“So that’s that,” said Da, who’d called Meister Tollin a fool for going, and the others too, even though Titch and Derik were his friends. “It’s over. And there’ll be no more expeditions, I reckon.”
“Really?” said Mama, her eyebrows raised in that way she had. “Because you know what people are like, Asher. Let enough time go by and—”
Da slurped down some spicy fish soup. “Fixed that, didn’t I?” he growled. “Tollin’s writin’ down an account of what happened. Every last sinkin’ thing, nowt polite about it. I’ll see it copied and put where it won’t get lost, and any fool as says we ought to send more folk over Barl’s Mountains then Tollin’s tale will remind ’em why that ain’t a good idea.”
Mama made the sound that said she wasn’t sure about that, but Da paid no attention.
“Any road, ain’t no reason for the General Council to give the nod for another expedition,” he said. “Tollin made it plain—there ain’t nowt to find over the mountains.”
“Not close to Lur perhaps,” said Mama. “But Tollin didn’t get terribly far, Asher. He was only gone two months, and most of that time was spent dealing with one disaster after another.”
“He got far enough,” Da said, shaking his head. “Morg poisoned everything he touched, Dath. Ain’t nowt but foolishness to think otherwise, or to waste time frettin’ on what’s so far away.”
“Oh, Asher,” Mama said, smiling. Da’s grouching nearly always made her smile. “After six hundred years locked up behind those mountains, you can’t blame people for being curious.”
Six hundred years
. Rafel could hardly imagine it. That was about a hundred times as long as he’d been alive. Mama was right. Of course people wanted to know.
He
wanted to know. He was as miserable as she was that Meister Tollin and the others hadn’t found anything good on the other side of Barl’s Mountains.
But Da wasn’t. He gave Mama a look, then soaked his last bit of bread in his soup. “Reckon I can blame ’em, y’know,” he grumbled around a full mouth. That wasn’t good manners, but Da didn’t care. He just laughed when Mama said so and was ruder than before. “You tell me, Dath, what’s curiosity ever done but black the eye of the fool who ain’t content to stay put?”
Rafel saw his mother cast him a cautious glance, and made his face look all not caring, as though he really was a silly little boy who didn’t understand. “Tollin and the others were only trying to help,” she murmured. “And I’m sorry things went wrong. I wanted to meet the people who live on the other side of the mountains. I wanted to hear their stories. And now we find there aren’t any? I think it’s a great pity.”
With a grunt Da reached for the heel of fresh-baked bread on its board in the centre of the table. Tearing off another hunk of it, he glowered at Mama. Not angry at her, just angry at the world like he got sometimes. Da was never angry with Mama.
“I tell you, Dathne,” he said, waving the bread at her, “here’s the truth without scales on, proven by Tolin—there ain’t no good to come of sniffin’ over them mountains. What price have we paid already, eh? Titch and Derik dead, it be a cryin’ shame. Pik Mobley too, that stubborn ole fish. And that hoity-toity Lord Bram. Reckon a Doranen mage should’ve bloody known better, but he were a giddy fool like the rest of ’em. They should’ve listened to me. Ain’t I the one who told ’em not to go? Ain’t I the one told ’em only a fool pokes a stick in a shark’s eye? I am. But they wouldn’t listen. Both bloody Councils, they wouldn’t listen neither. And all we’ve got to show for it is folk weepin’ in the streets.”
Sighing, Mama put her hand on Da’s arm. “I know. But let’s talk about it later. Supper will go cold if we go on about it now.”
“There ain’t nowt to talk on, Dath,” said Da, tossing his bread in his empty bowl and shoving it away. “What’s done is done. Can’t snap m’fingers and bring ’em all back in one piece, can I?”
Da was so riled now he sounded like the cousins from down on the coast, instead of almost a regular City Olken. He sounded like the sky looked with a storm blowing up. Even though stinky Deenie was a baby, three years old and still piddling in her nappies, she knew about that. She threw her spoon onto the table and started wailing.
“There now, Asher!” said Mama in her scolding voice. “Look what you’ve done.”
Rafel rolled his eyes as his mother started fussing with his bratty sister. Scowling, Da pulled his bowl back and spooned up what was left of his soup and soggy bread, muttering under his breath. Rafel kept his head down and finished his soup too, because Da didn’t like to see good food wasted. When his bowl was empty he looked at his father, feeling his bottom lip poke out. He had a question, and he knew it’d tickle him and tickle him until he had an answer.
“Da? Can I ask you something?”
Da looked up from brooding into his soup bowl. “Aye, sprat. Y’know you can.”
He felt Mama’s eyes on him, even though she was spooning mashed-up sweet pickles into the baby. “Da, don’t you want anyone going over the mountains? Not ever?”
“No,” said Da, and shook his head hard. “Ain’t no point, Rafe. Everythin’ we could ever want or need, we got right here in Lur.” He looked at Mama, smiling a little bit, with his eyes all warm ’cause he loved her so much. Da riled fast, but he cooled down fast too. “We got family and friends and food for the table. What else do we need, that we got to risk ourselves over them mountains to find?”
Rafel put down his spoon. Da was a hero, everyone said so. Darran wasn’t the only one who told him stories. Da hated to hear folk say it, his face went scowly enough to bust glass, but it was true. Da was a hero and he knew everything about everything…
But I don’t believe him. Not about this.
Oh, it was an awful thing to think. But it was true. Da was wrong. There
was
something to find beyond the mountains, he
knew
it—and one day, he’d go. He’d find out what was there.
Then I’ll be a hero too. I’ll be Rafe the Bold, the great Olken explorer. I’ll do something special for Lur, just like my da.
I
t was a trivial dispute… but that wasn’t the point. The
point,
as he grew tired of saying, was that dragging a Doranen into Justice Hall, forcing him to defend his use of magic, was demeaning. It was an
insult
. Placing any Olken hedge-meddler on level footing with a Doranen mage was an insult. And that included the vaunted Asher of Restharven. His mongrel abilities were the greatest insult of all.
“Father…”
Rodyn Garrick looked down at his son. “What?”
Kept out of the schoolroom for this, the most important education a young Doranen could receive, Arlin wriggled on the bench beside him. And that was
another
insult. In Borne’s day a Doranen councilor was afforded a place of respect in one of Justice Hall’s gallery seats—but not any more. These days the gallery seats remained empty and even the most important Doranen of Lur were forced to bruise their bones on hard wooden pews, thrown amongst the general population.
“Arlin,
what?
” he said. “The hearing’s about to begin. And I’ve told you I’ll not tolerate disruption.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Arlin whispered. “I’ll ask later.”
Rodyn stifled his temper. The boy was impossible. His mother’s fault, that. One son and she’d coddled him beyond all bearing. A good thing she’d died, really. Undoing ten years of her damage was battle enough.
Justice Hall buzzed with the sound of muted conversations, its cool air heavy with a not-so-muted sense of anticipation. Not on his part, though. He felt only fury and dread. He’d chosen to sit himself and his son at the rear of the Hall, where they’d be least likely noticed. Aside from Ain Freidin, against whom these insulting and spurious charges were laid, and her family, he and Arlin were the only Doranen present. Well, aside from his fellow councilor Sarnia Marnagh, of course. Justice Hall’s chief administrator and her Olken assistant conferred quietly over their parchments and papers, not once looking up.
Everyone was waiting for Asher.
When at last Lur’s so-called saviour deigned to put in an appearance, he entered through one of the doors in the Hall’s rear wall instead of the way entrances had been made in Borne’s day: slowly and with grave splendour descending from on high. So much for the majesty of law. Even Asher’s attire lacked the appropriate richness—plain cotton and wool, with a dowdy bronze-brown brocade weskit. This was Justice Hall. Perhaps Council meetings did not require velvet and jewels, but surely this hallowed place did.
It was yet one more example of Olken contempt.
Even more irksome was Sarnia Marnagh’s deferential nod to him, as though the Olken were somehow greater than she. How could the woman continue to work here? Continue undermining her own people’s standing?
Greater?
Asher and his Olken brethren weren’t even
equal
.
Arlin’s breath caught. “Father?”
With a conscious effort Rodyn relaxed his clenched fists. This remade Lur was a fishbone stuck in his gullet, pinching and chafing and ruining all appetite—but he would serve no-one, save nothing, if he did not keep himself temperate. He was here today to bear witness, nothing more. There was nothing more he could do. The times were yet green. But when they were ripe… oh, when they were ripe…
I’ll see a harvest gathered that’s long overdue.
At the far end of the Hall, seated at the judicial table upon its imposing dais, Asher struck the ancient summons bell three times with its small hammer. The airy chamber fell silent.
“Right, then,” he said, lounging negligent in his carved and padded chair. “What’s all this about? You’re the one complaining, Meister Tarne, so best you flap your lips first.”
So that was the Olken’s name, was it? He’d never bothered to enquire. Who the man was didn’t matter. All that mattered was his decision to interfere with Doranen magic. Even now he found it hard to believe this could be happening. It was an affront to nature, to the proper order of things, that any Olken was in a position to challenge the rights of a Doranen.
The Olken stood, then stepped out to the speaker’s square before the dais. Bloated with too much food and self-importance, he cast a triumphant look at Ain Freidin then thrust his thumbs beneath his straining braces and rocked on his heels.
“Meister Tarne it is, sir. And I’m here to see you settle this matter with my neighbour. I’m not one to go looking for unpleasantness. I’m a man who likes to live and let live. But I won’t be bullied, sir, and I won’t be told to keep my place. Those days are done with. I know my place. I know my rights.”
Asher scratched his nose. “Maybe you do, but that ain’t what I asked.”
“My apologies,” said the Olken, stiff with outrage. “I was only setting the scene, sir. Giving you an idea of—”
“What you be giving me, Meister Tarne, is piles,” said Asher. “Happens I ain’t in the mood to be sitting here all day on a sore arse, so just you bide a moment while I see if you can write a complaint better than you speak one.”
As the Olken oaf sucked air between his teeth, affronted, Asher took the paper Sarnia Marnagh’s Olken assistant handed him. Started to read it, ignoring Tarne and the scattered whispering from the Olken who’d come to point and stare and sneer at their betters. Ignoring Ain Freidin too. Sarnia Marnagh sat passively, her only contribution to these proceedings the incant recording this travesty of justice. What a treacherous woman she was. What a sad disappointment.
Condemned to idleness, Rodyn folded his arms. It seemed Asher was in one of his moods. And what did that bode? Since Barl’s Wall was destroyed this was the twelfth—no, the thirteenth—time he’d been called to rule on matters magical in Justice Hall. Five decisions had gone the way of the Doranen. The rest had been settled in an Olken’s favour. Did that argue bias? Perhaps. But—to his great shame—Rodyn couldn’t say for certain. He’d not attended any of those previous rulings. Only in the last year had he finally,
finally,
woken from his torpor to face a truth he’d been trying so hard—and too long—to deny.
Lur was no longer a satisfactory place to be Doranen.
“So,” said Asher, handing back the written complaint. “Meister Tarne. You reckon your neighbour—Lady Freidin, there—be ruining your potato crop with her magework. Or did I read your complaint wrong?”
“No,” said the Olken. “That’s what she’s doing. And I’ve asked her to stop it but she won’t.” He glared at Ain Freidin. “So I’ve come here for you to tell her these aren’t the old days. I’ve come for you to tell her to leave off with her muddling. Olken magic’s as good as hers, by law, and by law she can’t interfere with me and mine.”
Arlin, up till now obediently quiet, made a little scoffing sound in his throat. Not entirely displeased, Rodyn pinched the boy’s knee in warning.
“How ezackly is Lady Freidin spoiling your spuds, Meister Tarne?” said Asher, negligently slouching again. “And have you got any proof of it?”
Another hissing gasp. “Is my word not enough?” the potato farmer demanded. “I’m an Olken. You’re an Olken. Surely—”
Sighing, Asher shook his head. “Not in Justice Hall, I ain’t. In Justice Hall I be a pair of eyes and a pair of ears and I don’t get to take sides, Meister Tarne.”
“There are sworn statements,” the chastised Olken muttered. “You have them before you.”