Roge stood in the yard, muscles aching from loading the cart with sacks of wheat, watching the cart raise a dust cloud as it trundled away. They had started loading in the dark hours of the morning since Enell would need a few hours to get to market. The sun was just starting to rise, the summer day promising to be a hot one. Stretching, he turned back into the house to find something to eat and check on Redel.
The old farmer’s hip had shattered so badly that he had been bedridden for the last couple of months. He had grumbled and complained but had not been able to rise to do anything around the farm.
Roge had shouldered a lot of the work on the farm, helping Enell, who was more than capable of working the fields and caring for the livestock and could show him what to do. They had fallen into a comfortable routine, she showing, him learning as the season turned and new work had to be done.
Once a week, she would take the cart into the small village a few hours away, getting some needed supplies or selling surplus. Sometimes, she would get a tool they needed repaired, or had the horses looked at. Everything else, they did themselves. The farm received very few visitors, the closest neighbors a few miles away, also farmers busy at their own work.
The last few times, she brought back news that the new duke was preparing for war. What war and with whom was unclear, but stories about the duke were slowly making their way from Bewic. Executions, brutality, fear.
“Young Gery Burney has gone off to Bewic,” she told them at dinner one day after returning from one of her trips.
“That fool“—the old man spat on the floor—”whatever for?”
“He’s not the only one. The Graffolk’s younger son and Rewis the Earless, too.”
“The earless?” Roge asked.
“Lost his ear playing at being a hero with a hoe“—the old man spat again—”stupid boys all of them, but that one most of all.”
“It wasn’t him that cut his ear off. It was Grancent, and he’s still here.”
The old man just grunted, saying nothing.
“Why are they going?” Roge asked.
“There are rumors the duke pays well for people to join his army. No one’s sure,” she said.
“They should be helping their parents on their farms,” Reder said.
“You know the farms aren’t big enough for some of them. Too many kids to inherit,” Enell said.
“Start a new farm. Plenty of land around here. Stupid boys think they will get rich. All they’d get is dead.”
“Not just boys. Sarry’s gone as well. Ran away in the night. Half the wives were talking about it.”
The old man had nothing to say to that.
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As the cart disappeared around the bend, Roge turned around and went into the house. He and Enell had been growing close over the past months. This place was comfortable. It was alive. Here, the only dead he had to deal with were the animals they killed for food. He liked living here, working on the farm.
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He more than liked Enell. She brought a renewed interest into his life, a feeling of exultation he never knew existed. He didn’t know what to make of it, but there it was. Every time that cart disappeared, his heart, his whole body, felt like a part of it was physically missing.
Her father, being bedridden, had given them more time to get closer. They’d worked together in the fields, wrestled the livestock together, sat outside under the stars, and talked.
“Redel?” he called as he walked into the house. “You up?”
“‘Course I’m up. Nothing to do here except be up.”
“I’ll get you something to eat. Enell already left for the market.”
Putting together two plates, he walked into the old man’s room. The smell of warm urine hit him as he came in, the small bucket by the bed still having some foam that had not dissipated floating on top of the yellow liquid. The old man, stubborn as a goat, had insisted on using the bucket to piss, despite the pain it caused him every time he did.
Roge put the plates down on the nearby nightstand, taking the bucket out to empty it. Coming back, he helped the man raise his head, then gave him a plate and sat by him, taking one for himself.
“So,” Redel said, face contorting with pain as his body strained to tear a piece of yesterday’s dried bread, “you thinking of joining that stupid war?”
Roge hadn’t, in fact, been thinking of that. He didn’t know what to make of those rumors. War didn’t really affect the monastery. There had not been many wars recently, and the ones they heard about from pilgrims were far away. Those dead did not make it up the mountain.
“What would I do there?”
“Smart boy,” Redel said, dipping the bread in his stew and biting into it.
They both ate in silence for a bit, and then Redel said, “You could stay here with us.”
Roge looked at him, not saying anything. He hadn’t really thought about the future. He’d been broken, and they helped fix him, saved his life. Since, he’d just been following orders, surviving from day to day. Instead of Edmur Eyser telling him what to do, it was Enell and Redel.
Redel, taking that as reluctance, said, “Look Dalle, I don’t know where you’re from. I know you’ve not run away from a farm. We had to show you how to work the fields, and the way you jumped that first day you saw the rooster, well, that was mighty strange. I don’t care. You’re a good man, and you treat my daughter well. She could use a good husband, a family. It’s clear that you two like each other. I will not be here forever.”
Roge didn’t say anything.
“Think about it, at least,” Redel said, going back to his stew.
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Roge went out and fed the animals. He checked on the fields, then fixed a post in the fence that needed setting.
He had enjoyed living here. He could see himself staying here, making a family with Enell, working with Redel in the fields.
A family. He had a family before, but they were all dead now. He had not thought about them in a while, but thinking about family brought back memories of them, of the little ones running around in the evenings, playing. Memories of sitting outside in the evenings with his friend Rancis Essenceblight, talking about the pilgrims that had climbed up the mountain, comparing who had seen the most shocked face come out of a conversation with the dead, or working together to move a corpse who overindulged in life. He thought about Edmur Eyser and all he had meant to him when he was growing up.
He had made a promise to his old family. He had been told things by the old duke.
He finished with the yard, then went inside and cleaned the old man. Once Redel had fallen asleep, he went to the kitchen and prepared some food for when Enell came back home. He took some and left it in Redell’s room for when he’d wake up.
He went to his own room and looked. His pack from the monastery was there, with the knives, axe, and what little money he could find. The monastery didn’t have much, just a few coins it had collected for shrouds, which it, in turn, had to buy from traders. He hadn’t looked in that pack since he’d come here, except to take out his spare shirt.
His whittling had improved. He had crafted a few progressively better figurines, shaping the birds he saw, the horses, and even Ser Jossa, the rooster. The one he was working on now was almost complete. He took it out, looking at the half-carved face. One side was detailed and smooth, while the other was rough-hewn, waiting for the knife to bring out its inner beauty. It reminded him of the rock of the monastery, a half-face. It was appropriate.
He took the small carved dallen from the table, put it back into his pack, and hoisted it onto his back.
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When Enell came back that night, she found a meal ready for her, a cantankerous old man yelling that he wanted some water, and a half-carved figure of her face. Of Dalle, there was no trace.