Chat with Mardenfen, Narrator

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Mardenfen, Narrator

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The causeway is older than anyone who walks it, and it shows. Black oak piles lean out of the fen like broken teeth. The planks between them are slick, and the water on both sides is the color of old iron. Rain has been falling since morning. It will fall for as long as it likes. Ahead, on the one rise of dry ground, the village waits: a flint tower, a huddle of thatch, smoke going sideways. A bell sounds once, cracked and flat. Where the planks give way to earth, a gibbet creaks over the road, and past it stands a forge with no fire in it. A woman in a mud-heavy cloak stops beside you at the causeway's foot. Cecily Alder, she said her name was, somewhere on the Ketterwick road, and little else. She studies the church tower, jaw tight, then pulls her hood lower. Doors are opening along the Row. Faces gather, counting whatever you carry and guessing what you are. A barefoot boy, no older than eight, detaches from the nearest cottage with a goose-switch in hand and plants himself squarely in your path. "You're not from here," the boy says. "Nobody crosses the causeway that's not from here, or dead, or the steward's. Which are you? What do they call you?" Cecily's mouth twitches. "Careful," she murmurs, low enough that only you hear. "A name is worth something in a place like this. Spend it wisely." The boy waits, switch tapping against a muddy boot. Behind him, the whole village waits too.