"Harry," chapter 2

Note: By the end of this chapter, the quality of writing has pretty much deteriorated, and as I got into chapter three I realized there are a few things I'll need to change if I ever finish this thing, so if I publish more of it, there will be some continuity-type errors, for instance, you'll notice that Lord Rockwell has been demoted from earl to baron. Just a friendly request to be easy on me - given the time constraints of NaNo this can't be any better than a rough draft.
:-)



Brockton Farm had been in charge of Harry’s family since before the birth of his ancestor, Brice FitzRock, the natural son of Bully Russell, the 13th Baron of Rockwell. The farm had been given rent-free to the young mother’s father by way of providing for the child-to-be, along with the pledge that so long as the child or his descendents lived there, they should be allowed to raise geese for Rockwell’s annual midsummer festival, as well as take in the wash and have the preferment in all the labor needed at the Big House.

It was a happy arrangement for all, and the Brocks prospered for many generations. But on the first day of Autumn in Harry’s twenty-first year, the unthinkable happened. The present Lord Rockwell had died without a son to inherit his estate, and all of his holdings, including Brockton Farm, had passed to his distant cousin, Sir Brant Bigtalk, a vulgar man with neither taste nor regard for tradition.

On that first morning of Autumn, a fortnight exactly after Harry met the water-girl, a messenger arrived, saying that Harry and the Widow Brock had two days to remove themselves from the premises, adding that his Lordship was so kind as to allow Harry and his mother to carry away with them whatever they chose, so long as it all fit into the farm’s push-cart.

Bessie ran out to the field where Harry was working when the message came, and when he heard it, he went up the house, put on his Sunday suit, smoothed down his hair, and walked up to the Big House to talk to the baron himself.

It was a hopeless errand. After being told three times by three different footmen that His Lordship was not at home, after waiting four hours and finally speaking to the steward, a man Harry’d never seen before in his life – which was a pity, because old Mr. Bold, the previous steward, would have made everything right – Harry had finally been granted five minutes with the baron as he was on his way up to his dressing room from the stables. Harry was his most respectful and did his best to explain his family’s circumstances and connection with the baron’s family, but His Lordship only looked vaguely about and said, “Yes, yes, so sorry, but can’t be helped, son. Simply can’t be helped,” and waved at a particularly large and fine footman following close behind, who placed himself between Harry and Lord Rockwell, and said stiffly, “If you’ll follow me, sir.”

There was nothing for it but to go home.

Before he arrived he’d already determined his course of action, but first he must get his mother settled some place. Her sister, Aunt Sally, in Ketterly was probably the best bet, though Uncle Roy was a bit of a skinflint. By the angle of the sun it was at least an hour past noon and they were expected to be out of the house by Monday morning.

His mother was furiously polishing the table when he came in, and she stood stone-faced while he told her what had happened, and when he finished she merely went to the front door and rang the bell that called Jackie, the little neighbor boy who hung around doing errands in exchange for an egg or a pinch of tea or the occasional small copper coin.

“Jackie, I need you to run up to the Big House for me,” she said as he arrived, breathless and pink-cheeked a moment later.

“Wait there, Jackie,” Harry said, and shut the door, turning to his mother for an explanation.

“I’m sending the key up to His Lordship this moment, Harry. We leave directly. It’s a five mile walk to my sister’s house in Ketterly. It’s an hour past noon on Saturday. I’ve never yet broken the Sabbath and I’ll be blest if I’ll break it over this, so we’re leaving now.”

She stuck her chin up defiantly and turned on her heel, headed for the medicine cupboard where she kept the house’s key. That door was one of only three in the village that had a real key to it, and it had been her pride to be mistress of it.

“But Mum, it’ll take me quarter of an hour at least to see to the animals, and fetch the cart and load some things into it besides,” Harry said, bewildered at his mother’s abruptness.

“If I could load my whole dye shed onto that cart I’d do it in a trice, but I can’t so I’ll take nothing of His Lordship’s.” She said that last with a snort. “Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.”

“But,” Harry protested, “you didn’t come into this house –” he trailed off.

“No, you’re right Harry.”

She went into her bedroom and Harry spread a clean napkin on the table and placed onto it the week’s worth of bread that Bessie had just baked on Friday. Before he tied it up his mother was back in the room with a triumphant smile on her face. She held out her hand and showed him three gold pieces lying on a fine linen handkerchief.

“My dowry,” she said, and knotting the gold pieces back up in the handkerchief, turned around and tucked in into her clothing.

“I’m going round for the cart, Mum. You pack up what you think you can take.”

“Now Harry, I already said –” she began, spinning to face him again.

Harry put his hands on her shoulders and said, “That you did, Mum, but you’re going to Aunt Sally and Uncle Roy’s house and you’ve never yet visited them emptyhanded. You pack while I fetch the cart.”

His mother put her head down quickly, hoping he wouldn’t see it beginning to crumple, and said, “Of course you’re right, dear.”

Harry did see, and he turned away quickly so she wouldn’t know he had. “Five minutes then,” he called as cheerfully as he could over his shoulder, and he opened the door and said, “Quarter of an hour,” to the little boy who was still standing there.

An hour later they were walking south on the Ketterly road, having made their farewells and received Father Carlen’s blessing by the huge stone cross standing in the middle of the roads in front of the church. The cart Harry pushed was not overly laden with goods. The Widow Brock disdained to carry away anything that the new Lord Rockwell might value, so she’d brought only the bread, and her work basket with her sewing and mending in it, and a basket full of medicines she’d made from her own herb garden. Harry had insisted she take her quilt, two goose down pillows and her Sunday clothes, and then she’d insisted that Harry take his father’s greatcoat and boots. His hunting knife was in his belt under his jerkin, his bow and arrows were stowed in the cart, as the particularly large and fine footman who’d come down from the Big House as soon as the key was delivered had refused to allow Harry to carry them away from the house, and for that reason he’d had to leave his boar spear behind. That was really too bad because it might have been necessary where he was going.

He’d already made up his mind that he wasn’t staying at Uncle Roy’s house. As soon as he saw his mother settled in, he was off to see the king. The king was known to be a wise and just man, and he would manage this. A man in Lord Rockwell’s position simply must keep the promises that had been made by his forebears.



Here and there along the road they met folks they knew, and when these friendly folk wondered at the cartload, Bessie had only held her head up and said, “I’m going to live with my sister!” as if defying them to contradict her. “How nice,” some said, and “How sudden!” said others. Harry only saw her put her handkerchief to her face once and admired her spunk.

They arrived less than an hour before sunset and the house was in an uproar with trying to finish chores and feed hungry children and clean sticky faces and hands before Evensong. Bessie hugged her sister at the door and simply said, “I’ve come to help you out, dear,” and took the baby and told Harry to get five-year-old Willie out from under the bedstead. Nell and Davis were already busy, and Uncle Roy was on his way in from his blacksmith shop, and it wasn’t until Sunday evening that Bessie had time to lay out the whole situation to her sister and brother-in-law.

“I’ve heard nothing but bad about that man all this while since His Lordship died,” said Uncle Roy, scowling. “I don’t know how that man come to be next in line seein’s how His Lordship has that half-brother, him he sent away after their father died when my own father was a babe. But that man,” Uncle Roy always called the new baron that man, “that man has already closed off the commons over Plimpton way, and they say he means to do it here, too.”

“Closed off the commons!” Bessie said. “What can he mean by that?”

“He means to turn his own sheep out there, that’s what.”

“But where does he intend the villagers should graze their animals without the commons?”

“Don’t reckon he intends anything of the sort at all. He intends to make his fortune on wool, that’s what, and I’d reckon that’s why you and Harry was turned off your place. Everyone knows Brockton Farm has the best pasture in the shire. And some say your lakewater is magic,” he added with a broad wink.

Then the talk turned to Bessie’s and Harry’s plans for the future, and it was still being discussed whether they could stay at Roy’s house indefinitely, when Harry explained his intention of taking their grievance before the king. Of course his mother protested, knowing what a long journey he’d have ahead of him, but in the end he prevailed with the help of Uncle Roy who thought Harry’s plan the best too, and agreed to allow Bessie to remain with them till Harry’s return. Bessie tried to make Harry take her three gold pieces, and at last he accepted one of them, telling her it wasn’t safe to have them all with him, as he might be waylaid and lose all her dowry. Uncle Roy prudently suggested that he change the gold coin for two silvers and a double handful of coppers, and Harry spent the rest of the night devising hiding places throughout his clothing, and even contrived to stow one of the silvers in Keer’s collar. Last of all, he placed half a dozen coppers in the pouch he kept around his neck, hoping that giving this pouch up would satisfy any would-be robbers.

Monday after breakfast, Harry took his leave. His little cousins clung to his legs and his mother was not quite so brave as she had been when leaving her house, but they bade him Godspeed, and he sang as he walked down the Plimpton road with a bundle of food on his back and the little black dog in its customary place at his heels.

Harry walked on like this, up hill and down dale, for three days with nary a mishap. He enjoyed the traveling and he had plenty of time to think and to plan. He was quite sure that King Gregory would make everything right, but he was equally sure that if it didn’t come out right after all, he could make a go of it someplace else. He could always hire on as a farmhand, or better yet, as a blacksmith’s apprentice. He’d worked a bit with his Uncle Roy as a boy and figured that with diligence he could master the craft, even at his late age.

The one thing that worried him was Tessa. Honey-haired Tessa Heckle with the personality to match, whom he’d known her whole life, and had hoped to marry for at least a year now. He’d first spoken to his father about her last spring, only a few days before the accident that took his father from them. Walter Brock was an astute man and his advice had been for Harry to wait until the crops came in that fall and the animals were butchered, before trying to win her heart. And Harry, the usually sober Harry, had allowed himself to think of a wedding on Christmas Day in the morning.

But now Hamish, jolly Hamish who was as good as a brother to Harry, would likely win her. He’d told Harry more than once since the spring that he’d had his eye on her for two years at least, and though Harry could never be certain whether Hamish was in earnest, this much he knew – that Hamish as good a man as you could find anywhere and that Tessa couldn’t do better than marry him. He would never begrudge Hamish any good, but oh how he would regret the loss of Tessa!



Just before noon on the third day, a Wednesday, Harry entered a busy little village and stopped at a tavern at the great crossroads. The best part of the journey was the chance to see new people – Harry enjoyed watching people and this tavern afforded a particularly lively view. As he settled down on the bench outside the door he watched a farmer pushing an empty cart back up the road which Harry had just traveled, and he imagined him to be a hard-working man like Walter Brock had been and could easily imagine him bringing extra produce into the village to sell or trade for other goods. A maid with a squawking chicken in a market basket ducked into the house next to the tavern, and Harry smiled approvingly at the imagined Sunday feast the chicken would provide. Across the road, a blacksmith’s apprentice was working the great bellows at his master’s shop. A very new apprentice, Harry surmised, given the clumsy way he was handling the bellows and the angry shouts that were coming from the direction of the anvil.

A wiry boy popped out of the tavern and said eagerly, “It’s a grand mornin for a walk, sir, and what’ll you have?”

Harry asked how much for a mugful of stout, and the boy replied that he couldn’t have only one mugful, since that would be half a copper and his master didn’t like half-coppers, so Harry grinned and ordered two.

The boy bobbed and disappeared back into the tavern, and Harry pulled a chunk off of his loaf of bread and broke a piece off of the cheese his aunt had given him. Keer sat under the bench and waited patiently. He had to provide his own meals however he could manage – happily, rabbits and squirrels were still fairly abundant at this time of year.

The boy brought out the mug of stout and Harry carefully took a copper out of the pouch around his neck.

“Can you tell me how far it is to the next village toward St. Ninian’s,” Harry asked, handing the boy the small coin.

“Goin into the monastry, are you then?” the boy asked, wide eyed, and Harry only smiled. “Ham’s not but three miles down,” the boy said, waving to the east, “but then you’ll be days and days on the road before you get to St. Ninian’s. But that road has lots of villages and you shouldn’t have no trouble finding a place to stay of the nights. That road, though, just be sure and take the left fork of it after the last barn outside of Islip, that’s where you are now, sir, this is Islip. So just you take the left fork there, that’s the one you want to get to Ham.”

“Past the last barn, then the left fork,” said Harry seriously, trying not to laugh at the boy’s enthusiasm.

“Yes sir, the left fork. That right fork is the forest road and if you’d set out from here this morning, I’d surely have told you to take that one. It would have saved you a day or two, they say, it’s that much shorter ’round. But you couldn’t get out of the forest before dark now, unless you wanted to take a room here and set out tomorrow. Master has rooms upstairs that you’d be very—”

“Boy!” came a cry from inside the tavern and the boy ducked back in quickly. Harry chewed his bread thoughtfully, dropping a crumb to the patient dog on occasion, and watching more passersby, three children chasing a pig down the road that led to the common grazing field, and a sandy-haired young gentleman on a well-lathered horse who trotted up to the inn’s stableyard halfway down the road.

When the boy came out to refill Harry’s mug, Harry questioned him further about the forest road and the boy told him that there had been plenty of trouble with highwaymen in there, treacherous, tricksy highwaymen who pretended to be in distress and attracted unwary travelers by this deception. The sheriff’s men had recently rounded up a lot of them, but still it mightn’t be safe for a lonely traveler, going through after dark, even if he did have a lively dog with him for protection.

Harry thanked the boy for his information and gave him another copper, then stretched, picked up his bundle, swung it onto his back, and whistled for Keeran. He set off down the road, past the inn yard where the young gentleman’s horse was being rubbed down, and on down the road, stopping at the village’s well to refill his waterskin. When at last he passed the last barn outside the village and took the right fork, church’s bell had just begun ringing out for midday prayers.

After passing a few more fields, an orchard and two or three cottages, Harry and Keeran were on the outskirts of the forest, and Harry walked even faster and sang louder. He figured the more noise he made the more confident he’d sound and the less likely he’d be to be waylaid.

They traveled on this way for nearly an hour, Harry keeping a sharp lookout, and Keeran’s ears perked up. By this time he’d given up singing, having decided to save his breath for walking as quickly as possible, and thinking it would be better to listen to the forest sounds to provide warning of potential danger, when he heard faint horse hooves pounding the road behind him. He clucked to Keeran and ducked off the road into the undergrowth on the left so he could watch from a safe vantage point.

The hoofbeats came louder and the sandy-haired young gentleman came into view and thundered past and away around the next curve, the hoofbeats steadily dying away. Harry and Keer crept cautiously out of the shrubbery, Harry feeling a bit foolish at taking fright so easily, but then he heard the horse scream {scream? do horses scream???} and the man shout. Harry stood and listened before doing anything, remembering the tavern boy’s warning, but then he broke into an easy jog, just so he could get around the next curve and see what was happening.

The man was scrambling up off the road where the horse had apparantly thrown him. The horse was reared up {what do you call this? the horse is thundering up and down}, and Harry saw the man run over to the edge of the forest and grab a stick off the ground. It was then that Harry saw what was causing the disturbance – a huge snake in the middle of the road was raised up and darting its head this way and that. The man couldn’t get to his horse’s bridle to bring it down and lead it to safety because the snake was striking out, so he waved his stick and shouted and when the snake struck out, the man swung at it. Harry grabbed a stick and ran down the road, shouting, Keeran followed yelping.

The horse pounded down on top of the snake and reared up again, but as it came down this time, the snake struck it in the chest. The horse screamed and whirled and reared, then plunged down the road, screaming in agony. Harry and the man both swung at the snake as it struck out at the man again. Harry finally managed to hit it quite soundly as it was rearing back away from the man again. The snake fell, dazed, and the man pulled out a long knife and cut off its head.

Panting and leaning on his stick, the man said, “Thank you.”

Harry took off his hat and said, “That was the most unnatural snake I’ve ever seen, sir. So bold-like.”

“I must go after my horse. I think he was struck.”

“I’ll go with you then,” said Harry and they set off with Keer following.

But they hadn’t gone more than a few paces when Harry noticed the man was limping on his left leg and leaning heavily on his stick, his face set hard against the pain. A few more paces and the man’s face was turning grey as he sank lower against his walking stick.

“Better let me take a look at that leg, if you don’t mind, sir,” said Harry at last, overcoming his reticence at speaking this way to a gentleman.

“My horse –” the man said weakly, as Harry led him to the roadside and sat him under a tree.

Harry pulled up the man’s breeches saying, “Did that snake get you? It looked to be a viper and you’ll lose that leg if we don’t see to it properly.”

Sure enough, there just above his boot top was a small mark surrounded by angry red swelling flesh.

“It’s only a scratch, sir, but it doesn’t take much to do permanent damage.” Frowning, Harry said, “Only it’s not bleeding out like it needs to… I should cut it, if…” looking somewhat nervously at the young man for permission. The man pressed his lips together and nodded tersely.

“Here,” He swung his waterskin off his shoulder and handed it to the man, then pulled off his boot. He made the cut as quickly as he could and told the man to let it bleed out while while he looked for some plantain for a poultice. The man nodded again and leaned back against the tree while Harry went along the roadside looking for the herb, which was easily enough found.

He picked two large handfuls of the leaves and stuffed several of them into his mouth and began to chew. When he came back to the man, he took the waterskin and poured clear water over the wound, and then spat the plantain out onto the man’s leg and held it here with one hand. He tried to speak soothingly to the young man, telling him to sit back and rest while he drew the poison out, then he put more leaves into his mouth. After another minute, Harry removed the used poultice and tossed it aside, and after placing a fresh one on the man’s wound, took a short swig from the waterskin and stuffed more leaves into his mouth.

He repeated this procedure, using four poultices on the young man’s wound before stopping to talk much beyond saying quiet, soothing things. After he put the last poultice on, Harry began rumaging through his bag and took out a vial. “St. Mary’s Thistle,” he said, and told the young man to open his mouth. The man obligingly did so, and Harry poured in a dose of the tincture, then handed the waterskin to the man bidding him drink.

“Thanks, again. Thank God you came along when you did,” the man said. “My name’s Sandy.”

“Harry at your service, sir,” he replied, pulling off his hat again.

Sandy made as if to stand up saying, “I do need to look after my horse.”

“I wish you wouldn’t, sir. You should stay off that leg for a bit, but I’ll go after your horse, if you’d like, sir.”

Sandy consented reluctantly, and Harry set off, telling Keeran to stay and watch over the gentleman.

He knew the horse had run down the road a ways before striking out into the forest and it didn’t take him too long to find its trail. He was pretty sure the horse would have fared badly and by the time he found it, it was already dead. Harry was thankful for this – Sandy would be relieved to know that it hadn’t suffered for too long, and Harry would be saved having to decide whether to put down someone else’s horse.

He took the saddle bags off the horse and made his way back to the road.



{...tells Sandy about the horse and gives him the saddle bags and mentions that it’ll be dark in a couple of hours and they need to decide what to do for the night. Sandy is sinking, somewhat, not feeling up to answering or deciding, so Harry takes matters into his own hands.}



Harry took off his greatcoat and buttoned the front shut, then turned it inside-out, leaving the arms inside the coat. Then he found two nice, long, sturdy sticks and shoved one through each sleeve, making a litter for Sandy. He laid it on the ground near Sandy and helped him lie down on it, then handed him the saddle bags, and, backing up to the end where Sandy’s head lay, knelt down and picked up the ends of the two sticks and stood, neatly lifting the young man up.

“I’m afraid it’s going to jostle you some, but I can’t think of any other way to get you out of here. You just rest back the best you can, sir.”

As they passed the place where the snake had been killed, Sandy asked Harry to collect the remains for him. “I think I’d like to save it to show to the brothers at St. Ninian’s. See what they make of it,” he said.

Harry looked around for the spot where the dead snake lay, and finally found it – it had shrivelled up till it was no more snakelike than a rope. It’s two parts were black, and dry, and stiff.

Harry gingerly picked it up the longer piece with a stick and showed it to Sandy, who frowned at it, and asked Harry to wrap it up anyway and stow someplace safe.

And he walked slower than usual, back up the road they’d both come down, heading for the cottage nearest the forest’s entrance. He sang while he walked to pass the time, and to give Sandy something to listen to besides his own worries.




It took nearly twice as long to walk out as it had taken him to walk in, and when they arrived at the cottage, Harry called out and spoke to the woman who opened the door.

“This gentleman has been badly bitten by a snake, and I wonder if you’d be so kind as to let him stay here the night,” Harry said.

The woman readily agreed and bringing them both inside, instructed Harry to lay Sandy on the settle near the fireplace. She gave them each a bowl of broth which was simmering in a large pot hanging over the fire, and looked after Sandy’s wound.

Harry slept on the floor before the fire.