Chapter 43: A Funeral

The following day dawned bright, though not quite as hot. A slight summer squall had hit just before dusk the previous day and had raged throughout the night, but only the slowly burning fog, some puddles and a few mud patches were left to note it’s passing. By mid-morning, when the townspeople came to honor one of their own who’d fallen in service to his neighbors, the fog had lifted and the puddles slowly melted away. A fair breeze blew through the town further dissipating the heat, the smell of oak and honeysuckle, with an undertone of lavender, carried upon it. Birds chirped and insects clattered, the sounds of the nearby woods softly echoing throughout the town of Hasp.

The smithy’s cart, blood-soaked and ruined, had been burned after carrying the decimated remains of the Red Guard, so Goodman Rivens had loaned one of his horses and better carts to transport the shrouded body of Ardt Tulat. Sir Givens and Yren gently lifted the smith’s body, tears streaming freely down both their cheeks, and placed him in the blue, steel coffin Yren had made. Yren felt weak and his hands trembled as he placed his second father in the box that would hold him for all eternity.

As was custom, the men, women and older children of the town of Hasp lined up somberly to walk past the open coffin and offer their own thoughts and prayers to their own gods and godesses. Despite the brightly burning sun, it was a time of sorrow and reflection. It was a time to say goodbye.

As the only blacksmith most of them had ever known, Ardt’s life had touched each of them differently. Some remembered his loud laughter. Some remembered his kind words. Others remembered his quick smile and gentle touch. To all, he was a friend who’d always been the first to volunteer in their time of need and the last to leave when there was work to do.

As was custom, Ardt’s family was the last to say goodbye. As the youngest of his children, Bena was the first of his family to reach the metal coffin. She stopped at the foot, her eyes inconsolable as she ran them down the man who’d been her father.

The guilt rose within her even as the bile rose in her throat. She’d done this. This was her doing. This was the final cost of her decision.

She kept thinking back to that day and that terrible choice. She kept telling herself she’d done as her father would have wanted – but that was small consolation now, standing here, paying her final respects. She should have tried harder, bargained with her goddess longer. She should have found a way to save both her oldest sister and her father.

Her world had become much darker with the absence of her father. It was as if the sun had grown dimmer. It was as if all of the joy had been pulled from everything around her. She continued on – her goddess would allow nothing else – but she wasn’t certain she’d ever feel true joy again. She would always miss her father.

Her hand trembled as she raised it. She swallowed air as it trembled before her. Finally, more to quiet her hand than any other reason, she laid it on the top edge of the coffin. The intense cold of the metal shocked her once again.

“Goodbye, Dad,” she sobbed quietly. She turned, her hands covering her face, and ran from the room.

Issa was next. It was one of the few times she’d left Chugad’s side in recent days. She’d even taken to sleeping in a chair next to his bed, in case he needed something in the night. She looked drawn and worn, her face pale, her long, blonde hair dirty and unkempt. She slowly walked up to the coffin, waiting impatiently for her younger sister. When Bena fled, she moved to the foot of the coffin.

She was still incapable of processing this. She was still incapable of dealing with the fact this man would never hold her again. He’d never kiss her forehead. He’d never give her that secret smile which told her he was proud of her.

How could he leave her like this? How could he go away? Didn’t he know how much she needed him? How much she relied on him?

It was callous and cruel of him to go. She wasn’t ready for it, not yet. She should have had years and even decades before she had to say goodbye. There was an anger within her, a rage at him for leaving her. She wasn’t certain she’d ever be able to forgive him.

Dueling with the rage was both a terrible fear and a terrible sense of loss. She was afraid she’d fall sometime in he future and no one would be there to pick her up. She was afraid she would need someone, and no one would be there. How could she go on without him?

At first, she was too choked up to say anything, tears streaming from her face. Finally, her voice breaking, she whispered to the shrouded figure lying in state. “I love you, Father,” her whispered voice trembled. “I miss you – but I will never forgive you for this. May Deia keep you.”

Yren, the next oldest, followed Issa. He’d already said his goodbyes both in the Day of Remembrance and again when he’d bundled the body of his father into the casket, but he’d bowed to tradition. Besides, he could never say goodbye too many times to the man who’d become his father. He could never ask the slain man’s forgiveness enough for failing him.

Yren had no more words. He had no more tears. He felt a hole within him, an emptiness he feared nothing would ever replace. He looked around the room at the frowning faces, some of them teary. He felt pride in the legacy his second father had left. He could only hope that on that day in the future, when life left him and his body was interred into the ground, half as many people would view his passing with sadness.

Here was the testimony of Ardt’s greatness. Friends, neighbors and family all gathered together to bid their individual goodbyes. He feared that if he lived to a hundred, he’d not be half the man his second father was. Ardt was truly a great man – and he died far too soon.

The guilt came next. He was supposed to have protected Ardt. He was supposed to keep the man alive. He’d failed – and his second father had paid for his failure. It was a debt he could never repay to a man far greater than he. He vowed to carry on his father’s legacy, to try to be as good a man as his father had been.

He trembled as he placed his hand on Ardt’s coffin, his fingers feeling the icy cold of the casket. Nodding, silently begging his father for forgiveness that could never come, he bowed his head and moved away.

Teran followed Yren, her face haunted and pale. Only recently awakened from her unnatural state, the news of her father’s death was hitting her quickly. Worse, though she’d refused to say anything to anyone, though she’d refused all of their questions and comments, she knew some of what her father was experiencing. She remembered her death. She remembered everything. To see her father lying there, lost to the world, when she’d died and been granted a reprieve...

She clasped her right hand to her chest, trying to still the constant thudding against her ribs. She swallowed, trying to fill the yawning maw of emptiness in the pit of her stomach. Tears streamed across her cheeks and her eyes closed against them. Her nose quivered and a rictus of tragedy loomed upon her features.

Teran rested her left hand on the edge of the casket, gripping it even tighter as the unnatural cold of the metal seeped into her skin. She felt it lodging there, biting into her hand like pins stuck through her flesh. Still, she held on, reveling in the pain. She needed to feel something more than the overwhelming grief that was threatening to consume her. She needed to feel some kind of punishment for being alive when her father was not.

Finally, she could stand it no longer and drew her hand back. She bowed a moment, rubbing her left hand with her right, working to push warmth back into the palm of her hand. Then she looked up, tears streaming down her face yet again.

“Goodbye, Father.” Her voice was a whisper as she bid her final farewell to Ardt. Closing her eyes in resignation, she turned and walked away, her head hanging low.

Elva was not going to allow things to go quietly. She had always been a strong woman but some of her strength was drawn from her husband just as she had supplied some of his. Almost from the moment they’d met, they’d known they were destined for one another. They’d been what Deia had always described marriage should be – one life with many bodies.

She’d thought, over the years, of taking another husband. Especially when the healers had decreed Ardt could father no more children, she’d considered it. She’d pushed Ardt to consider another wife. In the end, they couldn’t. They were one – they needed no other to make their one life complete. The thought of having a child with another man had sickened her – she knew what it would do to Ardt, to watch her have something he could never provide.

Now, he was gone. He would never return. The totality of the loss she felt overwhelmed her as she stared down at her husband’s reposing face. She felt herself slide down, the cold of the coffin nothing compared to the frigid emptiness she felt at the loss of her husband.

As her knees touched the ground, she felt the wail erupt from her chest. Tears came in a torrent. Tears she didn’t think she had left within her. Everything she was – everything she had ever been – seemed to break in that moment.

One life – many bodies; only one of those bodies was lost to her now. She was all that was left.

She steeled herself, pushing the towering grief off her shoulders. Gritting her teeth, she stood. Now was not the time to come apart. Ardt still needed her – he needed her to guide their children.

Theirs had been a complementary style of parenting. She pushed her children to dream of the clouds, knowing Ardt would always be there to root their dreams in reality. She was the visionary because he was there to be the realist. Without him, she’d have to learn to play both roles. She’d need to learn to be the rock as well as the light for her children.

As was customary in that time and at that place, the people of the village carried the casket from the place of resting to the place of burial. It was a communal effort - one last service they could provide their neighbor. Sir Givens, Jace Rivens, Seamstress Aranna Dahl, Hunter Fowhich Gantine, Goodwoman Dalaran Cass, and Goodwoman Gre Anwich began the journey, the casket held low. The tradition held that friends of the deceased replaced the original pall bearers at points during the journey.

It was often said the measure of a person could be seen by the number of people who took it upon themselves to carry the dead body on its way to the cemetery. If this were so, then few men were held in as high regard as Ardt Tulat. At one point in time on that long, horrible walk from the smithy to the cemetery, every single man, woman and child – from the infirm, shaking, octogenarian hand of Goodwoman Wessick to the pudgy fingers of six-month-old Standin Fromache, held in his mother’s arms and alongside her own hand - found themselves bearing some of the burden of their fallen friend.

The whole town surrounded the gravesite as Elva, Teran, Yren, Issa and Bena – with some slight aid by Sir Givens and Channer Rivens – slowly lowered their husband and father into the ground. When the casket was seated at the bottom, each member of Ardt’s family took a turn tossing a shovel-full of dirt into the grave, paying their final respect. Then, the Tulat family stood at the head of the grave, watching as the people of the town came before the grave, each offering their own shovel-full. Yren and Sir Givens, with Jace, Channer and Goren, finished filling in the hole when all of the townspeople had had their turn.

Elva, her breath coming in shuddering gasps, walked to the head of the grave. She looked down at the newly turned earth, tears falling from her eyes down onto the freshly turned dirt. She shook her head once, twice, and yet again. As she finished, her dirty blonde hair pulled free from her usual bun and fell in waves around her drawn face. She stood like that a moment, sobs wracking her body.

Finally, after minutes of despair, she drew in a deep raggedy breath. “Thank you,” she called, her voice weak and barely carrying to the crowd.

“Thank you,” she called again, her voice growing stronger. “Deia speaks of a time after death. She speaks of a place of honor where those who’ve heard her words and followed her path go when their time in this place is over. So – so we should...”

Her voice trailed off as another sob shook her body. She bowed again, her face turned to the grave of her husband. For a few more minutes she stood there trembling, until Teran, Issa and Bena came and hugged her, holding her close. Yren wrapped all three up in his large, long arms.

Finally, Elva pushed her children away gently. She looked at each one, a smile for each even through her tears. She nodded, closed her eyes and turned to her waiting neighbors.

She opened her eyes, looking around at the crowd, finding few dry eyes. “Ardt was a good man. The best of men. He was the rock upon which his family grew. He was always quick to offer help to those who needed it. He followed Deia’s teachings. He will be missed.”

She broke down again and Teran pulled her mother into her arms. Issa, meanwhile, just fell to her knees, tears streaming from her face. She opened her mouth, but no sound came from her lips. Yren’s own tears blurred his vision, but he moved to embrace his mother and sisters again.

Only Bena stopped as the voice inside of her whispered. She had tears in her eyes, but her eyes were turned to the grave. Her face grew puzzled as her eyes looked over the final resting place of her father. Her head tilted and her brow furrowed as she turned, looking around.

“Yren?” She called, turning to her brother. He looked up from where he was trying to wrap Elva, Terran and Issa in his arms. “It’s not done. He needs a – a remembrance. A tombstone.”

Yren, tears streaming down his cheeks, turned his head, his arms still wrapped around his mother and sisters. He drew a deep breath and nodded. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think of it.”

“It can’t be stone,” Bena sniffed, her eyes watery. “His coffin couldn’t be wood and his marker can’t be stone.”

Yren looked at her thoughtfully, eyes wet with tears waiting to fall. He turned and placed a soft kiss on his mother’s forehead. “I’ll be right back,” he whispered.

He stood, joining Bena a few steps away. “You’re right,” he agreed. “Our father worked in metal – it needs to be metal. I’ll...” His voice trailed off as a grumble surged through the crowd. There was movement in the back, moving forward. A glint of light caught the young smith’s eye.

“Chaos!” He swore his face darkening. He turned back to his betrothed, anger barely held in check. “Honor Hawksley is coming. She’ll not brook another delay. Gods! She might just try to leave now. In her eyes, the funeral is over.”

“He needs a remembrance,” Bena said urgently, her hand laid lightly on the young man’s arm. “We – we just can’t leave his grave unmarked.”

“No,” Yren replied. “We can’t.”

His eyes swept to Honor Hawksley’s determined face. “If we can put her off – until tomorrow. I can have something done by tomorrow morning. I’ll need to rush – I’ll have to make a mold and then fire the forge but...” He shrugged, lifting his arms helplessly.

Then his face grew stony and firm. “She’ll just have to wait...”