"Kren": Part Two ('Old Man Mosshide')

Kren was last in line for his pay and lingered near the end of the straggling line of workers heading back to Far Reach. As they entered the village many turned into The Guesthouse, a ramshackle building called for courtesy’s sake an inn, but which was mostly an alehouse with a few stalls of straw for drinkers who accidentally overstayed their visit. Others passed it and went into their own homes. Kren trudged on after them all until he came to the end of town and Old Man Mosshide’s place.

Everyone still called it that, even though Mosshide had been dead for fifty years now. He had already been Old Man Mosshide when Kren’s mother had passed away and he had taken the young Morg into his care. Even now Kren couldn’t quite figure out why he’d done it, unless it were a mixture of pity and loneliness. The old carpenter had been a bit of a recluse, and mostly treated him like a combination of a dog and a pet parrot in the early years.

As Kren grew up and Mosshide grew ever older, the aging man taught him more and more of his business, pegging boards and setting stone, cutting shingles and thatch, mixing mortar and placing struts. At first, he felt like another tool in Mosshide’s apron, then an assistant, and finally an apprentice, but never like a son. He finally accepted that such a family feeling couldn’t be between them, though he believed that the old man loved him in his own way.

Still, it was a surprise to him and the whole village to find that when Old Man Mosshide finally passed away he had left the house to Kren. It had always been assumed that when the crotchety hermit was dead the Hetman (after the nominal fees and rites) would subsume the place into his multiple holdings. But the will was found to be indisputable and binding, burned into a board with a hot iron and surrounded by the usual oaths and curses which even the Hetman could not set aside.

In the end it was deemed just as well. They still needed a village carpenter and there was no-one else with the skills. Mosshide’s place was small, and, by the usual paradox that governs many occupations, was the least cared for in Far Reach. The Hetman consoled himself with the thought that Kren might leave, or, failing that, die himself someday, and then the property would be his. The Hetman had grown grey waiting until he was even older than Old Man Mosshide had ever been. The village had forgotten, or perhaps never knew, about the fabled long life of the Morgs. Kren himself remained inhumanly hale for his age; another point of resentment.

The first thing he had done when the house was his was to patch up all the things that Mosshide had let go, and in the fifty years he had lived there he’d made constant improvements. He had little else to do with his spare time. The building Kren returned to now was small but one of the sturdiest and neatest in town. He ran an appraising eye over things before he went in; it seemed untouched. He nodded, grimly satisfied, then went in.

The first thing he did was slide out of his sweat-soaked leather tunic, hanging it over a chair to dry. Then he took his day’s pennies over to a workbench covered with pots of paints and glue. Selecting a clay jar marked by a skull in relief and half-full of black-colored water, he unstoppered the wax lid and plunked the money in. That jar had helped him over many a dry spell when jobs were thin. He set it back among the paint, turned to the nearby water barrel, and drew himself a large tin cupful. He walked over stiffly to the dead fireplace and sat down in the squat chair there. He took a long sip of water, some of which trickled down into his trailing beard, and finally allowed himself to breathe.