Chapter 35: A Mud Fight

During breakfast on the fifth day Conrad sat next to me with a surprised and worried expression on his face. I hadn't been seeing him much because he had spent all his time with the little kids while I interrogated all of the grownups. His hair was standing on end and he looked like he had had a rough night, but he didn't look tired.

"They did it again," he said, staring into the fire. Frieda had to nudge him before he looked up to take his plate full of eggs.

"They did?" she cried. "Why I'll..."

"No!" said Conrad his eyes growing wide. "Leave 'em be, Fried, I like it."

Frieda frowned. She didn't like Conrad's use of informality. Gauls can get very formal with strangers at times, which is surprising, since we had imagined them as barbarians. I've noticed that they are absolute fun clowns when they are with their kids. But they were slowly getting use to our...casualness.

Still, the conversation was confusing me.

"Who did what?" I asked. "When? Where? Why? How?"

Frieda rolled her eyes and Conrad explained, "This morning I was bombarded by all the little kids while I was still asleep in my bunk. They howled and screamed so loud I thought something was wrong. They climbed on top of me and wouldn't let me sleep any longer."

"And you don't mind this?" I said in surprise. I was thankful the Gaulish kids hadn't chosen me as their target.

"No," he said. "I really like kids, now. Before I didn't, but now I think they're cool. I think...I think I could live with being a father now."

"Eh?" I looked at him curiously. What did that mean?

He just started eating with an embarrassed glow in his face. "Kids are cool," he repeated.

Before I could inquire further I myself was approached by one of these...children. It was boy with dark curls and deep brown eyes. He was tan and had the rosiest glow about his round face.

"Tagiet. Are you ready to go, sir Rashling?" he asked innocently.

"Go where?"

"My father, Wilhem, said that I may go to the fields if I could get your lazy bones away from the fire, food, and ladies. So, if you do so, then I can go to the fields today. The men are already starting. Come on it will be fun."

My jaw dropped open. Conrad started laughing and I noticed Frieda was hiding a smirk. Is that how Minerva's brother thought of me? Well, by golly, I'll show him.

"I'll be right with you Master..."

"Apollus," smiled the boy. "I'm Apollus the second son of Wilhem."

"Apollus," I repeated. "Well met, Apollus, son of Wilhem. I will be happy to go with you to the fields to work. Come on Conrad."

"Me!" cried Conrad. "I was invited! I was planning on sitting in the hot tubs for a while. I'm no farmer. You're the one..."

"Excuses, excuses," sighed the familiar voice of Rose. She hopped up beside Conrad and glared. "Oh, go on, Con, you're both getting fat off this Gaulish meat. Go work your rear ends off, it's the least you can do for this family."

That was all he needed. I don't know why he did it, but Rose apparently had wrapped him somewhat around her green finger. Conrad was reluctant yet willing to obey everything she said. I smirked at Con and glowered at Rose.

The men and boys of Justice were just about to start out when we caught up to them. Wilhem swung around in surprise when Apollus called to him, "Father! Father! I have gotten Rashling's lazy bones away from the fire, food, and women! I also brought his comrade! May I go, please?"

Wilhem stared at me, a blush crawling up his rigid face, while his brothers either smirked or shook their heads in amusement. He glanced at his excited son and said absently, "Yes, yes, of course. But..." He shook his head and tsked at himself while I tried to keep a straight face. "Ach! Forgive me, Rashling, you are not...I didn't mean for my jealous fatherly words to a young innocent son to insult you. Truth I..."

"Tis fine, Master Wilhem," I said with a chuckle. I slapped him on the back and was satisfied to feel him loosen up a bit. "No insult taken. Actually you helped me put a bit of brains back in my head."

"Now all you got to do is put some muscle back in his body," said Conrad.

"Farm work here don't take much," said one of the men. "It's harvest time and we'll just be doing some picking."

"Then let's go!" cried Apollus. "The sun is rising as we speak and the harvest might get over ripe and I shall be left hungry!"

We laughed and a couple of the boys laughed at him and chucked a peice of wood at him. "Ach, Apollus, you always think with your stomach, and not your little brains." He just bounced back to his father's side and rubbed his tummy defensively.

We first worked in the raspberry field.

Raspberry!

These red berries were a rare treat in the castle and were only had on birthdays. Here all the boys who worked with me, ate them like crazy, Conrad was right behind them. I put a few in the hand made basket I was given, then I tasted one, and started eating just like everyone else.

"The berries are supposed to go in the basket not that gaping mouth of yours," scolded Wilhem and the other men. Still, it wasn't rare when we saw them popping a few into their mouths.

"If the women were out here with us," said Wilhem as he worked along side me, "There wouldn't be enough to harvest. They eat almost as much as we do. At the end of the one hour if anyone has a basket that is not filled to the top, he is whipped. The women can't be out here therefore, because we can't whip them. Besides men have more self discipline than women."

"That's not true!" cried one of the kids next to us. He had on a hat, over his eyes and was smaller than most.

Wilhem glared at him then knocked the hat off.

A long blonde braid flopped onto the back and a girl's face was seen, looking beaten yet defensive... and freckled. She had Wilhem's strong jaw and nose and his defiant wary blue eyes. She looked to be about twelve. Probably, his oldest.

"Ana Maylin!" said Wilhem, "How many times must I tell you, the field is no place for a female. This is the third time you have attempted to pass off as a boy."

"She sure is good at it," yelled one of the boys with a smirk.

Ana Maylin stuck her tongue out at him and shuffled her feet. "I want to work out here. I am tired of weaving and cooking, and mending, and cleaning. It's boring."

"Don't say that word," scolded Wilhem.

What word? Boring?

"You know it destroys the brain. Nothing is every boring. Life in unique and if you think something is boring you should do it more often until you think otherwise."

The girl sighed and was about to submit but then she got a look of defiance in her eyes and said boldly, "I'll only go if you take back what you said about boys having more self control and if you let me take my berries."

Wilhem opened and closed his mouth. "Ach, Ana Maylin, you will be the death of me. I shan't take it back."

Ana Maylin's eyes widened. She didn't know whether to be pleased or angry. In the end she was meek. She smiled sheepishly and bowed to her father. "Thank-you."

"Aye, aye. Get to work and next time don't work right next to me. You have to fill two baskets for pay."

"That will be easy," I said with a teasing smirk, "She has your quick hands and a woman's self controlled mind."

He rolled his eyes while Ana Maylin smiled triumphantly.

Suddenly my basket was hit by a rock and fell from my hands. I caught it just in time, but it still spilled a good amount of berries into the damp mud.

Ach! My berries!

Ach? I sounded like a Gaul.

I looked around hurriedly for the suspect. He wasn't hard to find since he was giggling with his buddies over at the next row. I look around for a few clods of mud and also to make sure that Wilhem was not near. He had moved on to the next row with his daughter and was apparently having a serious conversation with her.

Quickly finding some suitable clods, I took out the sling shot I always carried around. It was a bit rough, seeing I had used it ever since I was ten, but it worked.

The boys yelped in surprise when their baskets tumbled out of their hands as well. They weren't as quick and the mud turned a squishier red. They moaned in despair. They would have to work twice as fast and wouldn't be able to eat anymore if they didn't want to be whipped.

"Ah! That'll teach you," I muttered a little loudly with a grin.

This was answered with a volley of mud clods. I was bombarded on all sides and couldn't quite dodge them all. My clothes were smeared and I had mud in my eye.

Those twerps!

I made up some more mud balls.

The war was on.

Soon the brown bombs were flying and the tasty harvest was forgotten. It was one against four but the boys weren't very good aims. Although Otto was a wonderful shot, a stocky fellow who was another nephew of Minerva's. He hardly ever missed and when he hit, it hurt. My sling shot could only do one at a time and could get rather slow, but I, like Otto, rarely missed my target.

By now I was covered in mud, but I didn't care. That only meant I could soak in the hot springs again. A couple times I slipped into the slim, and once I kicked my basket. It skidded away and the rest of the berries were dumped. But I didn't care I just laughed as one of Otto's missiles hit me in the shoulder.

"Weston! Greg! Caleb! Ach! You too, Otto! What are you doing? And... Rashling...you are...filthy."

Wilhem and Ana Maylin appeared and stared at our sorry sight. The boys Greg and Weston tried to hide themselves and their giggles behind the raspberry plants but their uncle didn't notice them. He was too busy gawking at me.

"'Ello, Willy," I said spitting out the mud I had been wanting to get rid of ever since it plopped into my mouth. "Did you come to join us?"

My slingshot was loaded and I was oh so tempted to shoot him in between the eyes. Ana Maylin smiled broadly behind her father and looked over at her brown cousins.

"Join? Why I..."

But he was stopped when a flying mud ball hit him square in his chest. He staggered back, not from the hit, but from the fact that he had been hit.

"Ha! La...Rashling! He's in! He's in! Ce'mon boys let's get Rashling's group."

I could see Conrad coming towards us with five other boys all armed with mud balls. One splattered at my feet and I scooped up some more ammunition. Ana Maylin grabbed my shirt and said, "Come on, they'll bury you if you don't get behind the next row."

"Hurry, Rashling!" encouraged my previous enemies. "We'll cover ya."

As I fitted the next glop into my sling shot, Otto, Caleb, and the others hailed Conrad's army with a volley of slime.

If I had thought the skirmish between me and the boys had been a fun war, I in for one of the greatest mud wars in history. Probably the greatest. I had the four boys and Ana Maylin who proved to be just as good as Otto if not better. Conrad also had four boys and little Apollus who mostly spent his time cheering his team on.

Because this was no skirmish but a real war, Caleb and Weston shot more precisely than before and we practically became a formidable foe. But Conrad's side was pretty good as well, since all the boys surely had the same teacher and we were so covered with mud that we looked like something that lived in the chocolate muck.

Finally simultaneously, the two armies fell apart, laughing so hard our sides ached and the tears cleaned some of our filthy cheeks. We laughed at each other and at ourselves, at the idea of what we had done, of what the ladies would think if they saw us, and of the fact that now we had to pick fast without eating or get whipped.

Not all of this was hilarious; I mean I didn't want to get five lashes. But it was at the time and we just lay there, laughing and trying to breathe.

One of my men, Caleb I think it was, actually passed out, his face purple and splattered with mud. This set us into another fit of laughter, even though I really don't think (now) that someone passing out is funny. But then again, he did it because he was laughing, and he had his tongue haning out, like he was licking up the...never mind.

Suffice it to say, we had fun.

Lots of it.

After we had calmed down some we somehow all managed to look at Wilhem for the first time all together. (We were good mind readers). He had been instantly forgotten once our lives, or cleanliness, had been endangered.

He was standing in the same spot we had left him and looked like he had just been hit, even though it had happened ages ago. In his hand was a glob of mud, but I don't know how it got there. His mouth dangled open as he looked from the waiting glob, to me, the honorable Rashling, to Conrad my fellow companion, to his daughter Ana Maylin, to the respectable Otto, to his glowing innocent son Apollus, to his unconscious son Caleb, then into mocking outer space.

The sight left us rolling in our ammunition again holding our sides and crying, "I can't breathe! Stop it! Oh, I can't breath! Father, stop I can't...I can't...Oh..."

I managed to gasp out my thoughts, "We're going to die, we're dead we're...I can't breathe..."

I didn't finish my sentence because I was too busy laughing.

Never in my life had I laughed and cried so much.

Then the climax came, right when the laughter was dying down.

Wilhem came to life and threw his only missile at Conrad. It hit him in the mouth and nearly choked him as he continued to laugh. That set us off again and as the boys of Justice and the two crazy travelers from the south lay in the mud trying to breath and laugh at the same time, Wilhem walked away to work on the next field.

But I swear I saw him crack a smile.