The Ferryman - Book 1

Chapter 49:

Birdbath

The days passed like a crawling ooze, like a stampeding ox – Moth dreaded and longed to return to Hiren, and having nothing else to occupy her time, she chose to fill it with aquatic plant life.

    When Correb was back from ferrying, he read to Moth; slowly, information about Nisse’s plan for the pool began to surface in her congested journal of complaints. Moth’s own journal began to fill with notes taken from Nisse; when the bitter woman talked of gardening, she was brilliant. Moth was overflowing with her ideas.

    Moth replanted the pool, and Oliver helped her refill it.

Though it was still not in its prime, it was glistening and full of life. With the flowers and lily pads no longer competing with weeds, they flourished in their new home immediately.

I was a glorious day when Moth, after three weeks of work, sat by the pool and sipped her tea, watching magpies swoop in to drink from the pool and bath in the streamlets that were built into the stone floor of the greenhouse. They would fluff up their feathers and shiver in the water, sending droplets glinting into the air, the occasional feather – tinted in jewel shades – floating down the streamlet, down the small waterfall, and into the pool. Dragonflies were already hovering excitedly over the lilies, drawn to the running water.

Moth had gotten up especially early to wait in the greenhouse. Correb had returned from another three-day cycle of ferrying and hadn’t seen the pool refilled.

As she sat there, Moth watched tendrils of the walking rose unfurl from their beds and stretch out, foot by foot, until it reached the water.

Moth was sick of pruning it back. The aggressive plant always had tightly closed buds, and she had never seen a single one develop enough to open up – she wondered if it was some breed that never opened, until she remembered Juho mentioning Correb loved the scent.

She also remembered Juho saying the roses understood simple commands.

“Hey,” Moth said sternly to the roses. “Stay out of the pool.”

With the obedience of a cat, the rose paused as if listening to her, and then knocked her teacup over and sunk itself down into the water while splashing around.

Moth reached for pruning shears when she heard talons clacking on tile.

Sher hurried around the tree blind and met Correb as he entered.

“Lady Mere,” he said, giving her a short bow. “You’re here early.”

“Have you been in the greenhouse since you’ve gotten back?” Moth asked eagerly.

He shook his head, but paused as he heard the trickle of water flowing through the now-full rivulets, and splashing magpies. He turned to look at Moth, and she grinned proudly.

Correb lumbered past the centerpiece of trees that veiled his private corner of the greenhouse. He stood, stunned, looking over the shimmering pool of water, the vleikos blooming already with its white petals dotting the surface.

Without the scum and reeds, the water looked alive – it looked like it was breathing.

Correb bent down, stretching out his hand to touch the water, a smile slowly pushing at his distorted face – he bent down lower and dove into the pool, slipping into the water like a serpent with barely a splash.

Shocked, Moth ran to the edge of the pool and saw his feathered mass slithering under the lilypads, until his head surfaced from between patches of irises. He rested his arms on the side of the pool, as if he were in a tub, and laughed – a wheezing garble.

A cluster of magpies flapped over onto his outstretched wings – resting on the surface off the water – and began preening his feathers.

“It has been so long,” said the ferryman joyously to Moth, “since I have been able to soak in these mountain waters. The bathtubs are too small for me now. The mountain waters refresh me, they ease the pain of this form. I am grateful to you, Moth.”

When all the gardeners had described in their journals how much Correb had loved the pool feature, she had not read anywhere it was a birdbath.

“I’m delighted you’re pleased, Lord Correb,” said Moth, stifling a laugh. The usually tense muscles around his eyes and throat relaxed. “Can I make you some tea?”

This idea was appealing to Correb – he directed her to a cannister of his tea by the fireplace.

The kettle was still hot from Moth’s own tea, so she quickly set a pot up to brew, scooping in the swamp-smelling herbal leaves – before it was steeped, there was peculiar smell to the tea, a smell that lingered always in the guile’s mansion – a smell like expired perfume.

“Careful not to ingest the tea,” said the ferryman, watching Moth sniff the cannister. “It will alter you.”

Moth jerked back from the tea. She wondered if anything on the mountain was safe. She hurriedly scooped out the rest of the tea while holding her breath and poured the water over it while standing at a distance.

She brought the teapot and cup over to the ferryman.

“Do you have a moment to speak with me?” Correb asked.

“Of course.” Moth sat down near the pool, on the floor, and arranged her skirts to get comfortable. She didn’t realize until she faced him how unsettling it was to be at eye-level with him, his pearl eyes rarely blinking, every rotting stitch a bright crimson against his pale flesh and black feathers.

“I want to speak of Hiren.”

Moth was able to snap her attention away from his stiches and listen. “When can I go?”

“You’ve been patient – I know how eager you are to return home. By the end of this week I will send you out.”

Her heart quickened. She would go home.

“I have thought and considered over the last three weeks. I have sent messages to the vantams through dreams, my hope is they will give the dreams credence and follow it. I have sent magpies to some of my neighbors, the family of Halig, Kukula, and Vori. I sent more magpies to watch Hiren, and to listen, and I now have a plan.”

Moth cautiously cleared her throat, and asked, “I’m sorry – what is a vantam?”

“The people – great trees who honor me, though they don’t hear my voice. Compassionate leaders of the community, people like Clement, Nehem and Vade - like Mrs. Tunhofe and the Cride’s. They provide rest and shade for those who seek shelter, they are filled with kindness for the weak and helpless, and they honor me with offerings and tend to the maghouses. I am going to have to depend on their loyalty to me, when I send you back to Hiren.”

Pleased to hear her parents name – and Clement – praised by the ferryman, Moth said, “I am sure my family will come help me persuade Hiren.”

“They cannot,” said Correb. “I have told them not to go to you when you return. You cannot go home when you go to Hiren.”

The words plunked into Moth like a coin in a well.

Her ears rang with this statement, and she could only stare mutely at the ferryman, as a low-burning fear began in her stomach.

“Why?” she whispered.

“You are going to Hiren as my ambassador, as my wife. You are Mere Korraban – no longer Hevwed. Hiren is a group that has long suffered under nepotistic royals. They are wounded and afraid. If they see you constantly around your own family, staying with them, living with them, favoring them, they will in their own fear believe you to be biased towards the Hevweds. If they believe you favor your family over them, they will reject you as my ambassador and accuse you of partiality, they will never see you as my bride - so they will not give up their sunstones, the sunstones will not be buried, so the fog will remain in the land. You must win over Hiren with tireless devotion, and to do that, you cannot shelter with your family.”

Moth couldn’t seem to catch her breath; it was thick as tar in her lungs. “Can I see them at all?”

“If you see one of your siblings now and then, that is fine. However, the less you are around them, the easier it will be to win Hiren.”

Moth looked down at her reflection in the water of the pool.

I can’t do it by myself.

She had felt the courage to return to Hiren as an ambassador because she knew, absolutely, her family would be there to help her.

“Moth,” said the ferryman grimly, “it is not too late to go back home. You accepted the great burden of Hiren’s future, and the burden of bearing my face and name, of being an ambassador – but if you did not understand the weight of that, I do not begrudge you putting it down and returning home as Mere Hevwed.”

Moth couldn’t look away from her numb expression in the pool. Her head was full of thoughts and panic and doubt – all noise, and none of it was an answer to her own pleading face staring up at her.

Shakily, she backed away from the pool and dragged herself to her feet.

“I have to…I have to think,” she said, avoiding his gaze and leaving the greenhouse.