by K. J. Parker
‘What other business?’ Poldarn asked.
But the voice only shushed him. ‘You’ve made me lose track,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t I supposed to be telling you about how you came to be lying there in the river, with all those dead people?’
Poldarn had clean forgotten about that. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘What about that? I really would like to know what happened.’
But the voice was silent for some time. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘Like, think what happened that other time, when I told you something you didn’t ought to know, because I thought it’d help. Look at all the trouble that made for everyone. No, I don’t think I should tell you after all, not with the wedding coming up and all that. What if it made you go all crazy again? That’d be awful.’
Poldarn was so angry he could hardly keep still; but he knew that if he moved, he’d wake up out of the dream, and then he’d never know. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘stop teasing me. You said yourself, it’s spiteful to tease. Tell me what happened.’
‘All right,’ she said, and she started to tell him. But her voice was getting softer and softer, so he couldn’t make out what she was saying over the croaking and cackling of the huge mob of crows that had pitched on the roof – all the crows he’d ever killed, right down to the one he’d crushed into the coals of the forge fire, and they were talking about him, about various things he’d done, or else singing the song about the crows sitting in the tall, thin trees, and because he could hear every last voice, hundreds and thousands of them all at the same time inside his head, of course he heard nothing at all. Finally he got so angry that he grabbed an axe that happened to be lying beside him and jumped up to scare the crows away—
‘Bloody hell,’ said Boarci, ‘calm down, for God’s sake, and stop waving that thing in my face. It’s only me, they told me to come and wake you up.’
Poldarn looked down at the axe in his hand. ‘I was asleep,’ he said.
‘Too right you were, they could hear you snoring out in the yard. Having a bad dream, they reckoned, because you kept shouting stuff out loud.’
Of course, the dream had gone; it had opened its wings in a panic as he came rushing out of his sleep, and flown away into the air to roost in the darkness. ‘What sort of stuff was I shouting?’ Poldarn asked.
But Boarci only laughed. ‘Search me,’ he said, ‘it was all in foreign, must’ve been the Empire language or something like that, we couldn’t make out a word of it. Anyway, you were putting people off their food, so I came to wake you up.’
‘Oh,’ Poldarn said. ‘Thank you, I suppose.’
‘Don’t mention it. Now, can I have my axe back, please? Or are you going to keep it for yourself after all? Feel free,’ Boarci added. ‘After all, you made it. And I’m still not sure I like it. Bit front-heavy for my liking.’
Poldarn checked; it was the axe he’d made, sure enough, though he couldn’t figure how on earth it had managed to get up there all by itself. ‘I’ll put a weighted pommel on the end if you like,’ he said, ‘that ought to sort out the balance for you.’
Boarci shrugged. ‘Worth a try, I guess.’ He laughed. ‘Tell you what, though,’ he said, ‘it’s just as well that girl of yours wasn’t down there when you were snoring away like a grindstone. Not the sort of thing you’d want to hear just before you’re about to get married to someone. If I was in her shoes, I’d probably run away while there’s still time.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘I’ve never been to a wedding before,’ Poldarn said. ‘At least, that’s not strictly true. But I can’t remember ever having been to one. What happens?’
Eyvind laughed. ‘Oh, nothing much. Everyone troops into the hall, the head of the house says a few words, that’s basically it. No big deal.’
Poldarn wasn’t sure he believed him. The subdued frenzy of activity that had been going on behind his back for the last couple of days suggested otherwise. Of course, he hadn’t the faintest idea what they’d been getting up to, because as soon as he turned up, everybody stopped what they were doing and stared at him in oppressive silence until he went away again; but it seemed to involve yards and yards of cloth, dozens of baskets of flora and vegetable matter, and pretty well every member of the two households except him. Even Asburn had been bashing away in the forge at all hours of the day and night, and had refused to let him in in case he saw something he shouldn’t. Meanwhile, precious little work was being done around the farm, except by the prospective bridegroom (who, being at a loose end, had been pressed into deputising for all the busy people; he’d mended fences, laid hedges, weeded, spit and harrowed, mucked out cattle sheds and stables, fetched, carried, cooked, swept and polished, until he no longer needed to be told what to do. If he saw a job of work, he did it, knowing full well that if he didn’t, nobody else was likely to. On reflection, it occurred to him that maybe that was the whole point).
‘What sort of no big deal?’ he asked. ‘I mean, do I have to do anything, or do I just stand there like a small tree until it’s all over?’
Eyvind shook his head. He was mending a broken staff-hook by binding the smashed shaft with wet rawhide, which gave him an excuse for not meeting Poldarn’s eye. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure. You see, as well as being the bridegroom you’re also the head of the household – both households, really, since Colsceg and his mob are under your roof. So, properly speaking, you’re the one who should be doing all the speeches and saying the magic words. It’ll be interesting to see how it turns out, really.’
Poldarn sighed. Getting a straight answer out of Eyvind looked like it would take major surgery. On the other hand, nobody else was even prepared to talk to Poldarn, except Boarci, who probably knew the score but was pretending he didn’t. ‘That’s just silly,’ Poldarn said. ‘I can’t marry myself, it sounds all wrong. There must be some sort of established procedure in these cases.’
‘You’d have thought so, wouldn’t you?’ Eyvind replied. ‘But apparently not, it’s never happened quite like this before. You see, usually the sons and grandsons of heads of households are married by the time they’re nineteen, sometimes earlier. Old men like you and me roaming around free as birds is definitely the exception rather than the rule.’
‘Oh,’ Poldarn said. ‘So why aren’t you married, then? I’ve got an excuse, but you haven’t.’
Eyvind shrugged. ‘It just turned out that way,’ he said. ‘People like you and me, heads of houses or heirs apparent, can’t just go marrying anybody – it’s a serious thing, we’ve got to marry daughters of heads of other households, preferably ones whose farms share a common boundary or two. Our place – well, it’s tucked in rather awkwardly between several much bigger spreads and, as it turned out, after they’d all done deals with each other there wasn’t anybody left over for me. So I’d have had to go marrying up-country, which would’ve involved a lot of messing around with grazing rights and water rights and overwintering agreements and stuff like that, and it’s hard enough as it is screwing a living out of the collection of large rocks we call a farm without buggering up all our arrangements just so I don’t have to sleep alone. Besides, there’s no real need. When I die, the farm will go to my mother’s brother’s family, and everybody’s quite happy with that. If I got spliced and had a son, it’d cause more problems than it’d solve.’
Oh, Poldarn thought. Isn’t that missing the point rather? Obviously not. ‘Do you mind?’ he asked.
‘Not terribly.’ Eyvind grinned. ‘I know what you’re thinking. But – no offence – you’re forgetting the main difference between yourself and the rest of us. Take that into account, and maybe you can see how we’ve got a whole different set of motivations and priorities Or, at least, I’m guessing that, because I haven’t got a clue how your mind works. Still, it seems to me that if you can go around thinking whatever the hell you like with nobody being able to look in on you, your approach to the whole subject has got to be completely different. Much better in some ways,
I guess, and far, far worse in others. We tend to keep that side of ourselves – well, in reserve, out of sight, even, until we go abroad. Doesn’t matter a damn what we do while we’re over there, after all.’
Well, not quite, Poldarn thought; that’s how I came to be born, or didn’t you hear about that? I’m sure you must have done, so that was a definite mistake, my otherwise tactful friend. Now maybe— It was the first time he’d thought of it. Maybe the reason he couldn’t read and be read was because his mother was a foreigner, not part of the swarm, with a mind that couldn’t be prised open and examined by everybody in the household. Not that it mattered; and the subject as a whole seemed to be embarrassing Eyvind, so he decided to change it. ‘You were saying something about speeches and magic words,’ he said. ‘Can you be a bit more specific, perhaps?’
Eyvind pulled the last strip of rawhide tight and wiped his hands on his shirt. ‘Let’s see,’ he said. ‘It’s been a while since I was at a wedding. I think what happens is that the head of household goes through a sort of list of do’s and don’ts, asks questions about whether you really want to marry each other, are there any things you haven’t told anybody about, like being brother and sister; that sort of thing generally. The sort of stuff that probably meant something once but now it’s just a set of meaningless rote questions and responses that everybody reels off by heart without thinking.’
‘Fine,’ Poldarn said. ‘So you’re telling me I’ve got to ask all these dumb questions and then answer them myself. And with people watching, too. There’s got to be a better way of going about it than that.’
‘Such as?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Can’t I appoint someone as a stand-in head of household, just for the day of the wedding? Or what about Colsceg? He’s a head of house, he’ll do.’
‘Yes, but it’s not his house. I think there’s specific rules about that.’
‘All right, then,’ Poldarn said with a touch of desperation. ‘How about you? You’re not a head of house but you’re in line to be. I’m sure you could do it. The logical choice, really.’
Eyvind shook his head. ‘You can forget that,’ he said. ‘I’d rather be trapped in a burning house, with the roof falling in on me.’
‘Even to help out a friend in need?’
‘I said forget it. Wouldn’t be right, anyhow. Strictly speaking, I’m an offcomer, I shouldn’t even be in the house when there’s a wedding going on.’
‘What does that mean?’ Poldarn interrupted.
‘Oh, superstition,’ Eyvind replied. ‘They say that if there’s offcomers in the house on a wedding day, it’s bad luck, to the bride and groom and the offcomers too. Just a load of old garbage, of course, but some people take that kind of thing pretty seriously – it wouldn’t do to go upsetting them by having an offcomer actually taking the service.’
‘Somebody’s got to do it,’ Poldarn snapped, ‘and I’m bloody certain it isn’t going to be me. Now come on, for pity’s sake, I’ve got to go out there and get married in a few hours, there isn’t any time for playing games. Think of someone.’
‘I’m thinking,’ Eyvind replied, somewhat nettled by Poldarn’s outburst. ‘But I can think till my brains boil out through my ears and it won’t do any good if there’s nobody to think of. Oh, I don’t know, what about Colsceg’s sons?’
Poldarn looked up sharply. ‘What, you mean Barn? If he can do it, so could Colsceg, surely. And at least Colsceg’s a bit more animated than a broken cartwheel.’
‘I just said, he’s disqualified. All right, if you’ve got something against Barn, what about Egil?’
Poldarn shook his head. ‘He doesn’t like me,’ he said.
‘How doesn’t he like you?’ Eyvind looked concerned. ‘And what gave you that idea, anyhow?’
‘Nothing. Forget I just said that.’
‘Sorry,’ Eyvind replied, ‘but some of us can’t forget things as easily as others. What’s your problem with Egil?’
‘Nothing, really. It’s just an impression I got, so it’s far more likely to be wrong than right, anyhow. I can’t see inside his head, remember, so I have to go by other kinds of signal. And I wouldn’t trust my judgement in such matters further than I could sneeze it out of my ear.’
That didn’t seem to satisfy Eyvind at all. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Be like that, don’t tell me. But it strikes me that picking imaginary feuds with your prospective in-laws isn’t the most intelligent thing in the world, especially if they’re going to be living a few hundred yards from your front door.’
Poldarn smiled defensively. ‘That’s interesting,’ he said. ‘You make it sound like it’s actually possible to have a quarrel with anybody in these parts. I wouldn’t have thought it could be done, with everybody being so like-minded and knowing what everybody else is thinking.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ Eyvind replied. ‘Oh, it’s rare enough, but it happens. Not in the same household, of course, that would be impossible, but neighbours do fall out occasionally, and it can get rather unpleasant if you’re not careful. Which is why getting it into your head that someone’s got it in for you is a bad idea, believe me.’
‘All right,’ Poldarn said appeasingly, ‘I promise to love all my fellow human beings to bits. And if you think Egil would do it, sure I’ll ask him. I just doubt it, that’s all.’
Eyvind stood up. ‘I’ll ask him for you, if you like,’ he said abruptly. ‘That way, you won’t feel tempted to say something stupid or offensive.’
‘Good idea,’ Poldarn sighed. ‘Why don’t you do that?’
‘All right.’
Poldarn had hoped that Eyvind wasn’t serious, or that Egil would refuse; but apparently not. ‘He says he’ll be delighted,’ Eyvind announced happily, a few minutes later. ‘And he reckons he knows all the words and what to do, so that’s all right. I think he liked the idea of playing at being a head of household for a while, since he won’t ever get the chance otherwise. Pity, that,’ Eyvind added, ‘he’d be good at it, or at least better than his brother would be. Mind you, the same would hold true of a small piece of rock.’
Best not to go there, Poldarn decided. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Thank you. Now, will you please tell me what I’m supposed to do at this wedding, because otherwise it’s going to be extremely embarrassing.’
‘Well,’ Eyvind began; at which point an unfamiliar twelve-year-old girl came bounding up to tell them it was time to begin, and everybody was waiting. ‘Actually,’ Eyvind added, as the little girl led them away, ‘it should all be pretty obvious, you’ll know what to say when the time comes.’
Poldarn wasn’t in the least convinced, but it was too late now to do anything about it. Quite apart from the details of the ceremony, there were a great many other connected issues he’d have liked to talk through, but clearly he wasn’t going to get the chance. He had the feeling of being on the box of a runaway cart trundling slowly down a hill, just about to gather pace.
The wedding was going to take place in the hall of the house – the old house, Poldarn told himself; I don’t live there any more, for some reason nobody’s seen fit to explain to me. That bothered him for a moment; the house wasn’t his now, and since the new house was built he’d been given to understand that he wasn’t supposed to set foot in it. No doubt there was a very good reason why the wedding should be held on foreign soil, so to speak. If Halder had still been alive, where would they have held the wedding? In his house, presumably. Poldarn was sure there was a reason for every detail – that seemed to be the way of things here – but he couldn’t help wishing that someone would explain it to him. After all, he was the head of the household, supreme ruler in a society where nobody ever told anyone else what to do, nobody ever needed to tell anyone else what to do (except when mountains exploded and flooded the world with black mud). Ludicrous, he thought; nominally, I’m the most important man in this valley, and I’m the only one who hasn’t got a clue what’s happening. It’s like a religion where everybody worships a god who
doesn’t know he’s divine.
The little girl led Poldarn to the door (the back door, he noticed; any significance in that? Undoubtedly, though he could only guess at what it might be) and told him, rather abruptly, to wait there. So he waited. At first he stood up; then he began to feel fidgety, and leant against the door frame. Then he pulled over a log from the logpile and sat down. After a while, he wondered if they’d forgotten all about him, or whether the bride had changed her mind (assuming she had one to change), or if there was a furious debate raging inside about letting an offcomer marry into a respectable house; or maybe they’d all fallen asleep, or gone off to do something else, or died. Maybe they were all waiting impatiently for him, tapping their feet and picking at their sleeves, with Elja in floods of tears because she’d been left standing at the altar. He considered opening the door just a crack and looking in, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to do that, for fear that he’d be noticed and everyone would swivel round and stare at him. Ridiculous, he thought; they can’t leave me out here all day like a tethered donkey. Can they?
Apparently they could. After what seemed like a very long time – long enough for his left leg to go to sleep, at any rate – Poldarn came to the conclusion that if he was going to be stuck here indefinitely, he might as well find something useful to do, in accordance with the underlying philosophy of the place. He looked around, and saw a big splitting axe lodged in a big stump, with a stack of wood split into kindling, where someone had presumably downed tools in order to go to the wedding. There was still plenty of wood to be split, a whole pile of it, so he hauled himself painfully to his feet, levered the axe out of the chopping block, set a log on top and took a swing at it.
