Autumn

Flint is not a silent man. He casts his words carefully, seed to the furrow, and he could not have borne a wife who chattered like a flock of starlings. But he has lived all his life among women's gossip, and her silence gnaws at him. Were the Kargs, then, as dumb as oxen?

When she does speak, it's always the wrong words, or the wrong time.

~*~

'When will you be back?' his wife asked, as she helped him pack the cheeses onto the cart for the Summerend Fair at Valmouth. It lasted three days, and had the biggest market east of the mountain.

'Expect me when I walk through the door,' Flint said.

Was it so hard for a woman to understand that he might be offered a fair price in the opening hour of the market or the closing one? Sometimes a ship from the North Reach was in port and the purser offered ivory for all he would sell; other times he'd to haggle till he was hoarse to scrape enough for the farm's needs. It was not as though he spent overmuch in the taverns, or visited the whorehouse on the waterfront in his cups, like Bridgeman!

But when he took his leave, she turned her face from his kiss.

The market went poorly. His mutton fetched a fair enough price, in the end, but—half the cheese unsold! And as for the preserves, there'd been a glut of fruit that year, and he could hardly give them away. (What did you expect, his mam's voice said, what with the cheeses all lopsided and the pear jelly not set right?)

Bone-weary though he was, Flint endured the ten miles up the valley, the chill wind off the mountain in his face. How were they ever to manage over winter? It started to sleet just as he left the Kahedanan road behind him to climb up to the village. The last few miles he huddled down into his sheepskin coat in the darkness, a deep longing for his dinner, for the warm kitchen, for his wife's slow smile of welcome pushing his worries from his head. But when he reached the farmhouse, all the fires were out, and his wife was nowhere to be found.

Round at the cottage, Shandy put the kettle on, and laid out cheese and beans and the stale heel of a loaf. 'Mistress Goha'll have just slipped out to check the gates are all shut tight,' she said, fussing with the bread knife. 'She'll be back afore the kettle boils, I'll be bound!'

'Just slipped out!' said her husband. 'Just slipped out! The mistress, she said t'tell the master as his wife's "gone for a walk" by the river. Hah! A walk, I ask you! In this weather!' He speared some beans and helped himself to a thick slab of cheese, which Flint had scarcely had the heart to touch. 'I told 'er straight, I told her as the master wouldn't want her leaving the farmhouse all empty like, but she stopped up them pearl-white ears of hers, and she stomped off on them thin pins of hers, without so much as a "fare you well"! If you ask me…'

But Flint didn't ask him. Clearbrook had not been among the village menfolk who'd cornered him one evening at the Goat & Feather and told him 'no Kargish witch were fit to shag, let alone marry,' or the shepherd would no longer be working at Oak Farm, tenancy or no. But he'd distrusted the idea of having a 'furriner' at the farm from the first, and Flint did not forget.

'…I mean, a walk by the river. Who'd be daft enough to do that at Summerend?' Clearbrook's flow broke off as he cut another slice of cheese.

'It were a nice afternoon for a walk,' said Shandy, slowly, into the silence. 'Cold, but clear like. Sunny, even. I might've gone for a walk by the river myself, if I'd nothing as needed doing.' She sounded uncertain, as though there were something she was trying to convince herself about, something important. She lifted her head and looked at Flint, straight into his eyes, just for a moment. Her soft brown eyes were wide with fear.

And then there was a pain in his gut that had nothing to do with eating too quickly. Flint pushed his chair back, the sudden scrape over the flags loud over the crackling of the fire and the whistling of the kettle. 'I'll get a lantern,' he said. 'Go and look for her.'

'Why would you want to go doing that, at this time o' night?' said Clearbrook. 'The tea'll be ready in a minute. She'll be back when she's back.'

Shandy squeezed his arm as she helped him into his sodden coat. 'Mistress Goha'll be just fine, you'll see,' she said, but she did not meet his eyes again.

Flint fetched the lantern from the lean-to. The sleet had stopped while he was inside, and the stars were out above the mountain. Before he set out, something made him go back into the kitchen. It was as if he might somehow repeat his earlier homecoming and get it right this time: his dinner steaming on the table, the fire crackling, and his wife smiling up at him.

She was standing by the hearth, as white and cold and silent as the ashes.

He stood like a post and stared at her, the lantern swinging in his hand and casting crazy shadows that chased each other around the walls. Afterwards he wondered what he'd been looking for, waterweed twined in her hair?

He set the lantern down on the table with a heavy clunk and went towards her. As his shadow touched her, she shuddered. Anger born from the death of his grief welled up inside him. 'Why weren't you here when I got back?' he said. He took her hand. It was as cold as if it had been carved from ice. He rubbed it between his own.

She tried to pull away. 'Don't,' she said.

He folded her in his arms. She struggled for a moment, then sagged against his body. 'Why weren't you here,' he said, stroking her face over and over. 'Why weren't you here.'