Chiefdom of the Marshes by Williamson John

Author:Williamson, John [Williamson, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

The idea of a bodiless burial was to Idenica, too demeaning to consider, for Consada. As such a hastily prepared funeral pyre was arranged, much of the wood being taken from the partially burnt roundhouses of Norsea.

With the constant threat of attack, attending the funeral on Norsea soil was uncomfortable for Elric. The alliance between Fengate and Norsea was however, so important that avoiding the event was never considered.

“Did they really need that much wood for one wooden head?” Elric whispered to Isena, who in turn scraped her foot brutally down his ankle, causing him to call out in pain.

The Seer glared at him for the interruption as he began the ceremony. He chanted praise to the spirits, whilst brandishing a bears skull, seeped in blood. For the seer to conduct the funeral rights was a great honour, usually not permitted outside Fengate. It was part of Elric’s attempt to charm Idenica; a ploy undermined by his inability to contain his joy, as the flames began to lap Consada’s head, making it glow against the night sky, before entirely engulfing it.

Andura stood one pace back from her parents, as a matter of routine protocol. She had barely spoken to them since Vintnor left Fengate. It wasn’t that she was to be offered as gratitude to the spirits. She knew, as her mother did, that Elric would find a way around that. What reviled her was the fact that her planned wedding to Dalric had been moved forwards, again as appeasement to Idenica, and to secure his status as Thane of the combined villages.

Even at his own father’s funeral, Dalric found the need to leer at Andura across the flames and smoke of the pyre. She made eye contact with him briefly, before looking away sharply, sickened by the knowledge that he was to be her husband.

Only Idenica remained at the pyre, after the ceremony, watching as flames degraded to smoke and ash, representing the end of all that was familiar to her. The rest of the Norsean people quietly withdrew, but they surely felt a similar sense of uncertainty.

Elric and Isena returned promptly to their log-boat, where Andura was already waiting, slumped down in the shadows of the reeds, to avoid the attentions of Dalric. “Could you not be nicer, my dear? Yound Dalric has just lost his father,” Isena said in an unusually sugary tone.

Andura wasn’t of a mind to talk. She continued to sit, slumped in the bottom of the boat, considering the days that were to come, and how hopeless every possible outcome was to her.

On the Fengate shore, much was being prepared. Those with fighting skills were teaching their wives and older children the basics of combat; sometimes with proper weapons, but more often with sharpened antlers and clubs.

“Vintnor was right. You should have sold me to Stromgalee,” Andura blurted, as they reached the Fengate mooring. “Now you’re going to get these people killed to defend me, only to whore me to Dalric of shit festering Norsea.

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