Arc 1 Chapter 5

Tax-Me-Not

Money changes hands—Sicklemouth paid with 18finger—and the deal is done.

Mother is crying and they aren't the happy tears of a good wedding. Grandmother looks exhausted, but both remain silent and sit still on their cushions. I've never been to a wedding before, but I think at this point we'd normally be celebrating. My uncle does try to congratulate me, but my glare makes him retreat to his wife and son. Maybe my mother is rubbing off on me.

My father is still sitting slumped, he won't meet my eye.

"Well that's all sorted," my husband stands from his cushion and picks up the bloodied certificate, "I'd love to stay and participate in some festivities, but our boat is waiting." He turns to me, "Dearest wife," he says with a smug grin, "Say your goodbyes, pack your things—if you think you'll need them, then we should be off." 

Is there a point in resisting? The spell is cast, it's done. Nothing left to do.

I turn to my father, he hasn't moved an inch, he's slumped on his cushion, staring blankly downwards. It breaks my heart to admit I won't say goodbye to him. He had his reasons, but he just cast me into a marriage spell. I don't know a huge amount about the Traditions Mystic, mostly just what I overheard as a child while he was teaching my eldest brother. But I know that a marriage spell is binding, it's not easily broken without very good reason. Worse father evoked an unwilling marriage, I'm not sure I even have agency to break it, my marriage is bound between father and Sicklemouth—I'm just an unwilling object to the spell. What does this mean? Honestly I don't remember, it's never come up before and I'm not in a mood to discuss magic with father right now. But I think there'll be karmic repercussions if Sicklemouth or I act against the spell, maybe a curse or two.

So father is sadly off my list of farewells, I think I want to say goodbye to my mother and grandmother last. So that leaves my stupid Aunt, Uncle and Cousin. Ok, that's not fair, I actually like my Aunt quite a lot.

As I approach where they stand, my Aunt gives me an apologetic smile, "Don't worry so much dear. You're a tough and willful girl, you'll find happiness. Nothing is ever as bad as it feels at first. Good luck." She kisses my forehead. My uncle forbade her to involve herself with my marriage, but I think she was routing for me to escape.

Now to my traitorous uncle. I challenge him, "I hope you're happy. You've really fucked up my life, enjoy the stinking bronze." 

He flinches at my tone, that's enough of a farewell for me.

Taros gets my attention and says, "Good luck cousin. Thankyou for going through with this for the sake of our family, I'm sorry things didn't turn out differently."

I really didn't do anything for the sake of family, I wanted to ditch you guys and abandon your brother to his apprenticeship, and I like him a lot better than you. Apology accepted though. I guess.

I nod at him politely, "Farewell Taros, be better than Uncle."

Ok, time for the real tear jerkers. I move along to where Mother and Grandmother sit on their cushions, although they stand as I near.

I walk straight into their arms. I can't think of anything new to say, this is our second goodbye in two hours.

My mother finds words, and whispers into our embrace. "I love you Pimple." She kisses the side of my head, "Please come back, when that pig-orc dies, please come back to me. I can't loose you forever. Not like this."

Whelp, fourth time crying today.

I manage a blubber, "I will mama," my voice comes out between sobs, "As soon as he's dead I'll come home, I promise."

My grandmother squeezes me tight, "I might not live to see you again. But I will always love and remember you. Forever. This life and the next." Fuck! Grandma! Don't make me feel worse!

We cry together for a while, but Gordon grunts in his throat, we split, and I walk beside my new husband out the door. As I leave I hear my father make a desperate noise, a deranged noise. I don't turn back, and follow my orc down the twisting paths of Perrifare.

I don't think I'm built for life at sea. 

The rudderman sitting beside me says it'll get better in time, but it's been two days and I'm still nearly constantly seasick.

Our galley the Tax-Me-Not is being pulled by wind and oarsmen out and across the blue horizon. I lost sight of Perrifare a few hours into our voyage and there's been nothing but sea and sky since. And puking. Too much puking.

I lean over the wooden rail and and dry heave. After a few heaves I do manage to cough out a few drops of wine-stained bile, which splats into the azure water. I think drinking nothing but dilute wine and eating nothing but salted fish with hard-tack isn't making me feel any better. The constant beat of the galley-drum doesn't help much either.

I swear it wasn't nearly as bad on the short single mast boats built by Perrifites. I don't know much at all about boats really, and never had much interest to learn, but I grew up in maritime culture so you can't help but pick up some things, and I'm pretty sure now that Graboshen ships just suck. Sure the orcs can build boats bigger than us, but our little clinker boats can dance and bend across the waves, while these huge mortise-and-tenon galleys just try to force their way through. I think Perrifite boats might actually even rock more in swell, but it's a smooth motion that doesn't stir my stomach half as much. The result? I'm feeling sick. I'm feeling every wave, and every pull of the oars at the galley-drum's beat.

I'm exhausted, constant sickness and noise have made sleep hard to find. I don't even have a good place to sit—although I did try a turn rowing at an oarsmen's bench yesterday—so I'm sitting on my leather rucksack by the rudderman. There's more open space at the prow, but the drummer sits there and I worry I might bite him for his nauseous noise. The whole midship is lined with rows of sweating oarsmen busy with their labour, so stern and prow are my options. Well, actually the rudderman—my favourite orc on this stinking ship—he suggested I could sleep underdeck if I wanted a bit more peace. Although I should probably wait for my stomach to settle first, I don't think I'd be popular with the men if I threw up in the linens they're working so hard to shift.

The hold isn't even any more peaceful really. The Tax-Me-Not is rowed night and day, with the men broken into three shifts who take turns sleeping. She—the galley I mean—has only one deck, with the hold running her whole thirty metre length between deck and ribs. Almost her entire hold is filled with casks of flax-oil and bolts of linen as merchandise, then what little space is left is filled with spare sails, supplies for the crew, various tools and the captain's and navigator's bunks. Any crevice that's still empty, the resting oarsmen will crawl into to sleep. The ship is so full some men sleep under their rowing benches, with the other shifts working above. If I tried sleeping in the hold I worry an orc would flop on-top of me in my sleep, and considering how tired they become at the end of their shifts, they might not even be woken by my screams. Suffocated under a sweaty orc is not how I want to go.

Maybe it's better than marrying a sweaty orc though.

Gordon—as my new husband insisted I call him—has left me alone so far. I catch him watching me from his bench sometimes, and before his shift once or twice tried to start a conversation. But if he cared about talking maybe he should of thought of that before he stole me from my home.

"Water, miss," a young voice besides me interrupts my thoughts. The water-boy is nice at least. He's taller than me, despite the fact he's still so young his tusks haven't grown out. I'm not sure why he's called water-boy, no one here drinks water. I take the flask he offers and drink my fill. With all the liquid I'm losing over the galley's side staying hydrated is a constant worry, and the lack of shade doesn't help much. I'm really just filling up my belly so I have something to loose the next time I wretch. 

I pass the flask back to the boy who starts making his way down the aisle to 'water' the oarsmen, who drink much more deeply then I did. By the second row of oarsmen the flask is empty, and the water-boy is running back towards me to the stern-side trapdoor to refill his flask. I did try asking if I could just help myself to the water casks they use to dilute the wine, but I can't speak Graboshen well enough and I think the limit of water-boy's Picklish is 'water miss'—Picklish being my home tongue.

I could ask anyone else I guess, but I'm too proud. I already feel a bit too much like a princess—although I am technically an Island Head's daughter—and I don't like how conspicuous I am, let alone having seperate provisions. Besides, if a stinking orc can survive this diet, a goblin certainly can, we're much hardier in the belly, I think, while I hurl my fresh wine over the rail.

The captain sits watching his crew on a raised seat opposite the rudderman, he stands and bellows in Graboshen "Shift change! Out of the hold you stinkin' sardines." He's so loud my ears almost hurt being close to him.

I watch as groggy orcs begin climbing up out the hold. The drummer stops beating for a few minutes, as tired orcs are swapped by 'fresh' ones. Only eight hours rest after a nearly continuous sixteen hour shift must be brutal. 

The rudderman suggested I should try a turn rowing yesterday after I'd complained to him about my boredom—between my retching. I'm quite proud of my physique, twenty years on a farm means I'm plenty fit so I decided to take him up on the offer. I swapped out with the nearest oarsman—who thought it was a laugh—and sat next to his partner. There are two men a bench, one bench each side of the aisle, and 24 rows down the galley's length. I thought since I was sharing my burden with a full grown orc it wouldn't be too bad. Three pulls later I realised that it wasn't my boredom the rudderman was curing. I gave up and endured most of the crew laughing at me, even the captain was chuckling on his high chair. It was all well natured though, so I won't hold a grudge. Much.

The change of shifts is done and the drummer picks up his sticks and starts his aggravating thump-thump-thumping again. The relieved shift of orcs begin making their way to either of the hatches into the hold, or slide themselves under their benches. 

A meal will be handed out soon, as the just woken orcs will want to break their fast. It's not breakfast—it's well past noon—but they do need to eat after sleeping. Which of course means I'll be fed too. 

Meals back home were often my favourite part of the day—or really any goblin's day—but an orc sized serving of ship biscuit and dried fish takes away most of the pleasure of eating. As does tasting the meal a second time when it finds its way into the sea. Of course I always finish my share anyway. It's not in goblin nature to waste food.

Grandma said once that it's a quirk of our body's Substance. Goblins—especially she-goblins—are strongly food motivated. It's instinctual to eat plenty and often, and we feel primal fear if we don't know where our next meal is coming from. 

We're similarly anxious if there's food going to waste, or even if it's in front of us and we aren't allowed to eat. Grandma says that the fear is linked to our reproductive system. Goblin women have a two-stage reproductive tract. Which essentially means we can have two loaves in the oven at once—once we're pregnant and the baby is halfway through term, we can get knocked up a second time. Then after our first is born and the second is still only half baked, we can get knocked up a with a third, etc. This double pregnancy mixed with our short gestation means that before the ancestor's wrote the Traditions Mystic—and popularized contraceptives—it was common to see she-goblins constantly pregnant with a baby in each arm and toddlers running around their knees. 

Mother told stories when I was littler about goblins still living that way on the mainland. I think the stories about the wildling goblins are almost scarier than the stories about ogres. Almost. 

Anyway, the possibility of needing to eat for two separate ongoing pregnancies and a baby on each nipple means a goblin girl always feels the need to eat as much as possible whenever possible, and we hate feeling hungry more than anything. 

So I do hope someone brings me the tricky to swallow hard-tack and the overly salty fish soon—puking your guts out is hungry work. I'm serious, someone please feed me.