Chapter Thirty-Six

The decision was made over the next few days to travel southward until harvest time, when the entire band would find a farm and offer their services as field hands in exchange for winter supplies. Janey and Hana were game enough, as Aravis knew they would be, but Rhys immediately put up a fight. He found the idea of working in a field "unsuitable" and "quite demeaning," if the many loud arguments he and Cor had about it were any indication.

Nevertheless, as the majority opinion was that it was a good idea, Rhys had no choice but to go along with it, and his grumbling acquiescence was enough to bolster everyone's moods.

Aravis and Cor still weren't speaking, however. She had begun to regret bringing up her qualms about Janey, but Cor's chilly demeanor made her reluctant to apologize. Besides, she thought often, why should she be the one to apologize? Cor had been the one to antagonize the situation, as usual.

And so August wore into September; the days were still hot and sunny, but the nights began to grow colder and longer. As they rode steadily southward, the trees started to turn yellow, and then into red, and the heads on the staves of wheat grew until they were near bursting.

Finally, Cor decided it was time. The next morning, dressed in sensible clothes and comfortable shoes, the women with their hair bound back tightly, they ventured off the kingsroad. Darrin took Janey, Hana, Corin, and Rhys to a small farm nestled into the hills, and Cor took the rest of the men and Aravis to a somewhat larger operation a few miles down the road.

The sun was barely up when Cor knocked on the door of the quaint little farmhouse, but it cracked open almost immediately, showing a sliver of a sunburned cheek and a blue eye. "What do you want?" said the cheek.

"We seek employment," said Cor.

"We haven't any money." The door snapped shut.

"Hear me out, please," Cor called, knocking on the door again.

A few moments passed, and then the door creaked open again. "I told you, we haven't got any money."

"We don't seek money."

"Then what do you want?"

"We wish to work in your fields until the harvest is in," Cor replied defensively. "In exchange, we ask for our meals for the time, and some supplies to help us through the winter."

The door squeaked open a bit wider, and the prettiest face Aravis had ever seen peered out. The young woman it belonged to was a picture of Archenlandian perfection the likes of which had been painted hundreds of times: porcelain skin, slightly sunburned, a pink mouth, long limbs, a petite bosom, pale blue eyes, and a thick head of dark red hair. "I'm not sure if we need 'elp," she said slowly, looking Cor up and down with an expression of feminine appreciation Aravis was not a unfamiliar with. "And you're not from 'round 'ere, are you?"

Cor had been struck speechless. "Er—ah—"

"No," Aravis broke in brusquely. "We are travelers from the north."

"So I can see," the woman replied coolly. Her eyes, which had flicked over to Aravis when she spoke, slid back to Cor.

"Are you the owner of this farm?" Cor asked politely.

"No, my brother is," the woman answered. She colored prettily and added, "I'm not married."

"Nor am I," he blurted out.

Aravis closed her eyes and prayed for patience as the two laughed sheepishly. "Would you be so kind as to fetch your brother?" she said. "We wouldn't wish to keep you from your work."

The woman eyed Aravis for a moment, then looked back at Cor and smiled. "One moment," she said, and slipped back into the cottage.

As soon as the door shut behind her, Cor turned back, and Aravis saw two spots of color high on his freckled cheeks. Typical, she thought. Two women desperate for his attention and he wants a third.

"She's a lovely woman," said Ram neutrally.

Cor nodded. Just then, the cottage door swung open again, and a dark-haired, deeply tanned man in dirty trousers and a stained tunic stepped out, the red-haired woman close behind. "Greetings," he said in a deep bass voice. "You's the travelers m'sister told me about."

"Indeed," Cor replied, pushing his shoulders back. "We seek—"

The man waved his hand. "She told me. You hard workers?"

"The hardest," Ram assured him.

He surveyed them all with a practiced eye. "You'll work sunup to sundown, righ', at whatever I say. 'N if I'm satisfied wi' your work, then 'n only then will you get your supplies."

"I think that's fair enough," Cor said.

"Right," said the man. "Now who are you, exa'ly?"

"I'm Cadoc," Cor said with a thin smile.

"You from the North." It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"Hmph." The farmer looked expectantly at the others.

"I'm Finuala," Aravis said dutifully, doing her best to flatten the faint accent out of her words.

"Hywell," said Nim.

"Finn," grunted Sir Borran.

"Nevin of Newry," Dor said politely.

"Brennus," said Romith.

"Ram," said Ram.

The farmer grunted. "I'm Lognar," he said shortly. "Brann's me wife, she's lyin' in with the new babe—this 'ere's me sister Ragna." He looked at Cor for a long while. "You'll be sleepin' under the stars, men. Madam Finuala, we c'n arrange for—"

"I'll sleep with them, thank you," Aravis said calmly.

Lognar nodded slowly. "Well, yous might lodge the 'orses in the cowfield, like…t'stable's small, but she'll serve. After that, I'll take yous out to the field and show you what's what."

So they rubbed the horses down and let them loose in the pasture. Inga tossed her head and cantered away the moment Aravis released the halter, but she couldn't blame her one bit. The luggage and supplies they stored safely in Lognar's dark but dry stable under a pile of loose hay, and then Lognar, the sleeves of his tunic tied up, set them to work.

Cor, Romith, and Dor, being the youngest and strongest of the men, were sent out into the nearest field with murderous-looking sickles over their shoulders and huge bushels under their arms; these would be the companions' tools for the next fortnight. The rest followed, Lognar speaking loudly and quickly and motioning with his hands as he explained what he wanted them to do. The harvest had already begun, he explained, but he had very little help—his younger brothers lived nearby, but they were getting busy with their own crops.

Once out in the field, the men took up the sickles and set to work. Harvesting wheat was a fairly simple process, Lognar said; the men would take a handful of stalks, swing the sickle a few inches below the bud, and toss the heap to the ground, where Aravis would make large bundles and bind them up carefully.

"How hard could this be?" Cor said cheerfully, tossing the sickle from one hand to the other.

Aravis had grown up watching her father's slaves working the fields in the blistering Calormene heat, so she said nothing.

Since they were learning the process, the six of them worked slowly, inching their way across the many acres that awaited them. It was backbreaking work. The wheat stalks were rough and dirty, and they cut her hands as she wrestled them into some semblance of the neat bundles she had seen hundreds of times in paintings and in passing.

Still, her job wasn't as hard as the men's. As the sun rose higher in the sky, she could see even from a distance the sweat dripping from their brows. One by one they pulled off their tunics and wrapped them around their waists to soak up the sweat that dripped down their backs. Aravis watched them enviously, sweltering in her thin shift and wishing she too could pull it off and work bare-chested.

Around mid-morning, Ragna came by with cold well water to drink. She had done up her red hair, Aravis noticed, so that it framed her face, and as she went to Cor with her jar and ladle, she tugged a curl loose so she could wrap it around her finger as she talked with him. Meanwhile, Cor leaned on a pitchfork, the sweat shining on his freckled chest. It was tanning, Aravis noticed vaguely, not burning, and every time he laughed, the muscles on his stomach leapt prominently to the surface.

"You should rinse those hands," Lognar's gruff voice interrupted.

Aravis jumped a little and looked at her palms, streaked with dirt and blood. "I suppose," she answered noncommittally.

He poured a bit of water from another ladle onto them, and she scrubbed them off on her skirt. "You are not Northern," he said sternly.

"No."

"And you are clearly not accustomed to hard work."

With that, he strode off, and Aravis couldn't help but feel a little indignant—admittedly, she'd never worked in the fields under a hot sun, but had Lognar ever ridden for days in a saddle, the reins working thick calluses between his fingers, or organized an entire castle around an important dignitary's visit, or sat in as clerk on an important Privy Council meeting and written nonstop for seven hours? She thought it was very unlikely.

Ragna came round to her at this time, and Aravis drank deeply of the water she offered. "Tomorrow you will help me with preserving," she said. "The summer vegetables came in last week and must be put away."

Aravis eyed her over the ladle. "I will help," she said at last.

Ragna nodded briefly and went away.

The work did not get easier as the day went on. At lunch, they collapsed beneath the paltry shade of a spreading oak tree, weary and weak-limbed; even Aravis was relieved to see Ragna approaching with buckets of sandwiches in each hand. Unfortunately, the food came at the price of Ragna's continued presence, and the six other companions had to endure a half-hour's worth of awkward flirting. Ragna was beautiful, that anyone could see, but Aravis quickly realized, upon hearing her ask Cor how far North was from the farm, that she was far from brilliant. In another situation, she might have hoped Cor would equate the girl with the "silly palace ladies" he had professed to have no time for, but for some reason, he seemed unable to look past Ragna's awe at his intellect.

"How can you know so much!" she gasped at least three times that lunchtime.

They returned to the work with heavy hearts. This time, Aravis traded places with Nim, whose age made the physical effort all the more burdensome. The sickle fit uncomfortably in her sore hands, but the rhythmic swinging and stooping was a welcome change from her previous scrambling and squatting and binding.

Dinnertime came not a moment too soon, but after the meal of stew and fresh bread, there was still more work to be done—scythes to be sharpened, grain flails to mend, and record-keeping to attend to. (As usual, Aravis was relegated to this duty, though her swollen fingers could scarcely grasp the pencil as she listed out the work that had been accomplished that day.)

As soon as the last instrument had been returned to the storage shed, Lognar bid a curt goodnight and went inside. The companions fetched their bedrolls and headed for the pasture to sleep with the horses, but Cor lingered by the cottage a while longer to speak with Ragna, the occasional word and bobble of laughter floating up to Aravis's ears as she tried to sleep.

Some time near dawn, just when the world is darkest, Aravis awoke in a state of rather acute discomfort. Her hands throbbed and ached like they were caught in a vise, and she sat up groggily, trying to see them by the dim light of the campfire. Sure enough, they had blistered over in spots, and sleeping on the ground had broken them open so they were weeping sores. It was a pitiful sight, and a kind of gasping groan escaped her as she flexed her fingers.

"Blisters?" came Cor's low voice.

Aravis was fully awake in a moment. "Just a few," she said stiffly.

"Me, too. Put some of this salve on." And there he was, emerging into the shadowy circle of orange light with a vial of pale paste in a bandaged hand.

Aravis took it warily, spreading the concoction on her burning skin. It cooled immediately, and she couldn't help but sigh a little as Cor helped her wrap a thin bandage around the worst bits.

"Thank you," she said momentarily.

He nodded briefly.

There was suddenly a hundred things she wanted to say, and a thousand more she wanted to ask, but she held her tongue and smiled tautly. "Better get some sleep, then."

"Aye."

He retreated back to his bedroll, and she curled back up on her own. It had been some kind of mutual apology, their speaking again, she thought vaguely, but it felt a great deal emptier than it ever had in the past.

A/N: Well, there's more that could be said, but I figured you guys would want this chapter sooner and a bit shorter rather than later and longer! Stay tuned for more of Lognar and Ragna…