Chapter 29: The Song of the People

Reads: 101

“Come along, Piki,” my mother says, taking the little girl’s hand. “Hurry up, Bessil,” she says to me. I start to say something, but the double gong sounds again and mother hurries us out into the street.

I remember going to the Great Hall when I was a little boy - third circle? I’m not sure. The double gong is the signal, but the people of the cut had been murmuring about this for a time.

The feeling in the air. It’s a smell and - and a bite and your breath starts to show. Mother hurries us to gather up our warm clothes and go. I can even remember shivering as she leads the little girl and me down the slope.

I wonder about this memory, though. I have no brother or sister, but I remember mother taking me and another. I even remember someone living with us, but I cannot say who. Piki is a pet name.

And I don’t remember my father with us. He was still alive, then. He died when I was almost fourth circle.

When we arrive in the Great Hall, the headman and his folk are still checking the place for goblins. The Great Hall of Bocut is dug into the side of the cut so that half of it is against true stone. Even if the front windows are kept open and bright, goblins can crawl out of the very stone in pure darkness when people are not looking.

Mother leaves us with some other families and helps bring in bricks to burn. The store of fuel had been neglected. Small fires had already been started in the two stone fire pits near the back of the hall. We children huddle close to the flames. I remember the rich scent of burning charcoal bricks.

I can’t say how long it took for the darkness to settle in and I watched the fire, not the outside, but I hear the hubbub behind me and hear the great doors slam shut.

The headman calls for our attention and asks us to sing the Song of the People. I don’t know the words well, then, as a little boy, but I listen and sing as best I can.

And that is what I remember of that cold dark.

When it is done, twenty-two people have frozen in the cut. The lower folk - the overseers and haulers and their families - had huddled for warmth in a cottage down the cut. Some had frozen, some had gone mad and run out into the dark to be overcome by goblins.

And a family, for reasons I don’t understand, chose to stay in their home in the cut, where they froze.

When it’s done, there is a blanket of snow - something I’ve only seen a few times in my life - over the paths and houses of our village. Some cold lingers for a while, even in the light - which turns the snow into blindness.

And the slow gong rings, while every abled-bodied person fourth circle or above helps haul the unfortunates up toward the Plateau of Silence.

In Trinket’s cottage, everyone is inside now. Lianth and Sabill are not to be seen. Lianth must have engaged the parlor, although he had resolved not to use his shells for that. Perhaps the People of the Square had changed his mind.

The rest of us - save Trinket’s wife - sit in the common room, ignoring the scratching of goblins. It is not so vigorous as during a warm dark.

Jimbe doses, slumping over the table. If there were room on the floor, he would have curled up. Even I learn to sleep anywhere after a day of hauling.

Trinket tends a little fire, a stinky thing of dung. Perhaps he’s saving his bricks. His wife, who I’d only seen a bit of, is off in another room.

And the three People of the square occupy a bench against the wall, across the table from the fire. The head woman sits in the middle, with the man and her sister leaning into her on each side. In the dim light, the read patches of her scarf still speak.

“What are we to do with them, sir?” I ask Trinket.

“Do? What’s your name, lad?” I tell him. “Well, Bessil of Bocut, well.” He sits on the bench next to Jimbe, but facing the fire, not the table. “It’s the law that, when darkness rolls in, we have to offer safety to all.”

“What about beggars?” I ask, looking to his back and to the People of the Square and back to Trinket.

“What about them? I’ve taken in a few, the ones who can sing or caper or some such. Mostly, they live in their tramp huts and keep the goblins out with their tramp ways.”

I still don’t know what a tramp way is. Only light and stone and bone mortar keep the goblins out, but we don’t really talk about the beggars.

“But these lot, they only come inside when it’s cold. Isn’t that right, folks?” he says, turning his head as if addressing them over his shoulder.

None of the People of the Square answer him.

“It’ll be cold,” says Jimbe. “You can feel it in the air. Cold in here, already. Sometimes the cold time goes on so long, there’s no fire left, no food to eat. Sometimes a skerry freezes so that only the rich folk in the cuts survive.”

“Yes,” Trinket says. “All those beggars you talk about, all those folk in Lake Town, dancing around, not a care in the world. Sometimes the whole skerry freezes to be born anew.”

Even then, I know there’s an edge of blasphemy to his statement, but I say nothing.

“Oh, don’t be so gloomy, Mister Trinket,” Jimbe says. “Hasn’t happened in lifetimes, as far as I hear. Is there dinner?”

“I’ve only peasant bread,” Trinket tells us. “There's a ladle of ale for you two. Ever had peasant bread, lad?”

“I have,” I say. “It’s too hard to eat, so you must soak it. But what about -” I hesitate, then gesture to the People of the Square. I know their eyes can move, but I can’t see, in the poor light, whether they look to me or to Trinket or to nothing at all.

“They’ll have no food unless the dark goes on longer. If you eat, you have to shit,” Trinket explains, which I guess is right.

“And that’s our doing,” Jimbe says. “But maybe the dark will be short and we won’t have to tend to them for long.”

Before we settle in for dinner, Jimbe and me wrap the People of the Square’s feet in a rug, for the floor is cold. I lift each foot in turn, looking up at the folk and taking care not to touch the cord attached to the foot. One at a time, we push the rug under all of them and pull it up over them.

When I look up at the people, I can’t make out their eyes well enough to tell whether they are grateful or - what other feeling might inhabit them?

Submitted: August 15, 2023

Fantasy sprite goblins bones