‘Shoes, a ragged dress, some bangles.’ Mithrid opened her smashed box to show them. ‘And this leather thing. Maybe some book.’ Though she didn’t wish to draw too much attention to it, she saw the gang’s eyes widen over the silver spiral on its leather wrapping. Books were rare in Hâlorn, items of suspicion, for books could sometimes be powerful and dangerous things. Their contents were a mystery until they were consumed. Even the humblest of stories could seed an idea in the mind, spark a fire in the heart. Such things were dangerous in the Arka Empire, or so Grey Barbo said.
‘Nothing else?’ Remina enquired, scowl still dominating her face. Her nose was crusted with blood, her cheek and back of her hands smeared with it.
‘No,’ said Mithrid, firm as cliff-rock, fighting to keep from clutching the lining of her coat.
‘Cowshit.’ Remina reached for her pockets but Mithrid slapped the girl’s paw away.
‘Back off. I ain’t no liar.’
‘Wouldn’t be the first time you hid a find.’
‘Says the girl who managed to stuff a whole loaf in her drawers.’
‘You cretch!’
‘Oi! Respect the rules!’ Bogran snapped, clearly too interested in his own gains to care for their argument. ‘Who’s next?’
Crisk and Littlest appeared from behind a chunk of wreckage, as if they had been waiting for their cue. Crisk still had his longbow in hand.
‘You first,’ Bogran challenged the boy.
‘Bow,’ said Crisk before snapping his fingers. He fished something out of his pocket: a half-burnt candle. ‘Or candle.’
‘Littlest?’
With a proud thrust of her fist, Littlest produced a handful of chain. Loosening her fingers, a pendant dropped and dangled in mid-air. It was a shard of sun-coloured rock on a soggy twine, not gold but glittery enough to draw their gaze and cause a few moments of silence.
‘Well. And you, Bull?’ Bogran asked.
‘Plant,’ said the big lump, thrusting forwards a meaty fist that gripped a cracked porcelain pot with a withered plant. Its stems were a dark green and its leaves the colour of soured milk. Despite Bull’s nonchalance, Mithrid was immediately intrigued.
A shout from along the beach stalled them momentarily. The elders – or “old ones” as they were commonly known – were wise to the games of their progeny and were now bustling down the beach in a tizzy. Voices floated on the morning breezes towards them. Harsh and damning.
‘Right then,’ said Bogran, eager to claim his prizes. His toad eyes flicked between the offerings of the group, measuring, calculating. He took his time deciding.
‘Give me the book,’ Bogran finally said.
With a heavy sigh, Mithrid handed it over.
‘And I’ll take the clothes and bracelets.’ Remina snatched the waterlogged box from under Mithrid’s arm. She would have slapped the wench if it wasn’t her right as second, and if her hand was not wrackle-bit and bleeding.
As third, Mithrid ran fingers through her tangled mane of hair and eyed what was left to claim. The birdcage was disgusting. The shield and the plant had both caught her attention. Her gaze settled on Littlest’s pendant for a moment. Tears immediately began to well in the little girl’s eyes.
‘You know the rules, little sister,’ Remina warned.
‘But I found it,’ Littlest replied, voice wavering.
‘Keep it,’ said Mithrid, softly ruffling the girl’s lemon hair with her hand. ‘I’m going to take the shield, Bogran. Hand it over.’
Emitting a grunt, the boy relinquished it. Mithrid held it by its leather strap, down at her side as if she were playing a warrior.
‘Bogran Clifsson!’ came a holler from back along the beach, where a troop of old ones were making their way swiftly towards them. Mithrid could see her own father amongst them, and he was close enough that she could see both the tiredness and the anger in his eyes. The children were fleeing back to Troughwake, not brave enough yet.
‘Quickly!’ Remina hissed. The game played out rapidly, with Crisk choosing the birdcage for some unknown reason, Littlest taking the candle, and Bull, not understanding the rules even after all this time, trying to take the box from Remina. In a huff, he took the longbow instead.
‘Hide the book, Bogran! Your mam won’t let you keep something like that.’
Bogran nodded and got straight to digging a hole in the wet sand.
‘Above the tideline, you nob,’ Mithrid chided him, poking the boy with her foot.
He scurried away, though not without wagging a sandy finger at all of them. ‘Not one of you touches it until I do. ’Specially you, Mith. In fact, look away!’
The rest of the gang stood their ground and waited for the scolding to rain upon them. Mithrid pasted her trademark smile. Remina raised her chin. Littlest was already tearing up again. Bull just scratched his head. Crisk was too busy poking at his dead sparrow to notice.
The old ones closed on them within moments, just as Bogran ran up, breathless and hands covered in sand.
Crisk’s parents silently whisked their boy away, knocking the old birdcage and its dead resident to the sand. They were the silent type of angry, which Mithrid found far more disturbing than somebody like Mam Hag, who went about her scolding like a rainstorm dousing a town.
‘Remina! Larina! Come here right now!’ she snapped, swiftly seizing both Remina’s and Littlest’s ears. They were jerked forwards and held at their mother’s sides. She was a large and muscular woman, was Mam Hag. Jurilda, as the elders called her. She was never seen out of her apron, whether it be mending trews, towing fishing lines, or sitting at table on Highfrost’s Eve.
‘What have we told you about this nonsense game? It’s dangerous is what it is! Just look at the state of your face, Remina!’ Mam barked. She grabbed Remina’s nose and the girl managed to honk like a goose in pain.
‘Maa!’
‘You’re lucky it’s not broken, or I’d have broken it for you!’
Mithrid coughed to hide her chuckling.
‘That’s enough cheek out of you, Mithrid,’ her father warned in a voice still hoarse from waking. He said nothing more, simply grabbing her arm and leading her away beyond the tideline. Even though he let the other elders do the admonishing, staying silent as they trudged, she knew better than to complain or speak another word. Mithrid saw him eyeing the char on the shield.
Old Man Clifsson, a man as toadish as his son, grabbed Bogran by the nape of his pudgy neck and marched him back up the beach. ‘What did you bury?’ he was saying.
‘Nothing! I swear!’
‘You think we didn’t play this game when we were your age? What did you bury?’
‘I didn’t bury anything!’ Bogran squealed.
‘Really? How come I found a knife in your pocket after that fisher boat ran aground in summer, hmm? How did that mysteriously appear?’
Mam Hag was still blowing hard about the dangers of wreck-combing. ‘Not to mention all the dangerous splinters, and the rain! You’ll catch you cold, you two! Put that broken old thing down. Now! You want some dirty old shoes the sea spat out? Dear me.’
‘But—’ Remina wailed.
Mithrid’s father let the other parents move past. They appeared far more eager to punish their children than he did. Bull’s mother had not joined the search party. Not knowing what to do with himself, Bull had ambled after them, using his longbow as a walking staff. He still held his withered plant, too.