the Leathermines

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The smell of fresh bread mingled with a lingering burnt boar’s hair scent in the Great Hall.  The waking members of the household took advantage of the kitchens having been working through the storm.  Talents had been found over the last fortnight in people as the household shifted and settled, including one young wardsman who had a talent to bake the most delicious breads.  He had woken with the others at the quiet alarm.  When he knew the keep was secure, he had been at Orgia’s side starting on the makings of a feast in the middle of the night.  He was tired and wished to lie down to sleep, but he waited for the other members of the household to gather for morning meal.

It was not the earliest the household had ever gathered, but the excitement the night before had many sleeping lightly.  Groups formed in the Great Hall, some for companionship, some for information.  Geralk was at one of the tables with his lists, pages stacked and sorted.  Several of the servants were seated with him discussing the supplies they had been able to find or produce the day before.  The Dance Master had a blanket pulled around him as he paced out some footsteps with several of the household, dancers and wardsmen together.  Bundles of wood were hauled in on backs and stacked at the ends of the Great Hall as the fires were coaxed back into life.  Ashes were scooped into metal buckets and taken back into the kitchens where animal fat was being rendered down for cooking, soaps and candles.  One of the nobles was awake and warming his hands on the mug of tea that had appeared there, Pillar carefully looking at the scrapes he had not attended to the night before.  Lucaris was still asleep on the other side of the nobles, the apprentice she had taken sitting up and rubbing her eyes one place further down on the hard floor.

Laun had gone to the privy and then outside to see what damage had been done in the night.  From what she could see, part of one side of the tower roof was off and had landed on top of a wagon in the inner courtyard.  The smithy was indeed damaged, though she was not sure, other than a wall and roof pole, what may be needed.  She stepped around shards of wood in the muddy ground and saw part of a chain caught in the mud.  She pulled it out and found it was part of a necklace.  She recognized it as one of her Lady’s giftings from her Lord.  Laun kept it in her hand and went on looking at the damage she could see until her feet were completely coated with mud.

The thought that passed through the noble’s mind as Laun came into the Great Hall was how childlike she seemed with the simple tunic, her hair loose on her shoulders, the mud to her knees and something seemingly precious grasped in her hand.  Disa thought something completely different and had Laun almost carried out of the Great Hall and to the closest water, which was in the kitchens.  Laun tried to complain, but her hand maid was having none of it.  Disa took the jewelry and put it in a pocket in her apron as she started in with, “...trying to keep you at least presentable while the King is here and what do you do?  Trod mud and filth all over the keep!  If you weren’t My Lady...”

Orgia laughed at the hand maid and stirred the preserves one last time before ladling some into a ceramic pot warmed in simmering water and the rest into a wooden trencher.  With a motion to one of the kitchen staff, the trencher was taken out to the Great Hall to much welcome and cheerful noise.  The chatelaine turned and watched as Laun stopped fighting being cleaned and allowed the people around her to make her presentable.

A hush went over the people in the Great Hall.  Orgia went to one of the doors and saw the King and his man Malis enter.  The ingrained bows and curtsies from the Salam-Dir household was right for his Majesty, but now seemed odd for them.  She watched him look around the people gathered and headed for the bench he had been at in the early morning hours.  He did not stop to talk to anyone and did not even look at his injured swornmen bundled on the floor.

The chatelaine turned back to her kitchens and made a decision.  There was more to do in the kitchens, in the household.  He was one man, an important man, but she was not going to let him disrupt the flow that had begun.  She dished out the plainest gruel from the biggest pot into two bowls and took them out to Dreng and Malis herself.

Cleaned and with her hair put up with a few pins Disa had in the pocket of her apron, Laun went back out to the Great Hall.  Smiles greeted her, hands touched and a mug of cider was offered to her.  She went around the room, greeting and being greeted, not seeing the glare that was aimed at her back from the King.  Laun spent time with Pillar and the nobles that were being tended to, artlessly charming the few awake men as she pulled her tunic up to show the scar on her hip as they talked.  One of the Nobles pulled up a torn sleeve and showed a battle scar decades old and laughed as Laun delicately touched it.

The King also watched as the sideboard filled with things that looked much more appealing than the bowl of gruel he had been handed.  He waited for a bit, stirring the oat gruel with his carved horn spoon until he just got up and went to the sideboard.  One of the wardsmen stepped to the side as Dreng approached, but did not give more deference than that.  Dreng noted that there was a lump of fresh butter and some preserves in the young man’s bowl with his gruel.  The small selection on the table made his Majesty’s mouth water.  Soon, there were lumps and splashes of things in Dreng’s bowl and he was enjoying the first real food he had eaten in over a week.

There was little ceremony in this household.  Most of the people around Dreng were a quarter or less his age.  They sat and stood as they would, talking, leaning and touching.  Clothing seemed random in the daylight as it had been in the dark.  Many of the women wore nothing but a long, flowing skirt showing that they were slaves, but they were not serving or retired to the background as Dreng was used to.  Laun was shown a gentle deference as she walked among her household, but she did not show more or less attention to any one.  Dreng sat next to Malis and watched.

Laun stood in the middle of the Great Hall as she had done in the woods most mornings or noonings before.  She turned and looked at all the faces there.  The room quieted and attention came to her.  She saw people come to the doors into the kitchens and nodded to them.  She saw Edgar and Nan come in, Nan slightly flushed and carrying bedding through and towards the laundry.  She saw the nobles being helped up off the floor and to cushioned benches.  The few carpenters they had were sharpening chisels on oiled stones until they heard the silence around them.

She made a full turn and stopped facing Dreng.  She curtsied slightly and started talking, continuing her turn.  “The storm last night was not unexpected, but it seems to have damaged things we need.  Who has been out and seen the storm damage this morning?”

Men and women who had been busy already that morning reported what they saw, some with partial plans to fix things.  Outside the walls of the keep, trees had been blown over, the road blocked.  The carpenters had already seen some of the roof damage and asked for help cutting boards from the dry logs in the woodshop.  Edgar stood and stated that if the road was blocked, they may be able to use it for defense, if there were more visitors on the way.  There were some nods and some scowls, all knowing that what he said was true.

Geralk stood at a pause and asked for help sorting and disbursing items from one of the outer harvest houses.  Many of the kitchen staff looked at Orgia first and raised fists at her nod.  One of the younger servants hesitantly stood and blurted out that he knew how to fish.  After a wave of laughter, another youth called out that he knew where the nets had been put after last season and they moved towards each other.

That broke the attention and the household moved to their duties.  Laun drank her cider and moved to the sideboard, accepting a hunk of bread with preserves from the hand of one of the stablehands.  She watched as the people flowed out and left those who could not, or would not, work.  Laun saw the head of the baker tilting forward as he sat against the wall.  She took a loose cloth from a bundle next to Geralk and wrapped the wardsman in it, his eyes fluttering slightly as he was laid down where he sat.  She knelt and stroked his cheek for a few moments before getting up to face Dreng.

Fount and Edgar were at her back as Lady Laun approached the King.  Edgar was taller than Fount, helmet cropped brown hair and face stubble blending at the temple, a leather jerkin over his tunic and sword belt.  Fount brushed his longer, black hair out of his grey eyes, an axe stuffed through the belt at his hip, an energy bottled in him that he intended to use on the downed trees.  Disa was to the side, the fussy nature covering the worry over what was to happen.  Her hands went to Laun’s hair to push back a pin and Laun caught her hand before she pulled it away.

“Sire, are you well enough to walk with me?”

Dreng put the bowl licked clean on the floor and stood, an arm out to Lady Laun.  Malis went to stand and Dreng motioned for him to stay.  Disa dropped Laun’s hand to hurry off and was back before the small group had made it out into the courtyard with a pair of boots.

“If you are going out, you ARE going to wear something on your feet.”  It took only a moment, but the King saw the care Laun’s people had for her, even if she was not concerned for herself.

The courtyard was being cleaned out yet again.  This time it was wooden rubble, not bodies.  Crows cawed and flew overhead in the morning air.  The group was walking slowly through the mud, Dreng looking at the solid bones of the buildings under the damage.   Laun stopped and tried to pick up the side of a large board that had fallen.  Many hands came to her aide and the board was placed against the wall.  Dreng brushed off dirt from his hands and realized that they were soft.

Leaves still on twigs littered the road to the gate.  Branches were already being cut where they lay, part cords of firewood stacked at the edges of the road.  Drainage away from the walls was good and puddles only appeared when they had gone tens of paces down the road.  Gravel was leveling out some of the water filled divots by one of the servants who had found a small quarryable hillface the week before.  Saplings were being cut from stands along the road, the bark being striped and twisted for the carpenter’s use in rebuilding the Tower’s roof.  Clearing and creating was around them as the King and Lady Laun walked.

Laun, being the blunt creature that she was, said, “How much time do we have before your son’s followers come here?”

Dreng kept walking, his knee hurting as it did after most storms.  He shook his head and sighed.  “Lady, I don’t know.  We were trying to get to Rosemond for help when we found that they had given aide to Falmir.  We split the group and I do not know what happened to the others.”  Dreng pushed aside a low branch as they passed below a tree, it’s roots exposed as it tilted over the road.

Laun ducked around the tree and stopped a pace beyond.  She saw the large oaks that had been blown down onto the road ahead.  A few people were clearing off branches from the main trunks, men and women handing tools and wood to each other.   A large crack sounded and people scattered as a branch as long as half the Great Hall gave way and landed across road and brush.  One of the men took a hammer and thumped at the length and seemed to like what he heard.  Bark and branches were being cleared from the large log as Laun motioned for the King to follow the path to Lady Hellon’s Hill.

The devastation was not as complete as Laun had feared, but the wooded hold they had was gone.  Several of the tables were smashed by fallen branches, glass from forgotten lanterns making it dangerous for those unawares.  Some fabric still clung to where it had been tied, shredded and soggy as it was.  Strong men stood from the tables they were lifting from the mud and nodded to their Lady.  Laun waved back and they continued to try to rescue the needed furniture.

Dreng looked around and let himself be amazed.  “I had no idea this was here when we passed last night.”

Laun nodded.  “We needed a place until the castle and keep could be...cleaned for those who remained of my household.”  Laun sat on one of the upright benches and motioned, indicating the area around her.  “This was my Lady Hellon’s favorite spot for summer meals.  It became our home for a fortnight.”

Dreng put one foot up on the bench and leaned on his knee.  The use of the land was uncommon, but practical.  He remembered having to live in a manor that had been ravaged by a disease in winter.  There had been no where to put the dead except in the rooms they had died in.  A chill went through him and he pushed it to the side.  Dreng had fought battles but hardly looked back to see what had happened to the fallen.

One table was dislodged from the mud and was being carried carefully down the slick slope.  Fount put his hand briefly on Laun’s shoulder and headed back down to the road.  Disa went towards where the sleeping mat had been and started to gather up things that had been left behind.  Edgar stood behind Laun, arms crossed low on his chest.  Laun closed her eyes and remembered meals shared under these trees and the dancing they had done.  A sigh came from her and she looked up at Dreng.

“Sire, you are still the King of the Midlands, the one warrior who tied the kingdom together over the years to make it as strong as it is.”

Dreng was not expecting her to say anything eloquent like this after the blunt questions she had asked.  He nodded and looked down into her face, familiar and yet strange.

“The future is uncertain.  But, if I may be so bold, may I ask for something from you?”

He turned and faced her, dropping down to straddle the bench beside her.  “If it is within my power, such as it is.”

Laun looked at her hands for a moment and then slightly sideways at Dreng.  “Sire, while you are here at the Salam-Dir lands, will you teach us?”

Laun felt Edgar step back slightly.  Dreng looked confused and asked, “Teach you what?”

“Anything and everything you are willing to.”  She put a fingertip on one of his knees.  “You held your crown and throne longer than I have been alive.  To do so, you have learned much.  If you wish for us to help you as has been asked, we need to know how to help you.”

Dreng was the one to lean back slightly.  His eyes went from Laun to Edgar and back again.  “I will do what I can.  Where do you need me, my Lady?”

Laun went to put a hand on Dreng’s wrinkled cheek but stopped partway there.  She let her hand drop to her leg and apologized with, “I take too many liberties, Sire.”

“Yes you do, Lady,” Dreng stated.  He took her hand up and kissed the knuckles.  “It is most charming.”

Laun smiled.  She stood, still with her hand in the King’s and said, “So!  Sire, If you would, there are trees that need to be cleared.  It is not as mighty as being head of state, but it is a most pressing need for our house.”

Dreng stood and bowed slightly to Laun and then a nod to Edgar before going back down the path towards the road.

“Now that he has something to do, what of the many things can I put my hands to?”  Laun turned and put her hands out to Edgar.

He stepped forward and took one of the hands, leaning down to kiss it briefly.  “Yesterday, you mentioned a secluded spot...”

Laun colored slightly and went to turn away.  Edgar held tight to her hand and pulled her towards him.  She resisted and his hand went to her wrist.  Her eyes went wide and she said, “You are hurting me.”

Edgar dropped her wrist.   He turned and saw Disa, a look that made him glad she was far enough away not to kill him with her bare hands.  “I... With your permission.”  He turned and left.

Disa put the things she had been collecting on the bench and wrapped her arms around Laun.  They did not say anything, but Disa could feel the panic in her Lady’s breath, the slight shiver down her back.  Laun pulled away after a moment and started to walk away.

“Lady?”  Disa heard a hint of panic in her own voice.

“No.  Just Laun.”  She did not stop walking.

 

Chapter 19 Laun is introspective while watching a stream