Mark hesitated to answer. Giving what seemed to be small, innocuous answers could lead to bigger revelations that might raise suspicions about his background story.
“I bought it in Landylbury. It was my best shirt, and I thought I should dress better for the festival than at work.” He figured that claiming to have been to the third-largest city in Frangel would divert attention from Kaledon and Brawsea.
He paid for the brown shirt, donned it, and expected Maghen to leave to rejoin her family.
“Let’s walk,” she said.
He let her lead, as they wound among stalls and onto a grassy area between the festival and staked horses and wagons.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For . . . ?”
“For not hurting Fenon and at the same time not humiliating him. I know he can be exasperating, but he’s getting better. We were worried about him when he was younger. Now it’s only an occasional episode when he becomes that obnoxious. Father and mother believe in another year or two, we can quit worrying about him. Fortunately, he loves his wife and child dearly, and their influence has been God sent.”
Well, why not be honest? he thought.
“I wanted to end it without anyone getting hurt or embarrassed,” Mark said, “so I did the best I could. I’ll admit I was too angry to start. And no, not at your brother, though he can be an asshole. Something just triggered memories of things that happened to me in the last year. Other than Fenon, you seem to have a fine family.”
“All families are different, but I always thank God for the one I have. How about you? Did you leave a family from wherever you’re from?”
The background story Mark had settled on telling included as much accurate information as he believed didn’t hint at his true origin. The theory being that the least fabricated meant the least chance of his screwing up the tale.
“Parents, two brothers, two sisters, plus the usual uncles, aunts, and cousins. I never kept straight the relationships after those.”
“Do you miss not being near them?” asked Maghen.
“Yes and no. As with all families, there are some you like better than others. But still, family is family.”
“You’re right. And I do love Fenon. When I was young, he took it as his role to defend me from other children who called me names. It was a childish thing, I know, but I was always embarrassed about being larger than most girls and not attractive.”
Mark was perplexed at how to respond. Most rational men knew that talking to women about their size and appearance was off limits. Yet the young Lorwell woman seemed easily forthcoming.
“Well, I don’t think the size of anyone is a true measure of their worth, and I wouldn’t have thought to consider you unattractive.”
Denying she was unattractive was the best he could muster.
She smiled, as people do when they don’t believe what they’ve heard but avoid making it an issue.
Mark realized he didn’t know how to identify whether a man or a woman was married just by observation. On reflection, he couldn’t remember any obvious symbols such as wedding rings. He’d been too focused on himself and hadn’t picked up on many ordinary customs. But she had mentioned her mother always being on the lookout for a suitable husband for her.
“Do you want to be married?” he asked, startled and then unsure where the question had come from. She shrugged ruefully. “It’s not always easy for women to marry because more girls are born than boys. Men tend to die of accidents more often than women, and there’s fighting—not so much as happened long ago, but the occasional feud or minor fighting still occurs between Frangel and its neighbors. By the time we’re of marriageable age, the excess of women is even greater.”
Maghen continued. “It means there are women who never marry and other women who pick husbands they otherwise wouldn’t choose. I have the additional problem that not many men want a wife my size.”
“Well, I’m not most men,” Mark mumbled.
Now why the hell did I say that? he thought. She might take it as suggesting something to her.
Maghen seemed to ignore his comment—he hoped.
“Especially one who speaks her mind,” she said.
I’ll bet it’s not just her being honest. That seems to be a Frangelese trait. But men might sense she’s got something more than them—call it common sense.
Mark had the sudden feeling their conversation was about to veer into awkward territory. Relief came in the form of Tylmar searching for Mark to go to an adjacent field where horse racing took place. Tylmar was convinced he had a foolproof method of choosing winners, and the coin was burning a hole in his pocket.
Maghen appeared puzzled by Mark’s offer to help her find her family and assured him she could fend for herself. Tylmar’s incessant jabbering and the races garnered most of Mark’s attention for the next two hours. After that, he sampled far too many different beers while moving between musical events into the late evening. Nevertheless, his recollections of the events earlier in the day kept cropping up. Among the images was a certain tall young woman.
***
Maghen watched the two Toodman workers walk away, but she mainly studied Mark Kaldwel. She had never spoken with him before, except for occasional exchanges when she helped with workers’ meals. She smiled, remembering the longest conversation they’d had before today. It involved his asking for more bread at an evening meal several sixdays ago.
Not that she hadn’t noticed him. It was hard not to, given his size. The way he moved implied impressive reservoirs of energy and strength. Once, she’d watched him help move the table in the eating room. She didn’t know how much the thirty-foot table weighed, but the only other time she had witnessed it being moved involved her and five men—three people on each end. Kaldwel had been talking with Tylmar and continued the conversation, absentmindedly picking up one end of the table by himself while Maghen and two men hurried to lift the other end.
Thus, when he stepped forward at the weightlifting event, she hadn’t joined in the titters. As Kaldwel first tested the weight and looked her way, she reflexively hinted encouragement.
She hadn’t missed his attempt to make eye contact without being noticed. His glances might have been mere curiosity, but she knew she would be watching him more closely.
CHAPTER 22
SETTLING IN
The festival continued the next day. The ranch staff and families watched and participated in activities of individual or group interest. Mark declined Tylmar’s and several other workers’ offers to stay together, saying he wanted to just wander around and decide which items of clothing to purchase.
He hadn’t lied . . . quite. He did wander among the stalls, and he did buy two shirts, leather gloves, and boots. However, he spent much of the morning shadowing the Lowrell family. Several times he almost convinced himself to approach Maghen, an action that never materialized. Occasionally, he lost track of them and spent nervous moments searching without stumbling on them. That worked most of the time. Twice, he thought Maghen’s gaze passed over his distant position, but neither time did she stop and stare.
During the entire morning, he felt farcical but pleased that no other Toodman worker had caught him tracking the family. He also found himself staring more intently at other women, something that provoked a few glares before he realized what he was doing.
Finally, feeling too foolish, he reconnected with three other ranch workers and spent the rest of the day with them. He saw the Lowrells only twice. Maghen smiled at him both times.
When they returned to the ranch and resumed work, he didn’t see Maghen for the first three days. That third evening, he engaged Tylmar in conversation about the festival, and, as innocently as he could, he mentioned Maghen’s absence.
“Oh, I imagine she spent some added time with her family. They live north of Nurburt. She’ll show up by next sixday.”
“Where do the women working at the ranch live?” asked Mark. “It hadn’t occurred to me to
wonder.”
“Well, of course, wives live with their families off the ranch or in the family cottages over by the river. There’s only three unmarried women who work here—Maghen and two youngsters about sixteen years old. They live in a cottage next to the main house. It’s strictly forbidden territory, according to Toodman. Quickest way to get thrown off the property is sniffing around the young ones.”
“Only the young ones? What about Maghen Lorwell?”
“Oh, I think Toodman and everyone else assumes she can take care of herself. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, just curious,” said Mark and hurried on to another topic.
As Tylmar had predicted, the day after the next Godsday, Mark sat talking with other workers at morning meal when someone placed a bowl of the local version of porridge in front of him. He didn’t need to turn to identify who it was—the size of the figure in the corner of his eye and the humming voice were sufficient.
“Hello, Maghen. Back from visiting the family?” asked Tylmar.
“Yes, I love them all, but I worried that all you worthless men wouldn’t know how to eat or wash your own clothes if I didn’t return.”
Good-natured banter ricocheted between the eaters and the servers—except for Mark, who kept silent. He was content to leave when he finished eating, so he could be alone and clear his thoughts. He pushed his mug of kava away, and Maghen appeared as if by magic to pick it up.
“What’s with Mark, Tylmar?” she asked. “He hasn’t said a word all meal.”
“I think he’s relieved you came back. He’s been asking about you.”
I’ll strangle him, gut him, and tie him hanging from a tree by his feet, Mark promised himself.
Mark waited for her to respond and wondered when she didn’t.
During the subsequent two sixdays, Maghen helped out at the workers’ eating building more than usual. She explained her more frequent attendance as only routine filling in where needed. Mark and Maghen experienced other interactions during their “chance” crossing of paths on other days. At least, that’s what Mark told Tylmar.
“No, there’s nothing going on between us. We just happen to talk to each other more than usual.”
“Right,” said Tylmar, “and I’m the exiled emperor of Madyrna.”
Mark huffed off.
Life changed again on a day when Maghen didn’t appear at morning meal. Mark grumped and scowled enough that even Tylmar quit trying to engage him in conversation. After eating, he followed the last of the men out of the meal house and joined the half of the workers not already assigned specific work for the week. Tir Murklyn waited for them. The late sixties foreman had worked at the ranch since before Huron Toodman was born. Age and old injuries prevented him from doing active labor, but he was respected by most workers and was close to the Toodman family.
“All right, you lazy trash. Shut up and listen. I don’t know if there’s hope I’ll get work out of any of you, but we’ll try anyway.”
It was Murklyn’s daily opening statement and brought forth the usual retorts deriding the foreman’s experience and ancestry. Mark had thought the ritual trite when he first experienced it, but he had come to look forward to it.
“Mark, take Tylmar and Vastal with you to finish fixing the fencing along the east gorge. Toodman noticed one of the horses kicking at it a few days ago. It’s been a few years since we repaired it. We don’t want the stupid animals falling off the edge.”
Mark knew the site: a half-mile of wooden rail fencing that blocked horses or cattle from plunging a hundred feet to their deaths.
“It’s close enough to the ranch for us to send out mid-day meal. Don’t bother mustering here in the morning until you’re finished. Just let me know how it’s going.”
For the next two days, the three men put in new railings and dug holes to replace rotten posts. An eleven-year-old boy named Werlyn brought food about noon. On the morning of the third day, they rejoined the morning muster.
“We’re almost done,” said Mark to Murklyn. “We won’t need all three of us to finish. I can do it alone and be done by afternoon.”
“All right, Mark. Go ahead. If you finish in time, check the next valley to the southwest. A neighbor asked Toodman to be on the alert for some of his horses he thinks strayed onto Toodman land.”
The day’s assignment pleased Mark. It gave him a day to himself, something not always possible amid the work and society of the ranch. He believed he had moved far away enough in distance and time from the guilds to escape their attention. Assuming he was correct, what next? Spending the rest of his life working on someone else’s ranch didn’t appeal to him, nor did the image of living a solitary life. Until he came to the ranch, his relationships had mainly been with workers and coworkers, but he hadn’t formed close friendships, except with the Hoveys. He’d had no serious connection to a woman his age, aside from occasional nights with Ronalyn in Tregallon. Yet that connection only seemed to be satisfying their mutual needs without the pretense of anything more.
He had occasionally reflected on his lack of deep personal connections, but from the beginning of his time on Anyar, his visions of all the innovations he would introduce consumed him. Now, something had changed. Even with no clear plan for the future, instead of feeling lost he was more relaxed than he could remember—including in his last decades on Earth. He counted Tylmar as a friend, and several other workers were heading in that direction. Toodman and Murklyn were his employer and his immediate boss, but the relationship with them was relaxed and laden with mutual respect.
Then there was Maghen. He didn’t know why his thoughts kept returning to her. Maybe his relative lack of interest in women had finally caught up with him, and she was the only appropriate woman at the ranch. At least, that was his first thought, but he soon questioned whether there wasn’t something more. He didn’t know his mind, except that being interested in women was no longer in the background.
Such issues ran through his head when he arrived at the last section of fence to be repaired. After walking the line and testing posts, he decided three needed replacing. They had left their tools covered by waterproofed leather, rather than haul them back and forth to the ranch. He retrieved the post-hole digger—a four-inch, two-turn auger attached to a four-foot handle with a crossbar for gripping and turning the head. A five-foot iron pole with a flat-bladed end completed the tool set.
He settled into a familiar routine: break up the surface with the pole, use the digger to screw into the loosened soil, pull out earth pushed into the upper portions of the auger head, repeat. When deep enough, get a pole from a stack they’d brought by wagon the first day, drop the pole into the hole, hold it vertical with one hand while kicking soil into the hole, tamp it with the blunt end of the iron rod, and keep adding soil. One pole. Two. When he finished the third pole, he started attaching railings with square-shafted iron nails.
The early morning clouds had given way to mostly blue skies by the time the sun was at its zenith. The first grumbles of hunger appeared when he saw a horse and rider heading toward him from the direction of the ranch. He turned back to work, figuring to finish the rails between two of the new poles before eating.
Just as he’d set another rail firmly in place, he heard the approaching horse. Turning to call out hello to Werlyn, he stopped, his words caught before he uttered them. It was Maghen.
She waved, and he reciprocated before starting toward an oak-like tree where tools, saddle, and the day’s water flask lay strewn about. Secretariat grazed free a hundred yards away.
“Hello, Mark,” she said, reining in. Her dress was wadded up on the saddle to let her sandaled feet engage the stirrups. His eyes lingered over the strong, firm calves, the light brown hair barely noticeable on the tanned skin. He wondered when she exposed her legs enough for tanning. Then he remembered seeing her with her dress tied up to her knees while washing clothes outside the main house or working in the ranch’s extensive vegetable garden.
“I expected Werlyn.”
“I told him I wouldn’t mind the ride. He was happy to agree since several other boys asked him to go gingle hunting with them.”
Mark’s curiosity about what a gingle was lasted only a second before his attention diverted to Maghen’s easy dismount, which included a little more flesh.
She untied a sack, a flask, and a blanket behind the saddle. “Where should I put these?”
“We usually eat under a tree.”
“I’ll go ahead and take out the mid-day meal.”
“Uh . . . I was going to ask Werlyn if he’d eaten and was there enough for both of us? I’ll ask you the same question?”
“I hoped you’d ask. I also brought extra water, in case you wanted to wash before eating. Why don’t you do that while I get things ready?”
Was he imagining it, or was her voice throatier than usual? He took the flask she held out and walked a few yards away, suddenly conscious of his dirty hands and face. He shucked his shirt and wiped grime and sweat from his skin. When finished, he used his kerchief to dry, then went to his saddle to pull on his extra shirt. It clung to him in spots where the small cloth had missed soaking up all the water.
Maghen knelt, resting on her feet, her sandals lying off the blanket. Spread out were a small loaf of the ubiquitous dark bread, cheese, dry sausage, olives, and a small wooden bowl of pickled vegetables.
His surprise at the amount and variety of food didn’t pass unnoticed.
“I thought you might ask me to join you, so I collected more than we usually send out for workers’ mid-day meal. It seemed like . . . ” She self-consciously tugged at her tresses.
“Anyway, please sit and let’s eat.”
They didn’t speak, as Maghen tore off a hunk of bread and cut the cheese, then handed them to Mark. He hadn’t used all the water in her flask, and she drank some of the remainder while he used water he’d brought.
The silence threatened to become awkward when she spoke first.
“At the festival, you didn’t seem sure about your future plans. Have you given it any more thought?”
Passages Page 28
