-3-

The next day, Ucar still hadn't returned, and we were starting to worry. The widow admonished us without conviction and told us to find him as soon as possible. I washed my face in the fresh water tank stored in front of the barn, while Brindy and Robin helped feed the pigs. They were rewarded for their efforts with a few slices of bread that were still steaming. Kneeling on the side of the road, near the rocky outcrop where the old woman grew her herbal tea herbs, we quickly enjoyed our soft loot in large hot bites.

Then, seated in a triangle in the courtyard, we estimated a research plan.

It was agreed that Robin would take care of the Basin, and also of Brown Horn. The guards, who liked him better than us because of his pipe, could perhaps inform him. Brindy would go to the Brown wharf and then up the river to the sawmill. As for me, I proposed to cut through the orchard hill and then go down to the edge of Brown. From there, I could follow the river southward, and the few isolated cottages where we sometimes went to carry wool and eggs for the widow. I had the most difficult task, for I had a greater distance to cover than the others, and I could only count on myself for my lunch. In addition, the southern path went deep into the forest, where no child nourished by the tales of the clans likes to walk alone. But, to impress Brindy, I was ready for anything.

After an exchange of agreements and resolute words, we went our separate ways. I slowly climbed the orchard hill, my feet soaked with dew, a sprig of wild wheat stuck between my teeth. The summer would soon come to an end. In the region at the foot of the Hornus mountains, the proximity of the mountains ensures a long and cold winter and, except from Cover Pass, no other primacies live this season as harshly as Brown Horn. In the same way, if the sun could burn the skin in summer, we rarely had really stifling heats, the fresh wind coming from the High Lands quickly dispersed any beginning of heat wave.

My new pants were annoying me. In summer we went barefoot. No matter how many times I folded them up, my legs would always end up falling down and I kept walking on them. In addition, the shiny tallow leather that Frieze had made me waterproof was slippery because of the humidity of the grass and threatened me with a serious accident. I'd fall down if I wasn't careful. I scattered the sheep on my way, without much spirit, while brooding over the idea of going back to the farm to ask the widow for her boots, in which I could certainly stuff my pants. I knew in my heart that the old lady would never agree to lend me anything and so I finally decided to bear with it.

At the top of the hill, I wandered for a while among the fruit trees, scanning through the branches. When it became obvious that Ucar was not there, I began to fill my pockets with fruit in anticipation of the day, which was going to be long. However, my guts were starting to suffer from the excessive consumption of green apples, and I was hoping to find something else on the way. After crossing the large orchard, I lingered for a few moments at the top to look south. The first foliage of the Stone Forest, which stretched as far as the eye could see down below, followed the few pastures around the hill.

Brown Horn had never been an agricultural primacy, except for a few scattered farms, nestled between stony fields where only raves and tubers could grow. The traditional exports had always been the wood, white chestnut and hard pine trees that the loggers chopped on the slopes of the Hornus mountains, before tipping them into the Brown, as well as the carved blocks of the endemic black granite. The town had always relied on exchanges with Wadd and Franlake to provide for the food needs of its inhabitants. However, with the opening of new trade routes during the reign of Ab, Brown Horn gradually began to fill the traders' cogues and barges with other precious commodities such as furs, amber, and a plethora of elaborate curios that the clans brought back from the High Lands. All of this left on the river's flow, towards the lively ports of the Lower Brown and the Pulo march, whose ships, in turn, anchored towards Rajja, Lema, or the Five Cities, and sometimes further still, as far as Three Islands, and the Earth Star.

I took a breathing to give myself courage. I set off towards the banks of the river and the southern road that was disappearing under the conifers. The morning was coming to an end, my belly was growling, and I cursed Ucar. While crossing the fields, I came across a young shepherdess with brown and curly hair, the same as most Brownian girls, and I asked her briefly if she had seen my companion earlier. She replied in the negative without seeming to think about it, and then ended up chasing me away when I offered her some green fruit in exchange for some bread or cheese. Miserable, I sank into the forest around noon, nibbling a new apple that I was sure I would regret later.

The sun filtering through the branches, the singing of the birds, the softness of the bed of needles under my feet and the smell of fresh humus gradually erased my misfortunes. I surprised a dwarf doe that flew off in front of me and scared me to death. Boldly, I set off in pursuit. It took me a few dozen spans to understand that I would never catch it, and short breathed, I had to resign myself to see the slender animal disappear into the thickets. I finally reached the edge of Brown, where I decided to take a break, my feet in the water, near the dusty path.

The southern road was hardly ever used, simply because it led nowhere. Theoretically, following the river's course one could reach the Tampo Door, the immense fortified bridge that crosses the river to link Wadd's primacy to that of Wolf Bay, but the journey took weeks and, even on the banks of the Brown, it remained a dangerous undertaking. For the most part, the clans of the Basin were friendly to strangers, but there was always the possibility of a bad time, and the Stone Forest was also home to its share of exiles, cutthroats and brigands. This was considered a foolish risk, as the river route was easier, safer, and faster. Thus, the southern route followed the Brown riverbank for a few dozen miles, up to the farthest cottages, and then vanished into the forest where it disappeared completely.

As I was about to leave, bending down to splash my neck, I noticed quite by chance a few feathers clinging to the dragging grass. A few steps away, with a smile on my face, I discovered wild duck's nest, hidden under a reed bed. As the nest was empty and the eggs were cold, I judged that the incubation had not yet begun, and that they were certainly edible. I opened one carefully to make sure it was fresh and, after sniffing it, I swallowed it whole. I swallowed three more eggs and marked the nest with a branch to pick up the others when I returned.

With my belly a little too full, I hurried along the path, imagining how Robin and Brindy would react when I'd come back with all those eggs.

Along the way, I invented more and more fantastic episodes, in which I returned to Brown Horn as a triumphant hero, with my eggs and Ucar that I would deliver from the claws of a scal, whose chitin I would then sell to build us a house, while Brindy would contemplate me with eyes filled with admiration and gratitude.

I was suddenly startled. In front of me, the river was diverging from the path to describe a marshy bend from which emerged - between the rushes - the ragged silhouette of a sick old willow tree. My dreamy gaze had succeeded in transforming the trunk into a threatening monster, a spirit devouring the river. Relieved and trembling, I respectfully approached the tree to touch his cracked bark. Like a weeping woman, the tree seemed to extend long mourning arms over the water. In its antlers, the pikes were buzzing. The water lapped serenely around the submerged roots, swollen and twisted like shiny water snakes.

That's when I saw my first dead body.

The stump had seized in the process what I had, at first sight, taken for a heap of garbage. As I got closer, I saw that it was a compact shape, with two long black stems sticking out. I understood a little brutally that they were arrows, and that the shape was that of a dead man. For a moment, a knot formed in the hollow of my belly at the thought that it could be Ucar, but my fears quickly dissipated: the dead man was much too big. I took a hesitant step backwards, while the stench of rotting flesh flowed back to my nostrils. I stood there for a while, contemplating the body, before deciding what to do next. After taking a deep breath, so as not to inhale the smell of carrion, I put a firm foot on the curvature of the trunk, grabbed a few pieces of cloth, and managed to drag the dead man dripping down the bank.

The carps didn't leave much. He had no nose, lips, or ears, and little flesh on his fingers or feet.

The abdomen was half devoured and the viscera had disappeared. I think for a moment, not knowing what to do with my macabre discovery. To my great disappointment, apart from his clothes, there was nothing else on him. After trying in vain to tear the arrows out of his back, I decided that the best course of action was probably to return to Brown Horn to warn the guards. So I turned around with a brisk pace and, in the heat of the afternoon, I headed for the docks. The stench that stuck to my hand wouldn't go away despite all my efforts, and I was so disgusted that I forgot my eggs.

After several hours of walking under a blazing sun, I finally reached the Brown wharf, dusty and sweaty. To my astonishment, I discovered a small group of fishermen, who were gathering around Robin, Brindy, and a Ucar looking exhausted but radiant. Beside him, resting on the damp wood of the wharf, laid an enormous catfish. The creature, almost as long as two men placed end to end and as thick as the widow's big sow, must have been three spans long. In disbelief, I approached my friends, and it was Brindy who told me what had happened in an excited voice.

Brindy had gone to the port, where she had been told that Ucar had taken a line the day before to go fishing upstream from the sawmill, and she had finally discovered it in the middle of the morning, exhausted, clinging to a tree. He had been out all night, and the catfish had woken him up when he had bitten in the early morning. Feeling dragged into the water, Ucar grabbed onto the nearest tree, jammed his line and, with the tenacity of a ratter, he wouldn't let go. And after trying in vain to rescue him, Brindy ran at full speed to the docks from where she had returned with three old fishermen. The three old fishermen were not too many to get the monster out of the river.

While Brindy was talking to me, men began to cut the catfish into quarters with a chopper. A quarter for the owner of the line. A quarter to be shared among the old men who had brought it back. The other half of the enormous creature was returned to Ucar, and he glowed with pride, not so much because of his feat, but because of the attention he received. Usually, glances would glide over us like bacon on a polished board, but now everyone suddenly seemed to know us. He had no trouble selling most of the fish on the spot, and the son of the huntsman even came down from the castle to ask him for the head of the creature, which he wanted to stuff to decorate the great hall of the primate Bard.

Ucar soon found himself in possession of what was for us a small fortune.

And I was miserable as a stone. My hand reeked of death, I had walked all day and above all, Brindy had eyes only for Ucar. All my heroic afternoon fantasies had just been annihilated, and even my duck eggs now seemed to me of a perfectly distressing poverty. Ucar was the hero, and I was Fyss, the little savage whose hand stank. Depressed, I turned away from the spectacle when there were only the biggest bones left of the fish. Then, in the shade of a smokehouse not far from there, I noticed the old Nep and a few other guards, no doubt coming down from the city to admire the monster. Leaning on their spears, they were sweating under their gambisons while exchanging news with an itinerant merchant. I took my courage in both hands and slipped up to them. The other three men ignored me, but Nep ended up turning his face towards me. I explained to him in a small voice that I had found a dead man.

Suddenly I had the full attention of the other soldiers, and they inundated me with tough questions which I answered as best I could. After giving me this treatment for a long time, the guards of the patrol left the smokehouse shelter with a determined step and a severe look on their face. When one of the fishermen gathered around Ucar asked them what was going on, Nep shook his head and said in a low voice, "I heard that the boy found a dead man." He then turned his back on us and took the road to Brown Horn with a brisk pace.

The attention of the fishermen left Ucar and what was left of its catfish. "Is it true, boy? Did you find a dead man?" Questions and speculations were suddenly raised around me, while a new small crowd formed: "Where did you find him?" "Where was he?""He was Brownian?" "Surely it was the Fysses who killed him", "I hope it wasn't my uncle, he still hasn't come back from White Wood". I was asked to tell my story several times, in jostling and cacophony, so much so that I ended up regretting having envied Ucar. The evening was there when I was finally left alone.

Ucar pocketed his loot, and we all took the road to the Ronna farm together. We talked on the way. Robin stared at me :

"But you didn't manage to remove the arrows?"

"No, they were too far in."

Ucar laughed and bulged his chest:

"Or maybe it's because you weren't strong enough."

I shook my head:

"No, they were really stuck. He was bloody well killed."

Murmurs of understanding approval rose up around me. I awkwardly congratulated Ucar on his catch, for after tasting a celebrity I had found so bitter, I felt that we were even. Brindy put a definite end to the tension when she offered me a bouquet of fragrant herbs picked along the way, recommending that I rub my hand with it, which made us all laugh. We soon made our way back to the farm yard, Solas the gander made a series of loud cackling noises, and the widow came out to greet us for once, no doubt relieved to see that Ucar had returned safe and sound. We assailed her with the noisy tale of our adventures and she let us eat the soup on the steps of the porch. When we had finished our story, the widow raised her eyebrows and gave us a look that meant she had seen many others. Still, Ucar gave her a large fillet of catfish that he had put aside on purpose. The widow took it without saying anything, but I saw that the gesture had touched her.

That night I fell asleep in the hay, Brindy didn't squeeze against me because of the smell that didn't go away, and I sank into a restless sleep.

I dreamed of the dead man and his domesticated catfish. When I wanted to pull him out of the water, he grabbed me in an embrace made prickly by the countless arrows that pierced his flesh, and he wanted to take me into the river to feed his fish. No matter what I did, I could not get away from the banks of the Brown, and the dead man always ended up finding me.