For a terrible stretch of a second she stood, and tried to take in the view of the people staring back at her. Someone cleared their throat. Another person coughed.
Finally, someone said, a bit petulantly, “Well?”
Still, Caewen couldn’t find it in herself to start. She should have planned this out. She should have practised a talk in her head, over and over.
Instead.
This.
“Maybe you could sing us a little ditty?” suggested one man.
Another older fellow, gave her a wet looking grin. “Or do a turn of a dance?”
“Show us some leg.”
Just as the stricken silence threatened to overtake her a single long chord quietened the rustle of impatience. She looked to her right. It was the two men from the fortune teller’s market–or as Dapplegrim insisted, not men. Something else. Harper and the Old Riddler. Harper was resting one finger on a string of his harp. The note thrummed and dimmed gradually, receding out of the instrument. “Civility,” he said, loud enough to have a touch of threat in his voice.
“I for one am interested in hearing what the young lady has to say. We have spoken afore, and if she has matters to put before the moot, let them be put before the moot.”
“Too right,” said his friend, the shorter, whiskered and more rotund Old Riddler.
“Well, What does she want us to vote on then?” The tone was somewhat more respectful. A bit, anyway. “We can’t vote if we don’t know what we vote for or against.”
It really was terrifying. Much worse than facing dangers in the wildernesses. Much worse than she’s ever imagined. Why had no one told her that speaking to a crowd was so utterly awful? She took a deep breath, and squared her shoulders. Her palm pricked painfully all over. Tight, choking fear twisted itself into squirming sensations within her throat.
“Be quick.” yelled someone. “Go on then. Don’t much care what our pied harper says. You talk or you get down. Them’s the rules.”
“That is true. That is true. Say something worth listening to, or get down and let someone else have their turn.”
She cleared her throat. “Ahem,” she tried. “Thank you for allowing me to speak with you today.” Her words felt and sounded forced. Too slow. Lifeless. Caewen shut her eyes, and thought back to stories told by the peat-fire in the vegetable cellar of her home. Mother and father, her brother and even the family dogs, all gathered around, in secret, safe from the rotten old warlock on the hill. It all came back to her. The pungent smell of earth and burning sod and wet dog drying in the warmth. Those were good memories and happy–despite her years spent hiding in darkness. Laughter found a place in her memory then. And all the old stories. And things that were worth speaking out for. Lives and hopes that were worth protecting. She opened her eyes to take in the view, and drew a steady and level gaze down on all those who were gathered around the stump. She wet her lower lip, even as she whetted her thoughts. Then trying out her voice again, she said, “You do not know me. You do not know my people, I wager, neither. We call ourselves the clans of the East Grimmingnar, though our westerly cousins were all razed to ruin long ago, and so it comes to pass that my folk are the last of our folk. We have no kings nor queens. No heroes. No swelling ranks of warriors. But so too, we have no great treasures. The soils of our farmland is bitter, and gives itself to green leaves only resentfully. Our sheep are scrawny. Our goats scrawnier. And our purses scrawniest of all. Even our ales are oily and, frankly, unpleasant.”
Someone laughed.
Another voice from the crowd. “Is this some pity tale then?”
“Hush,” snapped someone else. She thought it might have been Old Riddler, but she wasn’t sure.
“So, as it is remembered, my people did not come out of the western uplands as conquerors. We settled a land that was in those days yet more desolate. Oh, there had been people there once, between the Snowy Mountains and the Deepwode Glaelds. It had been a–more or less–pleasant land, as is said, all well-tilled, with rich dark soil. So the old taletellers claim. But then the most recent of the great warrings fell upon the world, and for year-upon-year, armies swept south, and armies went north, and south, and north, again and again: and all the while the borderlands–betwixt the northern nightfolk and the southern sunwise-kind–those borderlands were trampled to ash. There had been beautiful stone-cut villages there once. We see their ruins in the rocky wastelands, the thorn-brush and heaths. And even, a great city, Tol-i-Osk, though it is nothing but lichen-crusted stone and dead yellow bones now.” Allowing herself a longish silence, she continued, “War is terrible. It is the most terrible for those who cannot make war, but must suffer it. The mothers. The fathers. The babes. The old and sick. Why am I here? Why do I speak?” She looked out at the crowd, trying desperately to sound more firm than she felt. “No doubt many of you know already what I am here to tell you: the oracles and the soothsayers of the lands all proclaim that war is come again. That dark times are upon us.” An uncomfortable stir went through the crowd. Good then. Most of them had heard the same whispers. “Rumours dash this way and that, of secret armies gathering in the north, and in the south, though who summons these swords and lances remains mysterious. The glowing embers of old hates are being stirred up again. And the hot coals are about to stoke to red flame. I have in me a fear that the flame of old hatred, if lit, will race and devour the whole of the Clay-o-the-Green. Even from sea to sea. The great wars of old were terrible, so we recall in our stories. There was no mercy. No respite. The young were slaughtered. The old were slaughtered. The dead were left where they fell. There was no grave, but for the collapsed cottage, or the bellies of crows and starved dogs. There was no coffin but for the creeping roots of wild trees. I made a promise that I would speak to you of this. When I set out, I thought that I was only fulfilling that oath. But in coming to the moot, in speaking and listening, this gnawing fear has grown and grown in me. We are at the brink of something awful, and no one, not a soul seems to have any desire to avert it. Among us here are wizards and magians, yes, but also advisors to lords too, kings and queens. People who possess great sway of words. The nightfolk and the sunwise-kind can talk. Must talk. The folk must parley. Or I fear there will not be another moot in seven-year hence. And maybe nor ever again in all the years thereafter. For the world cannot suffer another great war. By all accounts, the last of our fisticuffs nearly broke all that lives. Descent into wars once more will destroy us utterly. I may not have the sight of the seer, but I am more sure of this than any oracle could ever be. Another age of war will be the end of me, of you, of all of us.” She looked grimly at the crowd. “You know I speak the truth of it.”
There was a sullen quietness in the crowd. A few people were looking down, seeming embarrassed. Perhaps there had already been some vocal advocating in favour of settling old debts and prejudices? For a few moments it seemed that there might be some motion towards plain and honest talk. But then a single, slow sarcastic clapping of hands stung the air. Slap–and pause–and slap–and pause–and slap.
“Oh, very well spoken. “We should all mark this day, for it is the first speech of a skilled orator. You will speak at many moots hence, no doubt of it.” Caewen looked, hunting for the speaker. It was Sgeirr. She was still clapping slowly and mockingly. “Is the moot really willing to waste time on this… this… bumpkin, full of nonsense and dire forebodings? There are no armies gathering. No war is simmering. No dark times are upon us. We have heard a cunning, tearful tale, nothing more.” She smirked. “You ought have taken the advice of your elders and betters. A little dance would have been more entertaining, and we’d all be in a better mood for it.”