Chapter 82 #2
The Burners are safer for their pre-emptive wisdom.
The cold currents washed down from Thell pass over these warm, earth-lined homes, coaxed aside with skill and cleverness, fingerbones and needle-punched teeth.
This is old magic that pushes on old rhythms, moon to sun, which is not afraid to meet the ghosts of the dead with spread legs and open mouths, rendering them stupid and lost in the sweat that pools between breasts and fingers and shoulders.
On the third night she visits, the younger girls come looking for her, with the message she was expecting. They’re two weeks out of Thell now, and almost clear of the forest. There was no way the Shipwright was getting to pass without saying hello to old friends.
There are three of them, hair tangled with thorn and brush, eyes bright as sparrows.
‘Thorndaughter’s askin’ for you,’ they say in unison, before dragging her helter-skelter through the tangle of trees to a familiar clearing, a familiar set of tents, a familiar pavilion strung with blossom.
Thorndaughter’s there, broad back shifting as she works on garland and green. Her hands deft despite her size. She turns as Shipwright approaches and grins around the stump of a brushwood pipe. Her acolytes release Shipwright’s wrist and dart back into the brush.
Shipwright’s heart lifts at the sight of her.
She’s barely changed, wearing a dun-coloured gown slashed with russet, as befits the season. Her sleeves rolled up and her arms stained with berry juice and ash. The sash at her waist bowing with the weight of bottles, ladle, and knives.
She opens her arms as Shipwright walks forwards, and beckons her in. ‘Come by, salt-chuck.’
A strong grip presses her against a chest that smells of the forest, followed by a buss on both cheeks. ‘Look at you. Barely remembered your face, tardy girl.’
Shipwright lets out a shuddering sigh, and Thorndaughter tuts as she leads her to a seat under the pavilion, something carved out of an old stump and painted bright by the Burner girls.
‘Set down. You’ve come loaded with sorrow, like always.’
Shipwright slumps in the chair, tilts her head back and watches the red dance of the pavilion’s canopy against a mackerel sky. A small brazier smoulders gently next to her, something sweet and lingering.
‘Here,’ Thorndaughter says, her voice soft. ‘Eat. Drink.’
A wooden plate is pressed into her hand – black bread and hard cheese, fruits still holding the dew of the day, followed by cup of clear water, herbs dancing in the depths.
Shipwright hesitates and Thorndaughter waves impatiently, bracelets jangling.
‘Come on. I know you and your hollow blood, girl. You’ll have been pining by those fires and taking not a drop for yourself.’
Her look is knowing, kind.
Shipwright eats. It’s good. The bread dark as a hearth, the cheese sharp on her tongue.
‘You knew we were here?’
Thorndaughter nods. ‘A’course. Uplanders lighting fires like dogs. See you for miles. Smell you for miles after that.’
She sets herself down in the chair alongside Shipwright, her huge form folding up neatly as she sighs appreciatively. ‘Brought a bunch of strange magic down from the mountain, didn’t you? Can taste it on the wind.’
Shipwright nods, starts to explain. Thorndaughter waves a hand. ‘Lowlander magic. Uplander magic. It’s all the same. Hungry. Heedless. It won’t touch the forest.’
She refills Shipwright’s cup, slips more fruit onto her plate. ‘You brought the bone-binder too, didn’t you?’
Shipwright nods. ‘You can feel his magic too?’
Thorndaughter shakes her head. ‘No, salt-chuck, just see the marks of him on your face.’
‘He’s a good man,’ Shipwright says, reflexively.
‘Even good men are tiring, dear heart.’
Shipwright says nothing.
Thorndaughter shuffles her chair closer and puts an arm around her shoulders. ‘We cope with them by talking about them. Your sea might like it when you play the clam, but not me.’
Shipwright laughs at that, and all the tension of the past few weeks slides out of her. The laughter turns to sobs and Thorndaughter holds her through it, until it eventually subsides.
Shipwright takes a deep, shuddering breath. ‘How did you know I’d come?’
Thorndaughter smiles at the question. ‘Fifteen year back you first came, and then again every dip of the moon. You were due.’
Shipwright shakes her head, rubs at her red eyes. ‘I had no idea we’d be anywhere near here.’
Thorndaughter refills her pipe and draws deep. ‘The forest knew.’
Shipwright laughs again. ‘Oh, did it now?’
Thorndaughter’s eyes twinkle. ‘I know what the forest knows. And I knew you were due. You took a trail to get here though. Visited every half-bit black-burner in the forest first, huh?’
‘I didn’t want to impose,’ Shipwright says.
‘That’s your big problem,’ Thorndaughter says, jabbing with the pipe.
‘Never wanting to leave a ripple. Idiot girl. The forest always has time for you. And so do I. But not for the bone-binder.’ She sucks her pipe.
‘That’s a tough love you sowed for yourself there, salt-chuck. Forever in the reaping.’
Shipwright grimaces. ‘Thanks for the wisdom.’
Thorndaughter snorts and waves her arms expansively at the cluster of tents outside, ‘Wisdom, what have I got of wisdom? I have pretty boys with burning hearts and old men that remember being pretty boys, nothing more.’
Shipwright smiles. ‘Pretty boys. That reminds me, where’s Willowtooth?’
Thorndaughter refills her pipe, tamps it down, her heavy brows lowered. She smiles sadly. ‘He was the prettiest.’
Shipwright blushes. ‘He was. I always liked his …’
Thorndaughter leans forwards. ‘Arse?’
Shipwright chokes. ‘Laugh.’ She sips her drink, cups her hands around the rim. ‘But yeah, that wasn’t too bad either, now I come to think of it.’
Thorndaughter nods, her soft chin tucking into the folds of her neck. ‘Always a good lad to watch leaving.’
She reaches across the table, bracelets jangling. ‘More tea?’
Shipwright holds out the cup. ‘You’re ducking me, Thorn. What happened to him?’
Thorndaughter fidgets with her bangles. The tea splashes.
She leans back in her chair, turns her head to the side. ‘The forest took him.’
Shipwright straightens, her face clouding. ‘He died? Oh, Thorn.’
‘Not died,’ she interrupts, eyes flashing. ‘Taken. Given. He was the bridegroom of last year gone. Gone to the stag now.’
Shipwright drinks again, the brass hammering around the cup’s rim warm as a spinner.
‘I always thought that was just a Burner tradition, Thorn. Dress the prettiest boy up, send him off into the green.’ She waves a hand.
‘Renew the forest. They did a similar thing at the Aestering on the first day of full sun. Green ribbons around the birch trees. Singing.’ She grins. ‘Shroud never could hold that tune.’
Thorndaughter shakes her head, earrings catching the glow of the fire, her ears briefly dripping gold.
‘Not just tradition, salt-chuck. Ritual. Every four year a boy given to the forest.’
Shipwright sets her cup down and studies her hands. Raising her head she asks, ‘But they’re not dead?’
Thorndaughter shifts. The chair creaks as she resettles. Small embers fall from her pipe onto her thighs, fast patted out. ‘No, not dead. But not living as they were. The forest takes them. The god in the forest. The god that is the forest. The white stag.’
Shipwright shakes her head. ‘I don’t totally follow.’
Thorndaughter leans forwards, reaches out a hand, levers herself up slowly, the weight of her whole body against Shipwright.
‘You remember fifteen year ago you came. What did I say to you then?’
Shipwright squeezes her hand. ‘Thorn. I’m too old for that. My memory’s a leaky dinghy.’
Thorndaughter says nothing in reply, but leads her to the side of the pavilion, where red silk curves down to the sod. There’s a cabinet there, delicate, beautiful. She reaches into her kirtle, takes out a key and fumbles with the lock.
‘I told you and the bone-binder that we could do nothing beyond the forest. That we were bound to the forest. Sheltered by it. That’s why we couldn’t help, against the thing in the mountain. Against the Empire.’
Shipwright nods. ‘Ever since the bladedrinkers. I remember now, yeah.’
The lock clicks, and the lacquered doors swung open. Golden patterns of leaves and thorn.
Thorndaughter stoops, reaches in, and takes out a long thin glass case.
‘Our god lives in the forest. And he needs our boys to keep him strong. To keep us safe.’ Her large face softens with tears. ‘Every four year.’ Her voice is as low as the brazier’s coals, her fingers moving slowly over the glass and the objects inside.
She turns to Shipwright, holds out the case. ‘I keep what I can of them.’
Shipwright gently takes the case and sees curls of hair, each neatly bound, and labelled. The ones on the left faded almost to paleness, those on the right still brown, and russet and black. She looks up at Thorndaughter, and the tears running down the wood-witch’s face.
‘Oh, Thorn. I’m so sorry.’
Thorndaughter points to a name. ‘My own boy, the prettiest ever, gone near twelve year ago. Can’t even read his name now. Can’t even recall what it was.’
Shipwright squints at the labels as the text on them swirls and blurs. Only the very rightmost remains in clear focus – Willowtooth.
She hands the case back.
‘You can’t even remember them, can you? Because of what Crowkisser did. Because of the south.’
Thorndaughter nods, placing the case gently in the cabinet, before she locks it and returns the key to her kirtle.
Her deep voice rough and husky with sadness. ‘All those beautiful boys, salt-chuck. And she took even their names.’
Shipwright steps forwards and hugs her, feeling the sobs riding her huge frame, the smell of the forest still in her hair.
‘I’m so sorry, Thorn.’
Thorndaughter holds her close like iron.
‘That’s why I keep you near, salt-chuck. The forest might have taken my boy-child, but spit and bone fore I ever let it take you.’