The Tale of Oriel Read Online Free PDF

down hard.
    Over the sound of his own heart beating he heard the Damall’s voice. “Remember the boat that was lost? When there was a squall and only one boat was lost? Nikol untied it. I saw him.”
    â€œYou did not!” Nikol cried out. “He’s lying! I didn’t!” Blood rose up out of one of the welts on Nikol’s back.
    He held the whip that had made those marks, and drawn that blood, and he was ashamed. He held the whip that could make more marks on the flesh of Nikol’s back. While Nikol begged.
    â€œI didn’t mean to do it!” Nikol cried out, and the Damall laughed. “It was an accident! It served you right, anyway, and I don’t care!”
    â€œA confession,” the Damall announced. “You all heard it. And with fishing our livelihood, too, but this boy—” he pointed a finger down at Nikol, “didn’t care about our livelihood. He didn’t care if we went hungry,” the Damall said. “What does he deserve?” the Damall asked.
    â€œA whipping. A bad one,” the boys answered in ragged chorus.
    Nikol wept and blubbered and would have fallen onto his belly in despair except for the sharp stones of the whipping box.
    â€œA bad whipping,” the boys urged. Griff watched him out of dark eyes.
    He was ashamed, and sick at his stomach, and he passed the whip back to the Damall without a word. The Damall stared at him just for a minute. Then, “He’s right, you’re not worth the trouble,” the Damall said to Nikol. “Get up. Get out of there. You’re disgusting.”
    He knew the Damall would make him take the whip again, and he knew he could take it, and wield it. He had to be able to, because he was the heir. But he would choose the number.

    WHEN THE LADY DAYS CAME that fall, he hoped to be sent out again with the group of boys. It might be uncomfortable without shelter or food supplies, but those discomforts were a rest from the discomforts of the Damall’s house. But he was ordered to stay behind, with the Damall and Griff, while all the others went off under Nikol’s charge. When the boys returned a fortnight later, Carlo was no longer with them.
    The little boy had disappeared, Nikol said. Carlo had just gone in the night, one night. Isn’t that so? he asked, and pale faces nodded in agreement. They had searched for him, all the next day—wasn’t that the case? There was no disagreement. They finally had to conclude, Nikol reported, that Carlo must have drowned, somehow. Perhaps he wandered in the night, the way some little boys did, and had fallen over the cliff and his body washed out with the tide. Perhaps he had walked into the sea to escape. He had been low in spirits, didn’t they agree? The boys agreed.
    The boys who had spent Lady Days under Nikol were exhausted, and hungry, and timid. Two of them needed bandaging and all needed hot food, and water. Nikol didn’t look worn at all. Nikol looked as if the days had nourished him well. Nikol looked pleased with himself, as if he knew no one would dare to stand in the way of the words he spoke, as if he knew no one would hesitate to obey him.
    The Damall said nothing, not to praise or to blame, not to Nikol, not to him.
    He waited, uneasy. When he thought of Carlo, the uneasiness flamed. Across the winter, it was sometimes Nikol who was handed the whip. He was given the whip rarely. When he at last heard the whispered rumor, he was not surprised.
    Nikol, the little boys said, had been chosen to be heir. They had heard it from Raul, to whom Nikol had told it in secret. The Damall had said: It was Nikol who would be the seventh Damall.
    He didn’t say a word to the tale-carrying boys. He didn’t say a word to Griff. He stood, and thought, and his heart turned to a fist inside his chest. His heart was a stone fist.

Chapter 3
    A FTER THE LONG WINTER CAME days of foul weather, cold day-long rains that froze at