Fences
938 Words
Fences~
Sethlyan Callan
Glenayre, Aleron
Seth crossed the courtyard the next morning, restless and out of sorts. A bruising practice drill ought to settle him. Getting back to his routine would squelch bothersome notions he ought to be doing something differently, simply because he brought home a wife.
Ashlon stepped out to block his path, boots braced and arms crossed. After the wedding, his contract with Lord Holden finished, the enigmatic half-breed returned with them to Glenayre. It appeared he intended to fall back into the routine they’d established.
Well enough. Here was a sparring partner worthy of his mood.
“A challenge, then.” Seth drew his sword.
Ashlon shook his head and motioned at a cart wedged under a portico. An odd wooden tray crowded its flat bed. Its dozens of compartments held sprigs and twigs of forlorn plantings in varying stages of demise.
“All the way from Monaughty?” He frowned at the potting tray’s dim prospects. “Have a lad wheel it to the garden and ask what she wants done with it.”
Ashlon shook his head again and pointed a finger at Seth.
“Me? My gardening begins and ends with barley,” he said. “Wheel it there yourself if you’re so concerned for its fate.”
Isobel would not have him exchanging his sword for a trowel. It would set a poor precedent. Ashlon’s mouth thinned to a disapproving line, but he stepped aside.
Seth found a few men already at the pells and gauged which might substitute for Ashlon’s accomplished sparring. The Dael lad was improving under Ashlon’s tutelage but wasn’t in the yard yet this morning.
Derry was good but predictable. A barrel-chested old soldier whose wheat-colored mane had long since abandoned his head to settle on his jaw, and whose fondness for brass buttons bordered on the peculiar, Derry had been guarding Glenayre longer than Seth had been drawing a breath.
“Trouble, m’lord. Trouble!” One of Milo and Renny’s girls raced across the practice yard, black braids flying and bare feet slapping the packed dirt.
“Dooly and old man Cobb are fussin’ again, Lord Theth,” she said, as seriously as two missing front teeth allowed. “Cobb’th hound killed a bull on the Dooly farm.”
“Hounds do not kill bulls, Bella.” He tugged her braid. “I’ll ride out and see what has the old coots at odds again.”
Bella gave a snaggletooth grin and ran off, and he called for Derry to accompany him.
They rode the estate until they reached the stacked-stone fence marking where Dooly’s plot ended, and Cobb’s began. His cantankerous tenants faced off on either side, and a big red hound dozed at Cobb’s feet.
“Dooly,” Seth called. “What’s your complaint?”
“It’s me young bull, m’lord,” Dooly wheezed out. Too much pipe had left the geezer’s voice a hoarse rattle. “Found him dead there in the pasture. Tore up real bad, he was.”
“Not by Old Bub,” said Cobb. “He can’t even down a rabbit these days.”
A snore from the old hound argued Cobb’s point rather convincingly.
“I’ll have a look. Where’s the bull?”
Dooly pointed him across a field of short-cropped rye. Seth reined Gambit around and cleared the low fence. Derry followed on his mount of surefooted mountain stock.
Gambit snorted as they neared the carcass. Seth swung his leg over the pommel and dropped to the ground. Flies buzzed over the bull’s remains.
What sort of creature brings down a healthy young bull and devours its prime innards like a demon at a feast? A gwynwulf hunting this far north? Not unless its Firstborn had cause to pass through Glenayre land. Uneasiness crawled his spine.
Cobb, Dooly, and the hound caught up to them.
“Hunt,” Seth told Old Bub. Hunt.
The dog put his nose to the ground and followed erratic trails away from the carcass and back again. After a few circles, Old Bug howled and lumbered off for the creek.
In the sandy mud of the stream bank, Seth crouched for a look at the prints.
“Bear,” Derry pronounced at his shoulder. “Fishing the stream.”
“Haven’t seen bear ‘round here in many a year,” said Cobb.
Seth was skeptical, too. Bears were scarce in the Redmists, overhunted by poachers greedy for the extravagant prices the pelts brought, though for a commoner, it meant hanging if caught. If a bear killed Dooly’s bull, Seth would face the unfortunate task, as Glenayre’s protector, of destroying the beast. He and Derry followed tracks downstream until the stream met up with the Jess, doubling back a few times until they eventually lost the trail.
“Went back to fishing the rivers,” said Derry. “Not likely we’ll see it again.”
“What’s the chance it’ll head back to Dooly’s?”
“Next to none,” said Derry. “Plenty of easier game around. As much as it left of the carcass, it’s not been going hungry.”
“So why did it go after the bull?”
“Who knows?” Derry shrugged. “Bull got it riled up over something, I reckon.”
Seth had no better ideas, so he turned back for Dooly’s place. His tenants were already cleaning the carcass for salvageable meat and hide. Shared work mends fences between old neighbors. It’s the Aurel way.
Seth told them what he’d found and not found, and readied to return to Glenayre. Dooly called him to the side. The old man dug a well-worn scrap of paper from his pocket. Almost sheepishly, he offered it to Seth.
“Didn’t want to bother ye with it afore,” Dooly wheezed. “What with ye gettin’ settled in an all.”
Seth read the scribbled chit signed by Rogart. No doubt, it was his brother’s handwriting. Glenayre owed Dooly for two cows. The date was a month after last season’s drove.
“You weren’t paid?” He’d found no debts this old in the ledgers.
“For all but two head. Lord Rogart was sortin’ out a shortfall with the bankers,” said Dooly. “Told him I could wait. Callans always make good.”
And a Dooly wouldn’t lie to a Callan. The families went back generations. Whatever the reason, the unpaid chit must be an oversight. Seth pocketed the paper and shook out the coins.
“Evens us up.” Dooly fisted his due. “Word was ye’d do right by us, m’lord. Just like yer da.”
Being like Lord Symon was never his intent.
Chapter 26
- Writer
