The Season of the Plough

by Luke R J Maynard

  “Will you shoot in the tourney this year?” asked Marin. “I’ll watch your tent for you myself. Keep Aeric’s damnable hound clear of your honeycomb, I will.”

  “Then I’ll compete,” said Alec, “and you have my thanks.”

  “Halgeir had you by only a hair. It could have gone either way.”

  “But now the Havenari have come home,” said Alec. “It won’t matter. Robyn can thread a needle at fifty yards, I swear. There’s no one who can best her.”

  Marin shrugged. “She was born in Draden Castle, lad,” he said. “She’s a blooded Fane. No use competing with that. There’s no shame at all in being beat by a woman, but especially not by one of her line.”

  “Robyn?” he asked, incredulously. Across the field, she caught his stare, smiled, and he smiled back. “Wait… Bram too?”

  “Aye,” said Marin, “the both of them. Children of Elgar Fane, most likely, going by their age. His children, or young siblings, perhaps. It’s anyone’s guess what they were to him, now that the Draden Chronicles are all burned. The ink is gone—but the blood remains.”

  “That would explain why he drinks,” said Alec. “It’s not funny, I know. But Robyn? A Fane?”

  “She doesn’t wear the Gold Oak,” said Marin. “Nor the gold sheaf of the Dispossessed. I heard some of those who reached the Outlands alive still call themselves Fanesworn. But name me another reason a woman of her age would fight better than any man in this village. The Fanes could afford the best masters, after all. And you know what need of them they had, in the end. We’ve got a few old Swords and Boards living here, too, remember. Men who were honed for battle, once. But as any smith knows, there’s no honing to make up for being tempered by fire.”

  “I remember,” said Alec, and his face darkened. “Even the ghosts in their tombs were masters-at-arms. The Legions had a song about it, do you remember?”

  Marin nodded. “A little morality-tale,” he said. “A warning to the troops against the worst atrocities of wartime havoc.” He cleared his throat, and did his best with the refrain:

  The wedded rogues who courted doom

  Like lustful suitors in the tomb

  Found Death a willing maiden;

  Two hundred wives in deep despair

  Now know the woe of those who dare

  Disturb the ghosts of Draden.

  He might have tried a verse, but his voice flickered and went out like a candle-flame at Alec’s scornful gaze.

  “I suppose that dirge is no song for a festival,” he admitted. “I’m too sober for singing yet, and you, too sober to listen.”

  “I don’t think anyone should sing it,” said Alec. “It’s a horrid song. But I suppose if it scares some chivalry into the Legions, if it keeps Harrod’s undisciplined brutes from reaving and raping, let them sing it. Let the Ghosts of Draden haunt them a while longer.”

  Marin cocked his head at the tall woman laughing and dancing in the grass. Robyn had taken Aewyn by hands, and spun the girl fiercely through the air. She was a skilled dancer and strong in the arms, and Aewyn was still light and agile. The girl’s long hair, now the bright orange of autumn leaves, stood out against Robyn’s twirling green dress like a bonfire on wet grass.

  “I hope I haven’t put you off courting the Ghosts of Draden, lad,” he said. “Not all of them are really ghosts, you know.”

  “I know,” said Alec. His gaze was serious.

  “I shouldn’t have told you,” said Marin, sour-faced. “I hope it hasn’t changed anything.”

  “It’s changed everything,” Alec replied. “She can never wear her family name again. I’m going to marry her, Marin, and give her mine.”

  The Reeve laughed at that, better than he had laughed in a long time, but there was no malice in it. “Marry her? You can certainly try,” he said. “But she’ll be a hard horse to break.”

  “Marry her,” said Alec. “That’s all I said. Never a word about breaking her.”

  Marin grinned. “Looking to ride her wild, then?”

  “Guard your tongue,” said Alec, trying but failing to hold a frown. “That’s my wife you’re talking about.” Marin sighed with relief, grateful that the shadow between them had passed. But the haunting melody to “The Ghosts of Draden” was firmly in his head now, and followed him throughout the day though he tried to forget it. He was careful not to let Robyn or Bram hear him humming the tune.

  There was not much time for talking after that. There was business to be done, and games to be seen to; as two of the most important men in town, Marin and Alec had much to do and little of it to do with each other. The butts were readied and the targets painted for the archery tournament, and this year the whole Harvest Fair turned silent so the town could gather and watch.

  From the outset, it was sure to be a tight and impressive contest that year; Halgeir the Tall had returned to defend his victory, but Alec Mercy shot like a champion, for he had something to prove and someone to impress. Robyn was the crowd favourite, of course—but the year’s prize was a longbow of imported Nalsian yew, the finest Widowvale had ever seen, a carved wonder it had taken Fletch more than two months to make on the trail. It was not really that the bow was of much worth in coin—the finest bow, in those days, was cheaper than the rudest weapon of iron or steel—but a better bow in Haveïl could not be found at any price, not for all the silver at Minter’s Rock, nor for all the iron in the Iron City. There were more than a few who reckoned that Darmod Pick would come out of nowhere and sweep the competition. This was not because he was skilled—it was well-known he had a bad eye and couldn’t hit the sea from a ship’s prow—but it was an accepted fact among the townsfolk that Darmod could do anything at all, and do it just as well as any other man or woman, if only the payment was high enough.

  The tournament consisted of twenty or so competitors—all those who passed a series of qualifying shots at distance and speed. Whether by luck or providence or natural talent, or whether because she had been practicing all day with her little bow, Aewyn qualified herself, though she was eliminated quickly as her arms tired and the challenges became more difficult. Halgeir, Robyn, and Alec were (to no one’s surprise) among the front runners throughout; Darmod Pick, though he could not on principle fail to try for a prize of such worth, did not qualify at all.

  As the rounds wore on and the targets were moved farther down the butts, the fair-to-middling archers fell away, and only one surprising shooter continued to distinguish himself. The second stranger of the year, if Poe was the first, was a withered old merchant of spice and liquor come up from the south. White-maned and attired in forest green, he had come up with the growing caravan of spicers and tinkers, and bought his way into the tournament with liquor and sweet words. Now he stood at Robyn’s side and went shot for shot with her. At times the pull of the old man’s bow was too much for him, and his arms were shaking with effort by the final rounds, but he hit his mark every time and soon the festival seemed to freeze in its activity so that all of Widowvale might watch.

  It was later said, once the day had started to pass into legend, that the stranger split Robyn’s final arrow down the middle, or that his last arrow took hers out of the air like a falcon striking a pheasant in flight. Some of the men, threatened by a woman’s skill, found comfort in telling the story that her pretty dress betrayed her and bound her broad shoulders, and she fired wide into a tent or a tree. None of those things really happened. The stranger simply placed arrow after arrow through the center of the target, and when the targets were taken away and the Tourney Rings brought, and the arrows trailing coloured silks were dispersed (here Alec’s skill finally failed him), the stranger threaded every ring but one in his final round—and Robyn, to the hushed astonishment of the crowd, all but two.

  It fell then to Marin to quell the assembly’s unrest, for few were happy that a stranger from outside the community had come and taken their prize. All three of the local front-runners were well-loved, and all three were consoled (as was Ae
wyn, who “did very well” for her first year). But the stranger was so grateful for the town’s hospitality, though it was not exactly freely given, that he opened his liquor casks for free to all those assembled. The stuff within was distilled by some secret art, far stronger than Grim’s wine, and in very short order the offense was forgotten among gales of laughter and loud contests of boasting.

  The stranger sought an audience with the Reeve, then, but was rebuffed. It was time for the fire to be built, and for Alec Mercy to sound his bannerhorn, and send Marin and the children off to the mushroom hunt. Those Havenari who had been eliminated from the tourney (or were uninterested in competing, for they knew better than any the skill of their captain) had gone ahead into the woods to ensure the way was safe, and to scatter a few handfuls of copper skatts for the children among the mushroom patches—fairy gold, it was called. And so the stranger stayed with his wagon and opened small barrels of fruit and nut liquors to any who would hoist a cup as the shadows grew longer and the night began to come down.

  Aewyn stayed with Robyn until the sun touched the hills, and together they spoke of technique, of drawing and releasing, of arcing the bow, of reckoning wind and drop, and other things which seemed at first like sorcery to the young girl. But as night fell and the stumbling first notes of an Oltman family jig rose above the crackling of a freshly kindled fire, Robyn’s distraction became more apparent.

  “You are old enough, I would think,” said Robyn at last, “to join us around the fire. There will be songs, at first, though I have no voice for singing them. Or if you feel young enough for it yet, you might catch the mushroom-hunters still. I know you are fast in the woods.”

  “I know not where I belong,” said Aewyn, a small statement that stirred in her the whole weight of a much larger worry. “I know not.”

  “Nor can I tell you,” said Robyn. “You are not like the other girls, Aewyn. Your hair changes even now. You are blooded of the forest court; that much I have seen. I had not thought there were any like you left—but the Havenari have not forgotten their old stories. There is a common path for ordinary women, here, I know—but perhaps it is not for you to follow.”

  “You do not follow a woman’s path,” said Aewyn.

  Robyn poured herself a wooden cup of the stranger’s liquor and passed one to Aewyn. “Every woman follows a woman’s path,” she said. “Just not the one that is expected of her.”

  “Do you go to the fire because it is expected of you?” asked Aewyn.

  “No,” said Robyn wistfully. “Though it is, perhaps, expected of me.”

  “Is it expected of me?”

  “Not unless you choose it,” said Robyn. “And if it were expected? That should make no difference.”

  “If it were expected,” said Aewyn, “I imagine I would not go.”

  Robyn turned her words over in her mind for a long moment. “The will of men is something to be ignored,” she said at last. “Not obeyed in fear, but not avoided in spite, either. Do you suppose it’s the expectation of the village, that I should wear my clothes if I go down to dance tonight?”

  Aewyn laughed. “I suppose it is,” she said.

  “And do I wear my clothes to please them?”

  “I don’t imagine you do.”

  “You know I care not a whit what the men think. So do I doff my clothes to spite them?”

  Aewyn shook her head. “I imagine you’d get cold.”

  “That’s it,” said Robyn. “Do not wed a man simply because they say that’s how it’s done. If wise men see a greater destiny for you, do not follow that path because you obey them. But if you are cold, choose a destiny that makes you warm. Even if they call it conventional. A rebel who is not free to conform, if and when she chooses, is a rebel with no freedom at all.”

  “What if I wished to ride out with the Havenari?” said Aewyn.

  “Then you are in luck,” said Robyn. “None would call that conventional. When you are older, I will tell you all you need to know of that road, and the history of our little militia.”

  “How did you become Captain?” asked Aewyn.

  Robyn let a smile come to her lips. It was the first time she had ever thought of Toren with a smile.

  “I was elected,” she said, “but I did not choose the circumstances of my election. I was never meant to hold command.”

  “And yet you have held it,” Aewyn said. “Five years, now, six years this winter, you’ve held that command.”

  “Nineteen men I was given command of,” said Robyn. “Nineteen. There were twenty of us. Today I command eleven. Twelve, counting myself. We’ll be a very unlucky number if I lose one more.”

  “Is it dangerous work?”

  Robyn shook her head. “No. Well, it can be. But none of them have died.”

  “Where do they go, then?” asked Aewyn.

  Robyn sighed and ruffled the girl’s autumn hair. “There aren’t many men who’ll suffer a woman to lead them,” said Robyn. “Not in battle. Not doing work like this.”

  “Eleven’s still more than half,” Aewyn offered.

  “Yes. It’s more than half. It would be even more, if I’d been meant for command, properly trained and groomed for it.”

  “Aren’t you? I’ve heard Alec Mercy say you’re the best swordsman—well, woman—in the whole village. And he was a great warrior himself, once.”

  “I have an excellent teacher for that,” said Robyn. “But swinging a sword is not the same thing as leading. I wasn’t ready for that. I’ve done my best, and I’ve had more help than I deserve from the men who serve under me, but it hasn’t been easy, and it’s never felt right. If you follow an unconventional path, you’ll find the same thing, someday. Unreasonable burdens, unreasonable expectations. And all you can do is take what you’re given, and do the best you can with it. The few men who have stayed with me are men who can respect that, whether I’m a good leader or not.”

  “You are doing the work of twenty Havenari with only twelve,” said Aewyn. “In my mind, that means you must be the greatest leader.”

  “Keep flattering me,” said Robyn with a smile, “and keep practicing your archery, and I could be doing it with thirteen, someday.”

  The fire had risen as they spoke, fed by the villagers, who now rose to dance around its edge. Most of the miners had come out, now, strange tall men whose faces Aewyn did not know, loud hearty men who seemed very different from those who lived in the village year-round. Alec had come, too, and sat with the Oltman family, his patient smile serene in the orange glow of the roaring flames. But his eyes betrayed his destination, and Robyn for all her patience and care with Aewyn could not well hide her own mind on the matter.

  “I think I will go in search of Poe,” said Aewyn at last. “He has no place of belonging, either. Here by the fire, you might say I don’t know if I’m hot or cold.”

  “If you think that is best,” said Robyn. “These things take time. Poe is still at the far end of the green, I think—far from the fire, by the upper tents. Take him a cup of this liquor while you can, if he drinks such things. It’s very fine, and there won’t be any left when you return.”

  Beneath the great white oak, Poe was motionless in the lowering sunset. Bits of food—bread crusts, apple cores, bones of pork and mutton—were scattered around him with too much intent to be random; a murder of crows had come down from the forest and were gorging themselves on the leavings of the afternoon’s festivities.

  “Come,” said Poe softly. “Sit. But do not disturb the birds.”

  Aewyn stepped gingerly around the refuse and handed him her cup to hold while she settled next to him. He tasted it with his tongue, and the face he made was not displeased.

  “It is like nothing I have ever tasted,” he said. “It smells of all the forest. There is honey and spice, juniper, fruit and flowers. I smell knightsage and lodris—and some secret fire I cannot place.”

  Aewyn sat with him in silence for long minutes, watched him drink as he tossed the
scraps in reach to the crows. After a time she began to do the same, and Poe’s words came out suddenly and all at once, guttural in their low reverence.

  “We call the birds mǎnuk,” he said. “Their droppings are what made the world. All who live on the great flat plains, all who look up and see the stars, know that the learned men of the city lie to you: the world is not really flat, like a map, but round on all sides, like the droppings of sheep. The mǎnuk—it means ‘those who carry’—bring messages from the Great Bird, the Grrǎkha, whose wings are wide and black as the sky. When we die, our body pays the price of passage. The mǎnuk come, and eat their fee from our bodies, and then they peck the soul from our eyes, and bring us home on their wings.”

  “That is a beautiful story,” said Aewyn.

  “It is the beginning of a woman-story of the karach,” said Poe. “The business of life and death, all talk of coming in and going out, is a female business. I should not tell you such a story. But there are no more women of my kind to make it heard. I thought—no, it is stupid.”

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “I have been thinking, this story should be told by a woman,” Poe answered at last. “It is every male’s place to know these stories, but they are a female’s story to tell, not ours. She tells it to the children of her tribe. The sons and daughters know it and live by it, and when the daughters become mothers, they tell it again.”