Christos I — people of the mire

He did not want to call it a funeral. There were no tears or songs. When the guests entered the cemetarian woods their conversations drew to close. Perhaps with intent, but more likely by chance. At the head of the procession was the widowed bride. From one look it was known by all that there could be no words of comfort, only an awkward and quiet disbelief. Funerals in Seton were a time of celebration when old life was returned to the mire and the Mabbastree at its heart. But Melinoe’s smile was not of celebration. Her eyes were focused on something far away, unbothered by the day as if she expected her husband to join her at any moment.

Christos fastened his coat and tied his scarf around his neck. He could not look away until her head turned in his direction and peered right through him. They had never spoken. He turned to his father instead.

“A sorry affair,” said Castor Nelson, and no more. How terribly true.

Christos had only ever ventured into the depths of the cemetarian once before when his father’s father, passed. Only four guests had been in attendance: Christos, his father, his brother, and the gravekeeper whom nobody saw, but whose presence was all but guaranteed. Most funerals were this small, but it seemed as though the entire town was in attendance for the return of Thomas Allwright.

Still, the procession was silent but for the wailing of the Mabbaswinde and the shuffling of feet.

The trees were bare and the white of ready coal. They were not stone, nor dead like those written of in Guyun, but there were little signs of life and they projected a cold veil across the woods like the height of a long blue.

Ten minutes passed before they emerged on gravel paths into a large clearing. At its centre was an enormous tree, five times as tall as its children and fifty times as wide. Its roots spun in three concentric circles before they sank into the dirt. Its colour was different, too. Brighter like the sun, but it pulsed with a soft black glow so dim that it was almost imperceptible. Its bark was cracked or greatly beaten.

The books in the college described it as ‘the light of a thousand words,’ and that it spoke only to a chosen few who shared the blood of the tree, but there would be no speaking today.

Lord Henry Carmine was absent so his daughter, Lady Helen Carmine, delivered the address. Christos tried to meet her eye but she didn’t notice him. He encouraged her in his mind.

As tradition dictated all except those belonging to House Carmine were confined to the second ring. There were three exceptions. The first was Sakurai Shun, the stranger from the far fiorns beyond the Evangelium. He did not join them and remained instead on the edge of the clearing. The second was a man about the same age as Christos whom he recognised as one of Helen’s cousins. Christos had never spoken with him but he decided that he did not like him. His eyes were far too calculating. They shared some words and then Helen approached the Mabbastree. The third exception stood in front of the tree in mourning robes of white-brown. Against its trunk Melonie looked as if she were glowing too with that same dark light. Helen hugged her, and then she knelt across her husband facing away from the crowd.

If she cried she hid it well because when she returned to her feet her expression was almost happy. The air throbbed.

Helen spoke the old words and the audience listened until she was finished. The body was then offered to the tree and the crowd left. The Mabbastree, the origin of life; the heart of the mire. They rose and walked daedd around its roots until each of them passed his body. The gravekeeper did good work; Christos could not tell where the wound he had been found with had gone. It had been a frighteningly large gash and there was so much blood. Now he only looked asleep. Christos muttered a quiet verse of thanks to the gravekeeper, whose face and name no one knew, for sparing at least his wife the sight of his stomach split in two.

When they emerged from the wood it was as if each of them had breathed in as one. Conversations sprang up. Consolations were offered, and those less affected left for home immediately. Castor firmed a hand on Christos’ shoulders and spun him around.

His eyes were small and searching. “You’ve nary said a word all day son, are ye alright?”

“I’m fine father,” he replied, but he couldn’t even convince himself. He did not like to keep secrets from his father, but he didn’t know what was bothering him. Castor nodded and told Christos that he would wait for him at home.

Christos wandered through the crowd exchanging brief pleasantries with those faces he recognised until he chanced across the Carmine congregation fixing the saddles of their horses on the edge of the cemetarian grounds. This time Helen saw him. She burst forward and threw her arms around his shoulders

“It has been much too long,” she cried. “I thought you did not come, where have you been hiding?”

Christos hugged her back. When they separated. “Away. Elathain is intent on lecturing me on the ethics of equestrian.”

Helen shook her head and smiled at him sympathetically. It was not entirely a lie, but Christos had no difficulty rejecting him. “What a strange fellow, I’ve no idea what the Maestraes sees in him.”

“Can you think of anyone normal who’d make a fuss over something so mundane?” said Frey Halson Fennir. The gefreit annoyed Christos. He reeked of arrogance, and even his voice was handsome.

“Do be quiet,” Helen chided. “I can think of one such person, and I rather don’t enjoy the implications that come with it. I’ll apologise to Mr Daine when we next speak.”

“I’m afraid that may only confuse him,” another of her group said.

“Is that so?” Helen hummed then returned her attention to Christos. Whilst she talked she adjusted Wulbaerns’s harness and reigns. Her horse was much larger than Maximillius, and calmer too. Its eyes watched him tentatively. “In any case my friend, how did you find the ceremony?”

“You did well,” Christos said.

Helen was not convinced. “But?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t even know him, I was only here because of my father. There were so many people, I suppose I just don’t know why.” He stared down at his hands. Was he jealous? He didn’t often feel this way, and Thomas was dead but he was alive. “I wonder if there’ll be so many when I die. All sitting in silence, some dragged along because of a man who knew a man. It’s different isn’t it, from us normal people?”

Helen stopped what she was doing and walked over to him. She bent forward slightly to peer into his eyes. “And what is so normal about you, Christos Nelson? I know of only two of us so young that we own our own horses, and only one that can claim to have truly earned theirs.” She laughed. “But this funeral isn’t about you is it? Is that what you’re thinking?”

“Of course it isn’t.”

“And that is where you’re wrong. Thomas has passed, returned to the mire, and it is you and I that are left behind. That is a gift. How else are we to spend that than to think and feel whilst we can? Funerals are nothing if not consolation for the living. So feel away. It’s not your fault.”

Her voice reminded Christos of his mother. Soft and melodic as if she were reciting verse. Though Helen often claimed that she was a poor daughter to Lord Carmine he could not disagree more. She embodied the tree and its endless roots.

“Thanks,” he said. Helen stepped away with a nod of satisfaction. “But I didn’t even know him The living—they remember the dead. I should at least know what he was like.”

“He was kind,” Helen explained. “Did you know he insisted on organising aeggmass celebrations for the children of the lower village during the last blue? He and his wife cleared out their barn and convinced Robert to play for them. They filled that entire house with food and the good ale from the grange brewer in town, and milk for the children and—I believe your father baked a cake, do you remember? And he never asked for a single penny. I often wish that I’d known about his plans so I could have told Father, we certainly would have helped. But we were together at Norcastle, weren’t we? You, Dorian and I. And it was only until after when Melinoe spoke of it that I knew.” A sombre shadow crossed Helen’s face. “And he was loved. It was so obvious how much they loved one another. That’s quite a rare thing now isn’t it? I can’t believe that it’s gone.”

Christos offered her a smile. “I hate it too,” he said. The irony was not lost on him.

He remembered that aeggmass well. How he were wildly afeared that the three days isolation would drive Dorian insane, and then how he had proven him wrong—how he’d been content to sleep and drink and listen to stories and poems far more than any Dorian he thought that he knew. Christos realised two important things that year.

The first was that he really knew very little about his best friend. Father said that this was just how boys were but that was no excuse. Friends should know one another. It made it easier to do kind things, and what was a friend if not someone who was willing to do kind things?

The second was that no matter how well he knew his friend he would never know him wholly. He could never really know the crinkling in his face nor the gentle narrowing of his eyes that he offered to Helen without a moment’s thought. It was a kind of vulnerability that Christos hadn’t even known that humans could possess.

Now he recognised it for what it was. Sometimes he wondered if he were capable of it too, but there was no ‘Helen’ for him.

“Are you thinking again?” she asked. Christos jumped.

“Just tired,” he lied.

“Well I would sleep well tonight. I have news that Dorian will be back tomorrow.”

He scarcely believed his ears. “He will?” And Dorian had told him that he would be gone for weeks, but not even one had passed since then. “I’ll have to get Father to bake some rolls.” He looked around before remembering that his father had returned home There were not many people remaining in the cemetarian courtyard, only a small crowd of those whom Christos did not recognise, and the strange soldier, Sakurai Shun. Their eyes met and the man nodded, then approached.

Christos had not had a good look at him during the ceremony but he was dressed differently than when they had encountered each other on The Road. Gone were the rugged leathers and linens of his travelling gear, replaced instead with a peculiar cotton robe and a vest which covered only his sides. The shoulders of this vest flared out dramatically. The robe was tucked into a long skirt which almost reached the man’s feet, on which he wore no shoes, only fabric raps. On his hip were what looked to be two swords, except they were curved and one was half the length of the other.

All four gefreit behind Helen stepped forward to intercept him but she waved them down with a click of the tongue. The man stopped several paces away and bowed deeply, from the waist. A foreign bow. Helen bowed back properly; Christos followed awkwardly third.

“You must be Lady Helen Carmine,” Sakurai said. “I am Sakurai Shun. I have come a long way to meet with you. Might I have a word?”

Helen stood and examined the man from head to toe. Christos was impressed at how well he withstood her gaze. He looked unbothered, if not slightly amused. He turned to leave but Helen tugged at his arm.

“Where to start?” she said. “On your first day in Seton you happen across a murder, a crime that is simply not committed. You convince our Watch to grant you permission to join its investigation yet you taint the sanctity of the victim’s funeral by denying it the presence of my father on the matter of a technicality.” Her face was like thunder now, frostier than perhaps even the air in the cemetarian. “What business could you possibly have with me or my father? And for that matter, where is he? I was told he couldn’t attend because of his meeting with you.”

Sakurai bowed again, deeper. “I am terribly sorry, I was insensitive. I did not understand that such an event was so significant to your people.”

Christos was dumbfounded. “You don’t have funerals?” he asked. They both looked at him as if remembering he was there. “I mean—does it not matter when people die?”

“We do not honour the dead in this way,” Sakurai explained. “Many are not honoured at all. They are left in fields and hovels to return to the dirt in their own time. I am a soldier; there is no time for funerals in war.”

Helen’s expression softened. Still, the chill in her voice remained. “Well, you will do good to learn whilst you are here. So where is my father?”

“Lord Carmine regrets to inform you that he is unable to attend. I must confess that this too is my fault. He seems to be troubled by something that I told him.”

“Which is?” Helen demanded.

It looked for a moment as if the man might answer. But then he smiled and shrugged, and suggested that she ask him herself.

“Fine,” Helen said. “Then your business with me?”

“In time My Lady.”

“I’ve been told you’re a tutor.”

“Of sorts,” Sakurai Shun replied. “But you are right, this is not the time for these affairs.” He gestured towards the woods. “It is more beautiful than I could have imagined. An incredible power resides within these trees, it is no surprise that your people revere it. This…”

Christos finished for him. “The Mabbastree.”

“I heard rumours. What do you say of it?”

It was several seconds before Christos realised that he was talking to him now. “I… It is a gift from the mire itself,” he said. “They say its seed was found at the centre of the mire and that it was planted—in the year of the first blue—by the founder of Seton, and that even bearing no food it would provide for the people of the mire until the last days of the world…” he stalled, but continued when Sakurai’s gaze never left his. Expectant. Demanding. “You know, all life in the mire comes from the tree, from the smallest rat to the largest fenelk. So when people die they return to the Mabbastree, like repaying a debt. As you saw.”

“I see, and this tree, does it grant gifts too?” Sakurai asked.

“Sometimes,” Helen said.

Sakurai turned away from her and placed his hand on his swords. Though Christos could not see his expression he was familiar with the way his shoulders hung. Sadness, or nostalgia. The wind swept past them directly fiorns, out into the mire, and tugged at the loose folds in his robe. Surrounded by the Carmine men too, and their white iron armours, Christos felt underdressed all of a sudden.

One such armour whispered something to Helen and she nodded. She turned to Christos first and wrapped her arms around him.

“I’ll be off, later okay?”

Christos nodded and hugged her back. She then turned to the soldier. “I must be returning Sakurai Shun. See to it that you don’t come across any more trouble. If the next time we meet you are not entirely forthcoming as to why you are here, or if you are found to have had any hand in what happened to dear Thom, we will not be exchanging such pleasantries.” A chill swept through the court of the cemetarian bringing with it stone dust from the depths of the forest and the pungent stench of ash. Christos shivered. Even the gefreit behind Helen looked uncomfortable, but she did not stutter for even a moment. “I will see to it that my father’s justice finds you no matter where you might hide.”

Sakurai only bowed. “I should expect nothing less,” he said. “Farewell, my lady.”

When she and her guards left for Norhill, Christos made to leave himself until the man stopped him. “A word?” he asked, and since Christos had no reason to refuse he agreed.

They walked back to the village together. Much of the journey passed in silence.

“Do you like this town?” Sakurai asked suddenly.

“Of course,” Christos replied. “Though it’s the only town here; not much for me if I didn’t.”

“There is north.”

“North?” Christos frowned. “Where is this?”

The man looked at him in bewilderment. It was the most affected Christos had ever seen him. “It is north. You do not have this here? North, south, east, and west.”

“Foreign words,” Christos said. “Directions, there is only fiorns, hamth, and daedd.”

Sakurai pulled up short and untucked the smaller of his two swords from his belt. Christos stepped back involuntarily, but the man did not draw it, rather he crouched down and began drawing in the dirt. It was crude and the lines were thick but it was clearly a map of the mire. Seton was a small circle in the middle. The Road was a mostly straight path moving upwards toward the King’s Wood. The Evangelium to the right and the endless mire to the left. Sakurai drew another line following that of The Road.

“North,” he said. “Then south,” a line towards Guyun, “and east and west,” lines toward the depth of the mire and the Evangelium respectively.

Christos frowned. Why so many words for the same way? “These are fiorns. Here, may I?”

Sakurai passed him the sheathed sword. It was heavier than he expected but the fabric wraps stuck to his hand like glue. It felt solid in his hands, powerful. He crouched next to Sakurai and pointed to each the lines in turn. “Fiorns, these are away from home. Into the mire, further from here. The Road travels Fiornsip, this is the only safe way from Seton.” He then drew two curved lines. One travelling left around Seton from The Road. Another travelling right. “These are daegmael and hamcyme, leftward and rightward turning. Or daedd and hamth when you are travelling.”

“What about when one travels back from The Road? Towards Seton?” Sakurai asked.

“There is nothing else, everything leads here. If you want to live, you are here in Seton. If I had to say, then home. Homeward.”

Sakurai stood and Christos returned his sword. The man smiled a genuine smile that reached his eyes this time.

“I’m beginning to understand what she meant,” he said. Christos asked him who he was talking about. He laughed. “A friend. The reason I am here.”

“For Helen?” Christos asked. Distant family perhaps? It wasn’t unheard of.

They continued on. The trees had been thickening slowly and they now formed a real forest of living trees with thick leaves and healthy trunks. Their canopies hid the sun from sight and swayed with the sound of an invisible rain.

“In a manner of speaking, I am here for your friend. All of you rather. But I have found that this is a most peculiar town. Seton is a bastion of civilisation, the last realm before a great expanse of nothingness. Of wet mud and terrible dangers. But your mire is hardly that dangerous at all, is it?”

“Not say the rangers, terrified of the mire they are.” Christos thought of Maximillius, saw his powerful rear and enormous hooves thrice the size of his hand. “But The Road is good. And I don’t think one of Mister Darius’ horses would get lost.”

“I’ve been wondering,” Sakurai began. His face was unreadable, but something danced across it. Christos had always been good at reading people. He could see them and know them, but what he saw on the stranger’s face was there and not at all. And that smile never left his lips.

“Yes?”

“Why do the people of Seton stay? The mountains are dangerous to be sure, but there’s nothing here. No people, no trade. Nothing except Seton and swamp.”

It was a question that Christos had been asking himself for as long as he could remember. There was something more, so much more, just a mountain or two away. A whole world of people living and breathing, laughing and crying, eating and baking—what recipes and secrets did they know that would make his father reel in delight? What great warriors were there that could cleave mountains in two and wield great swordpillars of light and flame? What others were there whom he could love and be loved from, or know and be known by?

There were only stories from people who came and their promises of return. There were strange faces and strange voices that sounded only to die out on the mire or the Evangelium.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Christos said. “I don’t know. What’s it like out there?”

Sakurai’s eyes opened in wonder, and through them, Christos saw. “Vast,” he breathed. “And tiny at the same time. There is everywhere and nowhere across the Evangelion. Sometimes, when I am wandering and have been walking for weeks or months I cannot help but think of where I am going. Where do I want to go? I asked myself. I think and I think for a very long time until I realise that I am going nowhere. Simply going.”

“My father would call that nonsense,” Christos said even if he did not believe that he would be correct. He thought that Sakurai’s words were wonderful and that he would very much like to do the same.

“Maybe it is, I would not be surprised. I am convinced that my life is nonsense. I can tell you more about it someday if you like.”

He replied far too quickly for his liking. “Of course, if you’re around. Don’t get run out of town and that.”

“Or hung,” Sakurai added. Christos laughed. His body finally relaxed. Sakurai continued. “In any case, you want to leave here, no? Truthfully, I know the reason why people of Seton do not leave. It is not easy. You may have studied this at your college but if you ever doubt the difficulties that face you in the—how was it you sometimes call it?—the Vangeline, they must be as terrible and more. It took even me four years to travel.”

“Four—years?”

“You’re surprised?” Sakurai slicked back his hair. It didn’t hold. “I must look young indeed.”

“More that you’d waste so much of your life. You’re a soldier, aren’t you? Don’t you have… you know, an army to fight in?”

“I do,” Sakurai said. “And this is my war.”

The words drew shivers from Christos. “So is that why you’re here? To fight a war?”

“Not in that sense, no.” Sakurai’s brows furrowed in thought. Deciding whether or not he could confide in Christos. He fixed his face and looked as innocent and trustworthy as he could.

“I will be here for some months,” the man said after a time. Changing the topic. Christos sighed in disappointment.

“Where are you staying?”

“The Wig and Pen,” he answered.

“Gods, you can’t stay there, it’s awful.”

The Wig and Pen was a steaming pile of drunkards and piss-stained wood hidden away from the rest of the town on the boundary of Red Park. Given the low frequency of travellers the ‘inn’ was more commonly used for those men whose wives demanded they not return home after a night of drinking. Perhaps to a soldier it was nothing new, but Christos had decided he rather liked the man. His father would certainly question him, but that would be a problem for the morning.

He drew to a halt at the mouth of the forest. The town gates lay just beyond, a brown smudge on the crest of the hill. “My father—Castor Nelson—is a baker, we live off the middle of town. Nice big house, plenty of spare rooms now my brother has moved out. Err, if you see what I’m saying.”

Sakurai clasped his shoulders with both hands firmly, startling him. “You are too kind,” he said. “If it is okay, I will accept your offer.”

“Really?” Christos said meekly. “The drunks that bad?”

“Not the drunks, no. It’s the view. I don’t like the view.”