Chapter Thirty-five ~ Reaping
The 1st Chronicle of Jarrak
Previously: in the immediate aftermath, Jarrak searched out his assailant, Pagan. Having made his acquaintance, he may have also made a friend.
And now…
The next morning was the first day of the month of Courage, the fourth and final month of winter. It was so-called because courage was needed now, to get out into the elements, after hunkering down through the deep winter, to start getting ready to make the most of the coming short spring. This was the time when the all the problems held over from autumn and accumulated over winter started to really make themselves felt. It was easy for people to look at it all and despair.
Jarrak came downstairs with the dawn, refreshed from the truncated revelries of the night before, the reunion with Menetor, and then some actual, peaceful sleep. Veralin was already up, of course, so he headed over and exchanged idle chatter while one of the young women who worked for her fetched Jarrak some breakfast.
“So, Jarrak, what brings you to Sakshemm anyway,” enquired Veralin.
Jarrak took a moment to sort out what he wanted to say before replying. “Honestly, I don’t know just yet,” he finally said. “I had been south of the city trying to get back to my family, but I know now that they are dead.” Veralin nodded gravely at that, muttering something vaguely sympathetic. “That’s partly why I came all the way into the city,” continued Jarrak, “to pause a bit, get my bearings, and work out what to do next.”
“Well,” said Veralin, something of a matronly tone entering her voice, “I can suggest a couple of things you shouldn’t do.” Jarrak raised an eyebrow to indicate that she should carry on. “First, don’t get too tied up with your two new friends.” She held up a placating hand. “They are charming boys and more decent than they like to pretend. But you are up and ready for work and they are not, and indeed won’t be for several hours more yet I’d wager. Second, don’t bother looking for work with the city as there won’t be any this year. Their free money is tied up with the mercenaries and a couple of construction contractors.” She spat those last few words. “You look like you can swing a sword or a shovel, but the money isn’t worth the lifestyle, if you ask me. Not for someone as young as you, at least, with no name and no family to back you.”
Curious, despite the obvious sensitivity of the topic, Jarrak pressed for a little more information. “Are they planning a war, then?”
Veralin gave him a penetrating look, biting back at his question. “Now don’t you go thinking that war is all glamour and glory! You may be young, but you are not even a little bit invulnerable. It’s all exhaustion and disease and fear, you trust me on that!”
Jarrak held up his hands placatingly, and something in his eyes suggesting some familiarity with what she spoke of caused Veralin to pause and her expression to soften. “Sorry dear,” she said. “You wear that armour and such too well to be some wet behind the ears kid playing in his father’s gear. But you are still so young. Eighteen?”
Jarrak shook his head. “Not yet seventeen,” he replied. Veralin sucked in a breath as if about to let off again, so Jarrak hurried to use the pause. “I’m not for joining, don’t you worry. But I do need to find some kind of work.” He didn’t, of course, but he realised he needed to avoid having people work that out just yet. “The way you mention those contractors, it makes me worry about there being enough work about.”
“Oh there’s plenty of work to do. Just look at the state of sewers out there and the wall beyond! The broken buildings! The problem is the contractors have everyone working up in the high city or getting ready for the campaign.” She noted Jarrak’s questioning look. “You said you came from the south?” He nodded. “Then you’ll know the road is broken, the laagers destroyed, trade and agriculture all but choked off?” He nodded again. “Yes, well, the mercenaries are here to try and beat off the Galloire pigs this spring. Every labourer and craftsman who can be spared, and several who can’t, will be sent along to rebuild and repair what they can. So, for now, they are getting ahead on all the spring work they won’t be here to do then. And there’s no money for much of anything else. And good luck buying a nail even if you’ve got the money!”
“I can make nails,” said Jarrak, absently. He cast back through his memories, clearly recalling all he’d done, and also all he’d witnessed in the way of building, construction and deconstruction, and even what he’d read in the few books Alea had had on the theme. “And I know a bit about working with wood and stone, too.” Veralin gave him a look that vacillated between indulgent and sceptical. Jarrak patted the benchtop in a gesture of decisiveness. “Tell you what. I’m paid up for the rest of this week. If you show me what we need done around here, I’ll have a go at some of it. If that looks good enough to you and the others around here, I’ll keep at it and you all will cover my room and board, plus a lunch and dinner a day. How does that sound?”
Veralin laughed warmly. “And you’re sure you’re not twelve years old, dear,” she said, affection taking the sting out of the statement. “I can’t speak for everyone around here, but they also won’t begrudge it if it looks like you can deliver.” Veralin didn’t get to run her own inn by missing opportunities. “Let’s call it the basis for a deal and shake on it when you deliver the proof you can do it.” Jarrak nodded. “Come on then,” she said, “I’ll show you around.”
* * *
Jarrak spent the first few days recovering materials from a few of the most badly damaged buildings. They had been picked clean of easily reusable things, but there were some good beams that could be broken out of walls and collapsed roofs, bits of rope he could break down and re-twine, and plenty of nails he was able to retrieve with the help of Alea’s tools.
With the recovered materials Jarrak was then able to start safely tackling the deconstruction of one of the smaller condemned buildings. By the time he needed to provide proof of what he could do to Veralin and her committee of other local merchants and landlords, he had, under their watchful eyes, reduced that building to a bare yard. The recovered materials – stones and bricks, timbers and tiles, and nails! – were sorted and stacked by quality and type in another yard, the central courtyard for a group of the local shops, where it could be kept secure.
Satisfied he could deliver at least the deconstruction, they agreed to cover his basic expenses and a moderate drink bill besides.
Jarrak laboured on.
He worked in his armour. When asked why, he said what he’d always been taught, “If you can’t work in it, you don’t deserve to wear it.” He always kept his swords strapped on. When asked why, he said what he’d always been taught, “Trouble doesn’t ask you when it will be convenient to arrive.” He pushed on even when the weather turned cold and wet. When asked why, he said what he’d always been taught, “If it needs doing, not doing it won’t get it done.” In general, people found these replies folksy and unhelpful, but took them for what they were, shrugged, and moved on.
In the early stages, Jarrak invested some time reviewing the various problems with the walls and sewers while taking breaks from the labouring. As the month progressed, he began using some of what material he had recovered to shore up the broken sewer roofs and build forms for the repair work. By the end of the month, he had completed patching one of the breaches. This work, too, met with the approval of the local owners. It was solid, if lacking finesse, and so the local guilds were prepared to turn a blind eye, so long as Jarrak stuck to only fixing the local problems for food and lodgings, neither branching out nor building new.
So Jarrak now found himself with the secure knowledge that he had work to get him through to the end of the next winter.
If the economics of life were sorting themselves out well enough, the same was not completely true on the social side. There were three things troubling Jarrak.
The first thing troubling Jarrak was that the city was asking about ‘the young noble man with the spear’ that people had started sharing stories about from the night of the rising.
As far as most people had seen, Jarrak had never once carried a spear. Nor had his clothes, fine as they were, matched the colourful foppery attributed to the young noble. But he had only appeared the morning after, which meant he must have been somewhere in the lower city that night. And there were a lot of little things Jarrak seemed to have that no-one had seen him carry about until he had them, so there was that little anomaly, too. But Jarrak had been with Pagan and Tunak when the watch leader had walked in to ask around. They had simply followed his lead when he both declined to identify himself as the person of interest, and avowed to have no knowledge of any such person. He and they then argued about what ‘he’ looked like, the descriptions being of someone quite a bit taller or quite a bit shorter, darker or lighter, but definitely older! The watch leader snorted in disgust, having heard much the same from everyone else he’d questioned. He looked hopefully at Veralin, who just shrugged and said “I was back here. What they said, I guess.” He left.
The inquiries persisted for a week or so, then tapered off. Jarrak was not sure why they wanted to know who it was, or why he didn’t want them to know that it had been him. But he was grateful when the attention died down, and even more relieved when ‘the young noble of Lower Eastgate’ entered popular folklore alongside ‘Shemak the Seer’.
The second thing troubling Jarrak was that, even as his friendships with Pagan and Tunak continued to deepen, Jarrak could see that they would likely be parting ways sometime soon.
Pagan made his money gambling, performing, and, as Jarrak knew first hand, committing the occasional bit of covert robbery. Tunak made his by scouring the markets of the faubourg for items he then took to the high city to sell on for some exorbitant profit. He also had a penchant for wealthy women, also found exclusively in the high city, and would often return with gifts he could sell to outward bound merchants for tidy sums back down here. Both were building reputations that would start to impinge on their abilities to ply their ‘trades’ to full effect. It was inevitable that they would move on. If they aren’t killed first, thought Jarrak, thinking especially of Tunak. He, it turned out, had a penchant for fire, and a habit of being nearby when fires happened. Never right where they started, never obviously a suspect in otherwise very suspicious fires. But always there, and people were starting to talk.
I’d better keep an eye on both their backs, he resolved.
The third thing troubling Jarrak was girls. Women.
He had grown up around girls and women. He had grown up sharing a small house with few and thin walls with his parents. In a rural town with lots of livestock comings and goings. He was, therefore, no stranger to all that these things entailed. But he had spent four of the most important years of his young life alone. His only company had been an imaginary dragon, so to speak. Him and one particular, hand-illustrated book of Alea’s that Jarrak had never, ever, mentioned to Menetor and which had taken up residence on a bench in the cavern’s bathing area. Even Alea’s memory of that book had the tinge of a blush to it.
So Jarrak, for all that he was informed on matters between the sexes, and could remember once knowing how to have a simple conversation with girls around his own age, had discovered a painful difficulty in talking to any women he couldn’t quickly and firmly place into the categories of ‘mum’ – there could be only one – ‘sister’, ‘aunty’, or ‘grandma’. Otherwise, he had to hope that the conversation could be turned into something purely transactional if he were to be able to contribute.
His nervousness was apparent to all. The young women at the inn and, as he ventured further afield with Pagan and Tunak, around the district, seemed to sense this and either completely dismissed him as a hopeless case, or flirted and teased him outrageously.
For their part, Pagan and Tunak liked to offer him unhelpful encouragement at the most inopportune moments, as true friends do.
The month of Courage gave way to that of Hope as spring returned. The district had emptied a little as the mercenaries joined the Grav of Sakshemm, his court Unkars and their combined retinues of nekts, in their campaign to restore security to the road to Lambourde, taking with them also a number of the boys orphaned during what was now being called the Great Rising. There was some griping at quitting the city before the festival of Safe Return, the night of the spring equinox, but the lord wanted to surprise the raiders with an early entry to the field and that was that.
So, perhaps what happened that night was due to the lack of competition. Maybe it was the festive air of the Safe Return commemorations.
Maybe it was just the right time.
Jarrak, Pagan and Tunak were enjoying a drink at an alehouse a few blocks away from Veralin’s when a young Galloire woman they recognised, named Durandel, came up to them. Jarrak had a whole list of reasons for why he struggled to talk with various women. In Durandel’s case, in might have been her obvious femininity, or her tanned, oval and really quite pretty face. But mostly it was her large, pale grey eyes. It was how they seemed to see right into and through him. It was the way the skin around her mouth would crinkle just so, her eyelids would droop and narrow, every time he managed to speak, as if she were judging him to his very core, before she would then ask him a question about what he had just said that would make him question whether he really knew anything at all.
She approached with a determined expression. Tunak saw her coming and elbowed Pagan. The pair of them grinning was all the warning Jarrak had before she was there, sitting herself down on the bench next to Jarrak. Her look changed to one of disappointment as she said to him, “I’d have thought you would have shaved that mess off for the feast of Safe Return!” She grabbed at Jarrak’s facial hair, her quick hand giving it a tug before Jarrak could bat it away.
“Wha… what do you mean,” he stammered, torn between indignation and delight. Durandel rolled her eyes at Jarrak’s friends, then looked at them each in turn, and returned a pitying look to Jarrak. “Of course they haven’t said anything,” she said, a hint of disgust in her tone. “You’re a mess. You need to shave.” Jarrak stared, dumbfounded. “You do know how to shave, I take it,” she half asked, half stated. Jarrak just looked on confused, darting his eyes to his friends for help. They were too busy laughing quietly.
Durandel considered this for a moment and reached a decision. She stood up, Jarrak’s stomach dropping as she rose, seemingly to go. The she snatched up one of his hands in her own and started to pull him to his feet. “Come on then, let’s go,” she said, continuing to drag at Jarrak such that courtesy and decorum demanded he stand up and follow.
“Where?” Jarrak asked.
“To teach you to shave, of course,” replied Durandel gently, if a little slyly, as she led him to a nice quiet, private bathhouse, out back of where she lived.
