Pirva leaned forward to point to the thin neck of the peninsula, where it joined the mainland. “County Skelp,” she said, tapping it meaningfully. “Narrow Skelp. If we escape by land, it must be through County Skelp. We can do it, hiding like beasts in the grass, crawling among the stones, one or two at a time. Not more.”
“The people in Skelp are sympathetic?” Jep asked.
“Oh, some of them are, yes. They try. But the slavers are everywhere, sneaking and skulking. And if they know one of the people of Skelp has helped us, then that person loses his eyes, or his hands, or his manhood, or her breasts, or their children are killed, or perhaps all of these.”
Jep peered at the map. “How about getting out by sea?”
“There are only the few ports. Old Port in Odil. Scaery. Cloud. Selmouth. Watched, all of them, like a mousehole in a house full of cats.”
“And in between?”
“In between, rocks and bad tides and places a tiny boat may come in to pick up one or two, but no more than that.”
Jep sighed. “So you go by ones and twos.”
“We do. We choose by lottery. Some of the people of each Tchenka, each clan, must go out, some of each people must escape, so the race may live. Children. Men and women of reproductive age. No old ones. Only a few at a time. We say ‘One child for life, one child for death. Two for the future, two for the sacrifice.’ When our babies are born, we weep, for perhaps the child is to be a sacrifice, a sop to the beasts, to be whipped to death to calm the evil men. Not enough of us go to set the Voorstoders into a frenzy, but enough that our people will live, that all the Tchenka will live.”
“What are Tchenka?” Jep asked.
They told him as though they were teaching one of their own children, and by the time they were finished with the long catalog of Tchenka, which included every natural and supernatural beast and being upon Gharm, the fire had burned to ashes and Jep was yawning uncontrollably.
“We will talk again,” he said. He needed time to understand all they had told him.
Meantime he went on digging ditches. Since there was no purpose to it save the purpose of keeping him busy, he decided to ask Mugal Pye if he could do something a bit more interesting. Mugal came by every now and then to check on the status of the prisoner, to jibe at him as though Jep had offended the Voorstoders in some way. It took some time, but Jep finally figured out that he had offended the Voorstoders by being innocently involved. Their world view did not allow for innocence. Those who were not for Voorstod were against Voorstod by definition, and that included Jep as it would include a baby still in the womb. Mugal kept him abreast of developments and seemed to take an almost sexual pleasure in threatening the boy with mutilation.
Ilion Girat, it seemed, had stayed behind upon Hobbs Land of necessity, since Jep had come out disguised as Ilion. Now Ilion was under house arrest on Hobbs Land, but he could observe what was happening there. He sent word that he knew Maire had received the initial message since Ilion had arranged its delivery himself. He had received no response as yet. Mugal was quick to advise Jep of this, as though Jep’s terror here on Ahabar might somehow stimulate action on Hobbs Land. Maire was to give Ilion an answer in a little time, Mugal said. Jep choked down his fear and waited for the little time to pass.
Meantime, however, he sought to do something sensible. “I told the Gharm I’d teach them how to build a house that will stay drier,” Jep said to Mugal Pye. “It’s a kind we build sometimes on Hobbs Land. It would be more useful than these ditches you’ve got me digging.”
“I don’t care what you do, laddy,” sneered Mugal Pye. “So long as you keep busy. That collar you’ve got around your neck guarantees you won’t run off. But the Gharm have work to do, and I don’t know how the farmer will take to your distractin’ them.”
“I won’t take them from their work,” said Jep. “I’ll do a lot of it myself.”
That night, he spoke again with Nils and Pirva.
“I will build a home for the God,” he said. “For my Tchenka, and for yours. When Saturday Wilm comes for me, the house must be built, for she will bring magic with her.”
“Magic?” questioned Nils, doubtfully. It was not a concept the Gharm found familiar.
“Holiness?” suggested Jep. “The stuff of She-Goes-On-Creating.”
This was totally acceptable.
“I need your help,” he told them. “We will pretend it is a house for the Gharm. It must be as close to Sarby as we can go.”
They conferred, went away to talk to others, came back again. If one went only a few hundred yards north of the farmhouse, one came to a place that would, if all the land between were not so thickly forested, overlook the town of Sarby.
“The trees will not matter,” Jep told them. “So long as the soil runs down to the town. So long as there is not rock between.” He was not sure even rock would matter in the long run, but it seemed likely rock would delay things. Jep did not want anything that would add time. Time seemed to him to be a very important factor in whatever would happen to him.
There was no rock between the site and
