Chapter 3

TT 16 Isildane 1772

(QY 16 Firedawn -862)

It was morning. The smell of coffee and porridge filled the priest's home. A breeze shook needles from the redwoods and carried a scent of pine into the room. A plate of salted pork shined with grease, an end of yesterday's bread steamed on the table.

His wife kneaded a sticky dough. She was a stout woman with sharp, small eyes and a firm mouth. She wore her hair tied atop her head in a tight bun. She worked the dough expertly. Her stubby fingers moved with a motion of their own. She heard a chair scrape across the floorboards and the grunt as the priest sat down. She cast a look back, over her shoulder, her eyes wide, and saw his smile. It looked forced. She waited. She worked the dough.

The priest rubbed his hands together. He asked "My love, how is your morning?"

"Baking bread," she said in a curt tone.

He stiffened. He didn't want her in a bad mood. He knew she wouldn't agree with what he was about to say. He wanted to see her face, confirm his suspicion, but he didn't dare.

She cast another quick glance and noticed how he avoided her gaze. She returned to her dough. Fold, lift, slap, over and over. As the silence hung in the air her impatience grew. She knew he was hiding something, something she wouldn't like, and he sought a way to expose just a tiniest bit of it to test her. She hated that. She disliked his meekness. Her eyes happened over the nearly empty flour bowl. She pursed her lips. She thought to herself, He accepted twigs, she thought to herself. We need flour, lard, meat, not twigs. I could get twigs. A bird could get twigs. For Isla's grace, he's a healer?

Wordlessly, their argument began. It was the quiet, cold way they fought. At last he said, "I am going to Fael."

There it is, she thought. She answered quickly, "I don't like that idea."

He replied with silence. That was how he disagreed, without words.

She worked the dough with vigor. The slap of the dough grew louder. Her thoughts coursed through her mind like a river passing over rocks and gaining in anger. Accusations, frustrations, impatience with his self-absorbed righteousness. She wanted him to burn that wood; to return to that foolish woman's house and demand the payment owed. Grain!. She exhaled slowly and then said, "Who is going with you?"

The priest heard both the question put to him, and separately, as if outside of his own body, he observed their dynamic. A detached, observation. Like this was happening between two people he didn't know. They didn't talk about the issue nor did they talk around the issue. They drew an outline around what mattered to them, dividing the space between what's said and unsaid.

Nemheim, like most villages in the hills, included a small number of fay. They had their own culture, and over time bits and pieces had rubbed off on the welklings. The way the priest and his wife argued was typically fay-ish. Obtuse conversations, where the words carry one message, but the real meaning is found in what's not said. The priest recognized the influence in how they fought. It saddened him. He couldn't say why. He turned, looked at her back. She flipped, slapped, lifted and stretched the dough and it sounded angry. She felt distant. And he wanted to reach out, approach her, touch her, let her feel his presence, and remind her they were in this together.

He opened his mouth, about to give words to this feeling but she spoke before he could, "We need flour. See if the miller will lend you some."

And with that, the moment slipped from him. He heard her unspoken concerns: how he exchanged services for trinkets instead of what they needed. How he doesn't consult her first. How he makes these decisions because he is weak and won't demand payment. He heard all of that, in her voice, in his head. He heard all of it in the silence outlined by her request for flour.

His resolve hardened. This is important, he told himself. He didn't know how, but those twigs and the strange spirit they contained mattered. He had a duty to figure this out. Thank the gods I got paid in twigs! Flour? Meat? Trifles. He was doing something important, something good. Things work themselves out. No one would ever let us go hungry. He could hear her rebuttal in his head, You rely upon others and get taken advantage of.

He ate his breakfast. His hunger had left him. Still, he forced the food down. She would grow upset if he wasted what she made for him. "I will speak with the miller," he said in reference to the flour. "And I will ask someone from the chapter (he was referring to the men who rotate the lookout duties) to accompany me."

She picked up the dough, held it above the board, and then let it drop with a wet thud. "I'll bake you a loaf to take with you."