Cautiously, Iwa sniffed it before she took a bite. The outer husk was hard and jarred against the top of her mouth, but the inside was soft, if a little dry. Then her hunger overtook her and she crammed in as much as her mouth would take. ‘What is it?’ she managed between mouthfuls.
‘Bread; this is what everything is about.’
‘This?’ Iwa turned the thing in her hand and peered at it, before a new hunger pang overtook her and she broke off another piece, stuffing it greedily into her mouth. Often the traders would bring bread with them, tiny flat loaves which they dipped in honey. She’d never liked the texture much. There’d always been something unnatural about it. How could you trust to anything which tasted so odd? It wasn’t a root or a berry, but it wasn’t like meat or fish either. It’d never looked right and she’d never been able to watch the traders make it, regarding their fires with the utmost suspicion.
But this was something altogether different. At least it didn’t look so strange and the hard crust felt right. Somehow she could imagine this as something dug from beneath a tree, but still there was something wrong about it and if she wasn’t so hungry she’d never have touched it.
‘That is what will happen to the crops Krol Gawel plans to harvest.’ Myskia smiled at the look of incredulity on the girl’s face, the crumbs falling from her disbelieving mouth.
‘But all he has are seeds,’ Iwa said and suddenly felt foolish as Miskyia stifled a laugh. Carefully she turned the remnants of the loaf in her hand, her fingers scouring the rough surface.
‘You certainly haven’t been to the kroldoms of the Poles, or else you would know the secret of bread,’ Miskyia said as she broke off a hunk from her own loaf and dipped it into a tiny pot of honey that lay on the table between them. ‘The grain will grow deep in the womb of Matka Ziemia until it is harvested. Then they’ll make it into dough and bake it in clay ovens to make this.’ Miskyia paused – it was obvious that the girl hadn’t understood a word. ‘Though they will probably make flatbread of it. Either that or the woyaks will take the grain to be brewed as vodka.’
‘Can’t the krol hunt?’ Iwa couldn’t believe it: all this raising of crops and baking of dough seemed far more trouble than following the herds. At least that made sense. Truly the ways of the Poles seemed strange and unnatural. People were born to the hunt and to give thanks for the bounty of Matka Ziemia, not rip her open and desecrate her body with iron. Even after the field she’d never imagined that the krol could do something so dark.
Slowly she chewed the bread, her suspicions growing. Already the krol had burned away the trees and enslaved the women, and all for something so slight. The bread didn’t have the texture of meat or a well-boiled root. The crumbs spilled from her mouth. How could anyone exist on such things? The woyaks were huge men and she’d only seen them eat meat before.
‘Kroldoms are not built on hunting,’ Miskyia said, ‘but on bread.’
‘On this?’ Iwa gulped, so startled that she forgot her hunger. She’d never thought about the kroldom. To her it’d been just another of the woyaks’ words, so strange and unfamiliar that she’d hardly begun to guess at its meaning. It was part of the sacrilege against Matka Ziemia, and the reason why the Poles wanted to burn down the trees, but to her it had been nothing more. Now she glimpsed the bitter truth that lay behind the word.
‘Bread and stability. You can’t forge a kroldom from following herds. They do not want to be part of the land, these Poles, they want to own it and to make it their own.’
‘But will Matka Ziemia allow the seeds to grow in her body?’ Iwa took a mouthful of water from the goblet by her side, a deep gulp as if trying to wash the bread away. But even the water was strange, tinged with the taste of the goblet’s metal. She’d seen metal cups before, but had never held one in her hand. The weight was cold and unfamiliar as she tried to pour the water into her mouth so her lips wouldn’t touch the sides.
‘Soon they will begin to plough the land.’ Miskyia stopped – it was obvious that she was only confusing the girl. Carefully she reached for a goblet and took a drink, suddenly aware of the huge gulf that separated them. How could she make the girl understand? Would I, if I had been born to the forest?
And yet, as she watched the girl take some fruit, her fingers flinching from the remaining loaf, Miskyia couldn’t help but feel for her. How long had it been since she’d bound herself to these stones? And, as she sat, a great emptiness dawned. If only she could leave, see a city and walk its wooden, mud-caked streets. She missed the markets, the idle gossip of the women and the calls of the traders. Such simple pleasures. Yet now she felt the weight of their loss as the air closed in about her. It had become cold with the scent of the stones. I have been too long alone. In a corner Sturmovit hunched over a bone, his tongue licking out the marrow.
‘Will the krol want to live in a place like this?’ Iwa’s words cut through her thoughts.
‘Eventually.’ Miskyia passed her the water jug and she couldn’t help but touch the girl’s arm comfortingly. Even that’s alien to her, the Molfar witch thought. She holds the cup as if scared of it.
She herself could hardly remember the world outside. ‘It must have been difficult for a child like you, growing up without guide or tutor.’ Or mother, she wanted to add
