Chapter 2 Middenvale and Schoolroom Studies

 I awoke on the morrow’s morn and my internal biological clock had worked for me in its flawless manner. Da would bring the wagon filled with ice a little later. So, after morn chores, I set out on foot toward Grayces homestead. 

Da was leaving out for the Frost-Cellar already. He had harnessed Bregœ, his stallion of twenty-some-year. The same stallion Da had arrived to Middenvale on, more than eleven years past. Bregœ being unhappy to be left out of Da’s excursions of late insisted he come. Even if harnessed to a wagon, he remained a proud horse from a great line of warhorses and stood 21-hands-tall. A Silver gelding bred for strength, stamina, and intelligence, he would let nobody but Da ride nor harness him. Getting old, still the horse’s love for Da was palpable and he made it known that he would not be left behind on our trips into towne.

Myself, I set off at a strong pace with the shoulder bag, contemplating finishing my pack, incorporating Da’s new suggestions. Arriving at the Widow Grayce’s homestead at dawn, I knocked to make her aware that I had arrived.

“Good morn to you, Arias, thanks so much for helping me out.” Grayce’s front door swung to with a small bang as she stepped out on the porch to greet me.

“I’m always glad to help, Grayce.  Just point me in the right direction and I’ll get started.”

Leaning forward and pointing  Pointing left, down the side of the house.

 “The noise is coming from near the chimney I believe.” 

“I’ll start there then.”

I removed my shoulder bag pack and pulled my dirk and walked down around to the chimney side of the cottage.  I followed a typical foundation made up of fieldstone, mortared and grouted into a number of piers to hold the wood timbers off the ground at about knee height. Using flint and steel, I lit a small torch to take with me under the house. With dirk in one hand and the torch in the other, I dropped to my knees into soft, thick grass and then onto my stomach and proceeded to shimmy and crawl between the stone piers and under the house. 

Something tittered as I approached the chimney. Afore me lay a nearly decapitated and quite venomous rock snake. Its body lay still behind its head and nearly severed. It lay in a death grip inside the mouth of a long and furry rodent-sized creature with an equally long and furry tail, also quite still and quite dead.

Peering past the two carcasses and into a hole alongside the chimney, four tiny red eyes stared back at me. I could easily have used my dagger to end the nuisance critters, but something stayed my hand. Da had always taught me to respect all creatures and to kill only in defense or for food. These little ones’ mum had just recently died in a fierce battle with a highly venomous snake to protect them. Sheathing the dagger and placing the small torch some distance away, I slowly extended my hand to the edge of the hole where the little furry guys were presently residing. Waiting patiently, a good while passes, then remarkably, one of the little furions ventured out and sniffed at my hand. Eventually it just climbed into it and curled up. His brœther or sister followed immediately and likewise curled up into my open palm. Softly closing my hand about them, I snuffed out the torch in the soil and slowly shimmied my way out from under the house.

Grayce awaited me as I crawled out and she appeared somewhat amazed at what I held afore her. Shuffling about in piles scattered about her porch, she soon offered up a small basket and the two furry creatures were placed within. 

I returned under the house to retrieve the remainder of the snake and the critter’s mum so as not to leave a lingering odor under the cottage. That work done, I sat upon the edge of Grayce’s porch, playing with my new furion friends. 

Shortly afterward, Da arrived with the wagon pulled by Bregœ and full of wrapped block ice. He chuckled at the tale and the new pets. Grayce rewarded us with rashers of bacon and scrambled eggs. After a very quick morn-meal, we were back on task with the basket holding my new pets on the seat next to us. They were treated to some scrambled eggs and some milk from Grayce as well. They gobbled down the eggs and immediately curled up into the straw that had been placed in the basket with them.

I had two new pets to name.

Our time in towne was that of a usual sun.

Da had taught me reading and writing from an early age. I remember as an eight year-ender he would read to me from the few books he kept at the homestead. He would show me the pictures in his books about herbs and plants and when we would hike he would show me those same plants out in the forest. He would show me the written words for the words we spoke, and it wasn’t long afore I could read on my own. 

Da arranged for apprenticeships in towne and at the Mills and he had a friend who would come by and train me as well. He proclaimed that these were all skills that I would need and would prepare me for when I struck out on my own. This part I did not understand as I had no desire to leave our homestead.  I reckoned I was living life in a fine fashion already with plenty of adventures in the forests and mountains near and about. But I did not complain as I had a strong curiosity and loved the learning of it all.

Betwixt Mæster Ræbbe’s schoolhouse lessons of maths and cyphering, geography and histories of the realm, and Da’s lessons of herb and animal lore, I felt quite brilliant. But Da told me that book learning was not enough. And so, he arranged apprenticeships for me and physical training. I loved it all.

My first apprenticeship was with Effie. I had even helped her birth a baby. She taught me to have no shame in knowing the male and female body (though back at fourteen-year I would have confessed a preference to studying a female body).

As fate would have it, Da started discussing these very things. Virtue and morals and the fairer sex as he would call them. To his credit, he never dodged a question. We spoke of a male’s manhood, which he referred to as his hunk and which Effie’s eyes went wide and laughed with abandon to hear. She explained to me the proper terms, of course, but Da’s mind remained set on his own language for his parts and pieces.  He explained it was normal to have thoughts of woman folk but I should remain wary of their wiles and ways (to which Effie laughed even harder), and that it was normal for a man’s hunk to grow stiff and hard. Effie explained the body mechanics of the condition and though I understood, her explanation did not help the cause and effect. I remained happy to understand the condition was normal, if no less embarrassing. So, I learned being a healer’s assistant did not help in all things.  It did assure me that indeed I was thus a man as I had personally experienced this feeling ofttimes nowadays.

In the end, Da made it clear as to how a man should respect a woman and treat her kind and give aid and comfort as they might need. He said it was a man’s duty to protect a woman as they were weaker in constitution and in need of such. I thought of Grayce and how she could handle a bow or knife on a hunt and decided that some woman would need less protection than others.

These lessons had been reinforced in me at fifteen-year, when one day after leaving the schoolhouse and venturing for a rare idle afternoon in towne, I passed an alleyway beside the butcher shop. I heard there a scuffling and a sharp but muffled yell. 

Peeking down to the far end of the alleyway and into the shadows, there stood Brüsson, the butcher’s son, and Dulchè from my class. Her given name Dulcinẽa, though she was called Dulchè by her friends.  

Brüsson had her pushed up against the wall with one hand against her mouth and the other at her bosom. Anger struck me of a sudden as I could see him clearly taking advantage of his strength against her, and she, struggling against his efforts.  Him near fifteen-stone and a head taller than I, and she, not ten-stone and near to my height. She at seventeen-year, and he, near twenty-four-year, I reckoned. 

“Yea there, Brüsson.” I began walking towards the two of them.

 “Be off, lad, or I warrant you’ll be nursing a broken limb.”

I kept walking towards him as he pushed Dulchè behind him and turned back towards me with a sneer. A misfortune to him, for by that time he found his reaction to be a bit late. Four-year of hand-and-hand battle training with Moor had prepared me for just this type of encounter. Recalling it now, it was amazing to even myself. Near to instinct alone, a sky-bolt quick strike with my leg sent my heel into his left knee and as he screamed in pain and collapsed to his damaged leg, I swept my elbow, with the momentum of my body behind it, in a pummeling blow to the side of his head. He fell, senseless against the shop wall. He tried to rise to his feet, but only wobbled to and then fro and once again slid to the ground, his back to the wall and a glassy haze about his eyes. 

Stepping forward, I took Dulchè’s hand and led her speechless out from the alleyway. We walked over to a small area near the schoolhouse, set aside for the youngers to play. Empty now, I sat with her on a large boulder.

“I’m sorry that muttonhead was hurting you, Dulchè, it was not right.” Her bright blue eyes were brimming with tears now. Biting her lower lip, she stared at me. 

“My Pa likes that Brüsson, and likes that he asks after me because he is the butcher’s son. He reckons that he would make a good son-by-law. But I detest him because he is just like Pa,” she hissed. 

I stared back, taken unawares by her statement.

“Your Da puts his hands to you in harm?” I queried, aghast.

“Nay not me…. Well, sometimes when he’s in his cups, but more, to mum. She takes his wrath I think to save me and my sister the bruises. Sometimes I think it’s because mum gave him no sons. Mum seems to be bruised all the time, but she hides it from us,” a tear found its way to her cheek, now. As I pondered what she said, she asked me, “Why did you do that Arias, we hardly know one t’other?”

“How could I not. It was wrong what he was doing.”

“Thank you,” she said warmly and leaned into me, her arms about mine, closest to her. 

Her soft bosom pressed against my arm and my heart beat so hard then that I would swear that I could hear it.

 “I must go, Pa will be angry if I am late to eve-meal.” She rose and hurried off, but not afore pausing, gazing to me with a smile.

I met Da shortly after, back at the Inn and I told him of Dulchè and my violence with Brüsson and all that Dulchè had said afterwards. He listened intently and when we finished our meal, he placed his large hand to my shoulder, and eye-to-eye he said, “I’m mighty proud of ye, lad, ye did right innit.”

“Yea Da, but I felt I had no choice but to hurt the meathead.”

“Sometimes, it’s what must be done for justice, lad. Cleanup about yerself and see to loading the wagon, will ye? I have one more errand afore we leave out this evening.” 

When we headed out for the Homestead, I left feeling good about myself, not least as I had done right with Moor’s training. 

My lessons and learning under Mãamel Bræder entailed more than just healing.  She taught me to stretch my body through different exercises that she called, ‘Chẽ-Song.’ Besides showing me that a woman’s body could indeed be quite lithe and beautiful, it taught me control of my own.  But her most important lesson trained me to calm my mind and body. I learned to sit as in a trance, lowering my heartbeat and emptying my mind to refresh my thoughts, body and spirit. This she called reaching my Calming. In this she proclaimed me her best student. I admit to being quite good at it, though I never saw her with any other students so mayhaps my competition being scarce and few, made an easy target met. 

I one day asked her where she had learned her craft and all these other skills. She spoke to me of growing up on an Island to the South of the Mainland of Æryth and across a great bay where her teacher hailed as a great Sjaman among the people there.  I found the island as the Wilden Isle on maps, but she knew it as Hermitẽae, the Isle of Healing.  Her Mæster a very old and wise healer who taught her his craft. 

“Mayhaps, one day you will travel about all of Aeryth, Arias, and even travel to Hermitẽae.  If you do, I hope that you will find Sjaman Hestorae and show him that I have had an apprentice of which I am quite proud,” she said, laying her hand upon my shoulder, and making me flush red in the face.