Читать книгу Eight knots - Анна Ефименко - Страница 4

On the winter solstice, Pagey suddenly began to badger for a new pair of shoes with lapels decorated with Arabic ornaments, buzzing about at the weavers’ looms and didn’t calm down until the “oriental” shoes were made to him by special order.

Prior to this, the guy was unpretentious in regards to his clothes: he was content with old Lekki’s garments redrawn to his skinny shoulders and some other stuff that he inherited after Woolf had committed suicide. Pagey recalled that Hom brought stacks of shirts and pants of the deceased to the apiary, there were a few pairs of shoes among other things. So Pagey twisted the wheel of his life, dressed in worn rags of the drowned, and only now the idea suddenly sunk into his heart to wheedle out the fairy Arab shoes.

Lekki, though disliked squandering, went to the expense of shoes for his foster-son, and it was godly: to wear new clothes at night, when the sun was born again, was considered a good omen and promised prosperity in the coming year.

Tied soft leather laces and ratcheted down a colorful scarf around his chicken neck, making him a bit like a Gypsy, Pagey was convinced that his reflection in the mirror had very, very black hair, laid to one side too much, and happily headed to the carts of strangers.

The smoke coming out of the Gever tents was floating along the valley. Of course, the dark visaged lady Crescent was somewhere nearby.

“Hello,” she said.

“Got a minute?”

They moved away from the wasteland, to a sparse spruce thicket. Sitting on a fallen tree, Pagey began to pick at the snow with the toe of his boot, wishing to demonstrate his new clothes to the girl once again.

“Do you fancy going to the fair? You can get there by train.”

“To the cities? What will happen over there?”

“Oh, it should be fun. They go out to the fair for the whole neighborhood. They call it the Christmas market.”

Vita snorted indifferently,

“You seem to be the first one I’ve ever met who’s still impressed by the Christmas markets.”

“It could be adventurous!” Pagey didn’t give up.

Lady Crescent sighed with a smile,

“All right, only if it can really be an adventure.”

“Wait a minute. Does it mean „Yes“? Does it mean you can go over there with me?”

“Of course, it means „Yes“, you dummy! When?”

“Tomorrow!” Pagey blurted out.

Getting lost with each other, they both didn’t even notice Hom lurking behind the tree and listening to all of their simple dialogue. Of course, the blond man had no intention to follow anyone. He was just walking near the Gever tents every single day and see how the nomad women had settled, studying their life and habits, like exotic animals. “Knowledge is power!” Hom’s grandfather taught him, the young Kelly clearly understood that it was necessary first to thoroughly study the selected object before you could obtain power over someone.

And act in a proper manner later.

“Half-past four again!” Mr. Kelly growled, moving forward the rusty clockface.

The old man always gave the impression of being impetuous, initially embittered as if waiting to be stabbed in the back. Once Pagey witnessed Mr. Kelly cursing like blazes a small, pretty like a fairy girl who lived next door, named Liz, just because she accidentally ran on his allotment playing with kids, and trampling the flower beds with her tiny shoes. Leaning over the girl like a thundercloud, Mr. Kelly was cursing, imprecations poured from his lips causing tears to appear on the girl’s long lashes.

Looking at the frowning old sod, Pagey remembered that, when he had been younger, he was amazed at how Hom managed to grow up so laughsome and cheery.

The Kellys had long lived at the river. A local foster nurse volunteered to help the old man with his grandson at first but the former soldier sent her back a week later, complaining “this rattle gives neither good, nor peace.” In general, being rejected, the foster nurse spread around all these rumors about the family of the military man being obstinate to a liberal lifestyle in the community. Rumors were generally supported by both Kellys – Senior and Junior. Hom had always been drawn up with a bright head, and his grandfather was feeding him science and wisdom. They both had no quiet contentment, no compromise.

“Is Hom at home, Mr. Kelly?” the young man decided to change the subject ignoring the sarcasm about him being late.

“Had the well dried up at the apiary?” the old man reciprocally ducked a question of his opponent. He was eloquently staring at Pagey’s stringy hair, black icicles getting into his eyes, “I’m not just asking products to be delivered within a certain time. I’ll have to clean it after you!”

With these words, Mr. Kelly pulled a blade of grass, which had come out of woodwork, out of a burlap bag and, headed to the house with a heavy sigh.

Pagey was left alone in the yard. Of course, only Hom could invite him to enter the house – Kelly Senior demonstrated his contempt too clearly. However, Hom was nowhere to be seen.

There was a small garden behind the man’s dwelling place, further the allotment bordered with a lopsided ugly shack which the assistant, the executioner inhabited. The village ended at the executioner’s house. Then came the marshes, the river, the birch grove, and then the herb-woman’s hut.

Passing the birches, Hom stared at the little hut with dislike. He always felt antipathy toward the most mysterious, the most rebellious inhabitant of the village. Local folks called her green woman or herb-woman, Hom once and for all called her the red witch and stuck with this nickname.

“Hey! I need something for insomnia!” he shouted.

“Aren’t you too young to ask me for a potion?” the herb-woman was amazed leaning out of the window.

Hom stamped his foot impatiently,

“You’re pretty aware that I have the druid’s written permission to demand any books, artifacts, and ingredients! It’s not my fault that everybody in the area has been born so stupid and the gods have endowed me with wit.”

“Okay, hold up,” the herb-woman replied wearily, heading to the wall with bundles of various plants being dried. “Where is lunar, sleepyhead? Lavender, mint… Here, take these. And get the hell out of here.”

With that, she slammed a wreath of dead purple flowers at his feet. Hom forced himself to calm down. He could definitely make her pick up the herbs and give them to him in a proper manner. As befits, with reverence. But he wasn’t up for arguments. He was interested in the result of the case, that’s why he quickly put the dried flowers into his inside pocket and left the red witch’s lair without any thanks.

Back in the village, Hom went straight to the drugstore run by Angie, the head of the blackberry family’s wife. The drugstore was located in the outbuilding of the mansion which belonged to the wealthiest family in the area. Inside and out, everything was redolent of the mourning solemnity and darksome romance: Windows curtained with tight black lace did not let in the light; wormwood was scattered on window sills and on the floor, and huge uncut pieces of black agate spotted everywhere, on the shelves among bottles of leeches and alcoholic tinctures.

Angie, the blackberry wife, stood behind the counter, busily counting coins and filling tight leather pokes. She was all in flatland gear, a tightly buttoned black dress, and her face, ash gray with fatigue and hard work with enormous dark shadows under her eyes.

When a bell jingled over the door being opened, the druggist’s wife immediately raised her dark-haired head and saw Hom, then dryly uttered more to herself than to him,

“There you are.”

Hom shrugged his shoulders,

“I just came from the red witch over the birches. She makes me sick.”

One of the young blackberry daughters, who had been cleaning the shelves, decided to have a nice conversation with him,

“I like the herb-woman. I remember, she once gave me cuttings of a tree, and they instantly rooted in the garden.”

The blackberry wife interrupted her daughter.

“Could you leave us alone with young Mr. Kelly?”

She didn’t like gossip, and knew how difficult it was for customers to give the reason why they went to the store in front of strangers, so she waited until the girl went out of the outbuilding and decided to get straight to the point, “Well?! What was it you couldn’t get from the herb-woman that you came here?”

“What does she have that you don’t?” the blond answered a question with a question.

The woman in black took thought,

“A rejuvenating potion, for example. We certainly don’t keep that. And the herb-woman is good at it, you can’t take it away from her.”

Hom shook his head in disapproval,

“That’s pathetic. No, there is no need for any rejuvenating potion. Neither to your shop nor to yourself.”

The hostess of the blackberry house suspiciously squinted,

“Don’t tempt me, Hom Kelly. I’m twenty years older than you, and considering my intelligence, even thirty.”

“Others would argue with you about my wit.”

“Picking on me?”

Hom leaned forward and putting his elbows on the counter, he uttered blandly,

“I just want to say that you don’t need a rejuvenating potion because each time I am tempted to kiss such a poetic cutie.”

“Poetic cutie?” Angie was amazed, taking a step back. “Even my husband has never said that.”

“Your husband sees nothing but profit, which takes up all of his thoughts.”

But the blackberry wife did not like this statement,

“There you’re wrong about the bearded man. He’s a good man after all. He and the kids don’t let me fall apart in the middle of all this glorious stuff good, which I’ve been fed up long ago.”

“I still believe you deserve better.”

However, Angie wasn’t easy to talk to.

“You’re not going to get anything out of me with that sweet talk, so, you either tack about or empty your pockets and buy the product. Why have you come here, Hom?”

After a pause, the blond man dared to look straight into the woman’s eyes,

“Three drops of opium.”

“Are you crazy?!” the drugstore’s owner was outraged. “Your old man will make a fuss through the entire village.”

“He wouldn’t know. No one will know. Just be a good girl and do it for me. I know that you’re really kind and you’ll do it for me. I’d get you back for that.” With these words, Hom poured out a generous handful of golden coins onto the counter.

Seeing the money, the blackberry wife moved away from the counter annoyed. There was a small box on the highest shelf, next to the goat’s skull. That’s what Angie was trying to grab. Getting a tiny bottle out the velvet-covered box, she placed it on Hom’s open palm and knapped,

“And I do not see your face around here.”

“Don’t worry about a thing,” Hom assured her, and left the outbuilding, carrying a portion of the laudanum in his pocket along with the lavender and mint he had obtained from the herb-woman.

He didn’t turn around, he pretended not to hear the blackberry wife screaming after him, “Hom, you forgot your book! Come back!”

“If that rugged lady, with tired eyes and hair as black as all her outfits, starts reading what I have left under pretense of an accident, the matter is settled,” rejoiced young Kelly.

When he got to the apiary, Pagey had already finished his plate of lumpy porridge for dinner (Neither Lekki nor his adopted child didn’t have any culinary skills) and was getting ready for bed. Hom pretended to be surprised,

“Why are you going to bed so early?”

“We’re leaving to go to the fair together with Vita tomorrow morning.”

“Is that a date?” Hom was pulling a face. Naturally, no one could believe that the news was already known to him.

Pagey smiled mysteriously,

“It’s possible.”

“Great! Good luck tomorrow, then. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a drink tonight, does it?”

How could Pagey say no to his senior companion? He didn’t want to. Having a couple of sips of wine with a strange taste appeared as if from nowhere, he tried to understand what Hom was saying and calmed down due to his friend’s voice getting into one monotonous sound. Half an hour later, Pagey slept like a dog on a blanket by the fire, snoring peacefully over the crackling of logs. When Lekki returned home and put his fosterling to bed, Hom was ready to leave and told the beekeeper in an apologetic way,

“Looks like he had a little bit too much.”

The December sun rose high and made the snow dazzling when the beekeeper who had finished collecting new hives in the shed came to wake Pagey up. The hated curtain-fence opened with a sharp movement,

“Hey, man, weren’t you going out today?”

Hardly awake, Pagey realized that the first train they were going to take to the fair had left a long time ago.

“Damn, damn,” the young man babbled, tossing and turning on the old mattress and trying to figure out what was going on.

His head ached as if it was clamped in a leaden band that tightened with every movement. Getting dressed on the go, shivering with cold, he grabbed a handful of coins that he kept in a broken clay cup, and, hastily saying goodbye to Lekki ran to the wasteland.

Vita was sitting on the same fallen tree smoking a long pipe. She laughed when she saw Pagey coming,

“Wasn’t expecting to see you here at this hour.”

“I overslept! For the first time in my life! I missed the train because I overslept. I’m so sorry, forgive me!”

The Gever girl shrugged,

“It’s okay. We’ll stay in the village.”

“What do you mean? We’ll catch the noon train. Will be at the fair within a few hours.”

“You sure?”

“You bet! Of course, I’m sure.”

He gave her his hand to help her to get down from the tree, but she waved him away impatiently. However, as they walked along the drifts towards the boat crossing site, Vita put Pagey’s hand into her glove, finely crafted of calfskin.

Squinting his eyes down, Pagey studied Vita’s glove. These Gevers looked so strange and unusual! It was obvious that the locals wore quite different mittens in winter which were woolen and prickly. Leather crafters kept their goods for shoes and clothing, no one would come to an idea to make a trifle like gloves out of leather.

And all of this made Vita even more beautiful and unreachable in the eyes of the young man.

But in his shame, he let her hand go out of his hand himself as soon as the boat crossing appeared behind the bare winter trees.

“We must be careful,” he warned lady Crescent. “We all play by the rules here, and won’t tolerate rules being broken.”

Vita looked at him blankly, but Pagey didn’t want to explain anything. He had enough for half of his life to contemplate Lekki and the herb-woman being suffered, the main fornicators in the village. He won’t allow anything like that himself. They need to be discreet for the time being, not to flicker in front of the locals, not to look like a couple. Otherwise… Pagey didn’t dare even think about that. Everyone will see everything, everyone will know everything. And he would not be able to speak to his interlocutress again.

The boatman was sitting on the dock cleaning the clock disassembled directly on his knee with a brush. Clock maintenance was his second job. Having spotted the young ones, the man narrowed his eyes with distrust,

“Where are you two going?”

“To the cities,” Vita cut off dryly.

“The two of you?” the boatman persisted.

Pagey began to make excuses,

“We’re just going shopping at the fair. Lekki is aware. And the others. We have to get to the train, and we’ll be back tonight.”

The boatman, putting the watch parts into his inside pocket, raised and began reluctantly to untie the rope from the dock,

“Well. After all, I have to make a living too. But if you get involved in something indecent, guy, I’m turning you over to the druid, you know.

“Indecent!” Pagey could hardly force himself to keep silent in response. There were loathsome rumors about the boatman. Old Kelly used the word “what” instead of “who” when he was talking about the boatman, thus dehumanizing, depriving of virtues, depriving of spirit. An item, not the individual – that’s how they tried to depict the boatman in the village.

However, despite his bad reputation, Pagey always admired the skills of this man to do the crossing and watchmaking business, Pagey also admired the boatman being sarcastic, making nearly incendiary remarks, and even his appearance. To tell the truth, Pagey was still hoping that his real father lived somewhere in the village, and the boatman was fit for this role. He looked like one of the blackberry family fraught with darkness with his clear marine blue eyes, and pale skin but there was always certain urban dandyism about the boatman: lighters, cigarette cases, cufflinks on the cuffs and watch guards always polished to a shine, leading from the vest pockets to ideally sewn buttons.

Yes, he perfectly fitted for the image of Pagey’s nonexistent father, and the young man was too happy to think the story of his own origin every time he personally saw the boatman.

Meanwhile, the oars started splashing across the frozen water, cracking the thin ice.

The cities were crowded and filthy. The houses impended over the narrow streets, hiding the sun. People elbowed each other in the fair turmoil. Everything was decorated with green, red and white lanterns, symbols of Yule, called Christmas here, which remained the same everywhere.

However, during these days in the village, dairy and plow cattle was deliberately treated with tastier food, sometimes even bringing a real human meal to the barn. No one did anything like this in the cities, considering it silly superstitions and remnants of the past.

Pagey and Vita wandered around the trade rows for a while and decided to get a bite to eat.

“I think, I’ll buy some garlic croutons,” she said firmly.

Pagey snorted,

“What a choice!”

“What’s wrong? Of course, it’s not a good choice if you’re going to kiss. But I’m not.”

“Crushing defeat!” a young man falsely slapped himself on his forehead.

When the owner of the bakery, a disgruntled old woman with a long face asked what they were going to buy, Vita remained adamant,

“A double helping of garlic-flavored croutons please.”

Unable to breathe, unable to react, unable even to blink, Pagey leaned back against the wall and, kept looking intently at Vita, he suddenly burst out laughing.

And they had croutons and drank ale, and snowflakes of the stunning beauty whirled behind the misted window of the bakery. When it was quite dark, the young couple moved back to the station hoping to catch the last train.

Halfway back home, Pagey had a secret he decided to share with Vita,

“I’ve got galipot. Resin from coniferous, plenty of them growing between the executioner’s home, and the Hom’s. I also have some beeswax from the apiary. Do you see the point?”

Vita shook her head blankly. Then the young man took a paper bag with a scattering of small black beads out of his pocket. He took out a bead, put it in his mouth, and chewed.

“You can order as many garlic croutons as you like. And you can kiss if you wish.”

“How cunning you are!”

Having poured a few beads of galipot, Vita thoughtfully rolled them over the palm of her hand, which was warming inside the glove, and then asked,

“The herb-woman has told my sister in her letters that all the villagers deliberately keep away from the rest of the world. But you came freely to the cities today, didn’t you?”

“That’s right. The druid inherited the lands from the former lord, his father, and immediately started to build the community in the way it would have been thousands of years ago. I don’t really care about any of this, but Hom used to say that if things had gone differently, we would have worshipped the one God and there would have been no bonfires and no drunken binges.”

Having listened to the story, Vita nodded,

“It was this freethinking that instigated our people to settle at your place for a while.”

“How did you feel in other places?” Pagey asked.

“We were always free to do as we pleased. But good fortune to be free can be hard. You know. Women with guns and all that. My sister was once caught behind the marketplace in Avignon and her hair was cropped short. If you don’t want long hair, don’t have hair at all. The crowds rioted in the streets, pelting us with stones, apple cores, and spits. So, I’ve had a good beating.”

“But how?” the lad was amazed. “Why do you look so confident?”

“Well, combat childhood can tough up anyone.”

“I can see your point! You know,” he whispered. “Lekki found me as a baby, I was constantly taunted by villagers calling me a changeling brought by fairies. They threw matches at my back to see whether I would start laughing. Horror.”

The Gever girl patted him on his back trying to cheer up,

“We’ve both been through hardships. Well, the world can be merciless.”

Pagey still couldn’t believe his luck – how he, a paltry apprentice from the apiary, had suddenly met someone who supported him. Who shared his views and followed the same direction. However, he suddenly remembered something that made him seriously nervous,

“Hold on. You said that the herb-woman wrote a letter to your sister?”

“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”

“We’re banned to write letters.”

“What the hell is this?” Vita didn’t believe.

“Letters, telegrams, all printed materials are banned.”

“So, you can travel to the cities, but you can’t read newspapers from the cities or correspond with people from here, can you?”

“Something like that. The druid believes that the word written or printed has great power. And Mr. Kelly calls it, let me think, propaganda! “Propaganda of dogmatic monotheism and broken hearts.”

“Why broken hearts?”

“Because we are forbidden to be alone or often meet with those whom we are not engaged or not married.”

“This is a fine kettle of fish,” the girl said in a sepulchral voice.

They hadn’t been back to the topic of gender relations in the village any more.

They still managed to do the shopping at the fair before it closed up. Vita bought apple cider and Pagey got an impressive dried roses herbarium for no good reason.

On the way to the station, he pointed to the cider and herbarium trying to make an impression, and said trying to look smart,

“We’ve bought Venus plants, haven’t we? By the way, I know the Roman pantheon as well as ours! The apple tree belongs to Venus because its fruit is a symbol of motherhood and prosperity. A rose means a woman. A lady. Noble and beautiful,” saying these words, Pagey blushed crimson red and turned away.

Vita stepped closer and stretched out her hand to pull a strand of hair back from his face behind his flaming ear.

“Beautiful, you say?”

He stared at her, staggered by the intimacy of the gesture. No one ever touched his hair, cared about him to be attractive, demonstrated excessive tenderness. Lekki provided him shelter and home. Sometimes, the herb-woman visited them and clipped Pagey’s dark streaks making him look decent. Hom occasionally patted him on the top of his head – it was a playful gesture of being silly, a gesture of being in game. No man in the world dared to put his hair behind his ear like that.

Pagey was finally able to exhale,

“We should go back.”

The journey to the village was long and clinging to winter’s chill. The train, for some reason, stopped at the Rotten field and did not move for more than an hour. With nothing better to do, Pagey and Vita were drinking tea in the dining car, cold and stale. Rose herbarium being bought at the fair shattered into small dried pieces and could not be restored.

This day subsequently threatened to become one of the happiest in their lives but so far neither the assistant to the beekeeper nor the Gever girl could not imagine anything like this.

As they were coming up to the village along the river, the boatman pointed sharply to the wild river bank covered with tall reeds.

“Come out here,” he said.

“But why?” Pagey began, but the man cut him off abruptly,

“She gets out here. She can’t be noticed at the river crossing with you.”

Approaching the shore, he raised his oars. Pagey helped the girl to get out of the boat and without saying goodbye, just silently watched her sneak among dry reeds covered with hoarfrost and headed to her place at the wasteland.

Hom was already waiting for him near the crossing. Annoyed and cold, he walked up and down the pier. When he saw the boat, he could not stand up,

“There you are! Been looking all over for you. Lekki said you had left.”

“I’m not a baby, I can get back home on my own!” the young man snapped back stepping ashore.

“But I was worried about you crossing the river.”

“Don’t be so silly.” Pagey began but immediately checked himself.

No one should speak of insidiousness of the river in the presence of Hom. Everyone was afraid to stir up memories of the drowned Woolf in him. Though so many years had passed, it seemed as if the ghost of the boy still followed his friend, and there was no escape from this chase.

The boatman, having finished his business and bolted the pier’s fence, did not seem to be in any hurry. He just inspected a velvet bundle which he took from his inside pocket but immediately hid it back and silently watched the bickering of two village youths.

“Why is that pervert looking at us?” Hom growled and turned to the man, “Hey, mister, isn’t it time you closed the crossing for tonight and go home?”

“I’m not in a hurry,” said the boatman carelessly, lighting another cigarette that flickered brightly in the winter darkness. “I still have to bring the watch being mended to the druid, so there’s no hurry. The druid goes to bed late.”

Hom, leaning towards his friend, noticed ironically,

“Imagine: this low-down guy dares to go to the druid at the manor.”

Pagey did not like Hom’s mood, so he toned down deciding to flatter the blond using the most surefire way – pretending to be in need for someone else’s rhetoric and intelligence,

“Tell me about the winter night, smart man.”

Hom blushed. Clearing his throat, he put on a solemn face and started,

“At this time, the Sun-God is just being born. The sun is reborn from icy blackness because the day slowly begins to increase during these long winter nights. The darkness retreats to admit its complete defeat finally and everyone can witness the victory of the King Oak.”

“Does King Oak always win over the winter?”

The snow stopped crunching. They stopped in front of the hill. Hom nodded wrapping himself deeper in his plaid scarf,

“Always. And this year, I was chosen to be the King Oak.”

Pagey whistled in admiration. Ancient duel of two kings, Oak and Holly, was an important amusement in the village. In the summer, Holly won and pulled the outgoing year, in the winter the victory went to King Oak and symbolized the revival of the sun. Two guys flaunted in straw and green branches usually clobber each other struggling to amuse those gathered around the campfire but the winner was still pre-ritual.

Last summer, Charlie, a miller’s son, a bowlegged shortie was appointed on the role of King Holly, and he was so frantic about his victory that his friends made their jaws hurt with disgust.

So now Pagey was relaxed,

“Good news. Good luck! Get this clumsy idiot properly.”

Hom frantically stared at his friend,

“Aren’t you going to the fire?”

“I promised my Vita…”

“Promised my Vita!” At these words, vomit came up to Hom’s mouth.

“A girl from the outsiders’ tribe? I don’t want excuses!”

Junior spread his arms out,

“I can’t, Hom. I promised.”

“Got it,” the young Kelly sharply nodded. “So that’s whom you’re trading me for.”

“I’m not trading you for anyone!”

A whistle of a locomotive, shrill and loud, like the death-cry of a Banshee3 from the marshes sounded far away across the river. Hom instantly perked up.

“What’s the matter with you?” Pagey looked at him anxiously.

“Don’t think that’s the sound is so promising?”

But Pagey didn’t know what he was after.

“Hom, it’s just a train whistle. Sounds like a Banshee augural death to someone if you ask me.”

Hom seemed confused more than ever. Feeling uncomfortable to unnerve his friend, even more, Pagey gently placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled,

“Do you like the sound of a locomotive?”

But the fair-haired King Oak did not find it necessary to answer this ridiculous question, and they climbed the hill in silence for the rest of the way to the apiary.

Having smoked at least three cigarettes, the boatman finally made his way to the druid’s estate. Having given his heavy coat to the butler and wheedled a cup of hot chocolate, he went without any delay to the study room of the lord of the local lands.

The boatman entered the room without knocking and greeted the druid,

“Sir! Fitzy!”

To do such a thing seemed unthinkable to the villagers. They were afraid of the druid, their lord and mentor, and they were careful not to approach the estate if not necessary, and they would never dream of getting into the druid’s study without an invitation and some rules of decency.

The druid, however, seemed to be glad of this simplicity,

“Good evening, my friend! You look really cold beside the water. I’ll order Milly now to serve tea.” The druid reached for the bell-rope to call for servants.

“No need, I already asked for the chocolate!” the boatman smiled.

The corners of his lips were dark red, weather-beaten in the cold. He started pacing along the wall, which nautical charts of various sizes and data were hanging on.

“Miss the sea?” the druid asked. “River is not enough for you?”