Chapter 180 The Awnless Rice

Lora's carriage never turned in at East Manor — it rolled briskly on instead, bound for a neighborly call at Greenwillow.

Greenwillow lay from East Manor no more than one bend of a little river, and along the riverbank and the field-ridges stood row upon row of willows. The leaves had begun to yellow now, but the trees held their swaying grace all the same.

For once, Leon had got himself into a turquoise brocade robe with a dim lozenge-lattice — and it set off Lora's jacket-skirt of sky-water green to the hair.

He saw her standing there eyeing his clothes with her lips pressed in a smile, and gave her the once-over in return:

"One day apart, and you've changed again somehow."

"Changed how?" The remark had landed on Lora from nowhere. All she'd done was put on a girl's proper clothes — and it wasn't as if he'd never seen her in them.

"For the sillier."

Lora's hands went to her hips on the instant — then she remembered she stood on his new-bought farm, and settled for a round-eyed glare:

"Norton — go push your master's chair, this minute! I've delivered you here to your master in person today, and let me tell you both: if in one month there's no learning in you, or you've been ill-used... I'll have the two of you to answer for it!"

Norton went over, happy as a lark, and took the chair's handles off Weldon.

The party followed the farm steward inward. This steward — after the farm was bought, Leon had dismissed the old manager and let the tenants choose their own.

That was Lora's idea: first let every man put his own name forward, then write the several names up on the farm's notice-board, and let every tenant over fifteen cast a vote — three came out at the end of it: one farm steward, two managers.

A rare piece of news, that — and the tenants, being tenants, had gone and elected the old steward's fifteen-year-old son, Dickon Carver. First, because the old steward had no fault to his name past a weakness for flattering the Windsors; and second, because the whole village plain wanted to see the fun.

And now this brand-new little steward stole a glance or two at the pair of them, and put it to Leon for confirmation:

"My lord — you're sure it's to be planted now? Two months, and the snow is on us. The rice won't so much as ear — isn't that seed thrown away?"

"Not only planted now — I'll want you, yourself, answerable for it. Can you do that?"

"Uh..." Dickon Carver set to rights the cap that sat a size too big on him, and mumbled: "My lord, then mine is a warrant on the sowing, not the reaping — on the growing, not the gruel..."

"Steward Carver. You know the tenants chose you — and do you know why they chose you?" Leon let the words out slow and easy.

"Know it? I should say — used to be I went up against my old man... every blessed day, like." It was out of his mouth at a run — and then his voice dropped to nothing.

Everybody laughed.

Life had never run fat for Greenwillow's tenants — but there was nowhere for them to go either: off the land, with families in tow, where would they find a living? The Windsors had been hard landlords; old Carver the steward had no lever to pull but groveling, and by groveling he had wrung what small ease he could for his tenants.

But that one thing had earned him the whole scorn of his smooth-chinned boy at home, who fought with his father every other day over it.

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When Leon came to take over the farm and saw old Carver — the bowing, the scraping — his eye couldn't bear it; he asked nothing at all and simply removed the man. Neither he nor Lora had dreamed that, given their own vote, the tenants would lift up this green lad.

"Do you want to show them what you're made of?"

"I do! Only..." Dickon Carver fumbled it out:

"My lord — you truly haven't seen it? They don't believe you'd really let them pick their own steward — that's the whole game of it, to see what you'd do. And this game has nothing to do with my dad, truly. He's just a fear-of-everything sort. Even I look down on him."

Lora couldn't hold it in — the boy-looks-down-on-his-father complaint, the same in every age under heaven — and she laughed:

"That is not the tale we've heard. Norton's foster-father was steward of neighboring East Manor, no less, and he told us: had it not been for your father working every side of every fence, Greenwillow's tenants would long since have been scattered to the four winds."

"Tr-truly..."

That his dismissed father should be praised by the young lady — Dickon Carver hadn't seen that coming either.

"So: we are handing you the chance to let your father live out his days at Greenwillow with his head up." At those words Norton's own heart ran hot, and Dickon Carver's ears stood straight up:

"Speak on, my lord — Dickon will work himself to death on it!"

"This: by whatever means you like, the farm must bring in one season of Southland rice this year. Can you do it?" Leon had put that very question a minute past, and Dickon had answered "a warrant on the sowing, not the reaping." But now it came out of him at full voice:

"I can! Strip the winter quilt off my own bed to cover the rice ears — I'll grow this rice!"

The lord had given out only three pounds of seed — enough for one acre and no more — and Dickon Carver could have planted it alone. Fifteen years old he might be; but show the farm child who wasn't in the fields from the day he could walk.

At the field's edge, by chance, they met Dickon's father.

Old Carver, in fear his son would land in trouble, had waited by the field half the day, trembling — and now saw the boy come stride over, glowing, calling out:

"Dad! The lord and the young lady have come to see the field — while the light holds, you keep the lord company; I'll go give the ground its turning."

Old Carver caught hold of him in a hurry and said it small: "Forgotten, have you — you're the steward now? I'll turn the ground; you keep with the lord. And mind your tongue — don't get on the wrong side of him."

Then, turning, he put on his company face for Leon:

"My lord — wouldn't you like a turn about the farm? The damsons are ripe; the whole village is out beating them down, meaning to send some home with you. And this little patch — I'll have it turned before you know it."

Dickon Carver opened the little seed-pouch Arran had given him, his hands trembling with the joy of it:

"Dad — this dry-land rice I'm planting myself! The lord's said it: whatever it yields, if I bring in one season this year, then next year Greenwillow, same as East Manor yonder, pays no field-tax, no plot-tax, in copper coin."

Old Carver stood struck dumb.

Paying the tax in copper was the heaviest stone on their chests: the Windsors had always bought their grain at bottom prices, and once it was traded into tax-money, what grain was left couldn't feed the family itself.

He steadied his thumping heart, reached into the pouch, took up a fistful of the seed — and quick as that, his brow folded:

"Th-this rice — how comes it with no awns?"

It wouldn't be boiled seed, would it — making them glad for nothing?

Arran smiled: "Old steward — this is Southland rice, awnless from the seed up, out of the southern wilds, the Kingdom of Southland. Two crops a year, or three; wet field or dry field, it's all one to it; ripe in two months. You can put it in after the rice and wheat come off — one whole season more."

"Two months?"

Father and son Carver cried out together, looked at each other: no wonder they said a season could still go in — it would ripen and be off the field before the snow.

Leon smiled. "This Southland rice is a first planting — nobody can say yet what an acre will give. Save me back some of the seed, and all the rest is yours."

"Ah — this is a great thing! My lord, I'll not keep you — I'm off this minute to call the village together and work out how this Southland rice is best grown." Old Carver took up the pouch, bowed low to Leon and Lora and ran.

Lora's own spirits rose with his — a farmer's love for the crop and the soil, one and the same in every age. She drew a deep breath and smiled at Leon:

"Planting rice — they'll always know it better than we do. Let's not stand about underfoot; the steward has ground to turn."

"Right, right... no — no, wait: how can I not keep the lord company..."

Dickon Carver's head was in a tangle, and sheepish with it.

"Go, and mind your work. Dickon Carver — there's more land of mine to plant in Southland rice yet. Bring this off and you'll have done the house great service: I'll move you off Greenwillow to a greater farm, to carry the planting wider. Can you do that?"

Leon's tone carried no room for doubt in it.

Dickon Carver's face burned red, and he squeezed out one whole sentence:

"If I fail — then let me be buried in this very field!"