Windswept
The Mapweaver Chronicles: Scroll I
Kaitlin Bellamy
Windswept
Copyright © 2018 by Kaitlin Bellamy
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First Edition: August 2018
For Mom,
Your magic could never be written, or replaced
Chapter One
Caravan
Fox sat cross-legged on the upstairs windowsill, nose pressed against the cold glass. His breath clung to the windowpanes, slightly obscuring his view with each steady exhale. Every so often he would raise a finger and sketch pictures in the foggy glass, briefly clearing a patch of window before his breath misted it over once more. Outside, a cold spring sunrise was only just beginning to brush the frost-covered grass, but Fox knew that the whole of Thicca Valley was awake. Awake, and waiting.
Even through the haze, Fox could see all the way to the outskirt farms. Every chimney was smoking, and every kitchen window was lit. Here and there he could see shadows moving in the weak morning light: children running to the valley pub, hoping for news, or mothers shaking out rugs and anxiously peering up at the mountain road. Downstairs, Fox knew his own mother was busy sweeping the stone kitchen floor. Again.
As if the house could possibly be any cleaner. But Father was coming home any day now, and Fox knew better than to argue when Mother started worry-cleaning. It was easier simply to take his chore assignments and do them without complaint. And so, Fox and Mother had both spent the last week washing windows and scrubbing doorframes, airing the bedding, and sweeping out all of the fireplaces.
It wasn’t just Mother. Everyone got restless this time of year. Winter was releasing its tyrannical grasp on the valley, and spring was beginning to fight its way through the ice. And with that first hint of warmth, every Thiccan began looking west, watching for a sign of movement on the mountain road. The waresmen were coming home from their yearly trade caravan, bringing with them the provisions and coin required to make it through another year.
They’d been gone all winter, and the moment the Tessoc Pass cleared, their wives and children started looking for their return. Fox’s own father was among them, Thicca Valley’s only trapper and fur-trader. Any day now, someone would spot that first wagon emerging from between the peaks. And until then, people watched, waited, and indulged their anxious little habits.
Something moved at the corner of Fox’s vision, making him turn to look. A bird was winging its way toward the Five Sides, the valley pub. It was a small, grey bird, with a scrap of blue tied around its ankle. A short-range messenger bird, probably coming from one of the mines. As Fox watched, the bird disappeared behind the pub. He waited for several minutes, but no responding bird was sent out. A lunch order, then. Or a trivial piece of news. Nothing serious or urgent, and certainly nothing interesting enough that it might take his mind off waiting. So instead, Fox scrubbed the glass clean of its fine layer of mist and turned back to watching the cold and dark mountain road.
He’d heard once that the country of Sovesta used to be warm and prosperous. Now, looking out on the thick layer of frost that brushed the early spring grass, he found it hard to believe. The legend was that Sovesta had been favored by the gods. Then, it was a blessed nation, covered in rich, lush farmlands. Until a foolish king, hundreds of years ago, had offended the gods. Whether the king had stolen a god’s daughter or wife, or enslaved the god itself, Fox didn’t know. Every storyteller spun the legend a little differently. But the punishment was always told the same: a curse, throwing the country into turmoil. Sovesta became a ruined nation, dominated by snow and ice. The gods pulled the Highborn Mountains up from the earth to isolate Sovesta from the rest of the Central Kingdoms. It was even said that before the curse, magic ran thick in the bloodlines of many Sovestan families. But the gods stripped them of even their Blessings, leaving the country barren of any magical gift ever since.
Now, in Fox’s lifetime, the brief summer months were crucial. Crops were planted early, sometimes even before the ground was fully thawed. The whole of Thicca Valley worked tirelessly throughout the waking hours to store food and supplies for winter. Children spent their days gathering firewood and fishing. Meats were smoked, the small farms were constantly tended and everyone prayed that the snows would wait to fall until after the harvest.
And then as summer ended, just before the Tessoc Pass closed, the valley’s fire merchants, waresmen and traders would take to the Merchant’s Highway, journeying south to sell their wares. Each year, Fox helped send his father off with the caravan, making sure his gear was in order and his goods were primed for selling. And, each year, Fox grew more and more restless as he was left behind. He knew that technically he was not old enough to be allowed to join the men, but he felt sure that he was ready. His fifteenth birthday was coming up this summer, and already he knew more about trapping than Father himself had at that age. But still, he was left behind. And so, he filled his time during the dark winter months in the only way that kept him sane: he practiced.
Fox glanced down at the foot of his parents’ bed, where his welcome-home gift for Father lay, wrapped in thick brown paper. A rabbit-fur vest, and matching hat. All caught, skinned and treated by Fox himself, and carefully sewn together during the days of Deep Winter. Yes, this year, he was sure of it. This year, he’d be invited. This year, Father would let him officially begin his apprenticeship.
The sun had risen properly, with no sign of the traders, by the time Fox decided to finally abandon his windowsill perch. He slipped down to the floor and scurried across the hardwood planks to the ladder that led up to his room.
Houses were built to stay warm in Thicca Valley, nestled as it was in the Highborn Mountains. The cabins were tight and cozy, with rooms kept small to better hold the heat from the fires. Fox’s “room” was more of an alcove set into the upper wall of his parents’ bedroom. It was just tall enough that he couldn’t quite stand upright in it anymore, but he needed little space. The walls had been carved into shelves and nooks for his personal things, and an old trunk sat at the foot of his sleeping pallet, just beside the ladder. A single row of firestones, set directly into the curve where the wall met the ceiling, kept his nook warm and softly lit.
Fox rather liked his little room. It reminded him of a den, or a burrow, and he’d always felt comfortable in tight spaces. It was one of the many reasons his nickname, Fox, was so appropriate. That, and his often uncanny animal instincts. He had a keen nose for weather and, somehow, managed never to get lost. He supposed this was why Father found him such an invaluable trapping companion. Of course, one of the other reasons his nickname was so apt was his size. While the people of Thicca Valley were often small and sturdy, Fox was simply small. He had none of the natural bulk that the miners were built with, and he could never spend his days hauling ore and felling trees like so many of the other youth his age. His talents were in his fast fingers, nimble feet and the ability to slip soundlessly to and from the forest path like so many of the beasts he and Father hunted.
Fox dressed quickly, pulling on his own rabbit-fur vest, and lacing his knives into place around his waist and thighs. He tied Father’s old scarf
around his neck as he slid back down his ladder, and finally made his way to the ground floor.
An overwhelming and mouth-watering bouquet of smells met him as he entered the kitchen. It seemed that Mother had moved on from sweeping, and had now thrown herself into cooking. A whole tub of freshly-peeled potatoes sat beside the large, circular firepit at the heart of the kitchen. A bundle of small, plucked chickens sat on the counter top, waiting to be roasted on the spit, but Mother herself was nowhere in sight.
The kitchen door was propped open. A cool breeze swept through it, airing out the cabin, and bringing with it two female voices. The lower one was unmistakably Mother. And the other? Fox smiled, scooped himself a cold cup of elk broth and a hunk of bread for breakfast, and went out to join them.
The raised porch curved most of the way around the cabin, built up several lengths from the ground to accommodate firewood storage underneath. Fox followed the voices around the corner, to the back stairs, where Mother sat with a young, dark-haired girl Fox had known all of his life. The two were up to their elbows in a basket of mussels, scrubbing grit and sand from their shells.
The girl looked up at his approach, a mocking smirk on her face. “Look who finally decided to wake up and join the living,” she teased.
Fox hopped up on the porch railing, being sure to kick the girl gently in the shoulder as he did so. Laila Blackroot, the innkeeper’s daughter, was Fox’s closest friend in the world. His own parents treated her like family, and her father did the same for Fox. With Fox’s father gone so often, and Lai’s mother dead long ago, the Blackroot and Foxglove families had come to rely on each other quite comfortably. Lai pulled her weight as much as any of the boys, often keeping Fox company in his own chores. He returned the favor at the Five Sides when he could, and the two spent their warmer months running all over the valley. They hauled water, delivered food to the mines, cut firewood, and filled their nets with more fish than anyone else.
“Good that the mussels are back,” said Fox through a mouthful of bread.
“Decent fishing won’t be far behind,” confirmed Lai. “And I’ll be the first to find it. Been checking every day.”
“There’s a finely-knitted shawl and an iron bit in it for you if you give me first pick,” said Mother, stopping to tuck a stray hair back into place behind her ear.
“As always, Mum Foxglove,” said Lai.
Fox finished his breakfast while they worked, breathing in the cold morning air. It was fresh, filled with woodsmoke and the bite of frost. And, somewhere in the distance, snow. It would snow tonight, he could smell it. Around dusk, by his reckoning. And his reckoning was almost never wrong.
Soon, the mussels were cleaned and prepared for cooking, and Mother retreated to the kitchen once more. She made Fox and Lai promise to air out the stable before they left, and the two obediently set off across the small stretch of property.
The family’s pony, Cobb, was out on the caravan, so Fox didn’t spend much time in the stables during winter. But with the caravan on its way home, now was the time to ready it for habitation once more. As they worked, Lai chatted on about this and that. Her father’s plans for the Homecoming Festival; the Bracken boys and their troublemaking; how much she loved the smell of fresh hay as she laid it down on the stall floor. And Fox was content to listen as the two worked their way through a steady stream of chores, preparing the stable for Cobb’s return.
They had done this so many times, for so many years in a row, that it was a habit by now. Lai was a good hand’s-breadth taller than him, and so it was she who pulled things from the high shelves and took to climbing up to dust the rafters. Fox himself kept to the floors and checking that the woodwork hadn’t been compromised by the winter.
It was absorbing work, and easy enough to lose himself in. Even so, each time he passed the small window, or the open stable door, Fox found himself glancing out across the valley, trying to catch the slightest glimpse of movement on the mountain road.
“All that looking won’t make him come home faster,” said Lai finally, pulling bits of straw from her long black braids.
Fox rolled his eyes. “Easy for you to say. You’ve never had anyone go out! Your pa’s got the inn, and all your cousins are miners, except Picck. No one in your family’s a waresman.” Fox kicked lightly at the doorframe, dislodging clumps of dirt and straw from his boot.
“But he’s on his way home now, so it won’t be too long to wait,” said Lai, coming to stand beside Fox.
He smiled ruefully at her. “Always the cheerful one, aren’t you?”
She placed her hands on either side of his face and grinned. “Have to be, don’t I? Without me, you’d only smile maybe twice a year!” And she pushed, squishing Fox’s face out of shape and making his lips pop out, startling a laugh out of him. “Ha!” Lai said triumphantly. They both knew perfectly well that she was the only person in the world who could get away with a move like that. Anyone else, and Fox would have punched them in the nose. But instead, she scurried away, laughing as Fox chased her all the way down to the river.
✽ ✽ ✽
An hour later, soaked from the knees down and armed with a fresh basket of mussels for the kitchen, Lai and Fox sloshed into the Five Sides Inn and Tavern. “Da, I’m home!” Lai called out. They heard a muffled reply from the basement. “C’mon,” said Lai, “over here. He’ll be up soon, I’m sure.”
They heaved the soaking basket up onto a long table and collapsed onto either side of it, stripping off their wet shoes and stockings. This early in the day, the common room was completely empty. The long wooden tables were clean, the air free of the usual smells of pipe smoke and ale. A fresh pile of firewood was stacked neatly on the wide, stone hearth, and the dark wooden beams running from floor to ceiling were wiped clean of their nightly film of soot, bringing decades of carved initials dancing across their surfaces into sharp focus.
It was easy to imagine that The Five Sides had been around since the beginning of time, and certainly since the beginning of Thicca Valley. The tavern was the heart of the town, both in location and importance. It had been there all of Fox’s life, and he spent more time in the tavern than his own home when Father was gone. But while it was a staple of Thiccan life now, Fox knew that it hadn’t always been so. He loved to hear Lai tell the story.
“My grandpa was sixteen,” she would say. “He was the youngest of six brothers, and he hated working the mines. So one day, he didn’t show. Instead, he wandered around town, looking for another job.”
But, of course, you didn’t just find another job in the valley. You worked the life you were born into. Fathers taught their trades to sons, or the occasional nephew. Family businesses were passed down through bloodlines, or inherited through marriage. And every so often, if you happened to show a natural talent toward a certain profession, you might be taken on as an apprentice. But to leave your place in the community when you had nowhere else to go ... it was unthinkable. It was madness.
“Mad, that’s right,” Lai would say. “That’s what they all called him when he knocked on the waresmen’s doors, looking for work. They told him ‘Go back to the mines, boy! You’re no use to us here!’” And she would flap her hands, as if shooing away a flock of crows. “But he didn’t go back. And when he refused to go back to the mines, his parents threw him out. So what do you do when you’ve got no place to stay?”
Once, when hearing Lai tell the Five Sides Tale to a group of younger children, Fox heard one little girl say excitedly, “No bedtimes!” Another time, a goat breeder’s son piped up with,
“You sleep in the barn loft, like my da does every time ma kicks him out!”
But the correct answer was, “You build a place of your own!”
Lai would continue. “He traded every favor he had to buy the empty scrap of land where the old bakery used to be, before it burned down. And he started to lay out a foundation and such, a wall here and a doorway there.
“And every night, men would come by
on their way back from the mines. Or they would come into the town square from the farms, hoping to buy flour or trade with the fire merchants. And then, suddenly, the men were offering to help. They would help lay stones, or cut wood, just for a little while to take their minds off mining or the children or waiting for dinner.”
It was Fox’s favorite part of the story. He loved to picture it. He could just imagine all of the men in town, coming together for no good reason, but enjoying each other’s company all the same. And then, as Lai would continue her tale, he would find himself wishing that he could have been a part of that accidental team so many years ago.
“It was summertime,” Lai would say, “so the evenings were still light. Women started bringing dinners to the men out in the square, instead of making them come home to eat. And the whole valley watched and helped the building come together. And while grandpa didn’t know what his new house was going to become in the beginning, he started to figure it out with those nightly parties. He hated mining, but he loved this. Being around all the people, and talking and laughing and eating together. So, the plan changed. The house kept growing and stretching, filling all the space he’d bought and even a bit more, but nobody minded. By the first snowfall of the season, he’d opened his doors.”
It was all of this adjusting, and changing the design halfway through the building process, that gave The Five Sides its name. It was an unbalanced and sprawling building, and the far left wall was much longer than the right, but the valley loved it. And Fox, looking around at the polished oak bar, and the glowing embers in both the gigantic fireplace on the far wall and the circular fire pit at the heart of the room, loved it too.
“And, of course,” Lai would say as she neared the end of her tale, “let’s not forget the heroine of our story.”
Everyone knew her name. It was carved ornately onto the mantlepiece for all to see, and it was always kept clean. Sometimes Lai’s audience would answer excitedly, all at once. At other times, the name would trickle around the room in a series of whispers, like a breeze.
Windswept (The Mapweaver Chronicles Book 1) Page 1