The Hestwood - Rob Chilson, ebook
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//-->THE HESTWOODBy Rob ChilsonHow long, how long, in infinite pursuit Of This and That endeavour and dispute?Better be merry with the fruitful grape Than sadden after none, or bitter, fruit.—Omar/Fitzgerald****WENTING SONELLIAN SAT crosslegged before his croft, playing the zootibar.The haunting minor-key notes of the long bamboo flute wafted down to the beachand out over the Bay of Repose. To his right, Weary Water slipped soundlessly intothe Bay. To his left, beyond the Bay to the west, the Ramping Sea lay sleeping. Inthe orchard behind his croft, Squatham, the birds were singing “Joy to the Morning”in massed chorus. The air was as warm as milk and as invigorating as wine.And best of all, Calian dautNinnian, Wenty’s current lover and future wife,was sleeping in his croft.All was well on this best of all mornings in the sixty million years sinceman-kin first appeared upon the Prime Mondeign. The only discordant note in all theworld was the bickering of the gulls on the beach. But Wenty was too happy tofrown at that.Then Calian dropped her scarf by him and trotted into the bay, startling thegulls, who cursed her. Splashing herself in a quick bath, she rinsed off the salt inWeary Water, tossed back her cascade of golden hair, and padded back. She seatedherself before him. Her slanted black eyes with their vertically slit pupils werecommon here in the Hitherland but no less beautiful for that.Wenty flung aside the zootibar and spread his arms, his gleaming red crestrising.“Ah, my poppet, my pet, ha! You have had time to consider my proposal,eh?” Confidently he employed the Executant of inquiry that made a completesentence of his Utterance. “So, you will be my wife and live forever with me atSquatham and fill my life with joy, eh?”“No, heh.” Smiling, she employed the Executant of response to inquiry.“No, eh? No, eh?” Wenty’s crest drooped. “You would turn down all this,eh?” waving his arms about to encompass the croft, the orchard behind, WearyWater and the beach, the milk-warm and wine-invigorating air and — andeverything.“Not you, huh,” he said, turning his head to frown at the gulls raucouslyincluding themselves in that “everything.”“Think, Caly: you’d forfeit all these pleasures — and in addition the life-longpleasure of my conversation. Having enjoyed it life-long myself, I can tell you thatit’s a life-long pleasure indeed, ha! You would forfeit all this, for why, eh?”Laughing, Calian said, “A great pleasure indeed. But I wish to see more of thePrime Mondeign before I settle down, huh,” using the seldom-employed declarativeExecutant to indicate her seriousness. “I’ve told you before, but you do not believe Imean it. I’ve never been farther than Kirkilgowock, and you can see that fromSkitty.”“This urge to travel — for why, eh? Even if you travel from now on, thinkhow much there’ll still be that you haven’t seen. Life is too short, ha! And in themeantime you are missing precious days in my company.”She said, “Oh, Wenty, don’t try to dissuade me. And I’ll be missing none ofyour tongue, for you shall take me about. I want to see cities and mountains andstatues and islands, and — and —”“A city’s what but a fat village, or an island but a clod surrounded by water,eh? You’ve seen Kirkilgowock, and you’ve been on a picnic to Ealeigh andWesleigh,” he said, indicating the low grassy islands of the Sea Gate that protectedthe Bay of Repose from the Ramping Sea.“Two bits of meadow in the sea, that’s all.” She stood suddenly and passionentered her tones. “I’ve never even been to Iorkonon, ha! And Iorkonon — it’swhat, eh? Nothing but another modern seacoast trading center, heh! I’ve never seena ruin of The Heights — not even a crumbling wall of High Material. I’ve never evenseen an exozootic animal, whose ancestors came from the stars.”She flung her arms wide. “I want to see the Prime Mondeign, ha! Or at least alittle bit of it. A cruise to the Farther Islands, perhaps.”Wenting had risen, and his crest rose too. “But what’s left to see, whenyou’ve seen Squatham, eh?” He turned her about. “Look: the Heston Hills, andnearest of them Dun Bromgaw and Dun Ullock rearing, dark and portentous, ha! Notmountains, no; not even grand hills; but impressive for all that. And see, over themand spilling down from them, the dark, dangerous, and abysmal forest — theHestwood, ha!”Caly smiled tolerantly, tilting her head. “I’ve been in the woods. I only sawtrees. I’ve even been in the Hestwood, on a picnic. We saw no dangers. No, nomore arguments, ho!” Caly used the commanding Executant sharply. A flock ofgorcrows passing overhead were startled into imitation: kha! kha! kha!“Shut your beaks, ho!” she yelled up at them, tossing her hair, and turnedback to Wenty. She tapped his chest. “Tonight, I sleep with Greling, whom I lovealso. And he has promised me, before we’re wed, to take me at least to Iorkonon.Maybe there we’ll take ship, if he saves enough. Even aerial ships sail to Iorkonon,ha!”Aghast, Wenty said, “You’d sell yourself to your second-best lover for amere pleasure trip, ha! But if you do not marry me, then who will damn my socks,eh?”“Damn your socks, eh?” she cried, with a little shriek of laughter.“Darn all euphemisms, ha!” he cried.Still smiling and shaking her head, Calian picked up her scarf and knotted itcarefully around her waist, leaving the trademark on her hip exposed: the image of anco-oak leaf in black melanin under her skin. Wenty’s was on his chest.“No more arguments, Wenting huh. If you really love me, you’ll make aneffort. Overcome your Hitherlands sloth, earn some money, and show me about abit, ho.” With a last kiss and wave, she set off across the low ridge that concealedSkitty to the west, her hips swinging attractively — and very firmly.The voices of the gulls were harsher than ever, the air now flat and dull, andbehind Squatham, the birds had broken up their devotional and were all squawkingderisively at him.“Chance damn it,” Wenty said. “She has been talking this way for a long time,and now — What nonsense, ha! To go hating about like migrating birds but withouttheir purpose, merely to gratify a whim for movement. Better to stay in somesalubrious spot — Squatham comes to mind — and if one simply must move, thendance.”He sighed. “But how rare is the rational mind, ha! How sadly rare. At times Ifancy myself quite alone.”He turned about and checked; his cat was digging a hole amid his flowers.“Chance damn you, Socks, ha!” he cried. “There’s a muckreed pond downby Weary Water.”“Too far, huh,” grumbled Socks, squatting over the hole. Her expressionbecame one of concentration and he knew further curses would be futile.Stamping into his croft, he slammed the door behind him and stood uneasilylooking about. Squatham was snugly built, if small; one room. He had glued togethersquared stones from some old building brightened inside by yellow and white paint.The roof timbers were driftwood topped with hornstone shingles. There was acooking and in winter, heating stove in one wall, its firebrick gleaming dully. Alsosome shelves and wardrobes; a table, three stools, a bundle of bedding on afold-down shelf. A few clothes, books and sheet music, Calian’s spare tambangs,and the zootibar and titibuck Wenty played in their ensemble.Now he looked at Squatham as Calian might.Dull, he thought. “Where I see concentration on the task in hand —namely,enjoyment of life — she must see boredom. Most of all, we both see one thing: thesame thing every day forever, amen, ha! But I can barely wait to start, where shefeels trapped by it.”Shaking his head, he went back out, closed the door gently, and lookedaround. Squatham, seen from Caly’s perspective, was even duller outside. Thestones were their natural weathered dun color. Flowers grew about it and vines up onit. Back of it, beautiful and useful too, was his orchard.“Socks, if she had not been hinting for so long about having not one, but twochilden, both by the same father, I wonder if my love for her Socks, eh? Yo, Socks!Off without a word, ha! Ignored and dishonored in my own house, ha. But it wasever thus with the great of soul, huh.”Disconsolately he wandered toward the orchard at the back of his fist of land.Socks put her head out from beneath a flowering bush and watched him go, hertongue protruding pinkly. Of her no doubt disdainful thoughts, she spoke no word.Wenty had set out his now-thriving orchard when he first squatted by WearyWater. He had dairy trees yielding milk, cream, and cheese; eggs came from bushesunder them. Sandwiches from the handmeal trees provided quick meals “—thesingleton’s salvation,” he reflected. “Also the breadfruit.”The cereal nut bushes provided storable food — he had all three varieties, atotal of twenty-two different kinds of nuts. There were numerous fruit trees, withthick-rinded apples, oranges, purples, and yellows, among others. Spud bushesprovided all colors of starchy tubers, also in thick rinds, and densely packed leafyheads. “So many salads on the stem.”Of fruits that didn’t store, he had a number of trees. One yielded red, blue,and white grapes. “And bunches of cherries,” he added. “Soon it will be time tostart the summer’s run of our cherry wine, famed from here to Skitty.” Another treegave bunches of strawberries, blackberries, and so on. Four cloth trees marked hisboundary to the west. Wooden spools of cotton and linen thread already grew onthem, but they were too small to harvest the cheap bark cloth that he mainly wore.“If I had planted aluminum-seed trees three years ago on that strip of clay soil,I might have a cash crop now,” Wenty mused. “Or sea-silk seareeds on that bar justoff Weary mouth.”Glumly he examined his three tansy trees. “On the other hand,” he said,brightening. “metal nuts delivered at Skitty have a negative value —worth nothing,less the cost of transport to Kirkilgowock. No, medicinals are the prime Chance, ha!Light in weight, and high in value.”The tansies — the name was derived from athanatos — had leaves edged andveined with crimson, with crimson trademarks underneath indicating the nuts eachbore. These ranged from simple headache pills, through anesthetics, to powerfulsymbiotics proof against most transmissible diseases.“Not much profit in headachers and soporifics,” he said. “Anesthetics andsymbiotics alone, then. Leave them in the shell, as longer lasting. and also as lesswork, ha!”An hour or two later, carrying his shabby knapsack, he followed Calian’strack over the ridge to Skitty. After a couple of miles he entered “bookland,” wherethe land was platted into legally registered, taxed, and inheritable plots.The village hummed with activity: a squatter from a southern fist led a placidPontid pulling a wagon loaded with brew blooms and mushrooms. The squatter andhis Pontid greeted him, and the latter waggled its comblike antlers. Men and womenputtered in gardens. Children chased each other around the yard of the little school,unchanged since Wenting went. One man carried a crudely cast plastic jug ofcooking fuel from the village’s muckreed marsh.Wenty paused at the yard of one of his elderly uncles. The uncle sat jawingwith his wife about their disreputable roof.“When it’s a-rainin’, you cain’t fix it,” Wenty said with a country twang, “andwhen it ain’t a-rainin’, it’s as dry as any man’s house.”His uncle agreed, laughing, and his wife said, “Long as it drips on your side ofthe bed, I don’t care.”A small number of patrons sat under the tree in the innyard, where bulky oldPeola sat in state and her patrons helped themselves to her wares, dropping smallcoins, “sparks,” into a bowl.Wenty greeted everyone by name, and stopped to speak to Ellian, his mother.It was half an hour past time for the ferry to depart when he reached the wharf. Asmall group of Skittles stood about, waiting for the ferryman.
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