to sell. The land tithe owed for the inherited croft remained still indebted.
The estate possessed no more excess belongings or chattel to spare. Belts would have to be tightened, again. What cloth goods and staples they gained by straight barter had to be savagely scrimped.
‘We could be facing worse,’ Tarens declared in attempt to lighten the pervasive gloom. Town law allowed a year’s grace in which to square the account rolls. A margin at least to assure them of shelter under the hardship of winter. ‘Did anyone see if that crazy vagabond found a patron to hire him?’
‘Can’t be our problem,’ Kerelie grumbled. ‘We’re too pinched ourselves to fret over another.’
Which should have left Tarens ashamed for the coin he had gifted in soft-hearted folly. If Kerelie and Efflin knew that such charity set him back more than a copper, they rightly would skewer him as he deserved. But guilt over untoward generosity did not resolve his anxiety over the strange fellow’s fate.
Softened, Efflin peered through the drizzle that streamed off his drooped hat. ‘Last I saw, your simpleton was muscling casks for the brewer.’
Tarens sighed with relief. Tafe Aleman was sympathetic towards beggars. Always gave wretches who free-loaded a beer, and ones willing to shoulder a few extra chores found dry lodging inside his store shed for a halfpenny.
‘The man seemed willing. Didn’t balk at hard work.’ Kerelie blew a strand of wet hair from her lips. ‘Careful too. He broke nothing he handled. He’s likely to fare well enough.’
Dismissed, the subject lapsed into silence. The home-bound cart creaked through three more sluggish leagues, wheels sucking through dreary mud and frothed currents of run-off. Lashed in by the storm and a cruel risen wind, the lumbering ox turned at last through the painted posts of the farm-gate. The hooked lanterns swung, darkened on their chains. The cottage at the end of the lane had no cheerful aunt waiting, with a warm supper and candle-lit windows gleaming in welcome. No uncle stepped out to take charge of the reins, or hustle them inside to warm by the fire. Efflin did not pull up in the yard but drove the wagon straight through the open barn-doors and into the cavernous, hay-fragrant darkness. The ox huffed and stopped, bawling in complaint. Everyone piled out, too chilled for the burdensome chore of unloading. The barn was pitch-dark, and wax candles too scarce. The paned lamp must be reserved for emergencies, and the risk of a pine-knot torch was too dangerous in the draughts gusted through the gapped plank walls. Kerelie hefted down the hen’s wicker cage. The dry goods, the crates, and the empty coin-box could wait until tomorrow’s daylight.
Efflin squelched in filled boots to unyoke the tired ox. While he goaded its reluctant tread to a stall, Tarens dashed ahead through the downpour, with a breathless promise to lug wood from the shed. Hungry and cold, no one lingered. Battered by the frigid wind, Kerelie shoved outside and dumped the errant hen back in the chicken coop’s pen. She fed the livestock and hastened inside to scrounge crusted bread and heat soup for an overdue supper. Efflin was left to hang up the harness. Since preservative grease could not be applied before the wet leather dripped dry, he stamped after his sister and never looked backwards.
The dreary night passed, and the icy rain stopped before anyone realized the heaped tarpaulin in the wagon-bed sheltered more than the goods fetched from Kelsing market.
Tarens woke the next morning with sun in his eyes. Or so he presumed, until he squinted and found that the dazzle that blinded him glanced off three silver coins, stacked beside his crumpled pillow. Dawn was well gone, the past evening’s storm broken to a flawless blue sky. The shaft of clear yellow light through the window burnished the placed silver like gold.
He shot upright, dismayed, the oddity of the coins eclipsed by embarrassment. A selfish indulgence to have overslept, with the winter wheat-field to be tilled and sown before the frost hardened the ground. The family prankster who needled his conscience by leaving the silver could wait; but never their jeopardized stake in the croft, strung up by hard work and a thread. Tousled hair in his face, Tarens kicked off his blankets and slid out of bed. He snatched up his dropped shirt and breeches, jolted to a hissed breath as last night’s damp clothes pebbled gooseflesh over his skin.
Arms clutched to quell the violent shiver wracked through his sturdy frame, he paused in disbelief.
Downstairs, Kerelie was busy cooking.
Plain fare, sure enough, in a house plunged in debt, and still muted by the grave-seal of grief. The upstairs felt quiet as an abandoned tomb without the boisterous yells of the boys.
Tarens bit his lip. Past was past. No use to dwell on what might have been. Quickly dressed, he grabbed his dank boots and plunged barefoot down the shadowed, board stair.
He slunk into the brick-floored kitchen, braced for a facetious scold from his sister, backed by Efflin’s bull-dog bark.
Instead, Kerelie spun from her stirred pot and glanced up. As though shocked by a haunt, she dropped the ladle of water just dipped from the bucket slung by the hearth.
‘Light’s blessing, you startled me!’ she blurted. Then her round cheeks flushed pink. ‘Tarens! Lay off your quack foolery. You didn’t wake up just this minute! Or else who’s already tended the cattle and finished the chores in the barn?’
‘Efflin, of course,’ snapped Tarens, sarcastic. ‘I notice the butcher’s knife’s gone from the peg. He’ll have fumed himself black out in Aunt Saffie’s rose patch, bent on an ambush to flense me.’
Kerelie dried her chapped hands on her skirt. ‘Efflin’s knocked flat with an ugly green cold. Which is why I’m in here, stirring up gruel to coddle him.’ She retrieved her fallen implement and plunked on the hob, blue eyes wide and lips pinched with distress.
Tarens regarded her fraught state, amazed. ‘What under sky’s strapped your tongue when you ought to be yelling fit to raise the roof?’
‘You men weren’t the only ones laggard in your blankets.’ His sister shed her awkward reluctance, and admitted, ‘I snored through the sunrise, myself. We’ve all been bone-tired! I’d planned to surprise you and muck out the barn. Give your lazy bones an undeserved rest and let Efflin’s sourpuss mood have one less target to savage. He’s been such a wounded bear since our fortune’s turned. Why won’t he tell us what’s cankered him?’
‘He’ll speak when he’s ready.’ Tarens treated her angst with the same stubborn patience that had argued the sale of the bull. ‘What’s upset you, Kerie? I’m too thrashed to guess.’
His younger sister sucked a vexed breath, her pinched forehead suddenly pale. ‘Who’s moved the ox,’ she began, ‘and the milch-cow’s been taken—’
Tarens outpaced her slow explanation. Protective to a fault, he abandoned his boots, grabbed the fire tongs, and banged open the door. He charged outside, hackled to gore any thieving intruder.
First step, his brandished tool snagged a dangled wrack of frost-burned tomato vines. As dry leaves and green fruit yoked his lowered head, he yelped, ‘Light avert!’ and thrashed the pungent stems aside in annoyance.
The uprooted vegetables had not hung there, yesterday. Since Efflin slept, and with Kerelie barely shucked out of her night-rail, who had dug the plants from the kitchen patch and strung them from the porch rafters in the pre-dawn dark? Each year, his aunt had tied the yellowed stems upside down for late ripening, a last frugal harvest snatched from fate’s jaws before winter. But Aunt Saff was dead. Two months had passed since the Light’s priest settled her with the
