Chapter Six Lettle
Chapter Six
Lettle
‘If she didn’t want us there, she should have just come right out and said it,’ Lettle said as she, Mia and Farhan left the resting room.
‘Mortah has her peculiarities,’ Mia said, looking at Lettle sidelong, almost as if she was accusing Lettle of the same thing.
But Lettle was unfamiliar with Mia’s temperament and didn’t want to assume, so she simply said, ‘Indeed.’
They wound through the mountain streets of Caperly at a brisk pace. The morning air was warmer than she expected, the rockface protecting them from the weather.
‘Where are we going?’ Farhan asked. Shera trotted beside him.
‘We’re going to the dining hall. There’ll be food there. We each take it in turns to cook. Though I admit, few let me near the hearth any more.’
‘Bad cook?’ Lettle asked.
Mia looked as though she was assessing Lettle’s words for the insult. So Lettle added quickly, ‘I say as someone also with the affliction.’
Mia grimaced. ‘Yes, it is an affliction. No matter what I do, the food either ends up too burnt, too sour or too salty.’
‘Yes, my talents lie firmly in reading the Fates.’
‘You’re a diviner?’
‘She is,’ Farhan answered for Lettle. ‘The best there ever was. During our travels she once predicted we’d see a baby deer by the road. And guess what? We did.’
‘Impressive,’ Mia said. And it was Lettle’s turn to search for the insult in her words.
‘My prophecies aren’t always so…elementary,’ Lettle said. ‘I foretold Alder’s arrival, and the obeah’s connection to the humans.’
‘That they are humans,’ Mia said softly.
‘Yes.’
They each retreated into their thoughts and Lettle took the chance to take in more of Caperly. She’d seen so little of the city last night, and it was a different place in the daylight.
Though the village was set deep into the chest of the mountain, there were openings in the rock that showed the blue sky beyond. It wasn’t as bright as the fray in Mosima, but the sunlight and the gas lamps were enough to drench Caperly in a warm glow.
Moss and ferns glittered with morning dew on the paths beside them, and more than once Lettle jumped back from a rabbit crossing by her feet. She winced as she landed heavily on her blistered heel.
‘You are limping,’ Mia noted.
‘I am not used to travelling long distances.’
‘Caperly is very far. The edge of the world, some think.’
‘I’ve been using tarrow root to help heal the blistered skin, but I’ve run out.’
‘I can get you some more,’ Mia said.
‘Thank you—’ Lettle’s words clogged in her throat as they turned the corner. The mountain opened out into a spectacular view, stealing her words.
Sunlight and water poured through a gap in the rock above, creating a shimmering rainbow that ended in a pool of dark water below them. A staircase wound its way around the waterfall where Lettle could see more resting rooms set into the mountainside, their hexagonal doors painted bright colours.
From this vantage point, Lettle could see the number of streets that weaved through the mountain. But most of them were empty.
‘It’s so much bigger than I realised.’
‘There are entire floors we haven’t even ventured to; the city is much larger than anyone will ever know.’
‘Were the Nomads much more numerous before?’ Lettle asked.
‘No, our population has grown in recent years,’ Mia rested her hand on her stomach, ‘Caperly was built long before the Nomads arrived.’
Curious.
An obeah pranced through some of the water spray, its jaws snapping at the rainbow.
‘You have obeah here too?’
‘Yes, many. They are welcome, we do not harvest them for magic like root-rotters do.’
‘Root-rotters?’ Lettle asked.
Farhan laughed as though he had heard the phrase before, but Lettle doubted it.
‘It’s what we call the elves bound to a tribe, to a place.’
Lettle quirked a brow. ‘I see.’
‘It’s an insult,’ Mia clarified.
‘I understood that.’
‘Good.’
They looked at each other, neither breaking eye contact. Until Mia’s lips twitched into a rueful smile, and something shifted between them.
‘I’m glad Alder had someone to take care of him on the journey.’
Lettle looked away, her hand going to the threaded twine around her neck, dotted with tiny treasures. ‘It was him who took care of me, truly.’
‘Well either way, I’m happy you had each other.’
They both turned to Farhan who had wandered to the edge of the cliffside. He was trying to cup the rainbow with his hands.
Mia laughed.
‘I really think he might manage it,’ Lettle said.
‘Shall we see how long he tries for?’ Mia said with a wicked grin.
After ten minutes Lettle put Farhan out of his misery and they continued on.
They turned a corner and Lettle noticed that the walls were streaked with colour.
She paused, taking in the mural. The flaking paint made it obvious the imagery was old, the brush strokes faded and incomplete.
Her fingers trailed the shape of the red streaks, outlining the animal it was supposed to be.
‘Is it a fox?’ Lettle asked. It was similar to the woodland animal, but the tail was larger, almost like an obeah’s.
Mia shrugged. ‘We’re not sure, the markings were here before we arrived. We think the animal must have gone extinct some time ago.’
‘Are there many drawings like this around?’ Lettle asked.
‘Some.’
‘Do you ever wonder where they came from?’
‘Not really. We see so many signs of our past during our travels. We appreciate them, preserve them when we can, and move on.’
‘The Nomad way of life sounds exhausting. I can’t imagine travelling so often.’
‘I can’t imagine sitting still,’ Mia countered.
She led them through a wide doorway towards the dining hall, which turned out to be less a hall and more of a storage room which stank heavily of salted fish and ageing cheese.
‘Take what you like,’ Mia said.
Shera and Farhan headed straight to the fruit. Mia directed Lettle to some small pastries which were a speciality by someone called Orla.
‘Ever since I got pregnant, she started to hide me a portion behind the dried herring.’
She handed Lettle a small, sticky bun.
‘Honey and cardamom.’
It was delicious.
‘Let’s have one more and tell Dart that there weren’t any today,’ Mia said.
Lettle found herself warming to Mia.
Once they had sated their appetite, they bundled together a parcel of bread and preserved figs for the others and headed back.
Lettle had always struggled with directions, and Caperly was more difficult to map than any other city she had been in.
Stone bridges criss-crossed above her, connecting staircases that were carved into the rock.
The lanes were cobbled and winding, seamlessly curving through the mountain as though they had always been there.
Nothing in Caperly seemed made; instead, it felt organic, like it had grown from the very earth.
‘How do you keep track of where you’re going? Every path looks the same.’
‘I was raised here, so the routes are familiar, but I admit there is no one alive who doesn’t get lost in Caperly at some point. And when we do, we just look at the stone signs.’ Mia pointed to an unassuming rock ahead of them.
As they approached, Lettle could see that the stone was engraved with symbols. She crouched down and ran her hands over the engraving.
‘The one that kind of looks like a star leads you outside. The swirl to the fresh water well. The triangle towards the food stores and the circle to the resting rooms.’
There was something about the symbols that seemed familiar. Her finger trailed the grooves and curves–they were shapes she recognised.
They look like letters in the human language.
‘These were all here before the Nomads?’ she asked Mia.
‘Yes.’
‘Interesting.’
‘If you say so.’
Lettle was beginning to form her own theory about Caperly’s origins. It consumed her thoughts for the rest of the journey back to the resting room.
‘We come with food,’ Mia announced as they walked in.
The atmosphere in the room made Lettle’s skin prickle. She looked from Alder to Mortah to Dart. All wore very different expressions, somewhere between frustration and trepidation.
‘There weren’t any pastries today,’ Mia lied, then she saw Dart’s face, which was on the angrier side of the scale. ‘You always know when I’m lying.’
‘What? It’s not that. It’s just Mortah…’ Dart looked helplessly to Alder.
‘Mortah was with Osei when he met me. So she’s able to lead us to where I was found,’ Alder said.
Mia frowned. ‘Why was she with Osei?’ She looked between Mortah and Dart, then back again. ‘Oh.’
Lettle wasn’t following, but neither did she care about the intricacies of anyone’s feelings, especially after Alder had spoken.
‘You know where you were found?’ Lettle said.
‘Yes,’ Alder replied.
‘Is it far?’
‘Half a day, maybe more,’ Mortah said.
‘Well?’ Lettle said, cutting through the silence. ‘Why are we sitting around like legless spiders? Let’s go.’
Mortah raised her eyebrows. ‘Who are you?’ she echoed Lettle’s earlier crudeness.
‘I’m the person who has walked four months across the continent to find you. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to leave now.’ Lettle shouldered her pack and looked around the room. ‘Are you coming or what?’
Mortah looked to Alder, who nodded.
‘Let’s go.’
—
Lettle’s impatience only grew when she realised it was snowing.
‘You said half a day–we’ve been going longer than that.’
‘The snow has hampered us. We’ve got another three hours, at least,’ Mortah said.
Lettle groaned into her fur scarf. At least they’d had the foresight to pack more than the breakfast she and Mia had brought.
Each of the Nomads carried a well-worn satchel of waxed leather.
Their bags were their livelihoods and each one had been lovingly cared for.
They were all of equal size and make, with small personal details.
Mia’s had been patched with a bright red thread, whereas Dart’s was woven with small crescent moons, perhaps in homage to his prior home.
Mortah’s bag had deep cracks in the leather and knots in the shoulders to keep it higher up on her stooped frame.