28th of Towin Day 1

Llyllabette and Yoomarrianna were a pair of subsistence farmers, they wintered their goats where they lived at over a thousand metres [3300 feet] above sea level and spent the summer in a hut growing their vegetables and hay and grazing their goats and the stock belonging to others at anything up to fifteen hundred metres [5000 feet] higher. They had married in their teens and were happy with their life even though they rarely saw another human being, other than at the market for which they went down into the valley once a month to sell their small surplus of cheese and late in the year their unneeded young goats. Their only regret was they had never had children.

Two days after their return from the market at the beginning of autumn the first snow of winter fell. It was early, but it had happened before and they were prepared for it. Yoomarrianna had spent the morning in the barn mending and sharpening tools and after lunch had turned to splitting firewood for kindling just out side the house door. It being late afternoon Llyllabette had gone to the barn to milk the goats.

Yoomarrianna heard her screams and ran to the barn to see his wife struggling on the ground as a stranger was attempting to rip her clothes off. He picked up the nearest tool to hand, a spade he used for chopping fodder beet which was as sharp as a razor on all three edges after his morning’s work, and hit the man with it’s edge in the middle of his back. Llyllabette’s struggles pushed the screaming man off her and Yoomarrianna hit him again, but in the throat this time. The man’s screams stopped instantly because the freshly sharpened tool had severed his head from his body. The deeply shocked couple turned to each other and wordlessly hugged for several minutes.

“Are you all right, Llyll,” Yoomarrianna asked her anxiously.

“Yes. What do we do now, Yoo? Who do you think he was? I’m sure I never saw him before. Why do you think he was here?” The questions came thick and fast from the deeply distressed woman who was trying in vain to reorganise her ripped clothes and cover herself.

Yoomarrianna had few answers for his wife but said, “There is not much that we can do now. The onset of winter means it will be the spring before we can tell anyone, and I’m not going to bury someone who tried to rape my wife. We won’t wish to leave him here, so I’ll put him on the sledge and dump him near the scarp where we won’t see him. With an early winter he’ll freeze. Maybe the wolves will eat him, but we can inform the authorities next spring. I never saw him before either. I don’t know why he was here, for it’s a long hard climb just to find a woman when there are whores at the inn in the village. I think I’ll clean my gun and keep it nearby at all times till the snow is deep enough to make travel impossible in case there are any more like him. Where was he, Llyll?”

Llyllabette was nodding in agreement with her husbands remarks and a little calmer now replied, “He must have been in the barn before I entered. I had fed Ivan and the girls and was going to fetch Flower to the milking platform when I was spun to face him from behind.” There were fresh tears in her eyes as she recounted the horror. “He grabbed my bodice and ripped it before throwing me to the ground. He was trying to rip off my knickers when you arrived.” She hugged her husband and continued, “Thank you. I can live with the damage to my dress, but I promised you many years ago I was only for you and I’m so grateful I can keep my promise.” Llyllabette broke down into deep soul wrenching sobs and much to Yoomarrianna’s surprise said, “Take me to bed and take me. If you can like when we were younger. I need you now, and Flower and Berry will keep the others settled whilst they wait a little while.”

Yoomarrianna did as he was told and if his performance was not quite what it had been twenty years before Llyllabette didn’t seem to notice and she was more wanton than he could ever remember. As she dressed, in an undamaged dress, she said, “I feel better now. After I have finished the milking, I’ll wash my clothes and make a start on their repair.”

“I’ll come with you, Llyll,” Yoomarrianna telt her picking up his rifle.

The deep snows didn’t arrive any earlier than usual, and when they did it was a relieved couple who knew they were now safe. Over the winter they talked oft concerning the stranger now frozen solid at the base of the scarp. They hadn’t heard any wolves, nor had they seen any tracks, so presumed he was still there under the snow. They came to no conclusions as to why he was at their home other than he must have followed them up from the market since the track was not clear in places and only known to a few locals.

When the spring and its thaw came they went to the market and informed the authorities as to the events of the previous autumn. The authorities sent a team to recover the body and interrogate them. Mysteriously the man’s head had disappeared, and the police had grilled Yoomarrianna for hours as to what he had done with it, but he repeatedly told them, “It was with his body when the snows came, and I don’t know what could have taken it, for wolves or a wolverine would surely have eaten the rest of him too before leaving, and there is no dung here to suggest any animal. All I can think of is perhaps an eagle.”

The man had been identified by his tattoos as a serial rapist and child molester who had been sentenced to death for murder before escaping from the police van on the way from court back to prison. It was a great shock to them both when Yoomarrianna was arrested for murder the next time they went to the market. Their neighbours were outraged at the irony and lack of justice, for the authorities who had been going to execute the criminal were now going to execute a decent hard working farmer for protecting his wife instead.

Not able to manage on her own Llyllabette brought the goats down to the village and whilst Yoomarrianna was in prison lived with her aunt.

The prosecutor’s case was that in hitting the man the first time Yoomarrianna had reacted in shock, but the second blow was completely unnecessary as the man’s spine was severed and he was paralysed which constituted murder. The jury, all city people, found Yoomarrianna guilty, and he was sentenced to death by firing squad. His appeal had been turned down.

It was the mid afternoon when Yoomarrianna was tied to the post, and as the squad fired he and Llyllabette found themselves on Castle in the middle of the night.