Authors: Nathan Lowell
The big doors hung on heavy iron hinges and stood wide as she approached. The building wasn’t tall but it was much larger than she’d thought, its bulk masked by the huts and trees. The oxcart and lorry wagon stood tucked under a shed roof to one side and inside she could see box stalls with horses peeking out. She stepped into the open door and smelled the musky aromas of animal dung and sweet hay, along with an underlying tang of harness oil. The horses whickered softly and she could make out the pale shape of the ox in the stall closest to the door. She heard voices coming from inside and followed them back between the stalls to the far end of the barn. William and the older man she’d seen driving the lorry wagon were standing in a large store room at the back. There were barrels and baskets, tools, and piles of cloth. Cupboards with latched doors hung on the walls. The two men turned at the sound of her footsteps and William smiled.
“Good evening, mum.”
“Hello, William.” She smiled back and nodded to the new face. “I take it you’re Frank?”
He nodded with a shy smile of his own. “Yes’m. Frank Crane. I saw you earlier by Mother Alderton’s hut, didn’t I, mum?”
“You did.” Tanyth inclined her head in acknowledgment.
William spoke up. “Tanyth Fairport, this here is the man we were so concerned about. Seems the wagon gave him some trouble. Frank? Tanyth here will be wintering over with us in Mother Alderton’s hut. She’s the one that helped Sadie over the flux.”
Frank nodded and smiled more warmly. “Welcome to the village, mum.”
“Thank you.”
“Is there something we can help you with, mum?” William waved a hand. “I think there’s about anything you might need in here.”
She turned to scan all the things and her eyes kept skittering over shapes in the dim light without actually snagging on them. “So I see. I just came to see what was here, but now that I’m here, I do have need of a second cooking pot and maybe an extra plate.” She looked around at the wealth of goods stashed in the barn. “You’ve enough to open a small store in here!”
William beamed with pride. “Perhaps not a store just yet, but we have most things folks need and extras of stuff that wears out.”
A thought struck her. “When I first arrived the other day, Amber said that you weave the grass mats and make extras to sell in town?”
He nodded. “We do.”
“Well, I need to make some baskets for gathering nuts and such. Is there a workroom here somewhere?”
Frank chuckled a bit and William beamed more broadly. “This way, mum.” He led the way through a side door and out to a fairly large workshop tucked up under another shed roof on the backside of the barn. It was a relatively spacious room, with shutters–closed against the elements at the moment–and workbenches arrayed along the inner wall. A large hearth took up one end of the room while a wide door hung on the far end. Tools hung from pegs on the wall, and racks of raw materials sat wherever there was room. The place looked big enough for several people to work without crowding.
“This must be cozy in winter.” Tanyth looked around admiringly.
Frank nodded. “We get a lot done here.”
William pointed out a bin tucked under the work bench. “There’s grasses and reeds under here, mum, if you’re thinking of weaving a basket.” He pointed to a stack of empty wooden tubs beside the door. “There’s some retting vats. Just get a bucket or two of water from the pump when you’re ready.” He looked around. “Is there a particular kind of basket you need for collecting?”
She shook her head. “Not really. Just something light enough to carry and bigger than my pockets for bringing things back.”
He looked surprised. “How much are you talking about, mum?”
She gave a kind of shrug. “Well, I can only lug one full basket at a time, but something like a gleaner’s bag would be best for collecting and then some baskets for storage.” She looked between the two men. “You know what that is?”
“A gleaner’s bag, mum?” William shrugged. “Of course. We have those already.” He led her back to the storage room and pulled a sack from one of the shelves. He held it up for her. “Like this?” It was made of heavy canvas duck and had a broad strap attached across the mouth.
“That’s it exactly. It’s perfect.” Tanyth nodded enthusiastically. “Might I use one?”
William held the back out to her. “Of course, mum. Anything in this room. Feel free to use anything you can find here. If you can’t find it, ask one of us and maybe we have it tucked away.”
She accepted the bag, looped the strap over her shoulder, and grinned. “Oh, this will make collecting so much easier. Thank you.”
The two men looked pleased to be able to help and Frank pointed out a stack of peck and bushel baskets. “If you need storage baskets, those are available, mum. We’ll be making more as soon as the snow starts flying and we can’t get out, so don’t be shy.”
She just shook her head in wonder before addressing William. “How do you do all this?”
He shrugged. “We just keep busy. Thomas keeps us supplied in meat and the gardens keep us in vegetables. Frank brings barrels of flour and dried beans and such when he comes back from Kleesport, so we don’t have to spend every waking moment searching for food, like some do, mum.” He waved a hand around the storage room. “That gives us time to make stuff we need, to hunt for stuff we can’t buy, and generally lets us stockpile goods we’ll need for later.”
Tanyth stopped gaping at the stores and regarded William. “Are you the mastermind behind all this?”
Frank chuckled and William looked embarrassed. “No, mum.” He jerked a thumb in Frank’s direction. “Frank here was one of my father’s warehouse managers. He’s the one that keeps this all straightened out.”
She inclined her head to him in a small bow. “My compliments to you, sir. I can’t remember seeing anything like it in all my travels.”
Frank smiled softly. “I spent a lot of time driving freight wagons, mum. Before I went to work for this rapscallion’s da.” He nodded at William. “When Will here asked me how to organize it, well, mum, we started plannin’ and the next thing you know...” He held out his hands, arms to the side, “... it happened.”
William smiled. “We couldn’t have done this without Frank. And we need to figure out what to do about the lorry wagon. It was pretty nerve wracking not knowing where you were.”
Frank grimaced and scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Yessir. When that axle gave out, I was wondering how we’d deal with that myself. Luckily I wasn’t far from Mossport and was able to get somebody to carry a message to the wainwright.” He sighed. “It sure woulda been handy to have another person on the wagon so one of us coulda walked while the other guarded.”
William nodded and then explained to Tanyth. “We’ve been having this conversation off and on for a year. If we send somebody with Frank, then we lose a pair of hands here. None of the kids are of an age yet where they’d be much use on the road and it’s a long run in and back.”
Frank shrugged. “Mostly, it’s not a problem. I drive in. I drive back. Got loaders on both ends. But then something like this happens and I’m sittin’ a-side the road waiting for somebody to come by. Can’t leave the horses. Can’t leave the cargo.” He shrugged again, helplessly. “It worked out this time, but ever’body here worryin’ wasn’t helpful.”
Tanyth nodded her understanding. “I can see where that’d be. You’ve got–what? One more run in this season?”
The two men nodded. “Ya. Be going back out in a few days.” Frank rubbed his lower back. “And I’m pretty glad we’ll be holed up for a few months. That seat is getting’ mighty tired of my backside.”
They all laughed.
“Thank you for the bag, William. There’s a grove of nut trees that’ll be happy to share with me tomorrow, I think.” Tanyth smiled and nodded to Frank. “Nice to meet you, Frank. Good luck with the seat.”
She left the two men in the darkening store room, talking about the price of a barrel of flour against a barrel of clay, and wended her way through the gathering dusk with the gleaner’s bag looped over her shoulder. As she approached her hut, the sound of hoof beats from out on the Pike signaled an approaching rider. As the rider got closer, she could hear the jingling of the messenger’s bridle. One of the King’s Own, bearing more dispatches, this time away from Kleesport. She wondered if it were the same young woman she’d seen only two days before but heading in the other direction.
The proximity to the main road gave her pause. The hamlet was rich although it looked like any other collection of hovels in countless other wide spots in the road along the way. Perhaps its obscurity was as good a protection as they’d need. What reivers or bandits would bother with a cluster of hovels? The thought bothered her, but perhaps she was borrowing trouble.
As she rounded the last corner on the way to her hut, a dark shape took wing from where it had been resting on the ridgepole of her roof. The large raven glided effortlessly into the forest and disappeared so suddenly and silently–without even a squawk–that she wondered for a moment if it had been real. Shrugging off the cold chill, she crossed the short distance to her door and ducked inside, closing and latching it carefully.
Chapter 9
Storm Clouds
The following dawn found Tanyth slipping out of her hut, bag over her shoulder, and staff in hand. She knew that taking one or more of the children might have been more effective. Small quick hands might be useful in finding nuts among the leaf litter, but she wanted to survey more as well. For that, the short legs and extra care would be more liability than asset so she set off alone before the sun peeped over the tree line in the east.
In a matter of minutes she was back at the chestnut stand and quickly scooped several handfuls of the ripened nuts into the sack. With the equinox just around the corner, it was perfect timing for the early nuts and she looked up at the spikey pods yet to open, judging that there might be a bumper crop as the fall wound on.
The chestnuts in the bottom of the bag gave it enough heft that it stopped flapping as she walked without being too burdensome to a woman used to carrying her life on her back. She continued due north, parallel to the Kleesport Pike, for a few hundred yards before turning westward to walk in the general direction of the clay quarry. She hoped her path would lead to the stand of cattails that Thomas had recommended. One thing she missed, and she’d need to check with Thomas on it, was a meadow. Many of the plants she knew best grew either in a meadow or on the verge of one where trees offered some protection but didn’t block the sun completely.
Looking up at the arching forest canopy she could see sky in only a few places and the forest’s shadows danced around her. The forest floor was relatively open with the tall, straight oaks offering few obstacles to passage. The mature trees stood well apart, having choked out competition at ground level decades before. The ground rose in elevation as she moved away from the Pike and she soon came to the small pond.
Trees grew nearly up to the edge on the easterly side and her eyes traced the ground’s contour to the south. The rising sun had cleared the treetops and cast bright morning light on a brushy sward and a lush sweep of cattails on the far side of the pond. The green fronds swayed in the morning breezes. The darker spikes that gave the plant its name punctuated the stand here and there. From where she stood in the shadow of the forest, the brilliantly lit scene seemed like something from another world. She felt as if she looked out of the window of some vast cabin at a woodland garden just outside.
A soft splashing sound from the south told her where the pond’s main outlet lay. The brilliant sun glinted off the water in places, but clearly illuminated the sandy bottom of the small pond. Streamlined shadows moved across the sand. It took her a moment to find the fish that made them, so perfectly did they blend in against the pale sand.
She made her way to the south around the end of the pond and worked over to the cattail patch. It took her several moments to recognize the low ground cover that grew with abandon in the dark moist soil on the south side of the pond. She was nearly walking on it when it came to her. Ground nut vines grew everywhere. She looked around in amazement at the spread of vines that extended from the west side of the pond, across much of the small hillside, and down into the moist swale to the south. She was fairly certain she’d find the corduroy road in that direction and the stand of willows where they’d harvested the bark just the previous morning. She felt like so much had happened in a very short time. She looked around, half expecting to see the raven perched in a tree nearby.
Cattails forgotten for the moment, she used the heel of her staff to dig a small hole in the damp soil and exposed a fibrous root with a string of hard tubers no bigger than the first joint in her thumb. “First year and fresh,” she muttered. She was able to pull the root up through the soft soil for several feet and found maybe two dozen of the small, round tubers. She straightened and surveyed the ground once more. She thought there were probably enough ground nuts in this one patch to feed the village for several days should it come to that. The only difficulty in harvesting them in winter would be getting down to them through snow and frozen ground. If things went badly over the winter this patch could be a life saver come spring. Without conscious thought she murmured a reverent, “Thank you, Mother,” and stripped a few ground nuts from the root with practiced fingers, dropping them into her sack.
She turned her attention to the cattails once more, but with all the empty baskets in the storage room in the barn, she saw no reason to cut reeds and weave more. Casting her eye along the upper slope of the pond where the mid-morning sun painted the landscape in the lush green and gold of the last days of summer, she picked out several apple trees growing on the far verge. She picked her way through the drifts of ground nut vines to find a small copse of the wild apples growing in a tangle, their roots nicely watered by the pond. Some of the early summer fruit already rotted on the ground and the sweet fruit drew hornets and bees from miles around. She reached up, plucked one of the small red apples from a low hanging branch, and polished the smooth skin on the sleeve of her jersey. Unlike orchard grown varieties, the wild apple was small, barely two inches in diameter and graced with a red and gold skin that gleamed in the morning sun. Tanyth bit into it, taking a small nibble out of one side. It was hard, but her teeth worried a chunk off and the firm, juicy flesh exploded in her mouth. Not quite sweet, not exactly tart, the small fruit tasted slightly of both and crunched delightfully. She plucked several of them from that same branch, adding them to her gleaner’s bag before heading south along the swale, heading for the path back to the village and feeling more at home with every step she took. The woods surrounding the hamlet appeared to hold a bounty waiting for harvest. She realized that some care would be required to keep from destroying the forest’s ability to replenish itself each season, but she’d only seen one small slice of the woods. If this random section of forest was any indication, the surrounding hillsides must hold a king’s ransom in wild foods.