33 Autumn, moments after the sinking of the Swan warship
Carter
It had been only moments since the Swan warship had been neutralized.
As Carter peers over the rail, she can see the results of the battle. The attack. Casks of supplies and debris, and slick dark stains across the surface of the lake. She moves away from the rail, though, before the first cry for help comes from the water. Soon the air is filled with the sound. Voices begging, sobbing, panicked and desperate and still swimming, not realizing that the Tide’s Song was no rescue ship.
In her mind, her father’s voice speaks words of warning.
“Careful,” he had said, holding a white-gloved hand back toward Carter. She was nearly twelve, and with Holland already rising in favor and rarely in the home, she and her father had grown close. Carter had taken one, careful step and peered around her father’s arm. There it was. The fox. A thick, downy vixen with eyes like pools of amber. The Blackwood dogs had stepped back, keeping a tight perimeter, and from her distance, Carter had braced herself on a knee, the butt of the crossbow pushing into her shoulder, settling into the molded leather made to fit it.
Carter had taken a single breath, held it, and released. It was a good, clean shot, but when Carter and her father moved closer, to investigate the vixen, the creature was still whimpering. Still breathing. Carter’s breath had caught in her throat, then, and with it the taste of vomit.
Beside her, a flare of light and a smell of tobacco and rose. Her father had taken a pull from his cigarello before shaking his head.
“It’s a shame, really, when a beast doesn’t understand it’s already dead,” said the Baric.
Carter hadn’t looked at her father. Instead, she’d taken a step toward the fox, her hand reaching for the knife at the top of her boot.
The Baric had caught her by the shoulder. “You think it’s a mercy, my girl, but if you try to put that creature out of its misery, it’s likely to attack.”
Carter had stopped, “But it’s in pain, surely—”
“Ah, that is your mother’s kind heart, showing through.”
Carter had brightened. Her father never mentioned her mother.
“It’s good,” he continued, “to have empathy for things lower than you. It’ll mean you’ll be an excellent Baric, Ellis, once my time is done.”
Carter had swallowed back the small peak of excitement that had risen in her voice. It was close to sundown, now. She would need to guide them both back to the estate.
The Baric had continued, though, studying the dying fox, the tip of his cigarello burning bright red in the dusk. “Sometimes all you can do is watch and use it as an opportunity to reflect on the blessings of the Hunt. We all rely on it, to sustain ourselves, but it means pain and death for lesser creatures, and that is a sacrifice to be honored. But never approach a dying animal, my girl. Their pain is not worth your safety.”
And so Carter turns away, ignoring the screams of the drowning men until she can no longer distinguish them from the waves. Over the next few moments, explanations and rationalizations rise from the voices on the deck of the ship.
“…couldn’t risk another battle…”
“…if she already knows about what happened in Pashat—”
“…don’t have this kind of time. This discussion doesn’t—”
“…if they had even seen Danica—”
“…it’s difficult…but I’d do anything for my people…”
“They’re Isendelian soldiers,” Carter says, at last, adding her own voice to the din, “it’s a shame, but it’s a war and soldiers die in a war.”
Sav’s voice: “An’ conscripts.”
“All the more reason,” says Carter, defensively, but her voice growing in conviction, “an end to the Baroness would mean an end to these pointless border wars. These Isendelians are part of the fallout. Casualties should be avoided, yes, but this was the best of bad options, and these soldiers died true Isendelians, a sacrifice they have made to protect their Barony, for the greater good of all of Isendel…”
Carter’s speech winds down with a few nods of agreement. It was something that had needed to be done - none of them were happy about it, but as Carter studies the faces around her, she sees the acceptance of inevitability. They were all there, in that suspended moment of the Hunt. No one throwing lines or signaling for help. Just waiting for their targets to stop crying and flailing in the water. Waiting for them to realize they were dead.
Carter stays an arms length away from the rail as she walks back to the rear of the ship. She doesn’t look out over the water, and as she rounds the aftcastle, she snaps her fingers. The small flicker of flame hovering between thumb and forefinger illuminates the cramped port space, and Carter notices she’s not the only person there.
“Master Potts,” says Carter by way of greeting, “apologies if I’m interrupting your… reverie?” She allows herself to slide down the wall of the aftcastle until she is sitting at Warbler’s level. “Surely this is a coup for you, especially.” With no immediate response, Carter pries further, “You seem to be a man bent on destruction,” she gestures back toward the ship’s bow. “If I remember correctly. The more Isendelians dead, the better, right?”
Her posture is casual as she removes a cigarello from her snuffbox and lights it with a dramatic flair - the flame between her fingertips snuffing out, replaced instantly by the steady ember of the cigarello. That done, Carter looks to Warbler, nonplussed, waiting for a response.
Warbler
Ringo had walked away in the middle of everyone else’s justifications. The seeing was hard enough. The blind destruction of it … it needed to be done certainly, but … did it really? How many innocent bystanders were on that boat? How many excuses could they make for some greater good, for a future they envisioned, while they discounted the only thing any of them had any real control over.
Their own actions.
This moment.
Here.
Now.
His mind wandered as he slipped away to the other side of the ship. The planks of wood shifted into memories of green grass and wildflowers. The rippling waters of the lake became the sight of rolling hills and the sound of a song carried on a spring breeze.
He closed his eyes for a moment, and breathed in deep trying to calm himself. He let the peace wash over him, and the scent of the pear blossoms filled his nostrils. He whistled softly, in a low warble, trying to follow the tune, but as always he missed more than a few beats.
A hand found its place on his shoulder. He laid his own atop it, and squeezed tightly.
“Ringo,” a familiar voice said, and a warmth washed over him.
“Master Potts,” a voice rang out across the hills, and the familiar hand slipped through his fingers. “The more Isendelians dead the better right?” Carter asked him. Her tone and inflection saying far more than her words.
He didn’t look at her right away as he said matter of factly, “I’m no one’s master, Miss Carter, and this …” he pauses as he turns to look at the space where the warship was only moments ago, “this is a tragedy.”
Carter
Carter takes a beat, and scans the halfling up and down with a critical eye. He’s… hard to read, and Carter says as much.
“Master Potts?” Carter pauses, softening the address. “I mean, Warbler. Are you… actually alright? I wasn’t intending to sound cruel, only to match the tone I had thought…”
Carter takes a drag of her cigarello, “The other day, when we all talking motivations - the reasons why we wanted to get to Galoring - it seemed to me that you were of the opinion that there was very little worth salvaging out of what currently exists of the Barony.” She pauses and shrugs, gesturing loosely with the hand holding the smoke, to indicate the rest of the Tide’s Song. “Athelia and her men are smugglers, not politicians. The country folk - Danica, Ethan…” she waves a hand, “get to Galoring, kill the Baroness, teleport to the… Octurne and then somehow… nebulous victory?” Carter smiles at this, smoke escaping her nose with a gentle scoff. “I thought, if anyone of this group might be instrumental in saving Isendel, in repairing it, that maybe it would be Sav, or Sylas,” she shrugs, “Astarel, even. Though her ultimate goals lie further afield.”
Carter shifts her posture, sitting on the deck now, leaning against the wall of the aftcastle behind her. “When I’d spoken with you, Master— er… Mister Potts,” she smiles a little, cheeks coloring. “Apologies. Warbler,” she laughs at her own pronunciation, hitting the Rs slightly too strongly. “It’s a difficult habit to fall out of.”
“I thought you were for the land. The earth itself. The plants and animals that push against everything man has done to try to tame this world,” she looks over at Warbler, trying to read his expressions, “It’s surprising to me that eliminating so many soldiers, so many…separate nodes of this seeming blight of mankind would be upsetting toward you.”
She nods, “But that is clearly the case. And so you have my apologies for my…misread. It was never my intention to further upset you. Death can be—” Carter pauses and takes another drag. “The feelings around death can be complex.”
“I doubt I’m the person you most want to speak with, right now, but I am here. And I am listening, and we’re closer to Galoring every hour. Tell me, Warbler, what do you want the end of this to look like?”
Warbler
Warbler shifts his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other, and scratches behind his left ear while Carter speaks, further tousling his perpetually messy mop of hair … despite his best efforts to get cleaned up with a haircut and a shave before they had arrived in Pashat … some changes just don’t stick.
Warbler’s expression shifts as Carter speaks to him from solemn and contemplative to a half smile as he shakes his head from side to side. “I’m … yes, I’m alright, but loss of life is never a thing to celebrate. Is … is that really the impression I gave? I’ve always had a tough time turning my thoughts into the right words …”
“May … Maybe, someone else’s words would work better? There’s a story Old Marmi sometimes told in the town square back home … Root and Stone …”
“A, ahem,” he says as he clears his throat and straightens his posture. His expression is serious, even formal, and he seems to look out past Carter as he speaks.
Root and Stone
A long time ago there was a Root and a Stone that grew up around the same valley.
Root grew out in all directions, while Stone grew up tall and strong.
One day Root stretched so far that it crept up to the very edge of Stone.
Stone howled and roared and sent winds gusting through the valley that they both called home.
The force of Stone’s rage tore Root from the ground and tossed it in all directions.
But Root did what Root does, and continued to grow, and Root spread far and wide.
The more Stone howled the further Root spread until Stone was completely surrounded.
Then Stone grew desperate and made winds so fierce that it fractured itself in its bluster.
So Root did what Root does and grew into and through those cracks.
Now the old Stone has no wind left to muster.
“That old story never made much sense to me when I was growing up …”
“I, I think, Isendel is made up of some very old stones, Miss Carter, and its people … including the people that were on that warship … are its roots.”
Carter
Carter studies the figure in front of her. Taller, now that she is seated, and in the afternoon sun casting a shadow against the aftcastle that is taller still, that grows and shifts with the movement of the ship and the rhythm of Warbler’s words.
It reminds her of Church. Of studying the Torch and thinking of how fire burns with no discretion.
The shift, in her childhood, from a focus on the fire itself to the Embodiment of the Kindled Flame. To the cult of the family Isendel.
No. Warbler doesn’t really remind Carter of a priest. As he speaks of gusting winds, and the persistence of growth, Warbler seems to Carter a professor from a foreign land. Speaking of something utterly true to him, in a language that perhaps only he spoke, now. Something uniquely Isendelian and maybe lost. Casualty to Tyr Isendel’s war.
Carter waits until Warbler finishes his parable, and then speaks.
“I think that the stones of Isendel are the systems on which it has been built - these cornerstones of inequity, where people trade labor for protection and gain no capital of their own, where the only institutions that have any ability to make change are those that have always been so, where the injustice, especially towards uniquely talented people like yourselves…” she gestures again at the ship as a whole, “…like each of you witches is just so…so vast.
“But stones aren’t living things. A Barony isn’t its land, it’s its people. And, while I appreciate that you may believe what you believe about stones, in my experience, they do not grow. They break apart. Over time, with pressure and wind and water,” She smiles at Warbler, raising an eyebrow good naturedly, “And I have never known stones to create wind.
“Roots though? A Barony’s people, that is the thing worth preserving. Each growing and changing and mutating, perhaps, if my professor from Syn-Celnarin was correct in his theories. And yes, in your parable, in the battle against the stone, roots were torn away, but more grew. And those that grow in a place with cracks instead of solid stone, with gravel instead of boulders, would grow stronger, and healthier and better.”
Carter takes a drag of her cigarello, and tucks it, still smoking, behind her ear as she rummages through a pouch at her hip. “And this is the sort of thing that is lost, too,” she says, looking up at Warbler, “Because of the actions of a few - Tyr Isendel and those directly supporting her - we’ve lost so much as a Barony. Things like your Old Marmie’s stories. A unique tradition of oral history…”
Carter pulls a small notebook from her pouch, and opens it. She takes another, long pull of the cigarello, and it hangs between the fingers of her left hand, while her right readies a pen. “Would you tell me about your home? About the part of Isendel that you’re from?”
Warbler
Warbler shakes his head as Carter describes her interpretation of the tale, and he can’t quite hold back a bit of a chuckle as he plops down cross legged in front of her. He tilts his head and his joints let out a creak and a few pops as he rolls his shoulders and clears his throat before speaking.
“No, not systems … power … power and, um … the powerless, or at least the illusion of those distinctions,” he says as he pulls a less than half full bottle of bright green effervescent liquid from his pack, and places it on the deck between them. “Also, in my experience … I’ve learned to not discount unexpected possibilities,” he states as he continues to rifle through the bag and sets a palm sized charred piece of wood beside it with a pear carved into its center, and then rests his walking stick down alongside them before looking up at her. “Like stones growing, plants talking … or, or dragons made out of flying grains of sand.
“This … this is my home,” he says waving an upward facing palm over the objects between them. “This is what I have left from Glenhollow, and I’m less and less convinced any of it was ever really a part of Isendel.”
“A little over five years ago now … Painted Swan soldiers visited us. Wearing that purple and gold tabard. Telling us that we were on the border of a dangerous war, but that we had nothing to fear … that they would keep us safe. We were Isendelian citizens, and the armies of our enemies were just over the hills …”
“I was a little over twenty years old at the time … I thought they were heroes. I wanted to be just like them,” he says with a laugh.
He places his hands on his hips and puffs out his chest, looking up heroically towards the horizon, while giving Carter a sideways glance and asks, “What do you think? Could I have been a soldier of Isendel? A defender of the Barony?”
Carter
“No. You don’t have the build,” says Carter with a smile. Another scoff. A puff of smoke, tobacco and rose. She looks down at the charred wood that Warbler has placed between them, and snuffs her cigarello - feeling oddly uncomfortable, faced with Warbler’s home of broken objects. “But you should have been allowed to live your life. To pursue other things you were interested in, to learn from others and grow like the roots of your parable.” She nods to him, “And the fact that was taken from you, from all of the smallfolk in Glenhollow, it is a tragedy.”
She blinks, surprising herself as her vision blurs with tears. “The fact that the men and women on that warship are dead is a tragedy. The loss of the village that my brother burned to ash on the Morathi border…that is a tragedy. But that is what we’re trying to do.” She shakes her head, “Or at least what I’m trying to do. Stop it from happening to more people. Prevent those future tragedies.”
A deep, steadying breath of humid lake air as Carter stalls, fiddling with her un-lit cigarello.
“I know I sound foolish,” she says with a shrug.
Warbler
Ringo’s expression shifts. His brow furrows, and his smirk falls to a flat line across his face as he gathers his things. He stands and turns to leave without saying a word.
Then he pauses mid stride; his expression frustrated, and snarls out a reply without turning back to face the young woman. “They never even asked us for help after we sheltered them in our inns, our homes. We … we even helped them set up camp around the orchards, and we … we asked for nothing in return.” He slams his cane once against the deck of the ship to punctuate his words.
“Whatever scared them so badly that they thought we were no longer worth saving … worth protecting … That, that orchard, and the centuries old trees in it became nothing more than kindling to them … ” he pauses and lowers his head while trying to catch his breath. “Charred sticks and ash …” he whispers.
“I would have made a great knight … I would have, at least I would have seen what was worth fighting for,” he grumbles as he begins to limp away.
Carter
“Mister Potts…I—” Carter watches as Warbler turns away and reaches out, but misses his sleeve. “I mean Warbler… Warbler!
“Please, I don’t understand - what happened? Isendelian soldiers…stationed to protect your village from something, but then frightened off by something—and a scorched earth retreat?
“That is something we can never rectify, but we can find those responsible…burning a civilian village, regardless of which foreign barony it borders, should not go unpunished—”
She speaks to Warbler’s back, now, her voice rising slightly, in cadence. He’s no longer walking away, but he hasn’t yet turned to face her. “And in the meantime we can remember, and honor, those who were lost. Isendelians who were…
“What I’m trying to say is … could you remember them in some way, your fellow—” she hesitates, but remembers the name, “Glenhovians? What would you do for them now, if you could. If those moments of mourning were so unfairly stolen from you… if it might make you feel more… at peace? I could record it, if you like—write the traditions for you, or any memories or stories you’d want to share… we could…”
Quiet.
“I misspoke, before, too. Knights and soldiers are different things, in Isendel. I could never see you being a soldier, Warbler, because I think you would love your home too much to leave it. But Knights are rarely mustered—they are supposed to stay, to protect the people in their villages… their smallfolk.”
Carter starts to rifle in her bag, retrieving a small bag of blotting sand and spreading it over the pages of her open notebook.
“You would actually make a wonderful knight,” says Carter, softly.
Warbler
Warbler tries to steady his shaking hands, and collect himself before turning to face the young woman once again. His anger is masked by a smile as he tries to clear his mind. He closes his eyes for just a moment, and draws in a deep breath.
A table is surrounded by figures. Cups of strong green cider in outstretched arms. Some in plain clothes, wearing aprons, or overalls. Others in tabards and armor, purple and gold and leather and steel. There’s laughter and song, dancing and firelight in the distance … A young soldier blows a kiss as she approaches, tousles a mop of auburn hair as she takes a seat, and joins the others at the round wooden table with a fresh pitcher. The cups all raise in unison, cider sloshing out from them, “Un Schou! To Isendel!” they shout in joyous tones.
He exhales …
Eyes shut …
“I don’t … I don’t know what happened, why they did what they did to my home, which border we were on, or … or even how I survived. That’s the worst of it, I think … The not knowing.”
A flash of swirling flames, gnashing teeth, rending claws, searing pain, and then … ash.
His eyes open …
“I don’t want to destroy the thing you love Miss Carter … your Isendel, but your government with its Barics and knights, captains and inquisitors, and all the soldiers willing or otherwise. The power structures. The way the rules of this game apply differently to those with the right name, the right coin … the right home …
“It’s sick, and it needs fixing, but nothing can grow without pruning out the rot, and turning the soil,” he says matter of factly.
“I’m not angry at you specifically, but in some ways Blackwood … your name, the way you grew up in this world, all you have and all that others don’t … You remind me very much of what’s broken in this place, and how so many of us are broken by it.
“I’m sorry about your brother … and I’m sorry for getting upset. You, um … you didn’t deserve that.”
He turns around and pulls a bracelet shaped like a coiled serpent from his pocket “I think you should keep this. I found it on that ship after the scuffle …”
He pauses for a few moments, and then closes her hand around the bracelet.
“I really would have, you know … made a great knight, if anyone had asked.”
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