The Forest and the Farm

by Vance Huxley

  “Unless you want to trade for some thatching or anything else I can spare? I have a few crops and there’s a bit of a surplus that I sell, but I doubt you’ll want roots and grain or straw.” Fellip smiled, just a little. “Except as bedding for the goats.”

  “I might take a bit of grain for the chickens and some straw. I don’t need the other silver in one lump, not if I’m getting the first part anyway.” Billi looked at the larger sum again because he wouldn’t spend that. The silver would go straight into his nest egg, a really welcome addition. “What sort of deal will you give me if I take that part over the year, as the reed is used?”

  “A better one if ‘tis spread out over the year. This price is based on the value the Traders put on their reed, and some of our crop is better quality so I’ll use it for thatching on the Farm and get a better price. You’ll almost certainly end up with a bit more silver, because if ‘tis spread out I’ll be willing to give you a slightly bigger share.” Fellip really cheered up now. “That’s also much better for me, because you really would have almost cleaned me out.”

  They spent some time working through rates, and costs, and different qualities of reed. That came as an education for Billi and he tucked away the information on getting the best reed, to use when tending his valley patch. Somehow he’d started that, calling the valley his. Eventually they clasped arms on it, enough of an agreement in the Village. If a man broke his word then he would get no more deals with anyone and if he cheated another villager badly enough, a man could even be banished.

  Once Fellip left Billi spent more time sitting with Rabbit and One-shut and making sense of what had just happened. He had a steady income even without hunting, a small one, which really did make a tremendous difference. With the hoarded proceeds of selling his stones and pelts, even bad weather and bad luck on the hunt wouldn’t be a disaster. Billi always worried about his future. Now, because he couldn’t be a traditional Hunter Billi had become something else, part Hunter, part stone and nugget seeker, and part Farmer.

  * * *

  That relief seemed to give a permanent lift to Billi’s spirits, and more so once he’d organised hut-sitting. “Come on Rabbit. Off to the green again.” Billi set off in a tremendously good mood, off to the valley again. From his song, and the way he bounced about, Rabbit really looked forward to a valley trip as well. Though this trip winter had really started to bite and the first snows slowed Billi, so travelling took longer and he wouldn’t have as long up at the lakes. A skin of ice had formed on the edges of the shallowest parts and Billi had to give up catching fish with his hands. That wasn’t a real problem, since Billi had his lines or the long, slim fish arrows with the three thin points and their tiny barbs. This time Billi used packed snow to freeze the fish and save the time it would take to gather wood and smoke them.

  There were big pug marks in the snow and two sets of normal sized wolf tracks around the hut. Rabbit carefully re-watered his marking places and the wolves at least would probably take the hint. Wolves didn’t confront the much larger Hounds unless they really had no option. Since Rabbit also marked a couple of bushes where the Great Hunter came to fish, marking wars had been declared.

  Billi woke on the third morning with Rabbit’s nose on him and the bright hunting alert in his head. He crept out of his sleeping furs and strung his bow but when Billi cautiously cracked open the door he found that he needed the biggest hunting head. A bear stood rooting around the outside of the cabin near the flat rock Billi used to dress his fish. Rabbit had it right; this was a hunting opportunity. Billi swapped his arrow and waited, since the scraping as he opened the door further would alert the bear, which stood too close to risk it. If the beast attacked instead of running, an arrow wouldn’t stop him fast enough. Billi waited until crows were making a racket fighting over a dead fish and eased the door farther open, just enough to shoot round.

  Billi waited for the bear to be in the right position and put a shaft in almost sideways through the big ribcage, then heaved on the door. Rabbit raced out of the hut and danced around on his three legs, just near enough to keep the bear distracted and turned away from Billi. Despite its pain the bear, now reared up on his hind legs, had to turn to face threat from the Hound. Billi planted his second shaft through the bear’s lungs as well, trying for the heart. The animal dropped to four legs and lunged feebly, then crumpled. Rabbit backed off, while keeping the bear’s attention as the blood poured from its mouth and ribs. By the time Billi had organised his crutch, boot and spear the bear only twitched now and then. Billi probably didn’t really need the spear thrust though he always made sure, as the Laws required.

  Billi spent most of the day dressing out the bear and cleaning and scraping the potential new sleeping fur. He left plenty of fat and meat scraps on the bones that went with the offal down by the trees, because this bear had been ready for winter. Many of the bears had already gone off to wherever bears lived over winter, nobody had ever found out.

  Billi tried to make a point when he put the tithe down by the trees. He tried to show that he’d claimed this part as Farm and that part stayed Forest, and he would deliver the Hunter’s tithe to the Forest. Billi didn’t even know it that’s how it worked or if anything in the Wild would understand. The Village knew the extent of the Farm, and new land became an extension to the cleared area but here Billi had to establish a brand new boundary. Early the next morning, as he came past loaded down with bear meat and fur, every scrap of the tithe had been taken.

  When Billi and Rabbit arrived home, Ellibeth had pie and bread baked and the hut warm and welcoming. This time she raised no argument about too much pay because of the sheer amount of bear meat Billi pulled out of his pack, and Rubyn once again earned two eggs. Perry had been hut-sitting part of the time and when Billi took Ellibeth home the youth came outside for his meat.

  When he saw the bearskin, the youth asked for a claw as part of his pay. That would go on a leather string around his neck, and Perry no doubt hoped some maid would notice. Early the next day Timath made a point of calling in to see Billi and exclaiming about Perry’s claw, so he ended up with one as an advance on his pay. Viktor took more bear meat as payment to turn the bearskin into a sleeping fur, because there were plenty of villagers who would want to buy some.

  * * *

  Billi had a shock when Ellibeth and Rubyn brought the finished sleeping fur and he unrolled it. “Oh, I’m sorry Billi. I never realised. Da just said footwear to keep the frost out.” Ellibeth blushed a little bit. “As a thank you for all the extra meat, and for filling my pillow.”

  They were all three staring at a pair of big boots. Hairy boots, because Viktor had used the fur from the bear’s rear legs with a thick leather sole across the bottom. He’d even brought the fur round underneath for grip, and lined them with fur from the front legs. “Well, they’ll last me twice as long this way.” Billi didn’t mind, he felt flattered that Viktor had managed to forget his missing leg.

  Ellibeth giggled, which came as a relief. “Unless you get a wooden foot for the end of your peg for the snow? The boot would stop it sliding about.”

  Billi explained why a foot wouldn’t work. “Fellip said the same for swampy ground, but that would also mean carrying a spare peg and crutch.”

  “Yes, you’d need three boots so Da would still be wrong. He’ll be mortified.”

  “You tell him I appreciate them. Those things will keep out the worst weather.” Billi smiled. “I’ve even got a spare if one is soaked.” Billi noticed Rubyn eyeing the boots. “Do you want to try them?”

  “Really?” Billi nodded and they both sat and laughed as the littlun stomped and growled up and down the hut. “Where are the claws? I thought bear feet had claws, Billi?” Rubyn peered at the furry toes of the boots. “Perry had a claw, and so did Timath. Is that why there aren’t any?”

  “No, they’re still on the feet someplace, unless,” Billi opened the sleeping fur right out. “There you are. Four feet and most of the claws
.” Billi glanced from Rubyn to the claws from the front paws, which Viktor had detached. “Would you like a claw, Rubyn?”

  “Ooh, really? Perry says I should start saving now, but that chicken claws aren’t any good.” Rubyn hovered over the claws, glancing from them to his Ma and then Billi, and back to the claws.

  “Choose one. I’ll only put the others in the box.” Billi glanced at Ellibeth, opened his mouth and shut it sharply. He’d been about to ask if she wanted a claw as well since the rest of the family had one. Then Billi remembered that giving claws had significance when it was a man giving them to a maid. “Um. So, there were enough feathers for the pillow?”

  “Oh yes. A lovely big one.” Ellibeth glanced at the one on Billi’s bed, opened her mouth and shut it. Billi looked and yes, his wasn’t all that big. Maybe he would save a few feathers and make a bigger one. Billi left them at Viktor’s gate with Rubyn and Spots dancing around Ellibeth, Rubyn waving his claw and growling. When he got back to the hut Billi put the claws into the box. Over nine years he’d built up quite a collection of big teeth and claws in there.

  * * *

  The last Tinkerers came through, their brightly painted wagons pushing along the trails through the early snows to pick up the first of the winter pelts. These Tinkerers always risked the edge of true winter for those pelts and the last summer meat, to sell far to the south. Billi had a good selection of furs, pelts and fine hides this year, which he sold for a few little ingots of both gold and silver. He went to see the man who bought stones with definite anticipation because this year Billi expected to do very well.

  During the year Billi had taken his stones to the Tinkerers as they came through to try and work out which ones they really wanted. He sold their rejects to the Traders, and put the slim silver ingots in little caches in his valley. Billi didn’t trade all the stones the Tinkerers wanted, because he wanted to inspect most of what they chose, and now he thought he’d got it right. Billi was very happy to find out that many of the stones from the gravel bar were the type they liked, because those would be the majority in the future. More, if the stone were the right type the Tinkerers really did want the larger ones.

  For once a Tinkerer made a mistake while negotiating for a larger one and Billi caught the hint of eagerness. He bargained very hard, despite some very intense distraction from the two Tinkerer beguilers with their flashing eyes and exotic tattoos. After the trade had been agreed the Tinkerer told Billi to hang on to any other large ones and he’d give Billi a similar good price, adding that the actual amount depended on how Billi’s willpower held. His two assistants, the beguilers, laughed with the men.

  Now Billi wanted to sell one of his bigger stones to this man, the last Tinkerer of the year, and see if the price actually stayed better. He’d also brought all his smaller stones, the type the Tinkerers liked, because this man usually gave a fractionally higher price for those even if he seemed a bit choosier. The better the price he could get the faster the nest egg grew, and now Billi might have need of silver and possibly gold before then. If he really intended making the valley into Farm he would eventually need a proper hut, built by a tradesman.

  “Greetings. I hear you have a new name. The Wanderer.” The Tinkerer waited at his little table, smiling in the bright lantern light from above. Unlike some types of vendors, stone buyers always liked to see what they bought or sold.

  “Where do you like to wander?” Her bright smile had a little suggestion in it, and the maid waved her hands at her tattoos to indicate a few possible places. The beguilers weren’t wasting time today.

  “A long way from here though in the cold, under the stars, I sometimes do think I’m in the wrong place.” Billi had a little bit better resistance to beguilers these days after dealing with four other pairs in one year. Both beguilers laughed and moved in closer as the bargaining began.

  Billi tipped out a bag of small stones and then a smaller bag in a separate heap. He thought most or all the first bag were the right type, and most of the second weren’t. The bargaining became spirited, with one of the beguilers threatening to sit on his knee at one stage. Both were wearing a good few sparkuls, the beautiful polished version of what Billi had brought, though most weren’t for sale.

  Or so Billi had heard. Maybe nobody had the price? The sparkling stones drew his eye again and again to whichever parts the beguiler thought Billi should wander to, in return for one of his stones of course. Billi refused to be parted from a stone, though he did start to wonder about where some of those tattoos went under the brief clothes, and what they became. Then he would drag his mind back to the bargaining and the beguiler would pout and start again.

  Eventually Billi had a small stack of ingots, and slightly more rejects than he had expected so he still hadn’t worked out exactly what the Tinkerer wanted. “I have something else this time, something I came across while wandering.” Billi pulled out another bit of scrap leather and unwrapped a larger stone. The beguilers swept in to renew their assault while the Tinkerer carefully inspected the stone with what looked like a very short version of a long-glass. Billi had seen a long-glass on a caravan, and paid his copper to peer into it. The distant treetops had seemed to leap forward. This glass fitted in the Tinkerer’s eye, leaving his hands free to turn the stone in the lamplight.

  Billi expected the dismissive tone in the first offer. “As you know, I’m sure, just because a stone is large it might not have much value.”

  “But if the large stone is also the right sort, the type that can be made into a sparkul, then size makes it much more valuable.” Billi kept his own tone off-hand, as if that were common knowledge.

  The Tinkerer took out the glass and gave Billi a long hard look. “You seem to have been wandering in some very different places. Worse,” the man glanced at the two maids, “you appear to have kept your wits.” He put the glass back into his eye and resumed his inspection while the beguilers treated Billi to some close-up views of sparkuls. They moved onto flaunting tattoos that disappeared behind scraps of cloth, and suggested he might like to see where they led.

  Billi held firm, despite being intrigued at the very least, and once the Tinkerer had finished inspecting the maids pulled back. The real bargaining started, at triple the first offer! But Billi knew what the last Tinkerer had paid and bargained very hard. At last Billi judged he’d got what he could, and he had confirmed the value of larger stones. “I surrender. I just hope I won’t lie awake worrying about how much I’ve been swindled.”

  “You don’t have to lie awake alone?” Billi laughed and shook his head at the young woman.

  The Tinkerer tried to sound indignant. “I haven’t swindled you. That is my best price, in the hope that you’ll bring me any other large ones?” The man definitely thought Billi might have more, and he wanted them.

  “There might be, if the prices are right.” That pleased Billi even more because the Tinkerers never said that about the smaller ones, so they really did prefer the larger if they could get them. “I have found a small pocket.” Billi wanted to tempt the man a bit to increase the price for the next one, but unfortunately he also tempted the beguilers into redoubling their efforts. These two really were very pretty and very distracting.

  “You will find that I pay very well for quality stones. Was the first bag from your small pocket?”

  Billi debated, but the Tinkerer had caught on that the two bags had been deliberately kept separate, and were very different qualities. “Yes.”

  The Tinkerer looked very serious, without the usual flamboyance. “Then I will be very interested. We might be able to come to a better agreement on the smaller ones if you save your year’s collection, the ones from that pocket.”

  Billi ignored a whispered suggestion that there might be a small pocket inside the beguiler’s brief clothing if he’d like to check, and perhaps put a stone in there as a test? “I’ll certainly bear that in mind if the supply holds up. Just to satisfy my curiosity, are the sparkuls on the beguil
ers for sale?”

  “Everything is for sale.” The maid smiled and waved at a few items, mostly sparkuls or gold but some were only tattooed.

  The Tinkerer smiled. “Yes, but most of those sparkuls are very good quality. If you wished to impress a Village maid, I can trade you some of your roughs for small unmounted sparkuls instead of gold.” The Tinkerer laughed. “That would be a sight, a Village maid in Tinkerer sparkuls, though the mounting would cost extra and there would be the price of the gold.”

  “Do you have a lucky maid in mind? Is that why you are so mean to us?” The beguilers didn’t seem to be backing off at the thought of a maid in the background.

  “No maid, I just wondered. That might be another way to hold something against the day my leg gives out.” Billi slapped his good leg. “Instead of keeping gold.”

  “A sparkul in a setting would be smaller than the same value in gold, and easily kept hidden. Would you like to buy some now?” The Tinkerer poised, ready for some unexpected extra trade.

  “Not this time, but I will think of it. I don’t think I should try and trade at the moment after being shown all the possible purchases.” Billi got out while the Tinkerer laughed and one of the beguilers assured him he hadn’t seen everything. Though later, when his head cleared, he did consider trading for unmounted sparkuls.

  Though that wouldn’t be until spring at the earliest. In the meantime, the departing Tinkerer caravan reported a problem on the trail into the Village which certainly cleared thoughts of beguilers from Billi’s head. The Village were supposed to keep the trail in good repair for a half-day’s travel by Trader cart or Tinkerer caravan and Billi turned out with the rest. The villagers spent two days filling in the washed-out section and then cutting back the encroaching brambles and uprooting seedlings along the rest of the nearby trail. At least the trail only came in one side of their Village, not through and out the other direction. Trail’s End was a description of the Village as well as a name. Some of the Hunters and villagers grumbled a bit, because nobody would be paid for their time and any meat taken by the Hunters on guard would be shared out without payment.