Gerrand Blackhand
Gerrand had risen before the sun, and gone to fetch Urdana. He took with him the painted, earthen great-jar, black as pitch and emblazoned with the sigil of his master's house. Though it weighed nearly 40 pounds unfilled, he carried it with ease to the water and would carry it back to the high-walled home of Doro Blackthorn without difficulty. He had grown in accordance to the whims of his office. Where a banker's son might develop a keen mind for figures and a tailor's daughter might grow to have fingers deft and quick, so had he inherited the thick arms and bullish shoulders of a water-bearer.
The roads in his master's town were humble and thin. Lit by lantern in the pre-dawn and unpaved, the meager path weaved between the earthen houses, the few shops and the small market that comprised Blackthorn proper. Gerrand knew from his few outings in the service of his master that were he in the household of some great man in Goldenrod, or any of the cities in the west, he might have taken an automobile to the riverside this morning, or more likely a bicycle. In truth, his position as water-bearer would not exist in any city but this, he reflected as he washed alone in the clear, quick water. The great-jar watched him imperiously from the shore through the serpentine eyes on its silver sigil.
Of course, a man in an automobile would not be able to climb the tall stairway cut in to the mountain that lead from the river back to his master's town. Nor would a man on a bicycle be able to carry the heavy great-jar through the uneven streets of Blackthorn without overturning his load. Gerrand felt the many muscles in his back give an involuntary shudder as the cold water rose to his shoulders, each bearing a deep brand – the mark of his master's house. A man carrying the great-jar by bicycle would have many more such markings.
Gerrand submerged completely, letting the river pull through his long black hair. The current was strong. If he let it, the river would carry him all the way to through the mountains that surrounded his quiet town and to the sea, so far away. Lifting his head back above the surface, he walked back towards the shore, where the great-jar waited like an impatient father watching his child at play. "Back to work, now," it seemed to say. He had dawdled enough.
The mist was still hovering over the river, though he knew it would be burnt away by the sun soon. Taking the heavy black jar by one of the thick handles that curved down from its gaping mouth, he carried it bodily to the water to drink. This was the river Urdana. She flowed silver and black from the ice caps that surrounded Blackthorn like a jagged crown, and its water was sacred to the town and its master. Each pulse of the river added ten pounds to the load Gerrand bore, but when the jar was full he pulled it from the water as lightly as he had lowered it. His arms and back, legs and neck, all bulged and bore the weight evenly as he lifted the great-jar with one hand under its tapered bottom and the other wrapped around its handle.
A woman stood at the foot of the great stone stair that weaved up the mountain pass to Blackthorn. Gerrand had seen her before. Upon her hip she bore a jar of white ceramics, glazed smooth as ivory. Her skin, tan and strong, stood out in contrast. The moon over fresh tilled earth. Duty had crafted each sinew of her body in the same fashion as his, and as he grew near her he reached out his eyes for hers. Deep pools of liquid amber in warm sand. The road to the river was narrow. When she passed, he knew he would be able to smell the lavender that she washed in nightly. Standing to one side of the rocky path, little more than a game trail, he made way for her passage.
"Thank you, Gerrand Blackhand. A good day to you and your master." She said as she passed. Gerrand's eyes were downcast as she walked by, but he turned to watch her go. The woman's hair was woven in to a long braid of thick black silk that hung well past her hard buttocks and swung like the pendulum on some grand old clock of dark wood. He knew it had taken three serving girls as many hours to twist so much hair in to one single strand of onyx, and he appreciated every second of their labor.
"And to you, Laranna Fangfoot. May the violets in your master's garden forgive your beauty and bloom on." He called back to her in a calm voice, though the electricity of his boldness was running through him. Her only answer was a smile tossed furtively over one shoulder, and a shake of her lustrous head.
There were several such servants who carried water back and forth from the river to their houses. All bore their natural first names, and the beginnings of their master's surnames. The latter portion of the noble name became hand, or foot; arm or ear, to designate that the man or woman bearing the name was an extension of the noble house. It was not unheard of for a servant to leave his or her master's service, for whatever reason, and upon such a time a new surname was usually chosen. Many servants, however, chose to stay in the household they were born in to, especially if they had the fortune of being born into a house so great a Doro Blackthorn's, whose wings stretched the valley-wide. Such was the way of the village.
Cresting the highest ridge of the mountain stair, he beheld Blackthorn below. Each building in the town, regardless of its owner's station, was built of a dark sturdy brick, and roofed with a sheeny green ceramic. Tendrils of smoke rose from many of the chimneys as morning meals were prepared. A man led a miltank drawing a rickety cart of milk from door to door. A serving girl of six or seven years walked to empty a chamber pot, her arms outstretched to keep the smell from her nose. It was a warm place. A good place.
At the head of all of this sat the house of Doro Blackthorn. On its island in the middle of The Tranquil Lake it was the pupil of a great blue eye. Its expansive grounds and far reaching, red tiled roof were surrounded by thick brick walls. A pair of towering timber doors, painted black, stood in the center of the wall facing the village. Gerrand's long road home would take him over the stone bridge that reached across the lake. When at last he reached those tall doors, the great silver sigil glaring down from the black wood, he would enter the house of his master, and pour the Urdana into the mosaic central pool, as he did every morning.
Behind his master's house rose Mount Urdon. The Black Fort, men called it. Beyond that Gerrand Blackhand couldn't say what there was. The sun rising over the water-bearer's shoulder cast itself in a faded violet on the Urdon's rough-cut head, such that it looked like a great bloom of lavender. Thinking of Laranna, her black braid heavy in the water, her thin cotton dress hiked up around her thighs – guarded against the cold water, he turned back to call to her.
Beneath, at the end of the long rocky stair, the serving woman's pretty ivory jar sat alone by the river, an old woman. From this distance it looked like a pearl, sharp and glittering, on a necklace that was the dark blue Urdana. Gerrand strained keen eyes at the jar, the river, and the jagged shore, where smooth river stones met hard rocks cast from the path above. He looked on and again.
Laranna Fangfoot was gone.