“Help me!” Selen shouted, striving in the snow in disarray.
Folc and Louis, who had dismounted, strode towards him. Louis clasped the bridle and pulled, but the horse jolted its head and set itself loose from the grip.
“It’s useless!” Folc exclaimed. “It broke a leg.”
“No! We can’t leave my horse here,” Selen protested. He flung himself at his mount’s neck and clutched it with affection. The terrified animal neighed with pain. “The wolves will eat it.”
“Let go,” Louis said, grasping Selen’s arms. “We’ll take care of it.”
Selen let himself be carried away. “Without the saddle, it should be—” Behind him, Folc unsheathed his sword. When Selen understood Folc’s intentions, he struggled and screamed. “No! Folc, you can’t!” Yet, Louis wouldn’t let go and managed to keep him away. “No. It’s just injured!”
Louis covered Selen’s eyes with his hand. Lissandro turned his gaze away. Still, he heard how the sword pierced through the flesh and bones. The blow reached his heart, and, for an instant, he felt like crying.
“I’m sorry,” Lissandro heard Louis say over Selen’s sobs. “We had no choice.”
Askjell and Kilda hurried to unfasten the saddle and packs from the dead horse. Each of them took a part of Selen’s equipment. Louis pushed Selen up onto Folc’s horse, returned to his mount, swung himself up onto it, and gave his arm to Folc to help him onto the croup. After a last look at his horse, Selen kicked his mount and joined them. The wolves were coming.
Ahanu, who hadn’t halted, galloped back from the opposite direction. “Light! There is light ahead!”
A few minutes later, they came in sight of an isolated farm. The thatch roof was low. The walls were made of stone but for a side in weather-beaten wattle and daub. The area around the door had been plowed, and footsteps leading to a backyard with wooden shacks littered the snow. Beside the entrance, a low door made for ovine was the only opening. The air around smelled of burned wood and kale. A lantern hung over the porch cast bouncing shadows over piled-up clay pots. The riders approached the front of the house and dismounted with haste. Lissandro rushed to the door and hammered it.
“Please, let us in!”
Kilda’s arms pushed him backwards. “You want to frighten them?” she hissed. She turned to the door and called. “We are lost travelers. We need help. Please.”
It took an eternity before the door creaked open. In the tight gap, a strong, bearded man in a brown tunic and shirt pointed a fork at them. “Who are you?”
“Travelers,” Lissandro said. “We are no bandits.” We even reek of money, he thought, but we won’t refuse a straw-littered corner and a homemade soup.
From under his furrowed brow, the man stared at him and Kilda from head to feet and gazed over their heads. “How many?”
“We are eight,” Lissandro said. “Wolves are behind us.”
The man lowered his fork. “Come in.” He opened the door wider.
Kilda and Lissandro stepped inside. The farm was one long, single room with no window. The acrid, warm air reeked of both animal and human sweat blended with an odor of boiled vegetables. At the far end of the room, sheep were packed in a fold. The floor was hard earth but for the rushes near the bed, and a welcoming fire burned in the hearth. In a corner, the man’s large family stared at them with scared, wary eyes. Lissandro nodded at them and gave a faint smile. He turned to the farmer.
“My name is Lissandro,” he said, stretching out his hand.
“Walter.” The man crushed his hand. “Where are you from?”
“We come from Nysa Serin,” Kilda said. “Do you have a place somewhere for our horses?”
“You can put them with the sheep. It will be narrow, but they should hold the night,” Walter said, motioning to the fold.
One after the other, Lissandro and his companions walked their mounts inside the house to the fold. Against the fence, they lined their bags, saddles, and belongings. As the room felt suddenly hot, they removed their cloaks. Though they were still wet with snow, none of them removed his boots. Lissandro returned to the main part of the room. Two women, one with a wrinkled face poking out of a wimple and one wearing a barbette and fillet hat, who was probably the housewife, sat by the fire that sputtered cinders. The housewife trimmed cabbage while the other stirred in a kettle which hung on the trammel. On the family bed sat four children of different ages under the severe surveillance of a young, redheaded maiden.
“My wife will add more vegetables to the stew. You will eat with us,” Walter said.
Lissandro saw Louis turn to Selen. “Do we have food left we could put on the table?”
“If we share our provisions, we have to make sure we reach a village tomorrow,” Selen whispered back. “We should have stayed at taverns. We could propose money as compensation.”
“Of course. This was not even an option,” Louis said. “We should give a bit of what we have. I don’t feel comfortable eating these children’s food.”
Selen went to one of his bags and took out a wheel of cheese and a large, white bread. Returning to the main room, he handed the food to the housewife. She stared at Selen, hesitating before taking the food as if such pricey items called for further compensation.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “You are soaking wet,” she added reproachfully.
Lissandro realized that they had ridden through the falling snow for hours. Despite their thickness, their clothes were waterlogged. Their hair was plastered to their necks. Lissandro couldn’t feel his feet in his boots. Eliot and Folc trembled with cold, while Louis twisted his hands to warm them.
“Mother,” the housewife said, turning to the elderly woman, “take the basin. These men need a hot bath.”
“Thank you,” Selen whispered. “Can I help with the water?”
The housewife stared at him and scowled. “You. You take your clothes off before you catch your death. And it holds for each of you,” she added, turning to their group. “You will turn the ground to mud with all this water.”
None of them dared to confront the matron. While they took off their tunics, boots, and shirts, the housewife drew a rope from one wall to the other for their clothes to dry. Near the fire, she drew another rope that she covered with long sheets to create an alcove. On the other side of the improvised screen, the maiden and the old woman filled a wooden basin with hot water. The steam rising from it was inviting. Lissandro wondered if it would still be warm once it was his turn.
“Where were you heading to?” Walter asked Louis. The farmer had put his fork away and observed his unfortunate guests, hands on his waist, with a quizzical expression.
“Southeast. To Earthfell,” Louis said. In an effort to face the farmer on equal grounds, he crossed his skinny arms over his flat chest and stood as straight and tall as his five feet ten could allow him. It made Lissandro grin.
Walter’s eyebrows arched with perplexity. “Is it not a hundred miles from here?”
“What are you waiting for? I said get naked,” the housewife said from the other side.
Lissandro turned around again. Still in his pants, Selen hunched in front of the housewife, his hands clutched at his lithe body, uncomfortable to undress in front of three women staring at him. If at least the maiden could turn around, Lissandro thought, though he was less and less sure she was a maiden considering the lecherous way she stared at Selen’s hairless torso. If she proposes to bathe him, he may run outside and face the wolves. Lissandro sniggered.
“You don’t have the whole evening,” the housewife mumbled. “And take one of your friends with you. I bathed all my five children at once in that basin for the solstice.”
Lissandro made a step forward, but a hand grasped firmly at his arm. Askjell walked towards Selen and volunteered. Casual, the boy removed his pants and pushed Selen to the other side of the sheets.
“I think we can manage by ourselves,” Askjell said with a wink at the maiden who had turned as red as
her hair at the sight of the muscular young lad.
All Lissandro saw now of his companions was moving shadows behind the white screen. He heard the splash of the water as they entered the basin. He sighed, gazed down at the hand still clenching him and moved his eyes up the arm. Louis was still in conversation with Walter on their location. Lissandro waited patiently, but it seemed his friend had forgotten about him.
“You tell me there is no village around?” Louis asked.
“The closest village is Linfarne,” Walter said, “but it’s a few miles northeast from here. I can show you the way tomorrow.”
Louis nodded. “It would be kind of you. With all this snow, it seems we walked in a circle in those woods.”
The door opened, and a young lad entered. Like Walter, he had a blond beard and the strong arms of someone who had worked on a farm since childhood. His eyes widened when he saw them. The lad stepped towards his father.
“Dad, what is going on here? Who are these people?”
“We got lost in the forest. Your father welcomed us for the night,” Louis answered.
The lad stared at Louis up and down, probably wondering what a man like him did in the forest in the first place. The boy shook his head in a dismissive way.
“My name is Sylvain,” he said shortly before turning to his father. “I locked the pigs in for the night. With the snow, we won’t be able to feed them acorns anymore. I could give them the old beets, but it may be wiser to kill one of the hogs. Now, I would need some help to fill the sheep’s troughs.”
Louis must have realized that he was holding something as he turned to Lissandro and looked him in the eyes. “You wouldn’t mind being helpful.”
That’s what I get for having taken one single bold step forward, Lissandro thought. “Of course,” he said with a forced smile to his friend. “With pleasure.”
Lissandro followed Sylvain into the fold. The sheep bleated around them. With the horses, the fold was packed, and it was difficult to move around without being trampled by a few hooves. Sylvain handed him two armfuls of vetches.
“Lay them in the troughs on your side while I fill the water buckets,” the lad said.
Careful to avoid the horses’ rears, Lissandro proceeded to the corner. The sheep pushed him. Some even licked his arms to reach the legume. Eventually, he reached the troughs. As he laid the vetches, dozens of heads rammed into him. Moving backwards against the stream of hungry sheep was not less complicated. Yet, he managed to reach the fence again.
“Good job,” Sylvain said, patting his shoulder.
Lissandro nodded to the boy and made to the basin. It was his turn to bathe. Of course, he was the last one, and the not-so-clean-anymore water had long turned tepid. However, the bath was still more than welcome, and the old woman poured him a bucket of hot water.
“You, boy, stink sheep now,” she said and chuckled as she left.
And how! Lissandro thought, I am the black one in this group. As he rubbed himself with the soapy brush, he felt the pain stab him again in his mouth.
Once he was as cleaned as he could get, he stepped out of the basin, dried himself, and slipped in his extra pair of clothes he had in his bag. His companions had already taken places around the table. He joined them.
Only the men sat at the table, with an exception for Kilda, who was a guest. The children and the women stood around the fire. The maiden placed a trencher and a mug in front of each of them. Lissandro disapproved of the way his squire ogled her. The girl was searching for a one-night lover in their group, and it would only create problems. She would not dare tease the monk, and Louis and Selen showed no interest in women whatsoever. Considering the distance the girl had taken from Ahanu, it left only Folc and Askjell. Lissandro regretted he hadn’t gotten to know his squire better before bringing him with them. Though he was the same age as Folc, Askjell had passed the last months behaving with fickleness as a member of the court. He was an adolescent, educated but naïve and frivolous. Folc, on the other hand, had lived the last years between Louis and Selen. It was no wonder the boy was already captain of the royal guard.
The housewife brought the kettle to the table. She poured a ladle of stew over his trencher. Despite the fact that the peasants had no spices, it smelled delicious. There were carrots, turnips, leeks, onions, and lentils. Kilda served him small beer in his mug. Thirsty, Lissandro gulped the whole and refilled the mug.
“Why do you live so far from a village?” Lissandro asked Walter.
“We didn’t choose where to live. During the war, we fled to the Iron Marches. The trip cost us all our savings. We had to pay toll bridges, expensive food. Even to pass a night in a common room of a tavern cost as much as an inn chamber in Nysa Serin. Some of us got sick. My father died on the way. He was too weak.” Walter paused. “Once we arrived in the Iron Marches, we realized that thousands of refugees had followed the same path. There was nothing for us there. This was when we heard of the Rebellion. The rumor spread that an army was fighting the king's orcs. Then we heard that we had a new king in Trevalden. I took the decision to go back where we came from. Our home had been burned, but we found this place, abandoned.”
“What do you know of our new king?” Lissandro asked casually as he poked a carrot.
“I have never seen him,” Walter said, gorging himself with generous spoonfuls. “I heard he has killed many men in the capital, but that he does a lot for the poor. The men in the villages say that he is cold as iron and can freeze his enemies into ice with his gaze.”
Louis chuckled. Walter looked at Louis in front of him. Their eyes met. Walter did freeze.
The ladle fell from the housewife’s hand. “By the gods, you’re the queen,” she muttered, looking at Selen. “The women told me that the queen had hair as the lilac.” She hurried to Selen and dropped to her knees. “Your Majesty, forgive my harsh words. I didn’t know…”
“No. Please, get up. It’s all right,” Selen muttered, ill at ease.
On the other side of the table, Walter rose. “Your Majesty. I’m sorry. I sat at your table…”
“It’s all right. We are not people who follow etiquette. This is why we travel anonymously,” Louis said. “Please, sit down.” He stretched out his hand to invite Walter to take his seat back.
Flustered, Walter sat down. His wife rose, curtsied, and minced behind her husband. They might have been embarrassed, but the peasants still stared at the royal couple with curiosity and incredulity.
“We had heard of it but couldn’t believe it,” the housewife said, gazing down.
“Hush, wife,” Walter exclaimed.
“What is the people’s opinion on my politic? What have you heard?” Louis asked.
Lissandro knew his friend hated to talk about his private life and searched for a way out.
“Very little, Your Majesty. We, in the countryside, suffer from the repercussions of war and must pay the taxes, the pannage, the use of mills… Yet, we barely feel the advantages they have in the cities. We have had fewer corvées but –”
“It takes time to apply the new laws in the countryside, but I didn’t realize at which point. I will take that into consideration upon my return to Nysa Serin. We…” Louis interrupted himself, as if realizing why they had left in the first place. Seeing his friend upset, Selen laid his hand on Louis’s.
“The city has been struck by a disease,” Selen said. “We are in search of a cure to save our people. Once all this is over, we promise to help you. You shouldn’t pay all those taxes anymore. They have been abolished long ago. There is an annual tribute instead. Invested in projects for the community’s good.”
“But you can’t expect that the Crown lifts it,” Louis said. “The tribute also prevents that the people turn spoiled by opulence. The free man prefers poverty to the humiliation of corvées.”
Prefers poverty? Lissandro thought, catching the glint in Walter’s eye. Don’t complain you didn’t see that pitchfork coming.
“It has h
appened several times that diseases struck the kingdom,” Walter said. “Yet, it is the first time I hear of a king searching for a cure. Usually, they lock themselves in their castle until the disease dies out. You are brave men.” Louis raised his head and shook it in denial, but Walter insisted. “It is an honor to have you as our king, Your Majesty.”
Selen held Louis’s hand tighter and smiled at him. Louis gave a faint smile.
“My husband is right, Your Majesty. Whatever the rumors, you are a good king. I will say it in the village,” the housewife said. “Now, eat before it gets cold.”
Lissandro chuckled. No husband or king could face such a matron. They all returned to their stew and shared the bread and cheese.
A little blond child with braids tugged at Selen’s sleeve. Selen turned to her. “Are you a queen?” the girl asked.
“Yes. I am,” Selen said in his soft-spoken voice.
“Can I come on your lap?”
“Maud!” Walter exclaimed and scowled.
“It’s all right,” Selen said, lifting the little girl under her arms and placing her on his thigh.
The girl stared at Selen with her wide, blue eyes. With one arm around her waist, Selen tried to keep on eating. The girl reached for his hair and played with a lock.
“Do you think the cure could be in Earthfell?” Walter asked.
“Maybe,” Louis said. “But our mission may have some risks. It is preferable you don’t know too much about it. Be assured my friends and I will do all for our country. Is there anything more you think the Crown could do to improve the peasants’ life?”
“The Crown can’t do much about our chores. My life is hard, but it’s an honorable one. Yet, some things could be made to make our tasks easier. Paved roads, fewer bandits, or simply, durable peace. We have heard that peasants in the south were now allowed to sell the surplus of their crops in the cities directly, to set their own prices, and all without paying taxes. If I could sell my fleece and crop in Embermire for a good price, I…”
Light from Aphelion 2 - Tears of Winter Page 22
