Cast Under an Alien Sun (Destiny's Crucible)

by Olan Thorensen

  “They seem perfect,” Yozef decided. “How much should I pay them?”

  “I’d say about thirty krun a sixday.”

  “So little?” said a surprised Yozef. “Apiece?”

  “Oh, no, that’s for both.”

  “How’s that enough?”

  “That’s more than enough. They’ll have a place to live, and the thirty krun doesn’t include food, since Elian will buy and cook for all three of you. All they need is money for clothes and occasional medicant help.”

  Sounds like goddamn slave labor to me. There’s gonna be trouble if they start bowing and calling me master.

  “All right. I’ll hire them. Let’s go tell them.”

  “Yozef, remember that things are evidently different here than in your homeland. The Faughns expect you to be an employer who expects good work from them. Any hint of feeling sorry for them will be considered an insult, especially by Brak, even if you mean well. Let them set their own pace for work, and I expect you’ll have no complaints.”

  They went back to where the couple stood next to each other, awaiting his decision. They didn’t quite touch, though nevertheless gave the sense of clustering together against a difficult world. They had each other and not much else.

  “Sen Faughn and Ser Faughn, Cadwulf Beynom speaks highly of you as hard and honest workers. I get a similar impression from meeting you. If it’s agreeable to you, I’ll hire you to take care of the property. I’ll pay you thirty krun a sixday. Both houses need extensive cleaning and repair, both inside and out. My work will keep me in the village and the abbey most of the time, so I will trust you to do all that’s necessary to make the property comfortable for me when I’m not at work.

  “The small hut is yours to live in. It also needs many repairs. I believe those who work for me do their best work when they have proper places to live, so I expect both the hut and the main cottage to be repaired. Besides the structures, the grounds need work. I would like a garden with fresh vegetables, and the fruit trees need pruning and other tending. I leave the details to your experience, as long as the work gets done.”

  Elian Faughn beamed at Yozef’s words. Brak furrowed his brow and started to say something, but his wife cut him off with a curtsy. “Thank you, Ser Kolsko. We’ll be pleased to work for you as hard as we can.”

  Yozef moved on before the old man could say anything. “Elian will cook, and, in my homeland, it is considered that an employer should eat the same quality of foods as their workers. I don’t know the custom here on Caedellium, but I must insist that we follow my people’s customs. After you move here, I’ll give you lists and descriptions of foods from my homeland I would like Elian to do her best to reproduce. It would also be helpful if I understood the customs and the foods of Caedellium better, so I expect Elian also to cook local meals. Any materials and foods we need I’ll give you coin for those purchases, and you can return any remaining coins. I won’t have time to pay close attention to such details, but I assume you can manage such purchases without me.”

  Yozef and Cadwulf left them with suspicion in Brak’s eyes and a hint of moisture in Elian’s. The couple walked hand-in-hand back toward the village, with the promise to return later that day with their belongings and start to work on the property. Yozef was briefly tempted to offer to find a wagon to help them move, then decided they probably didn’t have all that much to transfer and wasn’t sure how much help to offer and stay within the bounds of their self-respect.

  True to their word, when Yozef returned to the property the next afternoon, the Faughns had moved into the hut, and both structures already appeared transformed, debris cleared away, and the inside of the main cottage swept, wiped of dust, and scrubbed.

  Christ, marveled Yozef, they must have only stopped to sleep—I hope.

  Yozef’s move took longer. His room at the abbey was cluttered with clothes, books, papers, writing materials, and even a few decorations. He was inclined to move by wagon, but the image of the Faughns walking all of their worldly possessions in one trip made him reticent, so he bought a pack in the village and, during the next two sixdays, gradually made his own move. The decision gave him a chance to discard items he couldn’t remember the reason he had and gave the Faughns time to make the property more pleasant. And that it was. He still had a few things to move when he formally “moved into” the cottage, sleeping there and eating morning and evening meals. By then, the cottage was spotless, if somewhat bare. A new roof was on. Exactly how Brak had done it by himself, Yozef couldn’t envision and thought it maybe a good thing he didn’t know. He checked out their hut, ostensibly to be sure his workers had appropriate quarters to maximize their work. He pretended some annoyance that their roof was not as complete as his, and he chastised Brak. This seemed to satisfy the brusque man that the employer wasn’t providing charity.

  Meals by Elian might not be haute cuisine, though, like most island food, they were hearty and plentiful. He allowed Elian to expose him to some local fare he hadn’t experienced before, and he, in turn, let them try dishes from California, or at least those that could be reasonably duplicated on Caedellium. The morning meal, still breakfast to Yozef, was where differences were greatest. Chickens hadn’t made the transplantations to Anyar, though ducks had and were a source of eggs. Yozef had never eaten a duck egg, and the first time they seemed a little too gamey, although he got used to the taste. The Anyar version of birds, murvors, provided a second common source of eggs. The ruktor was a kiwi-shaped, flightless, murvor with black and purple feathers and a parrot-like beak for digging roots and cracking nuts. Ruktor eggs were blue-shelled, with a lighter blue interior, and to Yozef, the eggs tasted like something needing disappearance down a disposal. He made several attempts at eating them before giving up and sticking to duck eggs.

  As for preparation, eggs were boil, scrambled, or used as an ingredient in dishes. Fried or poached eggs grossed out the Faughns. Uncooked yolks! Elian made valiant efforts to learn the intricacies of “over-easy,” but eventually Yozef, to her relief, took over the preparation on those mornings when such a disgusting dish made the menu.

  Other breakfast options to remind Yozef of home included the ubiquitous oatmeal-like porridge, pancakes, and French toast. Pancakes weren’t a problem, since they already common on Caedellium, and were accompanied by butter and fruit preserves, but French toast was a novelty that both Brak and Elian took to with enthusiasm. Yozef was surprised many months later to find that French toast had spread to most of Caedellium.

  The cottage became more furnished, as Yozef spotted items he fancied in Abersford shops. Although he wasn’t a knick-knack person, the bare walls and surfaces cried out for decorations. A first such addition was when Yozef spotted a colorful shawl in a weaver’s shop in Abersford. It was patterned, and the blues and greens seemed to match the ocean view. He tacked it to a bare wall and immediately gave the room more life.

  Yozef also couldn’t resist a present for Elian but had to figure out how to get away with it, without offending Brak. He complained to the Faughns that during the bargaining, he was “tricked” by the shopkeeper into buying two shawls. The other one was also colorful, with reds and yellows. Those being colors “he” didn’t particularly like, and since he didn’t want the purchase to go to waste, he insisted that the Faughn’s tack it to one of their walls. Brak reluctantly did so, and Yozef suspected Elian thought a treasure had fallen to them. By “coincidence,” Yozef had noted Elian wore a tattered red-and-yellow scarf most days.

  I actually think I’m starting to accept this new life, Yozef realized one day, as he walked to his shops in Abersford. The cottage had begun to feel like home. He had his routine of breakfast; walking to the village or the abbey, depending on his plans for that day; returning to the evening meal Elian had waiting; and spending occasional evenings at the pubs. He had friends—some, to his surprise, better than any he’d ever had before. He was making a difference and hoped to do more. Life could be worse.

 
Chapter 20: Maera

  Keelan Manor, Caernford

  Most days, Culich Keelan and his wife, Breda, talked during their entire morning meal, but not this day. Only the distant sounds of animals and workers on the Keelan Manor grounds broke the silence. This time together was an inviolate routine to their lives, a time for just the two of them. Rarely did they eat mid-day meal together—Culich in meetings or traveling, Breda managing the household and the surrounding estate and attending meetings of her own with clanswomen and others. Evening meal was eaten with the family or, on formal occasions, with clan members, visitors—followed occasionally by more meetings. Morning meal was their time. Time to talk of the small things keeping them bound to each other, talk of important family matters, and talk of weighty issues of broader scope. Breda also served as Culich’s sounding board for when he needed to unload worries and doubts he couldn’t express to anyone else. That he spoke so little this morning told her something weighed on his mind.

  Being hetman was a never-ending task few could appreciate without experiencing the weight themselves. It would be different if he felt less responsibility for the sixty thousand clan members. He knew hetmen of other clans who didn’t feel the weight, and he thought the well-being of those clans suffered because of it. Culich’s father had felt the burden of leadership, and although he had imbued his son and heir with the same mind-set, he also taught that there was a need for time to be yourself, to admit doubts, if he had them, and for those moments not to be the hetman. These morning meals were one such time. Usually.

  Breda was patient. After twenty-five years of marriage, she knew he had something important to discuss, something he was not comfortable with, something he would get to in his own time.

  She watched him with a slight smile when he glanced up from finishing his latest biscuit lathered with butter, and his thoughtful expression morphed into a grin.

  “Yes, yes. Something we need to talk about.”

  “I assumed so. Either that, or you lost your voice overnight.”

  He laughed. “No, I managed to keep it.” The laughter fled. “It’s about Maera. I’ve been thinking about her again, and . . . ”

  Breda’s face became somber to match her husband’s. “You think it’s time for her to marry.”

  “Yes. We haven’t pushed her. I’d hoped she would come around to it by herself. Lately, I wondered whether she ever would.”

  Breda nodded sadly. “I know. I’ve felt the same. Even though she’s said nothing to me, I think she still hasn’t come to grips with both how unhappy she became at the thought of marrying Folant and how she harbors guilt about feeling relief at his accidental death.”

  Culich sighed. “Folant wasn’t a bad man. Maybe they would have worked it out.”

  “Maybe,” said a dubious Breda. “Oh, I agree he wasn’t bad or evil, but I’m afraid Maera holds fantasies about marriage. Likely at least somewhat our fault.”

  “Our fault?” exclaimed a startled Culich. “How?”

  “Dear, she had us as her model.”

  Culich was silent for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, you might be right. I guess I never thought of it that way. We were so lucky. Inter-clan conflicts seemed to be a thing of the past, and the Narthani were still many years away. My father didn’t think a political marriage necessary when it came my time, and he had no objections to my marrying the daughter of one of his own boyermen. It’s easy to forget how marriages for our families are so often political affairs.”

  “Maera knows the responsibilities,” said Breda. “We raised her so she knew a marriage might be arranged to benefit the clan, and she knows we would try to make a match with the potential for a degree of happiness.”

  Culich shook his head. “I thought we succeeded with Folant. Marriage to the second son of Hulwyin Mittack would mean she might never be the wife of the Mittack hetman, but it would be of appropriate station. help keep our clan’s connections close to an allied clan, and, or course, one of their sons would be in line as a possible heir to Keelan. Plus, Folant seemed like a likable sort.”

  “I’m afraid, dear, we never know what will go on between two people until they are put together. Folant may have been honorable and solid, but he didn’t see Maera as a person outside of himself and his belief in her expected roles. I know he didn’t listen to her. Maera always saw the two of us discussing issues, and she assumed it would be the same in her marriage. Unfortunately, Folant didn’t see it that way. During one of her visits to Mittack, he told her to stay out of Mittack clan business, because she was a woman and not even from Mittack.”

  “That’s not only stupid, but it makes me angry,” said Culich. “Any husband of Maera’s would be lucky to have her. But that was then, and this is now. She’s twenty-three. She engaged late as it was, at twenty-one. I would never try to force her to be with someone she doesn’t approve of, but she’s aware of her obligations. Nothing has changed. We all know a hetman’s family has duties to the clan that don’t always mesh with personal desires, but we do what we must.”

  Culich reached out and held his wife’s hand, his grip tight. “And then there’s the Narthani. While we can’t tell the future, I fear for the coming years. Questions about the Keelan succession are uncertainties the clan can’t afford.”

  He paused, then continued. “I see three paths forward. We give her more time, we accept the possibility she never marries, or we talk with her that it’s time.”

  Breda nodded. “As much as I hate the thought of forcing her to marry, I wonder whether it wouldn’t be best for her. I fear her sinking into a shell and turning into a tired, bitter, solitary woman. The problem remains, who would she marry?”

  Culich sighed. “Yes, and there we return. A marriage of similar status to Folant’s might not happen. There aren’t many similar candidates who are unmarried, unless it’s someone much younger. The facts are that her age, her previous engagement, and she herself all work against her. I’m sorry to admit it, but most men prefer a more pliable wife, and Maera was never one not to give an opinion. She’ll be smarter and more educated than any husband.”

  “What about forgetting the political marriage between clan families? What about within Keelan?”

  “Who would it be?” asked Culich. “Knowing Maera, I’m afraid she’s stubborn enough not to marry someone without advantage for the clan, even if she likes him, and I’d hate to frame it as simply producing candidates for the heir. At this point, I would be amenable to any marriage that made her happy, but let’s admit it, my dear, our family has such solid clan support that there’s no advantage to a marriage within the clan. That leaves outside of the clan, and we’re back to who?”

  Breda nodded. “Also, I worry about her leaving the clan. If her marriage was cheerless, and she didn’t have the familiar around her, it would break my heart to know she would live an unhappy life.”

  Culich was silent, having no solution.

  Breda cleared her throat. “What about getting her out of here to travel more? She has always been interested in helping me with activities with widows and orphans and has even occasionally wondered whether, if she weren’t a Keelan, she might have joined one of the orders. On her own, she’s dabbled in medicant texts and probably knows almost as much as medicants in training. She’s also something of a scholastic in her own right in Caedellium history, stories, and folklore. Could we arrange for her to visit some of the scholasticums in other clans? Maybe she would meet a kindred soul there who might be appropriate.”

  Culich rubbed his nose as he considered his wife’s suggestion. “Perhaps. I confess I sometimes feel guilty about how much I’ve come to depend on her as an advisor. Even in Keelan, though, it can be a problem having a young woman giving advice heeded as much as that given by the graybeards. If I hadn’t tolerated . . . no, let’s be honest . . . encouraged her scholastic interest, she would have found a more acceptable role.”

  Breda shook her head and laid a hand on his forearm. “No, Culich, she is who she is.
We talk about duty to the clan, and the benefit of her helping you is important. We shouldn’t judge ourselves too harshly if her helping is both good for the clan and makes her feel useful.”

  Culich grunted and abruptly pushed his plate away. “So we accept, but where does that leave us with Maera?”

  Breda sighed. “Maybe we continue to do what we are already doing, nothing, for now. Your first choice. We can also look for ways to let her travel away from Caernford. Then, wait longer and see whether Maera, God, or circumstances somehow solves the problem.”

  Maera and Anarynd

  The object of the discussion at the hetman’s morning meal at that moment finished a spiced bread roll and washed it down with kava in her own quarters of the Keelan manor. Maera noticed neither the roll nor the kava as they were consumed. Her attention focused on the disarray of papers spread out on the table. Sometimes she ate with one or more of her three younger sisters. On Godsday morning, her parents expected all of them to eat together before riding their surrey to St. Tomo’s Abbey for the morning service in Caernford. Many days, Maera ate alone. Not that she preferred it, but it was easier at times, particularly when she was absorbed in her readings, reports for her father, or correspondence. Today it was all three.

  She finished editing a summary of her observations from her father’s last district boyermen meeting, and her ink-stained fingers pushed the completed report aside, to copy the final version later in the morning.

  Next, she opened a book on the Keelan Clan history, written a hundred years ago, about what was known or what lore believed to be true about the early days of the clan’s founding. She was a third of the way through the book, and the dryness of events and names made it hard for her to focus for too long. Today she waded through ten pages, as resolved, then replaced the page marker and closed the book.