“That sounds like a lot of work.”
“Shimmercloth is worth twice its weight in gold. That’s what Father says.”
Lerial swallows, as all the pieces come together and he realizes what the venture his father had mentioned the night before had been … and that Kiedron had been talking about a hundred golds for a stone’s worth of shimmercloth. No wonder no one in Cigoerne wears anything made of it. “I haven’t seen any here…”
“We need the golds more than the cloth.”
So does my father. The realization strikes Lerial almost like a blow as he realizes that, except for the two shimmercloth items belonging to his grandmother, he has never seen any around the Palace.
The majer stops outside a small building that Lerial hasn’t even seen initially. “Wait here.”
Lerial waits, but only for a few moments before the majer reemerges with two spades. He hands the one with the longer shaft to Lerial, the shorter to Rojana, then gestures to the southwest. “You and Rojana are to dig a section of ditch, just past the stone marker at the corner of the pasture. Where you start is marked out with yarn, and there’s another strand that marks the line you take. She has the gauge for how deep and wide the ditch is to be. I’ll be working with the men lining the ditches with clay.”
Dirt isn’t dirt? He waits to ask until he and Rojana are well away from the majer. “What’s special about the clay? I mean, different from the dirt?”
“Clay is what you make bricks of. You can line ditches and ponds with it so that water doesn’t seep out. The dirt here has too much sand in it, and lots of water would seep away if we didn’t use clay.”
“Digging isn’t something I think of women doing,” Lerial says as they near the stone marker.
“Why not?”
“I … I just don’t think of it that way.”
“You don’t think women have to work?”
“It’s not that. My aunt and my mother work. They’re both healers, and they go to the healers’ hall every day. My aunt works hard at it. Sometimes … sometimes…”
“Sometimes what?”
“I don’t know that most people could do what she does. She has to help broken arms and legs heal, and sometimes she has to watch people die.”
“Is that what she says?”
“No. I’ve seen it happen.”
“You were in the healers’ hall?”
“Just a few times.” Lerial doesn’t want to admit he’d only been once.
“Can you heal?”
“My father says I should be able to once I learn how to handle a sabre better.”
“That’s stupid. Learn how to kill better so that you can heal.”
“It’s not that. I’m of the Magi’i, and my tutor says I have to learn how to handle chaos first before I work with order.”
“He’s stupid, too.” Rojana actually snorts.
“There’s the yarn marker.” Lerial points, not wanting to admit he has always had doubts about Saltaryn.
When they get closer, he wonders why the beginning marker was needed, since the section of ditch already dug ends abruptly right there. A single dirty white strand runs straight west, although Lerial can only see it for perhaps twenty yards before it is lost in the sparse green and brown grass.
“You dig out the grass,” says Rojana. “I’ll shape the sides and bottoms behind you.”
“I can do that.” Lerial lifts the spade and attacks the grass.
By midmorning, he is no longer stiff, but his arms both burn and ache. To cut through the grass roots at times requires him to put his boots on the edge of the iron spade, and the balls of his feet are beginning to ache as well.
He stops for a moment and asks. “What do you graze on the front pastures?”
“Goats.”
“I didn’t see any.”
“You can’t let them graze too long. They’ll rip up the grass roots. Father doesn’t like goats.”
“Why goats and not sheep?”
“The sheep don’t do well here.” Rojana lifts another spadeful of earth out of the bottom of the ditch lays it on the ground, then takes the wooden gauge and places it in the ditch. Her lips tighten as she sets aside the gauge and lifts the spade again, shaving a digit’s worth of earth from the bottom of the ditch. “You need to keep digging. I’ve almost caught up with you.”
Lerial looks back across the field to where Altyrn is working with two men and an older woman. One man shovels clay from a handcart into the unfinished ditch while another uses a long-handled tamper with a flat bottom to tamp it into place. Altyrn measures and adjusts the depth with a small sharp spade. The woman sprinkles a dark liquid over the tamped clay and smooths the surface.
“How far do we have to dig?” Lerial asks tiredly.
“To the end of the yarn. It’s just even with the stone field marker.”
He glances toward the stone marker a good fifty yards away. “We might finish by midday. Then what?”
“We start on the next ditch from the east end.”
“How many ditches do we have to dig?”
“As many as it takes.” Rojana lifts another spadeful of dirt. “Six, Father said.”
Lerial looks around the field and calculates. What he and Rojana have done is perhaps a sixth of one ditch. Three days for two ditches … Twelve days of digging ditches? While Lephi is learning more about sabres and riding patrols?
His eyes burn for a moment.
Then he attacks the dirt and grass once more.
XI
On fourday morning, Lerial is even sorer than he had been on threeday, and his hands are red and almost raw in places. His face feels warm, but it is not red, and he applies the ointment Maeroja had supplied to him. When he reaches the breakfast room, he sees that the majer’s consort is seated, as are the girls, but the majer is not there.
“He’ll be here in a few moments,” says Maeroja. “He had to give some instructions to the field crew.” Before Lerial can seat himself at the breakfast table, she says, “Let me see your hands.”
Lerial shows her the backs of his hands, even as he realizes that there is the faintest hint of something different in her voice, almost an accent, a way of speaking that he has not heard or, if he has, does not recall.
“The palms, please.” There is a certain knowing irony in her voice.
He turns his hands over.
“You won’t be able to use them for days if you don’t do something about them.” Maeroja looks to Tyrna. “Go get the ointment.”
The middle daughter slips from her chair and scuttles out through the door to the kitchen.
“You’ll also need some gloves for a time, until your hands toughen. I’ll put on the anointment after you eat. Its smell isn’t perfume, but it does work.”
“Thank you.” Lerial slides into his chair and looks at his empty platter, then realizes that everyone’s is empty. Although his mug does contain the green juice, he decides not to drink because it’s clear that no one else has. Just as he is wondering how long they will wait for the majer, Altyrn steps into the breakfast room and seats himself. Tyrna is right behind her father, a jar in her hand, which she delivers to her mother before reseating herself.
“Did everyone sleep well last night?”
The girls nod. Maeroja smiles. Lerial nods belatedly. He had slept well, but that was because he’d been so exhausted that the early evening warmth in his room hadn’t kept him from falling asleep—a warmth that might well have in Cigoerne.
“Lerial’s going to need gloves today,” Maeroja says, her voice matter-of-fact, “and anointment.”
“I’ll get him gloves after breakfast.”
Once Altyrn lifts his mug, a server quickly dishes out breakfast, and the girls begin to eat. So does Lerial.
“What was the trouble?” Maeroja asks.
“Naaryt is worried about the axle on the cart. I told him to only use half loads of clay. I’d like to get the ditching done before we get any rain. That way the clay can
set. What about the cocoonery?”
“Another few days before the worms start hatching. I’ve made arrangements with Zierna if we need more leaves. I’d rather not use the red mulberry leaves, but we can always do what we did last year.”
“I’d feed the worms on the southeast section with the leaves from the reds. There’s something about that part of the tables that the worms don’t do as well there.”
“The heat … even using an awning in front of the wall, it’s hotter there.”
Altyrn nods. “It’s always something.” He continues eating, methodically alternating bites of egg toast and porridge.
As soon as Lerial finishes eating, Maeroja says, “Let’s get that anointment on your hands.”
Whatever the substance is that she works into the skin of palms and fingers, it smells faintly of something unpleasantly wild as well as something similar to pine, if more acrid.
“Now,” she says as she finishes, “don’t touch anything for a bit.” She smiles at Rojana. “You open the doors until you get to the field today.”
“Yes, Mother.” Rojana grins.
Lerial can’t help blushing slightly, and he hopes no one notices.
Before long, Lerial and Rojana follow Altyrn out of the villa.
There, the majer stops abruptly. “Just wait here. I need to get those gloves for you, Lerial.” He hurries back inside the villa.
“Father won’t be long,” says Rojana. “He never is. Mother says that he’s always been in a hurry.”
As the two of them stand by the west entrance to the villa, two older women walk by some five yards away, talking to each other. One glances in Lerial’s direction, if briefly. They are conversing in Hamorian, and Lerial strains to catch what they are saying.
“… a cousin or nephew of the majer from Cigoerne…”
“… trouble with his family, most likely…”
“… he worked hard yesterday…”
“… see how he does today … and tomorrow…”
Although Lerial strains to hear more, the two women continue walking across the courtyard and toward the cocoonery, their words becoming indistinct and unintelligible.
Rojana looks at Lerial curiously. “You speak Hamorian?”
“Of course. Why?”
“I wouldn’t have thought…”
“My grandmother insisted. Both my brother and I do.”
“Does Father know?”
“I thought…” Lerial shakes his head. “I don’t know. I never mentioned it. I thought most … younger people whose parents came from Cyador had their children speak both tongues.”
Rojana shook her head. “Father says many of the Lancer families won’t teach their children Hamorian.”
“He would know.” Lerial frowns. “I can’t say that I think that’s a good idea.”
“Not speaking Hamorian is a terrible idea.”
Lerial refrains from grinning at her quiet vehemence.
At that moment, the majer steps out of the west door to the villa and walks toward the two.
“I think this pair will fit.” Altyrn extends two gloves of heavy leather, with patches of a darker leather at the base of the palms. “You can get them as dirty as you need to, but don’t get them wet. Wet gloves are hard on hands.”
“Yes, ser.” Lerial eases on one glove, then the other. They’re slightly large, but not noticeably so. “Thank you.”
“There’s one other thing, Father.” Rojana looks at Lerial.
“Ser … I don’t know if my father mentioned it … but I do speak Hamorian.”
“He did not,” replies Altyrn in heavily accented Hamorian. “How well do you speak it?”
“I’m told that I speak it like any other young Hamorian, ser,” Lerial answers in Hamorian, “but I couldn’t say if that’s true or not.”
Rojana grins.
Altyrn shakes his head. “It’s true enough, wouldn’t you say, Rojana?”
“It’s more than true. He has the northern accent, though.”
“You were taught by someone from Swartheld?”
“Yes, ser.” Several people, but all from the north of Afrit.
“Obviously arranged by your grandmother, as you said. She had reasons for everything, and seldom were they wrong. Now … let’s get your spades from the equipment shed. Just do as well as you two did yesterday, and we’ll make good progress.”
“Yes, ser.”
Once Altyrn has handed them the spades and the wooden gauge that Rojana takes, the two walk toward the field with the uncompleted ditching.
When they reach where they halted digging the afternoon before, Lerial grins and asks, “You want me to do all the heavy digging again?”
“Unless you want us to take longer to finish,” rejoins Rojana sweetly.
Lerial sighs, loudly and for effect.
“You don’t do that well.”
“Sighing, you mean?”
“What else would I mean?”
He shakes his head and starts to dig through a clump of tough and wiry grass.
Almost half a glass passes before Rojana pauses and asks, “Was your grandmother as fearsome as they say?”
“I never thought so. She was determined, and what she said was usually what happened.” At least until a few days before she died. “How did your parents meet?”
“I don’t know,” Rojana confesses. “I’ve asked Mother, but she just said that it was something that was meant to happen.”
“But she’s not from around Cigoerne or from around here. She doesn’t look like anyone I’ve ever seen.” Lerial realizes that what he’s said isn’t coming out the way he intended. “I mean … she’s beautiful…” That’s not any better. He flushes. “Nothing I’m saying is coming out right. But do you…?”
“I understand. She is pretty. I’m glad I look more like her. She comes from Heldya, but that’s all I know.”
“You don’t know your grandparents, then?”
Rojana shook her head, then lifted another spadeful of dirt from the bottom of the trench. “Father’s parents had already died when he came to Hamor, and neither of them talk about Mother’s. What about you? Besides your grandfather who was Emperor?”
“I told you about my grandmother. My mother’s parents died after they came to Cigoerne. That was the year when so many died of the flux.”
“Your mother’s a healer. Why couldn’t she do something?”
“She had the flux herself, and she was with child. My aunt was in Narthyl, tending to all the Lancers that had been wounded in the first big attack by the Heldyans.” After a moment, Lerial added, “There aren’t that many healers, just like there aren’t that many Magi’i who are strong mages … or white wizards.”
“Can you throw chaos, the way they say the white wizards can?”
Lerial shakes his head, then considers. “I can light a candle or a lamp with chaos. I’ve never tried more. My tutor said I shouldn’t try without a magus nearby.”
“Could you be a healer?”
“Men aren’t healers.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Could you be … “My aunt said I might … well … she didn’t actually say that, but she showed me some of the things that healers can do.”
“Why couldn’t you heal your hands, then?”
“Can you lift your boots when you’re standing and your feet are in them? Healing’s sort of the same thing. A healer uses her own strength to use order against the chaos that grows in wounds or in the body when it has a flux. Using your own strength to try to heal your own injuries would weaken you in other places in your body.” Or something like that. Lerial thought he’d remembered what Emerya had told him.
“Oh … that makes sense.” After a moment, Rojana adds, “There aren’t any real healers here in Teilyn.”
“There aren’t?” That surprises Lerial, but as he thinks it over, he realizes it shouldn’t. There are only a handful of good healers in the city of Cigoerne, and it’s far bigger tha
n Teilyn.
“The Magi’i don’t like to live away from Cigoerne. That’s what Father says.”
“… and most healers are from the Magi’i,” concludes Lerial. “That doesn’t mean that there can’t be healers and Magi’i born from parents who aren’t Magi’i. Alyiakal’s father was a Mirror Lancer.”
“Who’s Alyiakal?”
“He was one of the great Emperors of Cyador. Some of the great healers didn’t even have altage parents. That’s what my aunt says.”
“I’ll bet they all consorted Mirror Lancers or men who were Magi’i.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because it’s true.”
“How do you know that?”
“How do you know it’s not?”
Lerial starts to retort, then stops. After several moments, he finally says, “You’re right. I don’t know that it’s not true.”
Rojana grins.
“We’d better get back to digging.” Lerial shifts his grip on the shovel.
Shortly after midday, Altyrn calls them to a meal under one of the olive trees in an adjoining orchard, if bread and cheese washed down with juice for Rojana and lager for Lerial count as a meal. The three sit in the shade as they finish their fare.
“You two have been working hard,” says the majer.
“It’s the only way we’ll get done, ser,” replies Lerial.
“That’s true … but it’s dangerous to look at things that way. People who just want to get done with whatever they’re doing often don’t do a good job. You two are working hard and well. That’s good.”
“Thank you, ser.” Lerial is embarrassed to say that, but not to acknowledge the compliment would be discourteous.
“Why is digging an irrigation ditch well a good thing?” This time, Altyrn looks to his daughter.
“Doing anything well is better than doing it badly.”
Altyrn laughs. “Those are my words coming back to me. Why is doing something well worth it, even if the work is unrecognized or if time will undo it?”
Rojana glances at Lerial, but does not speak.
“Lerial?” prods the majer.
Cyador’s Heirs Page 10