“That idea appealeth to me,” Fromer said, “and who knoweth, it’s not like I wish it, but maybe Elijah could fall overboard and the Lord call him home. After all, Gott knoweth how he hath been misleading my people. You all remember the story of Jonah.” Fromer smiled.
* * *
It was the summer solstice, a brilliant and balmy day. After a picnic on the lawn of his manor, Sur Sceaf kissed each one of his wives and children goodbye. It had only been a little over a moonth since his marriage to Ahy and now once again he was journeying to the sea. This time with a large troop of skilled artisans and craftsmen, many of the Quailor and some of the Sharaka who had grown impatient for settling the coast. Ilkchild had departed with his brides to make ready their wagon. Elwod tended Sur Sceaf’s mount and all the wives and the children gathered around like a swarm of bees to send him off.
Taneshewa had a disappointed look on her face. “Surrey, when will you return from the sea?”
“In a moonth at the latest and then I’ll send for you, as soon as we start the construction on the coast. And one day soon, we’ll all be one big family again.”
Her brow wrinkled, “Hurry back. I shall miss you.”
Swan Hilde interjected, “The Hellions want to go with you. I’ve told them, no, but you know how persistent they can be.”
“Well, keep a close eye on them.” He stopped, turned about, and said, “Never mind. I’ll deal with it right now,” turning to the two pug-nosed imps, sun-browned, and dressed in only loin clothes, he took them both by the arms. “Step aside with me Russell and Ev’Rhett, Fa wants to make a few things clear.”
After a suitable distance from the hearing of the others, Sur Sceaf squatted down to talk to them at eye level.
“Yes, Father,” they said in unison.
“You two can not go whaling with me. You two are too young and your mother needs you here.”
“Oh shucks, we never get to do anything,” Russell said throwing up his arms in frustration.
“Work is all you ever want us to do.” Ev’Rhett complained as he kicked some fresh horse manure with his bare foot.
“There’s going to be plenty for you to do. I’m sending you on a special mission with Ary.”
“What is it?” Russell turned and asked wide-eyed.
“Just us?” Ev’Rhett pried.
“No, Brekka will be going along too. I can’t tell you now, but be ready for some real action.” The boys ran off to tell their siblings. He noticed Swan Hilde had moved up behind him, her belly swollen large and he thought maybe she carried another set of twins as he rose to kiss her.
“Are you in for the possibility of another set of twins like those two?” Sur Sceaf asked.
“The gods could never be that cruel,” Swan Hilde said with a laugh. “If so then these two had better be girls. I couldn’t go through the torture of those two imps again.” She smiled. “What did you say to them?”
“Oh, I just told them they were going to get a call from Arundel to do something very important. I didn’t tell them what, but Ary has agreed to take Brekka and the twins to deliver some mares to the horse stud in Powers for breeding.”
“When will you return? There’s been some talk among the wives that some of the men are taking their wives and families with them now.”
“What you’ve heard is correct. The Roufytrof have determined the artisans and craftsmen will be in the vanguard, as will most of the Quailor settlers. Can’t have too many people there at once, but they deserve to have their families with them.”
He strolled back to the large troop of his family, each of the wives vying to kiss him once more before parting.
Taneshewa pouted, “Why can’t I go? Some of the colonists are taking their wives, I could go with them. I’m sure there are many families that would appreciate help with their children.”
“I’m sure that it is true my love, but would it really be fair to the others if you were to go. And besides I will still be at sea and you still alone. At least here you have Meny. As soon as I start building the settlement I’ll send for you.”
At last he kissed Paloma, who said, “I have Elwod taking over Ary’s stewardship, he’ll be doing the second cutting of hay tomorrow. Elf Beard’s oldest sons have agreed to come over and complete the sheep shearing for us, and to trim their hooves. I thought you’d want to know, a silver harrier reports Karl Throckmorton is due for a visit shortly. Of course, there’s always something here to deal with. Goldhart is sick in bed with the mumps so he’ll need special attention for a few days and also needs to keep away from the other kids. I think I’ve got it all under control.”
“Why do you look like you left something out, then?” Sur Sceaf inquired.
“I haven’t brought this up before, because I didn’t want to bother you, and wanted you to relax. It’s always this way. I always have a list or run down of the things that bother me before you go. I’ll handle them, it’s just Swan Hilde seems to still begrudge Taneshewa getting so much of your attention. Even though she says she truly loves her. To be honest, I feel the same way sometimes. I know it’s just because we are so busy going in so many directions and you two are freshly married, but some of us are envious of the fire between you two. How selfish of us. I feel sorry that you didn’t have more of a honeymoon. By the gods I am waiting for life to get back to normal. Oh, yes, there was one more thing. I worry about your daughter Aryfae.”
“Anything I need to deal with before I take my leave?”
“No, it’s just she is growing up way too fast. But then it may be she is just ready to marry.”
“Well, I’m aware of how fast she has matured. I am sorry, in all the confusion of getting everyone lined out. If it gives you any comfort I’ve spoken with her and Sigmund, and I was impressed with their maturity. The young man is of good breeding, he is an honorable young blood, intelligent, seems to have the proper motives, and he loves her dearly. If you think she’s ready then let them be betrothed, and they can marry during the Elven Fair.”
Paloma appeared to be thinking it over. “If you weren’t going to be gone for so long, honestly Surrey we’d be talking about why you kept this from me.”
He leaned forward and kissed her again. “I am sorry, I know you can handle any crisis that comes your way.”
“I am relieved to hear that you believe the marriage can go forward safely. But, of course, that means the bride covey will have to get to work on her hope chest right away on top of everything else. For now, just let me kiss you long and slow, because I’m not sure I’m ready to let you go again.” Paloma smiled warmly and they embraced for a kiss.
“I’ve requested Father’s Baldurean warriors to stand guard over you and our household as an added precaution in my absence. All of you be especially careful and kind to one another. The enemy may want to get at me by getting at you and during times of separation is when the Ard Elves tend to work their divisiveness and torments. Let’s keep each other in our prayers.”
After another long kiss, Sur Sceaf mounted White Fire.
“Good solstice,” he said to all in his clan and rode off to join the young blood fyrd and the crews in their journey to Ur Ford.
Chapter 18 : The Coastal Trek to Urford
By sunrise of the fifteenth day from Midsummer’s Night, the world candle was covered in a fog. Sur Sceaf rode ahead of the selected vanguard of colonists, who had left Witan Jewell in company with him. Hartmut and Mendaka rode at either side of him. Hartmut on a bay, Mendaka on his paint, and he on White Fire.
Mendaka was feeling jovial. When asked why he said, “I can’t wait to get back to the sea. I’ve missed it since the last day we attended academy. Turtle Duck has filled me with stories of life on the deep and Surrey, this whaling venture thrills me to the bone.
Hartmut said. “I’ve never seen the great deep. We’ve all pressed thee at such a fast pace to get here. I can hardly believe that we landsmen will soon become seamen. Of course, I’ve heard the tales of the sea monst
ers that lie over the bend of the great deep. I’m truly curious to put my eyes on one, but hope it is only from a distance.”
“The tales are true. According to Pyr, Hrafn, and Turtle Duck, the monsters and sea wylfs have all been seen time and again by the most respected of captains. You can bet we will take measures to avoid them.”
“Still,” Hartmut said, “It’s exciting to partake of new skills. It reneweth one’s soul. I chust love the newness of everything I do. Meny hath been teaching me the Herewardi Tongue and telling me fantastic tales of the olden times. Now I have the privilege to go to sea. It’s a whole other world. Truly a new culture will be born here on the Coast. Some of the Quailor youth are already more excited about becoming seamen rather than dragging a plow behind a mule all day.”
Mendaka patted his paint, Flames-on-Fire. “Am I right, is this first wave of settlers to be your skilled craftsmen only?”
“Yes, Sur Spear sent only those who have skills of building, iron working, and metallurgy. But as you know Bull Bear’s clan have been given permission to move into the Sixes River Allotment. But for now they’ll be employed in the shipyards at Ur Ford. The next wave of settlers will be the builders and masons. They won’t arrive till we get back from whaling.”
“Hath Raven’s Tongue come up with a new source of metal yet?” Hartmut asked.
“We will never want for metal, we have enough iron, but Raven’s Tongue and Govannon insist we need to find more nickel. They say the nickel binds the metal stronger. Govannon found lots of it a couple hours journey south of Hrusburg in the Riddler Mountains and miners have already started on it. Besides there is so much metal left over from the giants when they inhabited the Ea-Urth, we need only locate their dumps and mine it.”
“You mean the Amerikans?” Mendaka asked.
Wisps of fog slid gossamer fingers through the trees as they talked.
“Yes, that is what some call them,” Sur Sceaf said. “One thing’s for sure, they used a hell of a lot of metal. It’s all around us down here. Who can even guess what the Amerikans must have looked like. Some say they had to have been giants, perhaps even gods for they built up buildings into the sky and it has been said in the Folk Mouth that they could even fly.”
Mendaka choked, “You mean like birds?”
“That’s what Milkchild and Meny are finding out. I’m told it was in chariots with wings.”
“I simply cannot believe that,” Hartmut said. “Perhaps they built tall buildings, but there is no way that man can fly.”
“I am only telling you what the lore masters, Milky, Meny, and Redith have discovered and recorded.” Sur Sceaf looked up and pointed, “Just over that hill we will see the end of the pine woods, then the gorse, and then the cliffs of the great deep. I tell you my friends, I sense a great work is about to be launched from here. I feel like horses before a storm. It just feels so full of promise to me.”
“Like one feels after you have sown a field.” Hartmut added.
Mendaka asked, “Have you scryed to know what lies ahead?”
“I’ve scryed who should be with me, but it was not revealed what we would encounter. The gods jealously guard many parts of our fate.”
“Well, I would think if there are sea monsters, we should know that,” Hartmut stated as he twisted in his saddle for a better view.
Sur Sceaf saw he was sincere so he said, “It is not mete that the gods should tell us of every danger or plot our every footstep. They have ordained that much of the course in mortality goes uncharted. Still, they are full of grace and mercy for those they love.”
“And those they don’t?” Hartmut asked.
Sursceaf furrowed his brow. “It were better they were not born.”
As they parted the Piney Woods, Sur Sceaf could hear the rhythmic roar of the sea surf just ahead.
Hartmut pulled his leg up high from the stirrup. “What is all this prickly brush here, Sur Sceaf?”
“It is gorse. Take a whiff of the perfume it gives off. You won’t find anything sweeter smelling than gorse in bloom.”
Hartmut sniffed the air, “It doth smell somewhere between peach and rose to me and the flowers look like yellow pease blossoms, but without a trail this stuff is absolutely impenetrable. I bet it would make a great hedge for livestock.”
“That it does,” Sur Sceaf said. “We use it here on the coast for just that purpose. According to those versed in wyrt cunning, gorse has magical powers. In the Folk Mouth it is said, one goes to the gorse to create that which was not there before. Hopefully, it beckons us to new worlds which must lie somewhere in the Aurvandilean Ocean. Gorse always stirs my deepest and wildest emotions and gives me the most tempestuous of dreams and night visions.”
As they passed through a labyrinth of gorse the fog began lifting. Hartmut declared, “I assume that that weathered fortress perched on the cliffs there is the Skaldic Academy.”
“You would be right. The large lodge in the center with the red magnolia flag flying on the building is the academy.” Mendaka announced. “There are indoor rooms, a large hall, and numerous flachs along the walls and down on the beach for their classes. The academy has a double function. The surrounding fort is for protection against our enemies and the lore masters and skalds instruct us in the sciences and arts while the godhi administer the secret rites.”
Hartmut said, “I had no idea it was this massive.”
“Oh, yes.” Mendaka said, “On the other side of the lodge it is almost solid glass. You can watch the storm gods ride in off the sea and see the sea heave itself beyond its bounds and never get wet or cold. You do not know the Herewardi until you have been to their academy. That is where their heart beat is deeply felt.”
“You’ve been there?” Hartmut asked.
“Yes,” Sur Sceaf said, “and I had to break Mendaka’s arm to get him to do that.”
Mendaka laughed “It was just too frightening to contemplate, but once I went, I realized how enriching it was. Since then I’ve always held a hunger to return and I still meet with skalds from the academy any chance I get. The lore masters, skalds, godhi and bards have knowledge you cannot obtain anywhere else in their scriptorium. I learned more about my people there than even our own Spirit Chiefs knew, but not more than Mendaho knows, for she was put in charge of the Mountain Scrolls of Tah-Man-Ea. The Council of Chiefs have wanted to send Mendaho here for further learning and now that we are here, this would be a great opportunity for her to attend. She is a bright light to the Sharaka.”
“The more I know of Mendaho,” said Hartmut, “the more I realize her waters run deep. I’ll have to attend the academy with her just to match her in wits and even then, I suspect, I will lag behind.” He paused momentarily, “Do you think they have knowledge about the Quailor in there as well?”
“Oh, yes!” Sur Sceaf answered. “You will find much knowledge about the Quailor and how they became the Quailor. Soon, when we get to Ur Ford, if you get a chance you can talk to Long Swan. My brother is a lore master without equal and one of the most learned men in Herewardom. He can tell you just about anything you would ever want to know concerning the Quailor. When I was preparing for my sojourn in Salem as a young man, Long Swan lit the way before me by preparing me with a thorough understanding of the Quailor origins and our enmeshment with them.”
Hartmut guided his bay around a rock outcropping. “Truly Surrey, it’s inconceivable that thy people should know more about my people than we do. Yet we know very little of you or the Sharaka or the Presters or the Hickoryans or anyone else for that matter. For Gott’s sake we don’t even know much of anything of the deep. It’s an unexplored world of water, monsters, and who knows if there are lands or not somewhere out there? Dost thou suppose there are maps in this scriptorium?”
“Certainly! Not only do they safeguard maps, scrolls, vellums, and books, but in there are stored sacred artifacts, original texts, and treasures of many, many cultures both new and ancient. All Herewardi of royal descent are requir
ed to complete six years of academy here and any of our allied tribes are welcome to send students there as well.”
The sound of the waves crashing on the rocks was drawing them. Hartmut took off his black hat and inhaled the mineral rich fresh sea air. “I can’t imagine you two sitting still for six years with your noses in your books. It just doesn’t fit.”
“We didn’t sit still for six years.” Mendaka smiled. “When I went there we two took numerous excursions into the hills with Bear Jim hunting the big cats. Sur Sceaf and Elf Beard couldn’t ever leave their hound hunting alone. Plus in the summers we traveled and trained.”
Sur Sceaf laughed. “I was just thinking of those days of freedom that the wild hunt gave. It stirred me in ways I had never felt before. I look back on those days with considerable nostalgia. As a matter of fact, Elf Beard told me I was a natural born hunter. I was more thrilled with that than any of the accolades I earned in the academy, ‘cause I knew it to be hard gained.”
As they passed by the academy perched on the cliffs of Maiden’s Head, students poured out of the fortress to wave at them. Numerous small cabins lined the cliffs. Some were being newly constructed.
“”Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, Surrey, what are all those small cabins for?” Hartmut asked.
“They are for the students.” Mendaka said, “I used to live in that one nearest the fortress. We stayed four to a cabin. I shared it with Turtle Duck, Snake Asker, and Hats-A-Fit. The women all stayed in the cabins inside the fortress. Once those gates shut at night, there is no scaling that wall or entering the fortress till morning’s trumpet. We would study half a day and the other half we spent playing down on the beach. That’s where I got so good at LaCrosse.”
“Is that the game called Little War,” Hartmut said, “The one that Fromer says you play naked?”
“I suppose,” Mendaka said, “but your naked is not our naked.” Surrey laughed.
Witan Jewell Page 26
