The Ferryman - Book 1

Chapter 63:

The Co Dalmede

The first night on the stove was hard for Moth, with the council of reindeer skulls watching her through empty sockets – but at the same time, it was comforting for Moth to see Lt. Grotte snoring on her chair by the fire, while behind her Nehem lay asleep on a couch blocking the front door.

Lt. Grotte was the first one awake before dawn – she groaned and grumbled out of her chair, stoked up the fire and put a kettle on to boil, then grabbed some rags and a pail to go wash by the pump outside.

Moth considered getting up, but her eyes closed for a moment, and the stove beneath her was getting toasty again, and she woke up several hours later to an empty kitchen. She heard footsteps upstairs and watched silt drift down from the ceiling.

Lt. Grotte and Nehem stomped down the stairs, and Lt. Grotte exclaimed, “Awake at last, lady? Shift yourself, we need to clean out that garret. You do have work clothes, don’t you?”

Groggily, Moth stared at her bags of luggage. She did not have work clothes.

Lt. Grotte fetched her a blouse to wear, which fitted Moth like a dress, and shoved a cup of coffee into Moth’s hand. It was the worst cup of coffee she’d ever seen or smelled.

“Military rationed coffee, it’ll wake you up quick enough, eh. There’s cheese bread on the shelf if you want something to support you before you jump in, but take

your time – Nehem and I are still wrangling with the broken window,” said Lt. Grotte, patting Nehem’s shoulder.

Nehem nodded mutely. He was warming up to Lt. Grotte, but still seemed too shy to speak.

Moth watched them stomp back and forth between the rooms with boards and nails. Rubbing the sleep and silt from her eyes, she looked around the shelf for the dried wheel of bread cheese and broke off a chunk of it, dropping it into the coffee to soak it up. She hesitantly took a sip.

It was also the worst coffee she’d ever tasted, somehow both oily and flaky – she’d prefer acorn coffee to this – but she choked it down and felt the sleep peel off her brain within minutes. Swallowing the cheese bread, she hurried up the stairs to the garret room.

Lt. Grotte and Nehem had patched the window and chased out the bat, but the room was still a mess from neglect.

Nehem wiped dust from his forehead, and said stiffly to Moth, but glancing at Lt. Grotte to make sure she heard, “I need to, well – I mentioned to dad I would be back today – in a letter, I sent it Sunday – and now I…need to do that. But only because Sabine will be here with you.”

“Aye, I left this morning to talk to Captain Rill about this whole mess,” said Lt. Grotte, leaning on the wall. “He thinks it’s smart for me to keep eyes on you, here, but I still need to do my scheduled burns with my sentries. So, either me or Nehem will be with you. Don’t want you murdered.”

“You mentioned that before,” said Moth, forcing a laugh, but Lt. Grotte shook her head gravely.

“I’ve seen some cold shit happen to reformers, lady, don’t take this lightly. Be alert.”

Moth hastily nodded.

Within the hour, Nehem borrowed Aggo and set off to the Hevwed farm, and Moth asked him to bring her back some spare work clothes.

That left Moth to Lt. Grotte, who handed her a pail and said, “We need some water.”

As they headed outside towards the pump, Moth asked worriedly, “Is your springhouse still full of water? It didn’t clog back up, did it?”

Lt. Grotte’s eyes brightened. “Oh it’s been a beauty. Come see it, barely a walk there and back.”

Moth followed her through the grove, across the field, to the springhouse. She could hear the water trickling inside before she even stepped down the steps; she passed below the lintel to get inside, and the temperature dropped even cooler than the grove.

The floor of the springhouse was covered with water, rippling peacefully.

The smell of the wet stones, the ripples against dry earth, was the scent Moth imagined must anoint heaven. She was reminded of how their ferryman had gone to get the rain – Agate had told her he’d been gone for weeks. Moth couldn’t imagine how Lord Correb had endured it; he was half-dead, he could barely breath. It must’ve been a terrible effort.

Lt. Grotte filled up two pails of water, saying, “Still grateful to your father. He’s a good man – never met anyone so nice. I must say I love him.”

Moth laughed. “I’m glad you let him help you.”

“If I had a father like that, well,” said Lt. Grotte, chuckling. “I would’ve turned out more like you and Nehem, and never gone to a labor prison.”

Moth stared at Lt. Grotte, surprised and waiting for her to elaborate, but Lt. Grotte chatted on about Norwin admiringly and left the springhouse. As they climbed out and crossed the ground, Lt. Grotte stepped on something in the grass the cracked under the heel of her boot. “Ah, another one,” she muttered, stepping back.

Moth bent down and found a tiny stray gift for the ferryman that hadn’t been collected by its giver – a bottle, now broken open, with sparkling glass beads. Moth hastily collected them up and placed them safely in her pocket – she didn’t know what to do with them, she just felt something given for the ferrier was sacred.

Lt. Grotte watched her with a furrowed brow and, and then glanced at the springhouse. “Never saw so many sad people until that day. All those bottles and packages coming up from the spring, and then all the tinners coming to collect them. You’d think it was a funeral.”

Moth didn’t know how to answer. “It’s tinner stuff.”

Lt. Grotte thought on that as they headed to the house, scratching at her lip scars. “I know nothing about all this Waste culture. I’m well out of my paddock. Can’t have a conversation with any tinner – besides you father – and I’ve been here three years. I don’t understand why you throw stuff in a sinkhole every year or why you make those red birdhouses, or wear so much tin. The kack didn’t try and learn us before shipping us down here.”

Puzzled, Moth wasn’t sure where Lt. Grotte’s jumbled thoughts were going, until Lt Grotte said, earnestly turning to Moth, “Would you teach me? I’m not clever, so you’ll have to make it simple.”

“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Moth, grabbing Lt. Grotte’s arm gleefully. “Of course! Oh, it would be a miracle if any sentry here knew even a little about us. And please, in return, can you teach me about the sentries? I know so little about you.”

Startled by her exuberance, Lt. Grotte said haltingly, “Not much to know. A bunch of gambling drunks really.”

“Is that a requirement for entering the sentries?”

“Ha! You’d think. No, it’s just the workers restoration program.”

Moth looked at her blankly.

“You know, like when you get out of prison…” Lt. Grotte trailed off staring down into Moth’s confused face. She reached out and shook Moth’s hand. “Alright, a deal. I’ll explain sentries and you explain tinners.”

*

While they cleaned the garret, Moth explained to Lt. Grotte about the farmers and their traditions, about their ferryman named Correb who was the ferrier of Korraban, which was named for him. She explained the mountains and the marches and the magpies.

    “But why the tin?” asked Lt. Grotte. That was something she was fascinated by and had been longing to ask.

“It used to be, a long time ago, that the marches weren’t separate from us, and there are creatures that mimic humans. They would pretend to be loved ones or needy strangers to steal souls. But they couldn’t touch tin – so people would wear tin, to prove they were human, or to defend themselves if needed.”

Lt. Grotte heaved a sigh. “Alright, listen – I might concede it’s possible Korraban’s ferrier isn’t dead. But the marches…I mean, that really is just make believe, but I’m going to nod, even if I don’t believe for one whole shit it’s real.”

Moth opened her mouth to argue, but paused and said instead, “What’s important is you understand that we believe it’s real.”

This helped Lt. Grotte listen to Moth without the need to pause and argue every few minutes about the impossibility of a hidden world. She listened for some time in silence as Moth continued to explain the marches, the ofere that leads there, and how it was where the ferryman lived – though Moth was careful not to mention she’d been there.

Scrubbing bat droppings from the corner, Lt. Grotte said, “So, what’s the reason the farmers are so angry? Is it the burnings? We got to do it to keep the food from getting polluted.”

Moth mulled over how to begin. She thought of the fog and the mapmoss and the restrictions, but she knew the true pain in the heart of Hiren. “This may take a minute to explain, it might seem like a history lesson.”

“Go on, then.”

“Well,” Moth began, rag in hand but staring out the window as she remembered details, “during the time that the earth and the marches were still entwined, there was a man named Rasmus and a woman named Ilma. They were married and loved all the ferriers and all the people. They wished to separate the shadowy, spectral corners of the earth away – ‘fish live in water and birds in air, the animals and the spirits should split their homes.’ So, they spoke for many years with the five ferriers about it, and an agreement was reached, and the ferriers wrapped up all that was spirit and untamed and magical into the marches, and left all that was earth to us – though with many doorways and passages, so we were not barred from each other, only neighbors.”

Moth trailed off for a moment, feeling herself get embarrassed as she recited the story – always told to her as a fable – but she saw Lt. Grotte had a taut, engrossed expression. Encouraged, she continued:

“Rasmus and Ilma made a covenant with the five ferriers, and our kingdom was born. King Rasmus divided the kingdom along the borderlines of the ferriers domains, and that’s why we have five counties. Ilma wrote up the treaty and laws of this covenant, the manyfold ramifications if it was broken, and she called this covenant the co dalmede – ‘the vows of the domains’. Part of that agreement was that the ferriers were given a tenth of the kingdom – the wastes north of the Wylle river, which you know as tinner farmland, and the king and queen had all the rest. Their vow was to protect the waters of the Wylle river, so their land became named for their vow at the river – Coewylle.”

“So you’re saying,” began Lt. Grotte, slowly and uncertainly, “this tinner farmland all belongs to ferriers – to your ferrier, Correb?”

“Yes. This is the Wylle-Wastes, we’re on co dalmede territory. Our land does not belong to the king, and we don’t pay taxes or tithes to him – only to our ferrier. We must follow the laws of the kingdom, but we don’t owe the king anything.”

“But everyone says Correb died. So all this land is owned by a dead creature?”

“Correb is not dead!” said Moth, louder than she intended. She paused, feeling flushed as Lt. Grotte raised her eyebrows, and continued, “Whatever our king says. Correb is not dead. On paper, this land is owned by hundreds of individual families who farm it.”

Lt. Grotte rumpled her forehead. “But not anymore, right? Since the fog and the fires, those families sold it to the KCAC. Oh…” she paused and looked at Moth. “Oh hell.”

“Our territory is rich with resources, mines, freshwater springs, and fertile soil. The co dalmede is thousands of years old - it’s not the first time the kingdom tried to violate it and take our land away.” Moth met Lt. Grotte’s eyes. “But it’s the first time they succeeded.”

Shocked, Lt. Grotte stood up shakily, leaning on the windowsill. She looked out the panes at her luscious property for a long minute, and then said quietly, “Let’s get some lunch. I need to eat.”

*

Lt. Grotte rumbled around the kitchen, lit cigarette clenched thoughtfully in her mouth as she ruminated over Moth’s words. She checked a pot of beans that was slow-cooking – she lifted the lid, absently dropping cigarette ash into the pot, then grabbed a bowl of risen dough and flung it into a pan. While she hovered over it, she uncorked a bottle of cloudberry wine – there were hundreds of bottles of open and

unopened wine on the mantlepiece of the stove, which Moth felt must be a terrible place to keep something so flammable.

Lt. Grotte began drinking from the bottle, then realized what she was doing and poured Moth a mug, keeping the rest for herself.

Moth accepted the mug hesitantly, nursed it to be polite, but it was still noon.

The beans and pan bread were done. Lt. Grotte flopped it onto a plate, and then rummaged on the shelf for a jar of ide. She popped it open and pulled out the fish, draping it on Moth’s food.

Ide was her least favorite fish – a ‘crust fish’ as her father called it, meaning it was only good buried beneath seasoned batter. But none of that mattered and Moth accepted a bent spoon from Lt. Grotte and ate hungrily – the coffee from earlier was beginning to fight back, and needed to be buried beneath something less acidic.

Lt. Grotte was slower to eat, as she had a deeply piled plate, and washed down every bite with a glug of her wine. She was still thinking over Moth’s words, and Moth didn’t want to interrupt her, but she was too curious and prodded cautiously, “Any questions?”

Lt. Grotte chewed and chewed, then said, “So what are the ramifications?”

“The–”

“Of violating the co dalmede. You said there we’re ramifications.”

Moth squirmed in her seat. “Well, the co dalmede is…very long. It has many rules and descriptions and details and I – I never read it all the way through.” Moth thought of Vincent, having to learn it well enough to recite it. She said again, “It’s very long.”

Lt. Grotte stared at her as she averted her eyes. “Tell me one.”

Clearing her throat nervously, Moth said, “‘Whatever enemy raises a weapon against the ferriers domains, that weapon will be used against them in return. So those who cut will be cut down, so those who steal the crops will starve, so those

who scorch will be burned up, and those who foul the waters will be set with disease.’”

“Then why hasn’t any of that happened?” barked Lt. Grotte, annoyed.

“Because by the rules, the co dalmede hasn’t been violated – the land was willingly sold to the KCAC. If it wasn’t for the fog…” Moth trailed off, her mind going to the sunstones in her hip pouch. She fiddled with her ring.

Faintly, outside, she could hear footsteps, and as she half turned in her seat, the front door of the house slammed open.

Before Moth could blink, Lt. Grotte was between her and the door with her saber drawn.

Feldar stood in the doorframe. His clothes were rumpled, and he had a bleeding cut over his eye. He took Lt. Grotte’s cigarette from her mouth and started smoking it angrily, walking past her into the kitchen and sat at the table with Moth.

Irritably, Lt. Grotte sheathed her saber. “Don’t slam my door, gave me a heart attack. Had another run-in?”

“Why is she here?” Feldar asked, pointing at Moth but looking at Lt. Grotte.

“She’s my guest. Makes good communication between sentries and tinners.”

Feldar turned his eyes on Moth. “I have questions,” he said, leaning forward in his seat.

Moth crossed her arms. “Then ask.”

A person and person sitting at a table Description automatically generated

“You said a ring around Hiren – you are aware how many miles that is?” he asked. His eyes always had an unnerving, piercing nature, but Moth refused to drop her gaze.

She reached in her hip pouch and pulled out the map Correb had given her – not the map of passages, but the one that was a simple, old map of Hiren with the sunstone burial sites marked clearly and specifically. She handed it to Feldar. “Look.”

He looked down at it, and then said, “Why is it written in old cauldish?” but didn’t bother waiting for an answer as he read through the homes and sites that were marked. Why are some spots spaced close together and others further apart? There’s no set distance. And some fall closer within the ring and others are further out from the ring, what’s the reason for this?”

Moth had no clue. “It’s what he told me to do.”

“Such an obedient wife,” he said, putting out the nub of cigarette. He stood up from the table and searched through drawers until he pulled out paper and a pencil. Returning to the table, he began copying the map. “It says ten sunstones per burial site. I’m seeing a hundred and sixty sites – sixteen hundred sunstones?”

The number sounded horribly large to Moth, and she quickly glanced down at the map to make sure his numbers were right. “Yes,” she said.

Here, Feldar leaned back in his chair and looked down at her. “And where are these sunstones coming from?”

“From…” Moth glanced ta Lt. Grotte, who was half listening to their conversation as she put together a plate of food for Feldar. “From my husband. He gave me hundreds of sunstones. I’m not sure the exact amount, but several bags full – he said it would be enough, but it’d need to be supplemented by offerings from the farmers.”

“From the farmers?” repeated Feldar. His tone was flat and cold. He reached over and took Moth’s fogged hand, flipping it over to see the ring on her finger, weighed down with the heavy tourmaline. She attempted to tug her hand back, but he wouldn’t let it go, and looked up at her across the glint of the stone. “Can’t afford any yourself, so you go robbing the farmers? Fallen on hard times?”

Moth jerked her hand away from him hotly. She glanced at Lt. Grotte, who’s back was to them as she rummaged for another bottle of wine. She hissed, “Lord Correb gave me satchels stuffed to the top with sunstones! There is no amount of sunstones Hiren can give that isn’t being returned a hundred times over by him. The quality of the stones makes no difference, it can be the foggiest one you’d get on a pin for a child.”

Feldar continued to search her face. Whatever he found there caused him to shake his head, and he said at last, sighing, “I don’t believe you are the ferryman’s wife. I can believe you survived the ofere, I can believe you met him in the marches and returned with some riches from his house – but I do not believe you are his bride. You, of all people, chosen for such a position of influence and mediation for Hiren?”

Their conversation abruptly ended as Lt. Grotte approached with a plate of food and a mug of wine for Feldar. She seemed to have heard very little of their conversation, and was about to sit down when she growled, “Those damn magpies.” She leapt from the table and grabbed up a broom. “Using my porch like a chamber pot.”

Moth and Feldar watched through the window a congregation of magpies on the porch handrails, gathering to look through the window at Moth and chittering excitedly. They burst into a flurried panic when Lt. Grotte jumped at them with her broom, cursing mightily.

“I might not have been your first choice,” said Moth, after a minute, turning to Feldar. “Or anyone’s first choice – but I was the only one who chose to go through the ofere. I was chosen by Lord Correb for this.”

Feldar ate his food, drank his wine, and thought. He said at last, “I don’t believe you are his wife, but, I believe the sunstones will prevent the fog.”

This surprised Moth. She did not know why he would believe one and not the other.

“I’m not going to oppose you; I won’t use my influence to prevent people from trusting you. I will encourage them to give up their sunstones and to follow you.”

Moth bristled. She always felt that Feldar walked through Hiren like he owned it – but he was right, he held considerable influence. He was both strong and beautiful and the people of Hiren, young and old, respected him. Even Clement held him in high esteem.

“Thank you,” muttered Moth, reluctantly.

“If you, however, do anything to break that trust – or make me think for even a minute that you’re fooling Hiren to enrich and rescue your family – I will throw you back in that sinkhole.” Feldar unbuckled his leather belt and harness and stretched out by the fire on the large, cushioned chair, getting comfortable. As Lt. Grotte came back in, he said, “I’m staying here tonight.”

“Not on my chair, asshole. You can sleep in my bed. And don’t burn down all my candles reading this time.”

Feldar rummaged in his pocket and flipped her some coins. “Buy more.”

She squinted at them to make sure they were real. She rummaged through a cabinet and sat next to Feldar. “Pull up, those are deep.”

Feldar leaned closer to Lt. Grotte, and she dabbed his facial cuts with alcohol.

“Who was it this time? Never know if you ran in with sentries or tinners.”

“Both today,” said Feldar, closing his eyes as Lt. Grotte cleaned up his face. “Mere’s arrival seems to make a good deal of tinners think it’s time to burn down your outpost. I’m not opposed to that – but not now, not unplanned.”

“Hm.”

“They were causing quite a stir at the Herdson’s bar.”

Lt. Grotte snorted. “That’s not a wise place since it’s mostly sentries. Isn’t that your aunt’s bar?”

“Aye. Took some effort, but me an Korho got it calmed down.”

Lt. Grotte face darkened at Korho’s name. “Glad that ass can be good for something.” She finished up Feldar’s face, and seeing his far-off expression, laughed and pulled him closer to kiss his forehead.

“Cheer up boy, it’s not all on you, and your face will win prizes yet.” She stood up, stretched, and waved Moth over. “Let’s finish up that garret before the sun goes down.”