Widow's Welcome

by D. K. Fields

*

  Sot had made four Tillers and Wyne five by the time Ghen had carved the shoulder for his. Sot said they would break for dinner, though it wasn’t much of a break, just long enough to eat some bread and cheese and something that might have once been a holen. It had been dried so long the colour had gone as well as the flavour so he couldn’t be sure.

  They were sitting close to the meagre fire. The last of the daylight was fading and Ghen wondered where the candles were. Given the small amount of food for dinner and the sacking that covered his bed, Ghen had a feeling there wouldn’t be money for lots of candles.

  ‘You don’t have baths in Greynal, do you?’ Ghen said to Sot.

  Wyne turned to face the flames, trying to hide a smile.

  ‘Whatever are you talking about?’ she said.

  ‘Mama said you were rich, so rich you could bathe in Greynal.’

  ‘Your mother’s a fine one to talk about wealth,’ Sot said. ‘I know dinner’s not much. Meals here will be a little rustic for the time being, given our recent outlay of expenditure.’

  Wyne grumbled. Sot must have spent too much money on her fancy cart, Ghen thought. Its awning had taken meat from Wyne’s belly, and from his likewise.

  ‘But if the orders keep coming in,’ Sot said, ‘meat should be back on the table before too long.’

  When they returned to work, he saw that at least Sot hadn’t overstretched herself beyond candles. She lit five: one for each corner of Wyne’s bench, and one for herself.

  ‘Wyne, I’d like you to do some close work to show Ghen. Use the Tillers in the second order. A few are bodily ready.’ She took two rennwood figures from a shelf and put them on Wyne’s bench. Their torsos had been left shapeless and their heads were empty of features. ‘Sit at Wyne’s bench and watch, Ghen. You’ll be doing this soon enough.’

  ‘I’m only here for a little while, remember?’ he said.

  Sot went into the other bedroom and shut the door without answering.

  ‘What’s she doing in there?’ Ghen asked.

  ‘Accounts, I expect.’ Wyne stretched his back and resettled his thin frame on his stool. ‘She has to make sure all the part payments are recorded right. Canna doesn’t offer paying that way so that’s something she has over him, but it takes up a lot of her time. Now, see on the shelf there, the little knife. Can you bring it over?’

  Ghen did as he was asked and then pulled his stool next to Wyne’s.

  Wyne turned the tool this way and that in the candlelight so that Ghen could see it properly.

  ‘We call this a dresser,’ Wyne said. ‘See the hatched part that runs the length of it? That’s for shaving the wood, to give clothes a base texture. And the finely pointed end does the detail – buttons and cuffs, and hair if it was ordered. This Tiller is to have a thick coat with a fur-lined hood. He felt the cold badly in the end, his daughter said.’

  ‘How can you make fur from wood?’ Ghen said, thinking the two things couldn’t be more different.

  ‘Watch.’

  Using the hatched part of the dresser, Wyne began to scrape the Tiller’s shapeless torso; thick, downward strokes like he was peeling a holen. The torso became more clearly defined, and Ghen could soon see the outline of a coat. With a few quick movements, Wyne worked the arms into sleeves, and then what at first looked like a hump on the Tiller’s back became the soft folds of a hood. From Wyne’s hands, the coat grew.

  All the time he was shaping the Tiller, Wyne was completely absorbed in the work. The dresser moved so quickly it was often a blur to Ghen, but it never slipped. Wyne never made a mistake. A few times the dresser hovered over the Tiller briefly, as Wyne considered how to proceed, but never for long.

  As Ghen watched the coat appear he wanted to try for himself, and Wyne seemed to understand.

  ‘Your turn,’ Wyne said, holding out the dresser for Ghen to take.

  ‘But I’m not ready.’ His own unfinished Tiller lay on its side on the bench behind him, still looking more like an unt branch than a human figure.

  ‘Sot says you’re good with your hands. You’ll be fine.’

  Ghen took the dresser knife and gripped an unclothed rennwood Tiller in his other hand. He marvelled afresh at the smoothness of the wood, the neatness of the hands and feet. His pulse was racing but with excitement, not fear; he couldn’t wait to grow his own coat for the poor, cold man.

  His scrapes were slow, Wyne advising him as to depth, angle, smoothness, and the coat began to appear, and so Ghen’s confidence grew. He began to scrape faster, and with every stroke he felt more strongly the same sense of rightness he felt when working in the fields. The familiarity was as welcome to him as his own bed, as his mother’s fingers sweeping his hair from his eyes. He was himself again.

  ‘Careful,’ Wyne said.

  But it was too late. The dresser slipped and the point scored a deep scratch through the Tiller’s chest.

  Ghen dropped the dresser with a cry and stumbled from the bench. Wyne stared down at the wounded figure.

  ‘Sorry, Wyne,’ Ghen whispered. ‘I ruined your Tiller.’

  Wyne ran his thumb over the scratch. Then the door to Sot’s room opened.

  ‘Everything all right?’ she said.

  Wyne laid his palm flat over the Tiller’s damaged chest. ‘Fine.’

  She eyed them both, as if waiting for more, but when nothing else was said she nodded and shut the door again.

  Wyne peered at the scratch on the Tiller for a moment then began to scrape the damaged section. ‘This one might have to be a bit slimmer than the others, but we’ll put him at the back and no one will notice.’

  Ghen sat down again and watched Wyne. He wasn’t ready yet. He wasn’t as good as Wyne. Would he ever be, he wondered, surprised by his own longing. It doesn’t matter, he told himself. It doesn’t matter because I’m going home, back to the land.

  The candles had burned low by the time the damaged Tiller was wearing a new coat, all sign of his wound gone. Wyne stood the two figures side by side.

  ‘A perfect pair,’ he said.

  In the low light Ghen couldn’t see any difference between them. Each wore a coat with thick cuffs that sat just above the hands and buttoned just below the neck. The hoods lay neatly behind each head, the striking fur lining made by carved, wavy lines. Ghen ran a fingernail across the fur and felt the fine ridges. The fur was hard, but it looked so soft.

  Wyne got to his feet and stretched; Ghen heard his joints popping. He put the two rennwood Tillers back on the shelf.

  ‘Time we were turning in,’ he said. ‘Sot will have us up early enough tomorrow.’

  ‘Should we say goodnight to her?’

  Wyne shook his head. ‘She won’t want to be disturbed if she’s still doing the accounts.’

  He blew out all but one candle, which he carried towards the room with the two beds. As the flame passed the Tillers on the shelves they grew long shadows that looked to be marching across the room, following Ghen to bed. He shivered, and shivered again when he saw his bed with only the sacking to keep him warm. At home he’d had a blanket spun from the wool of Rit’s sheep. He was worse off here, where his mother had believed there were such fine linens. Surely if she’d known she would never have sent him to Sot.

  ‘Here,’ Wyne said, taking a blanket from the larger bed and giving it to Ghen. ‘It might be a while until Sot remembers to get you one. I had months under sacking when I first came.’

  Ghen thanked him and got into bed. The blanket was thinner than the one he had at home, but it was still better than the sacking. Wyne blew out the candle. Tired as he was, Ghen didn’t think he’d be able to sleep for a while.

  ‘How long have you worked for Sot?’ Ghen asked.

  ‘Years now. I came when I was your age.’

  ‘What did you do before that?’

  There was the sound of Wyne turning over, the blanket moving. ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘You are a Lowlander though, aren’t you?’

&n
bsp; When Wyne didn’t answer, Ghen guessed he must have fallen asleep, but then Wyne’s voice called softly through the dark.

  ‘Goodnight, Ghen.’

  Ghen lay in the darkness, willing sleep to find him. When he heard Wyne’s breathing slide into low, steady sighs, he reached for his trousers on the floor. In the pocket was the shell Melle had given him.

  His tears helped him to sleep, in the end, for they tired him out enough to forget. He dreamt of the Wayward woman in her tent by the bridge. He was holding a mostin-catching jar and she was pouring marks into it, more than the jar could ever hold but still she poured. The coins bounced off the jar, off Ghen’s hands holding it, and piled at his feet. It was more money than he’d ever seen in his life but in the dream he was sad, because he knew that however much money he had, it wouldn’t be enough.

  *

  Enough for what, he thought on waking. But the dream wriggled like a mostin as he tried to catch it, and then Sot was shouting that it was time to get up: the order list was waiting.

  When Sot set a bowl in front of him, Ghen was surprised to see the porridge had the bright blue of myrtleberries swirled through it, and in the middle was a slice of sinta.

  ‘Is that right?’ Sot said. ‘Your mother told me how you like it, but the berries broke apart when I put them in.’

  He took a spoonful. The taste wasn’t quite the same – Sot’s milk wasn’t as rich as what they had at home, and the porridge had been allowed to thicken more than he liked – but he told her it was perfect.

  After breakfast they set to work. Sot told them their first task was to finish the cheap Tillers begun the day before: their Last Planting was fast approaching. Ghen was determined to complete his Tiller. If he had to work for Sot for a while then he wanted to make the best of it, prove that he was as good with his hands as she thought he was.

  Wyne and Sot made two more Tillers each, bringing the total to eleven, and then both came to stand by Ghen’s bench while he finished his: the last one. He’d been working steadily all morning, not rushing, not after the injury he’d done the rennwood Tiller.

  ‘A natural,’ Wyne said.

  Ghen experienced an odd sensation, which he could only describe as a pronounced pulling: pulling because he was pleased and devastated at the same time. Torn, he thought, and made the sign of the Tear. Sot and Wyne stared at him, and he excused himself to the porch where he sat and waited to feel better. They let him be, for which he was grateful, as he could not have explained the feeling.

  From the porch he looked out on the poor fruitless sintas, which made him feel worse still. How long would he have to stay in this place where land was left to fall idle? He resolved to make Sot give him an answer, but as soon as he went back inside she called for his help.

  A large wooden box was in the middle of the floor. Sot was pushing lengths of sacking into it while Wyne lined up the twelve Tillers on the nearest bench.

  ‘Come and hold this in place,’ Sot said to Ghen.

  He knelt on the floor next to her and pressed the sacking into the corners of the box, but it wouldn’t lie flat, flailing like it was a grass snake. Sot began putting the Tillers in the box, each one standing upright and facing the same way. They wobbled on the uneven, wilful sacking. Ghen held them steady while Wyne wove more material between the figures, swathing them until they were hidden. Lastly Sot fitted a lid on the box and noted in chalk: Ulla.

  Together Ghen and Wyne pushed the box to the front door.

  ‘We’ll leave it here, ready for the morning,’ Wyne said.

  ‘Will the family come for it then, for the Last Planting?’

  Wyne frowned at him. ‘We take it. We put them in the ground. Did Sot not tell you? No one else will touch them.’

  Ghen was just absorbing this when Sot put a length of wood in his hand. It wasn’t unt or rennwood. Affa, he guessed.

  ‘These are to have long, curly hair,’ she said.

  ‘By when?’

  ‘Three days. But the Ulla Last Planting will take up most of tomorrow morning, so it’s two and a half days, really.’

  ‘Aunt Sot, when am I going home?’

  ‘You’re helping your parents more by being here than if you were still in their fields.’

  ‘But they need me.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But the fields, Aunt Sot.’

  She walked back to her bench. A stack of affa lengths waited on his.

  *

  They worked all day and into the evening again. Ghen had fashioned the body of a Tiller from the affa wood by the time Sot said they could go to bed. The hair was still to be carved but that would be Wyne’s task; Ghen wasn’t at that stage yet, but he would be soon, Sot said. Yields would increase with him there.

  But only for a little while, Ghen thought. Because I’m not staying.

  In the morning Wyne told him to put on his best clothes, or the best he had. He emptied the sack he’d brought with him and found his dark-blue twill trousers, the ones he’d patched himself, rather than allowing his father’s large, wobbly stitches, which were oftentimes worse than no stitches at all. The only unpatched shirt he had was stained at the back. Blood, he told Sot when she threw up her hands in horror.

  ‘My father caught me with his sinta blades. It was an accident.’

  ‘I’m sure it was, but you can’t wear that to a Last Planting. Wyne, you’ll have to lend him something.’

  ‘But Wyne’s much taller than me!’ Ghen said. ‘His clothes won’t fit.’

  ‘Do your best,’ Sot said to Wyne. ‘Tuck him in. Pin him, if necessary. When we’ve been paid for the Ulla Planting I’ll take him to town and buy him a suit.’

  She was talking like Ghen wasn’t there to hear, but he heard all right.

  ‘I don’t need a suit for Plantings because I’m not staying. I’m not staying.’

  Sot stared at him for a long moment and Ghen was sure she was about to shout at him, but she just shook her head and walked out to the porch. Ghen would have preferred it if she had shouted at him; at least then she might acknowledge what he was saying.

  ‘This one isn’t too long,’ Wyne said.

  Wyne held up a cream shirt with a rounded collar. The nicest shirt Ghen had ever seen. He felt the same pulling, tearing feeling again, but there was no time to be by himself until it passed, like before. It was time for the Planting.

  *

  The box was heavy and needed both Wyne and Ghen to lift it into the cart. Sot lashed it so it couldn’t move, just as other people lashed their barrels and hay. Wyne and Ghen climbed up and sat next to her. Sot looked Ghen over.

  ‘Not bad at all.’

  She was smartly dressed too, changed out of her usual working clothes. The cart’s hood above them was clean of mould and birds’ dirt. The three of them made a tidy package, as his mother would have said. No one would suspect the sacking over his bed, the dried holen well past its best that made up their dinner. This Sot who flicked the reins and drove down the lane could well have afforded to bathe in Greynal.

  Ghen was hoping the Last Planting might take place near home so he could ask Sot to call there. Even to be back just long enough to walk the fields would have made him feel better, he was sure. But when the cart reached the bridge Sot took the wrong fork in the road. All he could do was whisper hello to the Wayward woman’s tent as they passed, which helped a little.

  They were soon well beyond anywhere that Ghen recognised, but then he hadn’t seen much of the valley beyond the river. The land looked similar, of course: field after field after field, and houses like his always nearby with washing flapping on a line and smoke curling from chimneys. He took comfort from the sameness, but he found it interesting to see gates tied with blue twine instead of red, and round windows instead of square. Sot turned down a lane that led to one such round-windowed house but stopped the cart well before they reached it.

  ‘Wait here,’ she said. ‘I’ll find out where the Seed Bed is.’

 
; It was a big farm: he could see eight fields, no – nine. And a glass house for winter fruits.

  ‘Will they let us go in the glass house?’ he asked Wyne, who was fiddling with his cuff, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger. ‘Wyne?’

  ‘They won’t let us touch anything apart from the Tillers,’ he said without looking up.

  ‘Maybe if Sot asks.’

  ‘They won’t,’ Wyne said sharply.

  Ghen looked down at his own hands. What could be so bad about them that people didn’t want to be touched by him?

  ‘I’m sorry, Ghen, for being short with you. It’s just, no matter how many times we serve a Planting, it never gets any easier.’

  ‘What doesn’t?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Sot came back then and said the Seed Bed was two fields over, behind the house. She took a stake from the back of the cart and drove it into the ground, for tying up the cart. She’d brought something like a barrow too, which Ghen and Wyne managed to get the box into.

  ‘You’ll just watch today, Ghen,’ Sot said, setting off with the barrow, ‘so you can see how a Last Planting is done. Given your mother’s fear of even telling you about the ceremony, I’m assuming everything you see today will be new. If you have any questions, keep them to yourself until we’re on our way home again.’

  Their path took them past the house and along a field planted with wheat. Ghen’s pace slowed as he looked at the heads, trying to work out the variety, but Sot chided him to keep up.

  ‘We must be in place before they come out.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Grieving.’

  Wyne hadn’t said a word since they got out of the cart and was still fiddling with his cuff, the action frantic now, as if he was trying to rub the material away.

  ‘What’s the matter with your shirt?’ Ghen asked.

  ‘Nothing. It’s fine.’

  As best Ghen could tell, Wyne was anything but fine, though he let Wyne be as they walked.

  They came to the end of the field and Ghen saw that a deep trench had been dug next to the last of the wheat. A ladder had been left inside. Ghen guessed this was the Seed Bed but he didn’t understand the ladder; it wasn’t as if the dead person was going to need to climb out. Someone was waiting nearby: a woman in a red tunic with flowers wound through her long, brown hair. Sot greeted her, and the woman let Sot shake her hand, giving no sign she didn’t welcome the touch.