Chapter 9
“Grange, we’re here,” Ariana awoke him not too long after he had fallen asleep. The sun had risen in the sky, above the trees, but there were gray clouds drifting in from the western horizon.
“Well, we’re glad to see you decided to join us,” Grange heard Thrall’s voice call as the wagon came to a stop at the orchard.
“On my mother’s grave, what is this?” the man asked, as he came around the corner of the wagon and spotted Ariana. Grange looked over, and saw that the wolf pelt was hanging off the end of the wagon, but the carcass was nowhere in sight.
“”Who are you and where did you come from?” Thrall asked as he faced the girl, looking from her to the pelt to Grange.
“This is Ariana. She came from the last village,” Grange spoke up. “She wants to travel with us.”
“I want to go see the big city with Grange,” Ariana spoke for herself.
“Do your parents know about this?” Thrall asked, clearly dissatisfied with the situation.
“No, I left after dark. I ran through the woods to meet the wagons away from the village. But I told my friend to tell my parents in the morning,” she added.
“Did you know about this?” Thrall turned to Grange.
He shook his head negatively. “I was surprised when she came out of the woods and climbed in the wagon.
“Good heavens boy, look at you!” Thrall caught sight of the blood that stained most of Grange’s clothing. “What happened?”
“This wolf was going to attack me,” Ariana answered, lifting the edge of the fur pelt. “But Grange came and saved me.”
“Are you hurt?” Thrall asked, seeming sincerely concerned about their safety.
Ariana?” Clarine had walked back, and was shocked to see the girl from her village.
“Father, Deana,” she called loudly towards the wagons in front. “Ariana is here!”
Grange sat up and moved over next to his companion, as Garrel climbed off the wagon bench and came back to join the gathering.
Drawn by the delay in assignment to the orchards, the other boys from the lead wagon came back as well, and the next several minutes were a pandemonium of comments and confusion as all parties tried to ask questions and give explanations at the same time.
Eventually, Thrall shut the free-for-all down.
“All of you need to get to work,” he said as he looked up at the clouds overhead. “We’re off to a late start and there’s weather moving in. Morris, you’ll be hauling the baskets to the cider barn. The rest of you head to the trees and start picking as fast as you can. Garrel, you help me get the horses out of the harnesses and hobbled in the pasture.
“And Grange, you take your wife with you to go pick apples,” he added, looking at Grange. “You brought her, so it’s your responsibility to keep her safe and to earn enough to pay her way.”
Ariana reached over and put a finger to Grange’s lips before he could protest, and with that, the gathering broke up, as the people started to file away to their various assigned duties.
“It looks like we’re going to pick apples,” he said as he swung down off the wagon. He and Ariana began walking together in the same direction the others went.
“I’m sorry he insulted you by calling you my wife. I’ll try to explain better when everything is calmed down,” Grange told the girl. He turned to look at her, his first real examination of her in the full sunlight, and he was struck by how sparkling blue her eyes were.
“They’re gorgeous,” he breathed the words before he realized they had slipped out. “Your eyes are like jewels.”
Ariana blushed faintly. “Thank you; it’s nice of you to say so.
“Don’t worry about what anyone calls me,” she added. “Unless it hurts you. We’ll get along fine just the way we plan to – traveling and learning sword work.”
They had reached the end of the orchard, where piles of empty baskets stood waiting, as the other boys fanned out.
“Let’s take these two trees to start,” Grange proposed. They each grabbed canvas bags and positioned baskets under their trees, then started plucking the ripe fruits.
Grange watched Ariana as she worked the tree next to him, and he quickly saw that she was fully competent at the task, actually better at the task that he was, as her slender fingers grasped and twisted the fruits, then placed them in the bag she had hanging around her neck, using both hands with nimble accuracy on both the left and right sides.
Grange was determined to keep up, and he began to focus on his apples with greater concentration. He adapted her manner of hanging the bags around his neck so that he too could use both hands. The two of them pulled their apples free of the tree as they walked around and beneath it, then climbed up into the tree to harvest more fruit. They each filled their baskets with the apples they had, then left the baskets for Morris as they moved in to the next pair of trees in front of them.
Ariana glanced over at Grange, then started picking the fruit, and she seemed to gain speed, moving faster around the perimeter of the branches as her hands shot into the foliage and emerged with crisp fruit that she quickly stuffed in the bags on her chest, while her eyes flickered around, searching for the next direction her hands could fly in. She was an unmatchable marvel, but Grange counted on his pickpocket-nimble fingers to allow him to do his best, even starting to reach past apples to first grab a more distant piece of fruit, then grabbing the second apple with a pair of fingers as he retrieved the targets, two red orbs in one hand, helping him to appear to match the speedy girl on his left.
Ariana finished her ground work and started to climb ahead of Grange, but seconds later he used his longer legs to leap higher into the tree, so that he could grab the fruit he sought quickly.
They were clearly racing, both of them knew, and they were both determined to show what they could do. Grange never took the lead, but he seldom fell far behind. After a long stretch of competitive time, he heard a distant rumble of thunder; when he looked up, he saw that the sky overhead was completely gray with clouds, promising to cut the apple-picking activity short before much longer.
Grange desperately pushed himself to pick even faster. With only limited time left, he knew he had to give the effort his all if he hoped to avoid losing the contest with Ariana. He pulled apples at a feverish pace, running as he circled his tree, grabbing apples and leaning forward so that his canvas bags gaped open, letting him toss the apples into their bushel basket destinations while his fingers hurried to find the fruit that hung among the leaves, before his eyes even had time to spot them.
There was a sudden, very close-by crack of lightening, a bright flash that filled the orchard with white light, followed instantly by a ripping, banging clash of thunder. Before the echoes of the thunder had finished fading away, large drops of rain pelted down from the heavens, hitting the leaves and falling through.
Grange looked over at Ariana, who held one canvas bag over her head for protection.
“Everyone in!” he faintly heard Thrall shout. “Come to the shelter,” the leader’s voice instructed.
Grange looked around, but there was no sign of the other apple pickers. He ran over to Ariana. “Let’s go get under shelter,” he urged.
“Gladly!” she agreed. Grange held out his hand, and she grabbed it as he started to run down the open aisle between rows of trees, looking for signs of a shelter, or at least signs of where the others had taken shelter.
They were getting soaked with rain, as the clouds opened up and released all the moisture they could drop on the earth at one time.
“Over there!” Ariana shouted, and she swerved to the right, dragging Grange with her as she veered towards something she had spotted.
There was a darkness in the dim visibility that the rain allowed, and Grange followed Ariana straight to it. It was a very small shed, open on one side, holding rakes and hoes and other tools, but it had a roof, and the open side faced away from the rain, so the two of them dashed into the sh
elter it provided, and crowded together, their two wet bodies squeezing against one another as they tried to press their way as deeply into the shed as possible, to avoid the fine, moist mist that the breeze curved around the corners and into the shed.
Grange realized that they had carried their half-filled bags of apples with them, as he felt the hard fruit pressing into his leg. He swung his bags out, took Ariana’s bags from her, and placed them on the ground in front of the shed, giving them a little more room. He leaned back against the interior of the shed wall, and after a moment, Ariana leaned against him.
“This is a nice break,” she said.
“I needed a break. I couldn’t keep up with you much longer,” he confessed.
“Keep up?” Ariana inquired. “It was all I could do to avoid letting you pass me!”
There was a coziness and intimacy to their isolation in the shed, and Grange felt emboldened. He began to slip one arm around Ariana’s midriff as she stood in front of him, pulling her into an embrace.
“Don’t try anything stupid,” she told him in a calm voice. His hand stopped creeping, then slowly returned to his side.
“These kinds of downpours don’t usually last too long, do they?” she asked conversationally a moment later.
“When this ends, we’ll have to see how the other apple-pickers were doing. Don’t you think we were working faster than they were?” Ariana continued.
“We were working faster than anyone I saw back at the orchards in your village,” Grange agreed.
“Tonight, after dinner,” Ariana began, “will you have to play your flute all night, or will there be time to start our lessons for using the sword?”
“We can practice using the sword,” Grange agreed, “maybe right after dinner, and then I can play the flute for dancing after that, if they want me to.”
“Of course they’ll want you to,” Ariana pointed out. “All the other boys will tell the local girls, and the girls will want to dance, so you’ll be expected to make music for them,” she stated logically. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
The rain started to slacken, and minutes later it was only a light drizzle. The two of them were still damp, but decided to leave the shed and find the others. A five minute walk led them to the cider barn, where they found the other boys, and Thrall, along with the local girls, who all examined Grange and Ariana closely as the pair arrived.
“Where were you two?” Clarine asked.
“We found a little shed that was the closest place to get out of the rain,” Grange explained.
“The closest place to get out of the rain alone,” Corran said, to laughter.
“They needed to go someplace different, since they had worked their way so far in front of the rest of you,” Thrall said, momentarily dampening the high spirits in the barn, where the boys had been happy to make the acquaintance of their new working partners.
“Is that your wolf pelt on that wagon?” a local farmer asked Grange as he came over to where Grange and Ariana stood by a fire, warming and drying themselves. “What’ll you take in trade for it?” the man asked.
“How about a couple of sets of clean clothes for us each to wear?” Ariana bargained, as she gestured to the wolf’s blood that was soaked into the labor camp clothes that Grange still wore.
“That’s all?” the farmer asked suspiciously.
Ariana nodded in agreement.
“I’ll have the clothes here for you by the end of the day,” the farmer seemed satisfied with the deal.
“Ariana, I never would have guessed that you’d run away from home. And you seem so different now,” Deana said as she and Garrel came over to join Ariana and Grange. “You were always so timid at home.”
“I’m ready to get out and see the world,” Grange’s companion replied. “I know that Grange is going to show me things I’ve never seen before.”
“Do you want to stay here in the barn with Clarine and me, and help the girls here?” Deana asked Ariana. “You could dry out.”
“No,” Ariana looped her arm through Grange’s with a familiarity that was at odds with her rejection of his embrace in the shed, confusing him as he listened. “We work pretty well together in the trees, so I better go pick more apples.”
Deana looked at Ariana in wonder, then looked at Grange, then a crafty look stole across her face. “Maybe I should help the boys pick apples too,” she proclaimed. “That could help them finish faster, couldn’t it?”
“Sure, come on into the trees,” one of the boys laughed, and the others laughed as well.
“Deana!” Clarine exclaimed in surprise.
“You should come too,” Deana urged her friend. “There are plenty of girls in the barn already, and we can help the boys catch up.”
Clarine’s expression changed slowly, from one of doubt, to one of thoughtfulness, to one of acceptance. She turned to her father. “May I help the boys catch up?”
“You have to stay in the trees on the edge of the orchard, where I can see you at all times,” he growled his acceptance after a moment’s thought.
With that, the faces of the boys broke into grins, and the crowd headed out into the wet orchard, to resume their apple picking.
Grange and Ariana, far ahead of the others, walked to their trees as the others walked past, marveling at where the two had managed to reach. There was chatter ad high spirits above the ordinary, as the boys were energized by the arrival of the girls as their partners.
Grange and Ariana looked at one another with smug expressions, then resumed their work, and by lunch time – despite the delay by the passage of the storm – they were within easy reach of the cider barn.
“You two have given the best effort I can recall,” Thrall told them as he walked up behind them, having examined their trees and found that they had been thoroughly picked. “If you want to finish these few trees after lunch, you can have the rest of the afternoon off,” he told them. “Since you’ve already done more than your share of the work today.”
“As long as you act proper and there’s no mischief,” he added sternly.
“I’ll keep him in line,” Ariana said reassuringly.
“I believe you when you say that,” Thrall affirmed.
The group gathered in the cider barn, then walked together to the spot where the local adults had prepared the midday feast for the workers. There was a slight air of sullenness among the local girls, who were upset by the importation of Ariana, Deana, and Clarine, providing competition for the companionship of the High Meadow boys, but only a few minutes were needed for most of the boys to migrate over to sit among the disgruntled girls, and conversations slowly crept from low murmurs to laughter and loudness.
“You’re Grange?” a girl boldly came over to place a hand on Grange’s shoulder, even though he sat with Ariana the whole time.
“I am,” he cautiously agreed.
“The boys say you have a flute, and you can play dance music for us all night long,” the girl explained. “We’re all so happy to hear that! The old folks want to play old songs, like you hear in the temple when you go to the city – no one can dance to that!”
Grange looked at Ariana, who nodded her agreement. “I expect I’ll be done with you before sunset, so if you want to play for the dancers, be my guest,” she said calmly. “I might even dance a few steps with some of the boys.”
“Let’s get going so that we can finish, and start your lesson,” she stood up and held out her hand. As soon as Grange stood and took it, she started marching off to the orchard, pulling Grange in her wake, as all eyes watched, and numerous comments were quietly uttered.
That afternoon was exhausting for Grange. He and Ariana finished their last trees in no time, then returned to the wagon, where Ariana retrieved the sword before she led Grange into the unpicked, undisturbed orchards on the other side of the road. She selected a dead tree branch about the size of the sword, and began her lessons in how to hold the weapon. She made Grange try handling the sti
ck and the sword, using first his left hand, then settling on his right.
“You might be able to use your left hand, but it would take a long, long time to teach that, and I don’t think I have that much time,” she decided after just a few minutes of watching him awkwardly maneuver the blade with his left hand.
“How much time could it take?” Grange asked in protest.
“Based on what I see, eternity,” she replied, making him angry, so that they argued for several minutes.
“I tell you what, when you get good with your right hand, we’ll go back to trying your left hand,” Ariana offered a compromise finally. After that, they practiced gripping the sword, holding the sword, swinging the sword, positioning the sword, and numerous other functions with the long metal blade. Grange was convinced that the weapon’s weight doubled and then doubled again.
“Keep your guard up!” Ariana demanded as she held her wooden stick-as-a-sword in preparation for yet another mock exchange late in the afternoon.
“I can’t!” Grange angrily shouted at her.
Her eyes blazed for a fraction of a second, and Grange swore that they seemed to shine with a crystalline glow all their own, but then her face grew calm, and she lowered her stick.
“It’s your first day, and we’ve done enough. Let’s go see how everyone else is doing, and eat some dinner, so you’ll have time to entertain the dancers,” she suggested.
Grange ate, and he performed his musical obligations, but just barely. As the hours of the evening passed by, and the dancers circled around the impromptu dance floor under the gray skies, he felt his arm grow more and more sore. He finally cut the music off, well before midnight, both because of the soreness in his arm, and because of his jealousy as he watched Ariana dance with the other boys while he remained outside of the dancing circle. Despite the groans of protest, he held firm to his decision to end the music.
“Well then, let’s go to bed, shall we?” Ariana said simply, as he pocketed his flute and left the dancing space.
The Elemental Jewels (Book 1) Page 14