Chapter 22: The Size of Thigh Bones

Reads: 128

“Come on, pesca,” the peddler says. “We’re traveling with Lianth and his cart for now.”

“Do you have trade with him, sir?” I ask.

“Stupid question. I can’t trade in man-bones. Get her up and moving.”

I don’t know whether he meant to ignore my question or if he just didn’t think to answer it. Something passed between them, Lianth and the peddler Elio.

We start along the path again. The bone merchant keeps his wares in a cart, something I only saw up close then for the first time. It has two wheels and a tongue. The porters pick up the tongue and pull the cart along.

The old woman gives me no trouble for a while. She stops once to squat down. I’m afraid she’s girding herself to bolt again, so I hold the lead tight in both hands. But she’s just squatting to relieve herself. When she’s done, we go along our way.

“What was your name, boy?” Sabill asks me. She’d been walking along the path in front of the porters, maybe even flirting with them, putting her ass in front of them on the road. Then she walks over and falls back to walk with me.

“Bessil” I say. “I’m from Bocut. My father was a bone carver.”

“What? Amiri? Or Khai?” she asks, walking lightly beside me.

“Gian,” I say. I hadn’t thought about my father in a while.

“Oh, he died a while back,” she says. “Are his bones in the ossuary yet?”

“Not yet,” I say. “Mother is still alive, so I can’t sell them.”

“I’m not a bone merchant,” she says. “Father won’t let me into the trade. Mention his name to your mother, when next you see her.”

“I don’t think she listens to me.”

She smiles. “You can’t tell. She’s probably grateful to you for your porting fee.”

The old woman jerked at the lead. I held firm, trying to drag her back to true.

“How is Alete now? She survived the dark and cold all right, I guess.”

“That’s her name,” I say. “I tried to remember,” I explain. “Alete. It’s a shame she has such a pretty name.”

“Huh,” she says. “Is my name pretty?”

“Uh,” I say. “Yes.”

“I don’t think so,” she says. She shrugs. “Father won’t tell me which bone prayer it’s from. Bessil is from Vendic part thirty-two. Your knuckles will fetch a good price if you don’t break any of them. Shin bones, too. Not your arm bone.”

“Oh,” I say. “What about my thigh bones?”

I see her shrug out of the corner of my eye. “That depends on whether you reach seventh circle and how healthy you eat. It’s about size for the thigh bones.”

She walks off without saying another word to me.

We rest at two other overseer’s cottages along the way. There’s no dark for a while. The clouds are thin for a while.

The bone merchant talks to everyone along the way. After I feed aunty Alete, I sit on the ground near the benches while the merchant talks to the sheriff of Talcutt.

“I’ve large bones for the carver in Talcutt,” he tells the sheriff. “Ribs from a sky shark.”

“The skiff they broke down in Rocut?” the sheriff demands.

“No, no,” Lianth says, shaking his head and waving the idea off. “There was a fresh kill on a leviathan a while back. Bones cured on the wind. A little big for knife handles, maybe big enough for hoes.”

The sheriff asks if he’s trading in anything else. There’s something under the question and that’s that there are ways of buying and selling man bones that must be honored.

“There’s two folks ready to put their kin in ossuaries,” the merchant says. “That’s two sets of knuckle bones, if they are in good shape. Assorted toe bones.”

“You’re talking about Jon and Webby,” the sheriff says. “What about the rest?”

The merchant shrugs. “You knew them,” he says. “Neither very tall. One had a funny limp, not sure why. Most likely, they’ll go to mortar. Earth be kind. But, I’ll look close.”

“Earth be kind,” the sheriff repeats.

They talk on, a bit more until the sheriff looks away and raises a hand for silence. Then I hear it too.

“Everyone inside,” the sheriff says, but he doesn’t have to convince us. We’re as far from First Town as Talcutt, so neither’s horn is close, but the wind carries a wisp of warning down the slope.

At the overseer’s cottage, this overseer lays his palm open on my chest.

“You can’t bring that in here,” he says. All along our path, the overseers had already heard that we are to deliver Aunty Alete to her rest. None of them had let her inside their cottages.

“It’s the sprites,” I say. “Elia, sir, you cannot let them leave her out.”

The peddler looks back and forth between me and the overseer. The peddler is not a generous or kind man, but he seems truly in conflict.

“You must give her safety,” he says. “You must.”

“No,” the overseer objects. Everyone looks at him, save Aunty Alete. We hear another shred of the warning horn. “She can ride it out in the granary. You go with her.”

He points to me.

“That's not proof against the sprites.” I forget who says that.

“He can wear his hood. Report me to the sheriff, if you want.”

The sheriff moves away from the door of the cottage, moves farther inside.

“Keep that door open for me,” the peddler says, taking me by the arm. “Come on pesca,” he says. “Listen, go to the granary-” he points to the building. “Once you get there, tie her lead. Put on your hood and wait. The light will get through the cracks, so keep your hood on until we come for you. Don’t listen to any voices telling you to take it off.”

We’re halfway between the granary and the cottage where he stops me. He stands there, arm on my shoulder. Aunty pulls at her lead in some random direction.

“Any voice you hear that is real is muffled by the hood. Any clear voice is not true. Ignore it. Go.”

And he turns and walks back toward the cottage.

Submitted: June 22, 2023

Fantasy sprite goblins bones