The Giant

By Sam Friedland

"Stop right there. It was a voice of measured power, a voice comfortable with command.

With these words, we are introduced to a new character in the pantheon of heroic figures, a giant in stature and strength who is but too human in aspiration. Nature has favored him as undefeatable in combat, society has cast him as military champion, yet he longs for tranquility of home and delectation of family. What must he accomplish to earn the right to claim his desire? What must he sacrifice?

The port of Girasol, known to all as the beautiful jewel, offers the giant a winters respite from his wanderings. He finds amicable welcome among denizens in the local tavern and there, too, he finds Soessa, the copper haired round girl who warms his heart through the coldest of nights.

When the village is threatened by pirate siege, local moneylenders implore him to raise armed defense but, averse to presiding over even one more battle, the giant defers accepting their commission. He encounters trolls with peculiar dietary penchants and wondrous skills, who fathom greater threat concealed within folds of the pirate attack. For they remember the Demonic Titans vow to take as brother he who releases them from interment imposed in ages past by the Great Powers. It is Schadenfreude, master of the pirate fleet, manipulator of lives, who intends to redeem the Titans promise. His cruelty is exceeded only by their treachery, his madness by their craving.

Town dwellers, bucolics of the country wide around, troll tribes, caravaneers from the distant east, and swamp-saurians crystallize alliances to resist their common enemy. However, their stand against the far stronger pirates is doomed without the giants aid. Devotion among the confederates to their families and to the beautiful jewel enables the giant to see his own thread in the grand tapestry of the ages and to choose a course of action by which he can both defend Girasol and attain the life of peace he seeks.

Some of The Giants Supporting Characters

A lizard of a man, the Saurian scout fell upon her with his teeth, biting and gnashing and tearing until she moved no more. The lizards tongue lapped blood from once beautiful flesh. He snickered quietly to himself, Sweet. Very sweet.

How in mid winter did one furry little Tribal Luminary, the troll princess Mozin Bur Mai, bid Girasols harbor calm with no more than chant and seashell? One might sooner know why? than how?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 13, 2004
• ISBN: 9781462820016

Sam Friedland

In cadence evoking storytellers of oral tradition, Sam Friedland weaves a classic tale of heroes and villains, of challenges and triumphs, of origins and ends. Throughout his fantasy novel, The Giant, he casts his sharp eye for detail across olden earth and into its inhabitants’ hearts where he reveals delicate yearnings and prickling greeds. In some, he uncovers frantic impulse or sanguine rancor. In others, he finds lust or exuberance or wisdom. Then, using language ranging from lavish prose to dotty doggerel, he paints characters and scenes that will halt your breath and draw your sighs and gape your jaw and wide your eyes.

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Copyright © 2004 by Sam Friedland.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THE GIANT

EPILOGUE

CONSTELLATIONS

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

TROLL TRIBES

For Louann and Ben

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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Moons wax and wane. In his chamber, the writer sits with only his muse for companionship. And when he can no longer bear the solitude, he emerges, pages in hand, with thirst stronger than thirst to share the gleanings of his labor.

Who does he seek? On whose arm can he lean for guidance? Who will thrill to his art and craft with warm and loving heart? Who will spurn his folly and hubris with cold and ruthless eye? To whom does he trust his most fragile yearnings, his most delicate child?

These are the midwives, writers all, who have stood by me as I have birthed The Giant:

Donna Staples, Sharon Bowers, Martine Callebaut, Gary Carter, David Minkow, Stewart Rowe, Sue Shane.

Guy Biederman, Colleen Rae, Betsy Fasbinder, Diana Franco, Tom Hayes, Rich Mellott, Christie Nelson, Amy S. Peele, Kathleen Rueve, Barbara Toohey, Damon Yeargain.

May many readers find their words.

Sam Friedland

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THE GIANT

by

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Stop right there. It was a voice of measured power, a voice comfortable with command.

The two little boys stopped right there. They were immediately uncomfortable with command. Their toes squirmed. Their bodies swayed from one uncomfortable posture to another. They had thrust their arms stiffly behind their backs emphasizing, rather than concealing, that they were hiding their hands. Their eyes darted furtively, terror stricken, desperately seeking safe haven, but finding only white sand and ruddy pebbles at their bare feet and the shadow-shrouded figure of a giant blocking their escape from this fetid alleyway.

Not so long ago, this alley was a hub of commerce. Pushcarts laden with staple vegetables and preserved meats, with heady brews and delicate fruits, vied for the best positions in the flow of traffic. Jubilant awnings softened light falling on bolts of earthy wools, pristine linens, and rainbow-dyed silks. Doorways opened into shops featuring sturdy furniture, fine pottery, fragile artworks, learned tomes, rare woods, ivory, and hoards of precious jewels. Cajoling, wheedling barkers displayed tables piled high with tools and leathers and furs. Caftan-clad marketeers led tethered animals or drove chained slaves, both being beasts of burden, from stall to kiosk to booth to pavilion, sometimes selling, sometimes buying, sometimes trading, . . . always haggling. The air smelt heavily of roasts and curries, of exotic spices and perfumes, of sweat of brutish labor, and of the cloying redolence of hashish that strayed in tendrilled zephyrs from tapestry-concealed portals.

But not tonight.

Tonight the alleyway stank of spilled blood and blackened smoulder and spoiled bile, of ammoniacal urine and mephitic feces. Tonight the alleyway had no pushcarts with sumptuous foods. Tonight the alleyway’s doors were bricked over and colorful awnings were no more than a note in an ancient traveler’s journal. Tonight the alleyway was venue to no sellers, no buyers, no traders, and . . . no hagglers.

Tonight the alleyway was the setting for a meeting of street urchins with a giant.

Show me what you are hiding behind your backs. The voice commanded.

Again, the boys complied without resistance. The taller child, perhaps nine years old with hair uncut and billowing, lowered his eyes and brought his hands into view. He turned them palms up and extended his fingers. One hand held a fish head scavenged from a pride of cats near the docks. The other held some biological detritus, probably entrails of the fish the cats didn’t want. The boy brought it to his mouth and began gnawing on it.

The smaller child, no older than six, mewled in tears and brought forth his prize, a brown half-cabbage, soft and wilted. The leaf by which he held it tore and the little brown lump fell to the dust before the giant’s boots. The loss of his dinner was, Oh! too terrible to the child. He gave in to grief and hunger, limped back a step, and sat down cross-legged in the dust. He brought his elbows close together, wrists bent back, palms opened to the sky, fingers curled as tightly as snails. He threw back his head and rocked with full-throated sobs.

The bigger boy cradled the wracking child and murmured in his ear and, lo, the comforting touch calmed the tyke to a whimper and a sniffle. Another murmur from the elder soothed his little partner, who then relaxed at peace, his anguish ameliorated.

Silent as snow, the Giant narrowed his eyes to shift his attention from sight to sound. Just outside this alleyway, a rhythmic padding had suddenly ceased. He heard sniffing, and his own nostrils flared as he sniffed in return. He sorted through the panoply of odors: excrement, putrefaction, dead fish . . . wholly repugnant. And, ’though faint, the giant identified the scent that attracted the yet unseen creature.

Meat.

The creature—the dog (even with no further clues, the giant recognized its behavior as canine)—with a nose a thousand times more sensitive than his own, smelled him and the little boys and was now assessing the probability of dinner. The giant shifted his balance and turned to face the head of the alley.

Canines are social animals. They will observe strict caste ranking in which every dog knows his position as member of the pack. Their social acumen, like their superior sense of smell, ensures their species will survive. They will hunt as a pack, the giant reasoned. They will observe their prey at distance without bothering to conceal themselves like cats. In an instant they will scan the land’s lay and intuit tactical advantage. Each member of the pack will assume a specific role in the hunt: frontal onslaught for the boldest dogs and for those urgent to prove themselves, escape containment for the slow, aging, and timid, ancillary assault for dogs of midlevel status. They will commit to a plan of attack as they come into the open, concluded the giant. They will be fearless and as ferocious as their wild cousins and ancestors.

Still unseen, the leader began growling, then a pariah dog and then another, each adding a voice to the tattoo.

A staghound, eleven stone of muscle and teeth, stepped into view at the end of the alley and announced his intention with nostrils flaring, hackles raised, lips pulled back, fangs flashing even in the dark. His tawny fur lay in uneven mats crisscrossed by dark scars and raw wounds. He held his rump high, his shoulders low, his ears pinned back, and he marked with his eyes the eyes of the giant. The pitch of his growl rose with parries and fell with feints as he regarded his quarry and sought an opening advantage. Other dogs in the pack assumed positions according to their status.

The dogs’ motley voices fused into a monition of savage carnivory that scaled a terrifying peak. And then, suddenly, as if the entire pack paused to say grace, every voice was silent, every breath was still, every body was taut.

Then all the Underworld broke loose.

The pack rushed forward. The littler boy grasped his protector’s arm screaming panic and pain as one cur and another bit into a foot or an ear. Taste of blood frenzied the dogs. Screaming, growling, and barking filled the alley like terror made tangible. The carnivores’ rapacity unclenched the tad from the older child’s grip, splaying his legs one way, his arms other ways, tearing him apart at the joints, ripping into his stomach. In seven shrieking breaths, there was no longer enough of the child to struggle and no more sounds did he make.

Three aggressive picadors snapped at the giant’s calves but he ignored these and bolted forward to kick at the leader. Four dun-black mastiffs, alike enough to have been pedigreed siblings, leaped as one beast with four gnashing mouths. Shoulder to shoulder they struck the giant, unbalancing him, biting at his thorax, nipping his thigh, and snapping his hand, crushing his elbow. With teeth aflash and breath that reeked fury, the leader sprang for the giant’s throat.

The giant’s left arm felt numb but he swung his right and kicked, dislocating the jaw of one dun-black and cracking the ribs of another. They lay stunned where they fell. The pack leader and two of the matched quartet renewed their attack and would not back off. Supine lay the giant, pounding up at the dogs. One mastiff bit his thigh trying to separate meat from bone and the other pulled and shook his unfeeling left hand as a pup might play tug of war with a hank of rope.

In spite of the giant’s pain, or maybe because of it, time seemed to slow down. Feeling the hot breath of the pack leader on his neck, his right hand grasped blindly and closed its grip around the cur’s lower hind leg. He twisted the limb until he heard it crack and he felt the beast convulse with searing agony. The staghound now made a new sound. A sharp yelp cut short the growl as the dog twisted back on himself snapping wildly at the hand that wrenched his leg.

But the giant would not let go. He marshaled his strength and swung the dog by its broken hind limb. The staghound’s yelping rose to a high-pitched wail, a wail of pain beyond endurance, a wail that cut through resolve of others in the pack. In their instant of hesitation, the giant staggered to his feet to swing the leader in great circles overhead like a mace. He used the yiping beast to batter off the mastiff gripping his leg; the other withdrew out of range. He slammed the screaming dog against a wall crushing its skull. The yelping ended abruptly and still the giant did not let go. The dead animal became the giant’s hammer to beat away other beasts. As one, the pack knew the tide had changed and that it must needs retreat. And in as few seconds as the melee began, it was over. The alley was suddenly quiet again except for panting of the giant and murmuring of the nine-year-old.

Like every soldier who had ever prevailed in hand-to-hand combat, the giant exulted in the flush of victory. But, like every soldier who had ever prevailed in hand to hand combat, his terror and excitement evaporated, leaving only pain and dismay as he assayed his own wounds.

The first dun-black had misjudged the point of contact: he tore the giant’s cloak but failed to break skin. The giant’s left leg sustained surprisingly little injury as the mastiff’s teeth had pierced only shallow. His hand, shredded by the next had no feeling at all, because the fourth dog, who struck at elbow height, had clamped his powerful jaws around the joint, severing an artery, piercing muscles, ripping tendons, and shattering bones. Beyond the elbow, the giant had no feeling in his left arm. Just as well. Red spurted in a parabolic arc from the artery above the joint and loss of blood sapped his strength. He took one step and then another and his knees buckled and he crumpled into a heap at the feet of the billow-haired boy.

As his consciousness waned, he noted that the boy had survived the attack unscathed. But before the question could form on his lips, the child touched gently at the gouges inflicted by the pack leader on the giant’s throat and face and the giant slipped into merciful sleep.

In the sleep of giants, as in that of lesser men, dreams originate from an ineffable abyss. Specters and wraiths may rise from barren plains of sun-baked mud. Naked princesses may dance between raindrops in endless meadows of flowers. Packs of dogs as numberless as stars may seethe through city streets stripping meat from the bones of unfortunate creatures they encounter.

In his dream, the giant’s footsteps trod an ocean in flame, a searing fire of bitter hostility among nations and tribes, reducing all before it to ash and rubble. Great thirst felt he. Amidst the impenetrable fires descended a sphere of cool mist within which smiled a boy child with hair free to the wind, unconcerned for the blazing turmoil all about him. The boy promised to slake the giant’s thirst and bade him follow. The child’s hand could clasp but one finger of the great man’s right hand, yet that was sufficient to lead the way across stepping stones to a shore out of the burning waters. When at last they walked on dry white sand, the boy child proffered a conch shell vessel containing sweet drink for the giant. Cool rain quenched the fires behind them and drew forth buds of new growth in brushwood thickets beyond the dunes ahead.

Gradually, light on his face teased him from slumber. He hesitated to open his eyes, preparing himself to awaken in the dusty alleyway, awash in the revolting smell of his war with the feral dogs, his blood mixed with theirs staining his garments, the street, and the alleyway walls. He prepared himself for the remainder of his life as a cripple, his damaged hand hanging useless, hideous scars on his neck and jaw, frightening people wherever he would go. He tried to prepare himself for the terrible loneliness of this new, ugly, giant self.

To no avail.

Against great resistance, he forced open his eyes and knew at once that he could never have prepared himself for what he now saw. No light of day had recalled him from sleep. Only stars and the face of the boy child shone upon him. Silently, he looked for—but saw not—evidence of his battle with the dogs. No blood, no fallen beasts, not even the dead pack leader remained. The alleyway, which had been so fetid, so filthy, so forbidding, now channeled only clean, moist ocean breeze.

Pain throbbed in his crushed elbow. No feeling had he in his mangled hand. The bite in his thigh looked ragged but hurt little. And, lo! When his right hand explored his face and throat, he discovered no trace of wounds inflicted by the staghound.

He wanted to ask the boy child how long he had slept, where were the dead dogs, what had become of the smaller boy? He wanted to ask how his neck had healed so quickly? He wanted to ask the boy child wherefore came such light as shone from within his face? But the only words he could form with his lips were I thirst.

Without hesitation, the moppet handed him a conch shell vessel filled to overflowing with cool, sweet rainwater. He drank his fill and again became drowsy. He was returned to mercifully dreamless sleep.

Many months before, when the giant first came to the coastal village of Girasol, its harbor, although tiny, served nevertheless as nexus of commerce among many lands far and near. Sailing vessels of all sizes, under flags of every stripe, graced its wharves and brought cargoes and treasures from places vulgar or exotic or extreme. Merchant princes clad in shimmering fabrics chattered in tongues foreign to the waterfront’s own freemen-stevedores who wore only knotted muscles and gnarled faces. Where go these crates and chests? the workers’ foremen demanded of the vendors, and whereto those casks and tuns? The seller’s minions riffled bills of lading, pointing to this warehouse and that caravan or to this kiosk and that salon. Village shopkeeps wove among the urns and boxes, testing wares, tasting fares, taking shares.

Sheikhs and nabobs threaded caravans through the high mountain pass connecting this seaport with the great trade routes to the vast and mysterious east. Here came they to barter silks for spices, teas for gemstones, hashish for art, gold for slaves. With them traveled cuisines and knowledge and culture of the orient. Their voices wove musical scales of exotic tonalities. Their eyes, narrow openings curved as hawk wings, glinted wild as wind-fanned cinders, wise as bellows-fanned embers.

The fishing fleet, having set out before hint of dawn, returned with tides below and seabirds above to monger from their quays the bounty of Mother Sea. For a shining coin, they sang out to the village’s wives and cooks, who will eat this shining fish?

Wayfarers, pilgrims, refugees, travelers, adventurers, mercenaries, runaways, fugitives, all sought passage by every means to all destinations of the known world and to places beyond its fringe. The wealthy hired servants and bearers and the poor hired themselves as bearers and servants.

Slave ships moored in deep water, away from the piers. By appointment only, buyers were ferried aboard unarmed and in small numbers by heavily equipped seamen. Even aboard ship, customers were guarded and their movements restricted to galleries around the selling blocks. Slaves to be sold into heavy labor, whose lives were to be brutal and short, were displayed on the forward decks, shackled ankles to deck cleats and wrists to an overhead wrought iron lattice. Nubile females and a number of smallish boys were stocked aft, in bamboo cages festooned with colored ribbons.

From vantage of a belvedere above the docks, above the shouts of raucous men and the squawks of raucous gulls, above the windborne spray of waves dashed against six magnificent rock sentinels protecting the port’s mouth, above the shallow hollows and narrow ramp cut into the wall’s face, above cliff swallows clinging to precarious edges in every weather, above everything save whistling wind and searing sun, the moneylenders, lean men and fat, cloaked in somber gray and austere black, calculated profits and losses they took in the roiling harbor below.

From the vantage of a belvedere above the docks, the moneylenders did not notice the giant threading his way along a dry meander through the fens. No merchant prince’s, no freeman’s, no fisher’s, no wayfarer’s, no shopkeep’s—no town dweller’s attention at all—did he draw upon his approach. Although he stood three heads taller and was broader at the shoulder than any great champion in the country wide around, he dressed in simple cloth and carried nothing in his hands. In a soft leather bag slung over his shoulder by a strap he stowed his few personal goods and, when he had any, coins in a leather pouch, some traveler’s bread, and salted meat. The leather strap also served as a belt to close his woolen cloak against rain and cold winds.

In the year since abandoning his military career in its ascendancy, he traveled on foot and without retinue, for few could keep pace with a giant’s steps and in fewer could he confide a giant’s doubts or a giant’s longings. Of late, he traveled quite alone. If asked why, he might have replied that, without a battle campaign to prosecute, he had no authority to command others to pursue his course. But in a deeper truth, he had no desire to impel anyone to follow him in procession from siege to invasion, from rampage to ravage, from battle to scorched earth, at the bidding of a potentate whose rules of engagement served only power, lust, and greed. And, alas, he believed that he had no right to lead, for now he wandered toward no achievable purpose, he journeyed toward no attainable goal, he traveled toward no reachable destination.

The fen-path ascended a knoll, at the edge of which the village’s skirt dropped to rocky beach. From its viewpoint, he gazed out to sea. As the sun reached for the horizon, two handsome ships rode the ocean’s surface. One tacked close hauled on a heading to catch the dazzling orb where its leading edge would touch the water. The other, in full sail, ran before the wind in a race to slip through the sentinels at the harbor’s mouth before the sky darkened. Above her colors, seagulls—a cloud of tiny black arcs rimmed with silver—welcomed her to port.

Turning, then, to put the setting sun at his back, the giant viewed Girasol with the rays of light parallel to his line of sight, coloring the waterfront and the buildings and the shops and the cliffs vibrant reds and golds. Some glass windows, according to their orientation, flung brilliant shards of sunlight back to his eyes. And from one precipice at the farthest end of the line of cliffs, perhaps a day’s march south along the coast, it seemed that many such windows directed the sun’s light back to the hillock where he stood. So bright was the light reflected from that promontory, he was forced to shield his eyes and turn away. Curious, thought the giant, aloud.

Turning further, he could see forests on the lower hillsides above the town. This was the time of year that foliage began replacing myriad greens with earthier colors. With the bronzing of leaves heralding winter’s approach, the giant portended a scarcity of dry cover and firewood on trails in the weeks ahead. Decreasingly warm days would yield to increasingly cold nights, ice would clog stream and path, and threat of sudden avalanche would forbid passage through the mountains to the east. Piercing wind would thrash seas to the west, cutting off the harbor from both access and egress. Seasonal dearth of forage would drive a shy retreat of game to the south. Seasonal dearth of game would drive a bold advance of predators from the north.

The giant stepped down from the knoll and rejoined the meander that soon climbed a tightly packed and weatherworn moraine toward the village.

When winter settled in, he reasoned, Girasol would be isolated until thaws of spring. No one in the country wide around yearned for his arrival at hearth. No one in the country wide around watched for his silhouette upon the horizon. And even a giant is made of flesh and, as flesh, is subject to hungers and preferences. As he entered the village, his nose came alive at the aroma of fresh yeasty bread. The smell of hardy meat and vegetable soup drew water from his mouth at this house, the day’s catch of fish frying in butter and herbs set his tongue to his lips at another. Coming upon a public wayhouse, the air was laden with vapors of ale and mead.

A peal of laughter rode the air from the saloon into the street and was followed on by guffaws, chuckles, and snorts, and then more laughter. A sudden gush of music burst from the door and danced in the dusk like ribbons in the wind. At these sounds, the giant stopped to peer into the lamp-lighted tavern from the darkness of the street.

People!

A wave of sadness riffled along his spine. How long had he been without company? How far had he walked without music? How many days had he lived without laughter? In that moment, the giant resolved to winter in this place. This seaside village would provide a suitable refuge for him to shuck off travel weariness and to construct a new purpose for his life yet to come. It was a salubrious choice, the giant noted, for his sadness melted like the wax of a candle casting forth a beam of ligh.

A round young woman with voluminous coils of hair the color of burnished copper entered the tavern from the kitchen hefting a steaming tureen. She hoisted it deftly onto a tabletop spilling not a drop, and clanged upon it with a wooden ladle as though it be dinner’s bell. Huzzah, Soessa! rose cheers of appreciation among the merry habitués and the sounds melded with the smells of honeyed mead and bitter ale and with the sudden, provocatively rich aroma of peppered meat stew thick with fresh vegetables. These mixed with the ribbons of music and danced out of the door into the giant’s ears and nose and brought water to his tongue. A chuckle of sensuous joy emerged from his throat and, ducking his head to clear the lintel, he stepped inside.

The music trickled to a stop, heads elevated, voices fell hushed and then silent, eyes widened and followed his as he looked into each face around the room. Accustomed to the fear of others unexpectedly confronted by his gigantic presence, he stood in place, hands quietly at his sides, allowing all to gape. Very slowly, he opened his cloak and revealed to all eyes that he carried no weapon. He allowed a smile to broaden his visage, strode forward to the round young woman, produced a coin from his leather pouch and pressed it into her hand. Soup! he said. And bread. And bring me ale! It was a voice of measured power, a voice comfortable with command.

Soessa eyed the ducat and with an exaggerated motion flipped it spinning nearly to the ceiling, jutted forward her bodice, and caught the tumbling disk in her abundant cleavage. Continuing her motion, she swung her hips in a wide circle to bump the giant’s thigh, she shook her plump finger as high as she could reach toward his nose, and sang out as if to an errant schoolboy, We serves people in the order they arrives. You just has to wait yer turn! A green crystal gemstone on velvet tape around her throat caught the fire from every lamp in the room.

The giant snatched her upraised arm with his right hand and lifted her from the floor, supporting her weight lightly in the crook of his left arm. The tavern fell silent with nary a breath. He raised her to face his face and whispered in a loud rasp so all could hear his words, That sounds to me like fair practice. His voice rose playfully, So get a move on, girl. We’re all hungry here!

After one more caesura, the room erupted in cachinnations and guffaws and howls. Now the giant’s face widened to a grin and he lowered the girl to her feet and delivered a loud pat to her rump. In less time than an otter’s yawn, the music players began a giddy melody and the denizens of the wayhouse resumed their merriment.

The scent of her hair lingered in his nostrils: fennel.

It was not long before Soessa had served soup and bread all around and the sounds of laughter and music were replaced by those of slurping and chewing. Sharing a meal imbues a feeling of affinity among strangers and friends alike.

To the locals of Girasol, the seafarers, the caravan drivers, the forest dwellers, and itinerant merchants, the giant became just another exotic traveler with whom to drink ale. Some asked him for news of places through which he had passed. Merchants offered to sell him goods and services. Some invited his opinions on the weather. A few solicited his advice on travel along the route that he had come. A husband and wife worried his ear about their tad who roved from his hammock many a night. They all drank ale together. Until late into the night they drank together.

The round girl had refilled their schooners so many times that her bodice and pockets were heavy with coins. She jingled at every step. And though weariness tugged at her feet, alacrity buoyed the corners of her eyes. With the music players long gone home, customers, new friends and old, began hailing their good-byes, leaving a few at a time until only the giant and, in a dark corner, a table of swarthy seamen remained.

Happy to be among lively people but tired from journeying, the giant called to the round girl. Before she could jingle from the kitchen to his tableside, the sailors demanded more honeyed mead. She gestured, In a breath, if you please.

Bring the pitcher here, girl!

She waved the sailor off with a grin and a lilting laugh. The coins in her pockets clinked as she turned to the giant. You called me first, she said, rolling her eyes as if to say, That fellow can wait his turn.

I require lodging, said the giant extracting money from his purse.

No bed large enough has this house for a grandee such as you. There be a pleasant garden in back. Private, too. Occupy it as yer own as long as y’wish to stay in Girasol. Hay is in the barn for yer bed; take all y’need. She drew his hand to the green gem and pried his fingers coyly until into her bodice he dropped the coins with a ching-ching that brought smiles to their lips. A subtle turn of her head draped copper red hair across his wrist and brushed her throat to his hand for a trace of a moment. As guest in this inn, she recited officiously while turning back to her work, you’ll be quiet whilst others sleep and you’ll pay for breakage. And no peeing out the windows; there’s a privy behind the barn.

She did not glance back, but rather, swept up a pitcher with one hand and unbunged the barrel with the other. An amber stream of honeyed mead filled the vessel. And, without spilling a drop, she rammed the peg back into the hole and danced her way to the table in the dark corner crooning, La, la, laaaa, la, la, laaaa, . . . all the way there.

His hand tingled where her skin had touched it. He went to fetch the hay and, even inside the barn among the animals, all he could smell was ennel.

An eagle cannot long pass unnoticed among swallows and a giant cannot long pass unnoticed among commonfolk.

In the palpable mist approaching dawn of his first morning at the wayhouse, even before he arose from slumber, 3 times-a-hand’s-count of Girasol’s children boosted each other to peer over the garden wall around his sleep-nest for their first peek ever at a giant. Their giggling chatter intruded, oh! so sweetly, into his reverie. How, he wondered as he shed sleep’s stupor, how had report of his arrival spread so quickly?

The sun thrust its first shaft like a javelin between a notch in the eastern mountains and a cloud in the covering sky. The giant rolled out, ever so gently out, from under voluminous coils of hair the color of burnished copper. He stretched his sinew, bone, and muscle. Then he sat up to wrap his arms tightly around his knees pulling his head down between them, contracting himself into the tightest ball he could make of his giant’s body, and then he stood and raised himself to full stature in that spear of light. He outstretched his massive legs and arms and splayed his powerful fingers to the sky. He breathed deeply to fill his chest with the sea’s moist salted air. Releasing the breath, he flexed at the hips to fold his upper body flat against his knees and shins. Again he stretched his body, arms, and fingers to the sky above, inhaling slowly, thoroughly, by nose to sort and savor the perfumes of growing things in morning’s chilled breezes. And again he folded himself flat to expel every plus the last breath his chest had ever held. For a third time he unfurled his body to its extreme, filling himself with so much of the sky’s air that he became as light as the sun’s ray in which he stood. He threw back his head and sang for the joy of being alive until this breath and his next breath and his next breath after that had saturated the dawn with the sound of a giant awakened full to life following deathlike wandering toward no achievable purpose, following moribund journeying toward no attainable goal. He had traveled to a destination he never imagined he could reach in this life. For in the faces of these children, as in the faces of their elders the night before, as in Soessa’s warm embrace in the chill of early morning, the giant saw Girasol welcome him as home.

At least for the winter, he thougt . . . .

In autumn, nature’s creatures will prepare for winter. Squirrels and ants will gather provisions enough to last through the shortest of days when plants rest from bearing fruit. Bears and dormice will layer themselves with fat to sustain them through their long cold sleep wherein they will dream of honey and berries in the spring to come. Rabbits and foxes, owls and mice will exchange their dark garments for white cloaks to render themselves invisible, each to the other in snow. Deer and fowl, who eat foods abundant only in summer, will migrate to warmer climes. And the Felidae and Canidae who eat only the flesh of those who eat only summer greens must needs choose: will they follow the herds for countless days and countless steps or will they gird their loins to hunt and starve in icy winds?

Village folk adapted these strategies according to their needs and talents. And now, adapting to village life, the giant did the same.

And so, when orchard branches swayed heavily with fruit, people of the town exchanged chores to grant each the season to pick, to press juices for wines, jams, and preserves, to rack some for drying, or to pack surplus for trade. When the fisher fleet sailed inbound through the sentinels, the harbormaster clanged the fishbell. Hearing the bell, folk would pause their doings and converge on the docks to unload the flopping cargo, to gut it, to salt or smoke portions to be laid away for winter or to be traded to feed cities along caravan routes to the east. Neighborly collaboration brought in grain and eggs and milk and cheeses from lowland farms between the dunes and the mountains. Forest dwellers culled game and fowl to furnish preserved meats and feathers and furs. These they carted to village markets along with wagonloads of cured and dressed woods for carpentry. Woodsmen cut and split firewoods diverse, vine-tying even lengths into bundles: each would burn with the signature scent of its tree: almond, oak, maple, pine, aspen, juniper, pecan, cherry, apple, walnut, hickory, and birch.

Before winter’s unpredictable winds and treacherous currents sealed the harbor until spring, sea captains sought cargo to fill their holds so they could set sail for milder ports. Traders and merchants scurried, then, to direct foremen and stevedores to empty warehouses and load ships with art of artisans and artifacts of manufacture, with foods in crates and brews in casks. Trade goods brought by caravans from the lands unknown to men of the sea would travel by ship to lands unknown to riders of camels.

Slavers, their decks long empty of beasts of burden, began to see a rise in demand for bed-warmers as nights turned cold and shopkeeps and businessmen rewarded themselves for profits taken after repaying the moneylenders. But on slave ships, too, captains surveyed lowering skies, watching wary for portents of winter and for high tides to bear them through the sentinels and out to open sea. Beyond the sharp horizon, awaited cities eager to exchange slavers’ gold for treasure and pleasure. Beyond their sharp horizons, awaited squalid docks where new flesh would feed the shackles and cages on their decks, ratcheting forward the cycle of profits and tears as old as civlization.

A giant, like other men, must earn his keep. Lodging and meals at the wayhouse and goods from village kiosks were commodities for which he must pay. To pay, he must earn. To earn, he must work. To work is to turn one’s talents, one’s energy, and one’s time to the service of others. The same law of nature that rewards ants for tireless foraging also loosens coins from men’s pockets for work performed in their service. The awareness and application of this law has appeared in every civilization. Only slavery is excluded.

As a youth, the giant’s overtowering size and enormous strength were interpreted by elders as a sign that his destiny would be to champion among trained soldiers. It seemed opportune to him as well: camp life provided the necessaries, food for strength, clothing for any climate, and shelter from the weather. And so, he learned the soldier’s ways. He adopted habits of building his body’s power and agility. He learned to well up fierceness on command. He apprenticed his eyes to the eagle, his ears to the deer, his nose to the wolf, and his will to the bear. He enjoyed the comradeship of his fellows in arms. None with whom he trained could best him, none against whom he battled could prevail against him. He devoted his life to mastering combat as any boy would immerse himself in pursuing excellence in any other sport.

And sport it was!

When his platoon was assigned to ensure peace at the festival bazaar, the soldiers oft’ needs took chase after nimble street thieves. A thieving fraternity of filchers, shoplifters, pickpockets, and bag-snatchers provided the patrol a day’s exercise by creating diversions, playing snatch and run, passing booty from hand to hand, and melding with crowds.

At the cordage manufactory, a buyer wearing heavy boots with brass anchor buckles and a seaman’s cap disagreed with the caftan-clad seller over a certain spool of rope and its suitability for sale. A shouting match ensued and other festivalgoers called for police. By the time the giant arrived, a crowd had gathered, cheering and jeering. The shopper had strung the ankles of the merchant to a joist and was in the process of unraveling every coil in the shop. "This you call cord? he squawked. This is brittle thread!" He flung the skein at the downside-up cordwright who squirmed with his legs bare and his caftan flapping around his head, obscuring his vision and muffling his voice.

Let me down! You insult the quality of my goods? You smell like a fish! What do you know about rope?

"And this, you execrable turtle, screeched the customer, shaking the end of a hawser the thickness of his arm at the squirming little man hanging from the roof,  . . . this is rotting hay!" He pushed the capstan but it didn’t move. He put his back into toppling the coil of rope but, still, it didn’t budge. He turned to see why not and the onlookers redoubled their gibes.

His eyes met the muscles of the giant’s belly but the fires behind his eyes saw only his dispute with the shopkeep. He shoved at the spool which the giant held steady. Imprecating a stream of curses, he kicked the giant’s shin with his heavy boot, stomped down upon the giant’s foot, then leaped up to wrap his legs around the giant’s waist, and pummeled wildly at the giant’s chest with both fists. The watching crowd gasped and fell hushed.

The giant caught the man’s forearms in his hands, pressed his thumbs deeply into the fleshy muscles of the under side, and squeezed. The cursing stopped; the pleading began.

Ow! Ow! Oiii! Please stop! That hurts. Ow! Oiii! My arms! Oooiiiii!

You have disturbed the peace in this marketplace and caused damage to this kiosk, the giant said in a voice of measured power. You will pay damages to this merchant and your grace and favor at this festival bazaar are revoked. He released one forearm and plucked the man’s purse from its belt-thong, tossing it to the floor beneath the wriggling rope seller who was swaying by his feet and cackling. Someone in the sidelines snickered.

You, up there! The giant turned to the little man hanging from the joist. When you come down, clean up this mess. And learn to treat your customers with respect. Still grasping his detainee’s forearm, he commanded compliance with a subtle squeeze of his thumb, then turned and strode off toward his platoon’s command post.

The muffled voice ululated, Hey! You can’t leave me up here! Get me down! My head is pounding in this position! Get me down from here! . . . Help! . . . Help!

Even before the giant was out of sight, a crafty youth kicked up the purse and ran off. The festivalgoers roared with glee and, knowing there was nothing more to see, dispersed leaving the little man hanging downside-up in frustration.

At the command post, the giant turned over his ward to the duty officer and returned to his patrol. It wasn’t until next morning, when he chanced to see the heavy boots with brass anchor buckles on the feet of a beggar, that he learned of the sorry end to which he had consigned the hapless, hot-tempered sailor. For it was the law of the land’s sovereign that possessions of executed criminals be distributed among he needy.

Resolved to stay the winter in Girasol, the giant found ways to earn the means to pay his keep. With winter weather approaching, many roofs needed mending and who is better at passing thatch straw from dray to roof than a giant is? And what ordinary man can reach to the pruning height of trees? Who better to help Soessa lay tuns of mead and ale in the cellar, crates of dried fruits and pickled vegetables in the pantry, racks of dried meats and fowl in the larder, and myriad winter storables in the garret?

But they were the moneylenders who put the giant’s unique blend of skills and experience to