Solo Gather it Together

[Dove Brown]

15 Fall 515

The sun warmed Dove's back as she moved slowly across the field in the second row of workers. Ahead of her, in the first row, farmers scythed the grain and let it drop to the ground. Her row's task was to pick the wheat up, armful by armful, and bind it into sheaves.

She picked up an armful, and wrapped a single stem around the rest like a crude string to bind the sheaf with. She fumbled with the knot at the end, unable to see past the grain to her hands. She had to do this by touch as she wound the end of the binding stem through the starting point to hold it all together. She let the finished sheaf drop and stepped over it. behind her, the third row of workers came through to pick up the sheaves and stand them in pairs. She bent and picked up another armful, and started to wrap another single stem around it and tie it off. As she worked, she felt some of the loose chaff in the wheat work its way through the weave of her shirt and settle scratchily against her skin. She sighed and finished that sheaf as fast as she could. She bent for the next one, but in her hurry, she picked up more than a stem would reach around to bind and had to drop stems back to the ground before she could get anything done.

In past years, she would have been in the third row. She would have treasured the chance to glean for loose stems. Every stem gleaned meant extra food in the house. Now, she had fewer mouths to feed and more money to do it with, but she still counted every copper, and knew everything that was cheapest and where it was cheapest. She didn't think that that was something that was ever going to leave her, like the scars on her body, or memories in her mind. She pulled sharply away from those, focusing instead on little things. On Syna's warmth soaking into her back as she bent for another armful of wheat. On the little itches of the chaff working into her clothes. On the singing that drifted down the field from the first row. It was a slow, almost gentle song. It certainly was not the fast paced sort the castle dwellers seemed to expect from a work song, but it fitted the slow pace of a sweeping scythe perfectly, as if it had been made for that purpose. Dove didn't know whether it had been or not, but the song itself was repetative and easy to pick up. She listened for a couple of verses, then joined in quietly, letting the song fill her mind with comfort the way sunshine and open skies filled her heart with comfort.

"One man shall mow my meadow.
Two men shall gather it together.
Two men, one man and one more,
Shall shear my lambs and ewes and rams
And gather my gold together..."

OOCI make no claim to either the lyrics or the tune. It is a traditional English folksong

Music :

Here is the song the harvesters are singing.

[Dove Brown]

She reduced how much of an armful she took, but over-compensated for the picking up of the large armful by repeatedly picking up ones that were too small. Adjusting that was harder. She tried to pick up a bit more, but her arms were full enough that she ended up dropping what she had and starting again. That slowed her down enough that she caused the line to bend as those on either side of her moved forward and she didn't. She flinched when she realised that, expecting to be yelled at for ruining this like she ruined everything. Her father wasn't there to yell at her though, and nobody else did either. At least, not out loud.

She met the looks that did come her way as best she could and tried to catch up. Harvesting went smoother when everyone kept in line and kept up with the pace. Smoother and faster, and less chance of loosing any of the harvest to extra days and unforeseen weather and accidents - and just plain overripening due to delays. You worked the whole year and the result came down to a few days of frantic effort and timing and planning. To skill and faith and hope and luck, and she didn't have enough of any of them to do more than know just how little she had.

She bit her lip as memories of hunger surged back in and said nothing, but just bent to her work. She ignored the back that was beginning to ache and the itch spreading as the chaff spread across her kin and into all the cracks and creases of her clothes. She didn't want to be responsible for anyone's hunger. She'd known it too often, lived with it for too many years. Not just the hunger of a single meal missed, but the dull ache, hardly noticed any more, of constantly scant meals. Meals eaten every day, so no one could claim to be starving you, but meals that were simply never enough, that left you constantly needing, wanting more - only there wasn't any more, so you tamped it down and got on with life. But you never, ever forgot.

She bit down harder, and forced herself to move faster, pushing aside the protests from her muscles. To bend and gather and tie and drop, bend and gather and tie and drop, catching up and keeping up with workers that were older and taller and more experienced. Bend and gather and tie and drop, stubborn and tough and strong and aching. And determined not to be the person who disrupted the harvest schedule and made things worse for everyone.

Three men shall mow my meadow.
Four men shall gather it together.
Four men, three men, two men, one man and one more,
Shall shear my lambs and ewes and rams
And gather my gold together...

The song pulled her onward. One more. Always one more. One more gatherer than mower. One more general worker - probably a woman, like her - to do the rest of the shearing and gold gathering for the owner. And where was the owner? Was he or she out in the fields too?

[Dove Brown]

She suspected at least some of the knights - these fields' owners - might be out in or around the fields, riding patrol if nothing else, but she couldn't see anyone obviously armoured from where she was. Bend and gather and tie - and flinch as something small and furred dashed between her legs. She nearly fell, but the worker beside grabbed her arm and steadied her until she got her balance again. Dove dropped the sheaf and looked over at her helper to see another girl perhaps a year or two older than she was. Tanned white skin and sunstreaks in the girl's short brown hair suggested that here was someone else who worked out in all weathers rather than someone only out here for the harvest. Her clothes were better than Dove's though, with fewer mended tears and patched holes, which suggested she had more money behind her than Dove had ever had. One of those people who worked from choice not from need, and didn't understand the difference between the two.

Dove muttered a quick thank you, and would have bent back to her work, but the girl grinned. "Farmers stick together. You are a farmer, aren't you?"

Dove nodded. "Yes. I am." She looked along the wavering line, then warily over at the other girl. She didn't know what was expected of her, except where it came to work. She had no doubt that there were things expected of her. There always had been, since she was big enough to walk and work. There always would be. "We need to keep moving though. Can't hold up the line." She edged forward and scooped up her next armful. The girl did the same, but when Dove looked away to focus on tying the sheaf, something tickled her neck. Dove yelped and looked round, but the girl was tying a sheaf with a very innocent look on her face. Too innocent, which meant she had to be involved somehow. Dove finished her sheaf, dropped it, and started another. This time she kept strict awareness of her peripheral vision and saw the girl reach over and try to tickle her again with a blade of wheat. When Dove started to turn, the girl pulled back and used the blade as the tie for her own next sheaf. Dove scowled at her. "What was that for, if farmers stick up for each other?"

[Dove Brown]

The girl rolled her eyes and dropped the finished sheaf. "Just because we're working doesn't mean we can't have fun at the same time. It gets awfully boring at harvest doing the same thing all day." She stopped for a moment to give a long stare at Dove. "Doesn't everyone want to play instead of work sometimes? It isn't like it matters as long as the things get done. I'm not even holding anyone up!"

Dove stared back, feeling her brown cheeks heat under the girl's gaze. Playing? Yes, as a small child she had wanted to play sometimes, but she'd never really had the chance. Fun was something other children had. Ones that, as her father liked to remind her, hadn't killed their mother and deprived the family of a breadwinner. By the time she was eight, she had stopped asking. She knew that she had to work just to survive. To help her family survive. And now she needed the work to support herself and the remnants of her family. No, this girl had never had to work like or she would understand that work mattered too. The heat in her cheeks spread as much from resentment as from embarrassment at being made out to be a fool. The line saved Dove by moving. "We are now," she said, and hid both resentment and embarrassment by bending to catch up again.

She couldn't stop her mind from trying to work out how the girl had done it, even while she was bending her aching back and gathering more sheaves. How did you reach out like that without dropping so much that you had to start again? She needed both arms - or did she? The line reached the end of that row and turned to start the next one. Harvesting went in a spiral around the field, so this row would be almost as long as the last one. Dove watched the girl from the corner of her eye and saw that she hugged the wheat against herself, rather than hold it with both arms. That she used her body like an extra arm. Dove tried it and found it more awkward at first - partly because Dove was smaller than the girl was, with proportionately shorter arms - and partly because she had to remember not to do it the other way. They were halfway down the row before Dove felt secure enough in the new method to reach out with the binding stem and tickle the other girl.

The stretch to do so made the wheat slip in her grasp, and she hastily brought her arm back to tie the sheaf. She wasn't fast enough to avoid the girl spotting the movement though, and she heard the giggles next to her as they moved on to the next sheaf. Dove waited tensely, all her senses tensed to take in what the girl was doing. She heard a rustle as a foot moved in the stubble, saw a shift in the shadows that slanted before them both as the girl extended her arm, and she ducked as quickly as she could. She only got low enought that the straw went in her ear rather than on her neck, and she muffled a squeak. That was worse! Her right hand flew up to knock it away and half an untied sheaf tumbled from her grasp. Her hand hit something more solid than a straw stem and the girl yelped in her turn. "You didn't have to hit me!"

"I didn't mean to!" Dove retorted, keeping her voice down with an effort as she tried to calm herself and the situation. She dropped the remains of the wrecked sheaf and started again, taking slow breaths until chaff went up her nose and made her sneeze. "I only meant to catch the stem."

[Dove Brown]

Dove sneezed twice more before she finished that sheaf and dropped it thankfully. Each sneeze brought a huff of amusement from the girl, but no acknowledgement. Dove kept her hands to herself and her eyes on the wheat and bound it the old way. They turned another corner. As the first row paused to sharpen their scythes, the girl stopped too. "Don't hit me again," she said crossly. "Look what you're doing. I thought you were a farmer, like me."

"I am a farmer," Dove repeated wearily. She was a farmer, she had always worked on the farms, she just wasn't rich, or pretty, or with the kind of childhood the girl had clearly gotten. She would have liked it, maybe, but wishes weren't granted. You had to make do with what you had. She had the muscles from fieldwork, memories of fieldwork, earned a living from fieldwork. The first row finished sharpening their scythe blades and began cutting again. Frustration meant that Dove tied the next sheaf with a harder than usual yank, and the stem snapped. The would-be sheaf fell apart. Dove scrambled to fix it, hearing little muffled giggles from the girl beside her. She took a slow, careful, breath, tamped down her feelings and managed not to snap a second stem. She wanted, oh so badly, to do something similar to the girl's sheaves, but she had learned from her father not to show anything like that. If your wants showed on your face, people could take them away. She set herself instead to outdoing the girl. To out work her and outlast her and show that poor as she might be, patched as she might be, ignorant as she might be, she was still the better farmer. If she ever earned enough to no longer be poor and patched and hungry, she told herself, she would remember and not look down on people who still were. She wouldn't forget. She would never, ever, turn into someone like the girl beside her. She stretched her aching back for a moment, turning her face up into Syna's warmth. The golden wheat reflected the golden sunlight around the field, now surrounded by widening stripe of paler stubble as the harvesters circled the field. Then she bent back to her task singing softly:

Nine men shall mow my meadow.
Ten men shall gather it together.
Ten men, nine men, eight men, seven men, six men, five men, four men, three men, two men, one man and one more,
Shall shear my lambs and ewes and rams
And gather my gold together...

[Yisanareysin]

The ssssssnake hassss your gradesssss...

Dove Brown

Skills

‡ Agriculture +4
‡ Farming +5
‡ Singing +2
‡ Endurance +1
‡ Tickling +1
‡ Observation +5

Lores

‡ Song: One man shall mow my meadow
‡ Holding wheat with one arm
‡ Tickling: Using straw
‡ Muffling your anger

Rewards & Retribution

N/A

Comments

N/A

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