All the village worked. The children twisted ties or carried water. Lise went from one scythe team to the next, sharpening the hammered leading edge of the blades with a whetstone. Scythe blades dulled easily, needing to be sharpened several times an hour. Other women gleaned, picking up the heads that had broken off. From a perch, a yellowhammer whistled his “oh see-me see-me see-me please” over and over.
Halfway through the afternoon, the women’s scythe line began to sing. They had moved faster than the men, and their swath of cut grain was neater, not that the cattle would care. The song had a rhythm that matched the swing of the scythe. Danel stopped, listening.
“I remember that song,” he said. “The women sang it at harvest in my home village, too. As a child, I carried water and twisted ties, like these boys.” He indicated Pel and Sarr.
“Where is your home village?” I asked.
“Torrey,” he said. “In the south.”
“Near Karst?”
He considered. “Not too near. North and west of it. Lena,” he added shyly, “tell me, if you would, who is the woman in the scythe line, two from the right? I do not remember her name.”
I looked up the field to where the scythe line moved rhythmically through the grain. I smiled. “Her name is Freya.”
He flashed me a quick smile that lit his face. “Thank you.”
When Casse and Siane arrived a bit later with freshly baked cakes and tea, Tali called a halt. We sat or sprawled in the cut swathes and ate and drank. The cakes, dense with dried fruit, renewed my flagging energy, and the tea, sweet with honey, soothed my throat, dry with the dust of the harvest. I surveyed the field. We had eight days until the autumn equinox. Another two afternoons would finish this field, but another two wheat fields, and three of oats, awaited. We had finished the barley harvest before the men arrived.
Casse, I noted, had brought her bow and arrows. As the scythe teams moved closer to the centre of the field, rabbits and hares, and possibly game birds, would break from the diminishing cover. We ate a lot of rabbit during harvest. I finished my tea and had just stood to return the mug to Siane when Dern’s voice—his command voice—rang in the warm air.
“Stop scything now, Anwyl,” he said. “If you continue, you will damage that shoulder beyond what heat and a night’s rest can heal, and you will be useless to us. You have made your point. Go and stook grain.” I watched as Anwyl thrust the scythe at Dern and turned away, not looking at his crewmates. He started towards us.
“Soldier,” Casse called out. “Yes, you,” she added, when Anwyl looked at her questioningly. “Please come here.” Anwyl changed course to walk over to Casse, who had her birdbow in her hand. She said something to him I could not hear. He nodded. After a moment or two of further talk, he took his secca out of his bootsheath to show her. They spoke a minute longer. I saw him indicate his left shoulder, shaking his head. “Captain,” Casse called. “I am going to try for rabbit and quail for the pot tonight. I would like this man’s help. May I borrow him?”
“Certainly,” Dern called back. “There is no danger to his left shoulder in hunting rabbits. Throw true, Anwyl,” he added. “I like rabbit stew.” The two men I was working with glanced at each other. Was that relief on their faces?
The long rays of the westering sun had turned the heather on the hillside a brilliant purple before we stopped, aching and exhausted. Far overhead, a golden eagle cried as it hunted on the last of the warm updrafts over the hills. Smells of stew and fresh bread drifted up from the village.
The scythers stopped first, making their way to the forge to leave their tools. Lise, and Casyn, I supposed, would work into the night, rehammering and sharpening the edges. The rest of us finished stooking the last sheaves before we left the field. For the first part of the evening, only women could use the baths. The men could soak later. Twenty minutes later, I sank into the hot pool with a deep sigh. I soaked for half an hour, letting the heat penetrate, just floating. All around me, women did the same. Almost no one spoke. After some time, I started thinking about the morning, the women and men fighting, how they differed. I sat up. Across the pool, Tice saw me move, and she too sat up, cocking an eyebrow. We climbed out and dried off. “My cohort,” I said to the soaking women, “meet us at the council hall in twenty minutes.”
During harvest, the oldest women cooked, and we ate communally at the hall. With bowls of stew and chunks of bread in hand, I claimed the west-facing porch for our meeting spot, sitting on the step to eat. The cohort drifted out, followed by Dern and his men. Danel slid into a spot near Freya. When we had eaten the stew, Camy and Aline brought out a tray of fruitcake and tarts.
“I would like to talk about what we saw this morning,” I began. “What is different, about the way we use the knives, and how you do. And what that might mean when we fight.”
“You’re not as strong,” Anwyl said bluntly. He sat slightly apart from the others, leaning against one of the posts that supported the roof of the porch. “I could take the knife away from any of you, easily.”
“Not easily,” another man said. “Satordi is not as strong as you either, but you’ve never bested him in practice because he’s faster. Strength isn’t everything, Anwyl.”
“There is something else, though,” Satordi spoke. He could be no more than eighteen, I thought. “I can’t explain it, but you move differently. It’s like seeing an animal from a distance: you can tell whether it’s a dog or a fox, just by its movement.”
“He’s right,” Tice said. “The men move differently than we do. They carry more muscle on their upper bodies, and their centre is higher. They move from their chests. We have more strength and more movement lower down on the body, from the hips.”
Dern reached for a tart. “What does this mean?”
“We tend to aim low, or at arms, not chests or backs,” Freya answered. “We can duck away easily and move out of range, but stabbing at the body takes more arm strength. We do it, but not as much as the men.”
“So we should expect more attacks directed at our upper bodies,” I said. “Think about that and prepare for it. Tomorrow we will pair off with the men, with our practice knives, to begin to learn what it is to fight a man. Is there anything else?” No one spoke. “My cohort, to bed, then.” They stood, gathering bowls and mugs. I picked up one of the trays and piled dishes onto it. Danel said something to Freya. She smiled, bidding him good night.
I heard Dern order his men to the baths. He followed me into the meeting hall, carrying one of the trays. We deposited them on a table. “May I walk with you?” he said quietly.
I shook my head. “Go to the baths with your men. I’m tired. I need to sleep.”
He nodded. “I suppose you do,” he said without inflection. “Good night, then, Lena. I’ll see you in the morning.”
I called a goodnight to Casse and her helpers and walked out into the night. I didn’t want to think about Dern. Watching Freya and Danel tonight, their budding awareness of each other, had changed something. However I felt about Dern, it didn’t have the same delight as what I saw between Danel and Freya. I wanted him. But was that enough?
The next morning dawned on another cloudless harvest day. We gathered at the practice field, the men climbing up from harbour and the boats where they slept. I saw another group of men with bows, heading for the butts, and others joining in the work of the cohort building the fences above the tideline that we hoped would funnel the invaders along defended paths. Dern and his men brought their own wooden seccas.
We conferred on how to pair them off, deciding on height to begin with. I named six women. “You six fight first. The rest will watch.”
“Go slowly, at first. We want no injuries from carelessness or pride,” Dern added.
Wooden knives in hand, the combatants moved out onto the packed dirt of the practice ground. They paired off, and at a nod from me, the practice began. Tice and Dern and I watched the pairs. At first, they hesitated. The men, I supposed, not comforta
ble with the idea of fighting women; the women unsure of the strength and expertise they faced. In almost all cases, the fighting only began in earnest after a skilful blow from one of my cohort. I moved over to Dern to tell him what I saw. “We can’t let this continue, or we will come to expect it, and the advantage it gives. The Lestian men won’t hesitate.”
“You’re right,” Dern said, “but neither will they attack with full force. They won’t be expecting any sort of skilled resistance.” He hesitated. “From what I know of Leste, they won’t attack to kill, not at first. They’ll attack to overpower, and then use you for their pleasure.”
“Casyn warned us,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “Can we begin again?”
We stopped the practice, and while Dern spoke to his men, Tice and I talked with the cohort. I told them what I had seen, and what it meant. When we began again, with different pairs, it looked better. It looked real.
We practiced, in different pairs, until late morning. I pulled Tice aside at one point to tell her of the attraction between Freya and Danel, advising her to watch them closely when they paired.
“They’re unlikely to be the only ones, but I’ll pay attention. If they are too gentle with each other, I’ll step in.” While she watched, I fought several men, trying to note the differences, predict the moves. Anwyl kept me completely at bay: I could only defend myself. Finally, I turned, ran, and then threw my knife. I hit his shoulder—the left one—and he roared in pain and surprise. His pride had let him think I had panicked and run, and he had not thrown his own knife. By the end, bruised and dusty, I thought I had the beginnings of an understanding of what fighting against the invaders might entail.
For the next five days, we practiced in the mornings and went to the grain fields in the afternoons. The weather held. No rain soaked the grain or replenished the streams. On the fifth morning, I left the cohort with Tice, and went with Anwyl and Tiernay to build a trail up the waterfall.
Dern and I had spoken of it two nights before, at dinner. I had kept him at arm’s length all week, which he had seemed to accept, but we still needed to plan. We sat on the west porch of the meeting hall after the others left. I sipped tea as he outlined what he believed needed to be done at the waterfall.
“I want you to take Anwyl and Tiernay,” he said. I started to protest, but he held up a hand. “Casyn has made half a dozen iron rings that can be hammered into the rocks where needed, to tie ropes to. And before you object to Anwyl, hear me out. Anwyl has skills you need. He was born in a tiny village east of Casilla where the mountains come down to the sea. He grew up scrambling up and down cliffs, taking seabird eggs and nestlings even before he was six. A dozen years ago, he was sent into the Durrains as part of a scouting group because of his skill with climbing. He’s not the easiest of men to deal with, but there is little about climbing rockfaces safely he doesn’t know.”
“All right,” I answered slowly. “And Tiernay?”
“Tiernay is strong and careful, and Anwyl likes him. And he has a head for heights.” Dern said. “Who will you take from the women?”
“I was going to say Freya,” I said, “but that’s not right. She’s as tall as I am. Kelle, I think. She’s strong, but she’s a lot shorter. If she can climb the trail we build, everyone else should be able to as well.”
He nodded, reaching out to cover my hand in his own. I felt the tug of desire, but I turned my hand up to squeeze his, then withdrew it. He looked at me quizzically.
“Dern, I think the answer is no.”
“Are you sure?”
I exhaled. I owed him the truth. “Not quite. Part of me wants to—very much. But part of me says whatever I’m feeling—it’s not enough. Can you understand that?”
“Not really,” he said. “But perhaps the difference is that you have loved someone, and I haven’t. But I certainly want you, and perhaps there could be more.” Crickets chirped in the night. I looked up at the stars. He shifted slightly. “I’ll ask one more time, Lena. But no more.”
“I understand,” I said. “I don’t want to mislead you, Dern.”
“I’ll survive,” he said. “Sleep well.”
I stood at the base of the waterfall, with Kelle, Tiernay, and Anwyl, and the tools—picks and shovels, a bag of iron rings, drills and hammers and rope—that we needed.
Anwyl studied the waterfall for some minutes while we waited. I had told Kelle of his expertise, and that I would defer to his advice. “Wait here,” he said finally. Taking off his overtunic—the morning had not yet warmed—he began to climb.
Nearly half an hour passed before he returned. “Down is easy,” he said briefly. “You climbed up it?”
“I did. Twice. So has Freya.” He raised his eyebrows. I thought I saw new respect in his eyes.
“You were lucky not to fall,” he said. “She couldn’t, though,” he indicated Kelle.
“No,” I agreed. “Kelle is too short. We need to make it possible for Kelle and the rest of the cohort to climb it. Not easy, but possible.”
He nodded. “Let me take Tiernay up, to start getting those rings in place. That’s going to take some time, and then we’ll start stabilizing some of the rocks that wobble.” He handed Tiernay tools, and the bag of rings. “Meanwhile, start looking for flattish rocks, about this big”—he indicated with his hands— “that we can wedge under boulders.”
Kelle and I had a fair pile of flattish stones when Anwyl joined us. He nodded with approval at the pile. “We’ll need a lot more.”
“Kelle, see if you can round up some of the children. If not, get Camy and Aline.” She nodded, turning towards the village.
“Get some bags, or baskets, too,” Anwyl called. “For carrying them up.”
Anwyl showed me how to hammer the flat rocks under a midsized boulder that rocked. Once he saw I understood, he left me to it, scooping up some of the pile, climbing higher to begin on the next unstable rock. I could hear the chink of hammer and chisel on the rocks higher up, where Tiernay worked. Occasionally, a chip bounced down to join the pebbles on the foreshore.
When Kelle returned with Camy, Aline, Lara, and Sarr, we toiled through the morning, wedging and digging, carrying rock higher and higher up the waterfall. As it grew warmer, we welcomed the splashing water for its cooling qualities. Anwyl came down several times to check our work. “Good,” he said briefly. He was not a man of many words.
At midday, Lara left to bring us food. When she returned, we sat at the base of the waterfall to eat. Tiernay had climbed down, reporting that he had one ring in and a second well on its way. “After we eat,” Anwyl said, through a mouthful of pickled fish and bread, “Kelle will test our work.”
Kelle looked at me. I swallowed my own mouthful. “Anwyl,” I said, as calmly as I could muster, “it is up to me to tell Kelle what to do. I appreciate your expertise in rock-climbing, and I’m glad you are here to direct what needs to be done, but my cohort is under my command.” I waited. Anwyl stared at me for a moment before dropping his eyes.
“As you say.”
“Thank you.” I wondered what Dern had said to him. “I’d prefer it if you would show us both and let us practice with you watching. Climbing is your skill, and we’d be glad to learn from you.”
He chewed. “When you’re ready, cohort-leader.”
We finished our food, and after a brief rest, started up the waterfall. The first part of the climb went easily. Anwyl had indicated we should climb ahead of him. Tiernay had gone up first to attach the rope. I climbed first of our group, with Kelle following. From just behind us, Anwyl gave instructions whenever I or Kelle hesitated, sometimes pointing out a better choice of hand or foot placement. After ten minutes, we reached the first place where frost and water had sheared off a section of the cliff. Where Freya and I had hung on with fingertips to the upper ledge while we scrabbled for toeholds, Tiernay had drilled and hammered an iron ring into the cliff-face above the ledge, and chiselled out a smooth half-circle in the rock to let the rope pas
s through without fraying. The rope itself, a thick mooring line, had been knotted to provide hand and foot grips.
“Not much to it,” Anwyl said. “Climb up the rope. When you get to the ledge, put your elbows on it and pull yourself up until you can roll on. Who’s going first?”
“I am,” I said. I grabbed the rope at a knot to pull myself up, then cursed, dropping down again. I took off my shoes, tied them through my belt at my back, and began again, grasping the rope with my feet. The falling water had soaked it, but the knots provided purchase. Slowly I worked my way up the rope to the ledge, and, tightening my toegrip, slid my elbows up onto the ledge, found places my hands could grip, and pulled myself up. Much easier, I thought, than when I’d climbed it earlier this summer. I sat up. The knotted rope continued for some distance above my head. I swung my body back out onto the rope and descended.
Anwyl nodded. “Good,” he said. “You could have been quicker, but that will come with practice. Better to be safe.”
“Kelle?” I said. She swallowed hard but nodded. She had already taken off her shoes.
Two thirds of the way up, she froze. I started to speak, but Anwyl stopped me. “Move your right hand up,” he instructed. “Just your right hand.” Slowly she complied. “Now your left,” he said. He gave her firm instructors until she lay on the ledge. He gave her a minute. “Now come down. You saw what Lena did. Grab the knot.”
She came down without freezing, to stand, panting slightly, on the boulder. “Well done,” Anwyl said.
“Very well done,” I echoed.
“You’ll do it again in a minute,” Anwyl said. He glanced at me. “Providing your cohort leader agrees, of course. First I want to check the rope.” He climbed rapidly, reaching the ledge in only a few seconds. There he examined the rope where it brushed against the ledge, looked up at the metal ring, then dropped back down to the boulder faster than he had climbed. “No fraying,” he said. “Do you want Kelle to climb again?”
Empire's Legacy- The Complete Trilogy Page 13