Chapter 7: All Six Baskets

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“Bessil, we’re short a man or two.” One of the men straps a basket to my back. It’s lighter than the burden I carry for the peddler. “Take a basket and help us out.”

I hear Vesh and the peddler talking. “Glad you didn’t do that before our trade,” the peddler says.

“What? You care for a pretty face?”

“It’s the wail,” the peddler says.

“Oh,” Vesh says. “Yeah, breaks their voices sometimes. It’s only ever a croak after that.”

The men and I head up the path. Vesh comes along, with the flour, and falls in next to me.

“There’ll be no more work from them for now,” he says. “Still, can’t waste the flour that’s been milled.”

I watch the ship settle down and disappear behind the ridgeline.

“Vesh, can you tell me,” I say between huffing breaths. “What will you do with the children?” I’m confused, you see, since I’d never heard of this.

“Raise them as townsfolk,” he says. “You know that headmen can count and predict the future, right?”

“They know the future? By throwing knuckles?” I ask.

“Not for this,” he says. “They plan how many townspeople you need and how many you can feed. And when there’s not enough, we take babes from the peasants.” We walk in silence for a little longer, then he says, “It’s a little cruel to the beasts. It’s sad to see them upset like that, but the lucky babes grow up proper.”

“Oh,” I say. “People are the same as peasants?”

“Hardly,” he says. “You see them. They really are beasts.”

I feel the babe in my basket shift and let out a little cough.

“What about the peasants?” I ask. “If you take all the children, who will work?”

“Six is a lot,” he explains. “There was an attack up in Rocut, a while back, now. A leviathan crashes into the town. Brigands, with a hold full of goblins. Who knows how they got them in there. Before they died from the light, the goblins went mad, clawing and biting. Killed or blinded a score of townsfolk. It’s a bad business.”

I’m huffing again, eager to pull in air, when we climb the little stairs to the ridge.

I looked across the step where the airship had just taken off. We’re close enough to hear the lines pulling the bones together to drive the ship up into the sky.

“They’ve left without these,” I say.

“No,” Vesh says. He puts the flour down. “There's not enough space for all six baskets. They’ll be back for the rest. And the flour. You’re to go with the peddler all the way around the skerry and back to Bocut?” he asks me.

I tell him that I am.

“You’re a lucky fellow, Bessil,” he says. “I’ve never been all the way around the world.” When I ask where he comes from, he tells me, “Goat’s Town. Well, it’s called Talcutt, but if you’re born there, folk call it Goat’s Town.”

I ask him what it’s like, but he helps me remove the basket - which cries in its loneliness - and draws me aside. We sit for a moment, on the scrubby ground.

“You might want to take care,” Vesh says, more softly. “I talked to-” the peddler “about this. The legions have come to the skerry often of late. I think they’re here now.”

“What’s the legions, sir?” I ask, as I had when we first arrived at his cottage.

He shifts his butt in the grass, settling in a bit while we talk.

“You know there’s other skerries, right, boy? Well, there’s another thing called The Raft.”

“The Raft,” I repeat.

“It’s like a ship,” Vesh tells me. “But, big, so big. Bigger than a Leviathan. So big that it has a town on it. More people live in that town than live on our world. More than most skerries.”

“And that’s a legion?” I ask.

Vesh shakes his head. “That’s where the legion is from. They don’t grow food, there, on the Raft,” he goes on. “But they make things. Some of the things I trade - metal, clocks and compasses, dice.” He pauses for a moment. “Sugar,” he says.

I know what sugar is, of course. There are sweet things, but sugar is sweet by itself.

“So they come and take the food from us,” Vesh goes on. “We send bags of grain and tubers up there, straight or through the towns. They trade for it, I guess. When trading doesn’t work, that’s when they’ve got the legions.”

“They’re carters?” I say, not wanting to think what is coming next.

“Soldiers, boy,” he says. “Tough men with truncheons. If a skerry doesn’t bring up their portion, they send in the legions to take it. Anyway, the Raft is near. Are you fourth circle, boy?” he asks.

I tell him that I am. I haven’t been measured for a while and I hope to be fifth circle soon.

“They harvest boys,” says the overseer. “Not peasant boys, but town boys, like you. Even young men, sixth circle.”

“What for, sir?” I ask.

“For the legion,” he says. “For their soldiers. Bring them to the Raft and train them. They take twice as many as they need and train them, take the best.” He pauses and looks away. “The rest, they drop. Sky have mercy.”

“Sky have mercy,” I repeat.

“Anyway, might not be good for you to be in Beshof or anywhere off the Path of the World, for now. The Peddler won’t want you grabbed up, but best you speak to him of it.

“Oh,” I say. I look at the ground, ashamed for some reason I can’t fathom. “Vesh, what did -- trade for the dolls? He didn’t take goods or shells.”

I use the peddler’s name here. I can’t remember it now, all this time later, but I remember using it then.

“Ah, well, peddlers don’t marry. You know that grown up men lay with women? A peasant is no different from a woman, not for that.”

“No different?” I ask.

He looks at me. “Well, you can’t lay with woman without marriage. Peasants don’t understand, so you just do it. That was his trade. Anyway, time for you to run along.”

I say goodbye.

I head back down the slope, panting and huffing, now, even though my load is lighter. My shirt is soaked in sweat and my feet hurt, again. I walk by the peasant girl, still sobbing on the ground, surrounded now by three old peasant women who sing softly to her.

They’ve cleaned the blood off her face and bandaged it. None of them look up and the peasant girl does not meet my eye.

Submitted: April 06, 2023

Fantasy sprite goblins bones