Chapter 32 — Rain and Northern Lords

Chapter 32: Chapter 32 — Rain and Northern Lords

Chapter 32 — Rain and Northern Lords

The rain began while Christopher was still in bed.

He listened to it strike the roof and thought of the turnip ditch. Cedric had cleared the mouth yesterday — it would probably hold. He had said probably himself.

By breakfast, Owen wanted six men for the western stair, Cedric wanted the same six to open the lower drain, and Martha wanted two more to repair the kitchen chimney before smoke drove her cooks outside again.

All three found Christopher at the same table.

"The stair is sound below the landing," Owen said. "The upper half has to come down. I have the timber cut and the pegs ready."

"The ditch is already filling," Cedric replied. "If we leave it closed at the far end, the water backs into the turnips."

"Then use the men who finished the barley strip."

"They are moving the plough animals before the ground turns soft."

"My chimney," Martha said, "does not care where you put the oxen."

Bennet moved his cup away from the center of the table.

Christopher looked from one face to the next. Earlier in the spring, he might have divided the six workers in three and called it fair, but that would leave each crew with too few hands to do much.

"Show me," he said.

Martha caught his sleeve as he rose. "You have seen smoke."

"I have. Owen can send his carpenter when the stair is safe. Until then, keep the small fire and use the other hearth."

"The other hearth takes twice as long to cook a pot."

"Then supper may be late tonight," Christopher said.

"With that chimney, it may be late for the next two weeks," Martha replied.

She let him go, but he could feel her irritation all the way to the gate.

Owen led him to the western wall first. The old stairs climbed from the courtyard to a platform overlooking the breach; the first part was stone, but halfway up it turned onto a wooden flight held by beams sunk into the masonry. One beam had blackened with rot where rain had entered the joint.

"You tied it off," Christopher said.

"Because I would like the sentry alive. He takes the long way around now. If somebody enters through the breach, we need men here before they are inside."

The breach itself had narrowed since Christopher first saw it. The two quarry blocks lay beneath smaller salvage stone, braced on either side, and anyone crossing now had to climb a rough obstruction under watch.

Christopher walked to the turnip field with Cedric.

The ditch nearest the path ran freely, but at the far end water collected against a bank of roots and old stones. Rain made a broad shallow pool beside the lower plot. The turnips nearest it were green, but their leaves lay close to the ground.

"Can you get through with fewer men?" Christopher asked.

"Two men can work the mouth. They cannot carry all that stone away before it fills again."

"Could we cut a second channel around the blockage?"

Cedric pointed beyond the roots. "Toward the barley? Yes, if we would like to wash the seed out."

Wilfred came from the upper strip carrying a spade. "I would take the whole six here."

"You would," Cedric said. "It is not your stair."

"It is not my turnips either. Wet ground does not wait for a gate."

Christopher eyed the cloudy sky. Rain had eased, but not stopped, and they had no promise that it would clear before night.

Back inside the wall, Godfrey listened to both arguments and waited for Christopher to ask his opinion.

"The western stair is the shortest path for a guard to reach that opening," Godfrey said. "The other route costs time. We can station a man there in the yard, but he will be below the wall."

"How long will the stair take?" Christopher asked.

Godfrey glanced at Owen. "He is the one rebuilding it."

"A day to take down the unsafe flight," Owen said. "Another to fit the new wood if nothing splits."

"The field?" Christopher asked Cedric.

"If this rain stops, two days before the roots begin to suffer. If it grows heavier, less."

"The six go to the stair today," Christopher said. "Owen, take down the unsafe part and fit what you can. Cedric, keep two field hands on the ditch mouth. Do not cut toward the barley. At dawn, if the stair is safe enough for a sentry, the six go to the drain whether or not the upper platform is finished."

Owen frowned. "You may leave me with a half-built stair."

"You told me the old one is unsafe now. Make it safe first. Finish it after the field."

Cedric scowled, equally displeased. "I will take the men at dawn."

"If the rain has made it worse before then, tell me tonight."

They separated. Bennet shook his head as he followed Christopher toward the storehouse.

"What?" Christopher asked.

"Neither man thanked you," Bennet said.

"They each wanted all six workers."

"Exactly. A compromise usually leaves both sides certain they were cheated."

Work continued despite the weather. The stair crew pulled down two rotten beams and found that the stone socket behind one had cracked, so Owen sent for a mason and adjusted the new timber rather than forcing it into the old hole.

In the fields, Cedric and Wilfred took turns with the two men clearing grass from the ditch mouth. Water ran, but the level in the lower plot barely moved. Children carried small stones from the upper path and stayed clear of the slick drainage cut.

Christopher spent the afternoon helping Bennet move dry grain away from a patch of damp wall in the storehouse. He wanted to check both crews, but Bennet had found moisture beneath three sacks, and that could spoil food they already owned while everyone worried about crops they had yet to harvest.

They shifted the sacks onto raised boards. Two were dry. The third had a damp outer seam, so Martha opened it for immediate use rather than returning it to storage.

"You see?" Bennet said. "You can spend all day choosing between two problems and find a third while eating lunch."

Christopher could not tell whether Bennet meant to comfort him.

The rain strengthened after dusk.

Cedric came to his door before Christopher had taken off his boots.

"The ditch is backing up."

Christopher took a lantern and went with him. Water stood around the lower turnips. Cedric pushed a spade into the wet bank to show where the old stones blocked the channel beneath the surface.

"Can the six come now?" Christopher asked.

"In the dark? We would lose a foot in there."

"Could you move the water away from the plants until morning?"

"A shallow cut along the edge. Not through the barley."

"Do it. Take lanterns and the two men who know the ditch. No one works in the deep part."

Cedric nodded and left.

Christopher stood beneath the rain long enough to see the first trickle take the temporary channel. It would not save every plant, but it would keep the water from rising farther if the rain eased.

At dawn, the western stair had a new lower flight and a rail on the outside. Owen had not finished the platform, but a guard could reach a safe position above the breach, so Christopher sent the six workers to Cedric as promised.

They dug out roots and stones. By midday, water flowed through the full length of the ditch, and the lower turnips stood in mud rather than a pool.

The six men came back coated to the knees. Two had lost their shoes in the mud and recovered them only after Wilfred drove a fork into the bank. Cedric kept one man at the ditch mouth to pull away grass and twigs carried down by the water, and warned Christopher that the channel would close again if everyone treated the morning’s work as permanent.

Cedric pulled one plant free. Its roots were sound. Others had yellowing leaves.

"How many did we lose?" Christopher asked.

"Too early to say. Some will stand up when the ground dries. Some will not."

"I should have sent them here yesterday."

"Then Owen would tell you the stair should have come first."

"Would Owen be right?"

Cedric glanced toward the repaired stair. "A guard standing on that wall would say so."

Christopher watched the water run. He had made the choice knowing the rain might come, but the fact that both needs were real did not make the damaged plants disappear.

Cedric pushed the turnip back into the soil and pressed around its stem. "We can sow another short row if these fail. We still have some seed."

"Do we have the workers?"

"For a short row. If you let me keep them until evening."

"Keep them."

Cedric nodded once and divided the men between the replacement row and the damaged bank.

By the kitchen yard, Martha’s chimney still smoked. She had moved the largest cooking pot to the other hearth and complained loudly enough for Owen’s crew to hear. Owen told her he could inspect the chimney after the upper platform was finished. She told him that starving behind a strong wall would be a poor victory.

They had enough food for supper. They ate it late.

Afterward Christopher crossed the training yard. Walter had marked two lines in the dirt for Meg. She stepped between them, turned, and lost her balance when he lightly touched her shoulder. She landed on one knee, rose and tried again.

"Bend before you turn," Walter said.

"I did."

"Your knee did. Your feet did not."

Joan sat nearby mending a sleeve, Elsie watching from her side. The other children had finished their alarm drill and gone home. Meg’s separate session lasted only a short while before Walter sent her to wash.

Bram practiced carrying a bucket without sloshing it under Godfrey’s eye. Christopher would once have laughed at the exercise, but now he had seen Bram lift heavy stone and nearly pull a rope from another man’s hands because he did not yet know how to match their pace.

Godfrey handed Christopher a practice sword.

"What did the rain cost us?" Godfrey asked.

"Half a stair remains unfinished, and we may have lost part of the lower turnip plot."

"You moved the workers to the drain this morning. That is the decision you could still make after the rain worsened."

"Then tell Cedric to show you in three days what survived."

Christopher took his stance. "You do not think I chose wrong?"

"I think you chose. Tomorrow, you will have different choices."

Godfrey raised his sword. Christopher blocked the first strike and missed the second.

Across the yard, Meg tried the turn once more before Joan called her home.

Roland Harcourt’s new roof did not leak.

He had waited through three rains before allowing himself to say so. The house beneath it had belonged to the dead reeve of the village; its walls leaned, and one room still smelled of wet ash, but the hearth drew cleanly and his bed no longer had to be moved whenever clouds gathered.

Across the street, a carpenter was repairing a door. Farther uphill, men stood on the broken watchtower, setting a temporary platform below the missing upper floor. Harcourt colors flew above a gate that no longer had to be held shut with a wagon.

Roland could almost believe he had arrived on the land described in his patent.

The belief lasted until he stepped behind the house and saw the ditch.

Last night’s rain had taken away part of the bank. Mud lay across the path, and two laborers worked with spades to free a drain that had been open the previous evening.

"When was this reported?" Roland asked.

His quartermaster came from the storehouse with a folded sheet in his hand. "At dawn. We have men on it."

"Do we have the timber for the bridge over it?"

"The timber meant for the bridge is holding up the western store wall."

"Of course it is."

They returned to the house. A rider had arrived from Northgate and waited beside the hearth with his cloak steaming in the warmth. He carried no sealed royal command, only letters from people Roland knew and a bundle of news copied by the Harcourt clerk at Northgate.

Roland broke the first seal.

House Wentworth had occupied its granted site beside the northern river. Its convoy had taken an old stone tollhouse and begun a ditch around three surviving farmsteads. That sounded like progress until the next paragraph: their best bridge lay inside land still claimed by a northern margrave, and the margrave’s men collected the same toll they always had.

"Wentworth thought the grant included the crossing?" the quartermaster asked.

"Their surveyor thought the road looked like a boundary."

"What does the margrave say?"

"He has a charter older than their surveyor’s grandfather and men standing at the crossing."

Roland set the letter down. Wentworth had more knights and better wagons than he did, but neither would make a bridge move across a border.

The next report came from House Fairfax. They had reached their grant after the delay at the damaged crossing. Their people were alive, their grain was dry, and the manor named on the royal map had turned out to be three walls around a cellar. They were putting up timber houses instead of restoring it.

"They will manage," Roland said.

"Their family can afford more wagons," the quartermaster replied.

"Wagons can get stuck before they reach the grant."

"They can also carry enough grain to survive after they arrive," the quartermaster replied.

Roland conceded the point.

There were other names on the sheet: lesser nobles who had taken their first fields, one whose settlers now lived within another baron’s wall while he searched for safer land, and two who had returned south. A third had abandoned his original grant after discovering that the surviving village on it still paid dues to a northern lord.

"The crown should have settled that before handing him the patent," the quartermaster said.

"The crown’s map says a great many things."

Roland folded the sheet at the edge of the table. He could not blame the lesser man for leaving, though he also knew the royal grant might be valid. Validity did little for a lord without enough strength to hold a contested village through harvest.

The messenger had one more letter.

It bore the wax seal of a northern house that held a line of fortified towns east of Roland’s lands. The invitation was courteous, offering a meeting to discuss roads, boundary markers and the passage of wagons, and asking that Roland bring no more than six armed attendants.

"A welcome," the quartermaster said.

"It is also a count of my guards."

"Perhaps," the quartermaster said. "That does not make the invitation false."

Roland turned the letter over. The seal was genuine, as far as he could tell.

"Their lord remained here through the war," he said. "I came with a banner and told his neighbors that the crown had made me a baron."

"You have the grant."

"So does Wentworth. Ask him who owns his bridge."

The messenger shifted near the hearth. "Northgate says more such meetings are being offered. The northern houses want to know who will stay until autumn."

"Reasonable," Roland said. "I would ask the same."

He sent the rider to eat and had the quartermaster bring in the four lesser barons who camped near his settlement. They arrived at different times, smelling of wet leather, wood smoke and horses. One still had mud on his knees from repairing a fence.

Roland spread the letters across the table.

"Wentworth has reached his grant," he said. "Fairfax has reached his. Neither is leaving. Two lesser parties have gone south."

"Three," said the man with mud on his knees. "The one on the northern road sold his oxen at Northgate."

"Three, then."

Another baron leaned over Wentworth’s letter. "Can he force the bridge?"

"He could send knights to stand on it," Roland said. "Then a margrave sends his own, and both families spend the summer defending a tollbooth while their grain rots."

"Would Wentworth back down?"

"He may call it an agreement and pay for passage."

The men laughed, though none sounded pleased.

Roland showed them the invitation. The older of the four read it slowly before passing it on.

"You should go," he said.

"Yes."

"Take me."

"No. Your east roof is not finished."

"It is my roof. I can decide whether to stand under it."

"Then you can decide to finish it before the next rain."

Roland planned to travel with six armed men, speak politely and make no promise about roads he did not control. He would listen for what the northern lord feared and for what his people needed, and if they wanted repairs from Harcourt labor, they would have to offer something in return.

The oldest baron tapped the eastern road on Roland’s map. "If they offer patrols here, we should accept."

"With whose men?" another asked. "A northern patrol inside your grant can become a northern tax collector before summer ends."

"And an unpatrolled road can become a bandit camp before the next wagon passes."

Roland let them argue. Both wanted the road protected; neither wanted to admit that his own guards were too few to do it. When their voices began to rise, he put one hand over the map.

"I will hear the northern lord’s offer before we quarrel over accepting it. Until then, each holding watches its own road and sends word when armed groups pass."

That gained reluctant nods. The four holdings would remain independent, but news of armed travelers would pass between them instead of dying with the first guard who heard it.

They agreed on a horn signal for riders approaching from the east and another for fire. Every settlement already used horns; the difficulty was making certain neighboring guards understood what each call meant. Roland had the signals repeated until all four barons gave the same answer.

"Are the others being invited?" one baron asked.

"Some of them. Not all."

"Then the northern houses have already decided which newcomers matter."

"It tells us who has answered a messenger," Roland said. "Do not build a kingdom from a stack of letters."

Outside, the clouds broke. Work resumed on the watchtower, and someone shouted when a beam turned the wrong way on the rope.

The barons left for their own plots. Roland kept the Northgate sheet and read it again. Dragonwatch appeared near the bottom in a short account of eastern settlements. The old stronghold was occupied, its gate repaired, seed gone into nearby fields, and a road marker standing on the eastern approach. The report described steady work and quiet borders.

"Edmund Drake’s son," the quartermaster said, seeing where Roland’s finger rested.

"Yes."

"You spoke to him at Northgate."

"Briefly. He had a Silver Knight and no desire to join my company."

"Will you invite Drake again?"

"When I have something worth offering him. Another letter asking for his knight is not an offer."

Roland had sent road news weeks ago and received a short reply. He placed the Dragonwatch report beneath the other eastern settlements and opened the northern invitation again.

He was more concerned with the four men outside his wall. They had taken grants close to him because the road was safer in company; if one failed, refugees would arrive at his gate, and if one prospered, he might decide he no longer needed Harcourt protection.

The northern invitation would show how much room the old lords meant to give any of them.

Roland ordered copies made of the road reports before the men departed. Each baron would receive news concerning his nearest route; Harcourt would keep the rest. Information had value in the north.

At midday, Roland rode his ember-blood courser to the field below the broken watchtower. He intended to use the same mount for the journey to the northern lord’s hall; its endurance and resistance to the cold made it safer on damaged roads, although it still required grain, rest and a groom like any valuable horse. A line of new barley stood beside the old village plots. Nine families had lived here before his expedition came. They still kept their own houses and spoke to his workers when it suited them. Their dead lay in a graveyard behind the chapel, and their seed had gone into the ground before his wagons arrived.

He had chosen to let those families keep their land. He needed their harvest and their knowledge more than he needed a quarrel about which seal governed their rents.

An old woman tending a row of beans looked up as he passed.

"Your men left the lower gate open," she said.

Roland turned his horse. "Which gate?"

"The one your banner hangs above. There is only one."

He rode back. The leaves stood open while a supply cart waited inside; the gate guard had stepped away to help free a wheel.

Roland found him, put him back at his post and had the cart moved without taking every hand from the wall. It cost them an hour.

He had a meeting with a northern lord to prepare for, Wentworth contesting a bridge, and a crown map full of gaps. For the moment, he had to make certain his own gate closed before dark.