PART 2
CHAPTER 4
FAMILIAL
Beizl
sat in the open room of
one of the village’s three longhouses, the one belonging to the
family Watrkraft. The dim
light of night shone through the skylights, mixed with the dancing
yellow-red of the fireplace. Most of the village adults were here.
The family Watrkraft gathered at one end of the room, and the family
Peipr at the other. The family Wilr was between them. When Beizl had
entered the room about an hour before sunset, the room had already
been tense, with arguing amongst the people there. Now, after dark,
the air was all
shouts and cursing, and Beizl was witness to it all.
As
best as Beizl could gather, just
two days ago, Klovr av
Watrkraft had gone missing, along with his dog and many of his
cupralum tools. Just a few days before then,
one of the local wyldmen
bands had visited the village, to rest and trade. The family
Watrkraft believed the wyldmen
had abducted Klovr, and blamed the family Peipr for allowing the
wyldmen
into the village. They wanted to gather their weapons and search the
forest for Klovr. Naturally, the family Peipr took great offense to
this accusation, and condemned the family Watrkraft for their
bloodlust.
The
family Wilr, for their part, was trying to keep the peace.
After the first
day of arguing, they’d given up on trying to direct the two
families to solving the problem, and now focused only on preventing
the feud coming to blows.
One
of the men of family Watrkraft stepped into the Wilr dividing line.
He shouted over the cacophony. “I am Dusk av Watrkraft, I want to
speak!”
The matriarch of the family
Wilr, Donu av Wilr, banged two cooking pans together, silencing the
arguing families. “Dusk av Watrkraft will now speak!” The husband
of the Wilr matriarch, Pal av Wilr, set down a stool for Dusk to
stand on as he spoke.
“Klovr did not run away. He
had a good place in this village. He was our only metalcrafter, and
he was soon to marry Bona av Peipr. It is clear that he was abducted,
and we should search the woods for the wyldmen that did it!”
The crowds began once more to
shout, and again Donu av Wilr banged her pans to silence them. She
scolded their emotionality. “We finally got some order and I’m
not going to lose it! Who will challenge Dusk of Watrkraft’s
statement?”
Bona av Peipr herself stepped
forward. “My name was invoked, I will challenge.” A second stool
was placed for her to stand on, and she rose to speak.
“Klovr av Watrkraft has
simply left the village. After his father’s death, the family
Watrkraft put all of his father’s work onto him alone. They pushed
him into marrying me, but he did not love me. He-” The family
Watrkraft booed her, and Donu av Wilr banged her pans at them.
Bona av Peipr continued once
all was quiet again. “Klovr av Watrkraft did not want to marry me.
He told me this in confidence, and I am betraying his trust by
telling you all.” She stared daggers into the members of the family
Watrkraft. “He told me what his father did, that his family hid,
and that he would throw off the name Watrkraft.”
The
hammer had fallen. Dusk av Watrkraft screamed his
rage, and from the stool he
stood upon, he tried
to leap over the family Wilr to get at Bona av Peipr. Bona’s family
grabbed her and pulled her into their ranks. The family Watrkraft
tried to force their way through the Peipr line. The children were
quickly removed from the building, but Beizl was missed. Sticks,
stools, chairs, cups and bowls, any object that could be thrown or
swung were grabbed by everyone present. A
few knives were drawn.
Beizl
was terrified and confused. She could feel the room, the ill intent,
the rage and hatred, the disgust, the shame. She felt it just behind
her eyes, the same place she felt her Will when Marta trained her. It
was disorienting, sickening. While the three families fought, she
fled out the door opposite the fighting, out into the field, towards
the forest. Her rapid breathing and the suddenness of the cool night
air drove her nausea and dizziness to
its limit. Only
a short distance from the longhouse,
she fell
into the soft dirt.
After a time, Beizl was
shocked awake by a sudden pain in her upper back. She quickly rolled
over to see a person standing over her, pointing a walking stick at
her.
The tired, time-worn voice of
an old man spoke. “Hoi, little one. You look scared, ya?” Beizl
recognized the speaking style. He was a wyldman. She stared up at the
old man, saying nothing. He lowered his stick and cocked his head at
her. “You were crying face-down, ya?”
Beizl realized the old man
was right, and dirt had stuck to her tear-damp face. She wiped her
face with her sleeve, and the old man offered the end of his walking
stick to help her up. The old man stared at her for a moment, and she
stared at him.
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Beizl remembered that she
could speak, and managed to stammer out, “I’m… uh, hello. I am
Beizl.”
The old man smiled, big and
joyful, warm and bright even in the dark of night. “You are the
little tree witch! Little witch of Marta, ya?”. He looked over and
past Beizl, to the town, and his smile was tempered some. The fight
in the longhouse was alive, crying the sounds of wood hitting wood,
or objects being thrown, of people crying rage. “All becomes well,
little witch. Come, we will make peace.”
Beizl hesitated as the old
man passed her, still held by her fear of the violence in the
longhouse. The wyldman elder looked back to her, and Beizl spoke.
“It’s scary in there. They’re fighting.”
The elder smiled again at
her, and spoke. “Little witch, everything is a fight.” He walked
back to her, and tapped her on the shoulder with his walking stick.
“Snakes hunt in water, and mice still drink.” He tapped his
temple, and pointed at Beizl. “Mouse, come face the snakes with me,
and drink.”
Beizl, though still unsure,
followed after the man.
=========================
The salamander had dozed off
at some point, and woke to find itself still in its captor’s grasp.
Yet, it was not afraid. The titanic jailer was sitting on a swing
chair, stroking the salamander’s head and back. The salamander
looked up to see the gentle giant’s face, looking eastward out the
window, into the dark night. The salamander, faintly and briefly,
sensed worry in the great one’s heart, which quickly faded as the
giant noticed the salamander rousing.
The giant stood from the
chair and set the salamander on the floor. It spoke to the
salamander. “Beizl has made you hers. Your place is at her side.”
The salamander stared at the great one’s finger pointing down at
it. “You were born a petty beast of the wyld. By chance, a path has
been revealed to becoming more. Serve her well and be made better for
it.”
The salamander didn’t
understand, of course. It did not speak, and could not interpret
speech. But it felt these words in its heart. A new sentiment, a new
emotion.
Loyalty.
=========================
In the longhouse, the rumble
of shouting and fighting still held the room. Beizl followed closely
behind the elder wyldman, and crossed the threshold. The heat and
stink of breath and bodies filled the nose. The ears were drowned
with the shouting, swearing, cursing, spitting, gnashing, the bellows
and shrieks, the cries and wailing. Beizl nearly faltered, struck
dumb by the sudden impact of the scents and sounds, but she followed
after the elder. As they passed the carpet hanging over the door,
Beizl saw one of the adults come close up to the elder.
“It’s not safe for you to
be here right now.” he urgently hushed at the elder. “You need to
leave before one of them notices you.”
The elder waved him aside and
spoke. “I am here to make peace.” The other man started to speak
again, and the elder shouted over him. “Hoi, Hoi! I come to make
peace about the Klovr boy!” He shouted and pounded his walking
stick on the floorboard, trying to draw everyone’s attention.
Beizl peeked around him, and
saw the chaos of the scene. Several lay exhausted or unconscious on
the floor, many still in standoff or grapple with others. Nearly
everyone in the room had some kind of injury, from minor abrasions to
clearly painful dents and bruising. This was a degree of violence
Beizl’s child mind could not understand, but had seen before.
=========================
Once, there was a pair of
jenets that lived very near the treehouse. They hunted vermin, so
Marta tolerated their presence, and Beizl was delighted by them. She
would watch them dart among the trees, chasing each other back and
forth. On one of these days, watching them leap and twirl around each
other, a forming moment was seared into Beizl’s mind. One of the
jenets, for reasons that will never be known, became angry at the
other, and hiss-spat at it. The other jenet was startled, and
responded in kind. They stared at each other for a moment, one baring
teeth, the other confused, until they dove for each other.
As Beizl watched, with the
naivete and wonder that only children can, the jenets bit and clawed
at each other, they writhed in a fell embrace and kicked at each
other’s bellies with claws extended. They tumbled from the tree,
falling through leaves and twigs, and landed with a drumbeat on the
earth not far from Beizl. She looked at the creatures, and for the
first time in her short life, Beizl became witness to bloody
violence. Whether inflicted by the fall or by the other jenet, both
were dead or dying. One had a snapped and twisted leg, and bled
profusely from the stomach, but still held the other by the throat in
its jaws. The other was dead and still, with a rib protruding from
its chest.
Beizl screamed, and Marta
came to her. For the next week, Marta’s lessons were about life,
death, and killing, and their lunches were jenet pie.
=========================
Beizl returned from her
memory, to the present of the longhouse. The wyldman elder pushed
past the man who warned him of the danger, and stepped into the big
room. Beizl’s fear won out, and she ran back outside. She sat on
the dirt, crying quietly into her knees, and listened through the
walls.
Heavy footfalls. Lulls and
roars of voices. People shouting over one another. Thuds and slams of
objects and bodies. Then, the voice of the elder, once so gentle,
bellowed firm. “I will strike you! I warn you to not-!” rapid
footfalls and shuffling, silenced by a sudden
KRAK
Beizl flinched and squeezed
her eyes against her knees. Even the trees shuddered, as a gust of
wind blew across them. Beizl shivered at the cold. The elder swiftly
exited past the curtain-door, noticing Beizl as he crossed into the
night. He grabbed her by the arm and spoke to her, quiet and grim.
“Witch girl, this is a place of danger. I will take you to Marta.”
Not even waiting for her to stand, he grabbed her by the arm and
threw her across his shoulders. He held her ankles in one hand and
his bloodied stick in the other.
“I will carry you like a
goat. I ask that you not vomit.” He broke for the trees. His feet
fell remarkably silent on the earth, and his shoulders hardly
bounced. They crossed the threshold into the woods, and the elder
slowed only slightly, taking measured strides and small leaps to his
keep footing over the rooted forest floor. His breaths were constant,
deep, and even. Beizl felt the heat of exertion radiating from his
body, the damp of sweat on his bare skin, yet he did not stumble or
slow in any measure.
