A Castrovel Adventure: Part 6, Chapter 14

3. Ashelae, 45,548 - Al Farmhold   I owe an afterword from yesterday’s log ere I write anew. In the end after yesterday’s talk, we deemed nothing. We have not beseeched a farmhold or forsaken warriorhood. As bechildness and motherhood recks, we have yaysaid Nae owns foremostness and will do all canny for her sake. We have also overtalked the Motorae Games, which Meiss earnestly wishes to fight, and also whether a doughty showforth may better our nameworth. Thus I too have yaysaid to fight as, and Krastaes also had earlier so forespoken. Thus, if Remaue shackles me to a bed as she threatened, it will happen after Newyear.   With today, we have come to Al, where Aeosiss my father dwells with Liavil his wifemate, who is farmwife and treesinger. They merrily welcomed us, and dolefully since their children, Raeonyl my sister and Shill my brother, stand under the fird's newlinghood. After we settled, Liavil and I together watched my father and son play down in the treeyard, whereafter she kissed my shoulder. ~Haea-shyaldis vosodasra,~ - “You have made him the gladdest man,” she blessed.   Surely, if I choose to bear another child, he will only be gladder.   At my father’s and Liavil’s behest, we will stay through Newyear. Most of our flag already wanders between here and neighboring Eral to share Krastaes’s wine and wickedness, and with likelihood that Nae and Hanos will cleave soon. We will go to the city every few days for drill. Yet for the first time since coming back to Son, I feel at home.     13. Ashelae, 24,548 - Al Farmhold   Yesterday we went into the city for drilltide. After we came back, however, Draue chose to stay, which deed owed no oddness since her fathermate dwells in town and she had wontfully done samely. When today she came, however, she led not only her boys but Nestas too, who had broken my nose at Firdmoot and had beseeched to cleave our flag. Rather forecaughtly we welcomed him and, with Liavil’s leave, bestowed guesthood. Draue outspoke she should like Nestas to stay a few days, and he hauled gear to her bower.   Soon laterward, we withdrew Draue to the treeyard underneath and becraved word. Remaue first spoke: ~Dei nequaea-rualdas kaolyaru?~ - “Has he snaked his way into your goodwill?” At the lewdness, Draue smirked truth. Yet then she answered Sievae owns Meiss, whom we had brought from Qabarat; Hanos is Nae’s manmate, and since she wishes a child, rightly thews her foremostly. ~Yuda-vasra imaulaf,~ - “I want my own manlove,” she outlaid, and that, though she and her fathermate are friendloves, they are not so lusty as ereward. She beseeched we should deem Nestas here sheerly for her idleness (since her two sons are enough) and needed no choice reckful to our flag’s fellowship.   ~Das yanas urollas,~ - “A younger man has behoof,” she besides added with a hungry smile. She yielded that if we behold him comely and he owns strength afterleft, we may welcomely try him. Then she climbed upstairs, bade Nestas come within her bower, and by her lusty wails bestowed witness of his manly blessing.   Liavil my father’s wifemate asked whether, since Nestas dwells as Draue’s manlove, he may readily help farmwork. Draue yaysaid, though I wonder Nestas’s thought. Erenow I watched him down in the treeyard with Meiss, where they handled shortbills and talked warcraft. I frankly think he would forsake farmhood.     Evelae Treesong - Al Farmhold   After the farmhold’s treesong, we fared into the city and yielded worship to Lady-Captain. When I asked whether she had word from my mother, she yaysaid. Yet since she yielded nothing else after our last talk, that was the end. I hailed and left.   Is this now my life? Do I owe choice between Valmayana and becoming a farmwife (and a randy one if Remaue’s will oversways)?     5. Evelae, 24,548 - Al Farmhold   Under homely peace I have found an unforelooked bother: boredom. My mind festers without business, even going into the city every few days to drill. I have reread my whole daylog, even from the start almost fourteen years ago. I have even read Remaue’s wicked lusttales of sage-princesses enthralling blithe youths into their harems and the wanton depths they teach (inkling my wifemate seeks new forethought to wreak me!). I have tried hunting. Yet in all frankness, else than some young baletoads wandering inland from the river or the odd fade-deer too wary after being stalked their whole lives by the island’s Shotalashu, Aelau has few things to hunt. My best game outcame as a sixsome ~haeaqaoshu~ - boughstranglers - and a hood-adder that Ess and I caught. While we sliced the snakes and fried them in treebutter for duskmeal, the farmers moreso thanked me for the hood-adder’s slaughter and safeness.   After I outwore any hunt’s idleness and even bothered Kaure at knife-fighting, I hopelessly beseeched work. So I had to behang business upon my flagmates, who had never owed qualms about setting me to work. Yet, although Remaue often threatens to make me cleanse byrnies and weapons, she forsoothly has me so do less often. Also, though I would help her and Less with cookcraft, those two own an odd bond in the kitchen wherein they will let none else, lest their dish be marred. So with slight choice else, I headed to the farmhold. Yet the farmers grew queer, since unlike Remaue’s mother who had happily set me delving ditches, they withheld under my father’s misheed. They beread I should speak with Liavil as farmwife.   Liavil looked at me almost so queerly, doubtlessly kenning her manmate’s thought. At last she becraved I might set some stepstones in the treeyard and so bestow dry thoroughfare when the showers flood.   Earnestly I first found stepstones (ingathering a short fare to Ta-Eizohu’s slope to find fitting stones, wherein I dragged Kaure, Oshis, and Less). Then I drew a pattern whereby I reckoned a step outlay eyesomely fair: a six-limbed wreathwork. So forereadied, on the next day I mathed and marked the steps, took shovel and tilled setting and flattening the groundholes, laying the stones, and ensuring wobblessness, and thus strove for fair and worthy work.   I had almost ended when at Fore-Eve Liavil came back from fieldwork, and I forestood to show my furtherness, I shrive with dirt smeared on my arms, legs, and face. Liavil stood at the yard’s edge. She halted with open mouth and high antennae while overlooking. Then my father’s wifemate eyed me.   ~O’sholi se uthe diaste,~ she said: “Truly you are your father’s daughter,”   She told she had wished a mere step path to keep feet mudless while raintide. Then she outquoth this is why she lets Aeosiss my father carve faircraft in the city instead of bidding him more work here, forwhy, although he would yield her the prettiest farmhold on Aelau, she would unsurely get any farmwork done. Then she kissed my blushing cheek and thanked me.   Later when my father came home, he cheered my fair stepwork. Then he yelled loudly enough for the main deck to hear: ~Shoea-rualaf eisryere, hei doqoalyele zhehuedi-tei!~ - “I love my wifemate, but she is a heathen without faircraft!”   Liavil answered downward: ~Oeo’siadeni ameniss imassas araemi!~ - “And you may so sleep alone tonight!”   My worktrial’s chide, however, goaded me to more earnestly seek a forehap to yield worth. Afittingly, when the next day Remaue and Less outspoke need for more firewood, I upwilled to fetch it and bewon Kaure to help. Then with two wheelbarrows, Aeosel riding our shoulders, and Ess and Vali our steeds following with saddlebags, we outset for the lumberyard, which lay a rough belltide’s fare away.   Something sorrows in a lumberyard, moreso than any fallen tree else, even than a milktree. A baleful glade opens through the leafwhelve, and deathliness overwafts after something so great, the earth’s own child, yields life. The stump’s girth, wontfully wide as a streetyard now now rose so high as a hallroof, and through the wreck and waste left from boughs, limbs, and woodchips overstrewing the stead’s gruesomeness. I ken many folk who withhold coming anywhere near or who misdeem woodcutters as foul. Some outer settlesteads rather hire outlaws to cut wood instead of doing it themselves.   We saw the stump, eyesomely of a redbud, whose whole slab widened maybe five shota-lengths jutting broken from the earth. It had been sawn flat halfway, matched against the other side’s notch cutting through burl and rotten wood: proof of this tree’s illness and why it was chosen. From the stump and along the fallpath stretched the beam like a fallen, butchered god. Its upper side was mostly hewn and already lumbered off. Under its lower half, a rough pit was already dug by the stump. There sat the pit saw, which bedreaded plight from marsh-adders and whatever things else might increep. (Indeed, many farmers beread old sawpits as the best stead to hunt baletoad polliwogs.)   We also met a wheelteam with a shieldhead hitched, who lifted a cut beamslab for draft to the nearest watermill. The Korasha teamsters asked our idleness, and then shared any deadfall and boughs were already taken, since they are harvested first. Yet they bade us toward the fallen beam’s end where we might offhew chunks from the boughstumps, but must cut our own wood. We thankfully blessed, and then trundled our barrows, with our Shotalashu skipping lazily and Aeosel gleefully riding on the bed, toward the fallen top.   While we talked with the teamsters, another Korasha sat upon the beam’s edge before the pit-saw handle, and looking between us and down into the pit. We guessed him a sawyer owning the mislucky job of cutting slabs small enough to haul to the mill, since I understood the pit-saw as the worst, dirtiest, begrudged, and plightiest job linked to lumberwork. Not only must they delve under the dead tree’s beam but must saw and split the slabs loose for freight. Furthermore, on any sawteam, the lower sawmate owns the worst till, since along with undergoing the whole plight of having a ten-barkweight or heavier woodbeam hanging overhead and undergoing sawdust falling, he must deal with any depth of mud or water gathered in the pit, and any snakes or crawlythings gathered. Indeed while we talked, another antenna-set and head popped from under the beam’s edge, ruefully seeking rest and freshness, whence he and his upper sawmate watched our business.   We trundled topward along the fallen tree’s sorrily trimmed length until the bough stumps. There we happily found some scrap chunks left by an ereward cutter, only that they were too great to set in our wheelbarrows, and surely too thick for a cookfire. So while Aeosel played with woodchips, Kaure and I wielded axes and wedges. We soon made the work a game trying to split a chunk in one blow, whereby we bet. Bywardly, we beheld the lower sawmate had outclimbed and cleansed himself, whereafter both sawyers sat sharing a wine jug. We also bewared they watched us work. While we split the chunks and instead shifted to cutting a log for more wood, they sauntered near and asked whether we would wield a saw instead of wildly hacking. We yaysaid, whereat they brought a short span-length saw. Kaure and I took the handles and drew it through the log until we had more chunks ready to split.   At noontide we halted for lunch when we hailed the sawyers, gave back their saw, and shared winewater and treecheese. We traded names and undermet them to Aeosel, who proved a merry peacebode, and told we stay at Al Farmhold, whom they kenned, and that I am Aeosiss’s eldest daughter. The cutters told they are hired to cut roofbeams for a new hall building on Dale Street and told the housewife as Mistress Eizi Rosamaue, whose house I have heard. While they had not cut the redbud down, they had begun cutting slabs afterward, both for the sawmill and for doleful beams such as they now tilled. They also spoke of two flatbarks nowwardly building in the boatyard. At last we halted to take leave and blessed farewell.   One sawyer nodded grovelingly: ~Nilora nayelis, o’soati-ahi vas toqya-rualf,~ - “If you need more, we could have it hewn tomorrow.” We bashfully thanked their offer and answered we quite had enough. Then we stirred to stack our wheelbarrows and our steeds’ packs while Kaure and I shot thoughts to each other and Aeosel giggled against our chides. When we reached our workstead, we ducked behind the beam and yielded sharp laughter ere we packed and stacked our firewood and left, trading waves with the sawyers.   Anon Aeosiss my father ran up the lane with antennae forward. Breathlessly he halted, as did we. Then he sternly spoke: ~O’seili thonara melara evolzyelis, o’ahi vi thanzise,~ - “If you wished to seek mean work, you could have come to me.”   I answered: ~A dias, o’distimi nolya-rualdaf thonara melara,~ - “Father, I have never deemed your work mean.” Fighting a scowl, he bade me yield him the wheelbarrow, which I naysaid. Aloss, he took Kaure’s, whereafter we came the whole way home, speechless to show his ill will at us so working.   Remaue laterward found our tale shamelessly funny and asked when we would bring the two sawyers into our house and start a lumber trade. My father glared so balefully that even our bold wifemate quelled.