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Tuesday 17 April 2012

Moving down the river

Adam
There was a small settlement at the river, where a stone bridge crossed over, with a jetty on the downstream side. I couldn’t see much of the settlement, as it was walled, with crenelated and clearly well-maintained walls. A pele tower of lichened stones stood higher than the other buildings and looked out over the farm houses and fields outside.
Again, it looked like Northumberland, a land fought in and over for years until the Union of the Crowns, except our towers are ancient ruins. As someone taken, by the age of nine, to just about everything the Romans and the Reivers had made, I wondered what would make that wall a necessary expense.
We walked to the jetty where some small wooden boats were tied up and waiting for us. The boats were made of overlapping wood planks, rather than plywood, and looked solid. The seniors sorted us, kids and adults, to each boat. I was in the one with the Scot, a wild-haired, wild-bearded, bloodshot-eyed guy who might have been mid-thirties, hard to tell with that beard. He’d the look of an amiable character, but one you wouldn’t cross if you met in a pub, not unless you were desperate for a head-butt.
He untied the boat and pushed it off. I looked at the sail, still furled, and then at the little flag on top of it. It wasn’t so much as twitching; there wasn’t a breath of wind, so I dismissed the idea of sailing. I wondered how we were going to get downriver, and thought we must be going to drift, when the Scot lifted a hand to the mast.
“Hoist,” he ordered, and the sail did, all by itself. Still no wind, but it didn’t bother him. “Mind the boom there, eh,” he said, and blew a kiss lightly at the mast. The sail filled as though a breeze had just come up, the boom swung around and the boat started moving smoothly through the water. I heard a few wows from the other passengers, but, when I looked around, I saw the other boats were the same; sails gently filled by a wind that wasn’t disturbing a hair on my head. Why be surprised? This was meant to be a world where magic worked, after all.
“Okay now lads and lassies. My name is McGregor. You may address me as Senior McGregor, if you’re feeling polite, or just Senior if you’re feeling lazy. There are those who refer to me as Jock, but you are not yet among them, so don’t make the mistake o’ trying that, okay? Now, one way and another I had a bit of a night last night, y’know? So, what I really want to do just the now, is to get my head down and grab a few zees, right? Keep it down to a low scream and wake me up when we get to the city, okay?”
Then he curled himself up on the seat at the back of the boat and went instantly to sleep – the snores were genuine and a dead give-away. The rudder seemed gripped by some invisible hand and kept the boat aimed neatly down the centre of the river. There wasn’t much more to say or do about all that, so I turned my attention to my fellow passengers.
I was sitting third in line next to one of the two girls in our boat. From her face I guessed her to be about thirteen. Her hair was in tight corn rows and she had the same looks as a couple of Ethiopian girls I had studied with on my uni course. She had that lean, East-African build, and a face that belonged on Sade’s baby sister. I was about to introduce myself when one of the boys in front of us turned around.
He looked at me, nodded and then dropped me from his world while he turned his attention to the girl. “Hi, er, do you speak English?” The ice on the reply, “Yes”, would have slowed most blokes, but he didn’t seem bothered. “So, er, what part of Africa are you from then, eh?”
You could tell she considered her reply, from the way she leaned forward, elbows on her knees, her head cocked slightly to one side before saying, “Have you heard of the bit called Kingston-upon-Thames?” The boy was now obviously groping for reverse gear, but didn’t make it in time.
“I speak English, better than you do, but I don’t want to speak it with you, savvy?” she said and then, for good measure, turned to me and added, “And you can bugger off too.”
Well, I’d been about to go for polite conversation, rather than a proposal of marriage, but gratuitous insults from imaginary people get up my nose, even without me having a headache. I fixed her with my own best steely glare.
“I checked on the way down and you do have a good arse, but since it’s only sitting on a bench next to mine I don’t think it gives you any right to be rude. If you aren’t floating back this way tomorrow, you can start thinking you’re somebody, till then you can take that attitude and stuff it.”
Two things struck me about these words as they came out of my mouth. The first was the accent was Belfast, rather than Geordie. Not that I minded exactly - I think the Belfast accent has a fine ring, like someone working metal on an anvil, but it wasn’t mine.
Maybe because of that came the second realisation; it had come out as harder and a lot more aggressive than I’d have liked. I wasn’t exactly trying for diplomacy much, but that was boorish.
The rest of the boat was obviously listening for how she’d reply. From the look on her face though, something in there had bitten and there wasn’t going to be any come-back. Her eyes dropped to her lap and she looked a bit cowed.
A feeling of guilt about snapping at a little girl was coming over me when she looked back up and said, “Sorry, that wasn’t called for, was it? I’m a bit… well it’s all a bit much to… y’know. Erm…”
I stuck out a hand. “Let’s start that bit over, eh? I’m … Brendan, pleased to meet you.’ I shrugged. ‘I snapped a bit as well, didn’t I?”
She grinned and took the hand. “Miya. You from Ireland?”
“Belfast, sort of,” I told her, and then threw in my mate Eamonn’s old line, “We used to make the best terrorists in the world; then they started making ‘em cheaper in the third world. What can yeh do?” She was unsure whether to be shocked or amused; the reaction Eamonn always used to get too, so I nodded at the boy who’d started this. “How about you?”
“Oh, I’m Lewis. Hi.”
The ice was only half-broken, so I elected myself host and got everyone else to introduce themselves too. The others were all from the South of England. I’m a Northerner, a Great Northerner and very, very Northern, so that didn’t look like a good start. He wouldn’t have written many good parts for Tynesiders, I knew, but he couldn’t stand Scousers or Mancs much either. I asked if anyone knew what’d happen next.
As it turned out, a few of them did; bits of it at least. Some had relatives who had been through this before. There wasn’t, well, there couldn’t be, anyone on the boat who knew less about this world and how it worked than me. I spent just about all the rest of the boat ride listening, or politely faking it, as each chipped in their information and opinions on different people they knew the names of, training we’d get etc. etc. All providing, of course, we passed this Initiation test.
Part of me wanted to be making notes of all this, otherwise I’d forget it; but it didn’t really matter. I’d only be here for the day, after all.
That didn’t happen in Book One. Where is that supposed to have come from?

James
We all noticed the laddie on the way down to the boats. If he had dandruff, you could probably use it as an ingredient in a spell (not one for an aphrodisiac, ‘cos some things have limits, but ye know what I mean) - it was that obvious he was a Mage. I did my usual trick of ‘falling asleep’ on the trip down and listened in to the crack. I threw a wee bit of forgetfulness at them so they wouldn’t mind me much.
Usually the girls are quite a mature bunch and the boys are just a spotty crowd o’ wee scunners. No their fault, of course, they are just wee laddies, but I often feel like dipping them in the river headfirst for a bit. Who was it said it’s lovely to hear the sound of children at play, just so long as you’re no close enough to hear what they’re saying? Sound man.
Anyway, young Earle wasn’t like that. With my eyes closed I would’ve been hard pressed to tell ye how old he was. I mean, his voice hadn’t broken yet, so the noise was young, but the questions and the way he managed the others just wasn’t an eleven year old, ye ken? I wanted to write that crack about the good arse on the back o’ my hand. There was bound to be a time I could use it. Great line from a kid with a cat feather sticking up behind him, looking like the tail on something annoyed. 

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