Chapter 167
The last field, gold inside a ring of grey. And out on the water, the whole Gleaner fleet: every barge, lashed into one great floating raft of salvage, bristling with hooks, torches already lit. At its heart, a throne of wreckage, and on it a small bent figure in a coat of a hundred flags.
at the Marka's wheel, counting barges under his breath, giving up.
sitting with her back against the fence post where she sat all night, sleeves rolled up, reading her arms. Not aloud this time.
carrying across the water, gentle, almost loving.
sitting down in the barley right in front of her, cross-legged, knees almost touching hers.
staring at him. Her lip shakes.
Öde reading the names off her arm fast, and Vigolas repeating every one, eyes shut, memorising. Then Kompis sits down beside him, then Rougeina, then Smurjan with Kali on his shoulder, then Drekk at the rail, mouthing along. Even Trollmage, asleep, mumbles names in his sleep.
stopping on one name on her forearm. A thick, square name, written heavier than the others: JÄRN.
A forge in Värn. A huge, soot-black, leather-aproned old man with forearms like ship-ropes and a beard singed at the tips, sitting a small girl with a too-big scythe on an anvil-block, guiding her hands along the blade with a whetstone.
back in the present, her thumb on his name. A small, wet, crooked smile.
heads together in the barley, as she talks fast and low. We don't hear all of it. Snatches in the balloons: "…his wife died the year I was born, and he made a bell for her…" "…he couldn't sing either…" "…he called me 'girl' because he said names were for people you might lose…"
eyes shut, repeating it word for word.
standing up, gripping the scythe, Järn's scythe-edge gleaming, the edge he taught her.
The Gleaner raft-fleet surging in from the sea and out of the grey at once, hooks flying, torches arcing. And Mother Skrap rising from her throne, salvaging two sinking barges at once, swelling huge, a sinking ship's fury in each fist.
planting the butt of the scythe in the soil, kneeling, eyes shut. The emerald names blaze up both arms, every one but one at its usual brightness, and JÄRN burning brightest of all.
The world unfolds around the acre, sunlit and blue: the red houses, the white church, the harbour, the mill, the windmill turning, gulls, summer. 111 people of Värn pour out of doors and up from boats and fields, every one of them with something in their hands: pitchforks, oars, flails, frying pans. Farmor Sigrun at the front with her pitchfork. Halm on the church wall with his slingshot. Bonde bounding to meet Mingus in the barley. And in the open door of the forge, outlined in red forge-light, hammer on his shoulder, Old Järn, looking straight at Öde.
He already knows. You can see it on his face. He nods.
walking through the battle toward her like a man going to work, not hurrying.
Värn and the crew against the whole Gleaner fleet.
Farmor Sigrun and Ma Svea's fishing boats ramming the raft-fleet's outer barges.
Halm and Kompis side by side on the church wall, slingshot and Lilla Ulv, bouncing shots off the same weathervane.
Rougeina Moth-Swapping through a sky full of Värn's summer moths, eight silver-rose blades cutting hook-chains.
Smurjan, the Triple Pulse, three strikes, three barges' masts.
Bonde and Mingus, two dogs, herding a whole crowd of Gleaners off the quay.
Vigolas, green lightning in both fists, punching a hole straight through the raft-fleet toward its heart.
Old Järn, with a hammer, beside Vigolas. A smith and a pirate, swinging in the same rhythm. Järn's hammer smashes the hooks off a barge's chain like nails out of a board.
enormous, wading through the harbour, wearing two sinking barges like gauntlets. Her bright eye fixes on Old Järn. She can see it: at his edges, his outline is already beginning to fray, soft as old cloth. The chosen one. Fading.
Her huge ringed hand closes round Old Järn, to salvage him: to drink the last strength of a fading memory and wear it.
And it BURNS her. Gold-white fire bursts out between her fingers, races up her arm, and blackens the borrowed rings. The salvaged barges fall off her in burning planks.
standing untouched in the smoke, hammer on his shoulder, looking at her almost kindly.
Shrinking, staggering, her hand smoking, Mother Skrap reels back into her own fleet. Old Järn and Vigolas swing together, hammer and green-lit fist, one blow, and the whole raft-fleet's central chain snaps. The lashed barges burst apart, drifting, turning, Gleaners leaping into the sea and swimming for the grey.
small, bent and burned, dragged back onto her throne-barge by her Gleaners as it slides into the haze. Her burned hand is pressed over the one bright flag on her chest, the blue-and-white one, as if protecting it.
Silence. Värn's harbour, sunlit, full of drifting wreckage. The people of Värn cheering on the quay. The church bell starting, on its own, to ring the hour.
Värn begins to fold.
the last to fold, standing in the door of his forge as the world rolls up round him like paper. He lifts his hammer to Öde in salute.
(He folds away.)
The one acre of gold barley on the grey water. The crew standing in it, battered. Mingus sniffing Bonde's empty kennel. The scattered wreck of the Gleaner fleet drifting away in the distance.
The thick, square name JÄRN, the brightest stalk of all, going grey, then pale, then gone. A gap in the barley. Beside her, Vigolas puts his hand very lightly over the empty place, the way you'd cover a wound.
(111 → 110.)