Rosalea unpacked Annie, resolving to sleep on the ground in the small area just outside the stall. “I like these wood buildings. They are so much warmer. I missed them all the time before the tent people took me," the horse observed loftily. “You aren’t planning to just lock me into one of these and wander off for long periods of time though, are you?”
Rosalea could not help but smile a little to herself as Annie branded the Uryans as tent people. Still, for the question, she sighed. “Remember, you are working. You will only spend nights here with me. And yes, it will be warm. You were just complaining at me this morning and every time it has ever rained on us that you wish we had shelter.”
The mare snorted at her and stomped a foot. Rosalea patted her gently, and pulled the other packs off, setting them on the ground. It was hard to get too feisty with the testy mare, Rosalea was aware that Annie’s experiences in life had all been bad with the Uryans, but her worry that she was going to have an extended stay in the barn without anyone coming back to her made Rosalea think her experiences before she was traded to the Uryans had also not been good. There has to be some lesson there about the problems of being judged by how pretty you are. I am sure that is why the Uryans wanted you
She moved the packs of whatever foods she did have to the back of the corner, just off of her sleeping pallet. She set the pack that contained her two changes of clothes up more toward the front. She took the jewels out that she still had from the castle, and hid them on her person. She had trusted the Uryans not to relieve her of them, and her trust had been appropriate. Though they had searched her packs, and had known she had stolen them, they had let her keep them. She did not trust the ways of a people she had yet to come to know. “Annie, where did you live before you lived with the Uryans?”
Not everything would fit in her pockets without creating some bulges, so she got out a needle and a bit of fabric to sew things on the insides of her pant legs and the bottom hem of the shirt that she wore. “I don’t remember really. I remember I spent a lot of time in a wood building and a muddy pen. Then I went to a place where the food was nicer, but the man was meaner, so I bucked him off. When he stabbed me in the sides with something sharp after the next time he got on, I ran us into a fence to throw him off. After that I went with a herd of horses and ended up with the tent people. And now we are traveling the country basically alone because they gave me to you.”
Rosalea finished her sewing. Rhainnon still had not come back. It would have been nice if Annie understood humans better, then maybe if she belonged to Myradulians she could tell her more about them. "I am pretty terrible,” she agreed in a teasing way; Annie snorked at her to tell her how she felt about that. Since she did not have more to unpack, she got out her brush and worked on brushing Annie, something the mare enjoyed. She wanted Annie to know that she was still concerned for her well-being and to soothe her. “Be good for the man with the plow. He is called Ian. You tell me if he is bad to you, and I will not send you back to help again.” Annie huffed and flicked her tail.
Rhainnon returned with some stew for lunch, and just the smell of how nice and meaty and rich it was made Rosalea willing to do pretty well anything to keep having some hot food. When she got her first taste, the broth was thick and hearty, and the meat and vegetables were so well done she could squish them with her tongue. She ate hungrily, and used the bread which Rhainnon brought to sweep the remains of the broth up. Rhainnon ate with her, though without as much appetite or interest.
“Well, are you ready to put that harness on Annie?”
Rosalea nodded. “What should I do with the empty bowl?” Rhainnon held her hand out for it, and wandered back to the house. Rosalea picked the harness up from where she had set it when she went to unsaddle Annie, but she did not know how to sort out the myriad of straps that were supposed to go on her horse.
Rhainnon returned and tilted her head as she saw Rosalea trying to hold the harness at a new angle against Annie, “Do you know how to put a harness on a horse?”
Rosalea shook her head no. Rhainnon did not seem very surprised by this. All the same, between her instructions and Rosalea’s assistance and occasional discipline to Annie, who absolutely did not think the no biting rule extended to Rhainnon, the mare was successfully rigged up to the harness.
Ian had already had his lunch and had returned to the plow. Rosalea brought Annie around. Ian was describing to Rosalea what Annie needed to do, and Rosalea was teaching it to her horse, and answering questions for him about her. Soon, Annie was put to work at the plow, and Rosalea was sent with Rhainnon out to the pasture behind the barn.
“What we do to earn most of our living comes from our sheep. Are you familiar with them at all?”
Rosalea shook her head. The Ieshans had a few sheep, but mostly they “traded” for wool or cloth. Rosalea suspected a good deal more raiding took place than trading since her time leaving the castle and hearing the stories. Rhainnon sighed and folded her arms. “All right then, why did my father hire you?”
Rosalea felt her face flush a little. “I am not sure. I mentioned I was looking for work, and he said I could work here. He didn’t say anything particular to me.”
Rhainnon’s eyes were trying to bore their way into her, and she had no idea what to offer her. Then the girl shrugged. “Very well, some help is better than none at all. I hope you are a fast learner.”
She turned and walked again, and Rosalea walked behind her. She wasn’t sure why she had been hired either, but she also was going to do her best to make the most of it and learn as quickly as she could. Rhainnon stopped as they came to the top of a hill, and they looked down. Below was a flock of what looked to be a hundred sheep or so. Near that, there were three or four sheds. Rhainnon pointed to the sheep. “We have one hundred and three this year that need to be sheared. We already sold the lambs last week.”
Rosalea nodded as she looked at her for input. Rhainnon turned her attention back to the sheds. “The first shed is a washing shed. If one of the sheep is particularly dirty, that is where we need to take them, wash their coats and give them time to dry. The first batch we will take to the second shed and shear sheep until the bins are full. The next batch go to the third shed until we fill the pins, and so on.” Rosalea nodded again as Rhainnon watched her face for a reaction. “All right, let’s go down and get a few started.”
Rosalea followed her down. The grass, even this early in the spring was thick and green. The whole place smelled a little humid, not at all the smell that she got used to living at a higher place in the mountains in the last year, and before that in the desert with the Ieshans. The ground was soft and spongy, and the earth was very dark colored.
They came to the bottom, and though the sheep seemed quite inclined to scatter away from her, they were very friendly with Rhainnon. There was also a pair of large brown dogs that came over with tails wagging. Rhainnon introduced them as Baron and Duke. They were guardians of the flock. They were stern with Rosalea as she held her hand out for them to smell, but seeing that Rhainnon behaved favorably toward her caused them to warm up to her nicely.
Rhainnon used the dogs to help round up the sheep, she could point at specific sheep and point to the first shed, and the dogs were instantly on top of it and guided only by differently pitched whistles. I wonder how the dogs learn the meaning of the whistles, I am not sure I know what most of them mean.
Approximately twelve sheep were rounded up and herded into the shed. Rosalea was to shut the door behind them, and followed Rhainnon into the shed with the side door.
The whole floor of this shed had been shoveled out and completely covered with a fresh layer of straw. There was a pump and a large trough and Rhainnon indicated that she should start pumping while Rhainnon separated different sheep and got the shears out.
The pump was hard to move up and down. Rosalea was startled by how difficult it was to operate it and draw up water. After ten or twelve pulls Rosalea already felt quite done with fighting with the pump. She closed her eyes and fully broadened out her imber magic, and then opened them again. She traced the flow of the air through the pipes, discolored, because it was chilled, and beneath that, she found the water… and began to pull on it, making big gestures with her arms to pull it up into the tub. Once it began to flow, it was easy to keep it flowing, and so in time, and with much less effort, she had filled it up. The long winter had made her practice her weather magic constantly, not just to keep herself and Annie warm and occasionally dry, but also to get them fresh water. When she let go of the water, she could feel it all but slithering back down the pipe in a sluggish fashion.
Rosalea turned back to Rhainnon, “Can I warm it up for … them?” Rhainnon was staring at her, and Rosalea suddenly felt uncomfortable. Had she done something wrong just resorting to magic?
Rhainnon just grinned. “That would be more agreeable to the sheep, silly.”
Rosalea did feel a little silly. Why should it matter if she employed magic or not? She focused again, there was a good amount of heat collected among the rafters and so she brought it down, forcing it into the water. The temperature in the room went down a bit before the water achieved a very light steam. Rosalea knew from experience, that the room temperature would soon adapt to the average temperature of air outside the room and coming into the room, and so it would not matter soon.
Rhainnon was standing with her hands on her hips. “I am impressed,” she said.
Rosalea bowed a little to her, and then felt awkward. She wasn’t sure if bowing to a compliment was normal either.
“You are so formal all the time,” she teased. Rosalea knew by the reaction that it was at least a little normal, but probably not widely accepted. Rhainnon had already moved on, “Right, so to wash a sheep, we are really just rinsing out her coat. We will have to comb the fleece later and the less junk in it, the easier our jobs’ll be, see?”
Rosalea nodded. That made perfect sense to her. She watched as Rhainnon went and grabbed the first sheep, which seemed to know her potential fate, and was quite determined not to be grabbed. Rhainnon muscled it over and pushed her into the trough. The ewe objected immediately, and so Rosalea got herself involved trying to keep it in and get the wool cleaned out.
That was just how the day started. Rosalea began to find sheep to be among the most incorrigible of creatures, and some of the least likable. She struggled with horses because she thought they were alarmists and prey animals, and sheep were all of that except much, much worse. They also struck Rosalea as being a bit scatterbrained and difficult, reasoning didn’t get far with them. They were inclined to scatter, run, and just be generally flighty. Rosalea was not able to understand how Rhainnon only got herself mildly wet and muddy, while Rosalea herself ended up absolutely drenched after every sheep she touched.
By the time all twelve were bathed, and Rosalea had dried herself twelve times and twelve sheep once, her magic was running quite low. The water was as murky and icky looking, and Rhainnon said they would dump it out later.
Rhainnon permitted Rosalea a short break before they began shearing, as it was only late afternoon, and there was no reason to stop now. Rosalea gratefully sat down on one of the bales of straw and felt sweaty and tired. “You are a pretty hard worker, even if you don’t really know what you’re doing,” Rhainnon offered.
“Thank you.”
Rhainnon shrugged. “Well, there is still a long way to go yet.”
Rosalea shrugged back at her. “I know.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Rhainnon grinned. “So, you are an Ieshan?” she asked.
Rosalea frowned. One experience she had the few times that she had been trading was that people never knew one kind of changer from the other. The kind of changer they feared was an Ieshan though, citing the mind powers as among the worst the “demons” could do. Still, they didn’t know one kind from the other and assumed all changes might be able to do it. “Yeah,” she said, watching Rhainnon.
Rhainnon nodded. “I kinda assumed, since you were using magic. Don’t the other kind, Uryans, have to have a liana before they are able to?”
Rosalea was surprised by how much she knew about changers. She nodded the affirmative. It was not in her plans to tell Rhainnon that she was actually both races.
“So, are the Ieshans a lot different from Uryans? You have a lot of … manners. I mean… like, nobility kind almost.”
Rosalea was quiet for a moment, not sure how to address it. She was not even sure why she felt so determined to hide her past. It just felt like she should, to keep herself and others safe. “Well, I am not sure. I know the two people are very different. I think my manners are a bit different because I was closely associated with Ieshan nobility.”
“So, you were like a servant or something?”
Rosalea nodded yes. Though the yes only applied to something, she expected Rhainnon to apply it to “servant,” and not to what she meant.
“So was it to their nobility- er, your nobility, or to the royal people?”
“The royalty,” Rosalea answered ambiguously.
Rhainnon grinned. “That’s pretty interesting,” she said. “All right, break is over.”
Rhainnon didn’t seem inclined to engage in further conversation about it as she showed Rosalea how to shear sheep. Rosalea wouldn’t have had much of a chance to talk about it anyway, as she found that even if a sheep hated baths, it generally hated shearing more. Rhainnon even went out of her way to set Rosalea up with older sheep that had more of a chance of knowing what was going on.
Rosalea still struggled. She was supposed to set the sheep up on her hindquarters and make her lean back against her, which apparently made a sheep think that movement and getting away was not possible. Rhainnon did it easily, and Rosalea struggled. After Rhainnon had done four of the twelve, Rosalea barely finished her first one. It had taken a lot of strength coupled with mindspoken threats to get that much done, it seemed a wonder to her that she didn’t cut the stupid sheep with the sharp shears, and to top it off her ewe looked vaguely like she had mange. Rhainnon’s sheep came out fairly smooth and naked looking by contrast, and had no odd patches of hair or uneven looks all around.
Rhainnon laughed a lot at Rosalea’s maligned sheep and promised her it would be better the more she did. So, Rosalea began on the next most placid sheep by Rhainnon’s judgment and struggled as before. The wool, a little surprisingly to her, was inclined to stick together in clumps as she got it off, almost like a blanket, if she wouldn’t keep cutting it with the shears and breaking it apart. Rhainnon’s came off much more smoothly. Rosalea had finished her second sheep only slightly faster than the first, and so had one more sheep to go while Rhainnon finished up what remained. Rosalea gathered all the bits of wool and packed them into the various crates and barrels that Rhainnon indicated and the naked sheep were then turned loose to mingle with the others and take shelter in the lean-to set up for them until the sheds were done with.
By then it was late evening, and Rhainnon determined they could stop shearing for the day and go for supper. She brought a barrel of wool with her, and Rosalea used her imber magic to move the water out of the trough with her somewhat recovered imber magic. She was tempted to focus on her Caelus magic and pick it up and just move the whole trough and dump it, but she did not want to show more magic after she had minimized what she could do.
Dinner was much like lunch, except there seemed to be more meat in the stew and a much larger portion of bread. Rhainnon left it with her and said to wash out the bowl, and she would collect it in the morning. After that, she left to join her family. Rosalea was basically starving and was grateful for the large portions, and ate with great feelings of satisfaction.
Annie had been served a small amount of oats by Ian and a large amount of hay. The horse whined to Rosalea of being sore, and indicated that the next day she should be quite unwilling to do any work.
Rosalea ignored her and did not respond. She laid down, feeling quite sore herself.
***
Three days later saw all the sheep sheared, and Rosalea so sore she could barely move. It also saw the field tilled, and so Rosalea and Rhainnon were to help with seed sowing the next day. Rhainnon’s mother, who Rosalea did not know beyond her ability to make hearty food, was also helping. Annie was grumpily grateful to be turned out to pasture and ignored.
“So you are the new help,” the woman addressed Rosalea as she began following Ian’s instructions for how deep and how far apart to place each row of the particular seed she was planting. Rosalea nodded. “My name is Haidi, I am Ian’s wife.”
Rosalea extended her hand, “I am pleased to meet you,” she said. Haidi refused to take her hand. Rosalea shrugged it off and began planting some more. The woman did not continue any further conversation with Rosalea beyond asking her how long Ian had contracted her for. Rosalea said she was not certain, though she assumed it would only be a few weeks.
From these sorts of questions, she surmised that there was something about her which Haidi did not like, so she made a point to do what she could to stay out of Haidi’s way whenever possible. She was also quiet all the rest of the day. She noted Rhainnon was also much more reserved when her mother was around.
The planting was successful within the day, and so Rosalea found herself back out to the sheep sheds with Rhainnon the following day.
Rhainnon opened the day after breakfast with, “I am sorry about my mother.” Rosalea looked up. Rhainnon fidgeted. “She is just sort of suspicious and protective of everything,” she offered as explanation.
Rosalea shrugged. “Well then, it sounds like she is a normal and good mother.”
Rhainnon smiled. “So, I have more questions about the Ieshans today, if it doesn’t bother you.”
“No, of course not.” It wasn’t true, it made her anxious when Rhainnon asked questions because she wasn’t sure why there was so much knowledge and yet so much curiosity.
Rhainnon asked about the royalty, about the princess, about how it was run by a queen. Rosalea affirmed that the queen held a lot of power, but said that it was mostly run by a council of thirteen nobles. Rhainnon admitted that Myraduil ran much the same way, with a figurehead king, and a powerful council. Though that council was much larger than thirteen.
By this time, they were down to the business of combing the wool. Rhainnon called it carding, and by this process they were supposed to get all the not-wool material out of it as well as organize the wool into different colors. They were sitting, carding, and talking.
“So why did you leave?” she asked.
Rosalea was quiet for a moment, “I decided that I could not live like that.” Rhainnon was quiet. “There was a lot happening that I could not agree with, and the only way I could get away from it was to run away.”
“Really? You are a runaway?”
Rosalea nodded.
“That’s really brave. Don’t they have the same laws we do?”
“What is that?”
“Well, runaway servants and slaves to nobles are killed if they are caught again.”
Rosalea thought about that. “Well, yes, but it does not occur very often that a person tries to run away.” Actually, if they caught me, I would have a life expectancy of however long I had a couple of children, I suspect.
“So, what was so bad?” she asked. Rosalea glanced at her, and she flushed. “I mean, if it is all right for me to ask.”
Rosalea nodded after a moment. “Well, a lot of it is actually self-evident, I suppose. I disagreed with the mind control for one.”
Rhainnon nodded. As Rosalea was quiet, she awkwardly said, “Yeah, the mind control is well known. Everyone is afraid of it.”
Rosalea shrugged. “They- we- can only use it on you if we can touch you. I am not a very good Ieshan… I do not do well at mind control.”
Rhainnon was studying her face. “But you have so much more to you. I mean with water magic.”
Rosalea smiled a trifle bitterly. That anxiety about the prophecy flared instantly in the center of her chest. “Yes. I do have the other magics.”
“What’s wrong? Did I … say something?”
Rosalea made her smile look a bit more genuine. “What I really ran from was having children I did not want, I suppose. The Ieshans and Uryans share a prophecy about each other…” Rosalea trailed off, not sure how important it would be to this girl.
“My father says that it has to do with one destroying the other, but which one gets destroyed has been lost in confusion.”
Rosalea nodded and was surprised. “Has there been a changer here before?” she asked.
Rhainnon’s turn to look a little startled. She fumbled a moment, “Yes. A long time ago. Sorry, I don’t mean to pry.”
Rosalea shrugged, and the conversation was dropped. Rhainnon began talking to her about Annie, and soon the two were talking about animals in general.
***
It took a few days to card the wool, but Rosalea welcomed the change. Her sore muscles especially welcomed the change. She wondered what was next as they finished up the last early in the afternoon one day.
Ian arrived. “Rhain, is everything ready to ship to River’s End?”
Rhainnon smiled brightly. “We are about finished now. This is the last of it,” she said, pointing to a small pile between herself and Rosalea.
Ian nodded. “Excellent. I was thinking of sending you to River’s End with Rose. I was going to stay here and work with the crops.”
“You really trust me to go alone?” Rosalea noted that the girl’s tone was calm enough, but her face was radiating excitement.
Rosalea was not entirely certain what she thought of her name being shortened, but somehow, when Ian did it, it didn’t bother her very much. Ian smiled at Rhainnon. “Of course! You’ve been very responsible, I have no reason not to.”
The excitement in her face rapidly showed in her voice as she asked,“When are we going?”
“Well, if you are ready, I can get the cart loaded, and you two can take off tomorrow.”
“Really?” He nodded to her, and she clapped her hands together. “Can I get the bolt of material I have been wanting?”
“The blue? Of course,” he said. “I told you if you worked hard, we would use some of this year’s income to buy one. Also, I want you to get a trinket for your mother. Otherwise, you know the routine.”
Rhainnon nodded. Ian excused himself and Rosalea heard the sounds of the other shed getting opened up. “He doesn’t load all those by hand?” she asked Rhainnon.
Rhainnon shook her head no. “He uses his magic.”
Rosalea stood up. “Then I had probably better help him.”
“I’ll finish with this last little bit.”
Rosaea headed outside and watched Ian focus on, begin talking to, and gesturing at a crate. She could see that he was using deep magic, or the magic or magics, to build a barrier beneath the crate and move it. Essa magic was rare and hard to manage, Rosalea often fell back on getting Caelus magic to harden the air itself and move the hardened air as she needed to for levitation.
But, she had only so far admitted to being an animal Vitae magic of Ieshan persuasion and Imber mage, and had not shown this skill off so far, which she now regretted as she picked up the crate with her hands. Ian glanced back at her in a confused fashion, and she wondered if he had been able to use his Essa magic to see more of the magic than she had meant to display.
She pretended to set the crate upon the air, and she used Caelus magic to float not just that crate, but all of the crates of wool but the last one, up the hill along with him.
“Easy,” he addressed his crate as he slowly set it down in the cart. Rosalea realized that he required nearly all of his focus to use his magic very effectively. “Down you go.” The crate set down with a thump. He wiped a bit of sweat from his brow as Rosalea stacked her first crate atop his. I probably look like a show off, she realized with a pang of guilt. “I want you to do something for me, while you and Rhainnon go to town.” He waved her closer. Rosalea moved over, surprised that he did not comment on what she had done.
“Rhainnon has magic,” he said getting right to the point. “I want her to learn it, but Haidi is totally against it because… well, she is.” Rosalea wondered why he wanted to leave the reason out, but let it go. “Therefore, I cannot teach her. However, you can. You have all the different magics, and so no matter what she has, you can teach her.”
So he did see everything that I have. “The only one I am even good with is weather magics,” Rosalea protested softly.
Ian shrugged. “Even so, you can teach her some very basics. You have until you are ready to return from River’s End.”
So, I help your daughter get an excuse to leave town, and then I do something your wife will not like. I suspect that’s why you said I would only be working a few weeks here. Rosalea nodded. Ian smiled gratefully at her, and they were silent as he returned for the last crate and the last of the wool.