His mother’s voice floated over the din of the hawkers and the fighting, the singing and the screaming. She had always been one for a bit of politics, and this particular bit of politics was in full flow. He followed the noise in a spiral pattern of gangplanks and boardwalks to where the center boats were moored in such a way as to leave the smallest pond between them—a kind of eight-sided lake where the great families met, settled disputes and meted out justice. An enormous cargo net stretched between the boats, its lines spread like a massive ropey spider web. Its middle draped into the water and the Folk in the meeting found various perches on the dry upper ropes, higher or lower, according to status.
“I think we should give the matter some consideration!”
“Since your family is now so small, I think that your voice hardly carries here.”
“I think the size of her voice and the size of her family have never been related.”
“I will take that as a compliment whether it was meant that way or not,” said Mewit Mas. “The fact that my heir bore no children to captain our boats, is still a sadness to me.”
“Or if he, did they were Lakeside bastards!”
At that, everyone laughed. When the hilarity died down, a voice carried across the pond.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” said Teller Mas. “Mother. Elders.”
“Well, Teller Mas as I live and breathe! The Lakesiders didn’t drown you after all,” a gruff male voice shouted.
“Tidus,” said Mas in response, “don’t let me interrupt.”
“Too late for that, friend. Go! Sit. Join your mother. It’s good you’re back.”
It didn’t seem like the right time to say he didn’t know for how long. He climbed the net to sit alongside his mother. The conversation swelled again, this time about recent matters. A delegation had come from the Hub to explain the idea of ‘The Republic’ and had asked the River-folk to participate - some bossy Bridge-folk type called Dun. They’d long gone and were waiting on a response back up in the Overfolk. Mas cocked both ears to listen. It was all bound to come to the Lakesiders too, even though they weren’t really a folk tribe in their own right, more a collection from everywhere else. No one really ‘came from’ Lakeside. He felt his mother’s hand in his. He resisted the temptation to twitch away.
That Sleep-span, on the old Mas raft, Teller still felt odd. Neither he nor his mother was asleep and all they’d done was talk. He felt safe, but as if everything was a dream. Solid ground meant something different for someone born River-folk, but now Mas felt uneasy when he had to sleep afloat. On his way there, he’d moored up each sleep-span and got out of the boat into a dry pipe or room, knowing all the while he’d risk the canoe getting stolen with him not in it. He ran a hand through his fringe and sighed.
“Trouble son?”
“You know I can’t stay?”
“You could, you know.”
“No, Mother, I couldn’t.”
“Why did you come, then?”
Mas ignored the slight tone and moved on, “I need you to tell me about Father.”
She tutted, “What’s to tell?”
“You’ve told me hardly anything.”
“You’ve not been here.”
Mas didn’t want to question her into silence. He pulled at a loose raft cord and unraveled it. Mewit slapped his hand absently, “How many times have I told you not to do that?”
Mas laughed. A full-throated, deep-bellied laugh. He didn’t laugh all that often, but when he did, it was contagious. A hundred clicks later, then two and three, they were hooting and gasping. Then slowly as they caught their breath again, Mas didn’t want to break the silence, but there was something in his throat that he almost coughed out, “It’s— it could be important.”
“Why? He’s dead, ‘may-his-carcass-rot-on-land’? That bastard made our lives miserable when he was alive, why should we let him haunt us now he’s dead?”
“I guess I need some answers, to lay him to rest. It’s been bothering me.”
A strong air current buffeted into the cavern, Mas felt it on his face before he noted the raft rocking gently. He felt woozy. His mother reached out and took his hand. It felt more wrinkled than he remembered. Kind of like scroll parchment.
“If you must, ask.”
“I need to know what happened.”
“There was a family war. It was messy. He died. You know this.”
“I was only a pup, I don’t remember the half of it. We left and hid when it happened, I remember that.”
“We left before then.”
“Okay.”
“This is…difficult. Your father wasn’t always—”
“Kind?”
“That is a word not suited to River-folk ever, is it?”
“No. I suppose not. What then?”
“I was going to say his priorities were… skewed. Even for one of us.”
“The whole ‘born afloat, live afloat, die afloat’ thing.”
“Don’t say it like that. Traditions are important to us. Some have kept us alive during some hard times. I still feel a sense of loss, the end of something that you can’t take on this boat when I leave it.”
“You know why I can’t—”
“I do know, and I respect that. Your father never did. It’s why he and I had differences.”
“About me coming of age? The ceremony?”
“It was important to him. The tradition. It went back eons. As far as anyone can remember.”
“But it was all so pointless, so awful. Why?”
“Why the ceremony? Why any ceremony? Any tradition. I suppose it made sense when it was contrived, but now… so much waste.”
“It’s been so long since I’ve been here are they still doing, the whole initiation thing?”
“Some do. It’s still a badge of pride to have the title. You can still captain a boat without it though.”
“Two little letters. Is it worth the death of a quarter of the initiates?”
“I don’t know. Teller Mas-Te has a nice ring to it.”
“But it’s pups.”
“You were. It’s why I hid you away.”
“Not just the war, then.”
“No. Not just that. I left with you, he went to war. No-one came back called Mas. There’s just you and me now.”
She began pottering about the raft at that point, getting out bedding of chests in the rafts small living quarters, scarcely more than a wooden-walled hut perched on the craft. The sleeping pallets smelled of home. Mas fell into a deep sleep.