The Tower of Living and Dying

by Anna Smith Spark

  Chapter Ten

  “Do you need anything else doing in the village, Ru?” the woman Lan asked. “While I’m down that way?”

  Ru thought. “Not the village. But you could check on the goats. Saves doing it later.”

  “I will, then.” Lan adjusted her headscarf and went out. Took a deep breath of air after the smoky tallow damp of the house, that was one more thing she could not get used to. Physical weariness. Hunger. Her skin itching, her hair itching, her clothes itching. She had a grim and certain horror that she had become infested with lice.

  “If the young one’s a bother, slap him on the nose and tell him ‘no,’” Ru called after her. Lan called back yes. Her hands were rough and callused, broken nails, red scabbed raw knuckles. Slap him on the nose. She walked quickly down the track leading to the village, that ran out over the cliffs over Telorna Head.

  A bed by the hearth and three meals a day and a clean dress. What Ru gave her, in exchange for work. She checked on the goats, did her errands in the village, went back to Ru by the fire to cook them an evening meal. Thought about walking on to Morr Town. Never did.

  On the first day Lan had walked on shaking legs up the beach over the moorland of Seneth, following smoke from a village where she thought she might get directions to Morr Town. And the villagers had been kind enough, given her directions, if not to Morr Town then to a town called Ath west along the coast from where the road ran off towards Morr Town and the seat of the king. She knew the name, she thought. And that had been good and easy, along a well-made road banked with beech trees fiery with dried leaves, beech mast crunching pleasantly under her feet. On the second day her body shook and her mind screamed and she could not walk for seeing fires burning, and she had stumbled down the road off into the wilds, and there she had found a rundown house, and an old sickly woman, who was called Ru.

  “Did the young one bother you?” Ru asked.

  “Yes. But I hit it on the nose as you suggested.”

  “He’s the next to be slaughtered. When needs be. Difficult, that one.”

  Lan served the food. They sat quietly to eat.

  Ru said when they had finished eating, “I’ll teach you to spin, if you want. If you’re staying here.”

  “I can’t stay,” Lan said.

  “My husband died,” Ru said. Lan looked up at her, confused. “A long time ago. Years. Years and years. Still young, he was. I was young. He died in a brawl in a tavern, the innkeep said he was attacked by thugs, but … He died and I stayed here, learnt all the things I needed to learn, did what needed doing, worked hard. It’s not much of a life. But he had locked my skin away somewhere, you see, and I never found it. So I have to stay. I’ll teach you to spin and cook and work if you want. If you’re staying.”

  This thin tired old woman bent double from her work. A selkie. A sea maiden. A god thing. She swam in the sea as a seal, shed her sealskin and danced on the shore as a woman, until a man came and stole away her skin. And while the man had her skin she must stay with him. Marry him.

  Ru said, “Always, for someone, the world is being broken, Lan, girl. I’m not so resigned to it. Still long to go back to the sea. Dream it. But it was a long time ago. So many years.”

  They stared down at their empty plates. Lan said, “My brother was murdered and I couldn’t bear the grief of it. So I went far away to try to forget. And while I was far away I walked out of a shop doorway and saw my brother’s murderer’s face. And I dragged my brother’s murderer all the way back here with me to punish him. And everyone I ever cared for died as a result. If I hadn’t walked out of the doorway. If I hadn’t seen his face.”

  “If,” said Ru. “If.”

  “I could search the house for you. For your skin.”

  “I’ve searched. You think I haven’t? It’s not here. Wherever he put it, it’s hidden somewhere fast. Under a stone on the shore. Buried in a box in the cold earth.”

  “Let me search. Please.”

  Ru said, “And what would I do, if you found it? Go back to the sea?”

  This thin tired old woman bent double from her work, her hands gnarled and shaking, her eyes half blind. Seals swimming, lithe and glossy and beautiful, twisting and diving in the water, wild and nameless and free.

  Ru said, “Don’t search for it.”

  Ru said, “There are a thousand cruelties in the world, Lan. Cruel dead things. Monsters. Chance. Tidy the plates away. Then I’ll teach you to spin.”

  The woman Lan nodded, took the plates away to the slops bucket and the bowl of water for washing she had been heating on the fire. Hot water, lye soap that made her hands dry and sore. The soap was a new thing, like the bread, got from the village where she had taken the wool Ru spun. Great massed coils of it, fine for weaving, thick for knitting blankets and mittens and caps for the winter cold. Ru had spun it and saved it, unable now to reach the village on the other side of Pelen Brook to trade. So some tiny good comes from my ruin, Lan thought. Someone’s world kept alive. The cottage was filthy where Ru could not see the dirt. The goats were wild with uncombed coats where Ru could no longer walk to them. If I leave she will die, Lan thought.

  They sat in the half-dark by the fire, and Ru taught her to spin.

  “I will show you a special thing,” Ru said a few days later when Lan had returned from milking the goats. She went to a cupboard at the back of the house by her bed, brought out a bundle wrapped in leather. Unfolded it carefully and there on the leather was a piece of yellow cloth. Fragile as cobwebs, with a sheen like a child’s hair. Ru held it up. It shone and glowed and blazed. Not just lit from the sun but lit from itself. Like mage glass. Like magic fires. Like laughing eyes.

  “Oh!” Lan cried. One beautiful thing. Such a beautiful thing. “Is it … Is it magic?” Mage cloth, worked from dreams. A princess shining in the light of her own gown. Eltheia herself must have worn such things.

  “Smell it,” said Ru.

  Lan bent towards it, carefully, fearful she might damage it by breathing, so delicate it seemed. It should smell of spices and honey and the petals of new flowers. It should smell, she thought with a pang of rage, like Thalia’s hair. She breathed in the scent of leather, the worn skin smell of Ru’s hands. And under it … Salt. Seaweed. Fish. She looked up, shocked.

  “Sea silk,” said Ru. “The threads of tiny sea creatures. In the sunlight it glows. If left in the sun it will glow at night. Touch it.” Soft as thistle down. So soft Lan could barely feel it. Glowing. But the smell of the sea. A dress for a mer princess, perhaps, a selkie to dance on the sands in the moon. No human woman would wear it, smelling like that.

  “Is it yours?” Lan asked. She imagined Ru as a young beautiful sea maid, silvery haired and slender ankled. This the last precious fragment of her gown.

  “I wove it,” said Ru. “I gathered the silk. Wove it with my own hands.”

  “But I’ve never heard of such a thing.” There would be a way to take the stink out, and all the lords and kings and queens of Irlast would want such a fabric. Eltheia and Amrath, shining like the sun. Landra Relast should have had wardrobes full of it.

  “I made it,” Ru said again. “The most beautiful fabric in the world. No one else knows how to make it. It took me forty years to make.” Held it to the sun again and again it glowed. “If you stay, I can teach you.”

  An image for a moment, the two of them, the sea witch and the burned woman, bent at their work, weaving dreams and light into cloth that would never be enough to use and that smelled of salt and sea and fish so that no one would wear it even if they ever made enough to wear. Bolts of shimmering, stinking gold falling through their hands. All the lords of Irlast could not conceive of such a treasure.

  “I can’t stay,” Lan said. Still mesmerized by the silk, but the silk made her think of other things. Silk gowns, gold bracelets, the glitter of drinking cups in her father’s hall.

  “No.” Ru wrapped up the leather again, placed the bundle back in the cupboard by her bed. I hav
e just told her she will die this winter, Lan thought. Without me here she will die. “I didn’t think you would. You want to go. You want and you don’t want. But you will.”

  “I could stay here the winter. Find someone to take care of you. I could look for your skin.”

  “I don’t want my skin, Lan, girl. Not now. If you found my skin I’d ask you to burn it, and then I’d die. But you wouldn’t burn it and you won’t find it. And I won’t die.”

  “I’ll stay a few weeks more. Get you supplies in. Make things easier for you. Find someone to help you, maybe.”

  “I managed before you came without that. Daresay I can manage again. Though it’s kind of you to think of it.” Ru’s rheumy eyes flickered. “Don’t go looking for revenge, Lan.”

  “Revenge?”

  “The sea and the sky have blood in them. A great wrong was done to you. But don’t go looking for revenge.”

  Why not? Lan thought, and Ru looked at her hearing it in her face.

  Ru picked up her spinning. “Come and sit and we’ll try the thick thread for knitting again.”

  But what else have I got left, Lan thought, except revenge? That’s why I left the rest of them to die, isn’t it? So I could avenge them? She said in a rush, like water pouring out, “I watched my sister dying. I watched my mother dying. I ran down into the dark and hid. Ran away. Left them dying. To be revenged.” In her mind the crash of breaking stonework, the roar of fire rushing in waves, the screams. More than men screaming. Claws in the sky. When she thought of it now she saw bloody eyes.

  “I brought him back here for vengeance,” Lan said. “That’s why I brought him back here. To be revenged. To destroy him. And that’s why all this came about. Because I brought him back.”

  All this, because Lady Landra couldn’t live knowing he was living. All this, because Lady Landra was filled with the need for revenge.

  Silence.

  Ru said, “You hold it gentle, with a loose wrist. See? Careful. Get the softness in the thread as you turn it. Good soft cloth. A bone spindle’s best. Gives the luck. Strong and supple as young limbs, we want it. Strong and supple and soft. Horse bone’s best of all, of course, if you can get it. That’s it, hold it loose, see? You feel the difference now?”

  The spindle turned. A small worm of greyish thread. The woman Lan nodded.

  “Hel, for warmth and comfort. Benth, that is safety from disease. Anneth, to ward off the lice. Say them as you spin. Hel. Benth. Anneth. Hel. Beneth. Anneth. Warm the cloth. Soft the cloth. Warm the wearer. Soft the cloth.”

  Keeping someone warm and keeping them comfortable. Keeping them safe and free from lice. Worse things in the world, surely? And more useful than most things.

  “Hel. Benth. Anneth. Hel. Benth. Anneth. A cloak to shelter in the winter. A blanket on a cold night. A bed to sleep and bear children. A winding sheet for an old man’s corpse. Hel. Benth. Anneth. Hel. Benth. Anneth.”

  Lady Landra had stepped out of a shop doorway in Sorlost and seen Marith’s dead face walking past her. Not been able to look away. “I’ll kill you,” she’d screamed at him. He’d looked back at her and said, “You’re the ones who’ll die.”

  If she’d stepped out of the doorway a moment earlier. A moment later. Dismissed her glimpse of his face as an illusion. Looked the other way from him.

  Left him alone.

  Marith has to die, she thought.

  Lan said, “I have to leave, Ru.”

  “So you said. Stay a few weeks to get some supplies in for me.” Ru broke off the spinning, set down the thread. “Someone from the village to help me would be a kindness. To look after the goats, tend the field by Pelen Brook. But don’t look for my skin.” Ru took up the spindle again. “And don’t go looking for revenge.”

  So it was settled. A farmer in the village had a daughter who would go to Ru, live at the house, do the work, take the place as hers with Ru living there to spin wool and sleep in the corner where Lan had slept.

  Ru gave Lan the stinking yellow gold cloth. “There’s no purpose to it,” she said to Lan. “I can’t go down to the shore now, even, to gather more of the threads.”

  “You could teach Kova, when she comes.”

  “I could.”

  I did all I could do, thought Lan. Kova will work the farmstead better than I ever could. Manage the goats better, cook better food. Kova will maybe find a man to marry, has a man in the village already maybe, they’ll have children and Ru will look after them like a grandmother. They’ll bury her nicely on the seashore when she dies.

  And gold and silver pieces will blossom over her grave and they’ll all live happy in a marble palace, thought Lan, and the sun will always shine. Kill them all and burn them and spit on the ashes. The world’s a cruel place.

  “Have this too,” said Ru. She pressed a small bone spindle into Lan’s hands. Lan looked at it. “Horse bone,” said Ru. “My husband’s father made it.” Worn and yellowed. Old.

  “How old are you, Ru?” Lan asked, while she thought of the tales of the sea folk she’d heard. Deathless. Ageless. Gods. Carin had been fascinated by them, but they’d never much interested her. Peasant people. Sea things. Men things, also. Rape and kidnap and desire. Keeping something you shouldn’t.

  Weak things.

  “Old,” said Ru.

  I don’t need to worry she’ll die, thought Lan suddenly then. Fool! She put the yellow cloth and the bone spindle away in her pack beside the willow wand. Hel, for warmth and comfort. Palle, that is smooth sheen of a calm sea.

  Kova came next morning, strong and plain with strong green eyes. Seemed kind enough, Lan thought, judging her with a new way of judging that Landra Relast had not known. Her hands were strong, used to work. Her face was meek. She looked a little afraid of Ru. Maybe she knew what Ru was.

  “There’s soap and candles in the cupboard by your bed,” Lan told Ru. She did not say that she had traded the silver ring she had worn for them. To Kova she said, “There’s bread in the pantry, flour and butter in the crocks. I milked the goats this morning. They don’t give much. There’s a nice bank of winter mint on the path down to Pelen Brook, near the big ash tree. Ru likes it in the stew.” She took Kova out to the vegetable garden behind the house, all bare now apart from black kale ragged like leather. “She tries to do more than she should,” Lan said to Kova. “Thinks she’s stronger than she is. Care for her and she’ll be kind.” Kova looked at her with strong green eyes and strong hands used to work and a meek face. “I’ve a sister who’s marrying a fisherman, mistress,” Kova said.

  Some, some in this world must be kind.

  So that was that. Lan set off slowly down the path into the village.

  There were rumours flying in the village of things happening in the lords’ halls, ships and soldiers summoned to Malth Elelane, mutterings of war. Lan walked with slow steps along the coast road. Walking the road again alone was the worst thing. Without her name and her wealth she was nothing. How strange it was. This was how Marith had been, she thought dully as she walked. Nameless and powerless. She remembered Thalia on the moorland stumbling in the cold, the way Marith’s eyes had been when he looked at her. Little wonder he felt so angry now. But this was also what he had wanted, she thought. To be nothing. To be the thing that was hurt, not the thing that did the hurting. “I was happy,” he’d said. “I didn’t ask to come back. To be king.” Briefly, she thought, briefly he had escaped.

  She walked on all day. She tried not to think of Ru in the damp dirty house that was warm. She stopped in the evening in a way house, huddled in the corner furthest from the doorway, frightened someone might come. Cold greasy trimmings of meat, bread, water: she placed some of each carefully before the godstone at the entrance, saw its gratitude in its blank faceless eyeless face. Before she tried to sleep she got out her pack and looked at the things she had. A horse-bone spindle. A scrap of yellow cloth. A broken twig that was bound to her skin. A gold ring stamped with a bird flying, her father’s crest.

>   “Eltheia,” she prayed as she curled up on the stone ledge to sleep, “Eltheia, fairest one, keep safe, keep safe.” She slept with the bone spindle in her hand, dry and smooth and chipped at the edge, old yellow bone riddled with tiny holes where it was chipped, carved from the shoulder bone of an old broken-down farm horse that she heard galloping in her dream. The things that walked the lich roads walked past her, and let her be.

  “I am not going looking for revenge,” she said aloud when she woke to frost crisp white-silver on the dark ground. “I am going to make him nothing. As he wanted to be.” A bird flew up cawing from the trees behind the way house. “Not revenge.”

  The things that walked the lich roads walked past her. Laughed.

  Chapter Eleven

  A body was lying on the beach in the sand, face up to the rain. It was lying in the tideline, the ebb and flow of the waves making its head roll back and forth. Its skin was very white.

  Thalia watched it for a while. It shook its head and shook its head and there should be something meaningful in it. Just a dead thing, she thought. Just a dead thing bloated up and eaten by the water. Swollen and salt-filled. There was a jagged hole in its chest, where it had been dead before it drowned. The sea had taken its blood.

  “Here’s another!” a voice called across the beach. Two soldiers came down near her, took the body by the arms, dragging it away up to the pyres that burned on the shore where the sand was dry. Driftwood and reeds and dead flesh. The salt crackled, burned up a brilliant yellow; they fed the fire with pitch to keep the flames high even with the wet bodies in the rain. Thalia watched them drag the body up, its feet making ruts in the sand.

  Osen Fiolt came down the beach towards her. He stopped, nodded his head to her.

  “The raiding party has come back,” he said.

  “And?”

  “They’ve got some bread. Dried fish. Beer. We won’t die hungry, at least.”

  “We will not die,” Thalia said. We will not. We will not. I will not.