Headlands and Furrows

by **Dove Brown** on October 15th, 2015, 11:45 pm

45 Fall 515

A riddle, a riddle, a farmer's riddle,
Alive at both ends and dead in the middle.
What am I?

The harvest was in from the fields. Not much more than that, but in at least - things like threshing and winnowing could wait for winter - and since work never stopped, that meant it was time to plough the fields for the fall plantings. Dove arrived at the field to find the same horse hitched to the plough as had pulled the manure cart earlier in the year. If the nudge it gave her was anything to go by, it remembered her, and she remembered to scratch up between its ears. Sure enough, the horse liked it. Since she was smaller and lighter than the other farmer, she took the position at the horse's nose to try and keep it going straight, while the woman guided the plough through the soil and stubble. The plough turned the soil over, burying the stubble as extra fertiliser for the next crop.

Dove walked with a hand on the bridle strap running down the horse's cheek. The bridle did have reins attached, which passed through a loop on the bulky collar and onward to the ploughwoman, but they didn't seem to be used much. They did give Dove something to grab if she had to though. She also had to be careful to stay on the unploughed side of the horse so that her footsteps didn't flatten the previously ploughed row. The first two rows went smoothly enough, straight across the field and back. At the end of each row, the farmer lifted the plough clear and Dove led the horse in an arc across the headland and back to the start of the next row. The plough went back into the ground once they were off the headland, and Dove switched sides depending on which way they were going. At the end of the third row, a tuft of grass caught the horse's eye and instead of following Dove's lead it jerked forward, jolting Dove almost off her feet, and chomped down on the grass.

"Petching, colt-headed, clotpole of a pile of shyke," Dove snarled under her breath as she got her feet back under her. The horse snickered. Dove growled in the back of her throat, feeling her cheeks heat, grabbed hold of the reins and pulled. Its head came round easily, a wisp of grass protruding from its mouth, and she could have sworn it was laughing at her. "Are you trying to make me fall flat on my face again?" she demanded, not really expecting an answer, and heard a soft chuckle from the farmer. Dove's cheeks burned hotter. She looked over her shoulder to see the farmer shaking her head.

"She's not that bad," the farmer told her, "but she's easily distracted. Talk to her, keep her attention on you and not on whatever else catches her eye."

Dove gave the farmer a disbelieving look over her shoulder, but the farmer nodded encouragingly. Dove faced front again, guiding the horse along the furrow. As they came back down the next row, she saw that the previous row was a bit wobbly in places. Every time she turned to look back, she realised, there was a veer in the furrow. You could literally see in the field where she wasn't paying attention.

by **Dove Brown** on December 12th, 2015, 3:06 am

"So what am I supposed to say to you?" she grumbled to the horse. "Talk to you, she says. Keep the horse's attention on you, she says. I'm really not much of a talker to people, let alone horses!" She kept her eyes on the ground ahead, not wanting to cause another veer in the furrows. "I live alone. I work almost alone, except for harvesting - and that just made me remember how much I hate talking to some kinds of people." The horse's ear nearest her swivelled to follow the sound of her voice. "They just don't listen," Dove muttered, "and they really don't understand. They think I'm just like them, and I'm not, and when they find that out, they stop pretending to like me. I'd rather have people that know I'm not like them. At least they don't expect anything particular from me."

She switched sides as they turned onto another row, and saw the horse switch ears. "I suppose that means you're listening," she said, dropping her gaze to the ground. She spotted a stone that the plough would have hit on the next row, and let go of the horse long enough to snatch the stone up and toss it across the field onto a headland. She'd picked stones from fields for so many years, it was almost instinctive now. Of course, the plough didn't stop when she did, so she had to run to catch up. A stone could damage the plough if the plough hit it hard, or the ploughwoman if the plough threw it up in the air. Rarely it damage the horse or oxen pulling the plough, but not as often, because usually if a stone was thrown up, it was thrown up and back, not forwards. Knowing she was in the safest place at the horse's head didn't fill her with joy, only resignation for a long job. "These things need to be done," she told the horse out loud. "I don't have to like them, I just have to do them. Ploughing is only twice a year, and at least now I can be sure my boots fit and I'm not ploughing blisters onto my feet with every row walked."

The horse dropped its head and lipped at Dove's braid of hair. She pulled away with a scowl, drawing the braid forward over her shoulder, away from the horse. "I'm not edible, horse-face. Stop trying to nibble me, OK?" She pushed it lightly, keeping it on course, and felt the change from ploughland to headland under her feet. "OK, you, time to turn again." She ducked across to the other side, and led the horse round to start yet another row. They were about a third of the way down it when Dove felt a hefty jolt running up the reins under her hand, and heard a string of muffled curses from the farmer. The horse planted all four feet and refused to move. Dove tugged in vain a couple of times, then turned and trotted back to see what was the matter.

by **Dove Brown** on December 12th, 2015, 3:14 am

She found the farmer clutching her left knee and cursing under her breath. "Plough hit something. threw it up in the air, and it hit me in the knee," she said tersely. She tried a pace or two, limping badly, and shook her head. "If I try and plough like this, I'm going to hurt it more." She looked Dove over. "Are you up to finishing the field?"

Dove swallowed hard, and nodded. She'd manage somehow, despite never having done it before. She wouldn't betray the trust the farmer showed in her.

"Right. In that case, I'll leave Gloss," she indicated the horse, "with you to finish the field, and go and get this seen to. If I'm not back by the time you finish, take her up to the Barracks. It may not be much, but the ploughing is urgent, so thanks." She hobbled off without waiting for a reply.

Dove watched the farmer leave, and then looked around. The plough had jumped out of the furrow and lay tilted a little, on the surface. A lump of something - probably the whatever it was that had hit the farmer, lay a couple of future rows away on unploughed stubble. Dove ran her hands and eyes cautiously over the plough, but found no obvious cracks or breaks in it. Then she padded over to the lump and picked it up to toss it clear. She'd expected it to be a stone - it should have been a stone - but it was too light to be a stone, and too square. She hefted it, and a clod of dirt fell away, leaving it a clear rectangle perhaps a hand-span long. She frowned, glanced at the horse to check it was still stationary, and turned the thing over in her hands. It was cold and clammy and coated in dirt, but as she turned it, a flap of frayed leather flopped over her hands. Her heart beat faster and she looked over her shoulder. No one was in sight.

She picked at the edges with shaking hands and felt cold metal across a corner. It had to be a book of some sort, and books were valuable. Any book was valuable and here was one that didn't belong to anyone, though how it had got out here, she didn't know. It had, in fact, been a farmer's almanac and girdle book, lost by a previous farmer when the leather between the belt knot and the book had frayed through, and buried as the soil turned over on top of it. The same soil turning that had eventually turned it up again.

Dove tightened her belt to create a pouch of cloth in the tunic above it, then slipped the book inside her tunic to sit securely in the pouch. She'd look at it closer later, when she was alone and no one could interrupt and take it off her - and when she didn't have urgent work to be doing.

Girdle books :

AcquisitionsFarmer's Almanac (book, average): 50 gm

by **Dove Brown** on December 12th, 2015, 3:15 am

She went back to the plough and found the reins knotted to the plough handles. She unknotted them and hauled the heavy plough upright, got it dug in and shook the reins. "Um, forward. Gloss, forward?" The horse heaved a heavy sigh and the plough jolted forward. Dove grabbed for the handles, forgetting to hang onto the reins too, and tried to keep it straight on her own, with little success. She needed the reins too, to steer the horse. Meanwhile, the furrow wavered its way across the field as Dove frantically tried to work out how to deal with four things to hold and only two hands to do it with. She might have had better luck if she'd ever driven even a cart before, but she hadn't, and there was no time to stop and figure it out. "Wait, whoa, hang on, stop!" she yelled as the headland skidded towards her. She grabbed a fistful of rein and hauled. The horse came to an abrupt offended halt and snorted at her. "I'm sorry, OK. I'm clearly not much of a ploughwoman, and it isn't like you can walk me through it, so don't look at me like that," Dove snapped in response to the snort. She looked again at the reins and wound them through her fingers like she wound her sling strap. She hauled the plough round to the next furrow, looked at the previous one and winced at how bad it was. No wonder the farmer had wanted her at the horse's head!

She flapped her hands, which flapped the reins, and then clung to the handles with wrapped fingers. It worked, sort of, which meant not very well at all, but the furrow was fractionally less wobbly than her first one. It was still very very obvious where she had taken over, and the book lay heavy against her belly. "I can told this," she told herself, hoping if she sounded sure enough everything would amazingly start to go perfectly. "I'm a farmer. Farmers plough fields. I can do this." The horse huffed disagreement as she stumbled through another turn on the headland, feeling the strain in her arms from the plough and the reins. "I can and I will. I can and I will." A heavy clod spattered against her legs, and she winced, but it was only soil and the blow broke it up into the furrow. Unlike when she walked ahead, she did have to be careful not to flatten the furrow by walking on it. The plough juddered under her hands with constant small jolts as it hit roots and clods under the surface, and every jolt reminded her of the one where the farmer had been hurt.

by **Dove Brown** on December 12th, 2015, 3:16 am

These jolts, however, were harmless, and a normal part of ploughing, but the effort to steer through and despite them added to the growing ache in her arms and shoulders. When she reached the next headland, she paused to catch her breath, unwind the reins for a moment and shake out her arms. There was still more field to go though, and the day wasn't getting any longer, so after a few minutes, she wrapped the reins back through her fingers, grasped the plough handles and hauled the plough around to face the right way. "OK, horse face, I mean Gloss, let's go," she told the horse, and flapped at its backside. The horse swished its tail and stayed put, grazing the headland. "Oh, come on! Please! Don't just stand there eating," she pleaded, and flapped again. The horse heaved a long sigh and ambled forward. Dove followed, clinging to the plough handles as best she could and trying not to over pull on the reins. She had to account for the delay between her pulling a rein, the horse veering obediently (if it obeyed at all), and the plough straightening up. Several times she tugged and saw the plough slowly veer back on line, and then off again the other side.

Which meant that then she had to pull back and steer the other way, only to go too far again and cause yet another uneven wobble in what should have been a nice straight furrow. She looked across at one point, realised that the furrows were more like the frilly lace on the edge of a skirt or dress than anything resembling tidiness, and all but despaired on the spot. She could do it and she would do it, but she was convinced by now that she'd never be allowed behind a plough again. The experienced farmers would take one look at the mess she'd made and know just how useless at this she was. What she didn't realise was both that it was harder for her than for many of the farmers because she was using a plough set-up designed for someone taller than she was, with longer arms and therefore more leverage to steer with, and that when someone started ploughing, the furrows were never straight. The older farmers had been through that stage and learned better, but they wouldn't hold the time needed to learn against someone unless it wasn't being put to good use. Dove' furrows were getting straighter as she went on, but it was hard to judge on the ground, and hard to stay straight when you couldn't judge straightness by the furrow you'd left last time.

Dove continued to wrestle with the plough, her hands, the reins, the horse, and her footing as she made her way down furrow after furrow, and from headland to headland. The last furrow came almost as a surprise and she looked around. She truly was done. She'd finished ploughing this field. There were a few others still to do, but by now most had been ploughed and sowed with winter crops. "Well," she told Gloss, "I did it. We did it. And now I suppose I'd better get you back to the Barracks."

Riddle AnswerA horse drawn plough

by **Yisanareysin** on February 6th, 2016, 2:54 am

The ssssssnake hassss your gradesssss...

Dove Brown

Skills

Lores

Rewards & Retribution

‡Farmer's Almanac (Average Book)
Comments
This was a really nice thread to read. Hope you enjoy the grade!

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