Torsade Literary Space Fellyans (part three)
Fellyans
(part three)
“Vincent was King of the Hutterers, some sort of people who live someplace near where there’s a border with the Fells,” Alma was telling them. She remarked aside to Finch: “How I’d like getting my hands on that purple wool!”
“And so you will, acres of it. You’re keen to knit, are you?”
“Oh, I barely know how. I collect scraps and threads from the wash and wind them up, and when I have a skein’s worth, might make a bit of a hat, or a mitten.”
“Oh!” said Finch in her turn, after a silence…of repeating a phrase to herself. When the alms collectors knocked, she had to wait with her mother behind the door, because Jorinda would say: My loves, it is all wishes with the charity people. And no, you may not speak to them.
The city poor! The very sight of one! And Finch’s to bless as she saw fit—
“Alma, do you wish…”
“King of the Hutterers,” Bede threw in. “And what does Huttering amount to? Is it a kind of singing, or weapon-crafting, or a language—”
“Huttering is to live in a hut.”
“Ah. On what sort of terrain, then? I think you mentioned keeping a garden. And I’d been going to say, regarding beans, that if your soil has got tired…”
“A hut is not a house. A hut is practically a…a molehill, of large proportions, if you can picture it. A modest grooming of the earth it stands on. Earth, a few sticks and brush, such as can be raked from scrub… And the Queen’s Assessors have seen no value in scrub. They see no value in mud! But build yourself a home from mud and scrub, and they call it a house!”
Bede felt an embarrassment, as the walk to his own house could not be a long one. They were at the door, where Jorinda had a lamp hung under the lintel (a gorgeous piece of Melchior’s carving). One of the dogs barked. Jorinda, coming to the stoop, but looking towards the kitchen, said: “Bunting, she’s right here. Safe with Bede, and he’s collected one of yours. And who…”
She turned, showing her hair under a scarf, and her robe on.
“…are these guests, Bede?”
“Alma, and I believe, Vincent.”
“And Marshhawk,” Marshhawk said. “What a fine house! It seems to rise to the sky!”
“It’s a wonderful house,” said Finch. “Mother and I have a whole floor to ourselves.”
“How many thousands,” said Vincent, tightly, “do you pay in taxes?”
“Oh, not thousands.”
“But hundreds.”
“Well. Twelve of them.”
“One thousand and two hundred, then. I have a question. How many mud huts, stacked one on another, do you think a house of this size would equal?”
“Hello!” Bede’s mate intervened. “I’m Jorinda. Are you Vincent? And are you Alma?”
5
“Jorinda! She’s poor!”
“Finch, that is no concern of yours. Vincent, Alma, shall I feed you breakfast? Soon be too light not to call it morning.”
Bede woke from a nap, taken on the cot beside the kitchen fire. He heaved himself sitting, found his socks, found his shoes, found two cats nudging him to vacate the warm sink made by his midsection on the feather mattress.
There were no immediate voices. The sundial in Bede’s herb bed told him he’d had a good sleep…
Things, however, were not well. Prints from a pair of clogs crossed and trampled his mints, and the frame sheltering his tiny starts of fennel, chervil, and borage, lay kicked askew.
“Don’t help, Gert,” he said to the kitchen dog, plunged in sniffing.
“I’m sorry. I’m not hopeless at gardens. I’ll fix, is what I mean, whatever I’ve ruined. I have a plot of my own, well away, where…” The soft voice faltered.
“Where no one,” she seemed to decide, “can find it insupportable, if I don’t poison the worms off the cabbages, just because I like the butterflies. I do like them. Or if I let the wild things…I should say the bears, that’s what troubles him…come eat the fruits. I don’t see how they’ll get at the lambs, the bears, him sleeping in the fields to keep watch, and those fierce dogs he’s bought…”
She was hiding behind the hedge, and crawled out, or tried to, using a gap tunneled by the sprites. Her braided hair, her knitted cap and shawl, all had sprung their loose ends to entwine among the twigs…
Or Bede found it easy to believe so. “Be still. Let me do the work,” he was just suggesting.
The woman said, without practice, but intending jest, “If I’d worn my suit of armor…”
Whenever magic took place, it was difficult knowing exactly how you’d been situated the instant before. Gert, good as a creature could be, had only yipped in her throat. The woman had vanished.
Bede got off his knees…but here she was, of course, encased in bronze, in a skirted cuirass, spiked things at the elbows, gauntlets imprisoning her fingers, bewildered eyes blinking through a visor.
“Scoter, can that have been you?”
Scoter held firm at his small height, looking to right and left. A door of the house slammed, Jorinda’s voice coming both muffled and sharp, “Gadwall!”
“Did you slip?” Bede asked.
“Well, but… I can’t know what her armor looks like. I hope this is very fine.”
“Why, it’s excellent! What will Langham say? I wish I were…”
“No, no!” said Bede.
“Home right now?”
6
Fellyans
Be a Helper
Fellyans (part four)
(2022, Stephanie Foster)