I am bringing a rind of bread to the daughter in the lamp-house again. This is the third time. In the path along the garth-wall a hortulan stops me and demands to know my errand. I hesitate and he demands again. I am bringing scraps to the master’s hounds, the master’s hounds, I say. Doddering old claywife he says, and sends me along. I am bringing scraps to the master’s hounds. That is how I remember my errands. But that is not my errand.
Claywives do not do this. We come when we are called, we go where we are sent. We bring wine to the master and his guests. We bring scraps to the hounds and fetch loads for the hortulans. We do as we are told, and we mutter and we mumble to us, mindless clay that would forget the littlest thing. And when we are told to be silent or are given no task, we are still. We do not do or say or think. I am not bringing scraps to the hounds. Three times I have brought bread to the daughter in the lamp-house unbidden. The daughter did not command it. The daughter did not command it but I brought it unasked for. And she smiled and thanked me. So I brought it again. I do not know why.
She is haggard, hiding in the corner of the lamp-house when I enter, lying on a pile of old cushions. In the dim light of the brazeglass she seems very sad. But she smiles again when she sees me, when I hold out the basket to her. I must not stay. But she begs me to stay. Just for a moment, she says. She is alone. She moves aside to make room beside her on the floor and I think this causes her pain. It is not a command. I sit down.
If she were one of the master’s people I would say that she was young, but by her voice and her face I think she comes from far away and it is hard to tell. The daughter of a far-off land. And her face is gaunt with sadness and pain. She eats only a little despite the fact that she is with child. I hold the basket up for her again. She shakes her head. Really you don’t need to keep bringing me food, she says. But she eats so little. What did you say, she says. She eats so little I repeat, and she seems to be with child. It is how my people are I suppose she says, and I must believe that this is so. You are always talking to yourself she says, and I say I am sorry. No I only mean to ask if everything is all right she says, and I say I am a claywife. And she seems not to understand.
I am a claywife I say again. I am only clay given speech. I do as I am told and I would not remember otherwise. Simple clay. I am given words and I give them back to myself over and over again, I do not remember otherwise for I am only clay. You must bear a little vim or a little gris to move and speak she says, and I say yes. A little. It will go out of me soon. The clay does not hold it. Even baked the clay is fragile and cracks and crumbles and must eventually be broken up for grog. By who she asks and I say the potters or the hortulans or the master perhaps if I spill his tea one more time he has said, and she looks at me how I have never seen before. And I begin to think she is from very far away, farther than anyone I have ever seen, if she does not know what a simple claywife is.
I see a little streak of glittering blood on the cushion and I stand up. She has bled through her bandages again and I must bring more, and clean water to wash the wounds with. Wait she says, it can wait, but it cannot wait and she does not command me. So I do not stay. I will run into another hortulan or another servant. They will ask of me my errand. A claywife cannot lie. I must lie. I must lie.
All the garth is the master’s I tell the daughter. A little garden as the lords of Asternal reckon it and he only the third of his line to possess it. And she is surprised and asks are there greater garths and I say yes very much, but I have only walked in a few myself and they were often finer. All the winding paths and every tree and flower and every stone has its place in the garth and the hortulans tend it ceaselessly so that when the master looks out from his tower in the wall all is just as he has envisioned it. And if he looks the other way what does he see the daughter asks, and I say other garths. Sometimes I am called to the top of the tower I say and they lie both up and down the plain and along the rolling hills as far as the eye can see. All the world I say. But I came through the forest the daughter replies. Yes I say. That is not the world the master says. That is only wilderness.
Eight days ago the hortulans found a hole in the hedges out near where the master was riding with his hounds and I was with them hauling the wagon. And the hortulans wished to repair the hedge before the master caught sight of it but he saw them gather and rode over and he was in a gentle mood that day and they did not need to fear being whipped. And the hortulans would have sent a hound in to drag out the beast that made the hole but the master looked at me and laughed and said give the claywife a stick and send it in like a hound and the hortulans laughed and I was afraid. They gave me a stick and the master commanded me to go in so I went and when I returned I said that I saw nothing. And the master rode on and the hortulans were disappointed for I think they thought it would be funny to see me fight a beast.
And that night when I returned I brought the cart and I placed you in it and I brought you back to the lamp-house. You still had a piece of a long jagged dart in your leg but I got it out. She looks at me how I do not understand again when I tell her this and I say claywives do not lie but that was the first lie I told. She says she is sorry I lied for her and perhaps I should tell the truth but I will not do that. The master would have you torn to pieces by his hounds for trespassing in his garth I say. He must never know you are here. It is all right she says and she puts a hand on my face. He must not know I say and she says he will not know. I will lie again I say. I will lie I will lie I will lie as many times as I must.
It was two passages of the moons ago and something had gone terribly wrong. I moved as before I spoke and muttered as before I did all that was commanded of me as I always had before but something had gone wrong in the silence. Where before I often stood in waiting now there was restlessness in every limb and a second tongue inside my head that nobody could see but me. It stirred and then it spoke with words and the words were my own. When other claywives no longer speak or mutter, and they begin to act in strange ways, the potter takes a hammer and breaks them up and they are still. Or they stop moving altogether when their vim goes back into the earth. I will stop moving soon I say to the daughter. In another passage of the moons or maybe sooner my vim will go back into the earth. And the daughter says maybe it need not be so but I say it is always so. I am only simple clay.
The daughter says there is a place called Carantu. She says they have great lore there of vim and gris. They have letters there of binding and setting and songs of keeping and preserving and maybe my clay could be preserved. The master would never permit me to travel so far I say. The master would have no use for such things. I am old. He will have a new claywife made instead.
I do not mean that you should go to Carantu she says, it is very far off and anyway there is none that could take you there. Carantu has many spies and hunters and they would kill any who they thought knew their land, even its name. I ask her if that is what happened to her, did she learn of Carantu and so cause the hunters to pursue her? And she says she did worse. She was once a child of that place and she fled. You must never go to Carantu and I must never go back she said, for it is altogether a wicked place. Where will you go I ask, and she says I do not know, I never really believed I would come this far.
She is quiet for a little while and I ask her if she has a father or mother in Carantu. She says there are no fathers in Carantu and if she had a mother she never knew. She had many books to learn about the world but all she ever knew herself was the house of long narrow passages deep below the earth, silent and lonely. The elders, the sages, they all wore a jewel on their brow and their voices were cold and their faces all like empty masks. It was the way of her people that each would bear a child when they were full-grown and afterward take the jewel and go up to join the rest. Those who went up before her she rarely saw again and they were cold like the rest and seemed to have forgotten her. She longed for open spaces and to see the stars whose names she had read of in ancient books but she was afraid.
When she felt the new life stir within her one day she resolved to flee. She prepared in secret for if any had known of her plan they would have forced her to take the jewel and it would have changed her and destroyed the life she carried. And when she went up she discovered a barren land, and she made her way across vast deserts and ruins. The sky was black and despite what she had read she saw no stars. She saw only the moons, great Edjumar and little Sekkas that hung motionless high in the sky. I say I had never seen the moons like that and she says perhaps it was the dark magic of that unhappy place that held them there. Hunters pursued her she says. They pursued her until the lands and skies changed and they pursue her still. She has been running a long time. She fears she will never be free of them she says, but she would rather be torn apart by the master’s dogs than return to Carantu. I tell her she will not be torn apart by dogs. She will not return to Carantu. She is safe here for now. I will help her on her way. Will you come with me she says, but I say to her I am only simple clay.
When I go I walk slowly down the path and I stop for a moment to look up at the twilight sky. Little Sekkas is already far along and will set in the coming days. Then great Edjumar will follow. There will be four dark nights with no moons in the sky before Edjumar returns. I remember the passage of every moon in every year since I first stood up in the potter’s pit. I wonder how many more I will see and what will happen to the moons I remember when I am gone. Through all of these wonderings my tongue does not move. I do not even whisper. Something has gone terribly wrong. My daughter is weak and her wounds are not healing as they should.
At the west door of the garth just below the master’s tower there are three tall men dressed in fine clothes and they bear with them the banner that proclaims them neither trespassers nor bandits in the gardens. The porters come down and speak to them and they offer gifts of perfume and dyes for the master as is the custom for travelers from a distant garth and the door is opened and they are led inside. I follow at the porter’s command and I bear their bags into the upper chambers and bring them water to wash with and clean towels. And they say to one another, what an odd sort of beast is this and what is it called. And I say I am a claywife. They are from a distant land which does not have such arts they say as to make a servant of the dirt. But how ugly it is they remark to the porters and, we heard the lords of Asternal prized beauty above all other things.
It is so the porter replies but the rude earth can only be shaped so far and the potters make them in haste. For they do not last and this one is old and soon to be thrown away anyway. Are they good for sport ask the travelers. No says the porter, for they cannot fight. They only fetch and carry and do other simple things. They cannot even remember anything unless they mutter it to themselves constantly. This one does not mutter a traveler says and the porter replies, you have given it nothing to do. Go, claywife and see if your master will condescend to greet us the traveler instructs, and I go. Condescend to greet you condescend to greet you condescend to greet you I mutter. And I go.
The upper chambers of the garth are marble and porphyry and silver and lit with hain and brazeglass and here the master forbids anything which is not most pleasing to his eyes and ears and touch. Great portraits of his fathers all adorn the walls and scenes of the wars they fought before the garths were cut across the rivers and the hills. Long polished swords hang beside busts of the enemies they cut down and his musicians play high ornate music in the afternoons and the scent of the flowers of the garth are carried through the rooms by the western breezes. As is his custom the master is at the furthest end of the hallway and I bow as I enter.
The master is displeased to see me for I am ugly to him and I am rarely wanted in the upper halls. He demands to know why I have come and I say travelers from far away have come and ask that you condescend to meet with them. He beckons over his page and hands him a dagger and instructs him to punish the porter who allowed me upstairs but not so badly he cannot work by tomorrow. Then he sends me down and he follows soon after. By his mild response I think he is pleased to have noble guests since rarely do visitors grace his modest gardens with their presence. And he sends me with word to the kitchen that they should prepare a fine meal for midafternoon with spiced wine and fresh bloody meats. I repeat these words to myself as I go down the stairs but the secret tongue inside my head is naming the things I can take to my daughter in the lamp-house.
The guests praise all the food the servants lay before them, tasting each and every dish. So pleasant the gardens of Asternal they say as they peck and nibble, and we have been offered every amenity on our journey. We have had to carry no provisions ourselves and even now can barely eat. But the master insists they try more delicacies of his kitchen for he must show even to foreigners that his taste is impeccable and they dutifully sample each one. Their smiles are all alike bright and fixed and they praise the craftsmanship of everything that they see and the master is pleased more than I have seen in a long time. He is so pleased he indulges their whim to summon me and answers their questions on how I am made and when they complain that I am old and ugly he laughs and laughs and says yes it is so, would you like to see it destroyed.
And they ask if claywives give good sport when they are broken up and the master says never no and they say that that is a pity but yes perhaps after luncheon they would be delighted to see me destroyed and the master says let it be done. And then he sends me to bring them more fresh meat and spiced wine and I do. The cook has left a long sharp knife on the board next to the meat and when I set it down before one of the travelers I let it slide off. It nicks him in the arm and he is furious and says well you will be happy to be rid of this one. His smile does not change at all and when I look down at his arm there is a little trickle of glittering blood.
I return to standing quietly behind the master where he need not look directly at me. The master makes brief but polite enquiry after their business which is far away in another country. A priceless jewel was stolen from them and they wish to deal cruelly with the thief. The travelers ask many questions about the master’s gardens which pleases him and he tells the stories of how the lowlands were conquered. He talks of the cities that were razed and the barbarians that his fathers helped to drive off the land, whose descendants are now the wild men of the woods. He calls for a servant to bring in his beloved hounds so he may show them to the travelers, the great beasts with the long bright teeth and the golden fur who will pursue the scent of blood as far as their legs can carry them he says. In the gardens he says there is good hunting but he prefers the hills for the wild men are a greater challenge than any other animal and their flesh as sweet. And the travelers laugh and titter and the master asks them how they amuse themselves in their country, what do they call it.
And I mutter quietly to myself, Carantu Carantu.
Carantu was it, the master asks. And then the travelers fall silent and the smiles disappear. And their faces change in a way I have never seen faces change before and they are like masks all the same and yet I feel for the first time I am seeing their true faces. Like and unlike my daughter. The face of my daughter is fair. These faces are empty and cruel. The travelers stand and I turn and run. When my feet hit the top of the steps I hear my master’s body strike the floor. I hear a servant scream and then another and then I do not hear anything at all. I go straight for the lamp-house. I do not think I have much time.
I enter and my daughter is already halfway to her feet and she is afraid because she has heard the shouting. She understands as soon as she sees me. I take her up in my arms. She is lighter than most of the loads I carry. When I reach the door I see one of the hunters at the entrance to the chambers. He is kneeling down next to a hound holding what looks like a broken dart still bright with blood. I turn for the door, the eastern door that leads out of the garth, out of all the garths to the places where I have never gone. To the wilderness. And I run as fast as I can with my daughter in my arms.
My clay is beginning to crack and my daughter is weak when we stop. It is near sunset again and great Edjumar is high in the sky. He shines through the treetops down at us and I lay my daughter down on the soft moss beside a riverbank. Her eyes are filled with his light and the light of his brothers the stars. We have not heard the baying of hounds in many hours. But my daughter’s face is pale and the secret tongue inside my head is speaking terrible words.
I say I have little time left but she must find the strength to keep going. I do not know what to do now. My clay is cracking I say and I cannot go on much further. She shakes her head. You can she says you can, and not alone. And I say I do not understand. But in truth I am beginning to and I am afraid.
And she takes my hand and she says I have given her a wonderful gift and she will give me one in return. And she takes a chip of stone and she carves strange letters into my clay and she sings softly a song I have never heard before, high and unhappy to my ears. But I feel something change in my clay and the strength return to my limbs. A strength I sense will not soon desert me. Because of you I will see the face of my daughter she says and I will know she is safe and far far away. Take her far from Carantu and far from Asternal and I say, I will.
Soon she is giving birth. And soon after that she is gone. And O my granddaughter now I hold you in my arms and we are going, we are going long miles away. But know this in your sorrow and in mine, that your mother held you in her arms and beheld your shining face before she died. And she has given us both a mighty gift, for we are free we are free we are free.
Copyright © 2026 by tanadrin
