poor, but they were free – they maintained their lives and their dignity without making any compromises whatsoever with any throne, kingdom, power or outer authority.
This is not to say they had built themselves a paradise, for they had not; like people everywhere, they still yielded on occasion to their lesser nature, and, apart from this, living as they did where they did meant that many came to grief while fishing or sailing, so there was an uncommonly high number of widows and orphaned children on the islands.
It also needs to be said that anyone planning to live on the Lesser Teeth would have to get used to the idea of living mainly on fish. Or shellfish.
In the case of the household at Skyhaven, shellfish was the staple which kept life and limb together. However, Yen Olass also gathered edible seaweeds, speared flounder during nightstalks in the shallows with spear and burning brand, raised chickens, and, nourishing the sandy soil with dead seaweed and chicken manure, was endeavouring to grow vegetables – an enterprise best described as optimistic.
Taking her first bucket of water to the vegetable patch, which was currently lying fallow as everything had died, she poured the water into the soil. She theorized that the vegetables had died because the substratum of seaweed buried down below had failed to rot down into fertile earth.
All over Carawell, seaweed was widely touted as the best of all possible fertilizers, but the greater part of this batch had been buried underground for rather more than a year without showing any inclination to convert itself to anything other than seaweed. On her last trip to Brennan – when she had bought a coat of coney-fur for Monogail, and had bested old Gezeldux first at wrist-wrestling and then in a drinking match – she had been led to understand that a liberal application of fresh water, repeated some two or three hundred times, would produce amazing results.
She was now on day seventy-six of her watering schedule, but, digging down to inspect the seaweed, she found the sample she uncovered was still a slightly resilient mass of lubbery fronds, stout stalks and durable bobbles. Not for the first time, Yen Olass wondered if she had been had.
With this depressing thought in mind, she stopped at one bucket, and went inside, to find that Monogail had tracked sand all though the house.
'Monogail!’
The problem with sand is its high mobility – upwards, downwards and sideways. Among other things, it gets in clothes, hair, food and the bed. Living on a beach, Yen Olass was in some respects in a state of siege, with sand the constant and unrelenting enemy. 'Monogail, come here!’
Monogail came. Yen Olass gripped her by the shoulder and looked at her. Hard. Monogail grinned a big toothy grin. She had a scratch on her cheek where Quelaquix must have tagged her, probably after getting his tail pulled, or after getting chosen as the target in a one-on-one game of whales and boats. There were tiny, tiny beads of blood oozing from the scratch.
'What did you do?’
T didn't touch him!’
'Then don't do it again. Do you hear me?' 'Yes, mam.’
'Otherwise you'll get your eyes torn out. And then what will you do?’
Monogail had no anwser to that. 'Mam, is it teatime yet?’
'Almost,' said Yen Olass. 'We need two eggs. You can go and get us some eggs.' 'And say hello to Straff.' 'Yes, and say hello to Straff.' 'And Alamanda.' 'Yes, and Alamanda.' 'And feed her an egg.' 'No!’
'Not really, though. Just an onzy one.' 'Fifty onzy ones, if you like. Go along now – it'll be dark soon.' 'Not for ages.’
'But I have to have light to cook with.' 'Cook with light? You don't cook with light, mam.' 'You're so quick you'll step on yourself. Now go outside. And check the chiz trap while you're at it.' 'If there's a chiz-’
'You can't have it because it'll eat the chickens. Besides, it'll be dead.’
'Like my father,' said Monogail.
'Yes, like your father.’
'Did he fall in a trap?’
'No,' said Yen Olass. 'He got old.’
'Very very very old?’
'No,' said Yen Olass. 'A little bit old but a very much sick. Now off you go, mam's got to sweep up this sand. And don't bring any back when you-’
But Monogail was gone, running out of the door. Yen Olass sighed. Were all children so curious, so energetic, so full of questions? She swept up the sand, wondering if there really might be a chiz in the trap. She had never seen this curious weasel-like animal, and would have thought it a mythical invention – the islanders were good at inventions – if she had not at times seen its delicate tracks in the sand. Usually the morning after a raid on the hen coop.
Monogail came back with three eggs and a ghost which, she said, had been caught in the chiz trap; Monogail talked earnestly with the ghost while Yen Olass cooked their evening meal. Then, when they sat down to eat, Yen Olass had to shift one place to make room for the ghost.
'Hadn't you better introduce us?' said Yen Olass. 'That's polite, you know.’
'Even among pirates?’
'Especially among pirates,' said Yen Olass firmly.
'Can we be pirates, mam?’
'No.’
'Why not?' 'Because.' 'But why?’
'Because first you have to cut off your nose.’
'Really?’
'Yes, really.’
'Doubt it,' said Monogail.
'All right, doubt it then,' said Yen Olass. 'So who's your ghost? Tell us her name.' 'It isn't a she, it's a he.' 'Why?' said Yen Olass. 'Because,' said Monogail.
'Because what?’
'Because that's how, that's why. His name's Vex. He's a ghost because he got killed. He's a dragon, that's what. Uncle Hearst killed him.’
'Now that's a story,' said Yen Olass.
'No it isn't!' said Monogail. 'Uncle Hearst told me. He killed lots and lots and lots of dragons. That's why.’
'Dragons don't exist,' said Yen Olass. 'Uncle Hearst tells lots of stories, most of them aren't true.’
'This dragon-’
'When Uncle Hearst-’
'You're not listening!' said Monogail impatiently. 'You have to listen. Now? All right. Vex was a good dragon. He had two wings. He had sharp teeth. Like this. Gnaaar! Teeth to bite you with.’
'Eat your egg,' said Yen Olass absently.
'All right,' said Monogail, killing the egg then mutilating it. 'Gnaar! Dragons. Biting.’
Vaguely, Yen Olass wondered how long they would have to share the house with the ghost of a dragon. Chewing a stalk of sendigraz, she wondered, equally vaguely, if dragons really did exist. Raging through the skies and burning things. Long ago, in a different life, Resbit claimed to have seen one, but Yen Olass doubted it. One dragon, burning… yes… burning, that was a thought…
All that seaweed…
She had plenty of driftwood, cached in the dunes up and down the beach…
Dig up the topsoil, so called, and expose the seaweed. Then a big, big fire. Burning for two days, if necessary. Or three. A mountainous pyre. A real volcano… a fire-mountain, like the ones Uncle Hearst talked about. More stories, yes…
After such a fire, what wisdom?
After such a fire, wood ash, and what was better, the ashes of all that slightly resilient seaweed, which of late had taken to writhing in her dreams. Pour fresh water on it! What was that going to do? If anything, the water seemed to be nourishing it, keeping it in tone, so to speak. She could imagine them laughing about it in Hagi's Bar in Brennan. Well, she'd show them. Ashes this year, vegetables next. She'd get the better of them.
