Chapter Eleven

It was baking day in the village and the women were hard at work. The men were out on their farm lands tending to the food for the village for the next year.

The children were getting under everyone's feet and those that were too young to go and help on the land were sent off on other errands to stop them from tasting the baking before it was ready for anyone else. Merlin had to admit to himself that he was tempted himself to pinch one of Freya's hot breads as she set them out to cool on the side, but, as the dutiful father, he instead took his young children out to the pastures to show them how to look after the animals that the village tended to.

He held on to Hunith's hand with one hand as they walked with a milking stool in his other hand, and the two boys ran on ahead, tripping over their own feet and making enough noise to wake the dead with their laughing. Hunith carried the pail for the milk.

"You must be quiet in front of the goats otherwise they'll run away from you!" Merlin told his sons, raising his voice so that he could be heard over their whooping.

As they neared the goat, she raised her head and eyed the little boys who were running towards her. She was tempted to bolt, but she recognised Merlin behind them as the one who fed her the most often, so she stayed put. But she kept the boys in sight.

Guy and John did at least quieten down as they neared the goat. John, being the older of the two slowed down as he got to her, then ripped up some of the juicy long grass and offered it to her, moving towards her at a much more gentle step. The goat took a step towards him and stretched out her neck to take a sniff at the green stuff he was holding and, realising that it was lovely tender grass, she took another step forwards and chomped the grass from his hand. John stretched out his hand and stroked her ears gently.

Guy came up next to him and stroked the goat's neck a little timidly. His foot still remembered the time that she stepped on it and he was a little nervous around her.

Merlin and Hunith came up behind them and he put the stool down next to her and Hunith handed him the pail which he put under the goat. He then started milking her, showing his children the best way to do it so as not to disturb the goat while he worked.

They were good students and he knew they were paying attention, but he still raised his eyes to make sure that they were every now and then.

He was nearly done milking when he looked up to check on Guy to his right when his eye caught the sky and it was raining.

The clouds were nearly as black as night and the rain was torrential, pouring down.

He blinked, surprised, but as he blinked, everything suddenly went back to how it was before. The sun was beautiful and the skies were the bluest they had ever been and the warmth of the summer beat down on his back as he hunched over the milking pail.

He frowned.

"What the-?" he said, mumbling. "What just happened?"

"What is it father?" Hunith asked him.

"When did it start raining?" he asked, looking at the sky again and realising that it was a silly question as it clearly wasn't raining, but he couldn't deny what he saw.

"Silly daddy," Guy laughed at him, "it isn't raining! We are all dry in the sunny sun!" And he held out his arms for Merlin to see, palms up. His arms and hands were completely dry. Merlin looked at the ground. It was bone dry too.

"Did you see it rain just then?" he asked his children.

"No," came three responses, along with vigorous head-shaking.

"When... when did it last rain?" Merlin asked his children, sure that he had seen it rain just then.

John laughed. "Silly father! It never rains here! And it didn't rain just now either. You are funny!" And he giggled, with Guy and Hunith joining in with him.

Merlin realised that they were right- it didn't ever rain in their village, and yet, somehow, the harvest was always perfect and they never ran out of water.

He shook his head. Maybe he'd been in the sun too long. He'd talk to Gaius about it later and he'd tell him the exact same thing- that he had caught the sun.

He finished with the milking and gave the goat a stroke and an apple which she graciously accepted with a crunch. He had John carry the stool back while he took the now-full pail of milk. When she wasn't making medicines and tinctures, Alice could make a wonderful cheese out of goat's milk.

John walked by his side on the way home while Hunith and Guy ran ahead, playing. He contemplated the beautiful day.

As Merlin listened to John telling him about a particularly large butterfly he'd seen with speckles, he completely forgot about the rain and that it had ever existed.

oOo