Chapter five

The River Clearwater and its tributaries, north Paror

 

It had taken only twenty minutes of cajoling and the promise of elfrounds to persuade the ferryman’s sons to sneak her out to the boat just before dawn the next day. They hated their mother making all the business decisions and, as Viola had eagerly agreed – they were near enough grown men, weren’t they?  Viola wondered at the safety of rowing across a wide and rapid river in the dead of night, but the boys seemed unconcerned. They had ferried many, many, people across the water, apparently, in far worse conditions than this. In any case, there would be light soon enough as they crossed. The main thing was to get away without waking anyone else up.

 She wrapped herself in a bear-skin fur coat and scurried across the little settlement, following the boys. Boo was wrapped in a blanket inside a little wooden cage.

The first mail paper arrived almost at the moment that she clambered into the boat. It was much smaller than usual and she couldn’t read it in the near darkness. It was fortunate that she even saw it.  The only lights were the boys’ small lanterns held low, close to the water. She clutched the paper to her body and then slid it into the pocket of her imperial jacket. 

There were six more small papers that fluttered down as they rowed across – it was like slow motion confetti.  The light grew. She waited impatiently until the sun’s edge gave her the light she needed to read by. She shuffled through the papers – they all said the same thing: Where are you, Vee? Love Kath. She paid no attention to the address lines; she was distracted by her need to find some way of replying. She needed a writing implement, more than she ever had before.

She looked ahead at the rowing boys. She almost asked them for a pen, but she knew this would be a waste of breath. All they wore were oiled trousers and jackets over rough flax shirts. She’d have to wait – but it was hard – she could only imagine how much her friends were worrying about her.

The rowing boat made its careful way across the river. The rowers seemed to know where the current was strongest and they proceeded in a series of downstream floats and upstream heavy rowing. The zigzagging made progress slow but Viola sensed how skilled the boys were at these manoeuvres. The far bank began to loom towards them, as the sun rose and the rowers hit calmer water. The pine trees towering ahead of them softened the autumn light so that the water had a pinkish glow. Viola was momentarily content – she had a message from her closest friend and some hope that soon she would be able to reply to it.

They were now rowing upstream to the landing point and she could see another set of huts, similar but smaller than the ones on the other side. There seemed to be very little open land before the forest began. She could see nobody there to meet them.

They slowed down as they approached the landing stage. Frank, the larger of the two boys, jumped up on to the wooden decking with surprising agility. He was delighted by his own audacity.

‘Got clean away!’ he shouted.

Jake jumped up too and they laughed and shouted across the river; knowing that their voices wouldn’t carry to the other side. They pulled Viola up on to the platform and then started down the path that led into the forest.

‘Are we going straight away?’ she asked, ‘Is the main river boat far from here?’

‘A four hour hike... assuming the path is still passable’ responded Jake.

Frank grunted his agreement.

‘We need to get on if we’re to be back before dusk... so we’d best go straight away’

 

The boys kept up a fast pace, but Viola had a lot more stamina now than she had had when she had been deskbound in Ortia. She kept up with them quite easily. The way was more open than she had imagined from the river bank, with mossy clearings dotted around the scattered pine trees. The early morning air was bracingly cold but she soon warmed up as they hurried along. She was surprised to see frost icing the ground; the first week of October seemed early for frost, even this far north. A worrying thought crept into her mind.

‘What’s the date?’ she blurted out.

The brothers stopped for a moment’

‘What did you say?’ asked Jake, turning to look at her. 

‘What’s today’s date?’

Both of them stared at her with a mix of irritation and concentration. There was a brief whispering.

‘About the third of November...’ muttered Frank, eventually.

‘...near enough...’ continued Jake

‘Are you sure...?’ she asked. Her mind was whirring.

They went back into their little huddle.

‘It might be the fourth’ admitted Jake, ‘but it’s definitely the start of November; we just had our Samhain party the other day’

She tried to count the days forward from when she entered Ith’s chamber for the last time. She could get back as far as October the fifth but no further. She had lost almost a month. She wasn’t particularly shocked – she knew exactly when it had gone; it had fallen down the crack that had opened up between old Ith’s death and new Ith’s birth.

My friends must think me dead. She shivered. But not Kath... I need to tell her I’m alive.

She went through her empty pockets a thousand times hoping for the smallest stub of a pencil. Then she began to look around for anything that might make a mark on a piece of paper: it could be anything because the return trip of a mail required no additional magic or squid ink. It seemed that slipping back to the sender was easy for a mail paper. All one needed to do was to write on it, tap it three times, and wait.

About two-and-a-half hours into their journey they ran into the open next to the main river course, the River Clearwater; mighty enough here but just a small shadow of its size when it reached its mouth, just south of the Dareth Peninsula.  Here the river lived up to its name – it was almost unnaturally limpid, with the sheen of a stream one hundred times as tiny. Above it was the still risen moon, so pale that it looked like a spherical cloud against the blue sky. She was entranced for a moment – the moon never looked so bright in the morning sky in Ortia. She felt, very briefly, the thrill of the wanderer – cold and far from home but experiencing so many new things.  Then she thought of her friends and the knowledge that she carried; she really needed to get home as rapidly as she could.

The track way widened as they approached their destination. It was a logging camp and there were row after row of neatly sawn logs lining the route. She had never seen so many felled trees in her life. She wondered how many huts and houses this timber could make. She was used to stone houses with relatively little wood in them; the nearest timber trees were way to the north of Ortia, in the foothills of the mountains.  

Twenty minutes on from the start of the log piles they finally reached their destination. The road broadened out into a series of wooden houses, lumberyards and workshops. The place buzzed with activity, even now, at the beginning of winter.  Carts full of planks rolled across the track, men warmed themselves next to large braziers or were sawing the long logs in pairs. The smell of men and horses was overpowering; the dynamics of movement, after so much stillness and silence. The brothers were clearly pleased to be among other people for a while. They seemed to know everyone.

The bowled down the street, the boys wisecracking with the foresters, Viola hampered by her little basket. She understood only a little of the banter, and it was probably better that way. This didn’t look like a place where many females ventured. Or elves – everyone looked about six feet tall and very broad. The place wasn’t in any sense threatening, but she’d still be happy to get away from it.

They stopped at the wide jetty, where three long timber boats were anchored. There was a smell of tar and pine resin. Viola put Boo’s basket down on the ground – she was still sleeping. The river here was too wide for even her eyes to traverse. She wondered at how it could be so clear – she could see small brown fish swimming in it as if they were in an aquarium tank. She looked upstream, searching for some clue to the colour of the water, but all she could see was the wide river stretching out in front of her like a sea. She remembered, for a moment, a conversation that she had had with Dom about the sea, about how, for him, the ocean went on forever. She shivered, even though she no longer felt cold. Then she heard something behind her. Someone was talking to her.

‘Who are you, then?’ asked the riverboat captain, a sharp-eyed man in a heavy coat. It was clear that she’d just been introduced, but she had been too distracted to notice. It was time to focus. It was also time to try to pull rank; something that every elf attempts at least occasionally when dealing with humans.

‘I am Major Viola Ortiensis of the Imperial Army; I am on an important mission that has bearing on the whole world’s security. I need you to take me to Imperial territory’ She only had the faintest idea exactly where the nearest Imperial lands were, but that was a point that they could clarify later.

‘Really? And where would that be, then?’

She thought rapidly – were there any Imperial ports on this continent? She thought not.

‘I want you... to take me to... Gorodnikov’ she stuttered, rapidly losing confidence.

The captain laughed but his eyes narrowed.  

‘That’s a mighty long way, Major Viola’

‘Name your price...’

He shook his head

‘I’m master of a river boat; it wouldn’t last five minutes on the open sea. It’s a thousand miles across to the west, even at the narrowest point. I have no price for shipwreck and drowning’

Viola’s heart sank. She knew nothing about seafaring and had just assumed that any boat could go anywhere. She felt foolish and gauche – so much for pulling rank.

‘Where do you go to, then?’ she asked, weakly

‘We follow the river down to the delta and drop our logs off at Plenum, at the far end of the flow. You can travel with us for free if you want; it’ll be my favour to the Empire. Any further will cost a lot more’

‘How long will that take?’ she asked

‘Two weeks, give or take a day or so... it’s much slower the other way, of course...’

Viola thought about this. She had no idea where Plenum was.

‘How much would it cost to take me to Kinspit?’ she asked

‘How much do you have?’ the captain replied

She shrugged, realising the ridiculous nature of this conversation.

‘Nothing – but I can get as much as is needed from Kinspit’

He laughed again; she began to wonder if he just thought she was mad. Maybe he was humouring her.

‘Who will you get the money from?’ he asked

‘A friend who...’ she stopped herself. This would all be too complicated.  ‘I’ll get off at Plenum – that will be fine...’

He smiled gently at her, as an adult might smile at a child. I’m hundreds of years older than you, barbarian she thought, but then dismissed her thoughts as petty.

‘You’ve got twenty minutes to get on board – you can sleep in the hold...and help the cook...’

He turned and walked back to his boat with a rolling motion. The boys were now staring at her.

‘How will you pay us?’ Jake asked, as if realising the flaw in their wonderful plan.

‘You’ll get five elfrounds each’ she said, ‘but not immediately’

The sun was just dropping from its zenith. The boys were looking impatient.

‘That doesn’t sound good’ said Frank, looking worriedly at his brother, ‘but we really need to make our way back...’

They hesitated briefly as if hoping that she would pull out a purse and pay them there and then. But she had no purse.

‘Off you go then’ she said, not unkindly, ‘I hope you don’t get into too much trouble...’

They began to retreat, making vague noise of reassurance that they’d be fine. She waved them away.

She looked across to the logging barge; it looked worryingly low in the transparent water. She’d really had enough of travelling... and magic.

She sighed and picked up Boo’s basket. Then she summoned up all her courage, and strode of along the jetty to where the barge sat, bobbing gently in the big water.