LJ Idol Three Strikes Edition - Week 4 - The axe forgets; the tree remembers
“What you failed to see Adara, is that ‘as the twig is bent, so grows the tree.’”
Zedekar was lecturing her. Zedekar was angry. She had misjudged everything.
Adara fervently wished she were anywhere other than the wizard’s stone tower. His eyes shone as he warmed to his topic. Outside the intermittent rain continued between gusts of wind and occasional, still-far-off peals of thunder. Wild weather was headed their way, but the gusting wind was the least of Adara’s worries.
“You were so busy thinking short term, little apprentice, that you forgot who is really in charge. You thought of this year’s crop yields, and this year’s fat larders, but you didn’t think about where that would leave us.”
“But sir,” she couldn’t believe that she was daring to argue. On the other hand, her advice to the grain-master had been good! “If they plant all eight of the East fields in the new wheat, instead of just two, they are almost sure to double the yield in all eight of the fields, just as they did in the one that they tried last year. Not only that, the seed for the new wheat is still cheaper than the old seed. . .”
The old wizard glared as he advanced on Adara and her words died in her throat. This was the man who had beaten her predecessor within an inch of her life. Adara still had a knot on her left forearm from one of his lessons over the winter. She clenched her jaw to keep from cradling that forearm away from him.
Short term. Long term. . . What was Zedekar thinking? Now it was early spring. All winter, they’d measured the snows and rains, and the icy mornings, only to conclude that winter was much the same as winter had been the preceding year. It followed that the weather this spring and summer was likely to be very similar to last summer, so that new wheat really should have been the best choice. . .
He stopped his advance and lowered his voice. “Come here and listen to me, you little fool. Really listen, because this is the kind of lesson you won’t have many chances to learn.”
Reluctantly she stepped forward. Three long slow steps until she was close enough that she had to tip her head up to meet his eyes. He glared at her, but didn’t reach for her with anything but his terrible low voice.
“If we harvest a bumper crop of wheat this year,” he asked, “what happens?”
Adara’s mind raced. Extra wheat was wheat that would ensure that everyone had plenty. Extra could be sold to neighboring estates, resulting in coin for the Baron’s coffers. Coin in the Baron’s coffers might mean many things. Repairs of equipment, additional livestock, metal for the foundry. . .
She couldn’t see the dire thing he was about to tell her. She didn’t want to see it. Her eyes shifted away from Zedekar’s face, briefly touching on Jace’s downcast gaze before skating back to the old wizard. Her fellow apprentice wasn’t going to be helping her out of this situation. He wouldn’t even look at her, and his mouth was twisted into an expression that she thought of as his grin-grimace. He might have an idea of what Zedekar was thinking, and he might have been dismayed about it, but he was struggling not to show that he felt any sadness. His eyes looked dead. Jace had been apprenticed to Zedekar two years before Adara. He didn’t pick up magic or reasoning as quickly as she did, but he was better at predicting Zedekar and his moods. Adara’s stomach dropped at the grin-grimace. This was going to be very bad.
“You don’t want to answer me, Adara?” Zedekar almost purred. “I’ll give you the answer.”
“If we double last year’s harvest, everyone in the Barony has plenty of bread all winter, and the Baron makes some extra coin. The men of this hold are fat and happy and they have extra time to think about what they want, and how they want the Baron to spend that extra coin. Maybe they start to question what I’ve told them about when to clear the next West field and when to let the East fields lie fallow. Maybe they suggest to the Baron that he should talk to other witches or wizards that might help him increase his holdings even more.”
Adara wanted badly to step away. Zedekar was really working himself up and his voice was rising. The hand that carried his staff was raising up, too, which scared her even more. He had struck her arm with that staff in his last frothy fury, just when she dared to step away.
“You think of ‘us’ as the whole Barony,” he sneered at her, “But the ‘us’ that matters is the three of us in this tower. ‘Us’ is not you and the harvest-master, Adara.”
Her cheeks colored at the mention of the soft-spoken harvest-master, and she hoped beyond hope that Zedekar hadn’t really noticed how much she enjoyed dealing with harvest-master Belen. But her heart sank even more as he continued.
“I’m afraid that the harvest master will be the most hurt by the bad advice you’ve given him without first running it by me. He will not be permitted to sew all of that new wheat. Some of it will have to be ground at once, at a loss, for we’ll only sew two fields with it. We can supplement the coin we need to buy the rest of the seed with coin from his personal coffers, which means he will be relegated to many more years of saving before he ever has a dowry. Young women probably won’t even look at him by the time he saves a bride-price all over again. But that’s what happens to people who don’t listen to. . .”
Adara knew that her face had gone completely red. Bad enough that he was punishing Adara, but Belen didn’t deserve any of this, and had come to the same independent conclusion that Adara had about the new wheat. He only wanted what was best for the Barony. Adara’s eyes stung with anger and fear, not just for herself, but for. . .
Wait a minute, why wasn’t Zedekar continuing?
Adara looked up and this time she couldn’t keep from stepping back as Zedekar stumbled forward, toward her, his lips moving. He dropped his staff, and his hands grasped toward his neck. Something black protruded under his chin, with red blossoming around it.
Adara stepped to the side as he fell to his knees then slowly collapsed onto his face.
Adara and Jace stared at each other wide eyed.
Then their attention was drawn to the big window beside Zedekar’s desk. A slender but strong looking hand and forearm covered in a battered leather bracer grasped at the lintel and then with a loud thump and grunt another matching hand and arm gripped on beside it. With a mighty heave and groan, Marantha, the huntsman’s spinster daughter, pulled herself up into the open window and then leaped down into the room. She swept the room with her eyes, taking in Jace and Adara and Zedekar. In three easy strides, she crossed the room to Zedekar, knelt beside him and then tore the crossbow bolt that protruded from the back of his neck back through his neck with a jerk. Roughly, she flipped him over onto his back and before anyone could say anything, she used the still-sharp head of the bolt to slice his throat open, cleanly and deeply, from one side to the other. His eyelids fluttered and his blood flowed in regular gushes as Marantha stood.
“You can never be too sure with wizards,” she said in a low voice, swiveling her gaze between Jace and Adara.
Jace broke the silence with a voice that Adara would later liken to the squawk of a chicken.
“You told me you needed a charm-breaker because you were afraid for someone you cared about,” he squawked at Marantha. “I thought. . . I thought. . .” The thought was clearly caught in his throat.
“You thought I wanted to break a love charm that someone cast on someone I fancied, I know,” Marantha answered him with a sympathetic laugh, “not a protection charm that someone cast on themselves. But if you think about it, I did need that charm-breaker to protect people I care about, so you did sell me exactly what I needed.”
“And,” she kicked at the now still body of Zedekar, “My thanks to you. It worked.”
Jace staggered to Zedekar’s chair and collapsed into it.
“Now you lot have got to decide how you’re going to play this,’ Marantha continued.
“You climbed the outside of the tower?” Adara asked, “Even though it’s been raining?”
Marantha grinned, “Well, this is actually the fourth time that I’ve climbed it. This evening was the first time I climbed it while it was damp, though. And this is the first time I made a one-handed crossbow shot while hanging from the side of the window, too. That was really the tricky bit. Well, it was the tricky bit, once I had the charm-breaker. Without that, the bolt probably would have bounced right back at me.”
“But honestly I think I got up here just in time. That old git going on about bending twigs and growing trees. As if he’s some kind of woodsman or woodwife. Ha! And after what he told the woodwife to do with the South forest eight years ago, too.” She shook her head in disgust and beads of rainwater scattered around her.
“The idea of Zedekar as a forest steward is just rich. High time we had a new wizard or witch is what I’m thinking. I’m thinking it’s a good thing he had a couple of apprentices about ready to take over. . .”
Zedekar was lecturing her. Zedekar was angry. She had misjudged everything.
Adara fervently wished she were anywhere other than the wizard’s stone tower. His eyes shone as he warmed to his topic. Outside the intermittent rain continued between gusts of wind and occasional, still-far-off peals of thunder. Wild weather was headed their way, but the gusting wind was the least of Adara’s worries.
“You were so busy thinking short term, little apprentice, that you forgot who is really in charge. You thought of this year’s crop yields, and this year’s fat larders, but you didn’t think about where that would leave us.”
“But sir,” she couldn’t believe that she was daring to argue. On the other hand, her advice to the grain-master had been good! “If they plant all eight of the East fields in the new wheat, instead of just two, they are almost sure to double the yield in all eight of the fields, just as they did in the one that they tried last year. Not only that, the seed for the new wheat is still cheaper than the old seed. . .”
The old wizard glared as he advanced on Adara and her words died in her throat. This was the man who had beaten her predecessor within an inch of her life. Adara still had a knot on her left forearm from one of his lessons over the winter. She clenched her jaw to keep from cradling that forearm away from him.
Short term. Long term. . . What was Zedekar thinking? Now it was early spring. All winter, they’d measured the snows and rains, and the icy mornings, only to conclude that winter was much the same as winter had been the preceding year. It followed that the weather this spring and summer was likely to be very similar to last summer, so that new wheat really should have been the best choice. . .
He stopped his advance and lowered his voice. “Come here and listen to me, you little fool. Really listen, because this is the kind of lesson you won’t have many chances to learn.”
Reluctantly she stepped forward. Three long slow steps until she was close enough that she had to tip her head up to meet his eyes. He glared at her, but didn’t reach for her with anything but his terrible low voice.
“If we harvest a bumper crop of wheat this year,” he asked, “what happens?”
Adara’s mind raced. Extra wheat was wheat that would ensure that everyone had plenty. Extra could be sold to neighboring estates, resulting in coin for the Baron’s coffers. Coin in the Baron’s coffers might mean many things. Repairs of equipment, additional livestock, metal for the foundry. . .
She couldn’t see the dire thing he was about to tell her. She didn’t want to see it. Her eyes shifted away from Zedekar’s face, briefly touching on Jace’s downcast gaze before skating back to the old wizard. Her fellow apprentice wasn’t going to be helping her out of this situation. He wouldn’t even look at her, and his mouth was twisted into an expression that she thought of as his grin-grimace. He might have an idea of what Zedekar was thinking, and he might have been dismayed about it, but he was struggling not to show that he felt any sadness. His eyes looked dead. Jace had been apprenticed to Zedekar two years before Adara. He didn’t pick up magic or reasoning as quickly as she did, but he was better at predicting Zedekar and his moods. Adara’s stomach dropped at the grin-grimace. This was going to be very bad.
“You don’t want to answer me, Adara?” Zedekar almost purred. “I’ll give you the answer.”
“If we double last year’s harvest, everyone in the Barony has plenty of bread all winter, and the Baron makes some extra coin. The men of this hold are fat and happy and they have extra time to think about what they want, and how they want the Baron to spend that extra coin. Maybe they start to question what I’ve told them about when to clear the next West field and when to let the East fields lie fallow. Maybe they suggest to the Baron that he should talk to other witches or wizards that might help him increase his holdings even more.”
Adara wanted badly to step away. Zedekar was really working himself up and his voice was rising. The hand that carried his staff was raising up, too, which scared her even more. He had struck her arm with that staff in his last frothy fury, just when she dared to step away.
“You think of ‘us’ as the whole Barony,” he sneered at her, “But the ‘us’ that matters is the three of us in this tower. ‘Us’ is not you and the harvest-master, Adara.”
Her cheeks colored at the mention of the soft-spoken harvest-master, and she hoped beyond hope that Zedekar hadn’t really noticed how much she enjoyed dealing with harvest-master Belen. But her heart sank even more as he continued.
“I’m afraid that the harvest master will be the most hurt by the bad advice you’ve given him without first running it by me. He will not be permitted to sew all of that new wheat. Some of it will have to be ground at once, at a loss, for we’ll only sew two fields with it. We can supplement the coin we need to buy the rest of the seed with coin from his personal coffers, which means he will be relegated to many more years of saving before he ever has a dowry. Young women probably won’t even look at him by the time he saves a bride-price all over again. But that’s what happens to people who don’t listen to. . .”
Adara knew that her face had gone completely red. Bad enough that he was punishing Adara, but Belen didn’t deserve any of this, and had come to the same independent conclusion that Adara had about the new wheat. He only wanted what was best for the Barony. Adara’s eyes stung with anger and fear, not just for herself, but for. . .
Wait a minute, why wasn’t Zedekar continuing?
Adara looked up and this time she couldn’t keep from stepping back as Zedekar stumbled forward, toward her, his lips moving. He dropped his staff, and his hands grasped toward his neck. Something black protruded under his chin, with red blossoming around it.
Adara stepped to the side as he fell to his knees then slowly collapsed onto his face.
Adara and Jace stared at each other wide eyed.
Then their attention was drawn to the big window beside Zedekar’s desk. A slender but strong looking hand and forearm covered in a battered leather bracer grasped at the lintel and then with a loud thump and grunt another matching hand and arm gripped on beside it. With a mighty heave and groan, Marantha, the huntsman’s spinster daughter, pulled herself up into the open window and then leaped down into the room. She swept the room with her eyes, taking in Jace and Adara and Zedekar. In three easy strides, she crossed the room to Zedekar, knelt beside him and then tore the crossbow bolt that protruded from the back of his neck back through his neck with a jerk. Roughly, she flipped him over onto his back and before anyone could say anything, she used the still-sharp head of the bolt to slice his throat open, cleanly and deeply, from one side to the other. His eyelids fluttered and his blood flowed in regular gushes as Marantha stood.
“You can never be too sure with wizards,” she said in a low voice, swiveling her gaze between Jace and Adara.
Jace broke the silence with a voice that Adara would later liken to the squawk of a chicken.
“You told me you needed a charm-breaker because you were afraid for someone you cared about,” he squawked at Marantha. “I thought. . . I thought. . .” The thought was clearly caught in his throat.
“You thought I wanted to break a love charm that someone cast on someone I fancied, I know,” Marantha answered him with a sympathetic laugh, “not a protection charm that someone cast on themselves. But if you think about it, I did need that charm-breaker to protect people I care about, so you did sell me exactly what I needed.”
“And,” she kicked at the now still body of Zedekar, “My thanks to you. It worked.”
Jace staggered to Zedekar’s chair and collapsed into it.
“Now you lot have got to decide how you’re going to play this,’ Marantha continued.
“You climbed the outside of the tower?” Adara asked, “Even though it’s been raining?”
Marantha grinned, “Well, this is actually the fourth time that I’ve climbed it. This evening was the first time I climbed it while it was damp, though. And this is the first time I made a one-handed crossbow shot while hanging from the side of the window, too. That was really the tricky bit. Well, it was the tricky bit, once I had the charm-breaker. Without that, the bolt probably would have bounced right back at me.”
“But honestly I think I got up here just in time. That old git going on about bending twigs and growing trees. As if he’s some kind of woodsman or woodwife. Ha! And after what he told the woodwife to do with the South forest eight years ago, too.” She shook her head in disgust and beads of rainwater scattered around her.
“The idea of Zedekar as a forest steward is just rich. High time we had a new wizard or witch is what I’m thinking. I’m thinking it’s a good thing he had a couple of apprentices about ready to take over. . .”