Sixteen Feet of Steel Chapter 5

Chapter 5

*Before…

She gets up. “You’ll see Chrissy now it’s time to do our duty.”

“Duty?”

She grins at me. “We serve the people not the other way around.”

I look as Nicole is heading off with the men into what looks like the fields and Taylor’s opening the forage that we did like we’re a market cart for the women of the houses and then Hawk tosses me a bundle of firewood.

And I don’t think we’re getting paid for any of this either?

*And Now…

I catch the bundle and set it down and we keep doing that until we’re all unloaded.

“So we do this for people why?”

“It’s part of our job while we’re patrolling.”

“We’re giving them things for free…”

“No, not free we’re paid by our lady to do this.”

She hops off and we both grab two bundles and I follow her carrying them.

“Alright, but why?”

“We do these small things it earns us respect from the people, it also lets us learn about our people and get close to them also when you don’t have to work so hard scraping together the necessities of living you can concentrate on earning more for your family. Wealthier families all around makes it better for taxes all around.”

That actually sounded like she was quoting someone.

“But your lady is spending taxes paying you to do this?”

“Aye but she’s paying us to patrol as well already. This is part of your duties when you work for our lady.”

“Do you get paid more?”

“We get room and board, we get clothes for free for our basic needs and we get weapons and healers and education as well plus we get paid a wage.”

We toss the bundles together onto a kind of meagerish pile of wood. I look at Hawk. “We don’t do that we have tenants and they work our lands for a share and they pay trade taxes.”

“I know and so do many other nobles and it’s a way that the nobility stays in power by owning everything.” She’s looking pointedly at me.

“But that’s the way that it always works we’ve been granted our nobility by the gods.”

“Pfft…show me a living god or goddess and I’ll believe that. Nobles keep power because they came from those who had the power to make the rules to have the might to carve their place out in the world after the great fall.”

“So? It’s still ours?”

“Was yours Lady, right up until someone came with more power and took it from your family.”

“I…” Ouch…that hurt but it was right…

Jessa looks at me her eyes searching for something. “Look Chrissy…things are different here, harsher than you’re used to and dangerous too. We’re sort of five hundred years behind what the middle kingdoms have had in time to get up and running. Here we value people over land and money.”

I’m almost mad enough to pitch a royal fit…I mean I’m not used to being talked to like that and I’m not used to the lack of…deference?

I grab two more bundles and stalk sulk towards the woodpile.

“We’re not all bad Jessa.”

She sighs. “I never said that you were and given the things that your father was doing with Lady Blackhand and Havens Hill he was a man that believed in fairness and maybe even change. And right there’s a really good reason why there would be many people that would want him and all of you dead because if you the House of Lyonnes started changing then who knows what might start to change and people in power don’t want to lose the power they think that they have.”

I toss the bundles onto the pile and turn and look at her.

Okay I’m not as angry at her now because I’m more sort of shocked again.

Women do not know these things where I am from, they don’t know politics or taxes or how they work or anything like all the things that she just said and especially not some dark skinned southern born ranger.

But she just did, as serious and as capable as any courtier.

And she’s a woman.

I need to come to terms with this, come to terms with being a woman in this world.

“I...I’m sorry I know I sound like I’m ungrateful and that I’m whining but this…all of this I…it’s all new to me and if this…this magic that lady Blackhand has done to me and has left to me…is to hide and protect me then I need to understand things.”

I sigh and slump my shoulders and head back for more bundles. “And right now I don’t.”

Nicole must have been following Jessa and I’s conversation because she clasps me on the shoulder. “The you do as we did and you learn by being here and by doing.”

Jessa steps up too and is walking beside me. “Aye and trust me I learned the hard way as well. Took me a long time to believe that a woman could do anything ‘cept what she was told. Hells it took me months to get used to wearing shoes even.”

I look at her. “Lots of people go barefoot.”

She nods. “Aye.” And we all grab the last of the bundles of gathered wood. “But where I come from you don’t do that in the wilds. There’s snakes and scorpions and even spike plants that will hurt you and then there’s the rocks and the heat…calluses only go so far hot enough sand will sear ye and then the cold nights when it’s really cold you can lose toes.”

I look at her. “So why didn’t you have shoes? Were you poor?”

She has a sort of grim grin going on. “Aye poor as it got really but no, laws. Women weren’t allowed shoes; if you have shoes there then you might run.”

I… “I think I really hate where you’re from.”

She looks at me. “They’d kill you if they knew you were a witch and if not you’d be raped and then sold to the temples and a pleasure slave being all pale and blonde and northern.”

“What was you lady doing in such a place with a caravan?”

Nicole… “Trade is trade and lots of folk raid merchants some of them contract with us for protection.”

“You’re mercenaries.”

Nicole nods. “Well it’s more formal like professional soldiers hired between our lady and guilds or other parties.”

I look at Jessa. “But you both took the Goblin heads and Warg claws that’s bounty work so mercenaries.”

They actually both just grin and Jessa says. “You’re saying that like it’s a bad thing.”

I shake my head as we finish the bundles and then we head back to the wagons and Taylor’s got a book out and he’s reading off oddness.

“….an over in Hillhock Steading Macy Turner had her little an she had a lad named Laird and Fenton Dogal thinks his tabbac will grow extra fine this year and Moira Peddle is to be wed to Conner Hoat from Cherryvale village and he’s found prentice work at the tinner in the town once over so after the wedding set on the fifth of Old leaf to which all that can travel are invited…”

He holds up a scrap of pale yellow cloth and the ladies take it and are cooing and talking about it?

“they’ll be movin too…”

He keeps going for another page but he mentions a couple of other places and people and then he puts the book aside. “Now we’ll be taking post and news after the supper but first be there anything else needs doing?”

Nicole pipes up. “I have my rig, so speak up now if ya please while we’re here and to the advantage.”

Lots of folks call their knight-machines “Rigs.” It’s sort of an easy slang.

I look at Jessa again. “So you collect news of each place you go?’

She nods. “And they’re report and logs as well we pass them in with every patrol and the scribes recopy them with things for the archives and such like census and there’s even things written for the monthly press sheets.”

“Press sheets?”

“Aye a sheaf of news of the land printed out on a press.”

“A print press?”

“Aye, faster than just scribing stuff out for as much as they sell.”

“Father wanted one of those.”

She looks at me and smiles. “Well only a man that’s not afraid of his people reading would be doing that.”

“Can many read in the Fortress?”

“In the fortress aye nearly all and the city itself maybe a quarter.”

“Oh…” That’s…that’s one out of four being able to read.

My mind boggles over that.

Jessa looks at me. “Come there’s more tasks to be doing.”

I see Nicole getting into her Squire’sknight and walking down the ramps and taking her sword and going with some of the men and the lads into the woods and Taylor unhooking the team from the wagon and keeping them in harness and going with them towards the fields.

It’s when I notice the weapons. Axes, the odd war hammer and bows, even here with the houses I see quivers and the odd spear for easy reach.

“They’re armed?”

“Aye, The Boneyards aren’t too far remember. We’re still in the borderlands.”

“Oh, good thing then.”

We look at each other and I don’t bring up that armed peasants aren’t normal home. We both know. Honestly given there are Goblins and Wargs I’m relieved.

I look at Hawk and take a deep breath. “Alright, lead on.”

We go with some of the ladies and they’re bringing out washing and setting it on a sort of raised landing and there’s a very big pot that looks like a large tin washtub.

“Laundry?’

Hawk nods. “We can do that while they do other things.”

“Alright but I’ve never done it before.”

“Take your tunic off because we’re going to get wet.”

I take it off and I watch them bring clothes and bedding and the younger ones are bringing us water from their well and there’s some hard bricks of soap there too.

I see Jessa take a brick and toss it in and then I pull it out.

“Why’d you do that, it need t’soften.”

“I have an idea.” I jog to the wagon and look through the tools that we have and I come back with a rasp and a piece of scrap armor plate from the Squire’sknight.

Jessa’s filling the tubs and looking at me. I hold up my hand. “Just fill it a quarter ways for now.”

She nods and she looks at me and I get the piece of armor and I stick it and my hand in the water.

Illuminations from what I know create light because the wires get heated…that needs the wire to conduct but to resist…I hold the piece in both hands and I let the power flow from my through it and back into me from one hand to another but I slow the power amount that I’m taking in…and the metal starts to heat up.
It’s strange because the hot metal doesn’t hurt me while I’m holding it but the water soon gets too hot for me to take and it’s steaming really well and my arms are red for a few seconds from it I set the metal down and I grin at Hawk who’s actually staring at me.

The children and the others are too. Then one of the women blinked and nodded curtly. “Aye well that saved some time an firewood good gel.”

I smile sheepishly… good gel.

Good girl.

I grab the rasp and the soap brick and I grate the soap into the hot water and look at Hawk. “Quick start stirring and we’ll have some suds.”

It’s slightly ridiculous at how happy this is making me.

We do the wash up and the next load I go looking through the tools and get a punch and some spare rigging cables and I make two strands that I can hold and then just dip into the water with the metal piece and I actually get it boiling…like a rolling boil and we stir the clothes up like we’re making stew. It’s still a lot of washing and I have no idea how to use the power to dry anything.

But I did magic…oh it needed tool but mage stories are rife with those and it seems to make sense to me that they now might need things so they can do certain things.

So I’m fairly certain that I can do two things…reliably. One I can arc to my hands and make light. Two with this I can boil water.

Still it’s a lot of work even after that with the washing and scrubbing and them twisting and drying things out. The women though each take what’s theirs as the things are done and they hang them to dry.

And while they’re not bowing and scraping they are calling me “Wisdom.”

I look at Jessa. “Wisdom?”

“It’s something that came here out of the swamp folks, they don’t call women that do what you do witches instead it’s like a take-off of wise-woman.”

“Oh…uhm…I think that’s better actually.”

She’s smiling because we’re done the washing and we’re sitting and drying off…you do get wet and my arms are sore from rubbing things on the clothing shuttle. “You like this don’t you?”

“Aye…I’m still free, I hunt and travel and I’m myself but also I get to see this.”

“This?”

“Take the wash heating all that would be hours and to do each person’s thing it’d be just one tub per house if you were lucky…all those hours are now set to rest and mending and gardening and gathering.”

She gestures to some of the younger ones out in the fields and pastures picking things and some in the gardens.
“We did a lot of that too.”

“Aye but when ye can’t just go an traipse to a market or to a fat larder then way too much time’s set to just gathering to live day to day. And ye burn off food looking for food, all of this makes their lives easier. Them all fatter and healthy and actually able to have some coppers and such to pay their taxes and even some for later, for something nice or grand.”

“I’ve never seen this before.”

“Me either until I was rescued. The lady she’s…she’s worth following.”

“I hope so…I hope she’ll be able to help me some way.”

“We’ll see…she’d know more about things she’s fought out your way before.”

“I don’t know that much about mercenaries other than a few notes in books I was made to study about warfare from my father but that was more who used what and when they used them and tactics.”

“Sounds like that’s things a noble’s son would need to know.”

“Yes, yes it does…I’m so not remotely ready to be a lady.”

“Fuck that be a woman, you’re a sorceress in yer homelands and a lot of place you’re going to be a pariah anyways you might as well be a comfortable one.”

I nod and some of the ladies join us and then there’s tea brought out and strong smelling curds on bread with berries. It’s a berry flavored tea as well and it’s a treat and very dense and grainy dark bread and tough to chew but I’m quite hungry and this spot of it is really nice.

We sit and watch the men come out from the trees usually Taylor with the team of horses and pulling logs. Some are fresh trees and some look like deadfalls and I nod and I smile. That’s timber and fire wood and I have never seen a battleknight used for labor before but after Nicole comes out from the trees she’s using that power and weight to chop right through the logs that are going to be used for wood…she just props them at an angle and shing…

Just like a sword in hand to clip a tree branch but much thicker.

And faster than even using a saw.

And way more exciting too when we see her do the large logs with really powerful strokes and even splitting those chunks into halves of quarters. Doing the work of five men in a fraction of the time.

“Do all the Squires do this?”

“Aye and the knights too it’s called errantry.”

“I know about that it’s where new knights are looking for sponsors and travel the tourneys to find a lord when they have none of their own.”

“No, not here. It used to be and still is when a knight would leave to wander the world t’do good deeds and live by the code t’is a spiritual thing for some.”

I nod. “I think that’s the way that it used to be but it’s changed along with the needs at home for the most part. Though temple knights might do it still.”

“I’m not much a temple go’r.”

I nod still watching Nicole work…it’s smart really, harder on the equipment but this could be why she’s so skilled already, it’s all practice really and training.

I have a little too of that sensation of when Jessa and I were bathing too…skill is attractive.

“We had a monastery to The Elohim in the hills and a temple to the All-Gods in the township.”

She looks at me. “No cleric in the castle, the church would like that?”

“Oh we had that too, just it wasn’t manned except for Gods Days and holydays. My Father and us would attend temple with the people in the township.”

“You’d think that’d be dangerous.”

I look at her curiously.

Jessa looks surprised. “There’s a lot of nobles that wouldn’t go with the people.”

I nod. “I think that was father’s point.”

“So more about the people then his title yet again, I’m going t’say Chrissy he was makin enemies.”

“He was trying to be fair.”

“There’s people that don’t remotely want fair.”

I nod. “Well your lady and my father sound at least like they travel in thought together, hopefully that’ll be a good thing.”

She nods. “They had the sorceress in common at the least.”

I push off the laundry tables and head towards the fields and Nicole. “Yes, and hopefully as her heir I’ll find some answers.”

“Aye, y’need something at least.” She follows and so do some of the children sent by the mothers and we’re collecting the firewood and we’re taking it back and the smaller children are gone making trips in to the cut to get all the branches that were limbed off the logs and Taylor’s pulling the timber logs in with the team and we’re busy for awhile again.

My hands ache from the work, wood is rougher than I’m used to handling and my hands are smaller so just gripping the chunks in stretching and such. I’m not getting blisters from it though…I’m not that papered as I said I’ve done stable work and my little bit of arms training I was getting has at least that much toughed me.

It’s odd I kept it though when she changed me so much? Limits on the spell?

The last thing we do there is watch Nicole with heavy rope and a grapple pull stumpage after using her sword to work things loose and free…It’s a strange thing to see a Squire’sknight used for labor.

It’s a good area cleared too and likely a twenty yards by forty.

We all get back and the mid-days is on the laundry table all set out with a blanket for us all and things from each of the houses for all and some of what we brought.

Greens…more of them, it must be a thing here. But a large pot of them and a fairly nice smell from them. Pig’s feed home here a staple?

Bread from different hearts and in shapes. I think it’s a skill thing because Nicole’s making a thing over a braided roll with one of the women.

More of that strong cheese in it’s whey, thick like a pudding and very strong. It’s something I’m seeing here like the greens. It’s good weather, summer so eat what you have. If you’re in milk this makes sense to eat cheese I suppose.

Then there’s roasted squash in it’s husk pulled open and some potatoes too pulled fresh and peas cooked in their pods? I see Taylor take one and pull it through his teeth scraping all the pulp from the pod and the peas off and discarding the rest to the scraps bucket. I try the same and he nods and it’s very good.

Then the main is our rabbits in a stew with herbs and such but it’s stretched and thickened with these fat flat squares of dough they’re calling dumplings here and it goes well with the mushrooms we brought It’s filling.

But very little meat, it’s stretched far by these folk. Mostly greens and vegetables, compared to home a much different way of living.

Taylor gets cheered when he brings a box from our wagon and it’s salt, pepper, and vinegar and a few other spices and just that makes a huge difference.

I didn’t know we were missing the salt until I eat some food with it. Pepper too…it’s just something that was always there. Here a treat, proof we’re nobles almost or at least wealthy.

Then we’re done eating and there’s drink brought out and it’s barley-wine which is close to beer or ale but a bit different flavored with apple instead of hops and we have a drink as Nicole gathers the fighters for training?

“Training?” I ask looking at Hawk.

“Aye it keeps them sharp and us as well plus it keeps Nic in skill with instructing and commanding.”

“The Law?”

“Nay jus custom, come us too.”

“Us too?”

“You need it I wager.”

“You’d win.”

This I was not expecting and soon it’s Nic leading us through spear drill and then it’s weapons with shields. I didn’t see the shields but they have them, fitted wood with boiled leather covers covered with wax. Then archery, and even some grappling and striking moves.

I’ve some training with the spear, you’ll never be allowed hands on a lance until you can use a spear decently and spear lends to using a staff often a weapon of easy convenience. The hand to hand is different since I’m the same skill as most here with a axe or mace or hammer…barely skilled enough not to hurt myself, Archery I’m iffy at…better than half here. I’ve fired a bow in target shooting and a few times in hunting.

Striking and grappling I’m as raw as the girls here, learning holds and getting free of getting grabbed is different as a woman. And striking…boxing…I’m barely acquainted with being too small home to really have much of a chance of doing it. My eldest brother was a striker though often fighting in the garrison fights.

I’m faster though…it’s easier to move I guess for the moment without my breasts in my way yet and I gave Nic a good bout with the spear for a few minutes at least.

I get some looks through the whole thing from her and Hawk and even Taylor who didn’t actually train but played attacker and such for us during the grappling training. All he did was take hits with good nature.

I’m about done in when Nicole looks at me as they’re putting things away. “You think you can heat the waters again?”

I nod. “That I can do…baths?”

“Aye if ye wouldn’t mind.”

I look to her and some expectant faces. “It’d be an honor Squire.”

She smiles. “Thank you Wisdom Christiana.”

It was more playful but I guess it gets me as this me in peoples heads and I go and help with the tubs and listen to the women talking as I heat water.

That scrap of cloth’s a bit of material and the pattern of the brides dress. It’s being talked about as how those that might go will do to match. I’m sort of getting it now, sort of only because I don’t get the custom of why this is important.

“Wisdom? What do the women wear where you are from?” One of the girls ask me.

I…huh…

“I guess that would depend on for what and their station.”

There’s some nods and a few saying. “Naught though of the ladyships.”

I sidestep that thinking of home.

“Linen mostly, cotton on occasion and flax weaves, blouses and skirts over dresses and belts over those for the most for your carries. Vests are common too and quilted coats of cloth in the winters usually long like a robe if going out from home. Cloaks are more the rich fashion for the lords and ladies over the coats.”

“Colors an patterns ye know of?”

I really don’t and have to think and there’s like an strange moment like a lightning flash but behind my eyes.

I can see it all, all the times in the township and riding and the peasants in frozen details. I start describing the needle point and the designs which I’ve seen and some are personal family things and others with trades and other things.

I try to keep up with things. And soon I’m stripping and getting cleaned up with them and Nicole and Hawk are there with me. I’ve never talked with women so freely before in my life. Several people stare at Jessa who sticks out from all of us in her scars and her complexion.

And then there’s Nicole.

I know the standard is for women to be demure and well sweet and curved and all these other things but Nicole has shoulders, small breasts for her size that just sit perky there and the rest is muscle with curve, and legs with the swells of muscles but on her woman’s frame, her chest even and she has definition in her belly these almost there ripples that go down to her sex….I…oh I’m having those boy feelings as a woman and I sink in my water to hide my achy nipples and sooth them.

I…I might be a sapphire by default now.

But to be honest…Nicole is a damned handsome woman.

It’s embarrassing too since I’d have no idea what to do with her or Jessa or any other woman that I’ve seen here.

I sink into the water thinking, well trying to think of something else and trying to do that mind flash thing.

Harder than it seems to try to honestly think of something….but I focus in on home.

Good things…memories.

Places in the castle.

Flash…and it’s there…The library, the way the sun would filter in from the windows, the dust motes tickling my nose with the smell of leather, vellum, wood, wax…books.

I open my eyes and breathe.

I close my eyes and I’m at the top of the goat road…it’s the back way from the castle and a switchback trail and one with this amazing view of the orchard lands and farms.

I can remember it all, I can smell it.

I can remember it perfectly.

How? I’m not sure, it’s definitely magical but It’s something else.

I smile the entire time I’m drying off and then we’re getting ready to leave?

I look at Nicole. “We’re leaving?”

“Aye, we saved some time so we might be able to cover enough trail to get to Palfrey corner.”

“Oh…” I have no idea.

Some of the Steaders come with gifts…a skirt and hooded tunic for me and two blouses that might fit. Since I have nothing…I take them with a smile and a hug. It’s odd to hug…but Nicole is doing it and it can’t hurt right? I mean it shows trust that there won’t be a knife in your ribs.

I change into the skirt and a blouse, the skirt has drawstrings and it’s about the length of my mid calf. Yes a work skirt and I’m shamelessly showing ankle. Well until I get my boots on.

Taylor’s closing his book after writing down their news and he puts a few notes scrawled for others or by some into the same page before stowing it in an oil skin satchel and placing it in the box seat.

We’re waved at as we leave and Hawk and I sit on the back of the wagon and wave back.

Sigh…this was nice.

……………………. After an hour’s lounging in the wagon we get back to the foraging and Nic’s cleaning her rig again and tuning it up but it takes less time for her to do it all this time.

Me…?

I’m running through the books on plants and herbs, flashing on things I remember and their uses that the apothecary Tedric used and tried to educate me on.

It’s all there and I start taking things I can find. Kingsfoil, Coltsfoot, All heale, Willow, Cherry, Fireblossom thistle, and I even find edibles like some lobster/salamander and butter friend mushrooms and then it’s more wood bundles and tubers and roots I don’t know along with stuffed sacks of more greens… (Dandelion, salsify, clovers, pigs leaf, sorrel ect.) them more mushrooms and berries.

I have no idea how far ahead she goes to have the time to gather these things but her doing so shows her skill as a ranger really. And the fact that she hunts as well? Rabbits and pheasants but squirrels are a plenty too.

We’re all doing that until we reach a few places along the way… Tamric’s hill…literally a hill in the forest with a palisade and stacked stone houses and poor ground for farming but they dig coal from the hill. I get my first look at a mine and…well I had stories to go on but this is just a wood walled and beamed tunnel that goes in and slightly down for about forty feet maybe twenty feet wide at the seam place when they show us.

But for a small family it doesn’t have to be a big mine.

We’re not there too long either. We give food and game and Nicole uses her rig to go chop down beam worthy timber trees and we’re given coal as trade in coal dusts mixed with flour and cured in sheafs of moss and birch paper that have been cured.

All new to me since coal was only really in our smithy’s but Nicole says one of these dust longs will burn in a house hearth all day or more. They’re generous with the dust logs trading four or five for each two timber logs.

We read the posts and take them and head out keeping on until the next stop at Dewbridge brook. It’s a tollbooth bridge. Built by the family there and behind the walls of their steading. They let us pass without charge as we again drop herbs and food and firewood this time and some coal logs.

But not as much as before since they have this bridge and a water wheel mill and good walls. But there are people here living close by drawn by the mill and the trade that live here by furs and hunting, fishing, or raising things and we’re here more for them. Not quite an actual hamlet since it’s too spread out but it is a sort of community.

Us showing is news, us showing brings smiles.

Palfrey Corner is six leagues past Dewbridge and it’s gotten dark and I’m actually walking ahead of everyone…I’m holding my hand up and I’m arcing lighting between my thumb and baby fighter casting off blue white light. Hawk’s behind me where she’s keeping watch as we make our way to this place where the trail breaks into a clearing and there’s a small lake and a hamlet with a stacked stone wall and a decent defensive ditch in front of it.

There’s a horn sounded from a watch tower made of simple wood and I look at Nicole who runs up a colors flag. “Watch we come with the post!”

It takes a little longer but we get a response. “Be welcome Wisdom and Squire but be warned we’re under a yellow flag!”

I look at the others. “Yellow flag?”

Taylor’s frowning. “Sickness, they’ve sickness in the village.”