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22 - Village of old people
Just as Venla has come into her own the campaign has come back to Valdyas and I’ll have to take over GMing quite soon. I don’t know how suited she is to NPC-hood (though it’s probably good for her to be eclipsed by Amre a little so she doesn’t get overconfident).
There were about fifteen or twenty people on the road to pick us up, and they were all old! Almost nobody was younger than forty or fifty, except one girl who looked a bit younger than us who was dressed as a priestess of Naigha, and two little boys who looked as alike as Arvi and Aine did. And they were all big people, too, the little boys were almost as tall as Jeran though they must be younger, and the young priestess of Naigha was taller than even Mazao.
The road was slippery, because (as the big woman called Hinla said, who seemed to be the leader) the fog had frozen to the snow. But we could talk as we walked, and everybody wanted to talk to us. There was an older priestess of Naigha as well as the little one, and Hinla’s husband Felen with his short grey beard, and several people whose names I couldn’t remember even if I heard them. They said that where we were going was called Vestynay because of the spring, and where we’d been sleeping was Tal-Brynen, the hunting-lodge on the top of the mountain. Vestynay was halfway down the next hill, each house on its own flat bit of hillside, with water running in the gorge below. “We had a big house too, when the lord’s family was living here, but they all died or went away and then we didn’t need the big house any more and used the stones to build with,” Hinla said. And indeed, when we got to the village we saw the bottom part of the big house still there, a bit like in Tal-Borin, only there weren’t any goats or chickens scratching in it.
As we passed the houses we could see still older people in the doorways, Felen’s mother for one, “she’s the oldest in the village!” he said proudly. A little girl came running out and said “this is great-granny, she’s eighty-eighty-eight!” Tao knelt in front of her to kiss her feet, and Veh went down laboriously on his walking-sticks to do the same. “Why do those black-skinned boys kneel for granny?” the little girl asked. “Because they’re Ishey boys and that’s what they do when someone’s a very old and venerable woman,” I said. “Well, get up out of the snow,” great-grandmother said, “you’re getting all cold!” And she went with us, and also a lot of other old people, because we were going to the hot spring first and it was on the other side just outside the village.
The little priestess, Aylin, walked with us for a while too. She told us that someone called Hylti had gone to town to find a husband— and the town was called Trynfarin! That was where we were taking Imri! “How far is that?” I asked, and she said three weeks in summer and six or seven weeks in winter if you can get there at all. (And we were nine days from Tal-Borin, Jeran had counted.) “I know Tal-Brynen too,” she said, “Amre and I used to play there when she was alive, she was eleven, and Felen too, but last year they were ill with coughing and they died, both of them. And then I went to the temple to learn.”
A man helped Jeran unhitch the mule and took her away to let her rest and eat, “I’ve been married for forty years, I can cope with mules by now! Is she called Sidhan by any chance?” And then suddenly his wife was behind him, a dour-faced woman in the Guild of the Nameless (while the man was in the Guild of Anshen). “Welcome, little grand master,” she said to me and I could just manage a grin. They argued all the time, I wondered how they could stand being married all this time.
Beyond the village there was a hollow in the hillside with a gate, all sculpture, a bit like what we’d seen at Dadán, women and children and mothers with babies on their arm, and mothers suckling babies, and flowers and trees, and all kinds of animals. “That’s beautiful!” I said. “Who made it?” “We don’t know,” Hinla said, “we think perhaps Timoine. But in Trynfarin they say that Timoine doesn’t have any temples.” “Timoine does have a temple in Solay!” I said, “we’ve been in it. And there all the walls are decorated too.” And both Amre and I could feel that Dayati —Timoine, we were in Valdyas after all— was really here. Inside there was a large square room hacked out of the rock, with a fireplace in one of the far corners, and a basin in the middle with water in it that steamed. The air was cold but the fire was beginning to warm it up.
Veh was running his fingers over the wall carvings, looking thoughtful. “I think this has been built by Ishey. And I don’t think I— we— us boys— are allowed in here. I think it’s a temple for women.” “Because of the pictures?” I asked. “No— because of the writing. I can read this.” When I looked more closely I could see that what had looked like more decoration, whole patches of squiggles, was really writing I couldn’t read. (Of course he’d been brought up as a girl when he was smaller, so he’d learnt to read Ishey writing!) “It’s a song for the gods, for the Mother, all about having babies.” “But everybody is in here!” I said, “the whole village, men as well as women.” That didn’t make Veh any less uncomfortable, and it became worse when people started to urge us to take our clothes off and get into the waiting tubs to wash before we could go in the big bath. He backed off when the priestess came to help him —of course she thought it was because he couldn’t manage with his ribs— but Veh said he’d made a vow not to be naked in front of strangers! So he got a tub in the other room, behind a door, which was a little temple really to the Mother. Here some of the decorations were painted gold! Amre and I were allowed in to help him. When he was naked, out of the bandages, and in the tub, Riei, the priestess, came in with clean shirts. We couldn’t keep her away! But she’d already seen what was the matter with Veh. “I’m fifty-seven years old and I’ve never been out of this village except when I was a girl sent away to learn,” she said, “and I’ve hardly seen anything of the world until you came here just now and laid the world on our doorstep, but I do know about people. It takes all kinds. Now let me look at that broken rib, please.” And she praised us for the way we had set it, and for taking care of Mazao’s shoulder as well! She had put some ointment on that would make it heal faster, but that was all she could do because we’d done everything else already, and done it right too.
Then we all sat in the large bath, except Mazao and Veh who couldn’t because of their bandages. Veh was glad to have an excuse! “Is it always like that in Valdyas, that everybody goes in the bath together naked? Because then I’ll have to have a very good story. I’ll stick with a vow to the gods for now.” I wasn’t sure, but I said I thought yes. “But you’ll be going to the Plains anyway, won’t you?” “Yes, and they’ll probably have a bath-place where —boys like me— can be together.”
Now, of course, everybody wanted to know everything. And it was a good kind of place to tell people things. Hinla was shocked that there was a king —who we were going to deliver letters to, but that was not what shocked her, Ayran had never in all the years that he’d been travelling past the village and bringing salt and other things from the town told anyone that Queen Alyse had died and that there was now King Athal. And the villagers had never known what else he’d been carrying! “That’s another thing,” Hinla said, “better take a letter to Eirith’s Hylti when you’re going to Trynfarin, because now we’re not going to get the merchants any more.”
Then two big men with wide beards came in, clearly brothers, and suddenly the talk fell silent. Hinla greeted them kind of formally, “Meruvin. Perain.” “Hinla. We were still at the sheep pen, couldn’t get away earlier. These are the guests?” “Meruvin is the head of the Guild of the Nameless here, and I’m the head of the Guild of Anshen,” she told us in a low voice. The brothers had brought a sheep, and after a while it was roasting in front of the fire and it became a pleasant gathering again, with food and drink and talk. The twin boys were now looking at the Ishey writing and the pictures and arguing. “He knows!” one said, meaning Veh, and they came to fetch him and pointed out a carved figure. “Lan says it’s Mizran but I think it’s the One, he doesn’t have a fox and Mizran has a fox, right?” “It’s neither,” Veh said. “Does the writing say that? You know that, don’t you?” “I can’t tell you,” Veh said, “because you’re not—” —and caught himself in time— “Ishey.” “Well, then you aren’t allowed to learn to read our writing!” the boy said.
The younger of the brothers —Meruvin, the head of the Guild— came to sit next to me, “I have to ask this though I already know your answer: won’t you stay and learn from me?” “No, thanks,” I said, and I saw the laugh-lines around his eyes. “We can’t stay anyway, we’re on an errand.” He understood that, but also knew it wasn’t only that, and it made him shrug and grin. Another master of the Nameless who is sort of nice, really. Perhaps it doesn’t really make much difference after all, though I haven’t met anyone who is nasty and with Anshen.
One old woman —Ardyth, I think— nudged me and said “Are you going to marry those nice boys?” “No,” I said, “they’re not interested, none of them!” “Not even that curly-head there? He’s so handsome!” And she went over to Veh and proposed to him! As a joke, I think, but there was something serious about it too. “The village is dying,” she said, “it needs some young blood.” Veh talked about his vow to the gods again: not only did it mean that he couldn’t take his clothes off, it also made him never get married.
Then we all went to Hinla’s house, where she’d promised we could all stay together to sleep. This was a long house that was a stable on one side, where a not-so-old (and not-so-clever, I think) man was taking care of two big horses and three cows. On the other side there was a kitchen, and bales of straw and sacks of farm stuff in the middle. They built a kind of room from straw for us, and Tao made a bed with high sides for Mazao and Veh to lie in so nobody would step on them in the dark. “Can we sleep in the straw too?” Hinla’s little boy and girl asked. “Yes, you may,” Hinla said, “but sleep, no catching mice!” “But if I see a rat may I use my sling?” Jeran asked. “Ooh, do you have a real sling?” the little boy asked. “Can I see it?” But it was really too dark to see anything, and Jeran promised that he’d show it tomorrow.
We woke to the sound of children’s voices and the smell of porridge. Athal scrambled over the straw to fetch us, “you’ve missed the first breakfast already, the pancakes! Now there’s only porridge left!” But there was enough for everybody, and Hinla urged us to eat more —more than we could, too— because she thought we were too thin. I was beginning to see how all these people got so large.
Then the priestess of Naigha came in with her apprentice to see if anybody needed doctoring. We told her about the little girls’ fevers that came and went without any cause we could see, and she looked at them closely —“you’ve had the lung fever, right?” “yes, we coughed a lot!”— but couldn’t see anything, any more than me or Amre or the priestess in Tal-Borin. We did tell her that we thought Ayran had given them poison, and that we were taking them to Valdis where there were doctors who knew about that. “Have you pooped already?” Riei asked the girls. “Yes, with the cows!”
Ailin sat down next to us, girls together, and I think I made a little blanket over us without noticing because everybody else didn’t seem to be interested. “You know,” she said, “tomorrow is the Feast of Naigha, and I’m going to be a journeyman priestess— well— you know I have to— those boys of yours—” I knew what she was getting at, priestesses of Naigha are only allowed to make love once a year, on the Feast. and then they have to! “I don’t want a man of sixty!” she said, and I could only agree with her. But it was Veh she liked best, and thought Riei knew about Veh it was clear she hadn’t told Ailin. “He’s made a vow to the gods,” I said. “Like being a priestess of Naigha?” Ailin asked. “Yes, sort of like that, but it’s never with him.” Then Ailin went and asked Tao “can I talk to you, only the two of us with nobody else there?” and they disappeared together. “What have you done with my apprentice?” Riei asked when she noticed that Ailin wasn’t there. “She said she had to get back to the temple,” Veh said. Later, when Tao came back, he was too embarrassed to talk about it, he only exchanged looks with Mazao. “What did she want from you?” Veh asked him, but he wouldn’t answer.
That day everybody went to do different things. Jarn had asked Jeran to help with the mule, because its hooves had to be cut. When Mazao heard that he wanted to go too; if that had to be done every few weeks he’d better learn. We made new splints for his leg so he could walk with two sticks like Veh.
Amre and I went to the bath-house to do our washing. Nearly all the small children were running through the village and playing in the snow, with the twin boys as the leaders. Only one little girl, Layse, was helping fat Lyse over a steaming tub. As we were hanging up our shirts, everything started to shake and the door to the Mother’s temple flew open. “Get out!” Lyse called. “Earthquake!” We got outside as fast as we could. Most people were outside already, the children staying close to the adults. The village children didn’t seem to be afraid, but ours were, Athal holding on to me, Imri to Amre, and Jeran and the little girls to the boys. The bath-house stayed whole, though it was shaken a lot, but one of the houses lost part of its straw roof on the next shake. We heard a woman cursing inside that house and calling “My cheese! Get out of here!” And when we were about to go in to see if we could help, an enormous pig ran out pursued by an old woman with a broom. “This pig is so going to pay. Jarn! You slaughter her today, we’ll have black pudding on the feast!” she said to a very large, very hairy man. The earthquake had made all her cheeses fall off the shelves, and the pig had eaten half and trampled the rest. Now it was in the garden, eating the cabbages. A very strange kind of cabbages they were, they looked like little dark green trees.
Tao looked at the broken roof and said “I can fix that!” with that Ishey look in his eyes. “I’ll take you up on that, sonny,” big Jarn said. There were another few shocks, then it seemed to have stopped. “We’ll probably have some aftershocks,” someone said, “but it’s safe now, it’s happened before.” Some people brought fresh straw, and the large man lifted Tao up on the roof and it turned out that he could really fix it! “Are you sure you’re not staying?” Jarn asked him, but Tao shook his head, “I haven’t finished travelling.” “You know, I wouldn’t mind staying here,” Athal said to me. “Hmm,” I said, “that probably wouldn’t be a bad idea at all, you don’t have any family anyway.” And the cheese woman said “Let’s talk about that later— I’m Sidhan. Big Jarn’s wife.”
Then we went to finish the washing —the earth rumbled, and it was a little scary but Lyse said it wasn’t dangerous. “It’s stood here for hundreds of years, it will stand a little longer.” Then she told us about the side room that had caved in, and the doors higher up in the hillside where nobody ever went, it was like a maze up there. Like the maze in Dadán, I thought, and told her about the city of the dead there. “No dead people up there,” Lyse said, “fortunately! We had enough dead people last year, Riei was working day and night when we had the illness.”
At Sidhan and Jarn’s house we found not only Athal, but the twin boys too, and four-year-old Eldan, Hylti’s son, who was smearing pancake in his hair. “Bacon pancakes! Do you want some?” Athal said, and we did, and they were delicious. “You need to eat more,” Sidhan said, “you’re much too small and thin! This boy, too.” It was true that Athal was really scrawny, but perhaps he’d grow as big as the other boys if he stayed here. Sidhan did really want him, to grow up with her own grandsons. “You do have to know something,” Athal said. “I’m a bad boy, a thief and a miserable beggar!” “What have you stolen, then?” Sidhan asked him, but he couldn’t answer that. “It’s what Uncle Ferin says.” “Your Uncle Ferin must have been wrong,” I said. “I met another Uncle Ferin, and he said the same kind of things to a little girl, and he was completely wrong too.” “But I’m still a miserable beggar!” “People are only beggars when they don’t have enough,” I said, “and there’s enough of everything here so you don’t have to be.”
“I’m going to kill that pig now,” Big Jarn said. “Want to see it, young ladies? Anyone else?” I called the boys because I knew they’d probably want to, but I could reach only Veh: Mazao and Tao were under a spirit blanket together, deep in conversation. The way to the slaughtering-place was very steep and slippery and we had to help Veh down, while Jarn went ahead with the pig on a rope. The pig didn’t like it one bit, and bolted, taking Jarn with her down the slope. He fell down hard and let go of the rope. Some other men went after the pig, while Amre and went to help Jarn, leaving Veh in the middle of the slope. Someone else helped him down later, but we were called as doctors.
He’d broken his thigh-bone, but not his back, or he wouldn’t have been able to push himself up and swear. We made him lie down again and Amre called the priestess of Naigha, but it turned out that someone else had done that already and she arrived almost the same moment that Amre called, with Ailin in tow. “I think we can set this bone,” I said, “but we thought it would be better to wait until you came so we can do it together.” “You do it,” Riei said, “but can you let Ailin watch so she can learn something?” No problem: Ailin was gifted enough to see what we were doing, and we had her pull the leg straight —it was only cracked, not broken right through— while Amre and I coaxed the bone back into place. “Nice work!” Riei said. “Where did you learn that?” “In the war hospital. Lots of broken bones there, and we had a very good teacher.” Jarn had also hit his head and he was concussed, but not badly, and we could put him mostly right, though he did throw up.
Then Riei made some strong men pull Jarn up and said “Now you shall learn something from me. With a fall like that, you always have to check the hips, too.” And yes, there was a crack in his hip near the tail-bone, but it was better to get him home first to do something about that. As soon as Jarn was lying on his front on a straw bed —impossible to get him into the bedstead— we tried to fix the hip, this time together with Ailin who was learning fast. Riei was all praise, “Good! He’ll be able to sit again in a couple of weeks.”
All of this had made me very hungry, and both of us very tired (somehow Amre only gets tired from hard work with her mind, but I get both tired and hungry) and we got thick pea soup with bits of salt pork and sausage in it that we couldn’t eat much of, it was so heavy. Hinla came to give Riei a flask of wine, “for you and Ailin, for the feast”. Riei thanked her and took Ailin to the temple, saying “we have a duty to fulfill”. Then Hinla took one look at us and swept us off to her own house to sleep. A small crowd of children were there, catching mice— though what they mostly did was chase each other. “Shoo! Go catch mice somewhere else!” Hinla said, and we fell into the straw and slept until someone woke us up in the middle of the night because it was now really the Feast of Naigha.
Everybody was in their best clothes! Lyse asked us if we had beautiful clothes from our own country, and Amre said she did have Iss-Peranian clothes but they were too cold for the weather. “But you can wear a cloak! It’s only to the bath-house, we use that as a village hall in winter, it’s nice and warm there.” So she put them on anyway, and I put on the Ishey dress that would never be completely white again. “Ooh! Aren’t you a pair of pretty princesses!” Lyse said, not listening when we said that I’d grown up poor and Amre had grown up very poor, and we weren’t princesses at all.
On the way to the feast we passed the temple of Naigha, and everybody put something in the basket, some food or clothes, but we didn’t have anything. “Let’s give them a wolf-skin!” I said to Amre with my mind, and she agreed but we didn’t want to go back in the dark without all the others. “Never mind, we can do it later.” Then we arrived, and there was a lot of nice food and drink, and singing, and round Lyse played a fiddle-with-a-handle called a hurdy-gurdy that made a lot of noise, and people danced. “Do you dance, where you come from?” someone asked, and we decided to dance but very primly, with all our clothes on. I asked Veh to play the drum for us, and he took an upturned bucket but one of the men gave him a real drum made with a pig’s bladder. Now everybody really thought we were princesses! “I should have walked south after all when I was a lad!” one of the men said, and that earned him a poke in the side from his wife.
“Tao and Mazao have gone off,” Veh said. “Together? The two of them?” I asked, but he shook his head, “not the two of them!” And when we were back at the house, we heard giggling and whispering in the attic, Ailin and Tao and Mazao, all exasperated: “No, not there! This way! Careful!” We exchanged a mind-grin with Veh and went to sleep.
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