by D. K. Fields
‘Well, will you?’
With some effort, he glanced to one side, to the furs he was lying on, fully clothed, trying to remember. ‘Why, did we do…?’
She made to hit him again, but he raised his hands quick enough this time.
‘This is serious!’ she said.
‘We only met last night – I think.’ Through a milky-ale cloud, he started to remember. ‘We talked, away from all the noise. You told me a story. It was nice. Look, I know I’m handsome for a cowhand, but you need to think about this.’
She groaned. ‘You don’t understand. If we say we’re getting married, we can get away from here. Now, today.’
‘Get away?’
‘Yes! Just like those two dullards who can’t look at each other now they’re properly married; they had five seasons wandering the realms, with their parents’ blessing, as goes the tradition.’
He was struggling to keep up with her. That was the way, ever since they’d met. ‘You. You want to spend five seasons out in the Union. With me?’
‘Well, we wouldn’t have to be together the whole time.’
‘And when we get back, we have a wedding? Like last night?’
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ she said. ‘Maybe we don’t even come back.’
‘Maybe we don’t even come back,’ he echoed.
‘It’s like you said, we can’t wait too long. I can’t face another year, another roll of the seasons, out here on the Steppes.’ She grabbed the ridge of his tent and shook it. ‘Another year sleeping in the same old tents, herding the same tired cattle, cooking the same meat on a spit.’
‘But… married?’
‘It’s only the excuse. I need to be out there, finding my stories. Don’t you see?’
He was starting to. Yes, even in his addled state he was beginning to put the pieces together. He didn’t realise, until that very moment, this was exactly what he had been looking for: a way to leave his family without hurting them. Something his mother and father would accept. A reason they couldn’t argue with.
But they did argue.
*
‘What’s this girl’s name? Who is she?’ his mother said.
‘She’s my daughter, that’s who. And she’s not riding off with some milk-eared goat-herder,’ a large man said, pointing at Nicholas. Odette’s father was as big as the bison he drove, and just as hairy.
Nicholas and Odette stood, eyes lowered, in front of all four parents like two thieves awaiting judgement. In the hours that he’d known her, he hadn’t seen her act in any way meek. When she had finished slapping his face and explaining why they needed to get married, he’d assumed she would take the same tone when they told their parents. Instead, she had let him talk. As if this was his idea.
Around them, the different Wayward herds that had attended the wedding were gradually breaking camp in the weak light of morning. Men and women moved about the business slowly, deliberately, as if even the simple task of taking down a tent was an enormous effort. Others carried their belongings to wagons as if wading through water. Nicholas’s father kept pinching the bridge of his nose and wasn’t so steady on his feet. His mother was having no such problems. She prodded the large bison-man in his chest.
‘Your daughter has clearly seduced my boy, with her hussy ways. He hasn’t so much as looked at a girl in that way before today.’
The man arched a brow and, having taken in just what she had said, turned to Nicholas. ‘What’s wrong with him then?’
‘Nothing! He’s just a boy!’
‘I’m n—’
‘Stay out of this, Nicholas.’
‘Call my daughter a hussy again,’ Odette’s mother said. She shrugged free of her shawl and started to crack her knuckles. The bison-man found himself caught between two glaring women ready to do each other harm.
‘From sense to madness, all of you,’ Nicholas’s father said. ‘I’ve got a camp to clear. Let them marry if they want, just… do it quietly.’
‘Frant!’
But he waved his wife away and meandered back between the tents.
‘It’s tradition,’ Nicholas said, lowering his eyes again when they all looked at him.
‘I told you to stay out of it.’
‘But he’s right,’ Odette said. ‘You have to let us go.’
‘I don’t have to do any such thing.’
Odette’s father cleared his throat and spat on the ground. ‘The children are right. If they’re so determined, there’s no stopping them. No Wayward is caged on the Steppes.’ He turned to his wife. ‘You still want to punch her?’
The woman did appear eager. But Nicholas’s mother just shook her head and went to stand in front of her son. She lifted his chin until he was looking right at her.
‘Do you really want to marry this girl?’ she said.
He didn’t have the wherewithal to lie. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Ha! I knew—’
‘But I might in five seasons.’
At that, Odette came to stand beside him and took his hand. A touching moment that even his mother couldn’t ignore.
‘We’re ready, Mother,’ he said.
‘Ready? What do you know of “ready”?’
‘We know as much as anyone,’ Odette said.
‘So she does have some fire in her,’ his mother said. ‘I was starting to doubt these were really her parents.’
Nicholas smiled. His mother had no idea.
*
The Wayward camp was gone almost as swiftly as it had appeared. The only marks it left were a large area of flattened grass and, in a few places, earth churned by feet and hooves alike. In every direction, wagon trains and their herds snaked across the Steppes. It was a bright, clear spring day, and not too hot for those nursing sore heads or spirit-scoured blood. Still, there was no hurry among the herds to be away from a good spring wedding. The same could not be said for the last few stragglers, and two in particular.
‘You’ll need your cloak come winter,’ his mother said, checking his saddle knots and cinches. ‘Don’t be fooled by the southern heat; a Fenestiran winter can be just as cold as it is here. Trust me.’
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘And your little pipe? You know how much you enjoy playing that of an evening, when you’re far from camp.’
‘Mother!’
He envied the straightforward goodbye Odette received from her parents: they shook hands, promised to see each other in five seasons, and told her to come home with stories worth hearing.
His father was clearly keen to be on the move too. He had looked Odette up and down and said, ‘She’s prettier than you deserve. But then, we’ve always had the Latecomer’s luck in that regard.’ Then he left them to attend the herd’s goats.
All of which were acceptable Wayward farewells. It was just his mother who lingered. She kept fussing, kept saying, ‘Oh, my boy,’ and taking his face in her hands. Until finally, even Nicholas could take no more.
‘Mother! We need to make the most of the light.’
‘Yes, yes of course.’ But she hugged him once more. ‘I do understand. You want to find your own ways, both of you. I understand more than you know.’ She pulled back and smiled at him, tears in her eyes. ‘Something foolish enough to tell the Drunkard: I never readied myself for my child heading out into the realms.’
‘It’s only five seasons, Mother.’
‘No, Nicholas,’ she said, smiling again. ‘It’s a whole lifetime. You’ll see.’
She walked over to Odette who was already in the saddle – and had been for some time. She looked up at the girl, this girl who had tempted her son away with her big eyes and a bigger horizon.
‘Don’t tell my son stories,’ she said. ‘Not if it comes to love.’
Odette could only nod.
Nicholas mounted, and with final farewells, they were away. They rode side by side, heading south away from their herds, their families and everything they’d ever known. The temptation to look back grew with eve
ry plodding step of their horses. Odette was strong, stronger than him. He turned in the saddle to see the figure of his mother, alone in the flattened grass. He waved but couldn’t tell if she saw him or not.
After some time, Odette took a deep breath and asked, ‘What did she mean about winters in Fenest?’
‘That’s a long story,’ he said. ‘And I barely know the half of it.’
*
Salt water was not something Nicholas was prepared for. It didn’t make much sense as water – it felt coarse somehow, and dried you out even though it was just as wet as any other kind of water. It left a taste in the mouth even without drinking it. He couldn’t get used to salt water, even working in it day after day.
He and Odette had ridden south until they reached the coast and the high cliffs where the Steppes met Break Deep. As beautiful and stupefying as the views were, they had both seen the sea before at such a distance. And growing up on the Steppes readied a person for an endless horizon stretching out in front of them. But that vista was as close as either of them had been to the waters of Break Deep. That was, until they rode the coast south, and further south still, during the lengthening days. At night, they ate dried meat, fed their horses, and sometimes they’d light a fire. They slept in their own tents. Odette didn’t want to start their five seasons in Perlanse, her reason being it was the realm closest to home – the realm they knew most about already. She was hungry for what was different, the more the better. Nicholas had no reason to argue – it was all the same to him – so they crossed the Stave Basin and into the Lowlands.
Nicholas lifted the oyster out of the brackish water, ignoring how much was sloshing about inside his heavy leather gloves, and quickly checked it over. Satisfied he didn’t need to chip this one with his little hammer, he tossed it in the basket beside him. The tide was low, but not so low for him to be working on the beach and out of the water. In those first days he’d been given high boots that were covered in some kind of fat that was supposed to help keep his feet dry. But the truth was, after an hour or so of working, every part of him was wet to some degree.
Odette was a little way along the shore, with her back to him. They’d proven to Mr Samuels they could work together well enough – he had to split up some couples. Too distracting, he’d said with a wink. Mr Samuels ran the oyster farm that spanned the few miles of this small stretch of Break Deep. He always needed more workers, what with Lowlanders often heading home for spring planting and the harvests that followed.
‘Wayward always welcome here,’ he’d said when they’d presented themselves at his shack. ‘Your people know the value of hard work.’
That value, for Mr Samuels, came to seven pennies a week, two meals a day – one of which being oyster stew without fail – and a bed in the bunkhouse if they’d care for it. They kept to their tents, which they pitched a little way from the ramshackle buildings. When Mr Samuels had seen their separate tents he just shook his head and kept his questions to himself.
‘Chipping hammer. Fat-covered boots. We shuck oysters. Shucking. In the shallows…’ Odette did that sometimes, just ran through lists of things to herself, her voice carrying in snatches on the wind. Nicholas didn’t mind. The softness of the way she made each sound. That he never knew when she would start a list. It was strangely soothing. He knew what she was thinking about.
‘I’m almost full,’ he said, loud enough for her to hear.
She glanced at her basket, then round at him. ‘So am I.’
He reached down into the murky, cold water again and lifted out a mess of jagged edges and unusual shapes. He knocked off the hard sediment around the oysters – he was quick in learning how to recognise this – and figured that would be enough to satisfy those at the shucking tables. He stood and stretched. Those first few days he had ached all over, like the first days in the saddle, but now it wasn’t so bad.
Picking up his basket, he made his way carefully onto the stony beach. His boots were too big, so he had to bring his foot high out of the water and be ready for a slight give with any footfall. Odette was even less steady on her feet.
‘You all right?’ he said, waiting for her.
She glared at the smooth rocks as if they were in the pay of the Liar himself. When she made it to him, she steadied herself using his shoulder. Her wet gloves sent a fresh wave of saltiness through his nose and up to his eyes.
‘You’re light,’ she said, nodding to his basket.
‘There’s more in there than it looks.’
‘Save it for the shuckers.’
They trudged up the beach to where the stones gave way to long, reedy grass. All along the shore, others worked in just the same way, hunched over and pulling oysters from the rocky shallows. Any that were too small were tossed back. Mr Samuels and the rest of the regulars got all kinds of angry if you brought them anything small.
At the shucking tables, Nicholas and Odette emptied their baskets separately. If he really was light, it wouldn’t be worth getting them both in trouble. But the woman with the knife said nothing as she set to. Half the table was worked right there and then, the other half put into buckets of cold water and run back from the beach still in their shells.
As soon as he realised he wasn’t going to be scolded, Nicholas’s attention drifted. But not Odette. She watched the shuckers work like it was her first day. That no longer bothered anyone, that was just Odette – no harm to anyone, if you didn’t mind being stared at.
The morning was dragging on. But it would be another three or four baskets before they could take a break – either wander together further along the cove or, as Nicholas preferred, far inland enough to smell something other than the sea.
‘You’re done,’ the shucker woman said, and Nicholas blinked at the now cleared table. All that remained of his hard work was a slimy runoff of water and a woman cleaning her knife. He waited for Odette. Maybe she did have a few more in her basket.
‘That was three of yours, and five of mine,’ Odette said as they walked back down towards the waterline.
‘What’s that?’ he said.
‘That many gone bad in the shell.’
‘Nothing anyone can do about that, far as I see.’ He held up his bucket. ‘I just take them out of the water.’
‘Harvest them,’ she said, but she wasn’t paying attention to him really. She was looking up and down the beach. ‘That’s the way the Lowlanders say it.’
‘Well, they should know.’
Odette craned her neck to call to the foreman, back by the shucking tables. ‘Going far end.’
‘What?’ Nicholas said. ‘But then we have to carry them twice as far!’
‘More time walking, less time bent double.’ She didn’t wait for a witty response – which Nicholas was so obviously thinking his way towards – and set off for the southern end of the beach. Their previous spot, a prime location so close to the shucking tables, was seized almost immediately by a pair of Lowlander women, moving crab-like across the rocks. He hurried to catch up with Odette.
They worked the rest of the day there, in the shallows of the southern end. They didn’t speak much beyond the necessary, but it was an easy, companionable kind of quiet. The softness and economy of words when at work. Nicholas soon lost himself to the rhythms of the task: hands in and out of the water; the shells clattering against each other in the basket; the tension and awareness of walking across pebbles. At the shucking tables, Odette was as hawk-eyed as ever, but it wasn’t until their final basket of the day that she spoke up.
‘Eight bad in the shell, each of us,’ she said. ‘Eight to a basket at least since we moved down to the end. It’s worse there.’
The shucker, Anna her name was, dropped her knife. It clattered on the tabletop. Anna looked down at it as if she’d just let go of a Steppes viper.
‘Not here, fools,’ Anna hissed. She made a face Nicholas found hard to understand, but she was serious – he could tell that much. Maybe even scared. ‘Bunkhouse porch, after
dark.’
‘What—’
‘All done here,’ Anna said loudly. ‘Not a bad day from you two, all told.’
So dismissed, they took their empty baskets and put them in the pile at the foreman’s feet. The burly man grunted, which was all the permission they needed. Bone-weary, they made their way back from the shore. Nicholas followed behind Odette, her shapeless, thick trousers bulging over her boots. Her wet ponytail slapped between her shoulders like a marching beat. Loose planks had been laid – some many years ago – as a path to the collection of shacks and huts that made up Mr Samuels’s domain. Already, Nicholas felt he could find his way back to the tents with his eyes closed. The days had tumbled into one another – quick, quick, slow, and now the Steppes felt like someone else’s memories. It was ridiculous, really, they’d only been gone a few weeks. Was it six, or seven? Putting one foot in front of the other without thinking, he tried to count the days he’d been picking oysters. Harvesting them. Too many days, too much the same.
The final climb to the tents was the worst; the slight incline became a mountain to match the Rusting, after a long day’s work. His cold toes pressed to the front of his boots, the salt water pooling at his heels, he bit back a useless complaint. Instead, he focused on her. The curve of her neck. Her strong shoulders. The way she carried herself as if life’s hardships were no different from its gifts.
On the lines outside their tents, they hung their gloves and, after emptying them, their boots and socks. Inside, Nicholas fumbled at the buttons of his shirt with numb fingers.
‘Left hand, third knuckle, big enough for a penny,’ he said, loud enough for her to hear from her tent.
There was silence for a moment.
‘Right hand, first and second, I might try a mark,’ she called back. They were comparing cracks in their skin.
‘Think that’ll impress the regulars?’
‘Only if I punch one of them with it.’
‘Feet?’ he said.
‘Worse than my grandmother’s.’
