Mid-year 623

Fall

Ploughing Moon

From the eastern shore of the river Brown to the banks of the river Gor, which mark the border with Wadd, the High-Brown lives in the shade of a vast forest of century-old deciduous trees. The Brownians call it the forest of Vaw, although these woods also cover most of the Cover-Pass townships, as far as the granite foothills of the Horned mountains. It is a truly ancient forest, where gnarly trunks and tortured roots sprout thick moss like gardens of plant statues. In summer, the shade is so dense that the sun's reverberation on the clay roads is almost blinding, and in some places one can walk at night without fear of falling as the air is saturated by the flight of fireflies. Insects, game, predators and birds, under the canopy, all mix their songs in a strange and perpetual music, which some call "the voice of Vaw". It is said that the trappers of the area can understand the language of the woods as well as the words of any man, but if this is true, I don't know.

The trees of the forest of Vaw have provided, for centuries, quality essences to the craftsmen of the southern primacy: we find the vawan oak in the boards of the squeaky barges of Franlake, and the vawan birch in the burning ovens of the bakers of Amuber. Moreover, the forest itself has always served as a rampart to war, deterring invasions and providing a safe haven for its inhabitants. Yet life in the wooded cantons of Vaw and Cover-Pass is far from idyllic. Arable land is a rare luxury outside of the clearings around the towns and manses and, as a result, agriculture is particularly fragile.

The very existence of the primacy of Vaw and Cover-Pass is a permanent struggle, only the axes and cleaning tools stand up to protect the stones from the devouring vegetation. This delicate situation actually creates another one: banditry and uprisings against the local lords are widespread. This tradition of insubordination of the vawan people is particularly present in the foothills of the Thorns, where the proximity to the plateau of the Brambles - and the wild Ktoï people who inhabit it - causes a confused tension. About the mysterious Ktoï there are as many stories of witchcraft, massacres and kidnappings as there are stories of donations, rescues and even armed assistance to peasant rebellions. This was particularly the case during the war of the vine, which took place more than half a century before I was born.

In Brown-Horn, if the eyes turned more towards the west, if the ravines and the hard pines of the forest of Stones were closer, more able to feed the ballads and legends, it does not prevent that, on the opposite bank, the deep forest of Vaw also extended as far as the eye could see. It was only after I fled from Brown-Horn, as I travelled under the reddening foliage of autumn, that I truly took the measure of the vast world. The forest of Vaw was a real change of scenery, not a distant and rustling scene, nor an intangible spectacle whose colors changed with the seasons. For the first time in my life, each furtive rustle, each bird song, each forest road stretched before me in a myriad of possibilities and unknowns.

I awoke as night fell, stiff and bruised from the ride. It took me a moment to find my marks and remember how I had come to this point, encircled by a babbling nature, a root stuck in the ribs. The day before, at dawn, we had galloped across the Woody Tower, to get into the forest beyond. My fingers were numb from squeezing so tightly around Ulrick's belt. We had walked, then, to rest the sweaty horses, then trotted again, on the dirt road that was covered in places with the first dead leaves of the season. The Val had not spoken to me during the cavalcade and, in spite of my aching legs, I had begun to drowse around noon, exhausted by the lack of rest, hunger, and nervous tension. I had almost fallen off the saddle of the charger. Ulrick, always silent, had stopped our progress the time to make me pass in front, had given me a piece of dried meat to suck on, and I finally fell asleep for good, between the reins.

Now, as the shadows around me grew longer, I felt as if I hadn't rested at all. I found myself lying in a small valley, half leaning against the warm saddle of the charger, covered with a coarse woollen blanket. Near me laid the load of the pack gelding, with the armor and equipment of the val-warrior. Farther on, a tarpaulin had been stretched between two yellowing alders, in front of which a small campfire sizzled laboriously. Horses grazed nearby, noisily pulling moss and grass in their path. I was surprised to see them grazing like this, in complete freedom, since there was no sign of Ulrick around. I got up with difficulty and, shivering, I limped towards the hesitant sparks. Water was heating with difficulty in a dented pewter pot and I stirred the embers to encourage the flames. My thoughts returned to the previous night, to the ash rain on Horn-Hill, and I remembered the fire. My belly grumbled loudly.

I was having difficulty understanding what was happening to me, now that the emotional anesthesia I had draped myself in to face the scaffold was wearing off. In a way, I felt relieved. After all, I wasn't going to hang anymore. Nevertheless, looking at things, there was this uprooted little boy sitting alone by a shy fire, at the mercy of strange sounds and growing darkness. I was swarming with apprehension and anxiety. For the first time, my future was no longer mapped out. Everything I knew had been left behind and everything I loved too. There was only an unknown desert in front of me, and the absence of Ulrick at that moment, the protector whose flesh I had rummaged without knowing anything else, only added to the uneasiness. I had escaped the chains and the rope, but nothing had prepared me for what might lie beyond. In that solitary moment, I had the feeling of collapsing inside, as helpless as the dead leaves that the wind had swept in our footsteps. Everything had gone so fast. I sighed and rummaged through the embers again, before looking towards the horses, the only comfort available.

The large mare, whose bay dress glowed in the reflections of the setting sun, raised her head as I approached while the grey gelding continued to graze without paying attention to me. I moved forward, slowly, so as not to frighten her, with a handful of succulent grasses stretched out in front of me. A bribe, in exchange for a little heat. The mare piafed nervously, folded her ears back and took a few dancing steps towards me, while blowing.

I stopped, startled, suddenly no longer very sure of myself. It was an imposing beast, nothing like the horses of the Lemis stable, not even the most turbulent steeds. The mare approached again, shaking her big head and fluttering her brush-cut black mane.

She curled up her lips. I took a step back. The animal accelerated suddenly. The humus was crushing under its broad hooves and the beast had metamorphosed into a howling mountain of nervous muscles, rolling eyes and teeth. I opened my mouth and let go of the herbs, then Ulrick's deep scream sounded like a whiplash from the woods:

"Naï Berda! Naï !"

The mare blew and quietly turned away from me. I was recovering from my fright as the Val advanced between the trees, a large armful of dry branches on his shoulder. He was carrying only his gambeson, which made him seem a little less massive than usual, and he was walking down into the comb, his face red, gesticulating with his other hand. Sheepish, I retreated to the fire. "You're stupid, Sletling," he spat when he came up to me, and I saw anger in his eyes and something else too, sadder but no less angry. He threw the branches beside the fire.

"Berda is not a toy for your caresses. It's a war horse, a rigan charger. She will break your bones, she will kill you if she can." I swallowed miserably and looked down. "Forgive me, my lord," I said in a small voice. Ulrick frowned, shifted the pot and placed a branch on the bed of embers. "I didn't bring you out of your prison so that my own horse could crush you. Give her time. She'll get used to it." I nodded fearfully as the Val threw three handfuls of dry oats into the simmering water. I crouched close to the flames, and my belly growled again.

Ulrick sat down in front of me and ran his hand over his greying hair before breaking a branch on his knee. The flames began to burn for good and the first stars were coming out. The Val looked up at me, his verdigris eyes glittered. Ulrick's face was not a pretty face. His hawk nose had been broken three times and an old scar cut his right brow bone in half, at a strange angle up to halfway up his cheekbone. Another scar pointed under the short salt-and-pepper beard at the corner of the mouth. To tell the truth, he was one of the harshest faces I've ever seen, even harsher than Rue's, but he was just as confident and commanded respect without a single word. The warrior coughed. "We must talk, Sletling," he said calmly. His thick fingers with black nails digged into the hairs of his beard. I opened my ears wide. "Tomorrow we'll reach the town of Woody," he continued, "and you'll have to decide what you want to do." I pouted. "I don't know, my lord," I replied. Ulrick raised an irritated hand to chase away the midge that was circling around his ears.

"You'll have to stop calling every rider you come across a lord," he said to me in an acid tone. "I am a Val, I was born free and I have a name that my free mother gave me. Leave their titles to the Brownians and the gedesleffe. Ulrick will do."

I nodded, uncomfortable, while contemplating the flames. "It's because of the knee you took me with you, Ulrick?" I finally asked. The Val coughed. "Yes," he simply announced. "You're stupid and weak, but I figured I owed you a life. That's paid back. I also owe you a job, since I can still walk, and I know only one job. So either you decide to try your luck on your own, or you stay with me." I still contemplated the fire, my legs pressed against my chin. "If you stay," Ulrick continued in a deep voice, "I'll teach you how to handle the sword, and in time you'll have plenty of work. It's a hard life, and if I had to choose for you I'd rather have dirt or herbal teas. But I don't regret my life either, and that's your choice Sletling, not mine." I frowned with interest, and the confused burden of uncertainty and grief I was carrying lightened imperceptibly. My heart quickened. "You would make me a val-warrior?" I asked in disbelief.

"I will make you a warrior," Ulrick replied cautiously, staring at me. "If that's what you want." My head was buzzing, I remembered Narsilap and that bright day, when I saw the Vals coming down from the mountains, and their memory had nourished my dreams for the moons that followed. As Ulrick had told me, I was stupid.

Like all little children, I stupidly dreamed of adventures and glory, and I imagined that what the grizzled Val offered me was the tangible incarnation of those same stupid dreams. I already saw myself tall and majestic, dressed in armor on a glittering horse. The reality was quite different, of course, and in the hours that followed Ulrick tried to make me understand what war, terror, butchery and howling were all about. While his morbid tales tempered my initial enthusiasm somewhat, I still clung to my idea. I think it was because I felt the need to be recognized, or loved. Most importantly, I would not have survived another abandonment. I was walking on a tightrope, the last tenuous thread that still connected me to my faith in humanity, and which Sesh's recent betrayal had almost severed.

Uldrick was there, and in spite of his roughness, he considered himself bound to me by some kind of shaky debt, which was not much, but already more than I ever had. He had sworn not to abandon me if I wanted to stay with him. He was big and strong, he had saved me from the gallows, and I wanted to earn his respect, and be like him too. To become a man, and not just any man, someone you couldn't take lightly. A man you wouldn't call a scum from the Basin, a savage or a tinted, or worse, someone you wouldn't pretend not to see at all. Someone you wouldn't betray, and who would never be lied to again.

As I was not letting go, Ulrick finally gave in. "Are you sure, Sletling?" he asked me for the very last time. "There will be no turning back. He who gives his word must keep it." "Yes," I said firmly, my jaw tightened and my eyes darkened. I understood that this would be hard, even if I couldn't yet imagine how hard. Not yet. Not really. "You'll hate me," Ulrick said. "I will be neither tender nor kind. You'll want to run away, you'll want to die. You'll want to kill me. Are you sure you understand?" I hadn't given up. I had nodded, again, firmly. Ulrick had remained silent. The pact had been sealed. He had poured the oats into his bowl, handed it to me, and ate out of the tin pot. It was the only time I had to see the Val like that, almost hesitant. Worrying about what was left of my childhood, questioning my immature certainties. It lasted the time of a meal.

When we were finished with the oat, I briefly cleaned the bowl and pot with a handful of dead leaves, while Ulrick tended the horses and moved his equipment under the stretched tarpaulin. It was dark, but the fire was now burning well and was casting a flickering halo of light around the camp.

Ulrick returned to the fire. "We'll reach Woody tomorrow," he said in his deep voice. "We'll take supplies there. Those of Brown-Horn will be looking for you, and I, too, no doubt, and I have no doubt that primate Mador will assist them, if they ask him. If someone asks you, we're going to Benkepp, in the Val country. Repeat after me. Benkepp." "Ben kep," I murmured awkwardly, looking up at Ulrick. "But that's not where we're going, is it?" The Val rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. "Of course we're not going to Benkepp, Sletling. We'll go north, but then we'll go south. We will winter in the forest, on the side of Vaw. Now get undressed."

I opened my mouth, thinking I heard wrong and stammered. "Why?" I asked, timidly. Ulrick's dark gaze silenced me. Slowly I took off my clothes, my cloak, my doublet and my trousers. "Everything," said the Val firmly, after I had hesitated more than I should have with my underwear. So I found myself sitting by the fire, buck naked, clumsily doing my best to cover up my parts. I wasn't really afraid, whereas surely I should have been, alone and naked in the middle of the woods with this man incomparably stronger than me.

"Get up Sletling, with your arms alongside your body," said Ulrick with a grin.

"It's not for what you have to hide that it's worth it." The warrior unfolded his legs and walked around the fire with a heavy step. He came and stood behind me. I wanted to face him, but his imposing hand rested on my skull and, without effort, he immobilized me. I shivered. His fingers were cold on my skin and left goosebumps on their rough passage. He was groping, without delicacy, like one feels the cattle at the auction. The arms, the back, the buttocks, the thighs that were already very sore, the testicles. I tightened my jaw.Ulrick grunted, rotated me, and opened my mouth. He counted my teeth, and lingered for a while on my two tattoos. Then he spat, and limped back to his place. The fire made his braided hair glow, the pale coal and gray iron.

With a gesture, he made me understand that he was done with me. "Not even ten springs and already marked by a woman. I may have spared you worse than the gallows," he said sarcastically as I got dressed, and I was both so ashamed and intimidated that I didn't even think about defending Dera. I, in turn, sat back down, completely humiliated, my arms wrapped around my legs, which I had brought back under my chin. The screeching song of a night bird tore the silence, and I got startled. Ulrick had a contemptuous smile. "You'll never make a vaïrogan, Sletling," he said to me, without a preamble. "You've eaten too badly, and it's too late to do anything about it. You're lucky you have all your teeth. You're going to be puny. Not big enough or strong enough to hold the line with me behind the shield wall."

Disappointment overwhelmed me. I looked up. "But you said..." Ulrick cut me off sharply. "I said I would make you a warrior," he said. "Not a vaïdogan. There are many warriors, Sletling, though none more formidable than the vaïdogan. Maybe you'll make a good archer." I sniffed sadly as my imaginary steed and shining armor went up in smoke. "I'm no good with a bow," I grumbled. Ulrick spat in the fire, then calmly picked up a handful of acorns and threw them on my face with a flick of his wrist. I let out a scream of surprise and pain. "Then you'll practice," he said with an irritated tone. "Go to sleep, Sletling. Take the blanket for the night." I walked away from the fire, mumbling, without asking for anything else, a hand on the bruise that I got on my forehead. I joined the saddle, the uncomfortable roots and the warm wool. My head was spinning, filled with a myriad of questions, conflicting thoughts and regrets for that part of me that had remained on the other side of the river, somewhere between Brown-Horn and the Basin. Yet, despite the twirling ideas and the foreign song of the night forest, I fell asleep almost instantly.