Medieval Rain

by J. D. Sonne

  Rane shook her head at her stupidity of the last few months. She had been so intent upon getting the viruls’ good favor that she had forgotten all about the females of the camp. They shared the viruls’ lives. Some of them shared the viruls’ hearts. And, they were so caught up in their domestic duties that that was all they knew. These females had not been schooled in politics or even leadership—they left that to their viruls. Rane shuddered. If she had ever wanted to study the old days and their effect on the sexes, all she had to do was observe the workings of this camp. But, back to her original thought. If she cultivated these females’ friendship, the resulting loose tongues may tell her about these raids and rescues. It would take time, but probably not as much time as she thought. These females seemed rather dull and easily manipulated—traits of lowbloods.

  Rane chuckled at her foolishness and wondered why she had not thought of this before. Perhaps it was because she thought these females were below notice and not useful for anything other than cooking and running the sundry drudgeries of camp. They simply had not registered in her plan for escape. Well, she had to change that, and she would start now.

  “Shad!” She called over to the next hearth where the female was fashioning a leather garment of some type or other. “I have a question for you.”

  The female came running, leather still in hand, and Rane asked, “I wonder, could you teach me how to do that? Leatherwork, I mean.”

  “Of course,” Shad said, seeming eager to teach Rane. “First, you have to work the skin, so it is soft enough. . .”

  Rane’s eyes followed Shad’s hands as they crafted, but her thoughts were busy forming her strategy for creating a talkative female friend.

  Chapter Eight

  It turned out that Rane had a knack for leatherwork. She enjoyed almost every aspect of the process—the skinning she didn’t enjoy that much, but from applying the acrid tanning stringent to the raw skins to the working of the garment itself, she found a real peace in turning an animal skin into clothing or gear.

  Her aim of getting Shad to talk about subversion was unrealized, as all that Shad was interested in discussing was the gossip of the camp. As the two worked on their respective projects, Shad, a jacket and Rane, a pouch, Rane learned all about whose children were ungovernable (all of them from what she had observed), whose huts were unkempt, who were the good hunters, who had coupled with whom, which couplings worked, and which ones didn’t. She found it mildly interesting the first few pours, but after that, a slow miasma of boredom clouded over the hearth area until Rane thought she would go mad.

  I have to get this woman out of this camp, she thought, driving her awl through the lip of the pouch and pulling the leather strip after. Shad obviously had a good mind as her adept attention to detail in these stories indicated, but Rane’s stomach felt sick when she thought of the women being stuck in this camp attending to duties that should belong to viruls. Interrupting Shad’s droning monologue about the domestic doings in camp, she said, “Perhaps you and some of the other females ought to get out of camp and work on the site.”

  “Oh, there is too much work to do here, and we are better at running the camp than the men are.”

  Men—viruls, you mean, Rane thought, and we proved that female Leads and Titleds can run anything better than the men, but she kept silent on the topic.

  She went on, “It just might be something you would like to try,” Rane said, shrugging. “You might find that there are a great many things you can do other than all this.” She waved the wooden awl over the hearth, indicating the camp in general.

  “It just seems to work better this way,” Shad said, pulling a gut through the skin with her needle. She whipped the end and cut it with her teeth and held it up to Rane. “Your next project should be a jacket like this! I can show you how.”

  Rane put the pouch down. Suddenly she tired of the handwork and wanted to get to the site. She had given herself the morning off so she could get some information from Shad, but was frustrated at the kind of information she gleaned. Then the conversation turned.

  “I just wish that Bruse wouldn’t go off on these raids,” Shad said sadly. “I worry about him.”

  Rane sat back down, her heart sending a rush through her vitals at the engrossing turn in conversation. “I don’t blame you. I think that would be hard, waiting for him and not knowing if he was in danger.” She assumed much more knowledge than she had and said, “I’m sure it is very dangerous skulking about in the sectors. If any of them were caught, it would not go well for them! But I guess it is necessary.”

  Shad went on as if she were still talking about the gossip of the camp. “Landman says that we need new blood, new females.”

  Suddenly, Rane thought of something Landman had said after she was first captured. She assumed kidnapped Leads and Titleds would be in the camp. Now she realized that she was the only one. She almost slapped her head at her stupidity that she had not noticed it before. But at least at this moment she thought she knew why. Shad’s reference to “females” meant that the viruls of this camp were not stalking the trained females—only those on the lower rung of the female hierarchy—those from lower bloodlines not directly related to the high families as she was. Suddenly she realized that her “taking” had been an accident. Landman had captured her because he was trying to avoid being captured himself. The kidnapping of Leads and Titleds would be fraught as such captives would never kowtow to viruls. They would rather die. The fact that she, Lead Rane, had winnowed her way out of her fetters showed that these viruls did not know how to treat her. They probably should have killed her rather than let her manipulate her way into their camp leadership.

  “So, how often do these raids happen?” Rane said nonchalantly, hoping that she was not sounding too eager.

  “Oh, every moon or so,” Shad said, obviously unconcerned. “Different ones go all the time, but Bruse, Scout, Terran and Chun are usually part of the party.”

  “Do any of you go with them?” Rane asked, more out of curiosity than actual need for information as she knew these females would be ineffectual on such a mission.

  At this Shad laughed. “Of course not! We would only be a distraction and slow the men down.”

  The depreciative comment made Rane grind her jaw. It was one thing for her to realize the truth about them and quite another that they had accepted their gently and cannily enforced servitude. She vowed she would teach these females a thing or two about their power. She would make all of them part of her family and train them for leadership. No longer would they do base kitchen work.

  “Well, I am off to the waterwork,” Rane said, tossing her half-finished pouch in her tent. “I will finish that later.”

  “I will show you how to stamp designs in your work so that it doesn’t look so plain.”

  “All right,” Rane said, smiling at the innocent insult. “I will see you later!”

  Her walk to the site provided a solitary space for her to voice her thoughts aloud. She found that talking to herself amplified her ability to parse out problems and arrive at solutions more quickly. It would sound ridiculous to someone who heard her, so she never indulged unless she were absolutely alone.

  “So, your plans to help the females of this camp may be way too ambitious. Escape for you alone is going to be hard enough, but to drag thirty females kicking and screaming away from their camp, not to mention their mates and children will be nigh impossible.”

  Rane’s feet found a round stone and to punctuate her thoughts, she kicked it ahead of her in the path. “No, that will never work [kick]. I’ll get myself away, then come back for them [kick] with a posse. Yes! That’s it! No! [kick] Better yet, maybe when I’m rescued, I will have the Leads and Titleds that come [kick] for me—”

  “That sounds like quite a plan!”

  Rane’s interest in the stone had immersed herself in her monologue so thoroughly that she had not noticed the virul’s approach until the rock had lodged under his foot not five
feet in front of her. She looked up and cursed. It was the big virul who had laughed at her, calling her a bear when she had first arrived at camp. She had seen him often, skulking around, an insolent look on his face whenever they met. He didn’t work at the construction site, and she never thought to ask Landman why, a deficit in her knowledge she would remedy after she dealt with him.

  “So,” the big virul said, “You think you can spirit away the females, just like that?” He set his tool pack down, keeping his eyes on her. “And, no one is going to rescue you. Why do you think no one from any of the sectors have found us? We are too well hidden! But,” he said as he moved toward her, “I think that Landman and the others will like to hear your plan. It will amuse them, if nothing else.”

  “I never learned your name, virul,” Rane said, stepping back a little, and I haven’t seen you at the waterwork. What is your name?”

  “Murman,” he said. “Why?”

  “I just like to know everyone’s name in camp,” Rane said. “Murman, I wonder why you haven’t been helping at the construction site.” She decided to attempt persuasion and hoped she didn’t sound too patronizing.

  “That is none of your business, female. Now you will come to the waterwork with me.”

  Apparently, avoiding a patronizing attitude was not her strong point. Damn. “Come on, Murman, be reasonable. Why shouldn’t I think about escape and rescue? Wouldn’t you do the same if you were in my place? Wouldn’t anyone?”

  This logic seemed to confuse him, but the empty look of indecision lasted only a few seconds. “Maybe, but that doesn’t matter. You are a danger to us, here.” He moved toward her again and said, “And we like our females. We will never give them up, or our way of life here.” He stumped toward her, attempting to make his girth even more imposing.

  “Murman,” Rane said quietly, “Do not do this! I do not want to hurt you, but I cannot let you touch me in any way.”

  “You will not have anything to say—”

  The huge virul was upon her for only a moment, and Rane turned his own massive weight against him as she grabbed his thumb and twisted it back, pain and howls subduing him as she wound his arm behind his back. She pulled the arm up, the unnatural force against his shoulder forcing him face-first into the dirt.

  “And, do not call me, “female,” she said. She put her foot against his neck, added a thrust of weight and heard a wet and gnarly pop.

  She backed away from the body and swore. She had not intended to kill him, but the fool had left her no choice. Idiot virul.

  Rane grabbed him by the feet and dragged him into the hairy underbrush of the forest. She only had to get off the road a few troughlengths before the wood entirely obscured them. But, she could take no chances. She dragged him farther and put enough dead branches and leaves on the corpse to make it look like an animal nest or lodge and resolved to come back later to bury him more efficiently.

  After clearing any evidence of a scuffle in the loamy dirt of the path, she retreated back into the forest. Determining that it was better to not be seen, she did not resume her way on the path, but in order to stay concealed, moved through the foliage rather than the path--not an easy task with the prodigious undergrowth--and headed in what she thought was the direction back to camp.

  As Rane shoved her way through the dense vines and annoying clusters of brush, she knew she had to place herself as far away from her violent act as possible, and among witnesses. She decided she would use her need for an alibi to get to know the females of the other hearths. She couldn’t go right back to Shad’s hearth. She would instead go to the hearth closest to the farthest edge of the forest and work her way back to Shad. She cursed when she realized she had announced to Shad that she was off to the waterwork. Well, she would just say she had changed her mind and decided to visit the other females. From now on, she would be a little more circumspect about her movements. Oh, how she wished she had been silent about her intended destination. Oh well, there was nothing to do about it now.

  Perhaps she was worrying too much about an alibi. After all, no one had seen her on the path except her victim (whom she needed to remember to bury later, she reminded herself) and if she had been home, no one would have worried about a disappeared virul. Here, though, it was a different story. Every person in the camp seemed to be always accounted for. Since her time here, she could remember no disappearances of virul or female, for that matter. At least it would take a few hours if not overnight for Murman to be missed.

  The outermost hearth was there for a reason, it was filthy! The female who ran it was a slovenly specimen and the grounds and hut matched her, dreg for dreg. And, Rane groaned to herself as Loward treated her to more gossip. At least these tales outlined the gossip of the outer camps, so there was no duplication of Shad’s regales.

  “Yes, Lead Rane,” Loward huffed, breathless, for she was shamelessly obese, “You would not believe what goes on around here, especially during the night hours! It is all I can do to keep my little ones asleep, let alone myself! The beatings in that tent yonder are enough to wish you had needles in your ears.”

  “Does no one do anything?” Rane asked. “Do the viruls not protect the females?”

  “The females?” Loward screeched, laughing. “It is the males that need protecting around here! And I can assure you, a virul screams louder than any female!”

  Rane digested this quietly as the female rambled on. She had assumed that Leads were the only ones who disciplined viruls. The females’ subservience to domestic chores had led Rane to a false assumption that the viruls would take the upper hand in their huts. It appeared the other way around.

  “Is that normal?” Rane asked. “I mean, do the viruls get beaten by their own females?”

  “Oh, sometimes,” Loward said, rising and kicking a pot aside as she moved to stir the hearth embers. She cracked one of her boys across the head and said, “Get water, you!” To Rane she said, “I am going to boil that meat for a broth if you’d like to stay for mid-meal.”

  Rane gazed at the fly-covered scraps of flesh and kept the wince off her face. “No, thank you!” She said politely. “Perhaps some other time. I must be off, now.”

  “Why are you visiting our hearths, all of a sudden?” Loward asked.

  Rane glanced sharply at the female and was met with a bland, open face, the eyes crafty.

  “Oh, I just thought it was time to get to know my surroundings and fellows,” Rane said carefully. Maybe this was not going to work. “Do you have a mate?” She asked, in an attempt to steer away from the female’s obvious suspicion. “He must be very handsome,” Rane gulped, “as your children are very good-looking.”

  Four incredibly dirty children stood before their broken-down hut, sullen, yet curious about their visitor. Each head carried the matt of months and the dirt, it seemed, of years. Rags of greasy homespun barely covered their nakedness, and their feet were so black that at first Rane thought they were shod. It was only when she saw their toes squirming in the dirt that she realized they were barefoot and likely had been since birth.

  Loward said, “Oh yes, I have a mate,” in such a sarcastic manner that Rane blanched, a trifle embarrassed at the scorn in her tone. “Such a mate,” she muttered as she took the pot of water from the boy. “But, at least I have one. You leads! All alone with no male. I would not trade my station, even out here at the edge of camp for you lot. You live alone, rule alone and die alone. No, I would not trade. Murman may not be the best mate on Maraquan, but he is mine, and as you say, we do make beautiful children.”

  Not anymore, Rane thought as she bid Loward goodbye and made her way to the next camp.

  Chapter Nine

  When Rane finally finished making her rounds of the various hearths throughout the camp to establish her presence as far away from the killing as possible, when she returned to her own hearth, she was tempted to refuse Shad’s dinner and just crawl into her hut for a collapse of sleep. But, the smell of the chops was too seductiv
e and Shad’s entreaties too strident, and when Rane finally succumbed it was on a too-full stomach. The quick descent into slumber, however, did not overshadow the fear in the back of her mind that Rane would awake to a terror of chaos regarding Murman’s disappearance. Her last thought, shot through with anxiety, was that of being immediately found out and dragged from her hut and executed, but the exhaustion of sleep soon banished the fear.

  But, wakefulness resurrected it, and she sat up in her skins and listened, a sudden surge of angst seeming to heighten her hearing. She cocked her head and listened. Perhaps it was still too early. She moved to the hut’s flap and peered out. It was early, yes, but some dwellers were up and about, the females tending to their hearth chores, the viruls eating in preparation to their trek to the waterwork. It was a day like any other with no rushing about, no sense of distress or grief, not even a raised voice to trouble the morning.

  She sat back inside her tent and wrapped herself in the skins, considering. It would take time, she reasoned, for Murman to be missed. The way his wife characterized their relationship was well, ambivalent, to say the least. Perhaps his dealings with the rest of the community, female and virul alike, may lessen their urgency of resolving his disappearance.

  “It will just take time,” she said aloud. All she could do was wait.

  “Lead Rane! Breakfast awaits!”

  Rane pulled on her breeches and jerkin and crawled out of the tent, one of her sleeping skins still around her shoulders. After eating, she pulled her “bear” hair back into a leather tie and headed to the waterwork.

  When she entered the work cove, nothing seemed amiss, and she headed to the worktable to assess the work of the day before. It did not take long for Landman to find her. She knew what his first question would be.