The Ferryman - Book 1

Unknown solo tag: [ text:bookmark-start ]Chapter 82:

Sunshower

That morning on Sunday dawned like any day before it, since the beginning of Hiren. The sun, golden like summer butter, rose without haste or worry over the familiar homesteads and fields, and it glowed on the pines of the forests, and crowned Tiding Range in a warm pink glow.

Poor Loom, hidden away in the grove, got the light later than other houses, but when it did touch on the gables and soak through the window, Moth was awake to see it.

She held on, with weary hands, to the single bag of sunstones, pensively looking out the window – hoping, desperate, for any returning magpie with a message from Lord Correb.

There was no answer, no escape plan.

Her heart was low and sick. Her eyes wandered to the map she had, the map of the tunnels in and out of Hiren – perhaps she should run? The idea had played itself over and over in her head.

‘Whatever happens, go and face the farmers on Sunday.’ Mrs. Halig had adjured Moth in her dream.

She knew she had to face Hiren. They deserved some answer, even if it shattered their spirits.

But god it was so hard to start, to stand up and begin the day – Moth sat in her nightgown by the window and wished Nokk and the magpies were there to greet her with merry mimicry. But she felt fully alone, it was hard to be awake and

alert in her own body – she kept staring down at her hands, marveling that they belonged to her.

It was only when the blush of morning began to flood her room that Moth stood up, without thinking or feeling, and turned to the pile of packages wrapped and prepared for her by Agate.

She read the different titles of them, until she found one – it was marked ‘Convincing the farmers to bury the sunstones.’

The package was large and bulky. Something about it seemed somber.

Moth unwrapped it and, to her astonishment, she found her wedding dress.

The peach was as bright as ever, and the deep pie lace was miraculously fixed – her fingers touched the edge, marvelling that it was no longer shredded to webbing.

She snatched up the letter from Agate and read.

Dear Lady Mere,

Enclosed, please find your outfit. The outfit.

This, of all of them, I felt consumed by the most – many dresses I’d gone through in my mind, and not one was correct. Too dowdy, too cold, too frivolous, too celebratory.

You must address your Home, the ones who were raised alongside you, and convince them to sacrifice what left they have of small wealth. This was nothing I could think of lightly, I could fail you everywhere else but not here.

I had a dream. I don’t dream much as a guile, but this was clear to me as when I was alive. I saw you, coming into the House of Springs in your wedding dress – and I saw you leave to Hiren in the same dress.

I don’t know why I did not tell you. It felt too heavy to speak.

I took your wedding dress from your room, very close to the day you were to leave, and spent the remaining hours replacing the peach lace hem.

I could see you in nothing else when you spoke to Hiren.

Along with the dress was a skirt embroidered to look like magpie wings, an ultramarine blue apron, a shawl embroidered with tin ornaments, and instructions to use her two tin crowns and jewelry.

The hair was simple, and hid under the crowns and viridian veil, with tin brooches placed at intervals in her braids.

Moth looked at herself in the mirror.

I look like a bride. She thought, and another one slipped in before she could stop it; Perhaps I am a bride.

She did not know what she meant by that and ignored it. She turned and went downstairs with her satchel of sunstones.

Ama was asleep on her stovebed. There was little else she could do – if she bent or moved too much, her thousands of cuts would burst open, and she was already fighting infection with a low fever.

Moth tiptoed around her and found Lt. Grotte waiting with a pot of coffee.

Lt. Grotte paused, taking in the spectacle of Moth’s outfit with a slack jawed expression, and then said after composing herself, “Coffee?”

Moth nodded, and soon held a warm mug in her hand. Lt. Grotte had tried to adjust the flavor with some cream and honey, which somehow only worsened the coffee’s texture and grease slick.

Moth sipped it at the kitchen table, spread her sunstones out and counted them anxiously. The fiery stones were cold to the touch. Most of them were foggy little beads, taken from hairpins worn on offering days. Some, however, were

large, clear, well-cut beauties that could catch even a drop of light and glow like the sun.

No matter how many times she added them up, they refused to multiply.

It was only enough to complete part of the circle of burying spots. If all the farmers turned against her, she’d bury what stones she had – it’d probably take her years. Maybe it would be enough to protect someone from fog.

Her head was cradled in her hands, staring down at the glimmering gems, when Lt. Grotte asked quietly:

“Why stay here?”

Moth looked up.

Lt. Grotte’s eyes were on the well-cut gemstones. “Take your family and go. You married a rich husband, you got money – Hiren’s not going to change, neither is the KCAC. You should just head out. Leave Hiren, find somewhere nice to live with your ferrier husband and your family.”

Moth looked down at the small fortune on the table. This thought was often slithering in the back of her mind.

Feldar’s accusation was not far off – that she would turn on Hiren to rescue her family. The longing was ever present, the fear and animal-like urge to survive but –

But the feeling would pass, and what remained was truer.

“You don’t understand,” said Moth. “Hiren is my husband. It is my family.”

*

The farmers began to arrive.

They showed up in small, quiet groups, with solemn faith approaching Moth on the porch – they would not step up towards her, few would look her in the eye.

They gave up their meagre offerings, pips of sunstones, and pressed them into her hand, stepping away quickly, their faces tight and contorted with a

thousand thoughts and unspoken words that, desperate to find voice but unable, lumped up in wrinkles around their tense eyes.

It was silent in the grove.

Mr. and Mrs. Cride were the first farmers Moth knew more intimately. They arrived by wagon, their seven children dressed as if for a grand celebration, though all their faces were stony and set.

Mr. Cride swung down from his wagon, and took with him a small bag. He removed his hat and approached Moth on the porch, cleared his throat, and forced himself to meet her eyes.

“Lady Korraban,” he said, his voice strained, and held out the bag.

Inside were dozens of sunstones. Delighted, Moth took the bag and looked at him. “Oh, thank you,” she said, earnestly. She paused a moment, and added, “And thank you, for returning the horse to my father, Mr. Cride. Thank you for helping me with my marriage.”

He nodded, hardly knowing which way to look and constantly adjusting his collar. At last, he seemed unable to help himself and leaned forward. “What’s our ferrier like? I know he’s sick, I know he’s alive, but…but what is he like?”

Moth tightened her hands over the bag, and thought for an answer, as Mr. Cride waited with an urgent expression.

“He is terrifying,” said Moth, truthfully. All feathers and claws and rotten stitches, that was the foremost impression he has left on her. “But,” she continued, “He is compassionate. He knows us – knows you, by name.”

Mr. Cride held his breath.

“Lord Correb trusts you. I was supposed to arrive at your farm months ago but…well, I was delayed. I had to change the plans. Lord Correb was going to give me into your care.”

Mr. Cride had a reputation of being stern and unyielding – a ‘hardass’ Mrs. Tunhofe said approvingly. But here, he took hold of the railing, clutched at his mouth, and bowed his head to hide his tears.

“Lord Correb he…well I won’t bore you, but he sent me something by a magpie when my father died. A trinket, but it comforted me – I was seen by our ferrier. He ferries away the dead and then comforts those who can’t yet follow. Lady Korraban, I love your husband – I will love you as well.”

And, embarrassed by such a sudden rush of emotions, Mr. Cride nodded and went to see to his children, who were running around happily and added some noise to the graveyard-like grove. Mrs. Cride came over with her baby, and curtsied to Moth, to give her a simple greeting and leave, but Moth said warmly, “You have been so generous with the sunstones.”

“Not at all, Lady Korraban,” exclaimed Mrs. Cride. “This historic time – the end of the fog, safety for Hiren. It’s worth everything, what price can you put on it? I just hope we understood you right – the clarity of the sunstone doesn’t matter?”

“That is what Lord Correb told me.”

“I’m glad. They were less expensive, so we chose quantity over quality.”

Moth faltered. “You…bought these?”

“Some were little trinkets and necklaces we had,” said Mrs. Cride, half distracted as her baby wiggled. She sat down on the porch and unfastened her blouse to nurse. “But we felt we should offer more. Paul wisely thought we shouldn’t buy from our neighbors, so he went to Magden. I think he bought the whole stall of hatpins.”

“How…” Moth didn’t want to be so untactful as to ask after money, but she was desperate to know. “I’m sorry to ask, but how could you afford that?”

Mrs. Cride hesitated but said, lowering her voice. “He sold everything he didn’t need. The grandfather clock, his festival coat, his grandmother’s wedding dress, the second wagon.”

“Oh, the wedding dress?” Moth murmured, looking towards his children. “They might’ve worn that.”

She smiled a lopsided smile. “We’d rather they not fear working the land then get married in silk, milady.”

Overwhelmed by their generosity, Moth didn’t stop to think if it was dignified; she knelt and kissed Mrs. Cride’s cheek.

Blushing, Mrs. Cride pressed a finger to her mouth and said, “Just don’t tell Paul I told you.”

When more farmers began arriving, in larger and larger groups, Mrs. Cride hurried from the porch to make room, and soon a queue formed of farmers coming to give what sunstones they had. Moth pulled out used and washed honey jars and began storing all the sunstones in it.

Along with the farmers, orderly groups of sentries arrived to patrol the gathering, making sure this would not erupt into a tin cry. They seemed to think it was just another offering or some other tinner celebration, and so no one seemed particularly alert or interested.

As the honey pots filled with sunstones, Moth felt the weight of her situation worsen.

They did not know the satchel she held was all she had. The guilt, the shame made it hard for her to look anyone in the eyes, it was hard to thank people with sincerity – what played in her mind was, They will kill me when they know. This is a lie.

It was unbearable when Feldar Tine arrived in the grove. He went at once to the porch to talk with Lt. Grotte and have some coffee, keeping a watchful eye on who was there making offerings of sunstones.

Moth felt exposed. She stiffened her back and kept a calm expression, kept chatting with the awestruck farmers who gave up their sunstones, but soon Feldar’s eyes were drawn towards her.

“I see Hiren’s sunstones – where are yours?” he asked.

Her stomach hot, Moth handed him the satchel brimming with sunstones, and for a moment he looked surprised. “Here is one of seven,” said Moth.

It’s the truth, in a way. She thought, nervously.

This answer seemed to satisfy Feldar.

*

By noon, all the farmers had arrived, spilling out of the grove and surrounding it – some with their whole families, while others stood alone representing those that had to remain home.

In total, about twelve hundred people – a third of Hiren.

Moth had never seen so many people in one place before. Not even Offering Days saw this many people gathered together. You could feel how dense with souls the space had become, and it felt dangerous – like standing in the center of a storm.

The pile of sunstones grew – but it was not the salvation Moth had hoped it was. It was less than a fifth of what Correb had entrusted to her. Though some had been very generous, like the Cride’s, others had not brought a single gemstone out of fear it was an elaborate con.

She would have to tell them about the stones, but she didn’t wish to do it around Poor Loom, or too near Okatto – their anger could quickly turn to a revolt, their grief would burn down the outpost.

Lt. Grotte lent Moth her old warhorse – a gelding named Tatters – and Moth rode around talking to the farmers and thanking them.

Some were shy, and almost terrified of her, others full of questions and overwhelming her with their desire to know details about the marches, about Correb. But most were serious, and had their minds set grimly on the task at hand – stopping the fog.

Korho was there with some other Copekivi’s, and he kept his one good eye on Moth with pointed distrust. His family had given no sunstones, but kept it on them in bags, withholding it until Moth brought forth her own gems.

The numbers there, and how to move them away from Poor Loom, began to worry Moth.

Moth ended up calling Feldar, Mr. Cride, and Mr. Larris to her. “Can you find trustworthy people to put in charge over groups? Groups of fifty each, to make it manageable. I can’t shout loud enough for everyone to hear, so I’d like to address just the twenty-four leaders to give the information.”

It took almost an hour, but Feldar, Paul Cride, and Larris were able to find leaders to round everyone up in groups – some families were so large, they were their own group and already had a matriarch or patriarch they deferred to.

Soon, twenty-four people stood in front of Moth.

Naturally, Feldar, Cride and Larris were leaders, Moth recognized a few of the others such as Korho and Leeta, and then there was her father.

Norwin Hevwed.

Moth froze. She had not known her family had arrived there at all, but now she saw him suddenly, quietly nearby, his head lowered. He was listening, he was obeying, but he was not coming alongside her for anything – a single glance, a hurried hug if he rushed forward, could undo so much work.

It was all Moth could do not to throw herself in his arms and beg that he rescue her from this. It took her a moment of breathing, of pretending to study her map, to compose herself.

Finally, not looking at him, she said to the leaders, “Please arrange your groups, and have them go to the first marked location for the first burying. I want to address everyone out in the open.”

Moth had made several copies of the map and its burial locations, with all the instructions from Correb about how deep to bury. She had thought to make only ten copies, and so several of the leaders wrote down the instructions.

As Moth handed Norwin a map, he momentarily looked at her with intense eyes, lingering over the touch of her hand, and murmured so quietly that even Moth could barely hear:

“Good job.”

Then, he straightened his coat and left quickly to oversee his group.

Moth didn’t have time to recover from this as she had to hastily mount Tatters.

Lt. Grotte walked along with Moth – always acting as a bodyguard, on edge amidst the mass of farmers. She gestured to Moth, who leaned down to hear Lt. Grotte whisper, “I saw your ma, and told her about Ama – she’s moving her to the Hevwed farm.”

Moth wouldn’t even look over her shoulder at the house to try and catch a glimpse of her mother. She set her face ahead and rode out of the grove, away from Poor Loom, to the first burial place about a mile away, her horse laden with sacks of offered sunstones.

As the group migrated away, slowly, she could see just how many farmers had gathered – and how many sentries.

Though the farmers greatly outnumbered the sentries, few of the farmers were armed, yet almost all the sentries were stocked with halberds and rifles. Lt. Grotte hurried over to a group of them, chatted for a while, and rejoined Moth riding a mule.

“I am smoothing things as best I can,” she said to Moth, sucking smoke down from a cigarette – also borrowed, along with the mule. “I told them I’m supervising you and on full alert, so I’m not going to leave your side. I told them they should stay back and watch, not get too close to your devout procession for the ferryman. They agreed to this, mostly because you’re moving away from the Okatto outpost and barracks.”

As they neared the destination, Moth felt sicker and weaker.

If I sell every dress and piece of jewelry I have, I might have enough to buy more sunstones. Though, they’re not mine. I’ll pay Lord Correb back, she thought, but she knew a thousand days at the washhouse would amount to one dress.

All too soon, she was at her destination.

It was a steep hill. At the top, a great chestnut had been cut down – long ago – and all that remained was a broad flat stump. This place, Kastaan Hill, had long been used in Hiren for speaking, or concerts, occasionally weddings – the vantage of the stump and the dip of the surrounding area magnified the voice of the speaker.

Moth approached it as though she would be sacrificed on that stump. She dismounted Tatters, stepping on the ancient carved steps, and stood on top, watching herself get surrounded by everyone she’d ever known or met.

It was well past noon now. It had taken so long to organize everyone and reach the spot, that the sun was now steadily lowering itself. They would not get much burying done that day, but Moth doubted many would remain after her confession.

She was relieved there was no wind, or even a breeze that day – her voice could carry further. The twenty-four leaders came around her to listen, and the rest of Hiren lapped around her hill like a colorful woolen sea.

“Hiren,” Moth began solemnly. “You all have heard by now the wonderful news – the sunstones will prevent the fog. Lord Correb himself told me, he entrusted me with the plan, entrusted me to be an ambassador for him, to guide you where to bury the sunstones. If we unite together on this, we will be spared from anymore fog.”

The massive crowd murmured and talked among itself, in a sound like wind blowing through grass. No one fully believed Moth was Lord Correb’s wife – but they were there, balancing on a single strand of hope.

“If I may ask something, milady?” said one of the leaders, an old woman leaning on a staff.

“Of course.”

“I have seen the map and plan you’ve given us, the burial sites and such – but the amount offered today is not enough sunstones. Not enough by half.”

“Yes,” grunted Korho Copekivi, his hands on his hips and an unpleasant twist to his mouth. “I was told by you yourself that you had a vast amount of sunstones, we’re just meagerly filling up the gaps needed. So? Where are your sunstones?”

Feldar intervened, and held up the bag of sunstones Moth had given him. It strained his arm to hold the satchel aloft, as it was so heavy with the gems. “Mere gave this to me today – one of seven.”

He gave her a small nod, and Moth realized he was genuinely trying to help – but her throat went dry, and her hand fumbled to clutch her apron.

“The sunstones he gave me,” said Moth, faltering with each word. Feldar tilted his head, and a wrath began to spread across his face as he saw her hesitation – her fear.

His eyes went slowly from Moth to the offered sunstones hanging from the horse, and then turned towards her father, who was standing humbly nearby.

“Lord Correb,” said Moth hurriedly, “Is giving me sunstones to bury.”

“Giving it to you?” demanded Feldar, his voice rising louder and louder. “Or gave to you? Do you have them – the rest of them?”

Her unprepared silence spoke for her. A dozen of the leaders looked at each other, panic racing across their faces – the fear spread from them rapidly, and those closest to the hill grew agitated.

Confusion spread through the crowds of people. They shouted questions at their leaders, at Moth, at each other. Moth could see a throng of people hurrying away – out of the instinct that if anything went wrong, they’d be trampled.

“Listen,” urged Moth, “please–”

Korho took a step forward and shouted, “How can we be sure she’s who she claims to be? It’s hard enough to hope our ferrier is still alive, but how is she the bride?”

Moth clenched her fist, feeling the ring. “I am,” she said, but her voice was so strained it made her voice feeble.

Feldar was clutching his jaw, watching in horror as the crowds began to roar with panic, like some giant living creature. He turned to look at Moth, rage grooved into every feature. “You’ve amounted to a liar.”

The troubled roar got louder and louder. Moth felt faint, the crowds were spiralling out of control, shouts of accusations and tearful pleadings when – more voices began to shout, heard over everything else. Shouts of ‘look!’, and groups were turning to face the west and pointing.

Moth, trembling to her bones, jerkily looked west.

A black cloud was gathering.

Someone shouted ‘a fire’, and many more cried out. Smoke telling of a wildfire – a wildfire would eat up the whole meadow, they’d be trapped in the open.

Moth took a shaky step forward, and watched the cloud rapidly get closer and closer, spreading and rejoining.

It wasn’t smoke – it was birds.

Magpies.

Everyone stared in amazement as the largest group of magpies they’d ever seen stormed towards them – thousands of them, as they approached they blackened the sky like a dense raincloud.

“The bride, the bride!” they screeched.

And they began to drop from their beaks something small, something glittering, something the color of light.

Sunstones rained down. The leaders covered their heads, to avoid the hailstorm of gems, their mouths open in amazement.

Moth reached out her hands, catching the radiant little gems in her palms, and began to laugh until she almost cried.

It rained and rained. So many, almost all that’d been lost, had been recovered from the floor of Picky Forest by the magpies, whose keen eyes for sparkling things had not failed them.

The gems kept falling, all around, lit by the lowering sun and lighting them up like embers – a sunshower.

People lifted hats or held out aprons to gather it all up.

It took ten minutes for all the magpies to finish dropping their precious cargo, their horrible, arduous journey had been made in only two days, and it was now over. They were exhausted and could barely wing away to a watering hole.

After it was finished, and every magpie had left, there was silence.

People reverently brought forward the collected sunstones and waited.

The sunstones were gathered up into satchels by the leaders and placed onto Moth’s horse. The leaders stood by and waited – everyone, from Norwin to Feldar, looked afraid.

Moth turned to the awe-struck crowd.

“I am the bride of Lord Correb. I have been sent here to help you. We have four months to bury these sunstones – follow me.”

And Hiren followed Lady Korraban.
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