The Season of the Plough

by Luke R J Maynard

  Robyn rode at their head, resplendent in her steely coat of plate and chain, oiled and polished where the sun struck it, dull and pitted only in a few of the joints—a reminder, perhaps, that it was no parade armour in spite of the pageantry of the day’s ride. She had grown into it some, broader and stronger, and it seemed lighter on her powerful shoulders than it had been two years past. Her brother Bram, when he staggered up the hill to meet the riders, had roughly thrown on his own arms—for he had ridden out with the Havenari too, once, in the years before the drink took him. He had clearly taken the care to clean and polish his plate, and in a moment of brotherly pride, decked in matching arms, he looked as dignified and noble as he was ever going to look.

  Ten more riders came on her heels, following in something like a formation. But years on the trail had changed them from the tight muster kept by Toren in earlier days. They were none of them quite alike in appearance; they rode not in the tight formation of the Grand Army, but in the easy manner of merchants or pilgrims. An unfamiliar lad, maybe fourteen or fifteen with skin dark as burnished chestnut, brought up the rear somewhat awkwardly, as if he had never sat a horse before, and Venser rode at his side guiding his skittish mount with a firm hand.

  The children came out to watch the procession as they trotted through town, falling steadily behind as they rode past the moot-hall and onward toward the mill. Only Aewyn kept pace with them, long legs pumping feverishly with excitement, her heart lightened by something she did not quite understand.

  Alec Mercy was shaking hands with Alys the millwife as they rode toward the mill, as if taking his leave of her. When he came up the hill, it was with some speed, though he was not nearly as winded as Aewyn when the horses pulled up short.

  “Hail, fellows, and welcome,” he called, mounting the hill.

  “Providence to you,” said Robyn, softly.

  “Providence,” the riders echoed.

  Alec’s smile was short-lived. “Providence,” he said flatly. “Am I so soon a stranger?”

  “It has been two years,” said Robyn. “The memory of most men is short-lived.” She dismounted and offered her arm at the elbow; he shook it as one man who meets another.

  “You are not like most men, Captain,” he said. She smiled at that, and it was all the invitation Aewyn needed to run and embrace her. She had run nearly twice the length of town, from Darmod Pick’s to the highway and back to Miller’s Riffle, but she was not too winded for words.

  “Welcome back!” said Aewyn. Robyn put a mailed arm around her as if seeing her for the first time.

  “You’ve grown,” was all she said. Then, to Alec: “Will the miller see us?”

  “She welcomes and thanks you,” said Alec. “As do we all.”

  Bram, some paces behind Aewyn, caught up in time to embrace his sister coarsely. She received him with warmth, as she always did.

  “You must be hungry,” said Alec. “Your horses need water. Come down with us to the river.”

  The men dismounted and led their horses down to Miller’s Riffle, with Bram awkwardly leading Robyn’s horse so that she might be free to speak with Alec. Aewyn followed them, moving from one rider to the next, and her tongue was a tangle of questions.

  “How far was your ride?” she asked. “Where were you at last year’s harvest? Did you go to the deep wood? Did you go to the Iron City? Was there fighting? Have you seen any karach? What word of the Grand Army? Did you see any monsters? Were there bandits? Did you draw steel? What news from Adân?” Their responses, for the most part, were noncommittal, though they treated her gently and with patience.

  From atop the tallest horse, Venser reached down to ruffle her hair. He had shaved his beard for the occasion and looked a few years younger, though his hair had greyed at the temples all of a sudden, like an overnight snowfall.

  “There will be time for all your questions,” he said. “But we’ve had a long ride, and few stories fit for a young lady’s ears. Not much to show for all the months and miles, I’m afraid—save a few sores in unlikely places and a wicked thirst for Grim’s best.”

  Aewyn looked away from him. “This will be a special year for Grim’s wine,” she said, but she had not the heart to tell him that Grim was gone, especially with Bram so near. Even though he had remained in town the whole season, she was not sure he had heard.

  The company walked down to the mill itself, and back to the yard of Alys’s modest millhouse, where her daughters had fired cakes for them in their massive outdoor oven. Although the harvest cakes were symbolic, the first gesture of thanks to the riders for another year of their protection, the men ate them with hunger and delight that was clearly more than ceremonial. After that, they passed upstream of the Riffle to water their horses, clean their gear, and bathe in the warm spring that came through the rock just above the bend. It was here that Alec took Aewyn away, back toward her home, and freed the Havenari from the endless assault of her questions. While she had only one question for him, it was one more than he was prepared for.

  “Are you going up to Maiden’s Watch?” she asked him flatly. He lost his step on the hill, then, and nearly turned his ankle.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “When the miners come in,” she said, as if explaining something he did not know, “after a long season in the south hills, they bathe at Miller’s Riffle. And the maids old enough to fancy them go up the escarpment and climb out on Maiden’s Watch to see them bathing.”

  “That is so,” he said, quickening his pace.

  “Only you fancy Robyn,” she said. “And in the Havenari, she is just as one of the men. Does that make you like one of the maidens?”

  “I’ll not pay that the honour of a response,” he said. But the innocence of Aewyn’s eyes wore on him some, and at last he said, “I’m no maiden, child. Nor is your Robyn, for what it’s worth. A man gets…or a woman, or anyone…gets to know such things, after a time.”

  “I think this year when the miners come, I’ll make the climb.”

  “Perhaps it’s time you do,” said Alec. “Only don’t talk of it so much.”

  When Aewyn returned to Darmod Pick’s house, he was sitting by the hearth counting his money, as he often did. Only this time he was counting out of it, setting aside the proper price of something. He didn’t look up when she came in. No one but Aewyn entered a room in that leaping gait, and only then at a special time of year.

  “You’re awfully glad at heart,” he said dryly. “The Havenari?”

  “They’ve come back!” she said, and he nodded. Her eyes fixed on Darmod’s counting-table in spite of herself. The sight of silver was a common enough sight in a silver-mining town. Only Darmod kept his coin in gold.

  “I heard Tsúla’s horn a mile away,” he said. “Ugly thing. No better than the lowing of the milk-cow that grew it.”

  “It’ll be a fair to remember, this year,” she said. “You’ll have a fat winter, with all you can sell.”

  Darmod allowed himself a cracked smile; only its warmth, and its rarity, made it an attractive sight. “I know it,” he said. “You’ve done me a good service, girl.”

  Aewyn nodded and thought no more of it, until she asked: “What is that you’re counting?”

  “A fitting payment,” he said, if only because the word gift stuck uncomfortably in his sinewy throat. “The Havenari still have that new boy with them? The southling, the brown boy?”

  “Aye, he was there. You know of him?”

  “I hear things,” said Darmod. “Last I changed my silver for gold in Haukmere, they’d picked him up. Fletch, they call him, since none of them can pronounce his right name. Hendec says he’s a fine bowyer.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Aewyn, “but Hendec tells no lies. Honest to a fault, they call him.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” said Darmod, “when he makes a bow for you.”

  Aewyn was delighted and confused at once. “What have I done to please him?”

  “Not
hing,” said Darmod, “unless he has a queer attraction to the homely and underfed. But you’ve pleased me well enough. Took your hardship like a man. Brought me good fortune. I’ll keep more lambs in the spring than I ever have before. I owe you a true debt, girl. And for all the nonsense you’ve told me about Celithrand and the druids of Nalsin, they’re archers of great renown. Wouldn’t do to turn you over to them in the state you’re in. If I feed this silly prophecy of yours, if I can give you a bow and the first thing about using it, I’ll consider us square.”

  “I didn’t think you believed in prophecies,” said Aewyn.

  “I don’t,” said Darmod, stuffing the rest of his gold back into a velvet-lined box. “But if you’re not stolen away for such fancies, what’ll become of you? You fancy any of the men in town will wed you?”

  “I hadn’t thought—”

  “I don’t suppose you ever did,” said Darmod. “But I tell you this, a grown woman who takes no husband has a hard time of it in these lands. Imperial law will not be kind to you. So if you won’t wed, or if there’s none will have you, your old legends had better come through after all. I’ve no time for prophecies—no old rhymes can tell the future—but destiny’s another thing entirely. You’re bound for one end, or another. You’re either a shieldmaiden of the Hanes, or some ploughman’s wife. There’s no middle ground. And since I can think of no ploughman mad enough to breed a twice-bastard with bad luck for hair, I’d best get over myself and buy you something you can use.”

  “I’ll use it,” said Aewyn, thinking already of Robyn’s majestic stance in the fall archery tournaments. “I’ll practice every day!”

  “And Robyn will teach you,” he said. “One girl shooter ought to teach another. Maybe a lot like hers is the only happy end you’ve got coming. And you do deserve one.”

  “I—thank you,” she said, a little uneasily.

  “Nothing to thank me for,” said Darmod. “Makes good sense. When you’re practiced up, you’ll keep an eye on my flocks. Shoot anything that comes near them.”

  It was then that Poe filled the doorway behind them, having come down from the woods in the late morning. The yoke of the plough was on his neck already, for the wheat had already come up at Hettie Oltman’s, and there was work to be done before the field was left fallow.

  Darmod leveled his narrow gaze at the karach. “Anything,” he repeated dryly.

  True to his word, Darmod counted out a generous price for a stout bow of elm, and the next morning Aewyn went down to Robyn’s house, where the Havenari had barracked. The young Southling was not hard to pick out: he was a head shorter than any of them, darker-skinned even than Tsúla, and looked to be a year or two at most older than she was.

  “Are you the boy they call Fletch?” she asked him.

  “I am,” he said. “Are you Aewyn? I heard you were coming.”

  She handed him the little bag of coins from Darmod, which he threw to Venser. The older man weighed it in his hands sourly, until he glanced inside and caught the glint of gold.

  “You got this from Darmod?” he asked. “For one bow?” Aewyn nodded and he whistled with appreciation.

  “This way, please,” said Fletch.

  He led her before the fireplace, where he took a piece of white string and some wood ash and marked the length of her arms. He felt the strength of her back with his hands, which were calloused from the road already, though it was his first season with them.

  “Your draw is two foot, one inch to the ear,” he said proudly and with precision. “It’s two foot nothing, to your lips. You are a small thing.”

  “Am I too small to shoot a bow?” she asked.

  “For any bow we carry, too small,” he replied. “But your shoulders are strong, more than I would expect. And you will still grow some. But better I make one you can use now.”

  “Shouldn’t I grow into it?”

  Fletch smiled. “The first bow never lasts forever. We don’t care for it right, or comes bad weather and here, the wet summer, the dry winter, it is no good. But if you learn well, and practice every day, I will make you another.”

  “How long does it take to make a bow?”

  “It changes. Several hours, some times. Several days, depending on what you want. Making from wood, it is faster. In Khihana, where I am from, we make bows from horn and animal bindings. Seasoning, it can take months.”

  “Will mine take months?”

  “No.”

  “Can I help?”

  “No.”

  “Can I see your tools?”

  “Yes. Come.”

  Fletch kept his tools in a leather satchel on one of the saddlebags, and Venser knew where. He slipped them out, handed them over, and did all he could to retreat to the shadowy end of the long cottage without breaking the spell Fletch’s craft seemed to have over the girl. Bram was there, nursing a cup of mutton stew with shaking hands as he watched them with a smile.

  “He stays,” Venser insisted. “Every year, that girl has more questions. If he’ll field them, if Fletch will keep her curiosity from waking the rest of us at all hours when we winter here, I don’t care if he’s ever tall enough for a spear or quick on a horse.”

  “She’s that age,” said Bram, a little dismissively. “At least, we think she is.”

  “How’s the stew?”

  Bram took another swig. “Good as Robyn’s. Better, maybe. But then, she never learned how to cook.”

  “I suppose not,” said Venser, and poured a bowl for himself. “But it’s not stew that keeps a company together.”

  “It can be,” said Bram. “You cook well, Venser. You speak well. You read well, now.”

  “Well enough.”

  “You’re a fine rider,” said Bram, “and in your old age you’ll make a decent swordsman, yet.”

  Venser smiled broadly, but tried not to look proud. “The sword’s just a journey, a wise man once said.”

  Bram let the hint of a smile peer over the rim of his cup. But it was gone so fast it might have been some trick of the steam.

  “You should be First Spear,” he said, suddenly serious. “You’re the best man for it, on all fronts.”

  “That’s a popular opinion,” said Venser, deflecting. He sighed, and might have left it at that; but Bram leaned in close, though Fletch was too busy fencing with Aewyn’s questions to hear.

  “Challenge her,” he whispered. “The men love you both. I love you both. But they know in their hearts you were meant to lead.”

  “You don’t mean for me to lead,” said Venser. “You mean for Robyn not to.”

  “She never asked for this,” said Bram. “She did what was necessary. She took care of me. She took care of Aewyn, there. That girl was why this happened, and the town loves her. She’ll never be in danger again, fairy-child or not. Robyn’s done right by the Havenari, but she’s done enough. She’d settle here, in Widowvale, if we let her. Make a life for herself. A real one. A happy one.”

  Venser shook his head. “Are you a leader?” Bram hesitated, but said nothing.

  “Do you know the first thing about what you’re asking me to do?”

  Bram took a long draught of his stew. It was less sweet than before.

  “Have you ever been the master of a thing you couldn’t hold in your own hand?”

  “No,” said Bram. He seemed very small, then. Venser’s size and weight, and the weight of his words, seemed to dominate their corner of the long cottage.

  “Then keep your mutiny to yourself,” he said. “I’ll not turn on your sister, not to give her some merry little farm life you think she deserves. A challenge under the Code is not the claim of a better leader over a lesser one. It’s the claim of a man who can do the job over one who can’t.”

  “It’s wearing on her,” said Bram.

  “Can she do the job? That’s the meat of it. Can she?”

  Bram set his bowl down hard. His eyes were dark angry gems in the firelight.

  “Of course she can,” he sai
d.

  Venser shrugged. “Then I don’t see how I can help you,” he said at last. “Though you’re free to go on telling me how good I am at things.”

  “Forget I asked you,” said Bram.

  “I’m a fine tracker, too,” said Venser. “One of our best. You left that bit out.”

  Bram uncorked the wine, decided it was what the stew needed after all. He tasted it, found it to his liking. Mostly, he was speaking to the stew, now.

  “We’re just lost,” he muttered. “Both of us. I’m lost for good. I don’t know; I thought maybe she could still find herself here.”

  “I don’t know how to help you,” said Venser. “You could ride out with us in the spring, if you like.”

  Bram nursed the stew and said nothing.

  “Has Robyn told you where we got Fletch from?” asked Venser.

  “Haukmere,” said Bram. “All she said.”

  Venser took a heavy breath. “He was a prisoner of war—one of Jordac’s scouts. The storm has broken in the East.”

  Bram’s eyes darted up. That seized his attention.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “Harrod got him just east of the Danhorn,” said Venser. “Before midsummer. The Grand Army was crossing into Surreach when the rebels hit. The Mage himself came, and laid waste to the Third, the Tenth, the Fighting Fifteenth. Lit up the whole Red Heath. They say you could see the smoke as far as Carmac.”

  “That’s ninety miles,” breathed Bram. “And the boy?”

  “He came from Khihana. I guess Jordac had men in the far South. They brought him up to make bows and arrows for the outlanders. He’s well-trained. Harrod’s men caught him poisoning the pigeon-cart, so they couldn’t warn the rear garrisons.”

  “He’s a long way from home.”

  “He was on his way to the Fingrun mines when he crossed our path at Haukmere.”