When Mali had fed the baby, she came to sit beside him, her hand on his. He looked into her eyes, and saw her absolute confidence that he could do what he must, that they were safe with him. It was not true. He felt simultaneously the cold menace without, all that winter stood for, of famine, wolves, cold, even the lords’ ravaging taxes, and the cozy seeming security within. How could he stand between, one mortal man? Cold sweat came out on his face; he felt himself shiver as if someone had poured a bucket of icy water over him. Mali squeezed his hand. Her warmth, her strength leaned against him. He was not alone, then—there was another pair of arms, another strong back. Enough? It had to be enough. He could feel through his skin her awareness of his feelings, and her impossible joy that fought all his despair with laughter. His fear did not frighten her, nor his weakness weaken her.
Arin was still alive at dawn, when Gird and his father began the day’s work. Gird eyed his father, noticing what he had not before— how weak his father had become in the past few years. That great frame had bent; the broad hands that had frightened him were stiff, knobby with swollen joints. His bush of yellow hair had gone gray. Had this begun while Gird was sulking, before his marriage, Gird wondered? Not that it mattered; somehow his father had become an old man.
All that day, he thought about it while doing his work. Sim would not come back—some old quarrel that had been far over his head when he was a boy had sent Sim out to make his own way. Now that he had cothold, he would be a fool to give it up. And if Arin died—he hoped fiercely that Arin would not die, but knew that hope alone could not save him. If Arin died—when Arin died, since even if he lived through this he might die before Gird another way—Gird would have it all to care for. Arin’s wife Issa—the children—Mali—his own children now and to come—his parents. In the bleak light of that late-winter day he admitted to himself that his parents might not live long.
Arin lived another two days. He said nothing more that they could follow, although once the fever rose he muttered constantly, tossing and turning restlessly. He could not drink the broth Mali had made; Gird was almost ashamed to take a bowl of it, but they could not waste food. The sheep was already dead. They all drank quietly, avoiding each others’ eyes and trying not hear Arin’s moans.
Not long after Arin died, just after the first thaw, Gird’s father dropped suddenly one day, and lay twitching. By morning he, too, was dead. The steward came again, to value the cottage and the lord’s property therein. Gird had the death-fee to pay, part in coin and part in livestock—his precious heifers, two of them—and then the steward confirmed him in his father’s place, as “half-free tenant of this manor,” whose clothes and few personal tools might be handed down to his heir. The rest—the land, the cottage, the livestock, the major tools such as ox-yoke, plow, and scythe—were the lord’s and he was “allowed” to use them.
Chapter Seven
He loved the feel of the scythe, the oiled wood smooth under his hands, the long elegant curve ending in its shining blade. Facing the uncut grain, with the sun over his left shoulder throwing his shadow ahead of him, he paused for the first of the harvest prayers.
“Alyanya, gracious Lady, harvest-bringer…” That was the oldest reaper, away on the other end of the field, to his right.
“Lady of seed and shoot, Lady of flower and corn…” That was the oldest granny in the vill, holding a wreath of harvest-daisies high.
“As the seed sprouts, and the green leaf grows, as the flowers come, and the seed swells…” And that was the Corn-maiden, who would wear the wreath while they reaped.
“So we with our blood offer, and you with your bounty reply…” All the reapers, their response ragged with distance, but sincere— and Gird with the others had nicked the heel of his palm with the scytheblade, and squeezed a drop of blood to flick on the ground. Then he smeared the rest on the blade itself, to return his strength to the cut grain. Garig, the headman, blew a mellow note on the cow’s horn, and the harvest began.
Gird swung back his scythe and swept it forward and around. The wheat fell away from his stroke, as if swept by a gust of wind. Step forward, swing, sweep… and another swathe turned aside for him. That old rhythm reclaimed him, required—so early in the day—hardly any effort. Step, swing, sweep, return. Step, swing, sweep, return. On one side the standing grain, and before him the diminishing row he worked, and on his left side the bright stalks lying with their heads on the short green grass. The ripe wheat gave up a smell almost as rich as bread baking. Beneath the stalks lay a secret world, tiny runs that showed as he worked his way along.
He looked up, to see his way, and realized he was nearly halfway. Pakel, the oldest reaper, was only a third along his row—but no one expected him to be fast, not at his age. Still, he moved as smoothly as ever, and Gird knew he would be working just that well at day’s end. Gird went on. Step, swing, sweep, return.
Something flickered in the stalks ahead of him, and he smiled. So the little ones, the harvest mice, had realized their day was come? He took another stroke, and another. Another mousetail, just escaping his blade to leap deeper into the wheat.
Gird reached the end of his row long before Pakel was through. He stopped to whet his blade from the stone looped to his belt. Behind him, three men worked on the half-field he’d begun, in staggered rows, as three others followed Pakel. It was the custom to harvest in halves, all reapers in each half working the rows one way, to “fold the field” as it was said. Gird walked back up, outside the fallen grain, and took a pull from the water jug one of the women held. He didn’t need it yet, but it was wise to drink on every row. Then he began another row behind the last man on his half.
The little cut on his hand itched, as it always did. The sun was higher, and the smell of the ripe grain richer. A little breeze ruffled the wheatears and brought up the green smell of the haymeadows nearer the river. Step, swing, sweep, return. This was the best time of the harvest-day, when he had one swathe down, and his body had warmed and loosened to the work. The scythe swung and sliced almost on its own; his body was merely the pivot for its swing, leaving his mind free to wander. He enjoyed the evenness of his cuts, the smooth stubble he left behind, the proof of his skill. He saw every tiny blossom of the weeds within the grain: the starry blue illin, the delicate red siris, like drops of blood. Overhead arched a cloudless sky, a harvester’s boon, and out of it came the song of a kiriel, sweet and piercing. He felt the prickle of stubble on his feet, the sleeves of his shirt on his arms as they swung.
This—not the other—was the right use of his strength. He felt as if he could swing the scythe forever without tiring. Row after row, selion after selion, flowed away behind him. The sun’s heat, which a few years ago had worn him down by midday, now seemed to give him its energy. He remembered, as clearly as if it had been that morning, the first time he’d taken a scythe to swing. Arin’s scythe, that had been, and his first cuts down in the haymeadow had been ragged as if he’d ripped at the grass with his hands. Now Arin was three years dead, and he was the leading reaper, the strongest man in the village, able to provide for his own and his brothers’ children as well. He did not let himself think of the children who had died, his two eldest sons, one of Arin’s, in a fever. It might have been that kuaknom’s curse, or chance, but it was over.
He stopped to drink at the end of the row, and rubbed his hands together. He could just feel the pressure at the base of his thumbs from the grips; the right had shifted. He spat on the handle and worked the grip back and forth slightly. There. He tapped a splinter under the bindings to tighten it, and swung the scythe lightly to check… yes.
Across the field he could see Arin’s oldest lugging water up to the fieldmasters. Another selion or two, and it would be time for the noon break. He was not tired, but he was hungry, his belly reminding him how long it had been since that crust of bread before dawn. He could smell cooking food even over the rich smell of ripe grain around him. They were supposed to lunch on the lord’s bounty
when harvesting the great field, but that bounty had been less each year. Back before Arin’s death, it had meant meat as well as bread, and barrels of ale. In his childhood he remembered harvest meals of roast meat, bread, cheese, and sweet cakes, heavy with honey and spices. Last year, bread and meat broth only; the men had grumbled, but what good did that do? The steward would not kill one of the lord’s sheep or cows for grumbling alone. He had not grumbled; he could not afford to, with two families to support. It did no good to become known as a grumbler. He’d eaten his bread and broth, taking an extra helping while others complained.
He looked ahead critically. They might finish the great field in two days, at this pace, and then begin the harvest of the individual strips. Would the weather hold? It had been a dry spring, and they’d all prayed for rain, but rain now would add nothing to the harvest.
At the noon meal, the steward handed out round dark loaves and bowls of thin soup. This year no one grumbled. Gird ate silently, steadily. The more he could take of the lord’s bounty, the better for his family. Arin’s boy, as a water carrier, could eat with the harvesters this year. He came to sit by Gird, a boy as quiet and shy as Arin had been cheerful and open. Gird wondered if seeing his father die had changed him—but he’d been a quiet baby, for all that.
“Mali’s coming out to bind,” said the boy—Fori, his name was, though they seldom called him by name. He was “Arin’s boy” to the whole village. Gird frowned.
“She should not: she’s too near her time.”
“Ma has the sickness,” said Fori, ducking his head. Gird sighed. Issa loathed fieldwork, and although she was not as good a weaver as his mother had been, she would spend all her time at the loom. Leaving all the other work for Mali, Gird thought—but she also had the sickness, no one could deny it. No one with the sickness could come into the harvest field; throwing up on the first day of harvest was the worst of bad luck. And it was no fault of Fori’s, what Issa did or did not do. But he worried about Mali. Big and strong as she was, every child seemed to take more out of her; she had not looked well this time.
“Make sure she has enough water,” said Gird. Fori nodded. He had not finished his bowl of soup, but sat dangling his hands.
“Eat! You take all you can get, lad.” The boy slurped up the rest of his soup.
“It’s not as good as Mali’s,” he said through a mouthful of bread.
“No, but Mali didn’t have to cook it. It’s not from our stores. When you’re doing the lord’s work, you feed from his bounty: that’s custom.”
Gird followed his own advice, and went back for more. At least the steward wasn’t stinting them on amounts—no one frowned when he picked up another half-loaf of bread and refilled his bowl.
When he was full, he lay back in the shadow of the old fireoak at the field’s corner until the horn blew. The afternoon’s work was always harder: the field seemed to swell with heat, lengthening every selion. Gird was soon back in the rhythm of the work. His mind seemed to hang on every close detail now, unwilling to soar abroad as it had in the morning. His shadow, at first a squat dark figure close beneath him, lengthened with the hours. He was still far ahead of the others, overtaking one after another on their selions, and swinging away beyond them. Yet no one minded: he was, he sensed, their pride as well as his own. Gird Strongarm, they said, grinning as he came past.
On the outer edges of the field, the women and older girls were binding the cut grain into shocks. None of his or Arin’s girls were old enough yet: only a woman who had bled could gather in harvest. But he could see Mali’s peaked hat busy among the others. Some years she worked first among the women, almost as much faster than others as he was. This year, she lagged, slowed by the coming child that made bending difficult.
By dusk, when he could feel the damp coming out, more than half the great field was down. Now the men joined the women in binding the last grain. Again tonight, they would eat the lords’ bread and meat—if there was any meat, Gird thought. Surely there would be. He found Mali, and led her up to the serving line. She moved heavily, and beneath the day’s sunburn, her skin was pale.
There was meat, although the steward’s men doled it out one slice to a loaf of bread. A pottage of beans, cheese, and a wooden cup of ale completed the meal. “No sweet cake?” Gird heard someone ask. The steward’s men said nothing, handing a serving to the next in line.
“I heard the steward tell the cooks they need not kill another sheep—that the great field would be done early enough that there’d be no evening meal tomorrow.” Mali kept her voice low.
“What?” Gird stared at her. “That’s—we can’t be done by noon, and if we work the afternoon, he has to feed us.”
Mali, her mouth full of meat, merely shrugged. Gird tore off a hunk of bread and chewed it, thinking hard. The custom had always been to feed them for any part of a day spent on the lords’ work. When they finished harvest a bit early, they had time for a rest before the meal, even a bit of singing. He worked his way through the bean porridge, which lacked the flavor of Mali’s, and wondered what could be done.
As it happened, Mali was not the only one to have heard the steward’s words. The men gathered cautiously after dark, in the lane near Gird’s cottage.
“Not fair,” said Teris. “We work faster, and they punish us—”
“So we can work slow, if Gird can hold back,” said Amis’s uncle.
Gird felt himself flushing. “It’s not my fault,” he said.
“No one said it was. But if being fast loses us a feast, maybe being slow will get it back.”
“ ’Course, he’s already told the cooks,” said Amis. “Might be even if he has to feed us, it won’t be much. No meat, anyway. And he’d be angry with us. Is it worth that?”
“Where’s Garig?” asked Pakul. “What does he think?”
“Garig’s in the steward’s back pocket,” said someone too softly to make out.
“We can’t do aught without him,” said Gird. “It’s not fair, I’ll stand to that, and do what I can, but we need Garig. It’s only he can speak for us to the steward, anyway.”
“I’ll say what I can,” Garig sighed, though, and Gird was sure he’d come back with nothing. “The steward— the steward’s told me some of it.”
“Of what?”
“What’s gone wrong. There’s a place—somewhere far off, I don’t know—where the lords come from, back when they come. It’s where they traded, over the mountains. It’s gone.”
“Gone? How can a place be gone?”
“Raided, I suppose, like a town the nomads have burned. Anyway, the lords got gold and jewels that way, and now they don’t.”
“So what’s that got to do with us?” asked Teris. “We need to eat, same as always, and it’s always been if we do the work on the lord’s field, he feeds us.”
“The count’s squeezing him,” said Garig. “So he’s squeezing us— that’s the truth of it. He has to send more—”
“We can’t.” Mutters of agreement with that, a low voiced growl. “Might’s well join the Stone Circle
—”
“None o’ that!” Garig’s voice rang out. “We’ll have none o’ that talk here. D’you want the guards down on us? They’re outlaws, no better than brigands, that bunch.”
Gird agreed, but silently. He had heard more than one mention of the Stone Circle
in the past two years. All he knew about them came from such brief encounters. The steward had warned Garig that anyone found helping a member of the Stone Circle
would be turned out, if not killed outright. According to him, they were lawless, lazy farm lads who tried to get higher wages by threatening the farms—burning grain and hayfields, tacking herds in pasture, and so on. The other stories Gird had heard were of young men who saw no chance of marrying or having a place to farm—whose families could not spare the food, no matter how hard they worked. He tried not to think about it, about the disappearance of four or five younger sons from his own vill
age in the past three years. Somewhere, the stories went, was a great circle of stones bigger than any mortal man could move, and into that circle fell miraculous showers of grain and fruit, more than enough for all who came. And the stones protected anyone who found the way inside, that was in the tales too. From that mysterious place, the movement took its name, promising peace and plenty in the days when “all men are stones of the circle, and none must run and hide.”
“I’ll speak to the steward,” Garig said, sounding more angry than understanding. “I’ll try—but no promises. And if there’s slacking tomorrow, we could all be in trouble.”
The men stood awhile in the lane, grumbling softly, when Garig had gone into his cottage and slammed the door. Gird was glad enough to stand there, in the warm darkness. Inside his own cottage, Issa’s sickness fouled the air, and the children bickered over their meager supper. He tried to tell himself that they were doing all right, better than some others, but it was poor comfort.
The next day, Gird worked as slowly as he could. Garig had said that the steward had consented to another evening feast, if the work took them past mid-afternoon. Mali could not come, but Issa was doing her best raking up the fallen heads of grain into baskets. He was worried about Mali. She had not looked really well since losing the one of the twins. This baby should be her last—would be, if he had to force the herbs into her himself. He grinned at that thought. Mali might be weaker, but she was as headstrong as ever.
They finished the greatfield before dark, but not long before. Gird noticed that everyone came to the feast quietly, with none of the usual songs and laughter. There was meat, sure enough—not abundance, but some, and plenty of bread and cheese. He made sure that Fori and Issa ate heartily, and stuffed himself. Tomorrow he could begin cutting their own strip, grain that would feed them and help pay the fieldfee.
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