Silvanus and Empire, an Original Novel (Chapter Five)

beowulfoflegend (65)in #writing • 8 years ago

Things are heating up here! In the last chapter, we met a contingent of the Silvani, the blood-haired "savages" that live across the river from Annex. Plans are set in motion that Caddoc can only dream of. The new day starts innocuously enough, but what's to come?

Silvanus and Empire

Chapter Five

Caddoc wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of one dirty hand. The day after his arrival had dawned early and bright, and while the ground was still cool the roof of the Depository had been baking in the sun for hours. Caddoc had been baking along with it.

Scribe Oren had roused him just before dawn and had him begin gathering reeds from the river bank. They were to repair the tattered thatch on the old barn today, and soon (under Oren's constant direction) Caddoc had bundled several scallops of river reed together, cut them to the necessary length with an old rusty sickle, and began stockpiling them next to the side of the Depository.

He was on the roof now, clinging to the ropes that held the thatch down, shirtless and sweating. Covered in old moldy reed and wet dirt, he was cutting free and pulling up massive patches of grimy roofing material. The emblem he wore around his neck felt like it was slowly branding his bare chest as it warmed in the sun. Scribe Oren supervised from below.

"Now, my boy, it may seem terribly banal and unnecessary, but mark my words you'll be thanking me when the rains come again. And come they will, my young Apprentice!" He had been shouting such encouragement up to Caddoc all morning from the confines of the Depository's one wooden chair. Oren had directed Caddoc to drag it outside before sending the younger scribe to borrow a rickety wooden ladder from the miller who lived about a quarter-league downstream. Caddoc had half-expected to go straight through the rotten thatch and end up with a nice set of broken limbs as soon as he stepped out on to the steeply pitched roof, but by and large the thick reeds had held. Still he had sent a foot through several soggy bits of rotten thatch as he clambered along the stinking roof.

Caddoc had never been one to work with his hands; the rapidly forming blisters on his fingers and the growing ache in his muscles attested to that. You don't muck out too many stables as an orphan child raised by scribes, and Caddoc had been with the Imperial Scribners since almost before he could remember. He'd grown up side-by-side with the other orphans the Order had taken in; adopting children with no families was standard practice for all the Imperial Orders, not just the Scribners, and most of his friends still resided in Imperial City. A few, like him, had been sent off to the hinterlands. No one had been sent to Annex before Caddoc though. No one except Scribe Oren, of course.

I wonder what spectacular cock-up had gotten him sent out here, Caddoc thought as he began trimming the edges of a ragged hole in the thatch. He reached over and grabbed a scallop of fresh reeds and began to position it in the gap to see if it would fit. He sighed as Oren's voice wafted up to him again.

"No, no, my boy! The cut end points down towards the eaves! You must make sure you lay them down that way or the roof will leak terribly. You don't want to spend countless soggy autumns shivering in a cold wet barn, do you?"

"No, Scribe Oren," he said wearily, "I don't want that at all." Wouldn't need to be cold and wet if this rat hole had a fireplace, he thought.

"Oh, if I was ten years younger, Apprentice Bell, I'd be up there with you right now. In my youth I was wonderfully fit. My poor back just isn't what it used to be. Oh to be young again! My boy, have you ever been..."

Oh Gods help me. Caddoc wrapped his hands around a piece of rope and squeezed. Not another damned story. Oren had been telling tales of his youth in Imperial City since he'd sat down to a frugal dinner with Caddoc last evening. With every tale Oren told, Caddoc had hoped and prayed for a merciful act of nature to end his suffering - like a flash flood. Or perhaps a bolt of lightning. Lightning would have been terribly nice.

The sun was high overhead when Oren called him down for a rest; without delay Caddoc stumbled down to the river and waded into the swift-moving, icy water. He ducked his head under, clasping a hand around his emblem to keep it from slipping off and racing downriver.

He straightened up and stood hip-deep in the river, feeling the tug of the current. Breathing deep of the sweet spring air, he savored feeling the relief of the cool water on his hot skin. The earthy taste of river-water lingered on his tongue as he gazed at the north shore for a moment.

His eyes roved about and stopped on a spot in the river about a third of the way towards the far bank. A wooden pylon stood straight up out of the river. There was another one a bit farther downstream, and yet another, as he turned to look. They also stretched away upstream as well in a sporadic line, jutting out of the water like the outstretched fingers of a water spirit. The tip of each pylon had been painted what must have been bright red at some point; the color had since faded to a dull rusty brown.

Caddoc gazed at them for another moment before slogging back to shore, his emblem now wonderfully cool against the bare skin of his chest. Scribe Oren was waiting for him. He handed Caddoc a clean rag to dry himself with. "Invigorating, isn't it, my boy? In the heat of the summer it is especially refreshing. Just stay on the close side of the markers and you'll be as right as rain."

"I was wondering about those, Scribe Oren." Caddoc began scrubbing his close-cropped dark hair with the rag. "What are they for? I thought perhaps they were moorings for riverboats, but with the falls downstream-"

"Oh, no, you'll not see any boats on this river, Apprentice Bell. No boats, no ferries, and especially no bridges. Partly because of the falls, but also because of what lies on the northern shore."

Caddoc looked back across the river quizzically. The far shore was quiet, as usual. "But there's nothing on the northern shores, is there? Just virgin forest, to my eyes."

"That’s not just any virgin forest." Oren dropped his voice to a conspiratorial hiss. "That’s Silvanus. The Wild Forest. The markers show how far into the river you can go and still be safe."

"Safe? Safe from what? What happens if you cross the markers?"

Oren looked across the river with the younger scribe for a moment. "If you cross the markers," he said finally, "you're in range of a bowshot from the other side."

Caddoc blinked. "Scribe Oren, you can't be serious. There hasn't been a reported attack from the Wild Folk in --"

"Years?" Oren nodded. "The years may pass, but nothing can quell the fires of savagery in a Bloodhair's black heart."

Caddoc shook his head. "I'm sorry, Scribe Oren, but I just can't believe that all the horror stories about the Silvani are true. People are people, are they not, regardless which side of the river they call home?"

Oren looked at Caddoc with sadness apparent in his face. Shaking his head, he said, "Apprentice, you still have much to learn." His eyes roved past Caddoc's bare shoulder and narrowed. "You'd best get back to work while the sun's still in the sky," he told him loudly before striding purposefully towards the Depository.

As he turned to watch the older man walk away, Caddoc saw what had sent Oren scurrying. The flame-haired girl he had met yesterday stood patiently in the old barn's yard. She was holding a basket in one hand.

Oren walked past her. "Leave the bread and begone," he said without stopping. He disappeared into the dark interior of the Depository. He hadn't even looked at her as he passed by.

Caddoc watched as the girl struggled to keep her composure. She stared white-hot loathing at Oren's retreating back for a moment; then she reached inside her basket and pulled out two loaves of bread. She laid them down on a tree stump near the barn's door. Her shoulders fell in a sigh as she turned to go.

Oh, by the Emperor's bloody ass, Caddoc thought as he began to jog towards the girl. "Wait, Mistress!" She stopped and turned. Her eyes narrowed.

Caddoc stopped a few paces from her, still damp from the river. His emblem glittered against his bare chest in the early afternoon sunlight. He could feel the girl's eyes on it, much like he had yesterday. He noted it and continued on. "Please excuse his behavior, Mistress. Scribe Oren is not a bad man - I just think that my mule sometimes has more sense than him."

The girl glared at Caddoc for a tense moment. "Yer master is no'wt but an arse, like the rest o'th'fools in this damned town."

"Well, as my only experiences with the townsfolk of Annex consist of meeting you, him, and a half-deaf old miller downstream, I'm gratified to know you seem at least to have a decent head on your shoulders, despite your barbed tongue." He risked a smile at the girl. "I am quite relieved to see you again, Mistress. One more moment of having to listen to Scribe Oren's 'invaluable wisdom' and I think I might have ducked him in the river."

The girl snorted, the barest of wry grins playing over her features. "Then yer as barmy as yer master, Sonny Jim. No'wt anyone's glad t'see me unless it's me retreating backside. If it wasn't fer Master Baker I'd be livin' on whatever offal I could steal withou' gettin' caught."

"Well, your master can't possibly be as terrible as the rest of the townsfolk, if he's given you wages for work."

She sighed. "Me wages barely cover me room and board. An' every time Nesta from the roadhouse keeps one of me baskets, Master Baker takes it out of me pay. Wouldn't surprise me iff'n 'e encourages the little trollop."

"Well, that's hardly fair," Caddoc said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"What would you know from fair, Sonny Jim?" She bared her teeth at him. "You skinny git, what d'you know about livin' hand-to-mouth just because ye were born wi'th'wrong color hair, not even knowing who yer parents were? Keep yer pity for yerself, city boy." She gathered up her basket and turned to leave.

After she had taken three steps, Caddoc spoke. His voice was cold enough to freeze her in her tracks. "My name, Mistress, is not city boy. Nor is it Sonny Jim, nor anything else your clever little mind can come up with. My name is Caddoc. And no, perhaps I don't know what it has been like for you to live here, but I don't speak from pity, Mistress; I speak from the shared pain of a childhood spent alone and afraid, unsure of even who your parents were save a few half-remembered dreams, always wondering what it was you could have done to deserve being raised by strangers. No, I don't pity you, Mistress; I am you."

The girl's right hand clenched tightly around the handle of her basket; Caddoc could see her white-knuckled grip. Her other hand reached over and grabbed her shoulder, massaging it absently as the silence stretched between them.

"Lyrinn," she said, looking over her right shoulder at him. "My name is Lyrinn." She turned and fled down the road.