Larkspur Mittel: The Lark & Owl Trilogy

21 - Counting Knives

 The children at Wobash Cynders were full of jitters and scrapes and cuts (some imaginary, some real) after the Hummerlad soldiers finally left. They play-acted the way the soldiers walked and talked, slamming doors and stomping from the Long Hall through the corridors and up and down the stairs.

They ate a poor late-morning meal, but didn't seem to mind. The soldiers were gone and that was all that mattered. They saw the relief in the faces of Boer Mam and old Pushba and felt that they could rest easy again.

Their meal was day-old hardened bread (which was hard to begin with), runny goat's cheese and a thin broth to warm their stomachs. Afterwards, they ran outside and threw themselves into the sand which still lay in piles in the yard and then tracked it into the building. They ran wild, shouted loudly and ignored the fact that the peace in their lives had in some way been altered for ever.

Boer Mam and old Pushba did not scold them as they had other worries, and remained near the kitchen.

Boer Mam held a poultice of comfrey to the large lump on her forehead, while old Pushba attended to the little ones with a gentle word or a brief snuggle in her shawls when they came crying with their many wounds. The small children were not afraid of old Pushba the way the older ones were. She spoke in comforting, hushed tones to them and gave them mint leaves to suck on as a treat. They liked how she always smelled of onions.

Eventually the house fell into a guarded silence as the children tired and went upstairs for an afternoon rest.

Boer Mam and old Pushba tidied up the mess the soldiers had left with the help of some of the bigger children. The kitchen was put to rights as the evening meal had to be prepared. A heavy, wooden table was turned upside down over the gaping hole to the basement under the stairs. The corridors and stairwell were swept free of sand and dirt. An older boy called Joss was sent to the market with a wheeled cart to fetch a new basket of peat- the soldiers had cleaned out the hearth and taken the full one with them when they left.

Boer Mam was in the back hall anxiously counting knives.

She separated the daggers from axes and longer knives and the one ancient sword she'd kept hidden in the high cabinets. Fortunately, the soldiers had been too lazy to look up and through them as they were only reached by ladder.

How had the children opened the droll tunnel grate in the cellar? She wondered, relieved once again of their escape. The grate had not been opened since the peat wars when drolls themselves had hidden themselves away.

Some kind of sorcery was at work, she thought, that much was evident. But whose? Who did the sorcery belong to? The children had never shown any talent this way. If they had, she would have known.

She arranged the knives and other implements in order of size on top of one of her large, heavy aprons on the floor. She slid the sharp ends into the deep, long pocket of the apron, and then quickly rolled it up and stuck it inside the right boot of a pair, for safe keeping.

She then reached to open another cabinet where she kept three ancient slingshots, none of which was in working order. If Ivan were here, he'd have them fixed in a wink, she thought. No matter, she'd have to try to to mend them herself. The arrows left were not hardy. She'd need to find more, or whittle some other object that could fly easily through the air and do some damage to its target.

The soldiers were after Hero, she thought to herself, after something she carried in that bag of hers. The old leather satchel her mother had left with her.

Her mother.

Boer Mam only ever told half truths about Hero's parents. She had never told the girl herself, but perhaps it was time she did.

She hid the slingshots in the other tall boot, and then returned to the kitchen.

"How far do ye think they've gotten?"

Old Pushba was kneading dough with her gnarled but deft fingers, and responded right away, as though her thoughts had been read.

"Not far 'nuff. I reckon near the riverhead, but maybe not. I sent a message to me trawler friends to be awares. Let's hope them soldiers don't catch up on 'em or nothing else down below," old Pushba nodded at the floor.

The tunnels. They were a dank awful place, thought Boer Mam. She'd been in one once during the peat wars, but only briefly. She'd heard enough stories though. The serpents were no more, but there were other creatures, sysipals and the like. Harmless if you knew how to handle them.

"What do ye think she carries in her bag that they want it so badly?"

Old Pushba stopped kneading the dough for a second.

"Not sure. I been going over it in me head. Some kind of special something I warrant. Some kind of danger."

Boer Mam listened, but her thoughts were elsewhere.

"Do ye think we did wrong, not telling Hero?"

"Telling her what of?"

"Her family. Seems to me the time might be ripe."

"And seems to me you're a fearing too much. No, not yet. She's too young. Asides, nothing good could come of it," old Pushba replied, and slapped the dough.

Joss, the boy they'd sent to the market with the peat basket came barreling into the kitchen from the back corridor door just then, out of breath.

"There's not 'nuff peat! I mean, there is, but I couldn't hardly buy any it 'wer so expensive! And them soldiers were buying it all, and the people in the market started a yelling 'n fighting. The owl merchants says the king and the soldiers is to blame, and said larks were just a bad song and dance! And then the larks were yelling back and throwing blame on the Owl Council and the trawlers and they called owls a thieving bunch of hoots! An before ye know it, they's a fighting, and someone got jabbed and there were blood, lots of it, and them soldiers did nothing! Just left on their mighty horses!"

"Slow down Joss, slow down! Now, first, did ye manage to get any peat at all?" Boer Mam wiped her hands on her skirts and sat down.

Joss pulled two bricks from his pockets, and lay another five from the basket on the kitchen table.

"Is all I could get!"

Boer Mam and old Pushba looked at one another briefly, knowing that it was hardly enough for a few days, let alone a few weeks.

"All right then, ye did well. Now tell us again, but this time, take a breath between the telling," Boer Mam said to him. She looked odd with the big welt on her forehead, and her eye all bloodshot, but Joss continued more slowly this time.

"The price of peat- it's gone up again."

"How much?" old Pushba asked joining Boer Mam by the hearth after covering her bread dough with a damp cloth.

"Well, a few weeks ago it were three shakul for one brick. Now it's nine! I were lucky to swipe the extra two while the fighting were going on!"

"Right then. Ye did well! Go on and don't be blabbing about it to the others, especially the wee ones," Boer Mam warned.

Joss left the kitchen, gratefully accepting a handful of cutra seeds to munch on from Boer Mam.

"It's as I thought," old Pushba began once the boy was gone, "an evil hand is at work here. They will starve the people without peat for fuel. Me thinks a battle is nigh...it's what the trawlers said though I didn't think it so. Now I do."

"We'll be ready for it then! We only need protect ourselves and the children," Boer Mam sat up straight, and looked the fighter she'd always been.

"Easier spoken than done. I'll send another message to me Choma trawler friends, though they may know already....the Bolvekr have arrived."

"The Bolvekr!" Boer Mam reached deep into her skirt pocket for the flask of almond liquor she always carried, and took a brief swig.

"Did ye not see the medallion round the neck of the big fellow? 'Tis an ancient Bolvekr symbol. A stinger bee, a whatcha call it? A queen wasp. In gold, no less. He must be a mighty someone to wear such a thing."

"The Bolvekr..." Boer Mam repeated softly, "those children are in more trouble than we reckoned."