Travel Log of a Raven
Day 9 - A New Commission
- Details
- Written by Michelle McCollyer
The songs the Blessies sing as they bury the dead linger in my ears long. As I write, the truths of their songs hang about my shoulder like a noble who's trying to influence my writings in his favor. The burial songs chase themselves, the end folding back into the beginning to begin again and again. They never resolve, neither through their words nor their melody. They say it’s something to do with the Spiral of the Great Spirit, but I find it bloody annoying.
I’ve been writing for days now, nearly a week, recording the Battle of Atawa. Though I’ve inherited all the scrolls, fancy quills and inks from the previous recorder, I’ve still had to use some of my own supplies. My hands can barely hold a bowl to my lips, my fingers ache so bad. I’ve barely slept, writing in the candlelight of the Royal tents until my eyes blur the words together. Several nights I’ve slept here, right beside the scroll I’m working on. The ink has stained my writing hand; it looks foreign to me, like it’s from a Spiritual Warrior’s dead body. When I ran out of ink, they ordered me to continue using pig’s blood. I had always thought pig’s blood smells like ham. It doesn’t. It decays with the same stench as human flesh.
Everyone has left now, all but the officials finishing the Grand Treaty and some Blessies burying the bodies. The cart merchants hang about, selling everyone millet and beans for six times the normal rate. Though the other Ravens will have more than a week’s start on me, my scroll delivering will be difficult; I usually have the bodies with me to prove my scrolls of Valiant Deaths are true. This time I won’t. I’m not a noble. I don’t look like one, so for some Region House to hear their brother or son died from an unknown peasant with a scroll and no master, I’ll need something more. They’ll suspect me of lies or worse, that it be a trick or a malicious plan from some rival family. Hopefully the bodies will arrive before I do. Though having the magistrate's emblem stamped in wax on the scrolls will prove their authenticity, the Houses may assume I am in the pay of the King, and provide no coins for my services. It is a risk, but at least I’ll not end up wretched and shackled to a post for lying.
The stench of Atawa permeates everything. Everything tastes of maggots prodding human goo beneath sun-baked flesh. I could sleep in a lavender bush and still not escape that stench. I can’t wait to get out of here.
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When fortunes flow, they flood. With my position nearly up, the magistrate agreed to put his emblem seal on my scrolls of Valiant Deaths. After he looked over and stamped a few scrolls with his emblem, he remarked that my journey will deliver me to nearly every region’s ruling House in the Warrior Kingdom. He then asked me to stay while he sought counsel from the King. The magistrate intended for me to deliver messages to the Great Houses, but the King had greater plans for me. I heard them arguing about entrusting such merit in just a peasant, but the King had the final say.
Returning to me, the magistrate extended my services. He commissioned me for a new task. I am to visit the far reaches of the Warrior Kingdom, share my battle stories with everyone I meet, and keep a journal of my travels. The King wants to hear about the lay of the land, the moods of the towns after Peace, and the crop yields of each region. They expect me to return the journal to the King’s Castle by spring. For this, they’ve given me the title of Royal Journalist and sent me away with a signed and stamped scroll to assist my passage through the Kingdom. I’m also to carry a book to record in! A real book! Seems a thousand scrolls long and as heavy too.
As I reached for the book, the magistrate snatched my wrist up and held it hard as he turned my hand over. Releasing me abruptly, he remarked perhaps they’d made a mistake to send such small hands to carry out such a large task. Though I could not raise my peasant eyes to his noble ones, I stared fiercely into his beltline, saying my father grew as late as four and twenty years. Despite my size, I often pushed my own wagon. I grabbed the book and quickly filled the silence with exclamations over the pages. Intently examining the book, I tried to ignore his gaze as it traveled my figure, searching for clues to confirm his suspicions, that I was not the young man he thought. I cut out of there as soon as the he stamped my passage scroll. I didn’t even wait for the wax to dry. Working the battle fields as long as I have, I know to listen for the crouching beast salivating in the bushes. Best be off now...
