He set down his knife and fork and leaned thoughtfully back in his chair. “Some lords own many farms out in the country to fill their pockets, but they live in fancy houses in the city, and leave the daily management to their representatives. They say that they’re looking out for our interests by making trade deals with other cities and petitioning the duke for new laws that help farmers, but how much do you think that means to the common people who never see them?”
Korinna sat up a little straighter. She wouldn’t admit it to Myron, but she’d wondered if she might be able to go to the city by herself. Did he guess her plan and want to talk her out of it? She would try to ask more in a roundabout way without mentioning herself. “There’s a landowning lord on the Council who acts as a representative for all of the farms, right? Doesn’t he do something important for us?”
Myron smiled indulgently. “Councilor Diokles? In theory, he does speak on our behalf.” He shrugged and reached for another piece of flatbread. “But he was chosen for the role by other lords, not people who actually work on the land. I don’t know much about politics in the capital, but I think he might do more for the lords’ interests than the lowly peasant.”
She sighed in frustration. “It just seems like there’s only so much I can do on a small farm. If I do a good job, then we all have food in our bellies and houses to live in, but otherwise, it doesn’t make much of a difference. I can’t stop the plague from coming back or make up for the families we’ve lost.”
“The duke couldn’t do anything about that, either,” he reminded her gently. He settled into his chair with his hands folded at his ample waist, his typical lecturing posture. “Most people have simple needs. Land to grow their food, a house to shelter their family, a priest to guide them and teach their children. Beyond that, the duke hires mercenaries to keep our neighbors from attacking us, so we send tithes to him, and to the temple for the priests. There are guilds to train the specialists we need, and merchants who trade our extra food for goods from other lands. Artists add beauty to the world, which is valuable in a different way.” He raised his eyebrows and looked at her closely. “Everyone has their own role to serve, however insignificant it may seem, but it makes up a part of the whole that is our community. It’s not up to us to choose what that role is, but to do the best where we are placed.”
“Why?” The question came out even though she knew she sounded like a petulant child. “Why can’t we choose for ourselves?”
He looked at her with a sympathetic smile and shook his head again. “The gods choose our fates. Most never go beyond the role they were born into, and those who rise above it are guided by a diving hand, whether we can see it or not.” He waved his hand to indicate the manor. “You were given to tend this land by the circumstances of your birth, a duke’s illegitimate daughter. Perhaps your father will call you to serve somewhere else in time, but for now, we must deal with what is before us.”
Korinna sat in silence for the rest of the meal, considering the steward’s words. Maybe he’d had a dream of his own once to be something other than a farmer, but he’d accepted his place here, a steward to guide Pherenia and then her daughter. Was it wrong to want something else from her life? Did the gods plan out her fate, and her parents were only the tools to set her on her assigned path?
Myron let her sit in silent contemplation as they finished eating, but once the supper dishes were cleared away, he cleared his throat and pulled out the household’s ledger. “We must start planning for the harvest,” he said gently. “We lost a few fields to neglect during the…unfortunate epidemic, but there are still many acres that will be ready soon. Since we have fewer hands to work the fields, we must consider if we need to hire extra help to bring in all of our crops before they spoil.”
Korinna leaned forward to look at the columns of numbers in the ledger. She hadn’t considered that the harvest would be a problem. “How many people does it normally take to handle it all?”
He began to work out a formula where she could watch. “Working at a normal pace, a skilled hand can harvest on average this much per hour, and then we multiply that out by the typical fourteen hours a day…”
After several calculations, Korinna began to realize that even with everyone working their hardest around the clock, it would take too long to harvest all of their crops. Of course, with fewer people to feed in the village now, their food needs were smaller, so even after counting their usual tithes and what they needed to trade with other villages, there was excess. On Myron’s suggestion, she decided to offer a share of the extra crops with any spare hands who came to help with the harvest instead of letting the food go to waste rotting in the fields.
“Of course, other villages may be in the same position as us,” Myron said gently. “But on the other hand, there may be people who have lost their homes due to the sickness or were driven out of the city by the quarantine, and we can offer them a place here along with the work. We’ll have to be careful trusting these migrants but it could work out in the long run.”
Korinna nodded, thinking of the many houses that were left empty in the village now. Families had banded together after the sickness had passed—children who lost their parents were taken in by other families, and some people combined their households to make up for lost members on both sides. There was plenty of room to bring in new residents and it would help make things not seem so diminished after the Black Death. She looked forward to offering a home to those who needed it.
Myron smiled his approval at her. “We’ll draft an announcement and send it around the region, so people know to come here. The harvest is only a few weeks off, so we have to work quickly.”
She put her hand on his warmly. “Thanks for the help. For everything.” She appreciated her friends all the more now.
Myron gathered her into a warm hug in response. “Of course, my child. Of course.”
***
Late that night, Korinna sat up in bed, startled from her sleep. Her heart was pounding and all that she could think at first was that something was horribly wrong. Her mind screamed at her to run or to fight, but she didn’t know what she was afraid of. So why did she have the feeling that she was about to die?
She forced herself to take slow breaths and listened, peering around her into the darkness. All was still in the night, not even the sound of late-season rain on the roof. There was nothing—nothing to explain her sudden panic.
It must have been a nightmare, some memory of the hallucinations of her illness, she reasoned with herself. Ever since she’d recovered, her mind seemed to play tricks on her sometimes, imagining monsters were lurking just around the next corner. She was safe, she repeated in her mind, over and over. Usually, the feeling passed after a few moments and she went on as if nothing had happened.
But this time, she couldn’t calm herself down, gripping the blankets and feeling her heart going so fast it would tear itself out of her chest. Perhaps she needed more reassurance—darkness let her imagination run away with her. Finally, she climbed out of bed, draped a blanket over her shoulders, and lit a candle to go check on the household.
She padded through the dark manor, quiet so she didn’t wake the staff, going to touch each window to be sure it was latched and rechecking the locks at every outside door. All was secure, and through the windows, she glimpsed a few torches lit up on the walls of the courtyard, so the guard on night duty was still keeping watch. There was no sign that anything was amiss.
At the front of the house, she paused in her patrol and knelt in front of the ancestor shrine. She whispered a quick prayer to her mother’s spirit and the gods, more for reassurance than asking for any protection. She was protected enough by ordinary means—it seemed foolish to ask for help from a simple night terror.
After she had been everywhere and still found nothing, she forced herself to go back upstairs and lay down on her bed again. But try as she might, her eyes stared up into the darkness of her ceiling, and she could not sleep. She
couldn’t shake the feeling that there was danger out there somewhere.
When the first shout rang out from the walls, she thought she’d imagined it. But then it came again, and someone else answered. She ran to the window and saw more torches lighting up around the perimeter as other guards rushed out, raising the alarm.
She threw a dress over her shift and dashed downstairs, where servants were already rousing and lighting the lamps. She would have run out into the courtyard to ask what was the matter, but Aeson caught her before she could reach the front door.
“My lady,” he said, releasing his grip on her arm, but he stepped in front of the door to block her. “It’s not safe to go out there. You must stay in here.”
Korinna clenched her hands at her sides, but she didn’t try to get past him. She looked up into his face for some sign of what had happened. “Why is there an alarm? Are we under attack?”
Aeson glanced over his shoulder. “There’s a fire in the fields,” he said in a low voice so the nearby servants wouldn’t hear. “The guards will investigate it.”
Her eyes darted around wildly for a bucket or some other vessel she could grab for water. “A fire? We have to go put it out! That’s our food burning out there!”
He held up a hand to block her. “Please, Korinna, stay here. A fire in this season is… unnatural,” he said, still speaking quietly. “One of the guards thought he saw something moving out there. We have to wait until they find out what it is.”
Of course, she knew a fire was unusual so soon after the end of the rains, but she didn’t see why that would stop them from putting it out. The grain was almost ripe, drying in the sun, and it would burn. If a malicious person had started it, the guards should catch them so they could be punished. She had to know more about what was going on.
She folded her arms and drew herself up to her full height so she could glare at him in her most authoritative manner, even though she didn’t even come up to his chin. “I demand to go and consult with the captain of my guards.”
He looked crestfallen at her tone, but he stood his ground. “I’m acting under the captain’s orders. You’ll know as soon as he decides what to do.”
Arguing wasn’t getting her anywhere, so she turned away from the door and knelt in front of her mother’s shrine again. The dancing light of the candles made the painting shift before her eyes, seeming to show Pherenia first as a young woman, then as an old crone. Korinna closed her eyes from the sight and said the prayers she’d been reluctant to say earlier: protect her home, protect her people, guide her through this crisis. She didn’t know what to do.
Shouts came from the courtyard. Aeson opened the door and rushed outside without saying anything to stop Korinna, so she followed him. The yard was lit up with torches. Most of the guards were up on the wall, but the captain was down on the ground, holding up a boy streaked with soot.
“I saw it,” the boy cried out, loud enough that even people in the house must be able to hear him. “A chimaera. It’s attacking the sheep.”
The captain sprang into action, calling for all of the guards to arm themselves and prepare for battle. They acted quickly, loading up with spears and crossbows, buckling on the few pieces of leather armor they owned. The captain opened the gate and gave the order to head out.
Aeson hesitated, looking back at Korinna with concern. “Sir, should one of us stay behind the guard the manor?”
The captain shook his head, bowing to Korinna. “Sorry, my lady, but if you want us to have a hope of stopping this monster, I’ll need all the hands I can get. I’ll be rousing the village for volunteers, too, with your permission.” He gestured up at the house. “This building is stone, so if you bolt the doors and stay inside, you should be safe. And pray that it’s only one chimaera.”
Korinna nodded her approval. “Please, do what you can. The gods go with you.” Her eyes flickered to Aeson. She wanted to run to him, to kiss him good-bye and wish him luck, but she knew every moment was crucial. She kissed her fingertips instead and lifted them in farewell. “Come back alive.”
Aeson touched his fingers to his lips and raised them in return, then turned away without a word. He fell into step behind the other guards down the hill.
She hesitated for a moment at the open gate as she watched them go. She wished that she could wield a weapon and fight with them. It was so hard to be left behind and wait to find out what would happen, knowing that her life was in their hands. She should be afraid of facing a chimaera, but she felt like it was almost worse to not be in control of her own fate. Some women were strong enough to fight. But with her small stature, Korinna could never wield the heavy spears used by the guards to attack monsters like chimaeras from a safe distance.
She locked the gate behind them with her own hands—it was blocked with a heavy bar, but a clever mechanism made it swing down into place with a light touch. She looked up at the sky and saw the glow of fire mingled with dark plumes of smoke coming from the west—the direction of the forest. No surprise that the monster had come from the wilderness.
She went back to the boy who’d brought the news and took his hand. “We’ll take care of you,” she reassured him, leading him into the house. She locked the front door, too, and busied herself with tending the boy.
The boy’s name was Scaios, he told her, and he’d been assigned to watch the flocks overnight by sleeping with them in the fields. When he woke up, the fire had already started, and he thought the sheep were restless because of the smoke. Then he’d seen the terrifying beast appear out of the darkness.
“I saw the lion head first,” Scaios said with wild eyes. “It was growling and attacking the sheep. The goat head breathes the fire, and I didn’t stay long enough to see what the snake head does.” He hung his head with a guilty look. “I know I’m s’posed to protect the sheep, but I was just so scared, I ran away and left them behind to be eaten. I’m sorry.”
Korinna put her hands on his shoulders and bent down to face him directly. “No, you were very brave,” she told him. “You did the right thing to come here and warn us. It will take every one of the guards to fight this monster.”
She checked him over for burns or other injuries, but Scaios was only dirty. The servants brought hot water for him to get cleaned up and she personally brought him food from the kitchen.
She couldn’t keep her thoughts from going to the men out fighting the monster. A chimaera was the deadliest monster that had ever attacked Anoberesovo in her lifetime, and she didn’t know if the guards would be able to kill it. They were well-meaning and practiced with their weapons every day, but they didn’t have much experience in a real fight. Usually when smaller monsters were spotted in the forest too close to a village, there was an organized hunting party drawn from all of the nearby communities with priests to counter the wyld magic—when there was something large like a chimaera or a spiderwolf, they sent for the mercenaries, seasoned soldiers who knew how to kill. But this one had shown up without any warning and they had to do what they could to stop it.
It was likely that someone would die in the attempt—and although she didn’t want to lose anyone else, she selfishly hoped that Aeson would survive. She dared not name him in her prayers, though, in case it tempted the ill luck that seemed to prey on her home in recent months. She prayed for everyone who had gone to the fight.
There was no way to tell how the fighting went from the manor, but Korinna watched the fire from the window, her heart sinking as she saw it spread farther and farther through her fields. It seemed as if the whole world was burning around her. It didn’t come up the hill toward the manor, and from what she could see of the village, it didn’t reach any other buildings, but all of their crops were going up in flames.
When morning dawned at last, the sky was gray and hazy with the smoke. The fire was finally shrinking, but the light let her see just how far the destruction had spread, nothing but blackened fields in every direction. Korinna watched the road for any sign of the
returning guards.
Finally, she saw a group of men making their way slowly toward the manor. She rushed to open the gate and let them in.
The captain came first, kneeling in the dirt of the road at her feet. “The chimaera has gone, taking its ill-gotten spoils with it,” he said, hanging his head. “We saved the village, my lady, but not much else. The villagers are putting out the last of the fire, not that it will make much of a difference at this point. I am sorry that we could not serve you better.”
Korinna beckoned him to stand. “Thank you for your service,” she said warmly. “I know you all did the best you could, and we are grateful to have our lives.” She looked up at the other tired faces, counting how many remained, and realized that she didn’t see Aeson among them. “Did you…lose anyone?” she said in a shaky voice.
The captain nodded sadly. “Some of the villagers who went with us. And Periphas, the poor soul.” He turned and waved his hand, and then a tall young man came out from behind the others, smiling at her despite a bandage wound around his head. “And this squire has been promoted to a full guard for his brave actions. We’ll go clean up now, by your leave, and let you say your congratulations.”
The captain bowed to her with a twinkle in his eye before leaving, and the other guards followed him, shuffling off to the barracks. She found herself alone with Aeson since the servants seemed to have disappeared from the courtyard, too.
Korinna held her arms open and Aeson rushed into them, bending down to kiss her. When he paused for breath several minutes later, she reached up and touched his face tenderly, eyeing the bandage. “How badly are you hurt?”
“It’s just a scratch,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it. “I wanted to kill it for you, but it was too strong, and the captain pulled me back. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head and smiled at him. “I’m just happy that you’re alive,” she said sincerely. She dreaded what waited for her after this moment, but for now, she just wanted to touch him and know that he was back safely. “It would have been awful to lose you, too.”
The Duke's Daughter Page 5
