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Mid Year 621

Summer

Quiet Moon

We were lying in the grasses growing on the orchard hill and from there we could see everything. The air was heavy, almost motionless, filled with the bug sounds of summer. Around it was the mingled scent of grasses and the sweet smell of ripening apples. Hanging from the fruit-laden branches, carved ossicle charms tinkled melodically to keep birds and hail away. Facing us stood Horn Hill and the dark walls of the city of Brown Horn, heavily embedded in the dust of the carts on the road to the docks. Finally, at the end of the dirty road we were overhanging, behind the small river port, the Brown was lazily flowing. At my side, Ucar was biting into a still too green apple, while Robin was playing a playful tune on his pipe. And Brindy, with whom the three of us were in love, was smiling. We had a full belly.

I must have been just under eight years old. This is my first real memory.

If I go back beyond that, something remains, a certain number of imperfect sketches, made of sensations rather than memories. I remember my mother - her silhouette, at least - among the huge trees. Dark hair woven of ivy, and a voice as sweet as honey. Something larger as well, a more diffuse presence, more encompassing at the same time.

A journey, no doubt, whose contours escape me, the long fatigue of a crazy race and this severe and tattooed man, perhaps my father, then the brilliance of obsidian blades in the night. But that is far away, and with time, as they say, everything fades away. It may also be that I wanted to forget. At the time, no one was able to give me any more information and I wasn't really interested in the subject. Things were what they were, and I was living in the present.

The four of us, Ucar, Robin, Brindy and myself, stayed at the home of the widow Ronna, who ran a farmhouse outside the city walls, at the foot of the orchard hill. There was a vegetable garden, about twenty poultry, and a few pigs of a breed commonly found in the cantons of High Brown. On the steps of the house lived a gander called Solas, and the widow, who was scared to death of dogs, claimed that a good goose could replace any fleabag. Solas took his role as guardian of the farm very seriously.

There was also a small barn next to the cottage which sheltered us at night, an unstable heap of stones in which the widow kept the hay she did not owe to the Primate. We slept there, huddled together like a litter of foxes, and even at the height of winter we were not so cold. In the evening, four bowls of rave soup were waiting for us, the same stuff that the widow ate, the same stuff that she gave to the pigs. The widow was going on her fiftieth birthday. Her husband had drowned in the Brown, in a collision of cogues of which he was the only victim. People said that he drank a little too much. The widow Ronna never had children, she was probably sterile, and people blamed her husband's alcoholic tendencies on her infertile womb. She was small and had a limp in her left leg. Her voice was strong and dry, her skin wrinkled like badly tanned leather, and had a very pronounced accent. She was not from Brown Horn, and she had been made to feel it. The widow was lonely, miserably lonely, but I think she preferred solitude to the commiserations of others.

If the widow Ronna did run a farm, those in the city who came from time to time to do business used to say "Ronna Orphanage". The widow shrugged her frail shoulders and let it go, no doubt because there was some truth in it, but I suspect that she would have liked to have her farm known by another name. The Provost of Castle Horn had to entrust her with the care of feeding and housing the town's unwanted orphans, as was done periodically, and she had little choice. The widow applied herself to the task without ill will, but without showing any intention of getting more involved than was asked of her. We were not allowed to go into the cottage, even on snowy nights, because the widow spun the wool and did not want to be disturbed. But she did not beat us, and I am sure that the distance with which she treated us was not a bad intention.

Thus, we, the orphans of the Ronna farm, were in fact - for the most part - left to our own devices. We already understood that we had nothing in common with most of the other children of Brown Horn, and little more with those of the Basin. I would say that we had taken on the responsibility of small adults too early. The world had never been for us a fixed and comfortable instance, but a chaotic entity that had to be tamed one day at a time.

We knew that the only thing we could count on was a late bowl of rave soup, and we also knew that most kids could count on more than that.

During the day, we ran the streets begging here and there for a few coins, enough to buy a loaf of bread for lunch, a juicy fillet of croche carp, or a good piece of bacon. We dragged the guards' feet who were swearing curses that we learned by heart, and then threw them in the ears of the scandalized washerwomen. We were part of the wild children of Brown Horn and, in a way, I think we were happy. We were happy to race through the alleys of the lower town, happy to play whoever could pee the farthest in the foaming water of the sawmill, happy to bask in the fragrant grasses of the orchard hill.

That day, four children were lying in the shade of the fruit trees, among the green apples and the smell of summer. One of them, whom I have not yet named, was called Fyss, and Fyss is me. I have had other names since then, but this was the first, and it is the one I always come back to. When the widow Ronna spoke of me, she used to say "the fyssan", which means "the little Fyss". Fyss was an easy shortcut, and a common word in Brown Horn. It was not an easy name to bear, but it stayed with me. The people of Brown Horn are known for their rough simplicity, and it will be understood later on that, if they had attached more importance to what happens outside their walls, I could have called myself something else.

In the High Lands, in the shade of the immense coniferous forests and cliffs that extend west of Brown Horn, reside fierce people who have marked history in their own way. During the cold nights in the heart of winter, old men and bards still whisper halfway through the night the memory of the hordes. They tell of the thousands of savages whipped by hunger who sought the passage of the Brown and the conquest of the more arable lands of the Peninsula, the tattooed and screaming warriors, men and women together, who came, more than a century ago, to break like waves of blood on the impregnable walls of Castle Horn.

If it is true that the stories remain and that most of them contain their share of truths, it is also true to say that times change, and that the hordes had finally disappeared. With the years and the efforts of the primates, trade with the High Lands had taken over from the war, so that at the time of my childhood, only a few miles from the taverns where the storytellers and trembling graziers raged, a fluctuating assemblage of colourful yurts had already been standing for several generations. These yurts belonged to the descendants of the hordes that once emerged from the Stone Forest, and the uneven circle they formed was called "the Basin". This name has its origin in a curious linguistic misunderstanding. In the clanic language, Basee-Ni means "circle of barter", but the people of Brown Horn put an end to it with their own sauce, certain that the savages thus defined the granite hollow on which they had been allowed to settle. Within the Basin, many clans came and went. Among them were the Chaigs, the Chacts, the Peygens, and the Fyss.

The Fyss were the most numerous, for the simple and good reason that they were the original inhabitants of the Stone Forest, and that their lands traditionally extended very close to the place where Brown Horn had been erected. Nevertheless, in the obtuse mind of the majority of the people of Brown Horn, a savage remained a savage, and if one was called Fyss, well, it could well be the same for the others. The fear once aroused by the hordes had finally turned into a comfortable contempt, as often happens. We laugh and tease the tamed bear, while one trembles in front of his wild fellow creature. Thus, in Brown Horn, despite the inaccuracy of the term, "Fyss" was the name given to all the people who came to barter at the Basin.

Already at a very young age, my ancestry was visible in my black eyes and fine features, my jet-black and straight hair, my tanned complexion, and that tribal tattoo that rolled down my back. The widow Ronna was simply stating a truth when she called me "fyssan" in the same way she would have called a rat a rat. I think I suffered somewhat from this, many years later, realizing that I knew of no dog that his master had not deigned to give a better name than "dog". My companions naturally shortened "fyssan" to a nickname, and I eventually accepted Fyss. Nevertheless, I sometimes cursed the name, because in the city, where the word was on the lips of many merchants and gossips, I often believed - wrongly - that I was being apostrophized.

So we have to go back to the orchard hill, and the four children who were lying there. The afternoon was heavy and lazy. We had vaguely considered taking a trip to the Basin to bring some green fruit, in exchange for which we could certainly have gotten a few pinches of salt from Frieze, an old Chaig merchant who had taken a certain affection for us, in the rough manner of the men of the clans. Yet, we felt that day as lazy as the Brown herself, our stomachs weighing down on the digestion of the apples, like four hulls of cogue weighed down by their load. So we strolled in the shade of the orchard, Robin played his pipe, Ucar chewed an acidic core for pure greed, and Brindy untied the knots of her long black hair.

That's when I saw the messenger. I was busy scanning the port, which the locals call the Brown wharf, as I was trying to discern when the boats returned whether the fishing had been good or bad. Sometimes, some fishermen at the wharf would let Brindy and me untangle their seines in exchange for the smallest of the fish trapped there. On such a quiet day, it was likely that we could find a good soul who was more interested in getting a fresh ale than pulling the small fry out of the mesh of a net.

From afar, I saw the ferry coming from the other bank, where, like a clay snake, the road to Cover Pass is sinking through the forest of Vaw. A dusty horseman carefully untied his mount, a tall, long-legged, grey steed, and took the saddle with a graceful leap. He galloped down the road to the docks, in the direction of Brown Horn.

Behind him, the boatman was gesticulating, and soon a crowd gathered around the ferry. The people of the port talked for a while, and then, like one man, they took their turn on the road to the city. At this point, the horseman passed below the orchard hill in a hammering of hooves. I got up from my grassy sheet.

My companions had also come to understand that there was something unusual going on. Never before had we seen the people of the port let go of their respective livelihoods in such a way to rush all together to the city. The air, sometimes still, was now rustling with a strange excitement. Without a word to warn the others, attracted by the agitation like a butterfly by the flames, I rushed down the slope towards the crowd that was rushing towards Brown Horn. Somewhere behind me, Robin, in his slender voice, said:

"Wait for us, Fyss!"

Without answering nor stopping, I risked a brief glance over my shoulder, and saw Brindy picking up her skirts to follow me, accompanied by the two others. In doing so, I almost broke my leg in a rabbit hole, lost my balance and rolled down the hillside, scattering frightened sheep in my path. Behind me the hilarious quibbles of my companions were already ringing out, and I stood up disgracefully, swearing like a sailor. A brief glance at my ankle with trembling hands told me that I was doing well and, seeing that the others were quickly catching up with my lead, I kept going.

We arrived together out of breath, laughing and heckling, and we sank into the compact crowd as it reached the lower city gates. Usually, we would have received our ruckus with a clout, but for once the good people of Brown Horn made far more noise than we did. There was some crying, I think, but mostly panicked yelling, which reminded me of the stupid screams of panicked poultry. We tried to sneak in between the jostling legs and bodies, Robin in the lead. Somewhere I heard a loud curse, accompanied by Ucar's indignant yelp, when one of the sawmill workers tripped over him. After a few more incidents, we finally gave up. In the end, the excitement of the adults didn't suit us.

The tumult left the four of us a few steps away from where it had taken us, under the black arches of the big door. Ucar hopped to the spot holding his foot, and Brindy had a disappointed pout as well as a redenned eye that augured a black eye to come. We exchanged a few scornful words about the jostling. As I bandaged the eye of Brindy as best I could, Robin walked towards the group of guards on duty who were conversing in a low voice in the shadow of the ark. One of them turned to him, Nep I believe, an old man from Cover Pass, rough and straight, but kinder to us than many of the natives. I saw them exchanging a few sentences, then Robin came back towards us, swinging his pipe with a puzzled air:

"They say it's not good. They say that the king is dead."

Ucar raised his eyebrows and Brindy sneezed. I spat in the dust.

None of us said a word for a long time. Robin did not move, his aquiline features wrinkled as he chewed his thin lip with a pensive air. Beyond the arch, echoes of the city in turmoil reached us crescendo. It was Ucar, direct and impetuous as usual, who finally put an end to our ramblings:

"Who cares, right?"

Robin sniffed, and nodded:

"Yeah. I think we don't care."

We then went in the way of the orchard hill, a little disappointed. Our life returned to its usual course that afternoon, as if nothing had happened, but deep inside me there was still a doubt. I wasn't so sure we didn't have to care. Time would eventually prove me right. Our world was changing.