Scholars and Other Undesirables

  Chapter 5

  Jain left alone in the morning. Airk wanted to come, but Coursa said she had chores for him, Eduard, and Grima to do around the cottage. Jain wanted to do this alone, but she would not have said so to her husband. The way Coursa smiled made Jain suspect that the old woman knew that. Jain rode away alone, dressed in trousers, a tunica, and a hooded cloak and with a sword on her hip. She was the picture of an outlaw woman. That, or a nervous girl shivering in the forest by herself.

  She went at a leisurely pace and reached the village early in the afternoon. Jain had looked forward to returning to her village, but now it looked small and dingy. Daniel’s cottage was one of the smallest in town and Jain could not help but wonder how she had ever lived there. It felt odd to knock on her own door like a stranger.

  Joan opened the door and gasped at the sight of her oldest daughter. “Jain? We thought you had died.”

  Jain looked around quickly. “Let’s talk about it inside.”

  Daniel lay on the bed. A blood stained bandage covered the right side of his stomach. He looked up as Jain entered and he smiled. “Is that my Jain?” he asked. “Or have I taken a brain fever?”

  “It’s me, father. I’ve brought medicine and a poultice.” She pulled back the bandage and winced at the odor. “That’s festering.”

  “I’ve kept a poultice on it,” Joan said. “But it had started to fester by the time he got home.”

  Jain administered the medicine and poultice Coursa had made. The other children were still out at their chores. Jain missed them terribly but she could not face them. It was hard enough to see her parents, to let them know what she had become. While Jain worked, Joan told her how things had gone since her departure. Tomkin had claimed to have been attacked by Hadrid’s men. According to Tomkin, the soldiers had killed Jain and Airk and Tomkin had ordered a levee of the men of the shire. Daniel had answered, as was his duty, and been put on the front line of the battle even though he had no shield and no military experience. He had been hit with an arrow at the beginning of the battle and nearly trampled to death by the rest of Tomkin’s men.

  “What did happen to you?” Daniel asked. “And why do you have a sword?”

  Jain told the story of how she had escaped Tomkin’s advances, punctuated by the occasional, “You did what?” from Joan. Jain did not tell them about what she had been up to since her escape from the amorous laird and her parents had the sense not to ask.

  “We have to tell everyone,” Joan said. “Tomkin lied to us.”

  Daniel shook his head. “It would do not good. He would have us killed.”

  Joan looked down, her expression grim.

  “I married Airk,” Jain said, hoping to lighten the mood. “I thought you would have wanted that.”

  “Where will you go?” Joan asked. “Tomkin has new tenants on Airk’s land.”

  “Not far,” Jain replied. “We have some work. Speaking of that.” Jain pulled a henry out of the coin purse on her belt and handed it to Joan, “I won’t let you go hungry again.”

  “Jain,” Joan said. “Where did you get this?”

  “It was my pay. Part of my pay, anyway.” Jain flipped the hood of her cloak up. “I should go. Don’t tell anyone you saw me.”

  Jain hugged her mother and kissed her father on the forehead. Then she left them, startled, slightly confused, and very grateful that their daughter was still alive. Jain grappled with her own tangle of emotions. She missed her family and her village. She was excited about the new life stretching out before her. She was also a terrified by that life. Mostly, she was very angry at her former laird. Tomkin had tried to buy her like a loaf of bread, tried to rape her, lied about her fate, and used that lie to start a war in which her father had nearly died. Jain wanted Tomkin to pay for his crimes but she knew that Daniel was right. Tomkin had soldiers, augurs, and half the lairds in The Holdings on his side. Jain might as well swear vengeance against the gods as pursue a vendetta against the laird.

  The next little job Coursa had for Jain and Airk went well, as did the one after that. Coursa always sent Jain and Airk out together, even when only one of them was truly needed. Most of the jobs paid only a few sils, but Coursa always came through with payment. As winter settled in more and more of Coursa’s grandchildren and grandchildren in law as well as some great great grandchildren came to stay in her large, but increasingly crowded cottage. A few of them complained that if Coursa cleaned out her storage room then there would be more space for everyone. The ones that did that got shuffled together in the smallest room.

  Coursa never treated Jain any differently than the others, but Jain did not know the many relatives who now lived in the cottage and they all seemed to know each other. Airk and Jain agreed that they would need a cottage of their own.

  Coursa directed them to a clearing not far from where she lived. She advised them not to wander without her or another member of her family guiding them. Members of her extensive clan lived throughout the forest and did not welcome strangers. Airk risked a trip to Zohershire to buy tools. He returned with a carving knife, an axe, a sledge hammer, a hand drill, wedges, a saw, and more. He also brought back a coil of sturdy rope and a box of sturdy, square nails. The nails were a luxury. Daniel had used wooden pegs for everything.

  “How much did you spend?” Jain asked, looking over it all in amazement.

  “Five henries,” Airk said casually. “We’ll need all of this when we get our farm, so I didn’t see any reason to skimp.”

  “The nails are too much,” Jain said.

  Airk grinned. “Yeah, maybe.”

  Over the next few days he cut down several trees from the edges of the clearing. Jain followed behind with the saw and cut off the narrow ends and all the limbs. She cut the limbs into short pieces and stacked them for firewood. It was a strange feeling, cutting so much timber. In the village a man who so much as cut off a single tree limb without the laird’s permission would likely find himself swinging from a rope. Now they could cut all they wanted without worry. Airk still made a point to count the logs carefully and take no more than he needed. The forest provided game and firewood and to abuse it would be to incur the wrath of the gods as well as the more mundane punishments of cold and hunger.

  When the logs were all cut and trimmed Airk dug shallow trenches on the north and south sides of the house to set them in. He hewed two of the logs until each had a flat side that would rest in the trench. Then he and Jain rolled the logs into the trenches and made the notches for the logs that went across to fit in. Then those logs were notched and more placed on top of them. It got harder after the first few logs and Airk made a ramp to roll them up. It helped that Airk made windows in two of the walls and a door in the third. That meant that the logs in those sections could were shorter, though notching them together was tedious and time consuming.

  After three days of hard labor they were able to sleep inside, sort of. The house had no roof, no shutters for the two windows, and no door. The cold night air came in through the cracks between the logs and they slept on a dirt floor. Coursa sent various grandchildren to help with the caulking, the floors, the roof, the door and shutters, and the chimney. Coursa’s descendants were cheerful about the work. They were mostly used to the open road and so much time in Coursa’s cottage made them restless. When it was all done they had built a one room cottage with a thatched roof. It was much like the one Jain had grown up in. They had a small bed and a trunk that they placed at the foot of the bed for their clothes.

  Airk bought a bow and some arrows in Zoher and he hunted every day that Coursa did not have him and Jain off on errands. Jain and Airk passed the winter nights in front of the fire. They talked about the crops they would grow, the children they would have, and the livestock they would keep. When spring came they both agreed that they would work for Coursa all that year and the following year would buy land from one of Tomkin?
??s enemies and start a yeoman farm.