“Weeds,” Erik replied.
“Of course you would prefer the weeds,” Befel said. “You actually liked farming.”
“At least they were our weeds,” Erik said, “and not someone else’s filth.”
A boy, at least three summers younger than Erik, walked in and dumped at least two dozen more dishes into the wash bin next to where the three Eleodums worked.
“Bill says he needs these right away,” the boy said with too much joy in his voice.
“Thanks,” Erik grumbled as the boy skipped away. “Do you think this was his job?”
“What?” Befel asked.
“Do you think this was that little pipsqueak’s job, washing dishes, before we came along?”
“Who cares,” Bryon groaned.
“I think it was,” Erik said, “and that’s why he’s always so happy when he drops off more because he doesn’t have to do them.”
“Will you shut up,” Bryon yelled, throwing a scrubbing brush into the water right in front of Erik.
The water splashed up into Erik’s face, and he could taste the stale beer and old meat that had mixed with soap. He spat on the floor.
“Damn it, Bryon,” Erik said, wiping a dry part of his shirt sleeve across his face before he splashed a bit of water at Bryon. It was enough to sprinkle his cousin’s shirt, but not enough to soak it even though it was already fairly wet. He wanted to irritate Bryon, not start a fight.
Bryon shot his cousin a dirty look, but Erik shrugged it off. He had seen so many of those looks, especially in the last two years, that he knew it meant little more than annoyance.
“You said these dishes will eventually end,” Erik said. “When?”
“Soon,” Befel replied.
“You’ve said that before,” Bryon added.
“This spring will be our second one in Waterton,” Erik said. “When are we supposed to make our way east?”
“There’s a mining camp,” Befel said, “a new one just east of the Southland Gap. I say we go there. As soon as possible.”
“What do we know about mining?” Erik asked.
“Nothing. But it’s a step in the right direction,” Befel replied with a hint of chastisement. “A stepping stone to get east. That’s all.”
“I’m tired of your damn stepping stones!” Bryon yelled. “Venton was a stepping stone. The lumberyard was a stepping stone. Waterton was a stepping stone. And here we are—washing dishes and cleaning shit from the privies—and penniless!”
“Oi!” Bill was a small man, but he had a big voice, and it echoed through the kitchen when he raised it. “You lot shut your stupid, bloody mouths, and get to washing or you can forget dinner!”
All three dropped their heads as if Bill’s voice was a thrown stone and they needed to duck.
“You know, Bryon’s right . . .” Erik began.
“You have no right to speak on the matter,” Bryon interrupted, pointing a wet, accusatory finger at Erik. “You’re half the reason we’re here in this dung heap and not east, living the life.”
“What are you talking about?” Erik asked, but he knew what Bryon was going to say. He had said it too many times to count.
“Befel and I wanted to leave,” Bryon hissed, “we hated the farm. We hated living among idealistic fools.”
“I don’t know about hate . . .” Befel had started to say, but Bryon held up a hand, cutting him off.
“Be quiet,” Bryon snarled, and then he stared at Erik. “And I couldn’t handle being around my stupid, drunken father for one more moment. And then you come along, with some fool idea about saving your father’s farm, and ruin everything.”
“I still don’t know how I ruined everything,” Erik muttered.
When Bryon had first derided him about his coming along, it hurt Erik deeply. He looked up to Bryon, in a way, almost like he did Befel, like any younger cousin might look up to their older cousin. But he had heard this speech so many times it had lost its effect.
“We had saved up enough to get east,” Bryon spat, no longer looking at Erik, but aggressively washing dishes while he spoke. “We had enough money. We had a plan. But one more person meant we needed more coin. And then there’s your fool brother, trying to cover your ass at every turn, and sticking up for you. Damn it.”
Bryon shook his head and continued to mumble and curse under his breath.
“Don’t pay him any attention,” Befel whispered.
“I never do,” Erik replied.
Erik leaned up against the back wall of The Wicked Beard and finished off the spiced wine that was now cold and flat. The beef had been tough, and the carrots and peppers a little burnt, but it had been food in his belly, and he was glad for it. His brother snored, a plate of half eaten food resting by his head and a trio of white rats waiting to feast on whatever was leftover. Erik hissed at the rats, and they simply hissed back.
“Damn rats,” Erik muttered.
Bryon had left a while ago, eating his food quickly and cursing about it the whole time. Erik shook his head.
“Stale beer and whores,” he said quietly. “We’re supposed to be saving our money, and that’s all you spend your coin on—stale beer and whores. As if that can make you forget home and your father.”
Erik looked at the three rats. They had built up enough courage to inch closer.
“Was home really that bad?” Erik asked the rats. They just hissed again. “I liked home . . . the farm. So why did I leave? I don’t know. To make a fortune and save my family’s land? Stupid.”
Erik shrugged, and the rats hissed again as he turned his eyes to the sky and his constants—the stars. He remembered a night like this one, cool and crisp and clear as he sat behind his father’s barn, watching the moon and the stars. It was the night his father—the ever respected Rikard Eleodum—had returned from Bull’s Run, the second largest city in Hámon and the choice marketplace for farmers from Northern Háthgolthane.
His father had returned just before darkness fell, and from the shadows of the barn, Erik had watched him, just sitting in the wagon, turning his straw hat over repeatedly in his hands. His mother had finally walked out the front door of their house and greeted her husband as he stepped down from the wagon. Erik’s mother rested her head on her husband’s chest and asked that fated question.
“Was the market good to us?”
Erik shook his head. His mother might as well have asked, “Are our lives ever going to be the same again?” or “What day will both my boys be leaving?” or “When should I start uncontrollably crying and screaming as my boys turn their backs on me?”
That was when Erik’s father went on a tirade of curses and ridicules of the Hámonian market, much to the chagrin and chastisement of Erik’s mother. His father complained about the crops that Hámonian nobles grew, and the prices they received for vegetables and fruits and meat that was half as good. He moaned about the encroachment on the free lands of the north by the feudal lords from Hámon. He spoke in hushed tones of another farmer who had already been removed from his land. He said they would soon be coming for their lands, Eleodum land.
“We fight them,” Rikard had replied.
“Damn dreams,” Erik muttered.
He sighed and shook his head to try and shut out any thought of what increasingly plagued his sleep. Instead, he watched the stars, always constant, always the same. A season might change their position or the time of the night, but they were always there. Now he thought of the last words he’d heard his father say that evening.
“The world is changing, Karita. We can only hope the Creator will have mercy on us.”
Chapter 3
BRYON STOOD AGAINST THE WALL of The Red Lady, a cup of something strong and pungent in his hand. He looked down at the brown liquid and took another drink. It made him cough, and he looked at it again. It was cheap, nothing like his father’s orange brandy. He laughed briefly to himself, thinking that he wouldn’t be able to afford his father’s orange brandy even if they sold it.
He took another drink.
“Most of the people here wouldn’t be able to afford orange brandy,” he muttered to himself as he shook his head. “I wonder how that feels, to be able to afford endless cups of brandy?”
Bryon took another drink, draining the cup’s contents. He had enough coin for four more cups. He thought of his father again.
“The only good thing you ever made is brandy,” Bryon said. He felt lightheaded. This alcohol, whatever it was, was cheap, but strong. “Including me, eh, Father?”
“Who you talking to, sweetie?”
The voice took Bryon by surprise. He looked up to see a young woman, blonde hair pulled into a bun, blue dress hanging suggestively off her shoulders. She was pretty. Prettier than most of the whores.
“Myself,” Bryon said.
“Why don’t you talk to me?” she asked.
“I need another drink.”
Bryon looked to the bar. Whores as pretty as this one were too expensive. Maybe if he had seen her first. But three drinks in . . . he wouldn’t have enough coin. He moved away from the wall, but the woman put a hand on his chest, gently pushing him back against the rough stone. She was slight and slender and shouldn’t have been able to push him back, but he was drunk, and she was stronger than she looked.
“Let me get it for you,” she said. When she smiled, her red, painted lips revealed teeth that weren’t nearly as yellow as most whores’.
“You paying?” Bryon asked warily. “I’m not about to give you a copper penny and then watch you walk out the door with it.”
“A copper penny?” she questioned, and then laughed lightly. “My love, I don’t want, or need, to steal your copper penny.” Then, she shrugged. “I’ll buy this one, and I’ll get something decent.”
She winked at Bryon as she walked away.
“Girls back home are prettier,” Bryon muttered as the woman spoke with the bartender, who handed her two cups.
But girls back home were reluctant to open their legs.
“Why?” Bryon had asked one girl.
“Because,” she had said, “the Creator saves that for marriage.”
“To hell with the Creator,” Bryon had replied.
“I don’t want to get pregnant,” another one had said.
Then, there was his father.
“You sheep-brained idiot!” Brent Eleodum had yelled at Bryon when he caught him lying with a girl behind the barn one day. “You’ll end up like me, stuck with your mother, five daughters, and you—a lazy, womanizing, good for nothing.”
The girl had run away by that point, embarrassed and crying. Bryon had just stood there, with his pants down around his ankles, and stared at his father as he berated him. His mother could be a nag. His sisters were pains in the ass. But what had he done, apart from work hard for his father? What had he done to deserve this when all he wanted was to be with a girl?
“Here,” the woman said.
Bryon shook his head, snapping out of his daze, and took the pewter cup she handed him. The liquid was clear, and when he put it to his nose, it smelled sweet.
“The good stuff,” she said, looking up at Bryon over the rim of her cup.
Bryon took a sip and coughed and blinked. His head instantly felt lighter than before.
“That is the good stuff,” he said through a few more short coughs.
The woman put her hand on Bryon’s chest again.
“Hmm,” she said, “you’re so muscular and strong. Do you work in the lumberyards?”
Bryon shook his head.
“Oh, you must be an adventurer then, heading into the wilds of the west.”
When Bryon shook his head again, she raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips, looking irritated.
“Are you going to make me interrogate you all night?”
Bryon smiled.
“Farmer,” he said. “I’m a farmer. At least, I was.”
“That explains it,” she replied. “From where?”
“The north.”
“And farming got so droll, so boring,” the woman said, stepping closer to Bryon, “that you came to Waterton for more excitement?”
“I’m going to be rich,” Bryon said, with a hint of a slur. “I’m going to be famous.”
“Aren’t we all?” the woman said.
“You can’t do that as a farmer.”
“I suppose not,” she agreed. “So, you plan on making that wealth here, in Waterton, at the edge of Háthgolthane?”
Bryon shook his head. “In the east.”
“Ah,” the woman said knowingly.
She stepped even closer, now pressing her breasts into his chest as she lifted her head and smelled his neck.
“In the east, the wine flows like a river, and the grass is made of gold,” she said quietly.
“Any place away from my father is fine by me,” Bryon said, feeling his face grow hot as the woman pressed herself harder into him.
“Interesting,” she said, stepping back a little. “I have the same sentiments about my father. Loud, drunk, angry, abusive.”
“Sounds like your father and my father could be friends,” Bryon said, and she laughed.
He looked down at the woman, and, as she took a sip of her drink, she stared up at him, never taking her eyes off him.
“Look, I appreciate the drink, but I can’t afford . . .”
The woman pressed a finger to Bryon’s lips.
“I’m not looking to make money tonight,” she said seductively, and she actually sounded like she meant it and not like some bad-acting whore.
“Then, what is this about?”
“I’m just looking to have some fun,” she said with a smile, as she stepped in closer again.
Bryon could now feel her other hand playing with the tie to his pants.
“You look like a guy that wants to have some fun.”
“I . . . I like having fun,” Bryon stammered as he felt the woman reach into his pants. “Um, w . . . what’s your name?”
“What do you want my name to be?” she asked, a growing smile on her face.
Bryon couldn’t think. It might have been the drink. It might have been her hand. But he couldn’t think. What did he want to call her?
He let his head fall back, and he closed his eyes for a moment as her fingers worked their magic. Then, the name slipped from his mouth.
“Kukka.”
“Very well,” she said as she kissed his neck. “My name is Kukka. Kukka will take care of you. Kukka will make you feel good.”
“Good. Bad,” Bryon muttered, eyes closed and speaking to no one in particular, “I just don’t want to feel.”
Like piercing arrows, the rays of the early sun shot through the window of a room toward the rear of The Red Lady. As Bryon lay next to the woman he called Kukka, he watched her body rise and fall with each sleeping breath. A haze of morning smoke leaked underneath the door and floated along the floor of the room.
She had done as she promised and made him feel good as she took away the memories that pained him. He dared to run his hand along her shoulder, and feel her smooth skin one more time. He worried the callouses would wake her, scratch her, but she didn’t move save for her breathing.
“Damned farm,” Bryon muttered.
She had said something that made him think, even as they lay together, about her father.
“Are you so different from me?” Bryon now wondered. “You drink. I drink. You whore. I pay whores. Your father was a drunken bastard, and so was mine.”
For a moment, Bryon envisioned a life with this woman—a home, children, a place to grow food. Was this how married people felt? How they acted? He shook his head.
“Fool,” he muttered. He wanted a life of fame and fortune, a life as drastically different from his father’s as possible. What a stupid thing to think.
A Chance Beginning Page 2
