maifgin dair

  Cairbelde elnaeghl elde rwb

  Na gaerwrn eaor lorena.

  Wot gaira sod dem goa go chwb

  Ruin elde lingend brena”

  “You’d better be around come spring,” I said. “You’re gonna have to repeat it then.”

  “And you better be scarce come winter, or Fillegal will dance you dotty.”

  Eleven

  “Dancing for money?” said Mordan. “I hate to tell you, Reyna, but you’ve hit rock-bottom.”

  “It’s a decoy,” I said.

  “A decoy? For getting what?”

  “Money. It can’t hardly be helped––”

  “Lawks, Reyna, you’re eleven. Start speaking like it.”

  By the time the snows came and stuck, such conversations were sounding all over the middle hills.

  True to his word, Seacho had come back from a raid with a big woolen blanket, and after giving it to me, sorely regretted it, until he came back with another for Emry, then another for Gattren, then the last for himself.

  So Tem’s prediction came true, and I was stuck in midwinter with a horse blanket. The others weren’t much better off, or worse. Wille stole an overcoat off a scarecrow, and poor little Oseavern went to a better place. Early in the winter he grew quiet and pale. A cherry-red rash spread from his cheeks to his chest, and we looked after him as best we could, but one morning he didn’t wake up. We buried him beneath some boughs cut from a yew, and thought no more on it.

  My first raid took place in the early morning after winter solstice. The little town was silent, sleeping off last night’s festivities, and Wille, Seacho, Begly, Tom, Toughy, and I walked boldly up to the gates, pretending we were itinerant musicians.

  No Noreme town refused entrance to musicians. We were cheerily let in by a few sentries who still seemed a bit drunk.

  We set up on a street corner near the front-gate. The street was soon filled with townsfolk going about their morning errands, and Toughy pounded away at his drum, Tom fiddled a hornpipe, Begley played Mandy’s flute, and I began to dance.

  People gathered round. Even the sentries came over for a look, and as the morning wore on, we drew a goodly crowd. They clapped and laughed, more and more coming until I suspected the whole town was gathered before us. They tapped all the misgivings from my chest; and I was caught up in the joy of it, floating a hand-span above the ground, when something unexpected happened.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Wille and Seacho unbarring the town gate to let the brigands through. And the oblivious townspeople dug their hands into their pockets, and threw their coins at Begley, Tom, Toughy and me.

  “What the hell’s this?” A copper bounced off Toughy’s drum.

  “Look at that,” shouted Begley over the clapping. “We’re working fer our money––a mortal insult!”

  “If this here’s an insult, y’can call me a whiskey-wallopin broken-belted blackguard wid his arse knockin at his knees.” Toughy launched into a quicker time with his drum. “An gimme s’more, please.”

  “Do we gets to keep it?” Tom’s fingers zipped up and down his fretboard.

  “Why, o’ course Tommy. Earned it hain’t we?” said Begley. “But best not tell old Chief, eh? So’s to avoid getting our thumbs twisted off.” And he lay out his coat to collect the coins.

  When we were through, Begley, a decent chap at heart, decided we’d split the earnings four ways as they’d been made fairly.

  ***

  We stole the scrutiny of too many. Seven houses were plundered and six people killed.

  I took my coins into the woods that evening and buried them under a little rowan. I refused to dance for a while, but Fillegal beat me until my mouth ran red, and threatened to cut off my foot. I had no doubt he would. Begley was missing an ear, and Toughy had no thumbs.

  So I danced at knifepoint for other raids. I spent the coins on food, persevered through the guilt, and in time only felt indifference for what I did. And when Emry, small enough to fit, was shoved up latrine chutes and pushed through sluice gates, everyone was acquiescently helping except Gattren, made to scour the pots and dole out favors with Peach.

  The raids were dangerous and seldom rewarded. All the profits went to Fillegal to parcel out as he pleased (but neither I, nor anyone with me, said anything about the busker’s wages we were earning), and late in the winter I had a miserable experience with a floodgate beneath a city wall.

  Being the smallest, I was expected to dive beneath the water, slip through the bars, and loosen the bolts on the other side to let the boys in. But as I pulled myself through, my dress knotted on a catch in the metal. I believe I hung there for a minute before tearing the dress from my back. When I climbed out half naked, Wille wrapped his overcoat around me and told Seacho to hug me so I wouldn’t freeze, while he, tall but skinny, did the job himself.

  That winter I had little but a horse blanket, my chemise, and the rags I tied around my arms and legs. Though Noreme winters are mild, I remember the cold as a constant ache. I danced barefoot, but wasn’t so keen on the feeling any other time, so I grabbed a pair of boots, three sizes too big, off a farmhouse stoop in Domestodd and stuffed them with rags. But they still wobbled and clunked on silent stone floors.

  I don’t remember much else about that winter. Only that I learned very well how to cheat at dice, call nasty insults, sing nasty songs, mend broken fingers, ride a horse backwards, punch a man in the privates, plan and commit various crimes, fletch an arrow, trap and skin a rabbit, and sundry other strange things.

  ***

  Early in the spring I was sitting atop a small tower, picking a lock. The door stood between me and a weaponry room and the lock had three pins. I’d just broken the third with my needle and chisel, when Tem, who was in the area, landed next to me polite as you please.

  I let go of the chisel and the pins fell back in place. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I could be asking you the same question.” .

  I shrugged. “Got to unbolt the postern.” But he didn’t understand why I needed to break into the weaponry room to unbolt the postern, and Floy, flown up to check on me, agreed with him.

  I picked a nit from my hair and ate it. “I need a knife, or a dagger, or a dirk.”

  “Why?”

  “To slit Fillegal’s throat while he’s sleeping tonight.”

  “Oh,” said Floy. “Mind you make a neat job of it.”

  “I want Nefer to teach me to throw a knife, but he won’t till I give him something new to throw hisself.”

  “Here’s a big wolf,” said Tem. “I think she’s eaten my little sister.”

  “True enough,” I said. “She’s dead.”

  Tem found me because Mordan was tracking my movements and reporting back to a meeting place: another ruined tower in the north. I was still writing letters for them, but not as many. Parchment was scarce among the brigands.

  Arin wondered if I was becoming friendly with Father’s killers, but I put a query to Nefer about where they’d been before Milodygraig. He said Fillegal and his crew had come from southeast Lorila, and he had little reason to lie.

  ***

  Spring grew up and the world softened, and I thought of the seeds that had soaked in the river water all through the dark season.

  Nefer thought of them too, but he put far too little thought into the thing, according to Mordan, who had a fit when he heard what I’d done. “Let me get this straight,” he said, picking at his tail. “You don’t know
where they are?”

  “I do, though. They’re growing right as rain between that hill and the next one.” I gestured vaguely at the hills.

  “Reyna!” Feathers fell around my head. “You’ve lost them all! What’re we going to do?”

  “Haven’t you never heard of the Gavoran Blessing? Great gallons of grog, Mordan. Slow down, ye’ll run into a tree.”

  Had I been older and my circumstances less strange I would’ve been more skeptical. But when I took the seeds from the water they hadn’t germinated and rotted. They’d turned silver.

  I spread these to dry in the sun, and Nefer led me into a spinney of alders. He put my palm on the moss and asked if I could feel anything. The tree song was clear as morning, and after I told him so he poured the seeds into my hands and refreshed my memory.

  He left me there, and I felt lonely in the new green. But when I dug my feet into the soil, closed my eyes, and began singing, “Norem braechlen lend melluin,” a wind flew up. The shoots tangled in my hair, scratched and broke my skin, filled my ears with sticky words:

  Let us draw on thy sap, child of clay,

  And we shall cease our selfish play

  And pay thee back in kind.

  When I was done I wiped the blood from my arms and neck and took the seeds back to Nefer. He put them into a little burlap sack, cut three slits in the sack, and handed it to me. Then he set me backwards on an old horse. He secured me in place with a rope, and before I could protest, pricked the horse’s skewbald hindquarters with his cutlass.

  The horse and I ran for an exhilarating half a mile, wherein the seeds flew out the holes into the air.

  “It’s up to the earth now,” said Nefer when I came back. “Give it two springtides an’ they’ll be coverin these hills like a sea.” I had no choice but to believe him.

  ***

  Midsummer came with its swathes of goldenrod, and a drunken Halfwit-Tom leaked news of our buskers’ wages. The men were jealous, of course. Soon full-out brawls determined who were going to accompany me on street corners with pipe, fiddle and drum.