Riverkeep by Martin Stewart Read Free Book Online Page A

an’ good for you—you don’t have blisters on your hands.”
    He began to row, ghostly bubbles spinning from the blades, the muscles of his back stretching painful and tight across his shoulder blades. The bäta was heavily built, its frame wide with thick-hewn beams.
    â€œIt’s easy for you right enough,” he muttered to it. “You get crafted an’ varnished an’ painted up all pretty, an’ then you get steered around an’ looked after—someone else takin’ care o’ you. Fine, fine. Tradition, isn’t it? Tradition.”
    The bäta, nodding in the swell, looked hard at the river before them. Puffs of snow burst soundlessly in the thick heights of the forest, and Wull watched a family of red skirrils flying from branch to branch, their rosy fur monochrome in the pale light.
    Gradually, lantern one—whiter and thicker down the wind side—came into view.
    â€œGods,” said Wull, planting his right oar and letting the bäta ease in alongside. “Look at the state of this now.”
    He lifted the whale oil bottle, supporting the porcelain bulb from below with a cupped hand. It was immensely heavy, and he cursed himself for filling it to such a level.
    Even Pappa might have struggled to lift this,
he thought, hoisting the bottle onto his shoulder. The water clonked against the bottom of the bäta as it rocked back and forth.
    The whale oil stank even in the cold, and Wull held his face back from the glugging sloop of it as it filled the reservoir. A few drops spilled down the side and he straightened the bottle immediately—every drop of the oil had to be used, for its cost was steep, and Pappa . . . He heard what Pappa always said whenever he gave Wull a lesson or a chiding about the river:
An’ for Lavernes’s sake, don’t spill a drop o’ that bloody whale oil; it’s worth more’n you an’ me put together—liquid gold that stuff
.
    Wull filled the reservoir without spilling another drop, stoppered the bottle with its rubber cork, and returned it tothe floor of the bäta. Then he worked at the ice around the wick and the rod with his bone-handled knife, stabbing hard at the chunks of it that clung to their surfaces, knocking a spray of white into the air.
    A noise from the forest interrupted him.
    He froze, looking immediately at the moon. It was still high, far higher than the tree line. There was no sign of movement, no falling snow from the canopy. In the strain to hear more, Wull found his ears filling with the sounds of his own body until listening became useless and he began to feel dizzy.
    There was nothing. Just a red balgair, perhaps, or a hare scrattling through a bush.
    He resumed his knife work more slowly, keeping half his attention on the forest, which seemed now ever bigger and blacker in its depths.
    Soon the wick was freed and Wull gave a small cry of triumph. He struck a match, holding it behind his glove to let the flame swell into life, and held it to the fabric stump. The fire burned against it flatly, as though it were stone. Wull held the match until it winked out in the grip of his fingers and lit another, then another.
    â€œCome on . . .” he whispered. “Light! Light!”
    Five matches were spent. He flicked the last black stump into the Danék and sat down in the back of the bäta, in his old seat, looking at the smooth wood of Pappa’s bench.
    â€œNow what in hells am I s’posed to do?” he asked the bäta.
    The boat moved with the water.
    â€œI’ll need to come back tomorrow an’ hope a bit of daylight’s made the difference. Even if it is still freezin’ all bloody day. An’ there’s no point in gettin’ irked, ’cause there’s nothin’ else I c’n do, is there?”
    He moved over and into the keep’s seat once again, wiped his damp nose, smelling the fish of whale oil on his