Rarrah Gigidi

Once the decision was made, Jori did not hesitate. The same night he packed his scarce belongings, dug up all his treasures and left Leivrat for good. By the time the sun rose on the next day he had already left Leivrat behind. He waited out the Dark Night in the forest in a hole he dug up. His heart burned with the desire to get home and his spirits were kept high by the treasures he carried. The Dark Night could not scare him.

When it was safe to continue, he avoided any strangers by staying clear of the well-travelled paths, lest he got robbed. He crossed the forest and the plains and many days passed before he finally saw familiar sight of the river lands. He build a floating raft and continued his journey on the water.

The closer he got to Rarrah Gigidi, the more Orvats he began spotting here and there going about the river business. They shouted their hellos to him and he shouted his hellos in return. Bright smiles and laughter greeted him everywhere. Orvats, what wondrous creatures! Their souls as pure and clear as the river's water. A broad smile never left his face anymore. Jori could not stop himself from singing. The air smelled fresh and the sounds that surrounded him were music to his ears. Such a difference to the screeching painful sounds of dying old city of the Veilys. It felt as if he was dead for eight years, and only now was coming to life again. Things would be so different now. He could not wait to see his wife. Oh, how he loved her!

When Jori finally saw Rarrah Gigidi in the distance he felt like he had wings and was flying to his beloved home. It looked smaller to him than he remembered, but it stood just as proud as the day he left the floating town. Soon he could see the busy wooded bridges connecting the channels and the large wooden storage-houses of the wealthy Orvat merchants. Jori already counted himself as one of them and he straightened up proudly. He was a man of wealth now and he must look like a respectable Orvat. He was still wearing his old cloths, of course, but that he intended to change soon.

"Jori, is that you?" he heard a man shout. Jori turned to look up at the bridge and recognized his old childhood friend, who was waving at him eagerly.

"Stam! Good to see you, my dear friend. I have returned!" shouted Jori to him, barely containing his joy.

"Jori, how much coin did you bring with you? I have a most interesting business proposition..."

Jori, who slowed his raft and was about to get off so he could chat with his friend, abandoned his idea. All the joy of seeing his friend left him.

"Jori?" he heard another voice call him. This time is was his old neighbour. "You brought coin? Your wife, blessed woman, owes me twenty rings..."

Jori averted his gaze and began to paddle away quickly. But the word about his returned spread fast. Everywhere his former friends and acquaintance called to him. Their shouts merged into an endless humming about coin and business propositions and his wife's debts. Not even one Orvat asked him how he has been and how life treated him in Leivrat.

Jori paddled as fast as he could until he reached his house at last. A crowd had already gathered and his saw his wife and children standing by the door waiting for him. Jori no longer felt any joy about seeing them either. His wife's beautiful warm smile he greeted with a frown. As soon as he secured the raft, he hurried into the house without saying even one kind word to her and children. Once the door behind them closed, the youngest of his children, a boy, began to cry. The other children looked at him as if he was some strange creature that had invaded their home.

"Jori...?" said his wife, Marla. Marla was a small woman for Orvatan standards, who radiated warmth and calmness.

"How much?" he asked her fuming.

"Jori... what is it?"

"Have I not sent you enough? How much did you borrow?"

"Jori..."

"Answer me!"

"Children, go play outside. Brans, take the little ones with you," she said to the eldest boy. Out of the three children Brans was the only one who remembered his father. The youngest, Banti, was born after he had left and little Marga was just a babe. Brans, a younger version of Jori, gave his father an accusing look and pushed his sister and brother towards the door.

"Mother, mother..." Jori heard Banti's cries.

Once the door closed behind the children, Marla walked to the dinner table and sat down.

"You sent us enough to eat. I saved where I could. Look at this frock. It is the best I have got. I wore it the day you left. You don't know how hard it has been..."

"I do not know?" he shouted with indignation. "You don't know how much I have endured and how hard I worked! In what conditions I have lived. And you worry about a frock!"

"It was all for the children. They grew and they needed cloths and herbal potions when they got sick. The people were very kind and they helped..."

"Kind? They only helped because they knew that I will pay them back."

How much of a fool Jori was to think that Orvats in Rarrah Gigidi were any different than those he knew in Leivrat.

"Don't think bad of them. They are good people..." said Marla.

"How much do you owe those good people?"

She gave him a hurt look and walked up to the cupboard. Out of one of the drawers, she pulled out an old parchment and handed it to him. On it he saw neatly written all the names of the people she had borrowed money, what for and how much. He let out a long sigh. It was less than he feared but still enough for him to feel the punch in the gut.

"Children can't be possibly getting sick that often? And do they really need new cloths every three years?" he questioned her. "Why did we need three children in the first place?"

She backed away from him and he saw tears building up in her eyes. One of her hands flew to her chest as if she was in pain.

"Jori, don't..."

"You should have listened to me," he told her and left the house with the parchment clenched tightly in his fist.

It was already getting dark when he returned home again that day. First, he hid his treasures. He could not trust his wife with the knowledge of how much he had saved and where he kept it, lest she squandered more. Next, he paid a visit to every house on his wife's list and paid off all her debts. Every time he left a house, he was silently fuming more and more. The amount was equivalent to one year labouring in Leivrat. A whole year of his life wasted!

When he returned home, the children sat quietly around the table.

He sat down at the table and looked at the little ones. The children did not know him and they felt like strangers to him. Yet, they already had cost him so much. He would make sure to put them to work. Whatever was spent on them, they must earn back. The eldest had already attended his first Soul Tying. Jori would start with him. He had returned, things would be different now.

His wife, looked strangely distant, and spoke very little. Still, she had prepared his favourite meal while he was away, but there was no joyful laughter to accompany it that evening.

It was not at all how Jori envisioned it to be.

Later that night, Jori sat by the fireplace thinking through the next steps of his plan, then the time had come to put it into action. His wife was upstairs singing the children into sleep. He could hear the children's voices and laughter through the rain and thunder. It felt very new and unusual to him and strangely pleasant.

He heard a quiet knock at the door and knew that no good news ever came at this late hour. He opened the door and an Orvat the same size as Jori fell over him.

"Brother," said the newcomer hugging him closely. He was drenched to the bones and water was dripping to the floor.

"Graud, is that you?" Joy Jori did not feel since the arrival in Rarrah Gigidi overcame him at once. His little brother was a good-for-nothing, but here he was. Came all the way to see him from the lands up the river where he moved to be closer to his wife's family. "So good to see you, little brother." Jori laughed and ruffled his brother's curly hair.

"Jori, you must lend me some coin. My wife... She is sick... Children... Five mouths..."

Jori's face turned to stone. He released his brother and stepped back.

"Get out!" Jori told him with an icy voice.

"Jori, you don't understand... My wife... The children. They are starving..."

"Get out, you dirty scam bag. Don't let me ever see you again," Jori told his brother and pushed him outside.

"What...? Brother! You have to help me. I have nowhere else to go."

Jori slammed the door into his brother's face so hard the whole house shook. His wife appeared on the staircase, the children's frightened faces looking from behind her frock.

They all could still hear his brother's cries and banging on the door.

"Take the children to bed," Jori told his wife. She shook her head, but did not argue.

"To bed, little ones," she said leading the children back to their chamber.

Jori opened the door again and pushed his brother away so hard that he stumbled and fell on the ground.

"That is all I am to you. Just a walking coin bag. So long as I live, you will never get anything out of me. That I promise!"

"But brother!"

Jori turned and locked the door from the inside. With heavy steps he walked up the stairs to his chamber.

Nothing disturbed Jori's sleep that night, not even a guilty consciousness.

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Note from writer:

Thank you very much for reading this chapter. Let me know what you thought of how Jori's "welcome home"-party ended. What would you have done?

Next chapter will finally move us to Aleuta and we will meet the infamous Queen. :)

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