The Season of the Plough

by Luke R J Maynard

  “Are there no stories for fathers?” she asked.

  “There are,” said Poe. “Different stories. I do not know them. I was too young, yet, to go to the males and learn the man-stories, when...”

  Aewyn wrapped an arm around his vast shoulders as far as it would reach.

  “When the iron men came.”

  “I have no tribe,” Poe said sharply. “No mother, and no daughter. There are no more mothers to tell the woman-stories, and no more daughters to listen. The stories are mine to hear, not to speak. But now, this year, I see you climb hills to look at naked men, and you tarry at the festival-fires, and you grow tall, and you swell at the breast like a human woman. It is stupid, and vanity—but I thought that if you mate and make children, even children of the Iun—I thought one day, once they are growing outside you, you might tell them for me about the mǎnuk and the Grrǎkha, about snakes and the coming of seasons, about Barrgakh and the eggs, which story I should not tell, but I could one day trust to you. And then when I am called home, the life of all my kind becomes only a dream—but the stories go on, then, with you, and with your children. And they are as stories told from out of a dream. And we are not forgotten.”

  Aewyn was silent a long time. “I do not know if I will marry,” she said. “I do not know if I will have children.” The words fell off her tongue unexpectedly, and struck hard.

  “You mean to say,” said Poe, “that in your bones you already know the opposite.” He smelt her tears pooling before she began to sob, raised a brown hand to her face, cradled her wet cheek.

  “I do not belong here,” she said through a breaking voice. “They call me a foundling, a fairy-child. I cannot bear the touch of wrought metals, and I feel the fairy madness in my bones; even my hair cannot make up its mind. I am a joke made up of fairy curses—nor can I run home to the fairies. I have no right father, and I have less of a mother with each passing year. I go to see her and have no recollection of our visits, if I see her at all. The longer I live here, the thicker the fog grows in the deep wood. I have no home in that world, nor home in this one.”

  “It is hard to have no tribe,” said Poe. “My family, like my stories, live on in my dreams. I am alone in the world, but even I cannot imagine having no family even to dream of.”

  “I know not who or what I am,” she sobbed, “or where I come from, or what will happen to me.”

  Poe, who had long lain motionless, shifted to drape a heavy arm around her. One of the crows started and took off, beating its wings against the darkened sky.

  “So it goes,” said Poe, “with all those whose fate is told by stars not yet seen. If I tell you my stories, do you swear to keep them?”

  “I am all alone,” said Aewyn. “I will never have a tribe to tell them to.”

  “Then you are my tribe,” said Poe. “You are my whole tribe. And I share, from today, all the sacred stories with you, and they pass into dream only when we are both gone together.”

  “If you speak,” said Aewyn, “I will always listen.”

  Poe nodded. “In the ancient time before before, old Barrgakh was a scavenger,” he began.

  SIX

  THE FIRST EVENING OF THE HARVEST FAIR was an evening of joinings. Under the white oak, Poe spoke, and Aewyn listened, and she learned the unpronounceable names of Poe’s father and mother and grandmother; although she could not repeat them, she would have known them to hear them. She learned more of his tribal history than she could ever hope to remember and repeat. She learned too of the Annexation and the Clearances, but not by their political names. She saw them through the eyes of a pup; there were no standards, no house sigils, no petty games of intrigue between the equally awful ruling families of old Travost. There was only fire in the tall grass, showers of arrows, iron-clad men and the howls of the dead and dying. There were other stories, too, some of them solemn, some quite funny, and some she would not find funny until she looked back on them in distant years. But all these stories were sacrosanct to him—to both of them, now—and they shall not be retold here.

  At the south end of the green, music played and villagers danced around the fire, and before it was fully dark some men and women took to the fields together, as they had in the old days. Husbands and wives who kept to the worship of the Ten made love in the meadows and hidden among the trees in honour of Kedwyn and Ataur, the Lord of Chaos and Lord of the Forests, as they had perhaps for many years. Ali, daughter of Grim, slipped away from the fire with Ard Oltman and kissed him in the shadows behind the moot-hall; and although they were grateful for the privacy, they deemed themselves sly, and thought their own kisses the only ones traded that night. In spite of his guilt and cares, what Arran finally got up to with Aeric’s oldest daughter would have been grounds, in the Iron City, for a lawsuit or a bridegild. What Alec Mercy got up to with Robyn that night none can say, for he was a small man well-trained in the art of stealth; and she, for her part, was wise in the ancient trails of the forest, and when stripped of her armour she moved with an easy grace and gleeful silence.

  In the glow of the fire, Karis sat with Orin the groom, mourning her husband and his son, and they shared songs for the dead long after the Oltmans had laid their instruments aside. Those who remained as the flames lowered and the coals glowed orange were only too happy to listen—old maids, some, but a few true widows and widowers, and many who were simply too sad at heart to think on love. In time they were joined by the mothers, those who watched the twin crescent moons make their way in the gathering gloom and wondered after their children.

  It was a long time before the children returned to the village, which at first suited their parents best. When the newborn stars had aged some, the children came at last, weary-eyed and dragging sacks of mushrooms and wild forage (and pockets of hidden coins). Most of them wore smiles as bright and curved as the white moon; but fourteen-year-old Gray, who was Grim’s middle son, led them home with a set jaw and a look of dread.

  Old Orin was the first to reach him, for although he moved slower than the rest, Orin had spent long years listening to the hearts of horses, and smelled fear as keenly as any karach.

  “You’re one Reeve short, lad,” he said as the children streamed to their families. Gray cleared his throat and took a breath; when he finally spoke his voice cracked more than usual.

  “He sent me to lead them back,” he said. “He’s still out there. We lost Rinnie.”

  “Lost him?” Orin looked to the tree line. “Where? How?”

  “We don’t know. He was with us, and then…gone.”

  Orin looked to Poe, beneath the white oak, laughing and ducking as the returning children pelted him with mushrooms. “Well, now we know it’s not the dog-man,” he said. “Go and fetch him for us, lad. Perhaps we can put his nose to use.”

  As Gray made for the far end of the green, Orin had the presence of mind to tell Karis what had happened, before word reached her from an unkind alarm. Then, he found the Reeve’s wife and told her the news, and it was done—the whole town heard it after that, from somebody. There was something like an assembly on the green, and something like a debate—but it was the Reeve who managed such things, and if he was unavailable, it was often Alec Mercy, and if not he, then Robyn, when she was in town. Since none of them had returned—many still had not come back to the fire—there was no one to order the concerns of the town. Most were wildly drunk on a liquor whose strength they had underestimated, and worn out from a day of celebration, and the heaviness of an uncanny sleep was upon them. There was no orderly moot, only a chaos of voices, and for a long time nothing was done.

  Few of the Havenari were in ready condition, but they volunteered to arm themselves and comb the woods. Hendec, tall and green-eyed, was the soberest of the outriders aside from Fletch, and volunteered to assemble a search party.

  “We don’t go alone,” he ordered, “And we don’t separate.”

  “He’s likely just lost somewhere,” said some.

  “The Reeve wo
uld have found him,” said others.

  “What if Marin’s lost as well?” said the Reeve’s wife, who put little stock in her husband’s sense of direction.

  “Lost, or taken,” said Hendec, which set the crowd muttering.

  “I’ll go m’self if I have to,” said Karis, brushing off Orin’s comforting hand and her own tears. “He’s my boy. He’s my last.”

  “Then go with the group,” Hendec said, “or not at all. We form a line and we keep it tight. Arm’s reach of your neighbour. If we have to make multiple passes, that’s fine, but we do not spread out.”

  The old merchant tugged at his sleeve. “How many have you got?” he asked.

  “Maybe a hundred who are fit to walk,” said Hendec. “We’re lucky the miners are all in town.”

  “They’ll trample any tracks,” said the merchant. “A hundred men hard at work, with torches…they’ll spoil any scent.” He looked to Poe, against whose leg Rinnie’s closest brother, Martyn, was crying softly.

  Hendec understood, but did not look convinced. “You want to send the karach ahead alone?”

  The merchant shrugged. “They’re fine trackers.”

  “Not alone,” Hendec muttered, though he had mostly given up. “There are foul things in the wood.”

  “Not in these woods,” the merchant countered. “Not yet.” The two shared a curious glare for a moment.

  “I’ll go with him,” Aewyn said, having crept close enough to hear them. The idea was absurd to most, but she had no right parents to refuse her.

  “Out of the question,” said Hendec. “Robyn would skin me alive if anything happened to you.”

  “These woods will never harm me,” said Aewyn, and she believed it.

  “Where is Robyn?” someone asked. “Where is the First Spear?”

  “Sound the bannerhorn!” said another. “If Alec sounds the horn they’ll find their way back! Where is Alec?”

  “Send the karach,” said the merchant again. “If there are bandits or child-stealers in the wood, sounding the horn will only give them warning.” Karis mouthed the word child-stealers, but no proper word came out. Poe had heard them by now—or perhaps he had heard everything—and he came before them.

  “I am willing to go,” said Poe, to Hendec, to the crowd, to no one in particular. “But if the stranger is so eager to see me walk into darkness alone, he should come with me. I do not trust you, stranger. You have no scent, and I trust no one I cannot smell.”

  “If you can smell the boy,” said the merchant, “that will be enough.”

  “We’re going,” said Poe, and Hendec nodded reluctantly. They both looked to Aewyn, but knew she would not be separated from the karach.

  “We’ll follow you,” said Hendec. “How much of a head start do you want?”

  Poe shrugged. “What is a head start?”

  “How long do you want us to wait?”

  Poe looked to the searchers assembling. “Ten minutes at least,” he said. “I need time, and this old man might be slow on his feet.”

  “You could leave him behind,” said Hendec.

  “And walk right into a bandit’s trap,” said Poe. “He comes with me.”

  “I’d pity the bandits,” Hendec muttered, but said no more about it.

  With calm resolve, Poe set off. Aewyn bounded after him, and the old man followed without protest. As Hendec organized the others, and Venser shook off the effects of his drinking to help him corral the miners, the three made their way from the edge of the green past the white oak to the slope Aewyn and Poe had raced down only a few hours before. They climbed first beyond torchlight, and then out of sight of the town as the edge of the escarpment passed away behind them. They stayed close to the mushroom-trails, and Poe made a few small discoveries—patches of mushrooms and hidden coins—but there was not yet any scent to speak of.

  Poe was large, very concerned, and determined to move fast. Aewyn was a vivacious fount of energy at all hours of the night, and kept up with him admirably. At first it seemed the merchant lagged behind them, but as the woods grew thicker he moved with a learned grace, slipping nimbly through the forest where Poe was slowed squeezing between trees and Aewyn by undergrowth that came to her slender waist.

  “You move well, for someone so old,” Poe called after him, when he had fallen far enough behind.

  The old man turned away, leaned back toward the town, as if making sure it was not standing right behind him.

  “Your sense of smell is terrible for someone so young,” he said.

  Here in the fragrant woods, the old man had a scent again. It was not instantly familiar, but when he turned back to the pair his features were unmistakable. As he drew back his hood, he unveiled himself and was known to them.

  “I know you,” said Poe suspiciously.

  “Celithrand,” Aewyn breathed.

  “Otabia?” he answered, a question—a greeting.

  “I cannot believe I did not know you to look upon you,” said Poe. “It is impossible, that I should not know your face or your scent.”

  “My face I have been careful to keep in shadow,” said Celithrand. “Long have I practiced the craft of coming and going in the world without being seen.”

  “A craft known too well by Grim’s children,” said Aewyn. “At least, I hope that’s what Rinnie plays at.”

  “Time will tell,” replied Celithrand, with a wariness that made Poe’s fur stand on end.

  “No good can come from this,” said the karach. It was a phrase he had learned just this season from Darmod Pick, and it was his first occasion to use it. It would not be the last.

  “You have come out of season,” Aewyn surmised, thinking back to the foggy memories of her childhood. “That means something more important than a lost child has brought you.”

  Celithrand frowned and hastened his pace. “More important?” he asked. “A lost child is a very important thing, very important indeed. And may be more important still, depending entirely on why the child is lost, and whether there is still a chance he may be found. Do try to keep up.”

  “I too am a lost child,” Aewyn muttered, but fell into step behind him just the same.

  The fog of forgetfulness that wound itself around Aewyn’s earliest memories parted somewhat where Celithrand was concerned. He was beloved by the fae, her mother had said; but he was not one of them, and their strangeness did not veil him from Aewyn’s memory in the same way. His familiar face was comforting, as Aewyn remembered, but comforting too was Celithrand’s regular presence, the natural weight and warmth of him. Where her mother filled her mind only vaguely, like a spirit or a dream, Celithrand had come and gone in the ordinary way, as an old man leaning on a stout cane. He spoke in regular sentences, and wore boots to travel, and he was cold in the winter if he did not find or build shelter. In a sense, Celithrand was her first taste of what it might have been like to know a real person.

  The timeworn aeril who led the way into the forest now bore little resemblance to that smiling memory of old. His brow was furrowed with care and concern, but those lines had not all come in the past hour. There were many unanswered questions between them, and answers would have to come. But they could not come now: no matter what outside worlds might have conspired to take Celithrand away from her, or to bring him back, a missing child has a way of commanding the whole world’s attention—and of making family out of all those who search together.

  There were miles upon miles of wood to cover, but the mushroom-hunt would not have ranged so far. Poe led the way on all fours, ears raised and yellow eyes close to the ground; Celithrand followed with a small torch he had scavenged from wood, bark and sap, and kindled by some hidden art. The trees above them rose tall and black against the sky, like columns of sparkless night against the blanket of stars.

  “You say he’s Grim’s son?” asked Celithrand.

  “Rinnie,” said Aewyn, before correcting himself. “Marin, really, same as the Reeve. Rinnie’s the Reeve’s nephew.”
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  “Rinnie!” Celithrand called, his old voice soft and hollow as a reed in the calm air. Aewyn, too, took up the call, and they shouted into the night as Poe padded along in the brush ahead of them.

  By scent they found undisturbed brackets of woodchicks and patches of wrinkly chanterelles, some with glistening copper coins strewn among them. These Aewyn collected as eagerly as when she was young. Poe said nothing, but looked often to Celithrand as if expecting direction.

  “I can tell you nothing, my friend,” he said. “At least, not yet. The men who planted these coins tramped all over these woods. There are a hundred tracks. We depend on you in this darkness.”

  “Rinnie!” Aewyn called again, and Poe frowned.

  “If the Reeve is searching,” he said, “strange that he does not also call the name.”

  “You may be right,” said Celithrand. He drew a thin-backed, curved sword that seemed now to have hung on his hip the whole time.

  Poe lowered his nose to the ground. “There is scent all over,” he said. “Let me find its edge.”

  “Hurry,” said Aewyn. “They won’t be long behind us.”

  There was no sudden moment at which he picked up the boy’s trail. There was much walking in circles, ranging ever wider, until the scent of soldiers was weak and only children had picked through the underbrush, scraping themselves on branches, sometimes relieving themselves in the bush. Most did not get far—certainly not out of earshot—but there was no mistaking the one who strayed from the pack, the farther he got from them.

  “Here,” Poe said. “I have him!”

  The name Rinnie echoed now through the woods from down the hill. It was clear they had been joined in their search. But the three left those shouts far behind now, moving at speed. None of the Havenari had been this way; there were no trampled circles, no great armoured men stumbling about leaving handfuls of coins for the children. The trail was as clear to Celithrand’s eyes as it was to Poe’s nose, and they stepped through the virgin undergrowth with haste and purpose.