Chapter Two: Axe-Work
Pigs sleep in straw. They don't mind the scratchy feeling, or the smell. I, meanwhile, could feel every pointy little piece of it sticking into my back. There was a drip somewhere Randolph's hut, where the rain was seeping through, and the embers left in the fire were barely glowing now, defeated by the freezing air. It was a stretch to even class that room as 'indoors'.
Luckily I was so exhausted, both in mind and body, that even the harsh conditions couldn't stop me from falling asleep, and I drifted into a slumber relatively easily. I dreamt of the winding stone hallways of my old school, and the pages of books turned in my mind.
Some hours later a creaking noise woke me with a start. I listened intently, but could only hear Randolph's heavy snoring again. I looked around, and my bleary eyes made out a figure at the door, moving towards me. As the figure got closer I backed away, bringing my knees to my chest and watching. I was ready to cry out the second they made any kind of move.
Once the silhouette reached me I could see clearly it was the dark haired boy I had seen by the fire, and he lay down slowly beside me. He saw me curled up and alert, and shook his head at my obvious fear. He must be Randolph's son, I figured, and I tried to just go back to sleep. I could hear him breathing gently next to me, the smell of alcohol clinging heavily to his breath.
By the time I woke the next morning, he was gone. The rest of my family were already awake, and were sitting around talking, and eating hunks of bread.
"Here," Ike said, tearing a piece off and throwing it to me. It was dense and solid, and felt like biting into a table leg, but I was still so hungry that I demolished it quickly.
"What time do we leave?" I asked through a mouthful of stale bread.
"Well, we're not going to be able to leave today Kyle…" Mother said, making my heart fall to the floor like a stone. "Your father has given Randolph enough Denari to let us stay here for a few days while we find a new horse and rest up."
"They use Denari here as well?" Ike asked.
"Not exactly, but silver coins are valuable everywhere." Father replied, throwing me the last small piece of bread. "Ike, you are going to come with your mother and me to look at horses to buy. Kyle, Randolph says the boys of the town are building a wall somewhere, I think you should help out."
"What? Why can't I come with you?" The idea of me doing any kind of construction work was truly horrifying, never mind alone with some pagan boys.
"Kyle, we are dependent here on our hosts' hospitality, so I don't want us to look lazy. If your brother wasn't too young to help he would be going with you." As he said this Ike gave me a triumphant look from behind father's back. He could be so insufferable sometimes.
I could see there was no point in arguing, and I didn't want to push my luck much further and start an argument that my mother would certainly get involved in. Despite my age she still had no problems giving me a smack if I was out of line. There's a roman saying that we still used in Frankia that says a man is admirable if he is able to 'receive a copper coin as joyously as a golden Aurei'. I tried to bear that in mind as I forced the stiff door of Randolph's hut open and trudged out into the village in search of this wall.
The morning fog still hadn't lifted, and it clung to the ground like a painful rash, obscuring the tops of the trees and hills that surrounded the clutter of huts in the village. The place looked deserted, with just a few women around washing clothes or tending to vegetable patches. I assumed that the men must all have been out hunting.
I walked to where the huts ended, but there was no wall in sight. Despite a strong desire to return indoors and claim that at least I tried, my fear of my mother seemed almost equal to my unease at confronting the pagans, and so I approached a group of women washing clothes at the stream outside of town.
They were a mix of creatures, some fearsome and broad shouldered like a man, but others fairly petite, undistinguishable from the women of Frankia apart from their braided hair and simple clothes. I consciously approached one of the less intimidating figures.
"Excuse me, could someone please point me towards the wall that's being built at the moment?" I tried to project my voice confidently, but it seemed to dissipate in the wind and fog into just a timid request.
The woman looked at me quizzically, probably wondering, like I was, what use on God's earth I would be at rebuilding the wall.
"In the valley." She said simply, gesturing to a path that wound into the trees. I nodded in thanks and moved back through the damp grass to the path, the dew soaking into my trousers.
The path was in the same direction as the one we had arrived on, but veered away into the valley of two steep hills. It was not long until I heard the noise of people working through the trees. The bite of an axe chomping into wood and the grunts of heavy lifting filled the air in between the forest oaks. It seemed that the woodland was so dense that the village defended themselves purely by blocking the roads, and judging by the direction it was the Franks and Charles 'the Hammer' Martel that they were defending themselves from.
I turned a corner and saw the group of five-or-so boys working, mostly the same boys I saw crowded around the fire the night before, including Randolph's son. They were cutting down trees, sharpening them into stakes at both ends and then driving them into the ground. One by one they stopped working as I approached though, watching me walk the last dozen or so yards and idly wiping sweat from their brows.
"Hello." I said eventually, after it became clear that none of them intended to be the first to break the silence. "I've come to help you build the defences."
I saw the overweight boy snigger out of the corner of my eye as I spoke, and my chest started to become heavy with embarrassment as they all just stared at me, their chests rising and falling in synchrony as they regained their breath.
"Y'sure?" A brown haired boy asked. He was slightly chubby cheeked, but not overweight. "It's a tough darg."
"Darg?" I asked, drawing a blank. I remember learning about how Frankish came from the same roots as the Germanic tribes' dialects, but I had never heard that word before.
"Darg." He repeated, a little slower, "y'know, work?"
The larger boy laughed again at this. "Them Franks don't know what work is – look at him!"
I cringed again. Luckily, a scrawny blond boy spoke up next, "any help's good help." With that, he fetched me a small axe, and they all went back to work, seemingly leaving me to figure it out on my own.
I was built for schoolwork, not axe-work. My hands were well trained at coping with ink stains and splinters, not woodchips and gashes. Still, I was determined to prove that I wasn't totally useless, so I searched out a fairly spindly tree and swung the axe at it with all my might, hitting the trunk with a satisfying thunk.
I was pleasantly surprised by how deep I managed to sink the blade into the wood, but I had failed to anticipate the difficulty of pulling it back out. I tried to lever it out, using all my weight, pushing with my legs against the base of the tree and straining with my arms, but it wouldn't budge from its resting groove. In my anger I kicked at the handle repeatedly, trying to dislodge the axe, and eventually a satisfying cracking sound told me I was close. I got the distinct feeling that eyes were watching me now, but I carried on even more frantically, fuelled by my embarrassment which burned red in my cheeks.
Then, with a final sharp crack, it broke free. By that, I don't mean the blade from the tree, but that the handle came clean off the axe-head, falling to the damp ground.
"Little fool!" The overweight boy shouted, jogging over and staring furiously at me.
"I'm sorry, it was a mistake, please…" I begged, taking a couple of steps backwards until I was pressed against the tree trunk.
"You're useless." Another boy spoke, the only one I was yet to hear say anything. "Go back to Frankia." He also had dark hair, but was shorter than Randolph's son. I wish I could, I thought to myself, but just stood there trying to calm my panicked heart.
"Yeah, you have arms like a girl!" The overweight boy chipped in again, stepping forward and grabbing my arm, his hand fitting around its small muscle easily.
"Enough." I looked around to see Randolph's son walking over. He had spoken softly, but the others seemed to take note, pausing to look at him.
"I will show our scraggly friend how to whittle. Let's get back to work. I want to be home before sundown."
He walked over to me, placing a firm arm on my shoulder to make me sit down. The others stared for a while, before finally going back to their various duties. At last I could catch my breath, and the images of being beaten to death out here over a broken axe finally abated. I was sure that pagans murdered people for less.
He sat down next to me, holding a long stake and a stout knife. "Stanley." He said, turning to look at me again with those large, sceptical blue eyes.
"Oh, ah - Kyle." I stammered, holding out a hand for him to shake. He just stared at it for a second, then placed the handle of the knife in my outstretched palm.
"Here," He said, leaning over and placing his hand over mine. His grip was firm, to the point of hurting a little, and he guided my hand to the stake, striking it in a downwards motion at the end.
I was expecting pagans to have a disgusting, unhygienic smell, but he didn't. The sweat from hard work was mixed with the scent of sweet sap and the woods. He took his hand away and I continued to carve the end, striking chips off as enthusiastically as I could manage. When I turned to check for approval, he had already left, and was back in the road hammering stakes into the earth.
I wasn't good at 'whittling' either, but I could at least do a passable job. The hours seemed to pass agonizingly slowly, with the blond and brunette boys passing me endless logs to sharpen. I hadn't eaten since morning, and my hopes that they would stop to eat or produce some food were dashed as the afternoon wore exhaustingly on. By the time the sun began to set my aching arm distracted me from my hunger though, and despite the cold air the cloth of my shirt was soaked in sweat.
"We're leaving." Stanley said, taking the knife back from me and turning to walk down the path. I quickly scrambled to my feet and followed, eager to stay with him where I felt somehow safer. We walked back along the winding trail in silence for some time, and the smattering of orange light from the setting sun receded with us through the trees.
I had to admit to myself that I was in awe of them all a little, and the ease with which they had carried out the work. I could see the muscle in his firm arms, and I was certain he could snap me like the branches they broke from the trees, if he decided to.
A group of men were returning from the forest with the carcass of a wild boar tied to a stick, and in the center of town the women were preparing a fire for the evening. I looked around for my family but they must have been indoors.
"Your hair," Stanley said eventually, as we came back into the village. "It's odd."
I squinted as the last rays of the sun shone into my eyes, before it disappeared behind the dark Germanic hills.
"…Yes." Was all I could think to reply.