Day 128: The Skull Reader Part 2

The cold meat seasoned with rosemary burst in her mouth as she chewed on the sandwich.  Holding the meal in one hand, she put the food away and wiped the counter with the other hand.  No sitting at the table this afternoon, she was anxious to get to work.  Through all the readings, she always hoped to find a shred of evidence for Ole and his family.  They were good people, treated unfairly.  But without proof, the people's memories lasted over seven generations.

Back in her work room, she finished the last bite of her sandwich, washing it down with a fresh glass of tangy goat's melt from the morning chores.  With the flame of a single lit candle, she placed lavender above to catch it on fire.  She placed it in a bowl to smolder.  The herb kept the decay smell at bay and helped to relax her for the reading.

Next, Hille put on her work gloves.  With them she couldn't read the skull.  A few times the readings caused her to drop a fragile skull shattering it to pieces.  Reading other bones or parts of a shattered skull distorted the history she witnessed.  Without the gloves, just a slight touch of the skull could start the reading.  While taking off the helmet, her reading could cause her to drop the skull.  She always had to be very careful. 

Torger constructed a table that stood taller then most and stood next to the window.  She placed the skull and helmet on the flat surface that came to her upper waist.  With her right hand, she picked up a small hammer and with the left a miniature metal pick with one side flattened.  Placing the point in a jagged line on the helmet, she tapped ever so lightly.  A piece fell to the table.  Around the helmet she worked, flakes of metal piling all around the skull.  A side section fell.  A length of black hair drifted down.  The man had been younger.  She jiggled the skull.  A crack reverberated through the room.  To her relief, the rest of the helmet broke in half.  The skull remained intact.

In the middle of the room, a soft blue carpet lay on the floor.  She placed the skull in the middle and sat down in front of it.  Pulling the gloves off, she tossed them up on the work counter.  She steadied her breath.  Her ultimate hope was the skull would be that of her grandfather's cousin who never came back from the battle.  None of their village came back from the village.  She was sure if he could be found; the truth would be revealed.

Breathing deeply, her long slim fingers wrapped around the grey skull.  Colors flew by in a rush, like butterflies of various colors.  Flitting back and forth, she grabbed at the first hints of green, collecting them into a pile.  One by one, she looked at the memories representing his environment.  His mother showing him to friends as a wee baby in a community building, the name Henric on her lips.  Another scene with him looking back on his little village as he and his father drove a wagon full of potatoes east to the city for market.  She sighed realizing he haled from a different village then their own. 

Grumbling about missing lunch with Torger, she plunged further into the skull.  This time she gathered the colors of red and black, the hues most associated with rage and death.  Chuckling, she lingered in a memory from his childhood.

A young Henric, wearing overalls that only reached the top of his ankles, stood in the heat of the day.  Off in the distance the flutter of white in the breeze from his shirt laying in the field caught her attention for a split second.  His booted foot pushed down on the metal lip of a shovel.  Up came a pile of potatoes, he tossed them to the side.  Hille felt the rush of cold water as it pored down his body.  Henric turned around in shock as a girl, a head taller then himself, in a soft pink dress, laughed at him.  Both his and Hille's right hand curled up in a fist.

"Henric, don't even think about hitting your sister," a warning cut through the air.  They looked at the wagon, at the older man dressed like his son.  "Now, no more fooling around.  Get the potatoes in the wagon, Ingrid."

"Yes, Papa."  She bent down with her black hair being pulled by the wind.  The potatoes plunked as they were tossed into the bucket.

Hille pulled away from the memory, smiling.  The relationship of siblings remained the same over the generations.  The next memory she pushed away when she saw Henric leaning over the pine box looking at the same young girl.  A small tear trickled down Hille's cheek as her own memory of her daughter's funeral came to her thoughts.

Finally, she found what she was looking for in his memories.  The last hours of a battle intrigued Hille.  Memories passed through a soldier’s mind in jumbled confusion for her, the reader.  They never flowed in a chronological progression.  Nor were the ones she needed always red and black.  She allowed the memories associated with the rolling green battlefield to flow through her fingers, like a piece of yarn as she worked on a scarf for the winter.  A speck of gold caught her attention, the negative representative of self-righteousness. 

Henric sat underneath an aspen tree, resting in the shade and watching the battle before him.  Soon his unit would be called to engage the enemy from the right flank.  He turned when he heard a twig snap to his side.  Coming in his direction, his leader huffed and puffed with a red face.

"The damn villagers of Hinsfield are refusing to join the battle.  We will be on our own.  Gear up and make piece with your life for surely we die on this field."

"Damn southerners think themselves too good for the land.  At least they aren't fighting for the other side."  Henric stood.  Off in the distance, he saw the duke riding towards them.  Their time had come to fight.

Hille felt the thrill of battle mingled with the fear of death as she pulled herself from the memories and removed her fingers from the skull.

The exchange between the two men confused her.  The entire village refused to fight?  Never had she heard this story.  In reading the histories, the fault of cowardice always sat with Ole's family, not the village.  The reading of the skulls he brought to her also held the the whisper of a single coward being dealt with, which she assumed to be Ole's grandfather.  Now there was an accusation of the entire village being afraid.  Or had they rebelled?  She always thought the fact that not one person lived through the battle, an oddity, or that a skull was retrieved from the field from the village of Hinsfield. 

If the village unit never engaged in the battle, why didn't they come home?  Throughout the histories, a few times rebellion happened in the army.  In these cases, an inquiry would be made, and a sentence doled out to either the rebels or to the leader if his orders were detrimental to the army.

Fear crawled up her spine.  Ole would be excited about this news.  But to use this information would doom their entire community.  Instead of his family being shunned, the village would be cut from all incoming and outgoing commerce from the country.  The king would make her cut her ties from her home and bring her to the city.  However, instead of living in the palace, she would be sent to the slums and no longer paid for her work.  She would become his slave.