The Tale of Oriel (2 page)

The Damall whipped him that night, nineteen strokes. He knelt naked in the whipping box, the sharp stones digging into his knees and into the palms of his hands. The Damall whipped him until he was sorry he'd given away the sweet cakes. The boys crowded around being glad it wasn't them in the whipping box. Griff brought seawater up from the dark when all the rest of the house was silent, to wash his back clean, and he slept on his belly for two weeks, but he never let the Damall see how much his back hurt. He laughed, ran, worked, and ate, just like always, just as if every time he moved any part of his body he didn't feel pain as sharp as a burning branch across his back and his legs. Stones had no feeling so they knew nothing about pain, and he was a stone.

In the long purple evenings, the Damall would tell them about the treasure the Great Damall, who was the first Damall, had won from the world. The treasure was hidden on the island. “Gold coins and jewelry, silver coins and jewelry, even gemstones,” the Damall said. His voice glittered. “Diamonds, more like those stars up there than you'd think, and pearls set into necklaces and bracelets, but the best of it is the beryls. Nine beryls there were,” the Damall said. “Nine green beryls paid in ransom to the Great Damall by a Prince from the Kingdom. Years ago, when the Old Countess was a child, there was war. This was war between the Old Countess's father and a soldier Captain, and the Captain hired a giant from the armies of the Kingdom—where all the soldiers are huge as trees, and long to die, and can't be killed by steel or wood but only with a naked fist into the forehead, here.” He pounded his own forehead, between the eyes. “The Great Damall had captured the giant and his Prince brought ransom, to free him. This was a Prince among Princes, a Prince who might have been a King, and he sat down at the table with the Great Damall, and they ate out of the same pot, and he bought back his giant with four beryls, each one the size of my thumb.” He held up his thumb. “What's that face for?”

He wasn't afraid, because it was only a mistake the sixth Damall had made. “You said nine before.”

“Four beryls, nine beryls, what's the difference. As long as one beryl remains on the island, we're safe enough. Maybe I like to change the number. It took one beryl to buy the island from the Countess, it would take the value of one beryl to buy the island's safety, so however many exactly there are between doesn't matter, does it? Maybe I'm just making up a story, maybe there was no Countess who ruled the cities, and there were no beryls. Maybe there isn't any Kingdom, either, with giant soldiers and Princes who value their soldiers at this high rate; maybe it's all a made-up story. Nikol, do you believe in this Kingdom?”

“Naw,” Nikol said. He swaggered his shoulders. “Nobody ever went there, did they? Only someone stupid would think—”

“Then how do you explain the beryls?” the Damall asked, in a soft and dangerous voice. “If I'm stupid,” in a sharp and dangerous voice. “Who'll bring out the whipping box?”

“Don't, please,” Nikol said. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean—”

“Who's going to help Nikol take off his shirt and trousers, since he seems to be having trouble doing that?”

“Please?” Nikol cried, and he had tears going down his face. “You were telling us, about the beryls. You were telling about the treasure. Tell more,” Nikol asked.

The Damall shook his head. Four boys carried in the whipping box and set it into place. Two boys were pulling Nikol's shirt over his head and he struggled to pull it back down.

“Tell about the pirates,” Nikol cried. “The pirates and the treasure and the fifth Damall.”

The Damall shook his head. He reached down for the whip and shook out its arms.

“But you were telling us!” Nikol screamed. “Please don't—I didn't—I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” He clutched the top of his trousers. “I hate you!” he screeched.

“Oh,” the Damall said. “Oh dear me. Did you boys hear that? Nikol, I wasn't going to whip you, but now I have to.”

Nikol knew when he was defeated and he hunched down, weeping and begging the Damall to stop, begging, after each of the five strokes. “One for each beryl,” the Damall said. “Isn't that right, boys?”

The boys agreed.

IN FALL, THE PIGS WERE
slaughtered, held squealing overhead while Nikol slit their throats with a knife, until his arm ran with blood and his face and hair were covered with it. His teeth shone out white in his blood-dark face. After they bled themselves empty, Nikol slit open the pigs' bellies and everybody helped pull out the guts, then they all worked to peel the skins off. Griff was in charge of smoking the butchered meat, and also of boiling the heads and trotters and bones. Wood had to be gathered into piles so that the smokehouse fires would burn night and day. Buckets of entrails had to be carried down to the sea, and poured into the water.

Apples and nuts ripened on the trees in fall. He was the bravest climber, who went highest. The Damall's island had a small apple orchard and a large woods, as well as two meadows in cultivation and two more for grazing. Before the Great Damall bought it from the Countess, for the price of one beryl, there had been fisher families living on the hill, high enough to be safe from spring tides and winter storms. The Great Damall sent them away, and tore down their cottages, and built his own house there. The Great Damall's house was of stone and had many rooms—a great hall with a fireplace so large a boy could stand upright in it, with his arms spread out, and touch the fireplace stones only with the soles of his feet; the master's bedroom with its own fireplace and a carved bed hung with heavy curtains; a kitchen; three rooms for the boys, one for the littlest, one for the middling, and one for the oldest. All around the yard the Great Damall built a stone wall, with two wooden barred gates in it, to keep the animals in, or to keep the boys in, or to keep the house and those living in it safe. For pirates roamed the islands, hiding during the day and attacking at night with fire and sword. The towns and cities of the coast were too well fortified and defended, so the pirates preyed on the islands. The Great Damall built a house that could be sealed up as safe as a castle against pirates. It had cellars for storing food and a deep well in the center of the walled yard.

Only once had pirates attacked the island. They had come by day when the gates were open, when they weren't expected. They had heard of the treasure. They held the fifth Damall's hand in fire, until it burned off. But he didn't tell them where the treasure was. He died three days later in a fever, but he hadn't told. The treasure was safe and the island was safe. As long as one of the green stones remained on the island, as the story was told, no harm would come to the grassy, forested island that rose up above its circling base of boulders. The Damall's island was too small, and townless, for the pirates to come back to—or so the boys hoped.

IN WINTER, THE BOYS WERE
kept inside, under the glittering eye of the Damall. They were taught to read, the older teaching the younger. The quickest boys also learned to write, which would make them more valuable as slaves in the market. The Damall told them the numbers, and what he knew of how they worked, but only Griff needed to remember that because it was Griff who kept the books of records—household income and expenses; where boys had been found and, if purchased, how much had been paid for them and, when sold, how much had been gotten; the yields of field and fowl and pigs, the catch of fish and gostas and skals; the records of deaths, by drowning, by fever, by coughing, by infected wounds, by wasting away. There were some boys who came to the island only to die, pale and listless, and they were poor weeping things whom nobody grieved over. Their bodies were wrapped in an old blanket, with three stones at the head and three at the feet; they were taken out to sea and set down upon the water. There were other boys who came to the island and it seemed nothing could kill them. Nikol had fevers and infections, and once he was swept out to sea in one of the boats. Nikol always got better, however, and he'd been blown back to the island by a friendly wind. Nothing could kill Nikol.

Nothing could kill him, either. He had never been sick, except once. Once, when he was little and Griff had just been given the job of cooking for the boys and the Damall, too, Griff gathered some wild onions in spring, to put into the soup. Griff chopped up the onions and cooked them in with the turnips and fish bones, and that night the whole house fell ill—the boys went outside to vomit, many had the shits, all had sore and swollen throats. Even the Damall was struck down, lying on his carved bed and calling for pots to be brought to him by whoever was on his feet at the time. The illness lasted all the night long, and it was two days before anyone felt well enough to wonder about it; one of the littlest boys died but everyone else recovered. The Damall asked Griff what went into the soup, and then he went out to the woody edges of the meadow on a damp morning to dig up one of the plants. He took it to the market town and one of the old women told him its name, naked lady, and its poison. First the Damall whipped Griff, then he left Griff crouched naked by the door for day after day, without food, tied with a rope around his neck.

He could do nothing for Griff. He couldn't even drop a crust of bread as he passed the door, because Nikol watched. He couldn't even sneak out in the darkness of night to bring water, because Nikol slept across his doorsill. If he had been caught trying to help Griff—

He had to be strong as stone, and pretend it didn't matter to him. Nikol watched him, to catch his weakness. The Damall watched him, too. He was as strong as stone, and no one saw the anger that burned inside him.

It ended, the punishment, and the memory of both punishment and cause faded. Griff was kept in the kitchen, and made no more mistakes like that. The years rolled by, spring to summer to fall to winter, and over again, and the older boys were sold and new boys came to the island. One day, the Damall promised, he would name his heir, he would choose the boy who would stay on the island and be the seventh Damall. The heir would be master of the island. The heir would be told the secret hiding place of the treasure, which he must never reveal until he told it to the boy he had chosen for his own heir. The Damall's eyes glittered in firelit winter darkness as he told the boys this.

He didn't know why the Damall kept looking at him, whenever the story turned to the heir. Until he finally did understand. He would be the boy named. He would be the heir. He would be—and his chest swelled with it—the master. He would be the seventh Damall.

W
HY ELSE DO YOU THINK
I never had a name?” He spoke in a whisper.

Griff shook his head, denying it. Griff's hair was pale brown, the color of dry leaves in fall. Griff was tall and bony faced. His eyes glistened like pebbles darkened in the sea. He and Griff sat by the fire, for light, working on their letters and numbers. Nobody could hear what they said when they whispered. The other boys were ranged back against a stone wall, allowed no nearer, on the Damall's orders. The Damall had taken his tankard of wine into the warmth of his own room. They had heard the carved wooden bed creak when the Damall stretched out on it.

He might be nameless, but he was fourteen winters now, and now when he heard one of the little boys whimpering about the cold he thought of tossing the whiner outside, for a night of real cold, and now he could judge to the minute when he should start crying out under the whip so the Damall would be satisfied. He was fourteen winters now, and better at everything than anybody. “There's no other reason, except if I'm to be the heir.”

“It troubles me,” Griff said. Griff was carefully copying a sentence from the pages the Great Damall had written down, to use in teaching his boys to read and write.
The King rules, for his father was the King.
Griff finished copying that sentence, then said, “There's no mention of you in the record books, no price paid, no place of purchase. No date, no age at arrival. Nothing.”