8
Filth
Many a man who labors to remove the dirt on his hands from honest toil never gives a thought to the stains on his soul.
There was work to be done before the Borensons broke camp. There were empty casks that needed to be filled with water. The family would need to take a trip to Fossil to fetch supplies.
And there was a child to be buried.
Myrrima had been waiting for Aaath Ulber to return so that the whole family could join in the solemn occasion. She’d wanted to have time to mourn as a family. She had never lost a child before. She’d always thought herself lucky. Now she felt as if even her chance to properly mourn was being stripped from her.
Fallion bound the worlds, Myrrima thought, and now my family is being ripped apart.
She told Aaath Ulber how Erin’s spirit had visited near dawn, and told him of the shade’s warning that they must go to the Earth King’s tree.
Aaath Ulber grew solemn, reflective. He wished that he had been here to see it, but the chance had been lost and there was no bringing her back.
“She spoke to you?” he asked in wonder.
“Yes,” Myrrima said. “Her voice was distant, like a faraway song, but I could hear her.”
“A strange portent,” Aaath Ulber said. “It makes me wonder. I am two men in one body. Is Erin now two spirits bound together? Is that how she found this new power?”
Myrrima shook her head, for it was something she had no way of knowing.
“And if spirits also bind,” Aaath Ulber said, “does that mean that within my body, the spirits of two men are also bound?”
Somehow, this idea disturbed him deeply. But there was no knowing the truth of it now. It was a mystery that no one could answer, so he asked, “Shall we bury Erin in water, or in the ground?”
Myrrima considered. She was a servant of Water, and always imagined that she would want to be buried in water herself. And on Sir Borenson’s home island, it had been the custom to send the dead floating out to sea.
But the water in the old river channel was filthy, and Myrrima didn’t want her daughter floating in that. Besides, if Myrrima ever returned to Landesfallen, she would want to know where her daughter’s body might be found.
Myrrima said, “Let’s plant her here, on dry ground, where she can be near the farm.”
Aaath Ulber did not begrudge the task of digging a grave, even though he had no tools. The giant went to a place where the ground looked soft, then began to dig, using a large rock to gouge dirt from the earth.
Myrrima and Draken rolled the empty barrels out of the ship’s hold; she opened each one and smelled inside. Most of them had held wine or ale, so these were the ones that she moved to the spot where the small stream seeped down the cliff. She began to fill each barrel with water for their journey, and as she did, she fretted, making long lists of things she hoped to buy in the small village of Fossiclass="underline" rope, lamps, wicks, flint, tinder, clothes, needles and thread, fish hooks, boots, twine, rain gear, medicines—the list was endless, but the money was not.
So she wrestled the empty barrels to a rock where the clean water cascaded down the cliff and began to let them fill. It was a slow process, letting the water trickle into the barrels. As she did, she found that her hands were shaking.
She paced around the barrels, nerves jangling. She felt that she should go after the Walkins and try to offer some apologies, make amends.
But nothing that she could do would ever undo the damage. Baron Walkin was dead. Perhaps he deserved it, perhaps not. Myrrima strongly suspected that if Aaath Ulber had just stopped to negotiate, approached things more rationally, the tragedy could have been averted.
But Aaath Ulber had killed the baron, taken all of the Walkins’ money, and left them with nothing.
They came to our land with nothing, she thought, and with nothing they walk away.
It sounded fair, but Myrrima knew that it wasn’t.
Draken went up the cliff, heading toward the brush. “We’re going to need plenty of firewood,” he said. It was one more thing that they’d need, and Myrrima dreaded the chore. Bringing in enough for the long journey would take hours, and she knew that they couldn’t wait that long—the mayor of Fossil and his men were probably already rowing frantically toward them.
“Just get enough for a day or so,” she shouted. “We can stop up the coast and take on firewood.”
Sage came to the barrel and crouched next to it. The girl was trembling, and tears filled her eyes. She was only thirteen, and had never seen anything like what Aaath Ulber had done to Owen Walkin.
She needs comfort, Myrrima thought. I could cast a spell to wash away the memory. . . . But that would be wrong. She’s going to need to learn how to deal with such things if we go back to Mystarria. “Are you all right?”
Sage shook her head no. She peered into the water barrel, her eyes unfocused. “Daddy tore that man apart.”
Myrrima had a rule in life. She never blamed a man for what he could not control. Thus, she would never ridicule a foolish man, even if he was only a little foolish. She’d never belittle the halt or lame.
But what of Aaath Ulber? Was he guilty of murder, or was what he’d done outside his control?
She didn’t want to exonerate him to Sage. But she’d seen how Aaath Ulber’s mind had fled when he attacked. He wasn’t in control. What’s more, Myrrima suspected that he couldn’t control himself.
“I think . . . he was protecting us,” Myrrima said. “He was afraid of what Owen Walkin might do. I suspect . . . that he was right to kill him. I just wish that he hadn’t been so brutal. . . . To kill that man so, in front of us, his wife and children—”
“I feel sick,” Sage said. Her face had a greenish cast, and she peered about desperately.
“If you need to throw up,” Myrrima said, “don’t do it here.”
But Sage just sat for a moment, holding all of the horror in. “So . . . Aaath Ulber was born to kill that way.”
Myrrima had seen the rage in Aaath Ulber’s eyes, how his own mind revolted after the deed. “There were men like him even in our old world, men whose anger sometimes took them. It’s . . . Aaath Ulber’s rage is an illness, like any other. I don’t like it. I don’t approve of what he did. But I cannot fault him for it. If you fell ill with a cough, I would not condemn you. I wouldn’t find fault. Instead I would offer you herbs for your throat, and with a compress I would wash your fever away. I would seek to heal you. But I fear that curing your father might be beyond my ability. I know only a few peaceful runes to draw upon him. I can try, but I suspect that the only cure lies in Mystarria—in the hands of Fallion. We must find him, and get him to unbind the worlds.”
“Did father start the fight?” Sage asked. “Draken said that it was ‘all his’ fault. Father started it.”
Sage had lost so much in the past day. She still needed a father. So Myrrima decided to let the girl hold on to the illusion that she still had her father for as long she could.
Myrrima asked, “What do you think?”
“Draken said that when Daddy first found the Walkins, he insulted them. He called Rain a ‘tart.’ So father started it, and Owen Walkin tried to finish it.”
Myrrima traced the logic. “It wasn’t Aaath Ulber who started this,” Myrrima said, “it was the Walkins. They’re the ones who were squatting on our farm. We thought it was the birds eating our cherries, but now you and I both know better.”
“Draken was letting them live there.”
“Because he loved their daughter,” Myrrima said. “But Draken didn’t have the right to let them squat. It wasn’t his farm. You wouldn’t go give away our milk cow, would you? That is what Draken was doing. He should have come forward and asked your father’s permission. Nor should the Walkins have allowed it.”
Myrrima did not want to say it, but she half-wondered if the Walkins had thrown Rain at Draken. Perhaps they’d hoped that the two would fall in love. Perhaps they’d encouraged Draken’s affection, knowing that his father was a wealthy landowner who might provide a parcel for an inheritance. It was, after all, a time-honored tradition among lords to increase their lands that way. But in Myrrima’s mind, it was also damned near to prostitution.