Dragon's Treasure - 4. Enslaved

“They’ve started the harvest,” Ian said as they neared the fields. “The wheat and corn stalks have been gathered into stooks. If they’re like most farmers, they will be glad of help. We can probably stay here for a few days, working the fields in exchange for bed and board, and some food to take with us on the road. I think we should do that.”

Ian looked at Ulee, who seemed unsettled. Ian knelt, took Ulee’s hands, and looked the boy in the eyes. “Hedgehog, we can’t get all the way to Witten eating just nuts and berries. We need blankets, cloaks, all the things we lost when we escaped the rivermen. It will take longer, but if we work for a few days, then travel for a few days, we can earn what we need. We can probably get to Witten before winter. If this road is like the one that passes our farm, there’s likely a farm about every half-day’s walk apart. We must do this.”

Ulee nodded, “I know. You’re right, of course. Just…well, please be careful.”

*****

“We’re traveling to Witten, and then to a relative’s home. The boat we were on broke up on the rocks, about three days south of here, and we lost everything but what we were wearing. We would work for bed and board…and for blankets and food for the road,” Ian explained to the farmer.

“You’ve come at a good time,” he said. “We have five more days of work to complete the harvest. If you work hard those days, I’ll feed you. You may sleep in the loft, there. On the morning of the sixth day, I’ll give you each a blanket, and two days of bread and cheese.”

Ian agreed to the deal, although he felt they should have been offered more. He and Ulee were shown the loft where they would sleep, the bathhouse, and the kitchen. The farmer’s sons, three tweens, were taciturn, saying little as Ian and Ulee bathed. After supper, the two boys were unceremoniously shown the door, and sent to the barn.

Immediately after a breakfast of pottage, Ian and Ulee accompanied the farmer into the fields. Two sons drove wagons in relays between the fields and the barns. In the fields, the farmer, Ian, and Ulee loaded stooks of wheat into the wagon. At the barn, the third son and the driver of the wagon unloaded it. The work was hard, and the day was hot. Although they worked until dusk, it appeared to Ian that they’d emptied less than a fifth of the field, and he knew that there was still a field of corn to clear.

The water was cold by the time Ian and Ulee could get to the bathhouse; the dinner bell rang before they could use the hot soak. They quickly put on their trousers, shoved their feet into their boots, and ran to the house, pulling their shirts over their heads as they went.

Supper was better than breakfast: a corn pudding with something sweet, potatoes mashed with butter, and apples. Again, Ian and Ulee were dismissed as soon as the meal was finished.

In the barn, they snuggled into the dusty hay of the previous year’s harvest. “Ian,” Ulee said, “I don’t think I worked this hard even at the tannery. Is it always like this on a farm?”

“No,” Ian said. “Even during harvest we never worked this hard or this long each day. Do you remember the empty fields we passed? I think they grow cannabis, and that they harvested it, first. That made them late for the wheat and corn, and they’ve got to get the fields cleared before it rains. If it rains, the crops still in the fields will be ruined.”

The second, third, and fourth days passed much as had the first. On the fifth day, it was still dark when the boys were wakened by the breakfast bell. As they crossed the yard to the house, Ian sniffed. “Storm coming,” he said. “Can you smell the water in the air?”

Ulee sniffed, and nodded. “It smelled like this a few days before the rainstorm when I found your farm. Then, it rained for three days.”

Ian’s reply was muffled by the farmer calling from the door, “Come on, boys, there’s a lot to do, today.”

The boys worked harder than ever, with the farmer urging them to load the wagon faster. His sons whipped the horses, and the wagons flew across the fields. There was no stop for lunch, and night had fallen when the farmer finally called a halt to the work.

“We’ll need you boys until the rain starts, probably two more days,” the farmer said as they walked back through the dark. “And then for the threshing. That’ll take a tenday.”

“We should leave tomorrow,” Ian began. “We agreed…”

The farmer interrupted. “You’ll leave when I say you’ll leave. Boys!” He called to his sons. “Take ‘em into the barn, and set the dogs to watch.” Turning to Ian and Ulee he added, “We’ll bring you supper. And come for you at daybreak. Don’t think about leaving. The dogs will tear you apart if you set one foot down that ladder.”

The next three days passed slowly. Ian and Ulee worked under the hard eye of the farmer. He made them leave their boots in the barn so that they could not run away. They were no longer fed in the kitchen of the house, but were brought bowls of pottage and leftovers from the family’s dinner. On the fourth night of their slavery, as Ian thought it, he woke Ulee.

“Hedgehog,” Ian’s sharp whisper cut through the darkness. “Hedgehog, wake up. We’re leaving.”

Ulee shook the sleep from his eyes, and coughed out the dust of the old hay. “What? What about the dogs?”

“The dogs are asleep,” Ian said. “I’ve been practicing the last few nights. They were easier to control than the raccoons and the bear. I think because they’re so accustomed to people. We’ll need some light. Can you glow your ring, but keep it tight inside your hand?”

Ulee pulled the ring from his shirt and gripped it in his hand. After a moment, he opened his fingers a crack to allow a beam of light to shine from between them. “How’s this?”

The boys stepped carefully over the sleeping dogs. “Don’t step on one,” Ian cautioned. “I don’t think I could stop them all from barking if you woke one up.”

“The door’s this way,” Ulee said, gesturing with the sliver of light from his ring.

“We are owed some things, first,” Ian said, rummaging through the horse blankets. “Bring the light over here, please.”

Ian tied a harvest knife—a straight blade about two feet long, with a leather-covered wooden handle, sharp on one edge and with a rounded end—inside one blanket. He’d used harness pieces to make a sling so that he could carry the blanket over his shoulder. Ulee’s blanket held the cups and bowls from their supper, and two water skins, and was likewise slung over his shoulder. A pair of spare pitchfork handles became walking sticks. Ian took Ulee’s hand. “Cover the ring tightly until the light goes out,” he said.

Ulee concentrated. “I’ve made it go out,” he said as he tucked it back into his shirt.

Clouds scudded before the wind. The moon was new, and invisible: the morrow would be the first of Halcyon. Even without the moon there was enough light from the stars and two of the Bright Travelers for the boys to make their way to the back of the barn and then into the fields. “We’ll leave footprints in the fields,” Ian said, “unless the rain washes them away. I hope it rains.”

Indeed, the smell of moisture was strong in the air. By the time the boys reached the road, the sky was completely overcast. They had scarcely walked more than a mile before it began to rain. Ian took Ulee’s hand. “We’ll have to keep walking,” he said. “We dare not stay close to the farm.”

The boys felt their way along the road using their sticks. The air grew colder, but the fast pace that Ian set kept them warm. Ulee kept up. The past month had hardened him. His feet were comfortable in the boots, although he would like to have had socks. All their walking, as well as the days in the fields, had built his stamina. If it weren’t for the rain, he thought, this would almost be fun. He squeezed Ian’s hand.

“What is it, Hedgehog,” Ian asked.

“Just,” Ulee hesitated, “just that I’m here, and I’m glad you’re here, too.”

*****

“Lights,” Ian said. “And we’ve walked about half the night. There is another farm.”

“Should we stop?” Ulee asked.

“I don’t think so, Hedgehog,” Ian said. “We’re still too close. If the farmer puts one of his sons on a horse, he’d be here before we would have time even to eat breakfast, much less work to pay for it. We’d better pass, and quickly, too, before it’s light enough for them to see us. And, we’d better keep our ears open for a horse.”

“We’re lucky we didn’t step in a hole and break our necks,” Ian grumbled as the boys dodged yet another piece of road where blocks were missing. “This road isn’t nearly as good as the one in front of our farm.”

“Quick!” Ian hissed. “Into the brush.” He pulled Ulee’s hand and led the smaller boy by a zigzag path into the brush that lined the road, and then into the trees. “Down, flat!”

Ulee did as he was bidden. Minutes passed. “What…” Ulee began, to be shushed by Ian. Then he heard it, the steady clip-clop of a horse. Ulee closed his eyes. Hedgehogs, he thought, two hedgehogs. The sound of the horse passed to the north.

“We’ll wait here,” Ian said. “That was one of the horses from the farm. We can’t go back on the road until he turns around and goes home, and we can’t walk through these woods. They’re too full of underbrush. We might as well sleep.”

*****

The two boys had survived on half-rotten apples from orchards, a few potatoes that had been left in fields, and berries that grew wild in hedgerows. “Are you sure it’s all right to take the apples?” Ulee had asked the first time Ian had led them into an orchard.

“Look,” Ian had said. “All the trees are bare. This orchard’s been harvested. The farmer didn’t want what was left. They would be eaten by worms, birds, other animals.”

Ulee had nodded, remembering that he’d been prepared to steal when he first found his way into Ian’s family’s barn.

“Smoke,” Ulee said, sniffing the breeze.

“A farm,” Ian said. “Can we stop?”

Ian thought for a moment. “I think we must,” he said. He led Ulee down the cart path toward the farmhouse.

The farmer looked hard, and he looked hard at them. “You boys, you’ll not steal from me?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” Ian said. “All we want is a little bread and a place to sleep, if you please.”

“Humph,” the farmer said. “Very well. You may sleep in the barn. If you will help grind the grain, I’ll give you supper and breakfast.” Ian nodded eagerly.

*****

The two boys spent the afternoon walking in circles, turning a capstan while the farmer’s sons poured raw grain into the center. The capstan turned a mill stone that ground the grain into coarse flour. It’s not as good as what we had, Ian thought. The flour is going to be full of grit because they’re not using magic. I wonder why not.

Ian and Ulee were given a simple supper—bread made from the gritty flour, and a few raw vegetables—and dismissed to the barn. They carried their supper across the yard, and settled into the loft. “Don’t chew the bread,” Ian told Ulee. “There’s grit in it, and it will wear down your teeth. Hold a little bite in your mouth until it’s moist, and then swallow.”

The following morning, Ian and Ulee presented themselves at the back door of the farmstead, expecting the breakfast they’d been promised. Instead, they were driven away by the farmer’s wife and one of his sons. “Aroint! You’ve eaten enough.” The son’s quarterstaff convinced the boys that the message was sincere.

“Why are people so mean?” Ulee asked Ian. They’d walked through the morning, and stopped by a stream to eat the few berries they’d gathered.

“I don’t know, Hedgehog,” Ian said. “But, I think it’s because they have so little. The farmer who kept us captive was afraid he wouldn’t have enough food for the winter—because he’d grown cannabis. The people at the last farm: they didn’t have magic to keep the flour free of grit, and they knew it. Something or someone is taking the things they need from them. They’re angry, and they spend their anger on us, because we’re smaller and weaker.”