The Ferryman - Book 1

Chapter 64:

Shamshackle

In the garret, Moth washed carved trim, and sponged down the dusty painted windowsills, noticing the child-like images of stars, rabbits, and minnows. As she scrubbed the floorboards, she found a glass marble wedged in a knothole, and a wooden whirligig under the bed.

It did not rest easy on her mind that she would be sleeping in what must be Quin’s childhood bedroom.

There were many cabinets for storage in the room - painted all over with reindeer calves, and boasting star-shaped handles. Neither Lt. Grotte nor Moth had bothered with the cabinets, as they had all been latched and untouched by critters and weather, and Moth had no intention of unpacking her garments since they were carefully wrapped up and marked by Agate.

But she was curious. When Lt. Grotte left to get fresh water, Moth unlatched and opened the nearest cabinet.

It was empty, except for a cobweb and button. She opened another cabinet and found it similarly empty.

Moth wasn’t sure what she was expecting. The Barrowly’s family had cleared out most of the house before they moved – they carried off anything important that could fit on their carts.

Another cabinet was full of old toys – dolls, human and reindeer shaped, whirligigs, puzzles, all old and disjointed. She opened another one.

A toothy mask fell out, making a loud bird noise.

Moth leaped back with a yelp.

The mask dangled from the cabinet, attached to a string and a noisemaker from a cuckoo clock.

Embarrassed and angry, Moth ripped it down and threw it next to the firebox in the corner. Behind the mask was a stack of books and several jars.

Most of the jars were empty, but one had bird bones inside, marked ‘magpie,’ and the other one had a meagre drip of helra inside, marked ‘mine.’

Carefully, carefully, Moth took the jars down from the cabinet and looked at it. The droplet of deep, ultramarine blue helra pooled to one end of the bottle, bright as the helra when it flowed fresh from the welkworm.

Moth felt she should bury it, or burn it – she felt it was sacred, like a rejected offering. She placed the jars back into the cabinet to dispose of them later, and took down the books, upsetting a cloud of dust and several spiders. Examined the spines of the books, she read:

‘A History of Hiren Families’ Hiren when it was Hirela – a time before Coewylle’ ‘Shamanism in Hiren – a history of practice and influence’ ‘Tools and Pacts of Shamanism.’

All the books were battered and roughened from frequent reading, stuffed full of notes. Moth hesitantly cracked open the last book, and it fell open to a page illustrated with instructions on animal sacrifice and offal arrangements – she snapped it closed, bristling with repulsion, when she heard Lt. Grotte on the steps. She put everything back in the cabinet and latched it closed.

Lt. Grotte saw Moth standing uncertainly by the cabinets and said, “Don’t worry about cleaning those, I checked early. Mostly empty and no rats.” She chuckled when she saw the mask in the corner. “Did that get you too? Guess these folks had a sense of humor.”

“Did you reset the trap?” demanded Moth.

Lt. Grotte nodded mischievously. “Wanted to get Feldar if he was snooping.”

Moth stuffed the mask into the firebox – it was not a crafted leather one, but made of painted bark. Lt. Grotte flung a wet rag at her and said, “Get to scrubbing, we have half a floor left and then I can rest my back.”

Equally sore. Moth took the rag and continued to clean with Lt. Grotte. She said, after a minute of silence, “Tell me about the sentries.”

Lt. Grotte scrunched her face. “Eh, I don’t know where to begin.”

“You said there was something called a ‘workers release’?”

“Oh, yes. So, a fair number of us sentries are part of the workers restoration program. So, let’s say you’re sixteen – you live in a bad area, not a lot to go around and no work, or no one to teach you how to work. So, you steal. You join some others and start stealing more, but something goes wrong, you had horsehair, and attack your friend, then–”

“Horsehair?” Moth interrupted.

“Like moonflowers, reeds, petunias,” said Lt. Grotte. “Plants you smoke, and it gives you visions, like bad dreams.”

Moth knew the cawlers would take it when they went up to worship the ferryman. She nodded. “Alright. I smoke horsehair and then attack someone.”

“You seriously injure that friend and are arrested. Now, two things happen…” Lt. Grotte grabbed her pile of rags. “Because of your crime, you owe the county three years–”

She placed three rags to the side.

“-And two years to your king.”

She set another two to the other side.

“Years of what? Prison?” asked Moth.

“Sometimes, but mostly labor. I was sent to Markisern – the region further east. The Markisern Labor Prison partners with the mining company, so we would clear blasting sights of rubble. That was four years for me – it’s what they said I owed the king for my crimes.” Lt. Grotte snorted. “We called that prison Shamshackle. This crusty spit of a warden would come and screech at us about not running while working out in the fields, the chains that hung us together would mean we wouldn’t make it far. ‘These shackles are no sham!’ she’d say. God I hated her. She chewed tobacco and if you crossed her she’d spit in your canteen.”

Lt. Grotte shoved all the rags irritably to the side and stared down at her pail of water. Recollecting that Moth was still listening, she recovered herself and continued.

“Oh yeah. So, after the debt you owe to the king, you have to pay a debt to whatever county you committed a crime in. Thats the workers restoration program. I committed my crime in Korraban, so here I am. There’re several government jobs we could choose from, but it’s all the same: cramped barracks, long hours. Still better than prison, you get a small allowance and a day off and can go where you want as long as you fulfill your hours.” She continued to scrub the floor. “If you don’t complete the WRP you can’t get a job anywhere. I owe three years to my county, I’ve done two here as a sentry.”

Horrified, Moth realized what she was saying. “So – agricultural sentries are criminals?”

“More or less. Whether they have to serve one year or six, none of them want to be here, but they have to if they ever want a job again. Once you choose the government program, you must stick it out – I chose being a dirt guard because they’d take six months off your sentence if you did. Hiren was on discount, so I took it.”

Dizzily touching her head. “I always thought you were guards from the city who were being demoted.”

“Some of us are, like Guyrede Rill. But not enough guards were willing to travel so far from home to the wastes, so the KCAC got desperate and recruited people from the WRP. They really sweetened the deal – if you worked hard, you’d get to rent land for pennies from the kack. And god Mere, being moved from prison to prison, cell to cell, barracks to barracks…something that was like a home sounded so good.”

Glancing at Lt. Grotte, Moth found her staring seriously at the room.

“I get what you said about the co dalmede,” said Lt. Grotte, after a pause. “Well, as best I can – enough to get why the farmers are furious. But Mere, the sentries aren’t some masterminds trying to steal out the land in some complicated coup – hell, a fair number of them can’t read. The people we should be angry at are those in the kack who make these decisions behind closed doors, over a meal neither of us could afford, in a mansion neither of us would be allowed in.” Then she added, half smiling, “Well, now that you have a rich husband maybe you can get a foot into those meetings. I guess that’s your goal, isn’t it?”

    Moth glanced down at her engagement ring but had nothing she could say.