This is the second installment in my serialized release of Indigo, a fantasy fiction story written by me! You can read the first installment here.
Bedtime Stories - Indigo | Chapter Two
Clio would have preferred to have gone to her room straightaway, but the pub-owner sat her down at a table with a mug of warm mead and called out, “Welcome our stranger!” Soon rosy faces were seated near her, and she was caught in a net of candlelight and booming laughter.
The men at the table had beer foam in their beards and performed for each other stories of their youth, while the women occasionally chimed in with well-timed ribbings. An old woman sat in the corner, singing to no one. Thick warmth, scented with alcohol and earth and roasting vegetables, hung in the air. Clio liked this candlelit haven, the building made from pine, where the steam-fogged windows hid them away from the outside world.
A woman set bread and a bowl of roasted root vegetables in front of Clio. She must be the pub-owner’s wife. A sleeping babe was at her chest, wrapped comfortably in place by the swaddling cloth its mother wore. It didn’t flinch at the loud laughter or the sound of mugs banging against the table, but simply put its tongue to its lips, nursing in its dreams.
The vegetables were warm and hearty, caramelized leeks and creamy sweet potatoes and peppery radishes, melded together with thyme and sage. The bread was likely a day old but had plenty of salt, and had been toasted in animal fat to revive it. To Clio, it was a welcome feast.
“What’s the word from Pryntell?” someone called down the table. Ruddy faces turned to Clio, remembering their guest.
“You might know better than I,” Clio called back, “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that city’s walls.”
“How long?” That voice came from the man sitting to her right, who had been quiet most of the evening. He had dark skin and kind, shy eyes that were even darker. His hair was twisted into thin, even locs held back with a leather tie. Clio couldn’t quite remember his name; she had been introduced to so many.
“Nearly two years now.” She loosened her scarf; the warmth of the room was heavy on her skin. “Though it’s been near a dozen years since I called it home.”
He nodded solemnly. “Near a dozen years since I’ve been there myself. I used to sell some harvest there before the city closed its gates.”
“We’ll all sing on the day they open again.” It was a strange phrase, likely passed into normalcy while Clio slept, but she had picked up the custom along her travels.
“We’ll all sing,” the dark-eyed man responded. Dezo. That was his name. His eyes lingered on Clio, curious and somber.
“A dozen years!” a man with a snowy beard shouted, having just processed the overheard conversation. “You hardly look old enough to talk of years in dozens!” A useless statement; you can never know the age of a tree, a friend once told her. Only inside can you count their rings. People are much the same.
“Ah, don’t let my pale skin fool you, sir,” Clio said in practiced defense. “The sun is kind to me but the years pass all the same.” And ten years asleep keeps wrinkles at bay, she added to herself.
Clio returned to eating, though she was conscious of eyes still watching her. One of the women looked at her curiously, her eyes following the lines of Clio’s scarf and the simple braid that pulled back her hair, but then she turned away.
Clio breathed out slightly in relief. Curiosity didn’t bother her, but there was such a fine line between it and suspicion. She wanted to be a stranger, but not a foreigner. An unknown face rather than an inhuman entity. But the pub-owner again filled Clio’s mug, a song broke out from across the room, and the baby wrapped up to its mother’s chest let out a cry. They all forgot about Clio once more.
As the evening quieted, everyone in the tavern gathered around the fire to sleepily talk of far away things. Clio took a seat near the window, grateful for anonymity and the drowsy comfort of a full stomach and cozy room. A woman kneeled down to the hearth and lit a long switch. She used it to light her pipe, and then it was passed to the others. Obligatory murmurs circled the room; I must rise with the sun tomorrow, I should check on the children, rest is needed to sow tomorrow’s fields. A few from the crowd left, but at least a dozen remained, gazing at the fire. Some were seated on the floor, leaning against the knees of their partners. A woman braided the hair of her friend. They looked like a family.
“We’re close knit here,” Dezo said, as if he had read her thoughts. He had sat next to her earlier, purposefully, it seemed. “This village was only settled ten years ago. The valley was empty before. We came from towns bankrupt from war or fields too dry to sow. Most of the villages in these mountains are the same.”
Clio nodded thoughtfully. “They say war and plague conceive new generations.”
“We like our valley.” Dezo looked at her with a simmering fierceness beneath his pondering demeanor. This time it didn’t surprise Clio like it did with the man Moss at the farm. Though ten years felt like an eternity to her, it was likely short for these two men and their families, and the memory of destitution and upheaval was all too close.
“May it remain in peace.” Clio lifted her drink, and Dezo relaxed, softly knocking his mug with hers. Though his eyes still lingered a moment too long.
The man with the snowy beard hummed a tune that sounded as old as the cliffs surrounding the little valley, and leaned back as he puffed smoke into the air. “Let’s have a tale!” he said as he leaned back forward. “Perhaps the mapmaker-minstrel has a story to spin.”
Eyes turned to Clio.
“Oh, this visiting bird wishes to hear the song of the locals,” she demurred, repeating the common minstrel adage. “My gift is to listen before I sing.”
“A minstrel if ever I met one!” The snowy-bearded man laughed. “How about you, Pace, you’ve always got legend on your lips.”
The man called Pace had a freckled, youthful face, and his wife laying her head in his lap, nearly asleep. She wore her hair in loose braids like a girl-- which she likely still was.
“I’ve a yarn to share, if you all don’t mind me retelling one you’ve heard before.” Pace looked around for approval and was met with nods, everyone already settled in to gaze at the fire and will it to illustrate the words soon spoken.
“When the world was new and the sky was young, the stars slept close to the ground,” Pace began. His voice was clear and unwavering. “By day they glittered in the blue sky like dew-covered leaves blowing in the wind. From this blessed vantage, they watched the creatures of earth. They heard the first bird-song, taught water to babble and rush, opened the butterfly’s cocoon to teach it how to fly.
“However, they soon grew sad, for the earth-creatures lived but a short while compared to the heavens, and many a star banished themselves in their grief.
“But Esta was a small star, still burning new and white, and she would not follow her elders into the night. She encouraged the flowers to bloom and whispered to birds to take their first flight. She taught the spider to spin its web and the bear where to find honey among the sleeping bees. She showed the fox how to dig a burrow, and keep warm from the chill of darkness.
“There was one that Esta loved above all others, a son of the earth named Tarin, and he loved her like life itself. He sat among the trees and played his pipe, singing songs of love to Esta by day, and then sending his dreams to her as he slept in the soft grass. He was kind to animals, and learned wisdom from the trees. Esta wanted nothing more than to be near to him.
“As her brothers and sisters walked up into the sky, the world grew cold in their absence. When the first snow powdered the world, Tarin shivered and his hands grew numb. He could no longer play his songs, and his voice was too dry to sing. His sleep was tortured by the cold, with no dreams to send to the young star. And the cold continued on.
“Esta was heartbroken. If only she could be near to him, to warm him through.
“One night as Tarin writhed in the cold, Esta could stand it no longer. She came down from the sky to warm him, her light shining bright. But stars and earth are not meant to meet. As Esta descended, the ice melted from the trees, and an icicle fell, straight into Tarin’s innocent heart.
“Esta could not stop the blood flowing from Tarin’s heart, even when the icicle staked through his chest melted. She shone bright as Tarin drew his last breaths. He looked to her, the love always too high for him to reach. She gazed down at him, knowing it was her nearness that killed him, and that she would never embrace her lover.
“Esta flew back to the heavens. As the world grew cold again, Tarin’s blood froze like tiny rubies in the snow. The nearby plants couldn’t bear the tragic sight, so they sent their vines to gather the droplets of blood. In doing so, Tarin’s blood joined the plants, and they became one and the same being: gentle plants with tiny berries like droplets of frozen blood.
“Esta still watches over this world, though she now lives high in the sky, and we know her as the Sun. And every spring, as soon as the snow melts, the gentle plants grow with the bloodberries on their branches, their flavor both bitter and sweet like the love Esta and Tarin shared.”
The room was quiet for a long while after the story ended. Just the sparks of the fire dared speak.
Clio wished she had written down the tragic tale, so beautifully woven in the night. Pace, the storyteller, stroked the hair of his young, sleeping wife. The gregarious snowy-bearded man puffed his pipe while staring at the ceiling, perhaps thinking of love long lost.
Story for a story was the minstrel’s tradition. Clio began in a near-whisper.
“In a land far away there was a mountain that stretched into the sky like a tree, and an old man who lived atop of it. Each day he would wind down the narrow path to the foot of the mountain to fill his pail at the well, and each day he would wind the long way up again.
“It was an arduous climb, and the journey there-and-back took from sunup till sundown. The villagers whispered about the old man— why does he spend his day filling the pail? Surely it would give him enough water for a few days. Surely he could collect rainwater. However, none of the villagers questioned it, and no one thought to bring him water themselves. After all, they had their own fields to tend to.
“But then the land was struck with drought. It did not rain for a whole season. Crops died. What little water could still be found in the wells was saved for drinking, and even then the wells began to go muddy, no matter how deep they were dug.
“And yet still, every day, the old man would wind down the narrow path to the foot of the mountain. He would fill his pail, though often with only the stagnant mud and water scraped from the bottom of the well. And he would climb back up.
“The villagers perceived the old man as greedy. Why should he take a bucket every day? What did an old man need with so much water? They grew restless as they spoke about the man. The next day, when he wound down the narrow path to the foot of the mountain and approached the well, they grabbed him and smashed his wooden pail against the ground.
“The old man wept as he climbed the narrow path back to his home. When he reached his home, he wept at the trunk of the tree next to his house, hoping the few drops of his tears would sustain the beautiful willow he called his friend. It was the willow he had watered every day for so many years, the willow that lived so high on the mountain that the rain fell below it, and would surely have died without the old man’s care. The old man gave his final tears to this willow, and then slipped away from this life.
“The willow wept when the old man died, which awoke the mountain beneath it. ‘Why are you weeping?’ the mountain groaned. When the willow told the mountain its tale, the mountain was moved by the old man’s kindness. The mountain sensed the old man’s tears at the roots of the willow and multiplied them, adding to each tear every step the man had taken on his long climbs up and down. There were so many steps, so many days climbed, that from the roots of the willow sprung forth a stream, a stream that trickled down the steep mountain, gathering tears and momentum as it went, and became a rushing river in the valley below.
“And so, the old man’s tears restored the valley from drought. The villagers could once again harvest from their fields, and the children played in the river’s bank. But through all this goodness, the willow still weeps for the old man, and for his tears that were mighty enough to become a river.”
The story ended and Clio took a deep breath, breaking herself out of the rhythm of the story. It was late, but she didn’t want to disturb the peace of this moment. The snowy cliffs outside would bring hardship and woe, sleep and a world of white, but for the moment she was warm. So she pulled out her zanfona and gently turned its wheel, playing a song of love and longing.
It was moments like these when Clio remembered what life was like before, when she was surrounded by friends in the vibrant colors of Pryntell. There were no mysterious attackers, no purple flowers, no poisoned waters or closed city gates. She had not yet been exiled by the elders and punished with sleep, and her skin didn’t yet bear scars. Back then, though it lasted just a moment in her lifetime, she felt as if she belonged. That she wasn’t a stranger.
But such times were long ago, and now the gates were closed and she was banished not only from her birthplace but also the only place she had ever called home, and ten years asleep and burning scars in her hands would mean she was always a stranger.
When her tune ended the spell was broken, and the group rubbed their weary eyes and placed their chairs in the proper places. With mumbled goodbyes, the villagers headed out the door, holding each other close as they walked through the brisk spring night.
“I hope our village has welcomed you properly.” It was the soft voice of Dezo.
“I’ve yet to receive a warmer welcome,” Clio responded. This truth made her regret her coming journey into the snowy mountains all the more. “I plan to stay through festival day. My tools are in need of repair. Do you know who might be able to help me?”
He grinned. “My wife’s the town blacksmith, as good as any in Pryntell. I’ll introduce you tomorrow. We’re across the way.”
“Thank you. Tomorrow.”
Keeping his eyes on Clio, Dezo put his hand to his chest in the tradition of Pryntell, and bowed before he left.
***
The pub-owner gave Clio a candle and showed her the small room where she’d be staying. It was warm and dry and the straw bed was padded with a layer of down. Once she was alone, she set the candle on the table and enjoyed its amber flicker. She wrote in her notebook the sad story of Esta and Tarin, once more savoring each word.
Not for the first time, Clio wondered if she could stop her journey. No one was forcing her to climb these mountains, and though she claimed Pryntell as her own she was no longer the paid scholar she had been. Her long slumber felt like a wound, deeper and more painful than the scars she bore. What had she missed? What friends had mourned her as dead? What stories and songs had been told in her absence?
What lives could she have saved? It always came back to that question, and the moment Clio thought of it she knew that she would be climbing the mountain once more. The elders could cry bastard! and blaspheme! and Pryntell could cast her out as a traitor, but she alone knew the truth of the tragedy now twelve years past. She alone bore the memory of the rocky battlefield strewn with bodies and the flowers that sprouted from the decaying bodies of the dead.
And so she would continue her climb, following the Indigo up the icy cliffs to the North, begging it to give her a shred of proof with which to share her story. Otherwise, history would repeat itself… and all of these villagers would lie dead in their valley, purple flowers sprouting from their silently screaming mouths.