by M. J. Haag
“Come eat some warm soup,” he encouraged, helping me to my feet.
In the kitchen, Bryn and Blye waited at the table. The unusual sight gave me pause. They never held dinner for me. As soon as I sat, Bryn started serving a thick vegetable soup.
“I assume everything went well at the Water, Bini?” Father asked while we waited.
“The Head was absent, but Tibit said they were pleased you were considering their offer.”
“What offer?” Blye inquired.
“A private teaching position.”
Bryn paused in her ladling.
“That’s the one you considered before we moved here, isn’t it? Four years is a long time for a position to remain open. What’s wrong with it?”
“The position is fine. The pay is slightly more than I make now,” he assured us.
I watched my sisters’ eyes glimmer with excitement, but I felt wary.
“Why didn’t you take it four years ago, then?” I asked.
Bryn passed the soup around. It filled the void in my stomach and warmed my blood.
He gave me a slight, sad smile.
“The cottage is not fit for a family of four.” Before my sisters could ask how he meant for us to live there if there wasn’t enough room for all of us, he added, “But now you are of an age to marry.”
Blye clapped her hands with a huge smile.
“You’ve accepted the baker’s request for Benella, then?”
My stomach dropped, and the soup I’d recently eaten soured in it. Surely, he wouldn’t force me to wed the Baker after what I’d told him.
“Benella is still too young to wed, just as you were too young in my mind four years ago.”
Blye’s face turned to stone. “Surely, you don’t expect one of us to wed the baker.”
“I will not force a groom onto you if you have no care for him. That said, are there any you care for?”
“I’d accept Tennen if he asked,” Bryn said demurely.
“I’m afraid that match wouldn’t suit you, dearest. The Coalre family is as out of coin as the rest of us, and I would not have you going into a marriage with false ideas or hopes,” he said calmly between sips of broth.
I stayed focused on my own meal, but from the corner of my eye saw my sister’s face flush at Father’s blunt words. Part of me wanted to cheer him in his softly worded criticism of her shallow nature, but I squelched that part, knowing it unkind to Bryn. As Father stated, she did work hard, most of the time, to keep the cottage a home. What would happen when she and Blye both wed? Who would mend for Father and cook for him? I could do a fair job at a meal if a person didn’t mind a lack of variety. Mending bored me to tears, but I could sew a straight line. I’d never have the skill of either Bryn or Blye, though. Unless my future husband was a tailor, I didn’t see that my lack of skill would matter.
“If you have no preferences, I’d like to announce your intent to marry and see what offers we receive,” Father said into the silence.
“How soon?” Bryn whispered.
“In the morning, I’ll talk to the baker. By evening, the rest of the village should know.”
* * * *
A flat-faced sheep farmer from the south came to offer for Blye after Father returned home. The short, muscled man spoke plainly of his need for someone who could weave and sew well and promised himself to be a soft-spoken, gentle man. Given his propensity to gaze at the ground when speaking to Blye instead of meeting her gaze, I agreed with his self-assessment. After listening to his offer, Blye kindly declined.
Bryn consoled Blye after the man left, saying at least someone had come for her. Though Father had discounted Tennen, I felt sure Bryn still held out some small hope that he would appear and offer for her nonetheless. She quietly served another dinner of vegetable soup; and I knew, dress or no, I needed to attempt to set traps the following day.
* * * *
I crept from bed during the twilight hour when the birds sang gustily before the dawn. Shaking out my dress, I frowned at its dingy, pale blue color. It needed a washing desperately, but I put it on anyway and hustled out the door before Father rose from bed. The cool air prickled my skin; and I set out toward the estate, carefully placing traps on my way, to check the enchanted dirt that spilled from the wall.
When I reached the rough patch of soil, I wasn’t disappointed by barren earth. A single line of turnips thinly dotted the expanse, starting from the edge to lead toward the tumbled rock. The row didn’t stop there but continued with uprooted turnips lying on their sides over the rocks and into the darkened woods within, a blatant invitation that struck me as very wrong. I stared at the roots while biting on my lower lip. My stomach growled. I wanted the food, no doubt about it, but I wasn’t willing to fall into some sort of trap, which was how it appeared to me. I recalled all of the other times I’d harvested there and walked the boundary, looking to pluck any bounty I could find.
Rifling through my bag, my hand clasped around a spare ribbon I used to tie back my hair. The color had faded and the ends were frayed, but I laid it down on the ground anyway.
“It’s not much, but all I have,” I whispered, “for the things I’ve taken in the past. Thank you.”
Before I changed my mind, or my hunger changed it for me, I darted away. Behind me, I heard the vines moving and ran faster, hoping the estate wouldn’t hold a grudge over everything I’d taken. It was the only explanation I had for its odd behavior.
I should have known I couldn’t outrun magic. The vines flew along the ground and caught me by the ankles while others stretched down from lofty heights within the canopy to curl around my upper arms and lift me high.
“Please,” I whispered as they shuffled me back toward the wall. “I meant no offense.”
Ahead I saw the turnip filled dirt and crumbling wall. The vines didn’t set me down there. They kept shuffling me forward over the wall and through the dark misty trees as the sky began to lighten. Finally, before a large gnarled oak growing at the edge of a pond, they released me. I landed with a splash in the waist-deep waters and scowled. Dripping wet, I stood weighed down by my heavy skirts.
“Confounded dress,” I muttered, struggling toward the shore.
The tree groaned, a low noise of wood rubbing on wood, then gave several small splintering cracks as the surface of the trunk began to shift. I stopped my approach and stood still in the knee-deep water to watch with wide eyes as a face formed within the wood. Rough, slashed bark eyes squinted at me, and a great long nose twitched as if the eyes couldn’t believe what they saw. Below the nose a wide mouth opened slowly, looking as if the tree was breaking and about to topple. Instead, it spoke.
“Teach him,” it said in a series of cracks and groans. The leaves above trembled with its effort.
“Who?” I whispered, fear and awe having stolen the volume from my voice.
“Free us,” it continued as if it didn’t hear me. The trunk tilted forward again as the mouth closed and the nose sank back into the bark, leaving only the slitted eyes until they too winked out of existence.
Looking around at the woods, I waited for more, but nothing else happened for several long minutes. Shivering, I climbed out of the water and walked back toward the wall. This time, I took the turnips, every one of them.
From the traps, I managed to gather two rabbits, which pleased me until I wondered how to skin them without dirtying my dress. After my dunking, it was clean once again. While I contemplated my dilemma, I continued home, glad to see a faint glow in the kitchen window. Bryn willingly surrendered her apron, only raising a brow at my damp state, and I set to work, eager to eat rabbit for breakfast.
Father stepped from his study as I handed over the dressed game to Bryn along with her now dirty apron.
“Father, do you know of the estate’s history?” I asked, ignoring Bryn’s peevish glance.
He shook his head.
“Only what we know from the villagers, that the beast guards the estate for the Liege
Lord to prevent theft and whatnot,” he said absently, looking in our food storage for something to eat.
He was right. The information he knew was nothing I hadn’t already heard. When we’d moved here, I’d been young enough that I hadn’t cared about the beast or the estate beyond the need to stay away from them. However, since both the estate and the beast seemed to have taken an interest in me, I needed to learn more.
“I’ll bring some of the rabbit to the school when it’s ready if you’d like,” I said to him.
He nodded his thanks and left as I moved closer to the stove to dry and enjoy the scent of cooking meat. Bryn left to milk the goat and check for an egg from our single hen. In the warm silence, I contemplated which of the villagers might know more regarding either the estate or the beast. Miss Medunge, the baker’s sister, loved gossiping and probably knew everything about everyone, but I didn’t want to chance meeting up with the baker. The butcher hadn’t lived here as long as we had, and the seamstress didn’t have any interest in anything other than her cloth and customers. The Coalres were out of the question for obvious reasons. That left the candle maker.
* * * *
After taking a covered plate to Father, I cautiously hurried to the candle maker. I’d yet to face Tennen or Splane after their last attempt to have the beast kill me and wanted to keep it that way.
The candle maker’s bell above the door rang as I let myself in after a brief knock. He looked up from his work with a smile.
“I hadn’t thought to see you so soon,” he said. “But I’m glad you’re here, nonetheless. I have something for you.” He stood with a grunt and shuffled to a low shelf near the back of the room. Lying on the rough board, a blunt silver glimmered in the daylight. He plucked it from the wood between two time-twisted fingers and shuffled toward me, wearing an excited grin.
“Timmy couldn’t believe the primrose candle,” he said, handing me the coin, which I took reluctantly. “If you find more flowers, bring them to me and there will be more silver for you,” he promised.
I fisted the silver but didn’t turn to go.
“I was wondering if you could tell me a little about the history of the estate. Or perhaps, something of the beast.”
“It would brighten the rest of my morning to spend it telling you stories from my youth. But, come, sit. I can’t forget my work while we talk.”
He nudged another chair close to his worktable, and I willingly sat with him. The candle maker’s cottage was always pleasantly warm. He checked his strings and started his tale.
“I was about your age when the Liege Lord disappeared, but I remember the years before that well enough to be glad of his absence. He was a man far too concerned with his own pleasures than that of the people who looked to him for protection and justice. Justice,” the candle maker scoffed. “Back then it was a mockery. The Head at the Water used the position to swindle the businesses and bully the people he didn’t like. The Liege Lord did nothing. He couldn’t. He was too busy strutting from bed to bed, not caring what women occupied it with him.”
I kept quiet, afraid he’d recall his audience and stop his open retelling.
“I shouldn’t say that,” he said. “He did care. Only the pretty ones. Young. Old. Single. Married. He made no distinction.” He snorted disgustedly. “I’m ahead of myself. The estate has been there over three hundred years and has passed from father to son. While the last Liege Lord’s father had lived, things were peaceful and prosperous. After his father died, the Liege Lord started his whoring. His mother, too ashamed of her son, retired to the South and died there not long after. The young Lord just sank deeper into his depravity. Things were getting to the point where I was thinking of heading south, too—the southern liege lords are good to their tenants—but then he disappeared. He just stopped going to the villages. Stopped his whoring. The Head went to the estate but found it empty. He thought to make himself a little coin and take a few things, and that was the first time the beast made himself known. Oh, that Head ran down the road, here, screaming something fierce. Took several men to hold him down and pour ale down his throat before he calmed enough to tell what happened. ‘Course no one believed him, and a group went to the estate to see for themselves.”
He cackled at the memory.
“That’s when the legend of the beast really started. The Head went back to the Water, but soon came with all sorts of people interested in trying to kill the beast to get to the Liege Lord’s treasure. But that beast protected it something fierce. Many men died trying to get past the gate. As time passed and the flow of would-be pillagers slowed, some folks managed to get in the gate, but never very far. I think the beast knew they were just curious for the most part and didn’t harm them. But those that return for a second visit, well, he doesn’t treat them as well.”
“What about the Liege Lord? Where did he go?”
“Some say he went south to mourn his mother, but fifty years is a long time to mourn. No, I think he’s at the estate,” he said softly. “I think he never left. That beast keeps him as cornered in the estate as he does keeping folks out. I just can’t figure out why.”
I thanked him for his time, and at the last moment, remembering the coin curled in my fist, thanked him for that as well. He certainly had given me plenty to think on.
Leaving the candle maker, I collided with Sara, the smith’s wife. I didn’t pay her as much attention as I did Splane, who trailed behind her. He glared at me as I smoothed my skirt with both hands while absently apologizing to Sara. The feel of fabric against the sweaty palm that used to hold a coin froze me in place. I’d dropped it.
“Excuse me, Benella,” Sara said stiffly, a deep hue of crimson flooding her face.
Did she too know what I’d witnessed? I felt horrible.
A glint in the dust at our feet caught my eyes. I looked down at it, making my notice obvious.
“I think you dropped something.”
Sara’s eyes followed mine and rounded. She didn’t hesitate, but snatched up the blunt silver.
“We don’t need your charity,” Splane said mulishly.
His mother’s fingers curled tightly around the coin. Easy words for him when he didn’t need to spread his legs for the baker.
“Charity?” I asked, feigning puzzlement. “How would I come by a blunt silver?” I let the doubt in my voice speak for itself.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Splane,” his mother scolded. She didn’t look at me or thank me, simply changed directions and went to the baker, through the front door. Splane hurried to follow her.
I hoped that would help end some of the animosity they had toward me. Walking back to the cottage, I pondered the candle maker’s tale, unsure who in that story I needed to free or teach. Part of me was inclined to believe it was the Liege Lord trapped in the estate like the candle maker suggested, but why would I want to free such a bane? Perhaps that’s what he needed to be taught...proper behavior.
As I neared the cottage, the goat bleated pathetically in the back, so I walked around to investigate. There, within sight of the open doors, Tennen had Bryn pinned to a mound of fresh hay. Her skirts were hiked up to her waist and her legs wrapped around Tennen’s rapidly pumping, naked backside. Neither noticed me.
I pivoted back around the corner and pressed myself against the wall, out of sight and in shock. The goat’s bleat drowned out most of their mingled moans. After a few moments it quieted, their moans and the goat’s protests over their use of her bedding.
“Tennen,” I heard Bryn say softly. “My father wants me to marry soon.”
“You are of an age.”
I cringed for my sister loving such a fool.
“As are you,” she said.
In the silence, I heard the soft rustle of clothes being righted.
“I would be a good wife,” Bryn said.
“Why would I want to marry you when I’ve already fucked you? It’s nothing special anymore.”
Hearing her soft gasp, I quickly mo
ved to the front of the cottage and let myself in. Not trusting either of them, I hid in Father’s study. How could Bryn give him so much of herself? Hadn’t she seen the type of man he was? He reminded me of the Liege Lord in the candle maker’s story. How many Bryns had he left behind? Poor Bryn. I wanted to go out and comfort her, but she would not react kindly to my knowing her shame. She’d given herself and been rejected for it.
So, I waited quietly in the office. When the cloud-covered sky dimmed enough to indicate Father’s impending return, I slipped out the window. The dress hampered me—it was more of an inelegant tangle and fall out of the window—but I managed to leave the house without being detected. I circled the woods in front of the cottage to step out onto the path and reapproached our home from a distance.
Bryn didn’t look up from whatever it was she stirred on the stove, but it didn’t matter. The desolation on her face was plain to see.
“Is Blye home?” I asked, truly wondering where she’d been through Tennen’s visit.
“No. She took a few of her creations to the seamstress this morning and hasn’t been back.” She barely whispered the words, and as soon as she finished speaking, she went out the back door without a word.
I didn’t stay to listen to her soft sobs but fled once again to Father’s study to read about plants.
* * * *
At dinner, Father announced his plans to travel to Water-On-The-Bridge the next day. He had many books in his library and knew he couldn’t leave them all to move in one trip, so he hired a wagon and asked if either of my sisters would like to join him. Both promptly said yes, though for very different reasons. Blye explained she wanted to speak with the seamstresses there to see if she could apprentice for room and board, a sure way to lengthen the time limit of remaining unwed so she could seek a suitable contender. Bryn stated plainly that no one in Konrall would ask for her, and she would like the chance to meet the eligible men the Water had to offer.
Father agreed to take them both and asked that I stay to teach his class. With a feeling of dread, I agreed.