Day 8
It was a nice day. It had been. It started tense and difficult, but had morphed into something promising.
Then Tiller asked Pod for writing materials.
“What the fuck is a pen and paper?”
Pod’s voice was confused, outraged even.
Tiller’s face fell. He’d only asked for writing materials. He’d assumed that the world contained reading and writing. Suddenly he wasn’t so sure.
He said, “You know, for making marks on paper, for writing?”
Pod screwed his brows up and stared at Tiller. “The fuck is rye-ting? Shit and blast it, maybe you are from a different world! You come up with the strangest fucking words.”
Tiller said, “It’s… you know, when you make symbols, marks on a page, and other people can look at those marks and know what they mean?”
Pod said, “Why wouldn’t you just tell ’em? How the hell do they look at marks on a page and know what you’re thinking? You aren’t a witch, are you? You seem like a nice enough fella, and my wife has taken a fancy to you a bit, probably ’cause she thinks you can make her more comfortable than I can, what with the farming and my drinking and that, but we won’t harbor witches here? No sir.”
Tiller shook his head, panicking a little. “No! It’s where you make those marks, and the marks make sounds, and if you put the sounds together, they make words, so I can make a bunch of marks on a page and if you read them… I mean, look at them, you can make the sounds and then you can… can…”
Tiller felt deflated. He could see the look of deep suspicion darkening Pod’s face. He had flashes of scenarios. What if they turned against him? Could he fight them off to retain the plot here? Would he fight them off? He liked them. Well, he liked Maeve. But he needed, above all things, to return to his family. That’s what mattered. And doing that meant resources, and he’d already started investing resources here…
Maeve’s voice rang out, “Don’t you mind him, love. He’s pulling your leg.”
Relief flooded him. “Oh my god… Thank god. So you do have pen and paper?”
Maeve gave him a flat look. “Oh no, love, we can’t read or write or any of that.”
Tiller’s face fell again, but he opened his mouth to speak. The words never emerged as Pod leapt to his feet, pointing, his face flushing with alarm. “The fuck is that?”
Tiller turned his head to look behind him. “That’s the pipkin…”
The little creature sat, root tail swishing gently, watching them with its head cocked at almost ninety degrees.
Pod roared, “The fucking cunt is getting too fucking brave! Where’s me knife? Maeve, me knife? Where the fuck, could toss it at the little fucker, just sitting there…”
Pod started plodding towards the entrance of their tunnel in search of a weapon. Alarmed, Tiller erupted to his feet, hands extended, palms out, gesturing for calm. “No! NO! We came to an agreement?”
Maeve raised one eyebrow, and Pod turned on him, red-faced and angry. “You came to an agreement with vermin? How in the fuck of shit did you do that, eh? The thing is vermin. Everybody knows fucking pipkins are vermin. They don’t make pets, they’re dirt-rotten thieving, dishonest, sneaky…”
As Pod went on, each pejorative he uttered acted on the pipkin like a mallet, driving its head lower and its expression to deeper and deeper realms of sorrow. Tiller looked on the creature, the orb-like eyes growing glassy and wide, the little lips curling further and further downward, and he felt… pity? Kinship? Something like that, because next thing he was on his feet, and he was more or less shouting at Pod.
“How do you know that? Have you ever tried to make friends with a pipkin? I know they look like animals, but they’re fucking smart! It can understand everything we’re saying! Can’t you?”
He turned to the pipkin with that last and it nodded its furry little head, tufted ears bouncing with the movement, glassy eyes rippling, the root-like tail pressed low to the ground.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“See? Do you know what they can do? That trick, where they make grass grow to hide themselves? That works on crops too? Did you know that? Oh, I see, you didn’t! They can add a day’s growth to three crops every fucking day. How’s that sound for vermin?”
Tiller found himself out of breath and steamed at the same time. He couldn’t explain what had prompted the outburst, but he suddenly regretted it. Pod was useless and drunk, but this was his land. In theory, anyway. He didn’t want to alienate him, or Maeve. But the leprechaun’s words had triggered him.
Maeve looked at the pipkin with new eyes, as though seeing it for the first time. She murmured, “Is that right?”
The pipkin just continued to look from one of them to the other, ears flat and lip trembling.
Tiller pointed a finger at Pod. “Look, I don’t want to fight, but this little guy is on the team now. He’s one of us. He works for us. You can’t fucking kill him.”
Pod’s eyes narrowed. “Team, eh? And what does that mean exactly? We’ve been letting you carve our island up with that earth sigil o’ yours, and there’s a lot of promises, but there ain’t nothing coming our way. You feeding that vermin, are ya? Ain’t given nothing to us yet and you’ve been here for days.”
Maeve came to put a hand on Pod’s shoulder and push him back. “Don’t mind him, love. You know how he gets with a few jars in him… but, well, we never did come to an agreement about how all of this would divvy up.”
Tiller took her meaning. It stilled him. He’d avoided the idea of shares. He didn’t know what he could offer. He knew they valued him. Maeve especially. He could see that she saw him as a way out of the poverty-stricken mess she lived in. They might have this island, but he had a stone band, and valuable sigils, and he’d always had the impression that he was worth more to them than they were to him.
Hesitantly, he said, “I don’t know what things are worth yet. I need to take a harvest to Medley. Once I do that, I’ll know what things are worth, I’ll be able to work out how big I need to go.”
Pod said, “Give us somethin’ to start with. You said you’d be leavin’ a farm, a big one, a really big one, when you go. How much o’ that are you puttin’ our way? Bein’ our island I’d like to think all of it, but the way you’ve been talking it doesn’t sound like that’s your plan at all.”
Tiller’s words came in an unprepared burst. “You know the scale of what the shopkeeper asked for. He needs ten million gold. I don’t know how much that is here, not really. I need to make a farm that can earn that much as soon as possible. That or figure out how to get this green syntra he was talking about. Or find a way to get a hundred thousand sigils. You see? What I’m talking about is something totally huge. Something that can make you rich! But you, me, Maeve and the pipkin aren’t going to be able to do that. I’ll need more people, a lot more people, working for us, working with us. You see?”
Tiller found himself almost panting, eyeing Pod with unease.
Pod said, “It being our land, half wouldn’t seem too much to me.”
“Half? I… Pod, if I give half of the profits it will take twice as long to get there, and I have literally no idea how long it’s going to take anyway. And if I promise you half of the farm… well, I don’t give a shit about the farm once I’m gone, but I need shares to make deals with other folk, and I… I…”
Maeve’s expression darkened, her eyes fixed on Tiller. After a heartbeat, she said, “That’s alright, love. We’ll dicker after you’ve been to Medley. It’s true, like a stopped clock being right twice a day, Pod’s right, we need to come to firm terms. But we can wait a few days to figure it all out. Tell you what, love. Here’s a deal for you. Before you plant any more seed, the seed you want to get in Medley, we need to come to terms. How’s that?”
Tiller’s heart beat against the cage of his ribs. That was so soon. How was he supposed to figure out a plan so vast and complex in that time? Nonetheless he found himself nodding. “Okay.”
Maeve straightened up, making a show of dusting herself. “Right it is then. Now, you, little critter, want to come here and eat with us? If you’re part of this team now?”
Pod muttered, “Should gut the fucker, is what we should do…”
His notion earned him a hard cuff on the ear from his wife.
Hesitantly, the pipkin wandered over to them. It kept a safe distance back but Tiller was struck by how eager it suddenly was to be close to them. As though it had been lonely all its life and now, only now, had a prospect of company.
Tiller settled down by the cooking fire as Maeve busied herself with arranging food. Pod settled down on the opposite side of the fire, saying no more, but making no effort to hide his glower.
Tiller looked into the embers of the fire and thought. He didn’t want to deal with a hostile relationship every day. He could go somewhere else and find another place, with less drunken and disagreeable inhabitants. Maybe an island with no inhabitants at all. But he’d made a start here, already sunk seven days into this place. And he needed people if he was going to achieve what he absolutely needed to. And some of those people would likely be drunken and disagreeable. And he liked Maeve. And he already felt attached to the pipkin. And he didn’t even dislike Pod. Pod was a layabout, but he’d been here for Tiller, even if it was at the behest of his wife, when Tiller had needed help the most.
Tiller jerked his hand as something prickled it. He looked down with a start and saw the pipkin sitting right where his hand had rested. Easily within grabbing distance. Dangerously close if it didn’t trust him.
It looked up at him with an open expression, the big shiny eyes examining his face, the big tufted ears pricked with interest.
Tiller said, “Looks like you’re getting another meal. Can you do something to earn it? What do you say, want to get to work after we get some breakfast in us?”
The pipkin made a little barking sound, but it sounded altogether like agreement.
“Yip!”
