The Hanged Man: Part 8: Lithia
Post #81: In which discovery and barbeque ...
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Radulf didn’t like the uneasy feeling of the village. It was the kind of summer day when people should be cheerfully at work in field, garden and shop. It was time for the noonday meal but no laughing groups took their ease and exchanged talk. Here and there two or three people spoke with their heads together, every face serious and strained. He could feel eyes on his back as he and Dar rattled along the main street in the cart, but no one hailed them or approached. In other towns they’d passed through they’d been followed by a crowd of children and welcoming smiles on every side. The arrival of a peddler in town was a treat. Not only did he bring essentials like pots, lamps, tools and such, but also small luxuries, news and gossip.
“This place has changed,” said Dar in a low voice, looking around. The reins hung loose in his hands.
“What’s wrong, do you think?”
“No idea. But we’ll probably hear about it in time. I don’t want to stay here in town, though. Let’s find a place to camp nearby.”
“The White Stag headed in that direction before we came into town,” said Radulf, gesturing.
As they traveled, the stag, for the most part, had stayed off the roads and out of sight. Now and then they glimpsed him on either side or ahead, and he always appeared in the evenings where they camped.
Dar bumped through the village and took a track into the trees. It wound through the forest, passing by a couple of dilapidated huts. The White Stag materialized out of the woods as though he’d been waiting for them and walked regally ahead of the horse, leading the way.
Radulf began to hear a loud chorus of frogs. They rolled out of the trees into a small homestead. Radulf heard a river. They discovered a cluster of trees beyond the house like a little orchard, a wooden henhouse with a patched fence and a weedy garden. The front door wasn’t quite closed. The place had an unmistakable air of abandonment, but recently, Radulf thought, looking around. The garden was laid out in careful rows, plants staked and trellised lovingly. By the end of summer, it would be seriously overgrown, but at this point it only needed a good day of weeding.
“Do you know this place?” Radulf asked Dar.
The peddler had a faraway look, his gaze traveling around the clearing nestled in the curve of river.
“I’m not sure,” said Dar absently. He dropped the reins and leapt to the ground.
Radulf stood by Gideon’s shoulder and watched Dar prowl around the yard. The White Stag had disappeared. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the eye. It lay in his palm, wide open and fierce. It was the first time it had been open in many days. There was something to see here, then.
Radulf explored the orchard. The grass had been mown at least once and was starred with white chamomile and clover. The trees looked healthy and well pruned. Mushrooms grew in hollows, clusters of creamy pink and brown.
He peered in a window next to the back door.
He looked into a small, neat kitchen. A few dishes lay drying next to the sink. The counters and table were clean.
He tried the door. It opened easily.
Radulf walked through the house, cat footed. Just inside the front door there’d been a disturbance. A small table lay on its side with a broken leg. Something had spilled on the floor and stained it. Hanks of scattered fiber lay on a rag rug next to an overturned basket.
Dar pushed the front door open.
“Look at this,” said Radulf, gesturing.
The two of them stood surveying the entry. Radulf found a large loom in the room beyond. A chair stood in front of the fireplace and a pile of cushions lay on a rug in front of the hearth. There was no room for more.
Radulf still had the eye in his hand. He opened his fingers and showed the open eye to Dar.
“What do you think happened here?” he asked, low voiced.
“Something bad,” said Dar briefly. “Can’t you feel it?”
Radulf could feel it. He left the doorway and stood in the sun. The river embraced the clearing. Just beyond the orchard it spread out and made a boggy place where reeds grew. It was a lovely clear summer day, birds singing, but Radulf felt cold.
“Are we going to stop here?”
Dar looked around. “Where’s the stag?”
“I don’t know. Disappeared when we pulled in.”
“I think we’d better stay here, yes, but not in the house.”
“No,” agreed Radulf soberly. He began to unhitch Gideon.
Neither of them entered the house again that afternoon. Dar shut the door firmly and they busied themselves making camp. The water in the well proved clear and sweet. They gathered firewood. Somewhat hesitantly, they picked greens and peas from the garden. Dar discovered the remains of four chickens in the chicken coop. It had been recently repaired. The water pan was quite dry. No way in, even for a weasel or a fox, and no way out for the hapless fowl.
The White Stag didn’t make an appearance that night. They ate and sat silently by the fire for some time before rolling themselves in blankets and going to sleep. The sound of the frogs followed Radulf down into dreams.
The next morning, they returned to the village square. Radulf knew the routine by now. They found a comfortable place under a tree and opened up the cart, propping up counters and displaying wares.
The children came first in search of sticks of candy and toys. Word had gone around the day before when they drove through town, and soon people made their way to the cart from every direction.
By late afternoon there were no more customers and they packed up and returned to their camp.
In the long summer evening, they lay in the orchard grass and Dar told Radulf about Juliana and Morfran.
“And you think this is her place?”
“I’m sure of it. Morfran described it exactly and it feels like Juliana, somehow. I didn’t know she wove, but when I met her she hadn’t found herself yet. She was still waiting.”
“In the village, they talked about cloth but I only heard a word here and there.”
“I had the story from a housewife. These people believe they’ve been chosen for special blessings. It seems mysterious gifts of cloth appear in time for births, deaths and weddings. A few weeks ago, a young couple married and didn’t receive a set of linen bridal sheets. That was the first. An old grandmother died and no shroud was forthcoming. Now the villagers are afraid they’ve displeased God in some way, and every man looks at his neighbor with suspicion and fear.”
“That accounts for the bad atmosphere,” said Radulf.
“It does,” agreed Dar.
“You think maybe Juliana was the weaver?”
“I wonder. Think of the shawl.”
They’d found a length of cloth draped over the chair by the hearth. It was so obviously an adornment they assumed it was a shawl. On a background of luminescent creamy white were woven two contrasting colors of purple, one light violet and the other the bruised purple of a summer storm. The darker color looked sinister to Radulf, like a threat. The lighter violet, though, reminded him of a thread of music, mocking and haunting but not ominous. It was a strange pairing, disturbing and jarring. The border pattern was pink and shades of brown and green.
“So, how’d they get the idea the linen came from God? Why didn’t she give it to them openly — or better yet, sell it?”
“Why was she living here, and not in town?” Dar asked.
Radulf thought. “Would she go regularly to church, dress soberly and keep her hair covered?”
Dar smiled. “I don’t think so. She was pretty beaten down when I met her, but she loved color and texture. In the sun, her hair was a mixture of gold and silver. It was short then. Morfran noticed her hair, too. When he met her, she wore it long and he said he’d never seen anything like it. Silvery gold, he said.”
“Every woman I saw today had her hair covered.”
“Yes, I noticed that too. Maybe she didn’t want to live in the village but wanted to be near for the market.” Dar frowned. “As you say, though, why not sell the cloth openly?”
“Perhaps she did but she liked giving anonymous gifts?”
Dar shook his head. “Are they such fools, then, that they didn’t notice it was the same work? What kind of people assume they’re God’s favorites? It’s either very childish or very arrogant, I’m not sure which.”
“It’s dangerous,” said Radulf shortly. He stood and wandered along the river bank, turning it all over in his mind. Behind him, Dar began to play his flute. Radulf walked along the river, past the orchard, until thick growth barred his way. He turned around and retraced his steps. The ground began to feel spongy at the edge of the bog. Judging from the evening concert, hundreds of frogs dwelt among the reeds, but he couldn’t see even one.
The sun slid behind thin clouds. The muted light made a patch of reeds look silver. Radulf, listening to Dar’s flute, idly watched them turn and sway.
Suddenly he realized there was no breeze. The evening was quite still, but the reeds stirred. He stiffened, staring.
Dar stopped playing. “What is it?”
“Come here.”
Dar came to stand at his shoulder. “See that patch of reeds that look different from the rest?”
“I see them.”
“Play again, and watch.”
Dar put the flute to his lips. The reeds stirred. Dar stopped playing.
“Are we dreaming?” Radulf asked uncertainly.
“No. Look,” sad Dar, gesturing.
The White Stag waded across the bog, head raised alertly, balancing the weight of antlers. He stood in the patch of reeds, and when he turned his gaze on them, Radulf saw that he wept.
Radulf sloshed across the bog and laid a comforting hand on the stag’s neck. “What is it?”
The stag lowered his head, tears falling down his muzzle into the bog.
“The ground’s been disturbed,” said Dar, who’d followed Radulf.
Under the stag the ground had been churned up into ankle-deep mud. Broken and uprooted reeds lay on the oozing ground among a fringe of newly-sprouted silvery green shoots.
They stood there together, the sorrowing White Stag and the two men. The river flowed by and the sun sank. Frogs vibrated like miniature thunder. It was full dark before the stag moved away into the trees and the men sought their beds.
HEKS
She thought the sun would fall on the heel of his left shoe first. For a long time, she’d considered the question, sitting on the stump with her knees together and her hands wrapped in her apron. It was important to keep them bandaged and protected. The high midsummer sun blazed down onto kiln and grader. Heaps of fines and debris from careless shoveling lay about on the scorched ground in dark clots. The kiln was cold. He’d been loading the bottom spiral of wood to start a new burn.
Heks pulled herself back to the main point. The sun, given its height and trajectory, would surely touch the heel of his left shoe first. That was the important thing. When that happened there would be a way to go forward. Right now, everything was stopped. There was nothing for her to do and nowhere to go. There was only the sun, moving imperceptibly across burnt ground.
Having made this plan and settled the question, her mind twisted and flailed frantically for something else to hold onto. She bent and picked up a piece of charcoal.
It was a perfectly adequate piece. Not too small. Not too large. Just the right texture and friability. Put this with thousands like it and it would sell with no trouble at all. She held the piece in her right hand and spread out the fingers of her left, palm up. Using a broad plane of the charcoal, she began to rub it over her palm and fingers. She frowned, concentrating on rubbing with just the right amount of force to erase the feeling of vibration still echoing in the bones and flesh of her hand. It was important to relieve that feeling, to eradicate it fully and never feel it again. Her mouth pursed in disapproving distaste as she rubbed the gritty charcoal, and wrinkles sprang out around her lips.
Sunlight crept across the ground, but she’d forgotten it now, wholly intent on the new project of erasing all traces of the last connection between herself and the dead man. She used each side and plane of the charcoal, meticulously covering every bit of skin on her fingers, knuckles, and palms. She rubbed the charcoal well into her nails and cuticles. She rubbed it over the network of wormy blue veins on the back of her hands, in web spaces and over wrist creases.
When she finished, she let the charcoal fall and turned her hands this way and that, admiring her work. The feeling that had seeped up the handle of the axe from the blade socketed in soft flesh was quite gone. That was good. She moved her gaze from her hands to his left shoe. The sun hadn’t only touched it but moved halfway across the sole, illuminating the cracked, blackened leather.
Someone was going to have to do something.
Someone.
It was peaceful, sitting there in the sun. She rarely sat during the day. Now she could sit whenever she wanted. She was free.
Maybe she felt happy. She wasn’t sure. Peaceful, certainly, but perhaps something more. She wanted to smile. She decided to risk it. It felt good, smiling. Sunlight moved across the bottom of his shoe.
Do something. Someone.
She heard a heavy clang of iron behind her. Heks flinched, twisting off the stump and raising an arm protectively in front of her face.
A large iron cauldron sat on the heavy lid of the kiln where it lay on the ground. In the cauldron was a figure dressed in rags. Her fingers ended in claws, her hair was a stew of snarls, and a wiry tangle of whiskers lurked in the background where her chin and nose nearly met.
“Ha!” said the newcomer. She bent her knees and jumped. The cauldron, as though glued to her feet, jumped with her and came down with another deafening clang.
Heks covered her ears while the cauldron and its occupant bounced, the old woman screeching with glee.
When she stopped, the air continued to echo with the harsh sound for a moment. She wheezed but said in high delight, “What an announcement! What fanfare! Baba Yaga has arrived!” She slapped her thigh and cackled.
She sprang out of the cauldron, revealing bare feet with iron claws at the end of her toes, and stood looking down at Joe’s body.
“Huh. So much for him. So much the better for you.” She fixed Heks with eyes like steel balls. “Shall we eat him?”
“Eat him!” Heks gasped.
Baba Yaga moved one of the dead man’s limp arms with her toe, looking thoughtful. “I bet he tastes of smoke and ashes. Pickled and dried and steeped in charcoal. I prefer something tender and juicy.” She grinned suddenly, showing teeth like tusks. “Still, we might make a barbecue sauce and marinate him, see can we put some flavor back!”
Heks giggled. The giggle floated on top of nausea and churning bile at the thought of eating Joe, actually eating him!
“I was going to burn him,” she said.
“Pathetic,” shot back Baba Yaga. “You’re not trying at all, poppet. Or maybe it’s too late? Did you give him everything?” She nudged the arm again, making the hand flop uselessly, “I hoped for better from you.”