Sixteen Feet of Steel Chapter 4

Chapter 4

*Before…

He calls from the campfire. “As common as the come Chris. I’m just a poor peasant lad that earns is bread being useful.”

“Oh…no trade?”

“None that stuck to me I’m afraid I’m just too much a drifter for that.”

“Oh…no offense but they trust to that?”

He laughs. “I’m Keep born Chrissy; they’re all family to me.”

Chrissy?

Nicole’s tipping back a skin and was drinking when she looks at me and she laugh-chokes and spits wine through her nose.

“Chrissy?”

*And Now…

“Aye Chris be a lads name and with a mouthful like Christiana I just trimmed it down a little.”

I look at Nicole who’s recovering and then to Jessa who looks up just because I was looking at her and she could tell and there’s a look between all of the three of us. Nicole grins again.

I sigh… “Will I get that a lot in these parts?”

Taylor looks at me. “I meant no offense lady if you’d beg my pardon but you likely will unless you make it clear that you’re noble born.”

He’s serious and I look at Nicole. “What does she use? Or what do you use for her?”

“Squire for the most part lady but I call her Nic or Nicole but I have her leave.”

“I see…”

I think for a while and he actually takes his attention off of me with a shrug and goes back to what he was doing.

That would be a lashing kind of thing back home.

Not that father would but there’d be a stern look and maybe a lecture from someone but others that would have been a few strikes or worse.

And maybe given everything and the fact that the enemy surely knows that I escaped it might be a better idea if I really was to act like a “Chrissy.” Over Christian or Christiana of Lyonnes for a while.

“It might be better though to call me Chrissy or Chris though I’ll be more used to being called for as Chris.”

He turns and looks at me. “I can do that.” He smiles and then he takes things from Jessa that she took from her things and she looks at me.

“I’m getting a bath do you want one?”

“Yes.” I answer quickly, the scrubbings I’ve had so far are not clean I still feel unclean and sweaty and there’s still…just yes and I don’t care how cold it is.

I quickly follow her and it turns out that it’s not…not cold. With a tarp pegged to a tree for some cover there’s a barrel and it’s cut in half and there’s a bucket. We do have to haul our own water from a stream not too far away but as we come back Taylor is setting fire heated bricks in the water until they heat it up some and he tops off the rest of it with a full kettle of boiling water.

We take turns and I offered it first to Jessa who takes me up on the offer with a shrug. I was sort of waiting for the no you back and forth but there wasn’t any.

I hear her huff when I turn my back.

“What are you doing?”

“You’re getting naked.”

“And?”

“You’re a woman it’s not mannerly to peek.”

“Oh bullshit, you’ve seen naked women before haven’t you?”

“No…”

“Well you will in a few minutes. You are one.”

“Uhm yes well there is that…” I can feel the heat making its way to my face.

I slowly turn still almost shyly at seeing her naked and it’s.

I sort of catch my breath.

She’s beautiful and very exotic and there are scars…I’m sort of mesmerized by seeing my first naked woman and one that close and my mind does not really know what to do with what I’m seeing.

It’s hard to be a girl and not feel something.

I am feeling something it actually very much reminds me of my usual hardening but deeper? Like getting a ready lance inside ones sporting cup but deeper inside and my nipples are getting hard and achy.

She looks at me and I can tell that she can tell and I get redder.

“I’m sorry, I’m still Chris…and you’re very beautiful.”

“Pfft…I’m your first naked woman, you’ll get used to it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Be a sapphire.”

I blush and I know that she is a woman that likes women and I’m just…my head’s spinning with thoughts.

I sit down on the grass cross legged and play with some leaves. “I’m so not ready for anything like that.”

“Then don’t. I know lots of people that don’t.”

“Really?” I sort of look at her and she’s more into washing than I am into looking.

“Aye, Lady T has all sorts of people in the fortress and some of them are just simply not interested in being sexual or really being a sex.”

“Not being a sex?”

“Just because you’re born with parts doesn’t mean you’re comfortable with them.”

“Oh…I never thought of that…I mean there’s always like lurid tales if people crossing lines and such and in-betwixed peoples but I never thought they were real.”

She looks at me. “A lot of them are either hurt or molested or killed for being so different.”

“I heard the dwarves are like that?”

“Like what?”

“That…that their ladies have beards?”

“There are human women with beards Chrissy.”

I tilt my head.

“They shave or such but the cleanly smoothed ladies of the courts have this standard of look that all of those around them seek to copy they even use all sorts of potions and unguents to get these looks.”

I laugh. “Aye, my mother and my sisters had an apothecary’s storehouse of such things.”

“Well dwarves have more body hair than us to be certain but they aren’t human like us so it doesn’t have the same thing for them as us. The few dwarven ladies I have met have beards but some are intricately shaved in patterns some have braids and its soft satiny hair.”

There is a smile there sort of and I look at her sort of questioningly and she deepens her smile a little.

“Oh…” ….oh indeed.

She turns and she shows me this scar on her arm…her shoulder that…it’s a rose?

“What?” I move closer.

“My husband had burned me there with a fry pan he held to me and there was a large burn there and a scar. When I was with Kal she took me to a scar artist.”

“Scar artist?”

“Dwarves see scars that we carry as things of beauty, signs that we survived things and they use a bunch of different things to make cuts if they need to or to burn with acid and a glass needle shapes out of the scar tissue.”

I look at her and I reach and she gives me a nod and it’s a rose…fully in bloom to use the whole area of the burn scar but it doesn’t just look like the flower but they have done so much work in the thick scar tissue in a way that I’ve never seen it has the same sort of texture as if you felt a rose like this on cloth.

“It’s amazing.”

“It is and it reminds me of Kal now when I touch it far more than my bastard husband.”

“It’s a fine lover’s gift.”

She actually smiles. “Aye…but as far as I know it’s just one of many things they do that are different to humans.”

I take a breath and a sigh… “I have so much to learn.”

She grins and then she slips out of the water and starts to dry off and we do the process all over again for mine.

I’m not used to any of this and I’m trying to not get too unsettled at this or doing my parts but it’s only partly working. The soap’s nothing like I’ve used and filled with grit on purpose like sand and such and I learn quickly to go gently with some things.

It smells nice like pine needles and grasses.

“Was this on purpose?”

She’s braiding her hair and she looks at me. “What is?”

“The soap scents.”

“No it’s just one I was given, there’s not a lot of scent changing really those are tales.”

“Tales?”

“Aye we smell, we sweat and there’s our clothes and such we can’t hide our scents but we can do things so we lessen our chances of being smelt.”

“Oh…I don’t really know much wood craft.”

Jessa laughs lightly. “Zero I’d say.”

I chuckle a little. “Pretty much I’ve hunted a few times with my father and such but those are pretty recent things.”

“It takes time and knowing, Ranging and such are professions for a reason.”

“Have you ranged far?”

“Most of the Lady’s lands and on trails for trade and a few other places and into the dwarven lands.”

“Well travelled then?” It’s true I’ve been to two neighboring nobles and we shared borders a whole lot of folk never leave past the next hamlet or village except for a few times in their lives.

She looks at me with this sort of light in her eyes. “Never enough Chris…where I come from you don’t leave the land…the property of your father or husband without permission…”

I’m liking her homeland less and less the more I hear.

Nicole come to get her bath and she passes me a slip to wear and it’s rather large on me and a sweater to wear over that and I feel…vulnerable with the bottom not having a bottom…yes it’s very much like some short dress so that’s not boding well for me.

Jessa looks at me. “Your things need washing in the worst way and mending.”

I nod but I’m holding them looking probably stupid before she takes them and sets them down.

“Food first and then some rest for all of us we’ll have time.”

I nod. “You’ll have to show me. I’ve never cleaned clothes before.”

Jessa and Nicole chuckle. “Aye we’ll show you.”

I follow her to the campfire and Taylor has fleeces set out for us over grass mats and we sit and oh…that feels nice. Then the smells of food hit me and I’m drooling and he’s dishing out things. There is stewed meat with lots of bits and bones but a broth that has herbs and mushrooms and other bits that I think are potato and carrot and such. There are greens too from a pan that I’ve never had.

We don’t eat greens…they’re pig feed and peasant food…gods that sounds bad but the way it’s said about such stuff if we wished to eat such things then we’d be cattle.

These are stewed but he has butter in a fry pans with a chopped rasher of bacon and there might be other things but he cooked a lot of the water out from them. They’re pretty rich and there’s a sweetness to that I have had but I can’t place in them. For my first greens ever they are very good and a plentiful thing too I think.

There’s flatbread he had cooked and that we use for dipping and I’m not so good with my manners as I’m eating without Nicole who I think ate while we were bathing and I’m using my hands a lot.

“Taylor this is very, very good what is this?”

“Squirrel and rabbit.”

“I’ve never had squirrel…I wasn’t aware you could eat it?”

“Aye lots of souls eat squirrel Chrissy.”

“I’m enjoying it thank you.”

“Well the real trick out here is to spit roast things a bit it’s give the broth something extra.”

“It definitely did.”

I’m watching Jessa eat and actually copying her. And she eats the smallest bones cooked soft and crunches then up and she even bites the ends off of what could be thigh bones and eats those since they’re sort of soft enough too and sucks on the bones.

We don’t do that we waste a lot I think.

Or we waste and the others, those that worked under us did what they could with what we left.

That needs a bit more thought, it doesn’t seem all that right to me.

He smiles and then there’s cake?

Something called fruit cake.

It’s…well it’s like a brick the slice he gives me and it’s dark and sweet with molasses? But there’s dried apples and plummy bits as well as raisins? I can taste something else that’s not known to me well several things.

It’s really chewy and I think there’s suet in here too. He smiles and opens a tin box and he has a wrapped cheese in there and cuts a wedge of it for both of us. “It’s better with some cheese.”

Well fruits and cheeses have been one of those things that many do. It works with this as the cheese is waxy and not very good but it’s salty too and that seems to cut the flavors of this fruitcake.

“Thank you I’ve never had really any of this but it’s very much welcome.”

“You’ve got manners that’s a nice thing.”

“Too telling?”

“Nay but there’s a fine line between manners and snobbery.”

I nod. “I’ll try to watch that.”

He smiles. “You’re doing fine right now.”

“I’m very out of my element here; I’ll try not to let things at the fortress go to my head.”

He laughs. “Not much of a chance of that.”

I tilt my head questioningly.

“Lady Tatiana is a knight marshal, she’s a warrior and knight and a fair ruler all of which before her titles and she expects the same from all around her.”

I take a mug of what smells like tea? from Jessa. “That might not be too popular with the neighbors?”

“Aye…she has her enemies but those lot aren’t too friendly to their own much less others.”

I sip the tea, it’s far better than any I’ve had from home…it could grace a fine table for sure.

“She sounds like an interesting woman.”

Both of them are nodding and smiling and Nicole comes back and Taylor passes her a mug of tea and some fruitcake and cheese.

Nicole cleans up nicely too. I’m not used to short hair on women but on her it sort of oddly suits her and she still to me has a very strong build?

Is it wrong to say there is a manliness there? Strong looking shoulders and body muscles there on her arms and legs that well…she’s a battleknighter’s squire the effort and strength alone usually exempts most people.

I mean before my change I was still slightly built and thin only Justin my father’s eldest would have inherited The Rampant, Stephan and I wouldn’t have the strength to more than walk it around the courtyard.

I take another drink of tea to soothe the lump in my throat over my family.

I think the others looked at me and I just sort of let myself get lost in the fire or watching it and sipping my tea and it’s silent for a while until Taylor starts asking about what had happened.

The girls give him the account of some of their travels and hearing me first with a sound like a boom of thunder and seeing my comedown out in “The Bone yard.” Apparently that is the stretch of hilly plains and scrub that I was on.

“That’s not on the maps home, home the maps of here are very vague and just show the mountains and the forest here.”

Taylor nods. “Not much call for trade between us out here and the middle kingdoms.”

I take a sip. “Most of it here is dwarven trade.”

“Some…they have Midguard for trade on the other side of the mountains with the midlanders but we see a lot of trade from The Copper islands and The Wolf islands and then southern nations.”

I’ve heard of The Copper islands mostly by rumors and they’re called that because they are filthy rich with it and they use it in most everything they have or bronze or brass. Also that they are dark skinned like brewed kaffet….pagans and worshippers of all sorts of devilry.

We’ve had almost zero dealings with these people so who knows what their like.

And then there are The Wolf Islanders those I know of and they’re descendants of the same people that settled these lands that got lost and started their own colonies out on distant islands. They are pirates with dozens of islands each with chieftains ruling and an insane system of taxes and patronage all owing in time to The Wolf King.

All we see of then is the fact that salt herring and codfish comes from there and still at a good price despite the distances and that Cod oil comes from there too.

“Do The Wolf Raid here?”

Nicole nods and finishes chewing. “Some years and in some places. But we deal with them as we may though they have treaties with the dwarves.”

“I’ll…(yawn)…have much to learn…I don’t even know of any of the nobles here save your lady and that’s just from what you’ve spoken of.”

Nic yawns herself which just makes mine want to start up again. “Welcome to the Free Kingdoms, and The Houses of The Fifty.”

Fifty…there are fifty houses here…or what they consider houses here for the nobility. I will have a lot of learning to do.

But then again…that’s not so many if you look at Just Lyonnes and all those that were under my father’s banner as houses.

I yawn again.

Nicole looks at me. “You’re more than done in you should get some sleep.”

“But my clothes?”

Taylor looks at me. “I will take care of those things Chrissy; I’m named after my father’s trade.”

“Taylor…aye I was wondering about that.”

“Well he was rumored to be such; it’s what he told my ma as he passed through one Yuletide fest.”

I smile, there’s more than one Yuletide fest babe in this world.

I look at them and then at the campsite and the two tents. “Uhm…where am I to sleep?”

Jessa gets up too. “With me and I’m going to get some sleep too before my watch.”

Watch….yes well that’s a good idea.

“Should I take a watch?”

Jessa looks at me. “Have you ever stood a watch?”

“No…”

“Then no, you’re better off with the sleep.”

I sigh remembering my last time. “I hope so.”

We go to the tent she leads us to and we slip inside and it’s small and it’s like nothing I’ve camped in before but there’s several mats of grasses and a fleece pad there to sleep on and two leather pillows just round merc rolls a stuffed leather tube but still more than enough I think.

There’s several blankets of wool there instead of linens and while I’m not used to them I settle in better than I thought that I would and Jessa sleeps in her pants and with her boots on and she unsheathes a large knife and keeps it close.

I look at her.

“You never know Chris we’re not really in safe territory yet.”

“Oh…”

I have a sort of dry mouth at that.

“Don’t worry; we’ll be safe as we can be.”

“Alright….” Can be.

I’m going to leave that alone.

It takes very little time for the food and the tea and being clean to drag me under and into sleep.

***…………………………….. I know I slept soundly for a while. I can just tell that there was time that had passed where I just needed to do nothing but sleep. It’s after that when you’re starting to recover that the mind wakes and it starts to think and dream.

And it’s good and bad…there’s a lot of the good times and family memories and those little treasures and then there’s the attack again…the sounds and smells and all the fighting and all of the death and seeing those I love die and those I’ve known all my life die too and then there’s this…

Coming here…the magic…the Goblins…the fighting.

And then there are the thunderstorm dreams…that’s a little clearer now…picture an endless sky with this huge sun but it’s not a sun it’s a ball of lightning…and from it there are arcs of lightning and those arcs are the things that are giving birth to my storm clouds…my nightmares.

And myself…I’m this glowing person shape…my arms and legs are of light and somehow I move with my thoughts in this place.

If inside of you is a place…I’m sure that this is inside of me.

Just like I’m sure that I have to weather these storms and control them before they control me.

I do know that every time I catch a jolt from one of the storm-nightmare clouds that it’s what was happening to me while I was sleeping.

Okay, I do not know this for sure but after me third jolt from a nightmare I think my leg did a spasm in my sleep.

You ever do that twitch hard in your sleep and you know you did it but you went right back to sleep anyway?

That’s it really most of the rest of my sleep was waiting and trying to avoid those things until the nightmares passed and I was left with that blue white orb inside of my inner sky.

I ended up staring into it like the campfire though.

I have to figure this out and get a better handle on it, it’s not like there are teachers for this kind of thing that I know of. I mean there are witches and hedge wizards to be sure but there are few that can even be considered a Lady Blackhand.

To be honest other than her father I know of no one that has real power like by name. But then such things were never really talked about or even studied home or other places. I don’t even know much about the clerical things either.

We had a temple to The All-Gods and there was a monastery of the Elohim in the Hill’s and that there was a truce between them and Haven’s Hill but we had no friar or priest like some places did.

So…really I know of no one I can go and seek to learn from.

So that means that I have to figure out a lot of this on my own.

That’s Loverly as my brother Stephan would say.

Stephan…

Middle son and still my big brother he was our cavalier…quick witted, good with a lance and a kind man already…and then an huge storm inside me builds as my grief does and thankfully if you can call it that I wake before I spark and I feel it in my hands and I clench my fists until I shut it down and I’m shaking and then I’m crying over losing him.

I’m alone right now so I do cry pretty hard and I try to muffle things as I pull all the blankets over me to cry…I know it should be alright for a girl to cry but I’m just not there yet.

***………………………. By the time I’m done I had went back to true sleep again and woke with salt crusty eyes, dry mouth and the need to make water.

I crawl out of the bedding and blink at the daylight and I look around.

Oh…oh I’m going to have a harder time holding things than before. Standing up seems to have asked all the fluids in me to settle towards the need for a hasty exit.

“Where’s the privy area?”

Taylor points to an area with a tarp and I head over there and it’s actually a part barrel with things cut out and it’s over a deep hole and some of those muslin cloths are there rolled up.

Oh…much better and this way I’m not falling over. I suppose that this is something one must think about when traveling with women.

Or not maybe they’re just thinking ahead.

It’s still a very disturbing thing to sit to make water and wet…it’s a good thing for the cloths. I wind some off and make sure that I’m dry before going to do anything else.

I head to the main camp and it’s being packed away mostly with a lot of things obviously waiting on me.

“I’m sorry I’ve held everyone up…”

Nicole who is on the back of the wagon inside her rig cleaning and oiling and tuning says. “Not a real tightly held schedule we patrol and we have a few days leeway actually.”

Tuning is important all of those cables need to operate at the right tensions in order to really be effective it’s as vital a skill as anything else in the world of being a battleknighter.

Taylor passes me a plate with food. It’s some kind of corn meal biscuit with jam and a cup with leftover stew and I sit and eat. Jessa is nowhere to be seen and I eat quickly starting with the stew and taking a drink of the cold mug of last night’s tea gratefully.

“A few days leeway? I’d think that would be odd with something like a patrol?”

She shakes her head. “We do a lot more than just patrol the lands when we’re out like this. We help as we may with those that need it and there's always things to forage for and to provide for?”

I’m a little lost though I can see foraging the wood as we travel given the wagon we have and such but my people patrolled and little else when the did it.

“So what can I do to help?”

That makes Taylor grin at me. “Alrighty you get dressed and I’ll put ye to work.”

I finish eating and he passes me a small pack with clothes and they’re mine but much better mended and washed as well as dried. I get dressed and while I’m changing he gets me to break down the tent and to put away the bedding.

I’ve seen it done so I strike the tent and then shake it out and then line it all up for the folds until it’s one long length and that’s when I place the stakes inside and roll it all up and tie it into a bundle with the strings.

I get a nod of approval and the others are easy too just rolling the grass mats and the blankets in the same ways as well as the fleeces and by the time I’m done that he has the privy filled with the ashes from the fire and things cleaned out and scrubbed and other than that camp is done.

They did do most of it while I was sleeping.

We set the wagon ready and harness up the horses another task that I actually do know. Even if I wasn’t a wagoner or merchant we had teams of horses to use for various things and stable work is one of the things that even I was made to do.

The last thing is the barrels and baskets?

All along the length of both sides of the large wagon we place and fix barrels to each foot of length and some of those we fill with water and others are empty then we take tin hooks and place them in between the barrels and hang wicker baskets off of them and all of those are empty?

And then we’re off.

It’s nothing I’ve seen done home or done myself but as I’m riding along the back of the wagon and then joined by Nicole once her rig is settled as she likes it and is airing out we get calls from Taylor.

“T’the left.” Or T’the right.” And in those places we have markers that Nicole points of from Hawk that are things. Greens for food, nuts or berries, apples and pears and wild things like ramps? And other things all either edible or to be used for herbs and such all in those simple bags and mushrooms of all kinds and some I’ve never seen before and even straw twine tied bundles of firewood. All save the firewood goes into barrels or baskets and the firewood we keep stacking behind the chair for Nicole’s Squire’sknight.

There’s far more walking than there is riding and as a nobles son I’ve never done this and it’s shocking to see Nicole being a squire doing this as well. And there’s game too…birds and rabbits it’s rough work because Taylor and the wagon don’t stop, we keep going and we have to walk along and put things into the containers and sometimes we have to catch up.

We’re in a ride and rest moment and I look at Nicole. “Your lady must have a bountiful keep with each patrol doing this?”

She shakes her head. “Aye home’s well stocked but little of this will see the keep.”

“The why are we doing this all surely we won’t need that many provisions?”

I feel the change as we break the trails tree line and I smell manure and smoke. I look and see a farm, several homes of family and it’s extensions and fences and such and we’re driving alongside the train and Hawk comes from the bush to sit beside us as Nicole is slipping on a tunic with her coat of arms?

Light grey material with silver trim and her device or her lady’s device is a pair of doves perched on the quillions of a claymore. If she was a knight there’d be a shield added to the design and the silver trim is I think for her being a woman.

Nicole stands on the wagon. “Ho the steading!”

I’m a little confused because since when do nobles give call and not just arrive?

There’s some that come out and there’s some children and some oldsters and a matron that’s waving a white cloth.

“Are they surrendering?”

“Nay, a white cloth isn’t surrender in these parts it’s parley.”

We’re taking a turn into their yard and they’re coming out to meet us and Nicole hops off the wagon and she does this short lean bow to the woman. “Ma’am.” And to the oldest looking fellow with a walking staff and a weathered but warm smile. “Sir.”

Then she shakes their hands asking. “We’re here for post and have you need?”

I look at Hawk. “Is he a knight?”

She looks at me. “Free…Kingdoms Chrissy. Each family has the lands set forth in the tennet of claims and that’s one hundred yards by one hundred yards plus five for every wife and child in the family.”

“Okay but he has more than that?”

“This is a farm steading so each of these families gets the same.”

“But what of neighbors?”

“You cannot claim land already claimed you have to buy it from the owners.”

“Okay…but again Nicole sir’d him is he a knight?”

“No but on one’s own lands every man is a master, hence the sir.”

“Oh…” That’s…how?

I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact they’re not tenants.

“How does the realm run if there are no tenants?”

“Taxes.”

“But how do you enforce the taxes?”

“Rarely comes up?”

“What?”

She gets up. “You’ll see Chrissy now it’s time to do out duty.”

“Duty?”

She grins at me. “We serve the people not the other way around.”

I look as Nicole is heading off with the men into what looks like the fields and Taylor’s opening the forage that we did like we’re a market cart for the women of the houses and then Hawk tosses me a bundle of firewood.

And I don’t think we’re getting paid for any of this either?