Afterward, after the anger settled, after their hormones had adjusted to what had happened, all changed. The ObLaDas were stunned, shocked, and deeply saddened by what they had done. The crew fell ill. What had they become? Immobilized by the betrayal of their hopes, they grew determined to reclaim themselves. It was a turning point of some consequence. The leadership would be changed. New individuals selected, cloned, and raised to establish an improved crew. Habitats would be renovated to provide a sustainable environment for their aliens. New species would be adequately studied and encouraged to reach their full potential. It would take many years to put all of these changes in place, but the ObLaDas were determined to make amends.
The temperature fell throughout the night. Airflow and power had shut down; only the dim lights remained on in the Cathian habitat. Over time, everything had gone quiet and then still. Large bins had been lined up outside the entry portal and the trans-arm lift was waiting for its first load. Twelve service bots entered the habitat to start body removal. It would take three days to clear out the rooms. The corpses would be recycled of course, there were worthwhile chemicals there, but it would take months to feed the remains through the digestion vats and separation columns. Frozen storage units would be required, temporary units were being set up. It was best this way, they had thought. Neither the Cathians nor the Sticks were very bright, no hope of finding much intelligence there, was there? Best to dispose of them, troublemakers that they were. It seemed the right thing to do until after they had done it.
Chapter 10 Gwynyth of Feldland
Note:
Gwynyth of Feldland wrote her memoirs toward the end her life on the Outward Voyager. By that time, she had become a leading figure within the community, well respected, and sought after for her learning and frank common sense.
- MDK
It has been a long time since I walked on Earth, but there are some things I recall most vividly, and I have decided to enter them into memory. My life at that time was only beginning. I was a mere girl living on my father’s farm. The winter was long the year that my Father died, cold and wet, and I spent most days huddled in my cot in our dark two-roomed hut. I worked and tended to my father. He had been ill for a long time, slowly weakening. I had my daily chores, sweeping the dirt floor, bringing in firewood from the forest, raking hay for the horses, cooking, all the time wet and cold. Not much else happened until I was sent away.
At that time, almost every girl of my age was sent from her home for two, maybe three years. We usually went to live with a relative in another village, or out with the forest herds where we were to experience a different way of living and perhaps find a husband. My friend Mildryth had gone to her cousin’s ranch north of Nehdun the summer before. She was already married and to an Alimani at that.
Grandfather often told the story of the Alimani. His father was a boy when the Alimani came to our lands and Grandfather remembered seeing some of those same men himself. A great lord and six armored warriors road into Feldland, all astride large war horses, their armor rusty and their mounts hard ridden. Even their servants carried shields and long pikes and had used them often. As hard-pressed as they were, the Alimani still carried a great deal baggage and owned a string of unusually large, fine horses. The Alimani were tall, thin men with blond hair and blue eyes, very different from the rest of us, with our dark brown hair and short stature.
We still had some warriors of our own at that time, rough men they were, though most the lords and fighters had left to conquer lands in Mercia. Our men, even if we could have gotten them to leave their homes and farms unprotected, would not have been able to defeat those big men with their iron mail and battle axes and our leader, old Aelflhere, was wise enough to know it. We had little choice but to treat these strangers well and hope that they moved on to other parts. But they did not move on, they stayed in the forest in their own camp, and the people began to fear that they would make themselves masters of our lands. Then one day a rider, a young Alimani man, came to them on a horse almost dead from fatigue. We never knew what message he bore for the lord and his armed men road off the next day; many of their servants were left behind.
The Alimani men who came to our village had escaped a warlike tribe that had driven them from their homelands, a place far to the south and near the high mountains of that region. Most believed that their lord had been summoned to join his king, who may have escaped the wars as they had, and who would be gathering his men to him. We never knew. They never returned. The warriors had gone off, leaving several of their retainers and as many horses. The Alimani horses were bigger and stronger than those we possessed and were much desired. As time passed, and the warriors did not return, those Alimani could no longer pay for the upkeep and began to trade their horses for brides and farmlands, and so became part of our village. There are still many who are recognizable as Alimani, as those men, like their mounts, bred true.
I was older than most to be living at home, just over fourteen when I was sent away, not to some intriguing Alimani settlement, but to Lindisport and Alaric, mother’s cousin. Father kept me at home for an extra summer after he became sick, some kind of wasting disease he had. I did the best I could for him, I even moved his sleeping mat nearer the fire pit, but he grew suddenly weaker then died as the winter’s cold came on. I was finally sent away when spring arrived that year, but it was an odd choice. Alaric had long been a seaman and the captain of his own trading ship, the Gray Gosling, but he was a little old man by that time and his son Alric sailed the Gosling.
Mother could not go with me as was normally done. She was too burdened and worried about the farm with Father gone. She was afraid to leave the place unprotected, and my little brother Gunthar was too young to help much. My great dog Loboc was to be my companion and protection. He could do the job as he was a big as Gunthar’s pony and most loyal. Loboc was big even for a great dog, broad and heavy, very strong. He could pull his two-wheel cart all day no matter what the load. Loboc’s dark eyes were sad even when his long shaggy tail was swinging wide. His thick brown hair was almost always matted with dirt unless I could get him to swim across our creek, which was not often. He did not like the water as much as others of his kind, and neither I nor anyone, could get Loboc to move when he did not want to.
When it was time to leave our farm, I took what little clothes I had, and my indoor shoes, and put it all into packs for Loboc to carry. I kept some dried beef, last year’s nuts, and some hard bread that I hoped would be enough for the two of us. We walked to the crossroads where we were to meet a group of horse traders that mother heard were coming. They came from beyond Nehdun bringing three wagonloads of hides for trade. It was two hours before they arrived with all their dust and dirt, all strangers from the deep forests. They didn’t want any girl along, but I followed anyway. They were afraid I would hold them up, but I didn’t.
Those rough smelly horsemen left us alone in the middle of the village, or rather they kept moving along after Loboc and I stopped. I had been to Lindisport before; it was not such a large village. We easily found our way to Alaric’s house where some grubby slave looked down at me as if I was a wet river rat and ignorant besides. I was Gwynyth of Feldland, I told her, come to stay with Alaric. He was not there, she told me, and sent me away, down the hill toward Black Creek and the docks. It happened that Alaric had moved into the trading shed next to the wharf, into some side rooms that teetered on stilts over the mud flats. He did not expect me, or even recognize me, and did not appear to know what to do with me once he caught on that I was to be staying with him.
I stood before him as he sat on his one stool and considered me as some new type of problem. After a while, old Alaric figured out that there was a room, not much used, that he could put me in. This room seemed very large to me. I had never had a room to myself, even if there was no furniture and stacks of empty barrels and some dirty old wool bales stood along the west wall, which was slanted as if it was sinking into the marsh. I could ge
t a useful table and a bed somewhere, but it would not be very much like a home as there was no fireplace, no place to cook. Light came in through cracks near the roof where the building was pulling apart. It would be fearsome cold in the winter. I was alone there with Loboc, Alaric never talked very much, at least not to me, there were no other girls living near the docks, and it smelled. Whatever had died during the winter rose up to rot as the muck thawed. The villagers emptied their night pots into it as well, too lazy to walk ten more steps to the water. Only Loboc liked the stinking mud and brought as much as he could into our room.
It was still early spring when the ice on Black Creek began to melt in earnest. More and more people from Feldland, Nehdun, and the farms in the region set out on the muddy roads. All of them brought their winter products to our trading dock. Others came as well, wild people who lived beyond the villages and up the river. Some looked more like beasts of the forest than real people; they spoke strange languages, if they could speak at all. There was no market town anymore, though some trading still happened in Lindisport around the well. Most goods would be taken downstream to our trading post on the Sliefe Fjord or carried up and down the rivers that emptied into the northern sea. Our towns were known for their iron small-ware, metal tools, wood bowls and woven wool cloth, all things that were much needed on the isolated farms and brought good value. There is much else as well, common goods like hides, grain, sheep’s wool, whatever might be used in trade.
Alaric kept a record of all the goods left at the storehouse and who had left it there, and in return for their wares; each person would receive a just share of the season’s trading profit, should it be a good year. I suppose that was why I had been sent to Alaric. I knew sums that my late father had taught me, but no letters. At least Alaric seemed pleased that I could help count and sort the stock that was coming in. I think he became a lonely man after he left his house to his son, and moved away to live by himself. I am not surprised for Alaric was too surly to have any friends. He had little pleasant to say to his son, or me, or anyone else.
Alric was much nicer. He was a small man, like his father, but very strong. He had reddish blond hair, cut short in a severe way, a thin face with large blue-gray eyes and he was not wed. He always had a smile and even stopped to talk to me from time to time. His best friend Bertram, who had not married either, came over in the evening and from time to time they would tell interesting stories of their voyages on the Gray Gosling and of the unusual people they met. I would sit on an empty bin in the dark outside the house and listen to them talk until the bugs became too thick. We never had such swarms on the farm.
I had been in Lindisport for only a short time, maybe three weeks, when Alaric made me keep all the records for all the materials we were storing. I was frightened at first. There would be trouble to pay if I made a mistake and some grubby one-horse farmer didn’t get his proper share of year-end goods. Alaric never told anyone he had done this, and he continued to act as domineering as he ever did. I told him to provide me some consideration, or at least give me some food, if he was going to have me do his work for him. He got angry with me, just stomped away, and never mentioned it again. I think it was poor eyesight that gave him trouble and left him confused at times. For me, it meant working until it was too dark to see, then begging left over food from Ursilet, if her pig of a husband did not eat it all. Most nights I could not help but cry.
It rained for three days, very heavy, as happens in the spring. All that rain raised the level of Black Creek so that its deep dark water turned brown and rose to cover the mud beneath our rooms and washed away the stink and the rotten ice as if it had never been there. It was an exciting time in Lindisport, people met after months of being isolated, the air was warm, the days lengthening, the winter’s handiwork was there to be admired, and the trading knorr would be sailing soon.
I was surprised when the loading started and Alric put me to counting and totting the wares being packed onto the Gray Gosling. He and Bertram were making ready for the spring voyage to stock the trading post and they wanted to sail before the Red Brigitae. Cyphus had been built about ten years before on the bay of the northern sea near the entrance of the long fjord. My father had gone there one summer to help with the building. He complained ever after about being cold and wet the whole time. Winds blew rain or mist off the sea almost every day he said. Father had many grim stories of how dangerous Cyphus was during its early years. The post had even been abandoned one summer after raiders, Vikings they were, came in from the open sea, and stole what they wanted and set fires that burned part of the post. Stories of sea raiders were ever told, but that summer they grew to be more frequent and more violent. Many thought that if Cyphus was left abandoned, the Vikings would continue up river to our village. So, the post had been rebuilt and strengthened with a stockade all around, and life had settled these past years, with only some petty thieving to worry about. Even so, it must be a horrid place, with cold sea winds blowing, fog and overcast day in and day out, and no society at all save some crusty fishermen, smelly sailors, and filthy men who crossed the peninsula along the fjord.
Much to my delight at the time, when the Gosling was fully loaded and about to set sail down river, Bertram stuck me on top a hoard of cowhides and let Loboc climb aboard to sleep in the sun and said that we could sail with them. Lindisport bordered Black Creek, just below the rapids, where it ran deep and slow to the river. The short, broad-beamed Gosling floated past the Red Brigitae, Eudovig waving from the stern, the eight oars held high until the creek widened. We headed into that narrow stream through a tunnel of tree branches, the overhead sun glinting through the leaves. I felt on top of the world, sitting high on the bow as we entered the Risser River. The fat old Gosling moved faster in the current. I had never been so far from home as this.
Our lands had few people by that time and we passed many fields that had turned to scrub. Trees grew tall in pasture lands and some huts had fallen in, of course, this was expected as some of those people lived like animals in rotting hovels that had been a long time returning to the fetid soil they stood on. For generations, our tribes had been sailing away to live as lords in Mercia, for they received rich spoils for helping our Kings conquer that rich island to the west. The priests, warriors, and land barons with their men-at-arms had sailed away, but my grandfathers stayed and, along with some others, had gathered on the fertile lands around the three villages to carry on.
We saw no more abandoned land after the river slowed, widened, and entered Sliefe Fjord. The Gray Gosling turned with the wind; the crew set their single square rigged sail, and put aside their oars. Cyphus was a long way up the narrow fjord, but a strong breeze stayed with us that day and we sped past the ancient forests lining both shores of the blue-green water that led to the sea. Even so, it was night when we arrived at the trading post. I could not see much of the low, dark building, but it had a weak sort of stockade around it, which did not make it seem to be a very safe place.
It was a cold, foggy morning when my world came crashing down. Alric and Bertram had been up before dawn to finish offloading the supplies needed by the post. No one woke me, and by the time Loboc became concerned, the crew was climbing about the open boat, rebalancing her load under the benches and deep along the center keel, in order to take the Gray Gosling out to sea on the morning tide. They would not be returning to Lindisport with me, as I expected. Alric had learned that his was the first boat to call at the post that spring. If he hurried, he might be the first trading ship to sail the rivers south of our fjord. Trade goods were scarce after the long winter and were valued highest when they first arrived. The greatest profits would be his, he hoped, if they left now. Loboc and I were to be abandoned at the trading post for the summer. When I ran to Alric and started to cry at being left abandoned, he was confused. It was all understood, he said, it had been arranged for me to work at the trading post for the summer. In that way old Alaric had managed to dump me in Cyphus, well away from
any bother I might cause him, and too far away to complain about being betrayed.
The cursed place proved to be a gray, windswept, remote, bug-infested sand hill, just as I thought. The only people there were old Audovert, who managed the place along with Tolle as cook, two lunk-headed louts, Ebert and Eurovic, sniveling Osroyd, and gloomy Ugawendt. Ugawendt would blacken a dark room with her forlorn attitude. She complained for weeks about using an stubby, old, worn-out broom, then complained for two weeks more when she was given a stiff, coarse new one, and I had to share a bed with her for the whole summer. All during that long string of dismal days, I dreamt of our dear farm, how safe and warm it was, the sod roof so green in the summer, and how much I wanted to return.
In overdue time, that long string of dreary days finally ended when the Red Brigitae came in from her last voyage and we set about shutting up the post for the winter. We had moved piles of things in from the wood-sided bins that were hidden among the dunes. The Red Brigitae was piled high with furs and seed grains as she readied to move into the fjord. She was so low in the water, and so top heavy with benches and stools, that I thought she would blow over in the wind, but Eudovig just laughed at me when he pushed off.
“The Brigitae is fine with this load, but if you were to sit on top we just might go belly up, you have grown so big,” he called while puffing up his chest and making a rude gesture. At least someone besides Ebert and Eurovic noticed.
I was anxious for the return of Alric and Bertram. Audovert told me that the Gray Gosling would be gone for three months on a voyage across the strait to the far north. They were past due. I remember leaving the trading room door open so that I could see toward the mouth of the Sliefe, but as the day ended, the wind turned cold, and I kicked it shut. The room darkened, there was little light from the high window slits, but perhaps my dog would let me know when the Gray Gosling rounded the sand hills.
Outward Borne Page 10
