The Totem-Maker (part forty-two)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Six

A First Road

(part forty-two)

Chapter Six

A First Road

No one that day had further use for me. Although more certain with each step, that at Cime’s house I would be barred, I returned. Stol and Larsa were not in the servant’s hall; my pallet was, and I lay on it. I was only tired.

I woke to a conversation under the window, of the Prince’s deputy and Elberin.

“There were signs, Wosogo. Everything had grown lush, a wonder. That the soil could ever become fertile, and so soon… The strange trees infest the hills you are about to cross. If it pleases your lord, he may say the wind delivered them. But as he rides over Lotoq’s dead, let him beware.”

The man by name or rank Wosogo said, the metal things that pierced his face clicking, “The seer carries fortune. Such plans, I may say, as your Lotoq…”

“Perhaps you mean to arrive at this—that my wisdom was not sufficient to predict such havoc. Well, I don’t claim to know the mind of the Giver. He rumbles, it is not always ill-omened. Or not for us in this present life. The newcomers wanted the foundling sent away, and I bowed to them. Now the lake of sweet water has gone sour.”

I had brought at my birth too much of taxas, the gods’ dark designs, and the newcomers—now as well the people of Monsecchers—feared to have me among them.

I pushed from my pallet and went to the steps.

Elberin took slow note of my unwashed mud. “You are not wearing the only clothes Cime Decima has given you?”

“Surely I am less suited than another you may readily hire.”

He waited me out. I offered mercy: “For whatever task my clothes are too plain for, or too stained. Also, it’s late in the day… To me, the day has been long.”

“Well, there.” Elberin spoke to Wosogo. “What you will find yourself contending with. I believe the Prince calls it cleverness, and amuses himself with our superstitions regardless… Our little customs. He may like to possess a seer, he will wish he had not. However seeming, the words will betray these forays into outreasoning, so that getting just what he asks for, the Prince lands at a disadvantage. One day, at no advantage. Goodbye.”

His pace became resolute, and the back of him passed Cime’s gate. There Elberin turned, and said to me, “Your road goes one way, and mine another.”

“The gods are so kind.”

“The Prince will have us start the road tomorrow. It is winter soon, and we have all this land to cross to the sea, where we are going.”

These were not Elberin’s words, his fading grumble—to himself, for my ears. Wosogo had a frown on his face, of interior work. His fluency in our language ebbed (I supposed), as he measured in his own what he wished to say next.

“The Prince makes you free. There are fortunes to be told on every man who journeys. Every beast, horse and oxen, every sun’s rise and set. It is always with our people to be at odds to the sea. That is an old curse upon us.”

46

The Mustering Grounds

The Totem-Maker (part forty-three)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)