The Iron Palace Read Free Page A

prairie, not a treacherous, reedy bog. Scattered about the fens were thousands of limestone outcroppings. They came in all sizes. Some were no bigger than boulders, while a few looked like little mountains, complete with forests growing on their sides. Many, like Tararc Hite, were inhabited.
    Roarc’s home had been chiseled into the southern slope of the hite about halfway to its summit. Ten paces deep, it was sizable by fens standards, for many generations of Roarc’s family had enlarged it. The front of the cavity was walledoff with a stone facade that featured an ancient wooden door and a chimney flanked by two shuttered windows. The homes of Roarc’s younger brothers, which lay elsewhere on the hite, were less grand and more cramped. When Roarc turned the bend, he saw Rappali already at work tilling the terraced field by the dwelling’s entrance. He was pleased to see that. He was less pleased to see a goat tied near his doorway.
    Rappali seemed to have anticipated Roarc’s reaction, for she set down her mattock and greeted him with more good cheer than usual. “Good morn, husband. ’Tis a fine night’s catch ya brought.”
    Roarc frowned. “I see tha goat girl came.”
    “Aye, last eve.”
    “That girl lacks sense. All tha way from Far Hite in tha eve. Tha fens will swallow her yet!”
    “Yim’s no girl,” replied Rappali, “so why call her one? Her lad’s almost as old as our Telk, ’bout seventeen winters by my reckoning.”
    “I name her girl ’cause she looks and acts like one. Raising a lad without a man! ’Tisn’t fitting!”
    “Just ’cause she refused yar brother—”
    “And every other fensman who asked her. A lad needs a man ta guide him. Then he’d know how ta slaughter a goat.”
    “Ya know full well why he doesn’t know,” said Rappali, “and ’tisn’t ’cause Yim lacks a husband.”
    “A lad
should
see blood. He’s being raised unnatural. Why, I’m part minded ta send tha goat back.”
    “Fine. Then ya can send back tha cheese that she brought for our trouble. She promised us a hind quarter as well.”
    “ ’Tis only an old milked-out doe.”
    “ ’Tis dear ta her, poor thing.”
    “Why take her side?” asked Roarc. “She’s an outsider. Mayhap a bogspit.”
    “Pah on that! Tha Mother guided her here.”
    “Tha healwife thinks different.”
    “That’s ’cause Yim knows more ’bout birthing babes than she.” Then Rappali put on her most conciliatory face. “Please, husband, enjoy Yim’s cheese and kill tha goat for her. She’s coming back this eve.”
    Roarc thought of Yim’s cheese, which was renowned for its delicate flavor, and relented. Nevertheless, he made a show of deliberating and frowned when he spoke. “I’ll slaughter and butcher tha goat after morn’s rest,” he said. He set down the basket of fish and the damaged traps. “Tend ta these afore I rise.” Then he entered his home to sleep awhile.
    Rappali grabbed the basket of fish and walked down to the bog to clean them. There she could also cut the reeds to mend the traps. She would have done both without being told and regarded her husband’s insistence that she accomplish the chores before he rose as face-saving bluster. Roarc disliked slaughtering Yim’s goats. The task didn’t bother him; it was for whom he did it. Roarc wasn’t fond of Yim, and his wife’s friendship with her annoyed him.
    Rappali assumed that her husband disliked Yim because she was an outsider. Fensfolk had little contact with the outside world and distrusted it. Sons who joined the ships that plied the Turgen almost never returned, and the few that did always seemed changed beyond recognition. Yim’s sudden appearance had been the subject of gossip for many winters. There were folk who actually believed she was a bogspit, a being born from the muck in the bog. Such creatures were supposed to have bog water in their veins and were burned by real blood. That was said to be the reason why Yim wouldn’t