‘You’d best go then,’ I told Web and Swift reluctantly.
‘You, too,’ Riddle informed me. ‘I’m to stay with the Prince’s half-wit.’
I gave him a look. ‘Thick,’ I said quietly. ‘His name is Thick.’
It was the first time I’d ever rebuked Riddle for anything. He just looked at me, and I could not tell if he were hurt or offended. ‘Thick,’ he amended. ‘I’m to stay with Thick. You know I didn’t mean anything by that, Tom Badgerlock,’ he added almost petulantly.
‘I know. But it hurts Thick’s feelings.’
‘Oh.’ Riddle glanced suddenly at the sleeping man, as if startled to learn he had feelings. ‘Oh.’
I took pity on him. ‘There’s food on the table, and hot water for tea if you want.’
He nodded, and I sensed that we’d made peace. I took a moment to smooth my hair back and put on a fresh shirt. Then I took a comb to Swift, much to his disgust, and was dismayed at the knots in the boy’s hair. ‘You need to do this every morning. I’m sure your father taught you better than to go about looking like a half-shed mountain pony.’
He gave me a sharp look. ‘That’s the very words he uses!’ he exclaimed, and I excused my own slip, saying, ‘It’s a common saying in Buck, lad. Let’s look at you, now. Well, you’ll do. Washing a bit more often wouldn’t hurt you either, but we’ve no time for it now. Let’s go.’
I felt a pang of sympathy for Riddle as we left him sitting alone at the table.
TEN
The Narcheska
This is their custom regarding marriage; it is binding only so long as the woman wishes to be bound by it. The woman chooses the man, although the man may court a woman he finds desirable, with gifts and deeds of war done in her honour. If an Outislander woman accepts a man’s courtship, it does not mean she has bound herself to him, only that she may welcome him into her bed. Their dalliances may last a week, a year or a lifetime. It is entirely of the woman’s choosing. All things that are kept under a roof belong to the woman, as does all that comes from the earth which her mothershouse claims. Her children belong to her clan, and are commonly disciplined and taught by her brothers and uncles rather than by their father. While the man lives on her land or in her mothershouse, his labour is hers to command. All in all, it baffles this traveller why a man would willingly submit to such a minor role, but Outislanders seem likewise baffled by our arrangements, asking me sometimes, ‘Why do your women willingly leave the wealth of their own families to become servants in a man’s home?’
An Account of Travel in a Barbarous Land, by Scribe Fedwren
The mothershouse of the Narwhal Clan was both fortification and home. It was by far the oldest structure in Wuislington. The stout wall that surrounded its grounds and garden were the first line of defence. If invaders pushed the defenders back, they could retreat to the mothershouse itself. Scorch marks on its stone walls and timbers showed that it had stood even against fire. There were no apertures at all in the lower storey, the second boasted arrow slits and only the third had real windows and these featured stout shutters that would have defied any missiles. Yet it was not a castle in our tradition. There was no place to bring sheep or for an entire village to take shelter, nor a place for great stores of food. I suspected it was intended to defy raiders who would come and go with a tide rather than to withstand a significant siege. It was one more way in which the Outislanders differed from our folk and our way of thinking.
Two young men wearing the Narwhal badge nodded us past the gate in the wall. Inside, the road had crushed shell added to the beach gravel that paved it, giving it a gleaming opalescence that sparkled underfoot. The door of the mothershouse, carved with narwhals, stood open wide enough to admit three men abreast. Within, all was dimness and torchlight. It was almost like entering a cave.
We paused inside the entrance to let our eyes adjust. The air was thick with the aromas of long human habitation. There were food smells, stews and smoked meat and spilled wine and the odour of cured hides and gathered people. It could have been a stench, but it was not. Rather, it was a homey smell, of safety and family.
The entrance gave immediately onto a great room, with supporting pillars as the only dividers. There were three hearths, all with cook-fires on them. The stone-flagged floor was strewn with fresh rushes. Benches and shelves ran around the walls. The lower benches were wide, and the rolled sleeping skins proclaimed that these were beds by night and seating and tables by day. The higher, shallower shelves above the benches held foodstuffs and personal possessions. Most of the light in the room came from the hearths, though there were ineffectual candles in sconces on many of the pillars. In the far left corner, a wide staircase wound up into the dimness. It was the only access I could see to the upper regions of the house. It made sense. Even if an attacking force gained control of this level of the mothershouse, the folk above would have only one entrance to defend. Invaders would pay dearly to gain the upper floors of the mothershouse.
All this I saw through the gathered people. Folk of every age were clustered everywhere and there was a sense of anticipation in the air. We were obviously late. At the end of the long room, before the largest hearth, Prince Dutiful waited. Ranged on his side of the hearth were Chade and his Wit-coterie, and beyond them, his guard drawn up in three rows. The Narwhal clan-folk parted to make way for us to assume our correct positions. Web and Swift advanced to stand with Cockle the minstrel and Civil and his Wit-cat. I took a place at the end of the front row of guardsmen.
Elliania was not there. Those gathered on the other side of the hearth were mostly women. Peottre was the only adult man in his prime. There were a few old grandfathers, four lads about the Narcheska’s age, and then six or seven boys ranging down to toddlers clinging to their mothers’ skirts. Had the Red Ship War so decimated the Narwhal Clan?