Assa’s Eggs

Chapter 2

Assa’s Eggs

Assa grew up in an enchanted land, believing she would become a teacher and perhaps marry and have children of her own. Though this was not exactly a preordained fate, it was certainly a time-honored outcome for a woman in her place and time.

Assa’s parents were loving and kind to her. She was an only child and therefore susceptible to being spoiled, but her parents were also aware of the dangers inherent in Assa’s circumstances and sought to mitigate them by making sure Assa had productive work during her childhood. She helped her mother and father in their mill which produced flour for the local bakeries in their small town.

They lived on the edge of the sea, on a rocky coast near a craggy bay. Townspeople went out onto the sea to catch fish and other sea creatures.

The king and queen of Assa’s land were kind to their subjects and did not tax them excessively. Indeed, one could petition the royal couple to be exempted from taxation and such audiences were taken seriously. The petitioner’s request was accorded solemn attention and as often as not, the burden was reduced, if not always erased. One had to have a good reason such as disability or infirmity or a large family to support, and one had to re-petition each tax year, but such burdens were not too excessive for many petitioners.

In addition, the royal couple was quick to maintain the infrastructure of the land, allocating resources to maintaining roads, keeping dragons at bay, and supporting the army and navy in their efforts to protect the land from foreign aggression.

One might say that Assa lived in an idyllic world, and that her future was bright and secure.

That is, until one morning, when Assa was sixteen and her mother informed her that word had gone forth from the royal palace that the queen had died in the night. Assa’s mother delivered the news with a solemnity Assa had not witnessed before. That day a solar eclipse shadowed the land and to Assa the shadow, in its way, never left the land or her life, because, though the sun returned from behind the moon, the carefree way of living never did.

The king, so it was reported, went into seclusion. He entertained no visitors and saw no petitioners. His children, two young sons, were loosed upon the land and they were both malicious and dangerous. They vandalized at will and bullied whenever possible. The king’s advisors tried to lift him out of his depression but he would have none of it. It was said he stayed in bed all day ordering elaborate meals be brought to him constantly. Some villagers with contacts to the royal court reported that he ate upwards of twenty pounds of game a day and had nearly doubled his weight.

In Assa’s village by the sea, there were murmurs of discontent. The king had a right to grieve, but he had responsibilities to the land and his people. If he did not come out of this depression, the land would continue to deteriorate and people would be forced to leave it and establish their lives elsewhere. Assa knew of at least three families that were either building boats with which they could sail away, or were fixing up old boats to make them seaworthy.

A mass exodus was in the offing.

Without strong and steadfast leadership, the land began to deteriorate. Funds were not allocated. Roads were allowed to fall into disrepair. Officials charged with maintaining order took to extortion and bribery as a way of holding the people hostage and lining their own pockets. They knew no retribution would come down on them. Her parents were paid visits by some of these officials and they were forced to give up almost all of the mill’s profits to them.

In the royal court, the officials charged with maintaining the health and integrity of the king were in a shambles. Nothing they tried revived the king’s spirits. It was as though he had decided his land and his people no longer mattered. They presented the king with musicians and jesters to try to cheer him up. They took him outside and endeavored to get him to hunt game, one of his favorite activities, but to no avail. He would not pick up a bow, much less notch an arrow into it. They brought him counsellors, with the thought that if he talked through his troubles, things would get better. They did not. For a full year after the queen’s death, the king, his heart broken, barely said ten words to anyone.

Finally, the advisors decided on a plan. They would find the king a new queen. Such a course of action involved delicate political maneuvering, since royal marriages, despite the evidence of the king’s shredded heart, were not usually about love. They existed to bring two disparate lands and peoples together.

Emissaries traveled from the palace to many other lands, in search of a princess who would be suitable for the king. There were few such candidates because news of the king’s depression had preceded the emissaries so that the parents of the princesses would have nothing to do with such a union. The emissaries were stymied by this fact several times.

Finally, on a small island off the coast of the king’s land, an island which had maintained its independence with stubborn aplomb, they found, not a princess, but a queen who had, like the king of Assa’s land, lost her mate.

It was not usually the case that a king married a queen, as custom decreed a male monarch should be wed to a princess, but the situation was unique and a unique solution seemed the best option. The emissaries made their case. If the queen agreed to meet the king, with the possible outcome being matrimony, it would be very advantageous to her little island. She would no longer be alone, as it were, a tiny dot in the ocean, but be allied with a mighty kingdom, one with resources to support her land and her people.

And what of my children? asked the queen. I have two daughters.

The emissaries nodded sagely. And the king has two sons, they said. It would be a blended family. Both parties would benefit from the support and the camaraderie.

The queen agreed that she would like to have more power. She went back with the emissaries to the king’s palace.

What ensued in the following days has been the subject of much speculation. The king, it appeared, must have courted the queen and they must have taken to each other fairly soon, because less than a week later the queen sent for her daughters, who arrived with much fanfare. The king announced that he and the queen would be married in a month’s time.

This caused all sorts of reactions around the king’s land. People were relieved that the king seemed to have finally come out of his depressive state. The very trees and mountains seemed to brighten with the news. At least, that is how many of the land’s inhabitants saw the situation.

However, as with all things, it was not completely marvelous. Many people were dismayed that the king had found a stranger to marry. No one knew anything about the queen. Her home, a small island in the middle of the ocean was so insignificant to the people of the land that no one knew where it was or anything about it.

Assa’s parents talked about the situation with some caution, but mostly with a sense that here was news everyone could be happy about. They told Assa that with the king re-engaged with life, things would be different. He would again cast his benevolent influence across the land and should call off the thugs who were extorting money from them.

Assa could only hope that this was true. She continued to work at the mill. The two men who had been demanding money from them came around a week after the king’s announcement, demanding from Assa’s father a payment of cash. For the first time since the men began this behavior, he refused their demands. He told them they no longer had any authority and could not intimidate him any longer.

Assa was well and truly frightened by what her father said. She thought that perhaps the men would grow angry with him and attack him on the spot. Instead, startled by the reaction, they mumbled something about how next time he had better comply or there would be dire consequences, and then they left the mill.

Assa was relieved her father was not hurt, but she wondered if the men would return. That night, Assa and her mother and her father vowed they would not sleep. Instead, they planned to stay awake until dawn, guarding their mill against the possibility of the men returning, perhaps with torches to burn the place down. Assa and her parents were each armed with pitchforks. They were prepared to stab the men if they showed their faces.

I don’t think they will be back, said Assa’s father to Assa and her mother, but just in case, we should be prepared. We will each station ourselves on the perimeter of our property. Should we see anything of the men approaching us, we must shout to the sky as loud as possible and call the others to us. We will not allow them access to our property and we will stab them with our pitchforks as they would deserve no less from us. Do we all understand?

Assa and her mother nodded at Assa’s father. Then, as the sun began to set, they took up their positions around the mill. Assa held her pitchfork in her hands. The weight of the instrument was unfamiliar to her, but it felt right in her hands. She did not know if she could use it as her father intended, but hoped that if it came down to her life or the thug’s life, she would dispatch the scum with gusto.

The sun dropped in the sky and touched the ocean. It sunk out of view and darkness began to cloud her vision. She heard her father shout to the sky. Is everyone safe and ready?

Assa called back. Safe and Ready!

Her mother also shouted to the darkness: Safe and Ready!

Assa’s senses were on high alert. She heard sounds she had never heard before: birds rustling in the trees, bats flicking in the air above her, the wind magnifying the sound of the leaves on the trees. The very stars above her seemed to radiate sound: they crackled slightly, like insect wings buzzing in the air. Her hands and arms began to tremble from holding the pitchfork in the air. She stuck the tines into the ground to give herself some relief. If she needed the instrument, it would be there.

Every half hour or so, her father called to his family and they answered back.

Assa heard the waves of the ocean crashing against the beach in the distance. She saw meteorites streak against the sky, leaving white gouges in the blackness that gradually dissipated and finally disappeared. She imagined taking a scythe and swinging it against the belly of one of the brutes that had been extorting her family. She pictured the blood welling up like the meteorite trail.

The image disturbed and thrilled her at the same time. It was wrong to kill, wasn’t it? And yet, her family was, this night, here and now, prepared to do this wrong.

A creature, somewhere in the woods beyond the mill, snapped a branch. The sound was like an earthquake in Assa’s head. Was that man or beast? She didn’t know. She grabbed the pitchfork from the ground and raised it high so that the tines faced forward. She shouted to the night: I hear something! Father, Mother, come quickly.

Assa knew she should wait for her parents, but the thrill of a possible confrontation was too enticing. She took a step forward, away from the property. Her parents answered her call: We’ll be right there. But Assa did not wait. She hesitated only another instant, then sprang forward, running full speed toward the edge of the woods that began just on the other side of their property.

The ground beneath her feet was uneven and several times she thought she would turn her ankle. She did not, however, and within seconds was upon the shrubs edging the mill property. However, she was so filled with adrenaline and the excitement of possibly spilling blood, that she did not stop and simply kept running. She put her pitchfork out in front of her, holding it like it was a giant fork and she was attempting to snag the biggest meal ever.