into sausages and great sides of bacon, and hard cheeses laid in the cool cellars, and fields of barley and spelt harvested and threshed and ground to the rough flour that makes the good, sour bread of the northern plains.
The Wizard Ezra returned just as the last of the harvest was gathered and called a council with the village elders. He told them that on the day of Surinam’s murder, he had called up his powers and had seen the murder in a vision. Surinam had been shot, he told them, by Lovro, the second son of Kutsak Eran, a landholder in Skip. At this, there was a sigh of relief: it was generally believed that the people of Skip were capable of every sort of iniquity. But Ezra held up his hand to silence the murmuring. No, he said: it was not as simple as it appeared. For Surinam was a man with no one to avenge his death: extensive inquiries had been made, and no one had found his family. And therefore the question hinged upon where he had been killed. Until he passed the borders of this village, he remained our guest, and as he was our guest, the man who had killed him had also insulted the honor of the men of our village.
A dead silence fell over the gathering, and then Petar Oseku, in whose barn the unfortunate man had slept, stood up and angrily disputed that Surinam had been killed while under his protection. He had died at the border stone, and had therefore passed out of the village. No, said Ezra. The border stone marked the outer boundary of the village, but it was inclusive. Here he raised the Book, the root of all Lore, as his witness, and who was to dispute his word, since no other man in the village save my father and Mr. Herodias could read it? The Book, the Wizard Ezra thundered, was unambiguous upon this point, and further, he had himself traveled far to consult with his brethren, and also with the wise counselors of the royal family, to clarify this very point. It was on the honor of the House of Oseku, he said, to avenge this most shameful death. Now fifteen days had passed, and Petar Oseku, as the head of his family, had only twenty-five days of truce left. Once it was over, his duty was clear, if this village was to clear the filth of insult from its honor: he must travel to Skip and kill the second son of Kutsak Eran, may the Devil take his soul.
Petar Oseku was my uncle, my father’s brother. He was, by the standards of the North, a good and gentle man. My aunt told me many years later that when he came home from that meeting, he seemed to have aged a decade in a day. He wordlessly placed his rifle in the corner of the kitchen and turned his face to the wall. My aunt, a true daughter of the North, wasn’t a woman whose tears came easily, but she threw her skirt over her face to muffle her weeping.
What they both most feared had come to pass. Their children would now be fatherless, and within a year their two oldest sons — the first just now preparing for marriage — would be dead, and their youngest son — now growing his first straggling beard — would attain his manhood only to kill and then, in turn, be killed. In less than five years all the men of their family would be devoured by the vendetta. Perhaps some might escape to the living death of the odu, never to walk in the daylight again. Such a choice would have never occurred to a man like Petar Oseku, since it would only hasten the doom of his sons, who would have to make the revenge themselves. And how would they pay the Blood Tax? They were not poor, but they were not a rich family either: it was likely that by the time all my aunt’s sons were dead, she and her daughters would no longer have a house to mourn in and would be reduced to begging for the charity of others.
Once her family was destroyed, the duty would pass to the next male blood relative, until the curse had killed the men of the next family, and then the next. There was no peasant in the village who was not related to the Oseku household, even if it was some
The Wizard Ezra returned just as the last of the harvest was gathered and called a council with the village elders. He told them that on the day of Surinam’s murder, he had called up his powers and had seen the murder in a vision. Surinam had been shot, he told them, by Lovro, the second son of Kutsak Eran, a landholder in Skip. At this, there was a sigh of relief: it was generally believed that the people of Skip were capable of every sort of iniquity. But Ezra held up his hand to silence the murmuring. No, he said: it was not as simple as it appeared. For Surinam was a man with no one to avenge his death: extensive inquiries had been made, and no one had found his family. And therefore the question hinged upon where he had been killed. Until he passed the borders of this village, he remained our guest, and as he was our guest, the man who had killed him had also insulted the honor of the men of our village.
A dead silence fell over the gathering, and then Petar Oseku, in whose barn the unfortunate man had slept, stood up and angrily disputed that Surinam had been killed while under his protection. He had died at the border stone, and had therefore passed out of the village. No, said Ezra. The border stone marked the outer boundary of the village, but it was inclusive. Here he raised the Book, the root of all Lore, as his witness, and who was to dispute his word, since no other man in the village save my father and Mr. Herodias could read it? The Book, the Wizard Ezra thundered, was unambiguous upon this point, and further, he had himself traveled far to consult with his brethren, and also with the wise counselors of the royal family, to clarify this very point. It was on the honor of the House of Oseku, he said, to avenge this most shameful death. Now fifteen days had passed, and Petar Oseku, as the head of his family, had only twenty-five days of truce left. Once it was over, his duty was clear, if this village was to clear the filth of insult from its honor: he must travel to Skip and kill the second son of Kutsak Eran, may the Devil take his soul.
Petar Oseku was my uncle, my father’s brother. He was, by the standards of the North, a good and gentle man. My aunt told me many years later that when he came home from that meeting, he seemed to have aged a decade in a day. He wordlessly placed his rifle in the corner of the kitchen and turned his face to the wall. My aunt, a true daughter of the North, wasn’t a woman whose tears came easily, but she threw her skirt over her face to muffle her weeping.
What they both most feared had come to pass. Their children would now be fatherless, and within a year their two oldest sons — the first just now preparing for marriage — would be dead, and their youngest son — now growing his first straggling beard — would attain his manhood only to kill and then, in turn, be killed. In less than five years all the men of their family would be devoured by the vendetta. Perhaps some might escape to the living death of the odu, never to walk in the daylight again. Such a choice would have never occurred to a man like Petar Oseku, since it would only hasten the doom of his sons, who would have to make the revenge themselves. And how would they pay the Blood Tax? They were not poor, but they were not a rich family either: it was likely that by the time all my aunt’s sons were dead, she and her daughters would no longer have a house to mourn in and would be reduced to begging for the charity of others.
Once her family was destroyed, the duty would pass to the next male blood relative, until the curse had killed the men of the next family, and then the next. There was no peasant in the village who was not related to the Oseku household, even if it was some
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