The Mariner

12. LAST RITES

THE MARINER WATCHED THE FUNERAL from his vantage point, high upon the rising slope. He stood in the shade of the mighty inner wall, allowing the cool stone to sooth his sun-scorched back. After following the procession for a while, he’d returned to the Neptune and gathered his tools, finally returning to a quiet point where he could watch the events unfold. Like a vulture he scrutinised, unnoticed from on high.

Around a hundred people had turned out for the girl’s burial; they had meandered through town, a band playing the march to match the people’s tears. Women had wailed and men cursed. The local holy-man, Reverend McConnell, led the procession, his scriptures clasped in his hands, muttering prayers and pleadings for the deaths to stop. The Mariner did not know how the girl had died, but was sure this was not the first death of this sort. The procession had an air of the rehearsed about it.

Finally they arrived at the town’s small graveyard, an embarrassingly tiny plot of land for what was such a large community. But this was a first generation town, peoples thrown together, forced to eke out an existence on an island barely capable of sustaining a third of their number, a fact painfully clear as they stood around the hole in the ground, so many baring witness that most were forced to watch from upon graves filled just weeks before. An uncomfortable position, made plain by their anxious glances to the loose soil at their feet.

A man stood removed from the crowd in a position of honour. The dead girl’s father. The onerous grief could be seen from the grey in his face to the dead of his eyes. All held him in high regard. His sorrow gave him importance, at least for today.

The Mariner toyed with his bag, a leather satchel containing the tools he would need: a pick, shovel, candle, matches, rope . It was a shame to watch them pour earth into the very same hole he would have to empty later, but there was nothing he could do about that. Patience. That was the key.

But patience was hard to come by. He was starving, and not just for food. The Mariner was an alcoholic, a slave to devils and the demon drink, and both would be loath to forgive such delay. But the Mariner understood well that once be began drinking, there would be no end. He had to acquire a meal for the devils before that grim process began. They’d tolerate nothing less.

The service lasted until sundown and the Mariner waited in the shadows until the final mourners slouched away. Perhaps some in the crowd saw him, but it didn’t matter, he wouldn’t stay in Sighisoara long. After gathering food and booze the Mariner would be off, continuing his search. There wouldn’t be time to incur their wrath.

Once alone, the Mariner set to work. The earth was soft and grave shallow, his spade easily removing the blanket of soil that was supposed to keep the girl eternally warm. He glanced at the wooden cross placed at the head of the pit. ‘Theresa’. It held no surname, nor did it hold dates. In this world there were no dates, there was no time beyond the day before and the day after. Anything outside of those were anyone’s guess.

As he dug he didn’t feel villainous; more a trifle rude, as if he were pulling the duvet off a shift-worker, just gone to bed. The dirt looked oddly comfortable.

A luxury beyond our times, luv, he thought. Can’t let good meat spoil.

Theresa hadn’t been buried in a coffin, a waste of scarce wood. Instead, an old cloth had been stitched about her. It hung closely, the tailor keen to use the minimum material possible. It pulled about her like a mask, stained and bug-ridden. The Mariner brushed off as much dirt as he could. Stitches proved weak as he ran a knife along the seam and like a pod, the death-shroud popped open, revealing the peas within.

The girl couldn’t have been dead for longer than a day. She was a pretty young thing, no more than seventeen at the most. Her hair, protected from the earth by the shroud, was a rich golden colour that shimmered in the moonlight. It brought a little light to her pale face, milky skin that descended into darkness as it reached her throat, for the throat was coated with dried blood from the long slit that reached from ear to ear.

No guilt. The girl was dead; if there was anything left of her, it wasn’t here. This was just flesh. It would either be eaten by worms, or by his devils, it mattered not to her.

The Mariner swung the dead body over his shoulder and without bothering to fill in the grave, headed for his boat. First the Neptune’s devils, then his own. This was the deal the Mariner promised himself as he carried young Theresa’s corpse, her flesh stiff under his grasp.