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Old 04-26-2006, 12:14 PM   #274
Undómë
Shade of Carn Dûm
 
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Join Date: Mar 2005
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Away – Wistan’s farm – Dunstede

A delighted smile lit Rose’s face, though not in echo of Thornden’s. Here was one who had already done battle against the urgings of mother and sisters and now stood firm against their schemes and stratagems concerning marriages. He’d made it clear, she thought, that marriage was not in his plans. Let her mother and her little covey dream of her hand-fasted to this steward of the Eorl. He would be proof against them. An unwitting partner in her own plans to avoid that little noose for as long as she might.

‘Perhaps the stork should bring my mother another wee one to take care of,’ she said, laughing aloud. ‘I’ll agree to say then that your lot was not that much easier, having heard the obligations and demands you’ve had to deal with. And in the bigger sense I suppose you could say my little life is not cast in such looming shadows as I might have made it seem.’ Rose laughed again, as if to remove any doubts on that. ‘Really, I do find my life here on this farm very satisfying . . . its lands and flocks and crops . . . and yes, even the hard, drudging work at times . . . the caring and the doing of all that needs be done gives me a rare satisfaction that I can hardly think anything or anyone might with such constancy.’

She halted her horse beneath one of the old apple trees that grew amidst the field’s hedgerow. Her hand went up to one of the lower boughs where the creamy, five-petaled blossoms grew thick among the leaves. ‘Look here,’ she said, plucking a small cluster of flowers. ‘How pretty it is and how fresh it smells, just like spring. My bees are already hard at work making honey from these flowers that we’ll soon have to spread thick on our bread. In the summer the spreading branches will give shade to us as we stop for water or food when the field needs working. And in the early autumn will come the fruit, to eat right from the tree, make into good cider, both fresh and hard, and then the pies all hot and sweet.’ Rose tucked the stem of flowers in her hair and patted the scaly grey bark of the tree. ‘When the old girl dies, her wood will keep us warm when the snow comes and make the hall smell sweet, like spring.’

A moment of certain ease and pleasure passed over her features as she perused what could be seen from the vantage point of her saddle.

‘Ah . . . but I forget. You are in a hurry to see the Eorl’s business done, and here I am talking apples and bees and such to you.’ She grinned even as she spoke, no regret evident that she had both poked a bit of fun at him and wasted a bit of his time. Rose nudged her horse a little with her heels, urging her mare down the little path again.

‘Just a little way further, Master Thornden. They’re in the far western field. It’s the one that butts up against old Eadig’s place.’ She paused for a moment. ‘That is, I guess it would still be Eadig’s place, though maybe it’s gone back to the King or would it be the new Eorl? Eadig died, you see, this last winter. His boys died in the War, and his wife, too is dead. He was the last to go.’

‘My father would like to add the little holding to Dunstede. Part of today’s plan was to walk the acreage; I think that’s what I heard them say as they left. I suppose that he will need to decide whether the place can make the land-rent.’ She looked across at Thornden. ‘I’m quite sure it will, you know. I used to take Old Eadig baskets of honey and bread and ham and other such as the old man needed. He used to show me around his fields. They weren’t planted, of course. He couldn’t manage it in his last years. But he told me great stories of what he’d grown and the flocks he’d pastured.’ She nodded her head at the thought of new opportunity. ‘Of course, we’d . . . that is, my father . . . would need to find out how he might obtain the land.’

Rose looked thoughtfully at Thornden. ‘You wouldn’t by any chance know how to go about it, would you? Be a shame to let a good farm like that lie fallow. Be no one to pay the rent . . .’
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