by Angus Watson
“Oh. Thank you for more meaningless nonsense from the old world. Now, let us ask a genuine prophetess, Frossa the Deep Minded, whether Ottar’s prophecy has any merit.”
“Frossa the Fat, you mean!” some cruel idiot shouted and several people laughed but the Jarl ignored them and turned to her.
“Frossa, is there any truth in Freydis’s lies?”
Frossa smiled, enjoying the sensation of being at one with the Jarl in front of everyone. She’d known the question was coming—they’d discussed it earlier. “None, Jarl, none whatsoever.”
“How do you know?”
“When I heard that the dear young boy and his marvellously caring sister were spreading such troubling—such dangerous—rumours, I took it seriously. I care deeply for all the children of Hardwork and willingly give my time when any of them have troubles, but this case particularly concerned me because of its potential consequences. If anyone was encouraged to leave because of the stories of a six-year-old girl—if anyone was to die in the wilds, savaged perhaps by a pack of lions or eaten by frost giants—that would be awful. So I made three sacrifices, to Oaden, Tor and to my own god Fray, to whom I am closer than any might guess. I looked into the entrails of a raven, a fox and a red-winged blackbird. Each one told me of no impending disaster, only of peace with the Scraylings for decades to come.”
“So what? You’re usually wrong,” said Poppo.
A lesser woman would have dived off the platform and gouged his eyes out, and that was Frossa’s first instinct. But she would avenge Poppo’s insults in time. She exhaled slowly. “The sacrifices are proof enough that Freydis is making up tall stories. No doubt, in your marvellous but alternative parenting of the poor orphan, you have encouraged her to tell stories. This is one of those.”
“It’s Ottar’s prophecy, not Freydis’s!” said Poppo.
Frossa smiled. “It is charming and endearing that you believe that she can understand her poor little brother’s grunts. But even if the stories do come from him, my sacrifices are proof enough that he is mistaken. However, if more proof is required, then I have it. Because he could see danger in this silly little story to the settlement he founded, danger to his own children, Olaf the Worldfinder left Tor’s right side and visited my home last night.”
“How could he bear the smell?” someone yelled. Frossa looked about but she couldn’t tell who had spoken. It was so unfair. Her hut might well have a distinctive aroma, but if she didn’t hang all her sacrifices up inside it until they had rotted fully, the gods would be angry and she’d have trouble with all sorts of demons. Why couldn’t the horrible peasants understand that? She put up with the smell of decay because she loved them. It wasn’t such a bad smell anyway, sweet and homely once you got used to it.
“Olaf Worldfinder told me that there was no danger,” she continued. “He also told me that anyone who left Hardwork and headed west would be killed, horribly.”
“There we have it,” said Jarl Brodir. “There is no—” Lawsayer Rangvald touched his arm and pointed to the crowd, where Poppo Whitetooth’s arm was raised.
“If any man over fifty years of age raises an arm during a Thing, he must be allowed to speak,” intoned Rangvald.
“Indeed, indeed,” said Brodir. “What is it, Whitetooth?”
“Thanks!” said Poppo, smiling brightly. “My point is this. We should all leave Hardwork whether Ottar’s prophecy is true or not. With the Scraylings away, now would be a good time to go.”
“And why would we do that?” Jarl Brodir’s reply was dangerously snappy and loud. Frossa placed a gentle hand on his arm. They’d discussed this. No matter how right you are, when you show anger you lose an argument.
Poppo continued: “The exchange of compliance for food was a temporary arrangement made by Olaf while we found our feet in a new land. He was an explorer, an adventurer, a pioneer. We should be the same. Olaf never intended us to live like farm animals.”
“Would you insult everyone?” Brodir’s eyebrows arched as he made the excellent point.
“I would,” said Poppo, “myself included—I’d insult myself more, in fact. We have become shamefully idle. It is more the fault of generations that have gone before our current crop of young men and women. When I was a child we had wheeled carts, which moved with ease along good roads. Now we drag our goods along rough tracks on travois like the Scraylings because none of my generation, nor my father’s generation, could be bothered to learn how to make a wheel. None of us could be arsed to help maintain the roads, let alone learn how to. And look at our weapons and tools—fine they are, but all are over a hundred years old. Why? Because the knowledge of how to make them is lost. Brodir, the sword that you looted from Olaf’s grave—”
“Olaf’s ghost gave him that sword!” Frossa could take it no longer. Poppo smiled at her infuriatingly and looked to Rangvald.
“Please be quiet,” Rangvald said to her—to her! “Poppo has invoked the right to speak.” Rangvald gestured for the man to continue. Frossa fumed.
“As I was saying, the sword that Brodir stole from Olaf’s grave has a core of iron, and is coated with something called steel, which I think might be a type of iron, I’m not sure, my great-grandfather did explain it to me but I never understood. Both materials, and the weapon itself, were made by burning rocks.” A few people laughed at his preposterous claim.
“Yes, it is amusing how ignorant we’ve become,” said Poppo.
“Please get to your point,” implored Brodir.
“He must be allowed to speak unimpeded,” said Rangvald.
“I will get to the point. We have become lazy, useless people. My son Finnbogi is a good example.” He pointed to the boy, who reddened. “He has no goals, no hardships to overcome, not even the challenge of finding his own food or making his own shelter. The Hird might look good from all their training, and I’m sure that they would fight well, but they will never have the chance. As things stand, they are display pieces, nothing more. So we should leave, not because of Ottar’s prophecy, but to make us better people.”
A murmur of assent emboldened the usually timid Poppo. “To make us heroes!” he continued. “The Scraylings may decide one day that we are no longer loved by their gods and to be protected, and they may decide to kill us, but I think we should be long gone before then, forging our own lives in a place of our choosing.”
Frossa had dreaded that the people might cheer this ridiculous speech, but thank Fray they didn’t. There was more muttering, however, and a few half-hearted shouts of support.
“Can I speak now?” asked Brodir.
Poppo nodded.
“Good. I also spoke to the elder generation when I was a boy, who in turn had spoken to the original settlers, people who had lived in the old world. In that old world, you would not have had the right to speak, Poppo. You would have been a thrall. Thralls were slaves, who worked their whole lives for masters who were allowed to beat them or kill them as they chose. If your master wanted your daughter, he took your daughter. Would you like it if I took Alvilda or Brenna, Poppo?”
“I would not.”
“No, but that’s what happened in the old world, and I’m sure still does. If you complained, it was your master’s right to kill you. If there wasn’t enough food one year, which happened often because productivity and food storage were dependent on the whims of potentially incompetent overlords, then the children of the thralls would be thrown into the sea to drown. When a thrall reached the end of his or her useful working years, their master was allowed to kill them. Yes, they had laws like we do, they had many more, but the purpose of every single one of these laws was to ensure that the few stayed comfortable and well fed and the many stayed downtrodden. That is why our ancestors left the old world. Are you all glad that they did?”
A few shouted agreement and the purple volunteers whooped.
“I thought as much. We do not have thralls in Hardwork. All men and women are equal here. We do not murder children so that a
dults may eat. There has never been a murder or a rape in the history of Hardwork. Nobody has starved. We do not make our women wear their hair in ways that show whether they’re married or not, as they did in the old world. In the old world a woman could not be a witness, nor a chief—okay, so we’ve had no women chiefs yet, but a woman could be chief and I’m sure will be one day.”
Frossa saw many in the crowd turn to Thyri Treelegs, who pretended not to notice and nodded seriously as if agreeing with the Jarl’s point. Treelegs was the first ever woman in the Hird, took great interest in the running of Hardwork and got on well with the Scraylings, all of which might make her a good Jarl, and Frossa could tell that the girl yearned for authority. But Thyri was a quarter Scrayling, and a mongrel like that could never be Jarl, not while Frossa had breath in her body.
“Yes,” Brodir continued, “we have had crimes and punishments—including two executions and one banishing—but we are a society of humans so these things will happen. Our lives here are immeasurably better than they were for our ancestors in the old world, but only if we stay here.”
Frossa thought back to the banishing, some twenty years before, when the previous Jarl, Tarben Lousebeard, had banished that oaf Erik the Angry for wanting to leave. Brodir was too kind. He should have already banished Poppo for the same crime.
“Yes,” continued Brodir, “it’s true that the Scraylings feed us. They say it’s because their gods demand it, and I believe they think that, but between me and you all, the real reason they feed us is because it’s so easy for them to do so. In the old world people grew their food. They planted seeds, tended to crops and kept pests at bay. That was the life of most thralls. Here the Scraylings do have crops, but they also have wild rice. It grows itself, needs no tending and it’s easy for the Goachica to harvest more than enough. They have no need to farm animals because game is so bountiful. This is not going to change. We will always be fed.
“On top of all of that are the recent storms, which are getting worse. Would you rather be out in the wild in one of these storms, or huddled by the hearth of your sturdy, watertight house? Leave here and you’ll be dead before the week is out.
“So you see, Poppo, I understand the complexities of the situation. You do not. That’s why I am Jarl, and you live in a church in the woods where nobody but you has praised any gods for years. That’s why the people will listen to me and not the ravings of your unfortunately afflicted child.”
People cheered. Poppo tried to say something else but the purple-clad volunteers gathered round him and drowned out his voice with their triumphant hollering. Frossa smiled.
Finnbogi didn’t know who to believe. Uncle Poppo Whitetooth had sounded convincing, but so had Brodir the Gorgeous. On balance, he swung towards Brodir, because Brodir hadn’t accused him of being lazy and useless in front of the whole town.
But then again Ottar the Moaner had never been wrong before …
He set off to find Thyri Treelegs. He’d ask her what she thought. He spotted her—talking to that helmeted idiot Garth Anvilchin now! He quickened his pace but someone grabbed his elbow and stopped him. It was Wulf the Fat.
Wulf looked about to check others weren’t in earshot and leant in conspiratorially.
Finnbogi was thrilled. Wulf was the coolest guy in Hardwork by about a thousandfold. What could he want with Finnbogi?
“Keef tells me you’re keen to leave Hardwork?” Wulf’s pudgy face, white-toothed smile and curly golden locks said friendly, but his great muscles, padded leather jerkin, shield, and most of all his hefty hammer Thunderbolt said something more sinister. Did he want Finnbogi to join a leaving gang, or was he about to shop him to Brodir? Wulf might be a very cool man and a decent fellow, but he was also captain of the Hird.
“You mean leave the Thing and go back to the church?” squeaked Finnbogi.
“No. Leave Hardwork. For good. A group of us are preparing to go. If you want to come, meet us by Olaf’s grave at dawn tomorrow.”
“You’re going tomorrow?”
“No no no. There’s no rush, mate. Your little bro is a fine little man, but he’s wrong this time. No one’s going to attack us. It’s just time to explore a bit. We’re getting stuff together, making plans, you know … So, if you want to leave Hardwork, drag yourself out of bed before dawn and come along. If you don’t want to, no worries. But don’t tell anyone else about it.” Wulf grinned like his lupine namesake and managed to look sincerely friendly and sincerely threatening at the same time.
It could be a trap.
“I …”
“Treelegs will be there.” Wulf winked then strode away.
Chapter 8
Clever Chippaminka
Swan Empress Ayanna stood atop her viewing tower at the base of the Mountain of the Sun, on the edge of the Plaza of Innowak, the vast, sandy rectangle that they used for sports and displays. She surveyed the bloody spectacle.
Below her and pressed against the Plaza fence, the lower Calnian orders were watching the same event, cheering and oohing like a herd of drunk buffalo. Most of them were watching the Owsla and their victims, but many were gawping up at her, alone on the platform but for six fan men. Above her and her fanners, held up on gold-coated legs, was the great crystal, the largest in the world, which focused Innowak’s rays to light the cooking pits.
The spectators were lower orders, but not the lowest, obviously, since the Low were allowed within Calnia’s inner walls only to carry out Low duties like food delivery and waste removal. These were the high-born and elevated Low, so they carried themselves with a rudimentary attempt at graceful deportment that set them above the knuckle draggers who populated outer Calnia.
The men wore a variety of belted shirts and leggings that they probably thought were well cut. The women were in bright dresses, blouses and skirts, some sash-tied and almost all decorated with porcupine quills, beads, shells and other bright and shiny baubles. Both sexes had their hair styled in various complicated ways—a spiralled pile here, a multicoloured triple fin coupled with a pointed beard there—and all wore a dazzling range of jewellery fashioned from glass, turquoise, bone, horn and more. Many wore representations of the sun god Innowak—gold swans, swans of corn sewn into the back of dresses and other decorations. One woman had grown and waxed her long hair into huge mouse ears.
Her predecessor Zaltan had maintained that the Calnian upper middle orders’ idea of sparklingly individual sophistication was simply their version of conformity. Maybe he was right. Ayanna thought that the commoners’ efforts to mimic the elite were simply hilarious.
Ayanna herself was dressed simply, tastefully and originally, in white fawn leather sandals and a long white dress of white buffalo calf wool that both smoothed and displayed her pregnancy. A golden swan rendered in porcupine quills on the back of her dress had taken the finest quiller and her team a month to dye and embroider. The empress’s hair was short, brushed to one side, coloured silver but otherwise unadorned. Her only jewellery was a black slate gorget around her slender neck, both reflecting and absorbing light like a bottomless forest pool.
The people gawped at her. So they might. She knew how to dress. At the next sacrifice many of them would mimic her new style with varying degrees of ineptitude.
She returned her attention to the Plaza. The captured Goachica raiders had provided a plentiful sacrifice, the largest since the day early in her reign when Chamberlain Hatho had had to build a new mound to house the partially eaten bodies of three hundred raiders from the south. Ayanna held far fewer sacrifices than her predecessor Zaltan. He had enjoyed filling the burial mounds with large groups of young women, allies and enemies alike, killing them in a variety of horrifying and perverted ways that were humiliating and debasing for all concerned, including the gods. Ayanna had put an end to his wanton cruelty. She sacrificed only people who deserved it, like these Goachica rebels.
Some two dozen Calnians had been killed before the Owsla had suppressed the raid. They’d all been L
ow, other than her deputy Chamberlain Hatho. His loss was badly timed and she cursed him for letting himself get killed. He had been on a long embassy to the southern empires and she’d been keen to hear his report. Right now, his alchemical bundle carrier was waiting in her palace for debriefing, but a servant was unlikely to know much. Ayanna sighed and resolved to watch the show for a while, before heading back up the Mountain of the Sun.
The ten women of the Owsla were spread out at the nearest end of the Plaza of Innowak. In between the alchemically charged warriors and the crowd, downwind from the empress’s viewing tower, were five Innowak-lit roasting pits. Two of the fires already had people cooking above them. At the third pit, a trio of burly Low gutted a slain Goachica man with practised efficiency, ran the roasting pole through him from anus to mouth and trussed his legs.
The finest cuts of meat would be sent to the Mountain of the Sun for Ayanna’s consumption. If your flesh was cooked in Innowak’s fire and consumed by another person after you died, your soul was destroyed: no afterlife, no reincarnation. If you ate someone else’s Innowak-cooked flesh, you were strengthened in the spirit life and the next life. Empress Ayanna had eaten human meat equivalent of several large families in her time, and she would eat more. There was no limit to how strong she intended her next incarnation to be.
Beyond the cooking pits, nine of the Owsla were facing a corral that contained around thirty remaining Goachica. All the women were barefoot, dressed in the standard Owsla uniform of leather leggings laced tight with rawhide thong to above the knee, leather breechcloth and a short leather chest piece belted under the arms. Their uniformity ended at their uniforms. Each was armed differently and each had her own skills.
The tenth member of the Owsla, the giant Chogolisa Earthquake, closed and re-lashed the gate of the corral with one hand. Her other hand was around the neck of a young captive. He writhed and pummelled her massive arm. He was tall, well-built and no doubt a capable warrior in normal circumstances. But Chogolisa was more than a head taller, with biceps as wide as the Goachica man’s thighs and thighs as wide as his torso. She marched him towards the line of waiting Owsla, oblivious to his blows, as if she were carrying a chicken to a chopping block. Chogolisa Earthquake really was an extraordinary looking woman, thought Ayanna. Despite being a good measure taller and broader than any man, she had the clear-skinned face, bright eyes and shining hair of a teenage girl. The size of the woman! Like Sofi. Her Owsla nickname Earthquake came from the devastation she left in her wake, but it was easy to believe that if the massive girl jumped up and down a few times the earth really would shake and split.