Widow's Welcome

by D. K. Fields

  ‘We’ll sit by the fire,’ Sot said. ‘Ghen – the kettle. Wyne, you just sit quietly. Now, let’s see what your grandmother would like us to make, Miss Hend.’ She read through the items on the list and her face grew pale. ‘There’s quite a lot here.’ She swallowed. ‘Fifty Tillers, well we knew that much, and at least we have some of them made already. Each to wear different clothes, and carry a different tool. There’s a separate list for those. A turnpoke? I don’t even know what that is.’

  ‘I do,’ Ghen said, pouring water into the cups.

  ‘Thank goodness for that.’ She carried on down the list. ‘Eight pairs of horses, each to pull a cart. To go in each cart: four sacks of different sizes, more tools, a miniature Tiller.’ She looked at Pinna. ‘A Tiller for a Tiller. Is that really what she wants?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Pinna said, nodding vehemently over her cup. ‘And Grandmama always gets what she wants.’

  ‘I see.’ There was no sound for a long moment, other than the crackle of the fire, and then Sot clapped her hands together. ‘We’d better get to it then, hadn’t we? Thank you for bringing the list,’ Sot said.

  Pinna looked at Wyne. She seemed to make her mind up about something then, for instead of getting up to leave, she said, ‘I think I should stay. I’ll send the cart back.’

  ‘Stay?’ Sot said. ‘But there’s no need. We have the list, and Ghen here knows tools like a man four times his age. I wouldn’t want to impose on your time, Miss Hend. There must be much to do at home with the Last Planting so close.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Pinna said airily. ‘I can stay as long as I like. And Grandmama did say I was to make sure you got the Tillers how she wants them.’

  For a moment, Sot was at a loss as to what to say. After all, she couldn’t throw Pinna out. Then she produced a smile from somewhere. It was far from warm but it was a smile, at least.

  ‘Of course, Miss Hend. Ghen will stoke up the fire and I’m sure you’ll be quite comfortable here.’

  ‘I shall watch you. I want to see how it’s done.’

  Ghen had no doubt which of them in particular Pinna would watch, and sure enough Wyne brought Pinna’s chair to his bench. He pulled it out for her to sit down, like she was a great lady, which made her giggle again.

  ‘No good will come of this,’ Sot muttered.

  *

  The morning became the afternoon and the work continued apace. Ghen had thought Pinna would grow bored of watching Wyne scrape a length of wood. Even the fine, close work of buttons and hair became dull after a while, unless you were watching to learn. Unless you were a Tiller-maker. But Pinna’s interest was so intense, so constant, Ghen began to wonder if perhaps she did want to make Tillers.

  Wyne worked as he always did: with swift precision, undistracted by anything else around him. Even Pinna sitting so close gave him no cause to look up from the wood, and that gave Sot some comfort, at least. They might get the order done in time.

  The daylight was fading when they heard a knock at the door. Ghen opened it. A man was on the porch, dressed in working clothes. Ghen could smell the freshly turned earth that clung damply to the man’s boots. He said his name was Audley and that he’d been sent to fetch Pinna home for her dinner.

  The man Audley eyed Pinna sternly from the porch as she gathered her shawl and the other things she’d managed to scatter across the workshop: a small bag of deep red cloth, a folded fan, a dried medlar flower. As she was heading to the door she stopped and turned around. She gave Wyne the medlar flower and whispered something in his ear. Wyne smiled and nodded. And then, in front of all of them watching, she touched Wyne. Not by accident. Not because she was forced to do so. By choice, and happily, she put her hand on his arm and squeezed it.

  *

  The next morning Pinna was back. It was Ghen who let her in this time. He caught sight of Audley driving the cart down the lane, leaving Pinna for the day.

  Just as before, she sat close to Wyne, who worked even faster than usual with Pinna there. As the morning ran on, the wooden figures piled up on Wyne’s bench: carts and horses, bags of seeds. The new items requested by Mistress Hend posed no challenge to him, and the speed at which he produced them impressed Sot enough that she actually smiled once or twice and remembered lunch.

  Ghen tried his best not to be distracted by the besotted pair. Sot had asked him to make the tools requested by Mistress Hend, most of which Sot had never heard of. He finished a turnpoke and was reaching for another Tiller, ready to shape the blunt wood the figure clutched into something definite and named. But then he noticed Pinna holding a Tiller; Ghen had never seen anyone from outside the workshop touch one.

  That night Wyne slept with the medlar flower pressed to his lips, and Ghen clutched the shell Melle had given him.

  *

  The next morning it was Sot who got to the door when the knock sounded.

  ‘Miss Hend,’ Sot said, firmly. ‘We appreciate your time with us, but I feel sure you’re needed at home.’

  ‘It’s quite all right, Mistress Sot,’ Pinna said. She caught sight of Wyne over Sot’s shoulder and a huge smile blazed across her face. ‘I’ve told Grandmama you need me here. That I’m helping.’

  ‘You told her you’re helping?’

  Pinna eased her way past Sot, who in her worry had lost her resolve.

  The day passed much as the others had passed. The three Tiller-makers worked on their pieces and the fourth watched and murmured, and sometimes tried her hand herself. The crumpled list Pinna had brought with her became a crumpled mess of lines as Ghen called out the finished figures and Sot crossed them off.

  ‘The only things left are the Tillers’ own Tillers,’ she said. ‘Fifty to do by the end of tomorrow, and what are they to look like? Miss Hend, did your grandmother tell you if the smaller Tillers were to have tools like their companions?’

  But Pinna wasn’t listening. She cradled Wyne’s burned hand between her own and unwrapped the bloodied bandage. The burn wasn’t healing, and it was no wonder, the work Wyne was doing.

  Ghen and Sot watched in silence as Pinna gently pressed the burn, feeling for swelling. Wyne gazed at her. Pinna lifted Wyne’s hand to her lips.

  ‘Miss Hend!’ came a shout from the doorway then Audley was striding across the room. He grabbed Pinna’s arm and pulled her roughly to her feet. ‘It’s bad enough you’re in this place, touching these, these things. But being so free with one of the makers.’ Pinna struggled to free herself, but Audley’s grip was too strong. ‘It’s wrong, Miss Hend!’

  He half-dragged her to the door, while the rest of them could only watch. Wyne, stricken, rose from his bench, his burned hand reaching for her.

  ‘Wyne, remember what we talked about,’ Pinna cried. She tried once more to twist free of Audley. ‘Tomorrow!’ she called from the porch, and then she was gone.

  The air was slow to settle in the workshop.

  ‘Wyne, what have you done?’ Sot whispered.

  *

  Ghen slept well that night, the best night’s sleep he’d had since first coming to Sot’s workshop. When he woke, Melle’s shell was warmed from where he’d slept with it pressed to his chest. Wyne and Sot both looked to have passed an uneasy night. Deep shadows sat beneath their eyes.

  Ghen made the breakfast, not that either of the others seemed hungry, and then he and Wyne went to their benches. They were up hours earlier than Pinna usually came, and Wyne said they should start on the Tillers’ own Tillers: Hend’s Last Planting was the next day. He and Ghen talked about the figures in great detail before they started, on occasion asking Sot what she thought. But Sot only stared into the fire.

  ‘We’ll make a few bodies of different sizes,’ Wyne said, ‘and then when Pinna comes she can pick which one she thinks Mistress Hend will prefer, and then we can get on with the fifty.’

  They both fell to working then, and as was always the case Ghen was soon lost in the making, in the feeling of the rooters in his hands. When he had made three Tiller
s in different sizes he went to the water pail for a drink. It was then he noticed how light it was outside. Pinna hadn’t come. Every so often Wyne glanced at the door.

  It was time for lunch and still Pinna hadn’t come. Wyne opened the door to the porch and looked out. He stayed there, waiting. Ghen took him some bread and cheese which Wyne ate standing up.

  ‘She’ll be here soon,’ he said to Ghen.

  He didn’t come back inside when he’d finished eating. Ghen left the door open and went back to his bench. Sot finally examined the Tillers’ own Tillers they’d made that morning.

  ‘This one,’ she said, holding up the smallest figure. ‘We’ll make them this size.’

  ‘But we don’t know which one Pinna will choose,’ Ghen said. ‘We should wait.’

  ‘She’s not coming, Ghen. And we’ve got work to do.’

  *

  Sot and Ghen worked through the afternoon and into the evening, and still Wyne stayed on the porch. By midnight they’d made just over half the number of small figures Mistress Hend had requested, and the Last Planting was at first light.

  Sot took Wyne blankets, and even a cup of Greynal. ‘To keep out the cold,’ she said. ‘But we need you, Wyne. To get the order done in time. Please.’

  Wyne gave no sign he even knew she was there. Sot wrapped the blanket round his shoulders and set the Greynal close to him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  She gave Ghen some Greynal too, and knocked back a great slug herself. She caught him staring in wonderment at the bottle.

  ‘If not now, then when?’ she said. ‘If we keep going then we might make it.’

  Ghen resettled himself on his stool and his muscles immediately resumed their previous positions, as did his aches.

  He didn’t know how long they’d been working when Wyne stumbled in. He sat at his bench without speaking, staring at his rooters as if he’d never seen them before. Sot guided them into his hands. She gave him a short length of rennwood and explained how she’d decided to make the Tillers’ own Tillers. She and Ghen went back to work.

  But no movement or sound came from Wyne. Sot ignored it for a little while, but at last turned around in exasperation. ‘Please, Wyne! We only have until first light.’

  ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘My hands. I can’t.’

  ‘It’s the cold,’ Sot said. ‘You’ve been sitting outside half the night, what do you expect? Ghen, put the kettle on.’

  All work stopped while they waited for the kettle, and then waited while Wyne carefully warmed his hands on the clay cup. He picked up his rooters again and made to scrape the rennwood, but the rooters were awkward and clumsy in his hands, as if his hands were someone else’s. When he finally brought the blades against the wood all he did was scratch it.

  Sot dropped her own rooters with a cry.

  When she’d composed herself she put Wyne to bed, telling him it would all be better in the morning. It was just a temporary problem, that was all. The burn, the cold. The one thing she didn’t blame, the one thing she should have blamed, was Pinna.

  Sot shut the bedroom door and returned to the bench. ‘How much time do we have left?’ she asked Ghen.

  He opened the porch door and looked out. ‘Three hours until first light.’

  ‘We need to allow an hour to pack everything and get to the Seed Bed, so that’s two hours left for making. Another Greynal and we might just manage it.’

  ‘What about Wyne?’

  ‘We’ll worry about him later. Right now it’s Hend we have to think about.’

  *

  As the time for leaving drew near they were still missing some of the smaller Tillers. Sot rushed around packing boxes with sacking, packing the sacking with wooden figures, leaving Ghen to furiously scrape and carve and do the close work. His exhaustion and the Greynal had left him with a strange kind of clarity. He was able to work without even being aware of what he was doing.

  ‘We’re still two short,’ Sot said. ‘Bring your rooters in the cart, Ghen. You’ll have to make as we go. But get changed first, and quickly!’ She bundled him to the bedroom door and flew into her own room to do the same.

  It was dark in the room. Ghen hoped that Wyne was asleep and that sleep would help him. Ghen edged round the bed, trying to find his Last Planting clothes but in the dark everything looked like a blanket.

  ‘Hurry up, Ghen!’ Sot called through the door.

  He had to light a candle, there was no way round it. As the light flared he saw Wyne’s eyes – wide and white and staring. He held the medlar flower against his lips.

  ‘Wyne, are you coming? Pinna will be there.’

  ‘Then I shouldn’t be,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Why not? If you talk to her then it’ll be all right. I know it will. It has to be.’

  Wyne closed his eyes and shook his head. Sot shouted for Ghen again. He stumbled into his good clothes and stumbled back out into the main room.

  ‘Quick – help me with the boxes,’ Sot said.

  They flew down the lane, the cart bouncing and jouncing, Ghen still carving and scraping. Sot bemoaned their rushing and their untidiness as they careered along, and the sky grew lighter.

  ‘The best chance I’ve had in years and this is what we’re reduced to – making Tillers on the road. Canna would laugh himself into an early Seed Bed if he could see this. We just have to get there in time. The work – the work is good.’

  All the way to Hend’s farm she fought with her hopes and her despair and Ghen made the last two of the Tillers’ own Tillers, and gave each the same tool: a pair of rooters.

  He finished just as the cart clattered into Hend’s yard. Or rather the first yard, for there was light enough now to see that Hend’s farm had plenty of yards, with huge barns and stables and tool sheds flanking each one, as if his farm was many smaller ones put together. And beyond the yards and the buildings were the fields. Rolling green stretched for miles, every inch covered in trees, glass houses, ploughed lines, leafing crops, and when there wasn’t green there was yellow wheat. The yellow of Pinna’s hair.

  But the place was empty of people. No one crossed the yards. No one dug in the fields. A pall of silence hung over everything.

  ‘Where’s the Seed Bed?’ Ghen said. His words felt thick in his mouth.

  ‘I don’t know. Pinna was meant to tell me. It could be anywhere. We’re so close, but – damn that girl to Silence!’

  A woman came hurrying from the barn, wiping her hands on her dirty apron. Sot hailed her and told her they had the Tillers for the Planting.

  ‘The next field, first of the wheat. You’ll have to hurry. They’ll be leaving the long house any time now.’ The woman altered her course so as not to pass too close to the cart.

  ‘Quick, Ghen,’ Sot said, ‘we’ll take the barrow from here.’

  He got down and helped her load the boxes onto the barrow, but all his movements were slow, drawn out.

  They found the Sower – the same bald one from Melle’s grandmother’s Planting. He was pacing along the Seed Bed, watch in hand and cursing. When he saw Sot and Ghen approaching he shook his head.

  ‘Not quite your usual standards, Mistress Sot.’

  Sot wiped her hair from her sweaty face. ‘Shut up, Nex, and help me.’

  The Sower was so stunned he did as she said and began moving the boxes to the end of the Bed. They were almost all in place when Sot gave a cry. The Grieving were on their way.

  They fumbled the last of the boxes next to the Bed and took their places. Sot was puffing, red-faced, her shirt untucked and dirt streaked up one arm. But she wore a look of triumph.

  Ghen scanned the faces of the Grieving as they came to the Seed Bed. There were so many people, standing four deep, so many faces. But none of them was Pinna’s. Surely, if she was there, she would have been at the front?

  And then he found a face he knew. A furious face. Mistress Hend. She was glaring at Sot.

  When it came time for Hend to be lowere
d into the Bed, it was Sot who climbed down the ladder to receive the body. Ghen didn’t blame her wanting to escape Mistress Hend’s ire. He almost wished he could do so himself. Almost.

  When Hend was standing firm at the back of the Seed Bed, looking down his field, Ghen began handing Sot the Tillers. She set out one row of five, and then Ghen took from the box a cart loaded with tools and bags of seeds, together with a pair of horses to pull it. And a miniature Tiller. There were gasps from the Grieving. People pressed forward to see. The look on Mistress Hend’s face changed to one of pride.

  Ghen handed the cart and horses down to Sot who positioned them with a full-grown Tiller. The horses’ legs were slender, with delicate knees and neat hooves. Wyne had made them so well.

  It took a long time to set out everything Mistress Hend had ordered. When it was done the Seed Bed was full of wooden figures. A whole farm’s worth, sitting at Hend’s dead feet. Sot climbed out and took her place beside Ghen. She had to lean on him to stay upright; he was so tired himself, he wasn’t sure he could hold her through the stories. He didn’t listen to them. He already knew all there was to know about Hend.

  At last it was done and the Grieving were making their way back to the long house. Mistress Hend left with them, without a word to Sot. At the back of the crowd, one of the last to leave, was a familiar figure. Audley.

  Ghen caught up with him, ignoring Sot’s calls.

  ‘Where’s Pinna?’ he asked.

  Audley took a step back before he answered. ‘Gone, hasn’t she.’

  ‘Where?’

  Audley started walking again. ‘I don’t think that’s any of your concern, is it?’

  Ghen grabbed him by the arm and Audley shuddered to a stop, holding his arm as if he feared it would fall from his body.

  ‘She’s where that brute can’t get her. Mistress Hend sent her north, out of the valley. If you had any sense you would get away too, boy.’ He stepped further away from Ghen. ‘Or perhaps it’s too late.’

  Ghen turned on his heel and went to help Sot pack up the boxes. The people who’d carried Hend to the Bed were now filling it in. As they shovelled earth onto Hend’s head, Ghen’s thoughts raced, turning over what might have happened to Pinna, and to Wyne. What he hoped had happened. Pinna was gone, and Wyne had stayed at the workshop rather than come to the Last Planting. Perhaps it was all part of their plan. Even now they could be together, on a road taking them far away.