Chapter 293
Roffe on top of an upturned cauldron at the head of the branch, beating Mätt with Sleven: the dinner bell. It rings down the whole length of the Burn.
The pilgrims waking and coming up the branch to the chalk tables, hundreds of them, jars in their arms, sitting down in rows, uncertain, in front of bowls with their own names chalked beside them. A place for each jar. A dish for each jar.
at a table, reading the chalk beside the bowl in front of the empty place opposite him: KARIN · FISH SOUP · NO DILL, SHE HATED DILL.
at the head of the first table, a plate in front of her too: barley bread and honey. Roffe standing over her with his arms folded until she takes a bite.
putting down the bread. And her cracks, which were grey and dull at dawn, glowing again, warm, ember-bright. The amber of the Full Table lighting in her chest under the ember-knot.
standing up, turning to the first pilgrim's jar on the table. Explaining it to the old man, gently, the way she explains it to everyone:
The whole length of the Burn, black branch under a red-gold dawn, and running down it, table after table of chalk, lantern-lit, steaming, hundreds of places set. And at every table, for one minute each, a family eating with their dead: a fisherman relit with a bowl of salt-cod in front of him and his sons on either side; a girl with a red ribbon and pancakes with lingonberry, her mother laughing; an old woman, Karin, with fish soup, no dill, scolding the old man across the table; a soldier and his little brother splitting a loaf.
Minute after minute, down the branch, like lamps lighting one after another. And Aska walking the tables, cracks glowing, counting under her breath, not tired, giving each one sixty.
And between them, both crews in aprons carrying bowls.
Karin, at 45: "You've let the garden go." "I have." "Plant the beans again." "I will."
A father, at 30, feeding his relit baby daughter mashed barley off a spoon, both of them laughing.
Two old sisters, at 59, clinking cups.
An empty bowl, a scraped plate, a spoon set down: 60.
at the cauldron, counting every one under his breath, ladling the next bowl on the sixtieth beat of the last.
The line moving faster than it has in a hundred years. Families leaving down the branch with empty jars and full stomachs. Aska still glowing. Jeppson redrawing tables with hands that shake so hard Kompis holds the chalk with him.
the thin young one from the supply cart, white robe smeared with flour, carrying bowls down a table, and stopping beside a relit old woman to refill her cup. The old woman patting his hand. He goes red.
The last jar. The last minute. The tables empty, scraped, the lanterns burning down. The pilgrims mostly gone, a few asleep in heaps with empty jars hugged to their chests, smiling. Aska sitting on the edge of a table, tired now, the good kind. Roffe at the cauldron, grey, swaying, his stomach roaring.
looking down into Mätt. At what's left: a lot. And then looking across the branch at Smurjan, sitting with his back to a stove, and at his shadow, stretched long in the lantern-light, where something huge and quiet is lying with its chin on its paws, watching the pots.
wiping his hands on his apron, walking over, lowering himself onto a stool in front of the shadow.
(In the shadow, two small sad eyes open.)
rising: Bakasura, the great maw, jaws as wide as a door, a white streak down its dark, small sad eyes in all that mouth, looking at the cook.
watching, very still. Kali beside him, sitting up.
standing, turning to both ships' crews, rolling up his sleeves again over a hundred burns.
Both crews hauling every scrap of food on two ships up the branch: sacks of barley, the last of the salt-cod, Levla's emergency biscuits, Tihi's secret jam, Trollmage's hidden sausages ("…Those were for a nap."), Krydog carrying the Upp Igen's whole larder on his back. Roffe at three stoves at once, faster than anyone's ever seen him, Sleven flashing.
full to the brim, steaming, amber. Roffe setting it down on the black charcoal in front of the great maw. Kneeling beside it with a ladle.
lowering its jaws to the cauldron. Eating. Slowly. The whole pot. Roffe ladling, ladling. A second pot. A third. The sacks. The biscuits. The jam.
his eyes going wide, a hand flat on his own stomach. And Kali beside him the same.
lifting its jaws out of the last empty pot. Very still. The small sad eyes blinking. Something happening in that great dark body that has never happened before.
not sad. Astonished.
Silence on the Burn. Both crews frozen with sacks and pots in their arms. Smurjan sitting back against the stove, both hands on his stomach, tears running down his face. Kali laughing, a small helpless laugh, one hand over her mouth.
turning the great maw down toward the grey-faced cook kneeling beside the empty cauldron. Looking at him. At the apron. At the stomach that hasn't stopped growling in three days.
smiling up at the maw, his face grey, his eyes warm, his stomach roaring.
a long look at him. Then lowering the great jaws, very slowly, and resting them, gently, on the cook's shoulder. The way a dog rests its chin.
under the jaws, his eyes rolling up, sitting down hard on the overturned Mätt, and then fainting flat on his back on the black branch, a smile on his face, his stomach still growling.
Both crews asleep on the branch round a cook flat on his back, a great dark maw curled round him like a dog round its master, and a one-armed woman and a quiet man sitting against a stove, full, for the first time in their lives.
The kitchen cold. The tables bare. The few pilgrims left asleep. And coming down the branch from the pyre, alone, unhurried, in the rags of a red-and-gold showman's coat: the Kindler, steam pouring off his lips, walking along the line of sleeping pilgrims, stopping at each, bending down, whispering.
straightening up in the middle of the branch, arms spread to the waking pilgrims, the voice of a man who once sold fire for coins in a square.