Sowing and Reaping

"If the wind will not serve, take to the oars."

Destitutus ventis, remos adhibe. – Latin proverb.

Ermelian woke up alone, stretching out in the big bed before she realised with a shudder of nerves that she was now alone in a strange fief. The dawn light lit the large master bedroom and a cooling breeze rustled the bed hangings in Kennan colours. Ermelian knew her maid would be in soon, so resolved to dress quickly in her work clothes and avoid explaining yet again that she would not be wearing a gown as it was inappropriate for field work.

Ermelian had been surprised by how quickly she took to the physical labour. She remained weaker than the villagers, and the work continued to exhaust her, even after a month of experience, but she felt anything would be preferable to sitting alone with her mother in law on the day Cleon was returning to war. Ermelian had begun the work desperate to impress Cleon, to show that she could be more than the drawing room ornament he originally took her as. Desperate not be ignored on a large lonely estate while Cleon enjoyed the season in Corus. She had come to understand his devotion to duty – the unwavering duty he felt to all of these tenants he had barely seen over the past 10 years, the almost resigned duty he felt for her and the love he felt for his mover and older sister.

Dressed in a rough tunic and some breeches Cleon had owned as a boy, Ermelian felt very much the imposter. She had been accepted here as the Lord's wife, but she was not sure that acceptance would continue to be extended to her now he was gone, especially as she would now need one of the men to help her lift. Ermelian remembered her years at the convent, the training the priestesses had drummed into the girls until each of them was able to stand in the gaze of the court, judged and measured by every man, mother and competing lady, and descend the stair with a grace born of confidence. Ermelian approached Tomlin, who was handing out stiff bristled brooms.

"We weren't expecting to see you this morning, milady." Despite his words, Tomlin smiled at her warmly and handed her broom, "Would it please you to work with the women clearing the mud from the lower houses?"

Ermelian nodded and made her way to the group of women Tomlin had indicated. She realised that she had made the right decision today, regardless of her motivations. She could tell that she had moved up in Tomlin's esteem, and that this would be invaluable in her role as Lady of the Estate, effectively running the castle, village and farmlands while Cleon was at war.

Dinner that night was a changed affair. Without Cleon in the house, Lady Vivian and Celina chose eat informally, even carving from the leg of roasted lamb themselves as they had sent the kitchen maids and footmen to join the relief effort after lunch. It was with that news that Ermelian first saw any sign of the progressive in Lady Vivian, though it was not the overt and friendly progression she was used to in the palace. Lady Vivian saw need and disregarded tradition in order to rectify that need.

Ermelian was grateful to have Celina around Castle Kennan. Celina was four years her senior, so they had not been close at the convent but she found herself liking the older girl more and more as autumn melted into winter. It was not until the depths of winter, when boredom was at a premium within Castle Kennan, even with many families now living within the keep as they had when Celina first arrived, that Celina decided to broach the subject of Cleon.

"Has my brother been writing to you? I know I've had a spate of letters during the winter for the past couple of years, the brute only ever thinks of me when he is stuck inside, but this year there's just been the monthly letters mother reads out at dinner so we know he's okay up there."

Ermelian flushed, "I usually receive a letter in response to my report on the accounts, in with the family letter Lady Vivian reads at dinner." She was embarrassed that as yet Cleon had made no attempt to confide in his wife as he had for years with his sister.

Celina took her blush entirely the wrong way, "Love letters! Does he send you love letters?" Ermelian had never seen a girl look so eager.

"No, no… nothing like that. We only ever write about the estate. They have been very short letters recently. He approves all of my work on the accounts." Ermelian paused, "I don't even know how I'd start t write a love letter to my husband."

"But… I've seen men hanging off your every word, every flip of your fan, at palace balls. You must have been sent plenty of love letters then." Celina could not be called a flirt but, like her brother, she had a penchant for the dramatic when she fell in love. Unlike her brother, she fell in and out of love several times per party – Cleon had always compared her to Neal for this, though Celina was considerably luckier in love, often receiving love letters, tokens and sketches from men begging her to be their escort to the next popular party.

"Well, yes. But they were from and to the kind of men who were still at court while every warrior in the kingdom was being marched north to face Scanra. I can't imagine Cleon really appreciating the kind of shallow emotions we wrote about, and I don't think he'd even know what I was talking about if I promised to flutter my fan for him when he returned."

"I'm sure he'd take a bloody good guess," Celina murmered more to herself than Ermelian, pausing to steal herself, "I really hate to ask this, but it's winter, so this is the only court relationship I really have any opportunity to gossip about… Exactly what is your relationship with Cleon?"

Ermelian blushed again, a pretty colour, and Celina thought what a shame it was that Cleon did not properly appreciate the gesture.

"We're married." Ermelian returned, "You were there. Your mother was even there afterwards, well, outside the door, to make sure we were properly married."

"Yes, but do you talk? Do you think about each other? Is it all you can think about? Do you call each other pet names? Do you flirt in inappropriate places? Does he make you happy… in bed?" Celina added the last two words just to make the younger girl squirm.

"Well, he's been away now for three times longer than we were ever together. Not a good sign for a marriage. But we talked when we were together, I think we were just starting to become friends when I spent that fortnight with him, clearing houses. But, ah, going to bed was always awkward…" Ermelian paused before rushing to say, "He was always very attentive, of course, always very concerned about me." Celina giggled and Ermelian remembered she was discussing the woman's younger brother, before becoming flustered and beginning again on a more appropriate track, "But I don't think we ever flirted. I think we were both aiming to get to that point in a relationship past where it doesn't really matter if you're really head over heels, making the world turn in love, you're just old friends, because we couldn't force ourselves to be in-love."

"That's so sad. You can't live like that, especially with Cleon. Cleon was always the one to be wildly overcommitted to a romance – it's part of the code of chivalry he has treated as law since he found out he was going to be a knight at the age of four, and it's just him. He was so in love with our nursery maid, and not as a mother figure, that he begged mother for a string of her purls, then sent the maid a purl every day until they ran out. I thought mother was going to be furious. She would have skinned me alive and then forced me to collect every single one and return them to her. But she just smiled at him and said he must always stay that sweet. She was softer before father died, though she did decline to loan him any more jewellery, and hence you wear our grandmother's ring."

Ermelian listened with rapt attention to Celina's stories of Cleon as a boy, resolving to attempt a letter to the boy who fell so easily in love rather than the detached accountant of a husband she had been corresponding with over the past few months of winter. The letter she sent was far from perfect, and she felt like she was writing to a perfect stranger, but if the only risk was her embarrassment at a distance of two weeks hard riding, she felt the risk worth any reward.

Dear Cleon,

I should warn you at the beginning of this letter that there are no mentions of the accounts of Kennan, or any report on the running thereof, within for I sent that letter a fortnight ago.

I write because, amongst the ballads we have been listening to around the hearth this winter, Celina has been singing me songs of your boyhood, of a boyhood full of romance and a potential romance I would like to share in.

I am aware that when we were married we were both still in love with other people, and I know that for you that may still be the case and I do not hold it against you. But for me those feelings have faded, indeed they faded as we first strung up friendship together. I lament that you were pulled away to war after so little time at Kennan, for I felt our friendship was deepening daily, though I am thankful that the real has you protecting it on the front.

I came to know you in our month together, and I should write those things now, though I should not mind relearning them on our return.

You see people, not positions, and you give everyone equal credit for the deeds they do. You raise your own positions by working at tasks others may say are beneath you, and find honour in completing those tasks. And you are honourable: you sacrifice your happiness, yourself, for standards of chivalry I have only before heard of in the bardic songs. You are perhaps the strongest man I have met, strength that is needed for farming and for fighting, yet you are gentle as you speak to others, as you play with the children, as you hold me.

And so I am not content to merely continue as your friend, or as duty. You may call me demanding for asking for more, and I shall understand your rejection.

Please write me back when you receive this letter.

Yours,

Ermelian of Kennan