The Ferryman - Book 1

Chapter 89:

Fjer and Ticky

On the edge of the pineland sat the campsite – the tents were set up, their off-white color blending into the leftover snow, which melted from the heat of the fires, bright as butter in the dimming light.

Spring nights bit hard in Hiren. A chill followed on the heels of a lowering sun – but even the sight of the camp warmed Moth, though her breath floated like ghosts around her. She wondered if Heikka had prepared tea for them.

Urging Aggo to hurry on, Moth came out from behind the pine trees. She could see more of the camp – there were dozens of tents.

She looked to Feldar, marvelling. “How many Copekivi’s are there?”

Feldar squinted against the dusk. “Those tents don’t belong to us. We’re already getting vagrants.”

Moth nervously looked at the tents as they approached. Most were small and ratty, barely able to keep out a breeze – half their supplies had to be piled outside. The people – gaunt and dirty – cooked their scraps of food over small fires, chatting with each other as they nursed or rocked scruffy babies to sleep.

Many of them didn’t have shoes – their feet were still bleeding and blistering from the long walk to the camp, hastily wrapped up and held to the heat.

She twinged with guilt that they’d walked all this way for her. “What do they want?” Moth whispered to Feldar.

“Hope. Or money. Some aren’t sure but they’re convinced you have it – a great revelation or way of escape, brought down from Correb.”

Moth did not have any of those things to give them. As they rode through, the vagrants stirred, whispering to each other, pointing at Moth – some stood up and waved, calling out greetings.

“Hello!” she called back, waving uncertainly but making sure to smile. “Lovely evening, isn’t it?”

Lt. Grotte rode up between Moth and the vagrants, then – without a word but her jaw set on edge – took Aggo’s reins and hastened them towards the Copekivi tent.

Moth wanted to protest, but seeing Lt. Grotte’s expression, she knew it wasn’t the time.

The tent flap furled back as Korho and Heikka emerged, followed by a rush of warmth and cinnamon.

“Give me the horses, I’ll mind them – you all get inside and warm up,” commanded Korho, and everyone – including Lt. Grotte – gratefully obliged.

Heikka took Moth’s arm to help her down from the horse and led her inside.

They didn’t go into her bedroom tent, but the larger meeting tent.

It was heated to perfection, Moth felt as if she were floating in a hot bath. Tall tile braziers were placed around a table, and all the chairs had been drowned in furs and blankets – Heikka placed Moth at the head chair, took off her boots and pushed the tile brazier closer to her.

“Dinner, or snacks and tea?” Heikka asked.

“Snacks and tea,” Moth answered at once. She pressed her aching feet to the heated tile and groaned, sinking deep into the blankets.

Feldar and Lt. Grotte dragged themselves to the table, laying their heads and arms on the surface – Moth was relieved to know she wasn’t the only one exhausted.

They were all half asleep when Heikka flitted in like a shadow, pouring tea and setting down plates. She also set down a bottle of molasses rum for Feldar and Lt. Grotte, saying, “Father insisted.”

The cork was off within seconds and glugged into their tea.

All three of them enjoyed their simple meal in blissful silence, letting the heat seep through their frigid skin and into their bones until their bodies relaxed, ready for bed.

A draft of cold came into the tent, and Korho stomped in, kicking snow off his heels. He waved to Feldar and nodded his head to the door. Without a word, Feldar jumped up and followed him outside.

In another minute, he was back inside, sitting down again to drink his tea. He met Moth’s curious eyes. “We’re almost finished with the length of burials overseen by the Pahkinna family. Soon, we’re going to be with the leader Rupert Fjer. He’s respected among the woodcutters.”

They were at the point in their travels where Moth did not know the people she was going to meet. She’d never heard the name. “Do I know any Fjers?” she asked.

Feldar shook his head. “I’m sure they have a handful of distant uncles, but I only know two Fjers, and they’re brothers.”

That surprised Moth, and she said quietly, “How sad.”

Adding more rum to his tea, Feldar asked, “You’ve not been in pineland before, have you?”

Moth shook her head. “Besides a few visits with Mrs. Tunhofe – no.”

“They’re not as community minded as farmers. They live isolated from each other, and don’t get together with distant family more than once or twice a year. But, they’re doggedly loyal to their near-neighbor. Location is stronger then blood to

them – a brother far away is no use in times of trouble, not out here alone in the pines. Keep that in mind, and their ways will make more sense to you.”

His tone was strange – uneasy.

“Have you been in pineland before?” Moth found it strange when even a scrap of emotion filtered through Feldar’s unreadable front.

Feldar nodded, looking down into his tea. “I worked as a log driver for two summers. Korho arranged the job for me – his brother-in-law worked at the millhouse.”

“Here?” Moth asked, adding, “I mean, in this area of pineland?”

“Further up. We’ll be at that millhouse soon.”

*

During the next week of burials, when Moth had a moment to herself, she thought only of Nehem and Ira.

They were still gone. She heard no news from Charlotte, or from her family – she didn’t even know if Charlotte had returned to Hiren yet. The only thing keeping her from constant anxiety was her work.

They were travelling deeper into pineland, following busy logging trails noisy with woodcutters who gawked at their caravan of tents. They went from home to home, led by Ivan Pahkinna, until the final burial.

Ivan Pahkinna handed Moth the last four sunstones with a somber bow. “This concludes all the burial sites I oversaw on behalf of my aunt. The Pahkinnas protected every sunstone we were entrusted with.”

Moth took the sunstones from him with the same solemnity. “Thank you, Ivan. I’m sure Vincent is proud of you.”

Ivan averted his eyes and nodded. After the burial was concluded, he returned to his home.

Moth had grown fond of Ivan. Travelling with him ignited an interest in the Pahkinna family and their future – she was confident Ivan would make an excellent leader.

Heikka woke Moth up early the next morning. Moth wanted to make a good impression on the new leader, so she handed Heikka one of Agate’s instructions on ornamented bridal hair and they spent the early hours trying to execute the vision.

Dressing in the layers of clothing felt quick and easy in comparison, Moth was ready for the day hours later as she entered the meeting tent.

Tea had been brought in by one of Korho’s sons. She stared quietly at the teapot, and then looked over sadly at Lt. Grotte.

Lt. Grotte sat on the floor next to a brazier, warming her red-cold hands. She raised her eyebrows. “What?”

“Do you have any more sentry coffee?” Moth asked.

“Ha! Your tinner tea not working for you anymore? Or your acorn stuff?” Lt. Grotte grinned smugly, and nodded her head. “You can have the rest of my cup.”

Moth leaped over to the still-steaming mug of horrid burnt coffee, tasting of greasy ash, and fell into it joyously. She sat by Lt. Grotte and felt the warmth of the brazier – as she relaxed and her mind wandered, her thoughts grew troubled.

Moth peeked at Lt. Grotte, whose eyes were half closed. She was the only one Moth could talk to.

“I haven’t heard a word about my brothers.”

Lt. Grotte’s eyes popped open. For a moment, she was like her old self – before the incident with the sunstones had caused her to withdraw.

“Well, shit.” Lt. Grotte glowered at the roof of the tent, then patted her pockets. “Not a word from Charlotte then, either?”

“No.”

Lt. Grotte finally found a small, ratty notebook, with an agricultural sentry emblem on it. In her other pocket she unearthed a chewed-up pencil. She handed them both to Moth.

“Write something to Charlotte’s family asking after her – but be subtle like, say it crafty. We’ll find out if she’s back or not. I can’t spell so you’ll have to write it all.”

Moth flipped open the notebook, noticing several pages of roughly practiced letters.

“Feldar’s been trying to teach me.”

Moth flipped to a fresh page and – after tapping the pencil nervously – wrote out a polite message thanking Charlotte’s family for letting her stay at their inn. She thanked Charlotte especially and inquired whether Charlotte would be interested in having lunch.

When she finished, Lt. Grotte ripped out the page and folded it, hoisting herself up from the ground and heading outside. It was not long before she returned.

“Alright. I sent it off with a lad to deliver it to Pehku Inn. You’ll pay him when he comes back.”

“Thank you, Sabine. You’re the only one who knows…you’re the only one I can talk to about it.” Moth reached out and took Sabine’s hand – she accepted it stiffly. “I haven’t known what to do.”

Lt. Grotte waited half a second before pulling her hand away, grunting. “Don’t thank me like I did anything. We got to hold for an answer.” She scratched her neck and whispered, “Still keeping this from everyone?”

Moth hesitated. “Yes. I have the sunstones now but…I’m worried how it will look to others.”

The front flap of the tent was pushed open and Feldar entered with a blast of cold air that sputtered the braziers. He was bundled up with a jacket, hat, and shawls. He jutted a mittened hand towards the door. “Ready?”

Moth an Lt. Grotte pulled on coats and shawls, mittens and hats, and headed outside to where the horses were waiting.

“Good morning Lady Korraban!”

Moth was startled by a dozen of the vagrants standing nearby in the early chill, holding their children up so they could see Moth better – the children were shivering, but stalwartly watching Moth with wide eyes.

Lt. Grotte started to move forward, a curse already on her lips, but Moth hastily gave her a look and turned with a bright smile to the people. “Good morning, everyone. How kind of you to see me off despite the cold, thank you! I suppose the long trip to the next campsite will warm us all up.”

They murmured their agreements, saying goodbye and waving as Moth, Feldar, and Lt. Grotte went on ahead. They had to ride through the vagrants’ camps as they went, watching the people make breakfast and begin tearing down their tents and supplies – they were going to follow behind Moth and the Copekivis.

Moth understood them better now, after asking Korho. Most of them were driven from their farms by the fog restrictions, or had their farms destroyed by incompetent burns – while others, with little to their name, were desperate to be part of the historical burials and witness history.

Regardless of why they were there, Moth was told not to walk among them by herself, as not all of them followed their burial procession out of love for the ferryman and the hope of the sunstones. It was hard for Moth to think suspiciously of people, yet at the same time, she’d wished she’d treated Quin with more caution when they’d met in Picky Forest.

Feldar startled her from her thoughts when he rode up alongside her, saying, “We’re going to meet Rupert Fjer at the next burial spot. We’ll be with him for a long while – this stretch of pineland is all owned by the Fjers.”

They were now out of the camp and on the trail that led into the heart of pineland, following along an often used – but now empty – logging trail.

It was an endless wall of trees, with trunks as wide as wagons, their darkening great branches towering into the sun, stifling all light. The trail led deeper into the forest – they rode and rode. There wasn’t a gasp of open field or clearing anywhere. Moth was choked off from her farmlands and the fields she knew.

The whole forest was covered in a quilt of dense pine needles, which soaked up all noise – The heavy soundlessness made Moth feel like she was listening through a head cold. She kept glancing over her shoulder, realizing she’d never be able to hear if someone was following.

The three of them instinctually kept quiet. Time was unclear under the canopy. Moth’s only measurement to track the time was how increasingly sore and tired she grew, the steady tramp of the horses becoming like a dull ticking clock in her ears, lulling her into a half-aware doze.

Aggo balked with a whinny, startling Moth to grab his reins and pull him back.

A logging wagon was left lengthways to block the road, stacked high with fallen pines, forming a makeshift barricade.

Moth had never seen a logging wagon like it. The wheels were far taller than a man, made of thick iron, so heavy it sunk deep into the muddy, puddled road. It carried colossal logs that usually had to be moved one at a time – but here, six were stacked on it, bound together with iron chains bigger than her head.

“What in hell…” muttered Feldar, his eyes looking at the towering wall of logs. Then, he froze – looking like a cornered animal.

Moth, worried, followed his gaze and saw a man standing there, in front of the wheel of the wagon, watching them.

He was big. Muscle and fat bulged over the top of his collar, like a rope on a straining dog. Any hair on his face and head was shaved down to the skin, except for thin angled eyebrows, under which sat two small black eyes.

They were so small and dark it seemed as if they had no whites at all, until he tilted his head up.

“You’re the bride, then?” he asked.

His voice, though not deep, had a heavy sound, weighed down at the back of his throat as though he was spitting up the words.

Moth struggled to meet his lightless eyes. Finding her failing voice, she whispered, “Yes.”

He leaned on the pine logs in the cart, looking at her, breathing with an open mouth. Moth could hear the air scraping hotly past his teeth, could see his throat pooling over the top of his collar with each inhale.

“I own the mill,” he said. He looked from one to the other, and then at Felder.

The man took something out of his pocket – at first Moth thought it was a folding knife, with the handle carved to look like a man, but when he flicked it open she realized it was an ivory toothpick. He began cleaning his back molars with it, all the while watching Feldar.

“Didn’t think I’d ever lay eyes on you again, Cubby.”

Feldar pressed his hand to the back of his neck. He stared at the man but said nothing.

Lt. Grotte looked from Feldar, to Moth, to the man. She was on edge, her hand fiddling with the reins of her horse, her other hand fidgeting with her saber. “Why is the trail blocked?” she blurted out.

Still picking at his teeth, he answered – but chose to address his answer to Moth, staring at her now with his hole eyes.

“We have to clear timber before you can bury. Turn back – don’t come up for two days.” The man folded up his toothpick, put it away safely in his pocket – and when he turned to go, he said over his shoulder to Feldar, “You best get moving, boy.”

Every muscle in Feldar’s neck was tensed, but he whipped around and rode back down the path – Lt. Grotte and Moth scrambled to follow him.

None of them said a word.

Moth was reeling from the man. She had never met someone like him – her brain struggled to categorize him. She was strangely, strongly, reminded of the dock workers back in Magden, who had noticed her tinner shoes and watched her with dog-like eyes. The eyes of a bored predator.

Being around him made her feel shaky and unsafe. It was minutes before her blood stopped pounding in her ears and she could check and see how her companions felt.

“Who was that?” she asked.

Feldar finally lowered his hand from the back of his neck, where it had left indents in the collar. “Maxa Fjer. He owns the mill.”

Moth fell quiet, remembering what he’d said earlier. “He’s Rupert’s brother?”

Feldar only nodded.

The ride back down the road was long, Moth was desperate for it to be over, she wondered how much more she’d have to ride in silence – then, they came face to face with the caravan as they travelled up the road.

Copekivis yanked on horses and forced their carts to a halt – carts towering with furniture and rolled up tents. The whole procession noisily and slowly came to a confused stop – footstools dislodged from their restraints and crashed to the road.

Korho rode up from further in the caravan, checking on his family and shouting, then hurried to Moth. “Lady, Feldar! What’s happening?”

Feldar dismounted from his horse, his mind somewhere far away, far ago, but said to Korho. “Maxa Fjer says we have to wait two days before we can go up – he’s blocked the path.”

Korho fell quiet. He muttered some curses and paced, thinking, and looking back towards the increasingly crowded logging trail. “Alright,” he said, sucking his teeth and nodding. He put a hand on Feldar’s shoulder, “You, go take a walk or drink

or something. Knock the wasps out. And you,” he said, turning to Moth, “you come with me. I need your moony-eyed face.”

Curiously, Moth dismounted from Aggo – Lt. Grotte took him – and followed Korho.

He led her through the entire congested mess of carts and wagons, through the angry and shouting Copekivis, towards the rear of their procession, where the vagrants followed along after them with their tents, families, and animals.

“Alright, this is where the vagrants are – do that look you get,” said Korho.

Moth stared at him blankly.

He, frustrated, tried to mimic the look on his face – lifting his head up and opening his eyes till they bulged out. “You know! Looking like you only ever think about eternity and stars and whatnot.”

“Korho, what are you even talking about?” Moth demanded, scowling at Korho’s pantomime of her expression.

Rubbing his face, Korho urged her, saying, “Listen, these people have lost everything and they’re looking for hope. That’s why they’re following us – god knows I try to scrape together food for them, but harvests have been light. They’re grateful for whatever falls off a table. They need something.”

Looking over at the tent, Moth’s heart throbbed. “You’ve been feeding them?”

Clapping his hands and pointing, Korho said triumphantly, “Yes, that’s the look I want. Keep that on your face and come with me.”

Korho led her through the tents, and Moth – though not stopping for more than a second – shook hands with people and smiled and greeted whoever greeted her.

They reeked. Their garments clung to their body with sweat and dust and dirt – their clothes hadn’t been washed in months, though they scrubbed themselves as

best they could, the only water available was what they could carry – the snow had mostly melted, leaving dirty clumps barely worth boiling.

Their clothes were patched and re-patched, some had stuffed rags up their sleeves for extra insulation. The cold nights had been hard on them, and many had chilblains on their nose, cheeks and ears – some had gotten infected and were beginning to ooze. Any extra clothes they had were used to keep their children warm.

Moth would’ve rather drowned than seem as if she noticed their smell. She pet the lice-scarred heads of children and kissed the cheeks of unwashed babies.

They were busy figuring out why the caravan had stopped, consulting with Copekivis who directed them to turn back down the road.

“Ah, there he is,” said Korho, pointing to a lone man. He was at the furthest end of the caravan, following behind the other vagrants at a larger distance by himself.

He was an older man, small, thin as a spindle, but every bit of him sinews and muscle. A great white cloud of hair covered his head and face. He wore traditional woodsman clothes, old and darned as himself – but on his hip hung an ax so pristine it looked freshly lifted from a forge.

He was alone in his own world when Korho and Moth approached him, so much so that he started and pulled away when he noticed how close they were.

“Lady Korraban,” said Korho, gesturing. “Meet Ticky.”

Ticky hastily attempted to smooth back his wild hair before giving a nervous bow. “My Lady!” he exclaimed.

“Ticky’s the best woodcutter in Hiren – probably in all of Coewylle,” said Korho, and Ticky nodded modestly. “No one knows pineland better than him.”

Moth reached out to take his hand, shaking it. “It’s wonderful to meet you, Mr. Ticky. Someone who knows pineland is just what we need.”

He dug his foot into the ground, shyly hanging his head. “Ah, well, it’s my home. Everyone knows their home.”

Korho cleared his throat and said, “Here’s the problem, both of you. We can’t keep going up the trail because of Maxa. We need to find a place to camp – not just for us, Lady, but all the vagrants too – the whole lot.” He gestured to all the people wedged into the logging trail ahead of them. “Got any ideas, Ticky, about where we can go?”

Spinning a piece of his beard on his finger, Ticky nodded slowly. “Aye. Quarter mile south-east of here is a clearing. Harvested four years ago – only trouble would be stumps.”

Korho, satisfied, nodded at Moth. “Sound good?”

“Is it near water?” Moth asked Ticky.

Ticky shook his head.

“We’re only waiting two days,” Korho said. “We got water enough for drinking. Enough for everyone, I mean – vagrants included.”

“Not enough for laundry, though,” Moth replied. “Or washing. They need someplace to refresh.”

Ticky’s face flushed and he said, “Don’t pay us one thought, Lady Korraban! We choose to follow you, don’t let us bother you for even a minute.”

“You lot aren’t the only ones with laundry!” Moth hastily assured him. “I sweat through half my clothes with all this riding.”

Ticky was relieved by her answer. “Well, then, if you need water, there’s a place a mile back, an old logging route, with a clearing and tributary.”

Moth nodded eagerly. Korho sighed and shrugged. “So be it. Lady, Ticky, you’ll be at the head now leading us down. Vagrants first – us Copekivis will take up the rear.”