Balor set his mug on the bar and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He licked the beer dribbles from his long whiskers. He wanted Balian to stop whining for once. Every season, he had the same complaints. The boys are lazy, Coralin should have given him a son that survived, there was never enough light, Egan charges too much for till-blade sharpening. Always the same.

  Balor allowed Tuck’s guitar and perfectly pitched raspy voice to drown him out. Tuck was no gardener, a red thumb if anyone ever asked his opinion, but he sure could play. He tapped his foot and nodded to the tune. He wanted to sing along but the others sitting at the bar with them would have said something. Probably that he was ruining Tuck's song. He knew he sounded like a speared boar. He’ll sing along and let them be damned if he keeps playing such good songs from that little stage in the corner.

  There were small round tables filling the space between the stage and the bar where Freider filled their beers from kegs on the shelf behind him. They never sat at the tables. Too few chairs for all of the homesteaders to sit together on their weekly meets. Balor caught Freider’s eyeroll as Balian took sip mid-sentence to ensure that his rant wouldn’t be interrupted prematurely, now going on about how he caught Samma smoking three-weed in the bale barn again.

  “No offense, Gregor, but your son is a half-brained nitwit lazier than a housecat,” Balian thumped his mug down on the bar with a splash. “If I could just have one weekend with y’all’s help, I could have my fields ready for sowing in time for the Ostari festival.”

  “Ever consider payin’ him more?” Gregor was quick. “You pay my boy barely a penny and expect him to work as if your cotton were buyin’ him an acre.”

  “If he worked, I’d give him more!” Balian landed a fist that made foam spill from all the mugs on the bar. Balian was too old for Balor to learn him how to keep his temper, but he needed it. Also to keep his mouth shut. Balor knew that speaking your mind was the right way to missing teeth and had begged the gods on more than one occasion for his younger brother to learn the same lesson. Speak seldom and with purpose, they say. Balian was the opposite with gusto.

  “My son is no servant to fend for scraps!” Gregor leapt to his feet. He pressed a finger at Balian’s face, “You can till your own field this season, you keep on now.”

  Balian started to stand, Balor firmly slapped his shoulder without a pause in his foot tapping. The last thing they needed was a labor feud between neighbors. Balian was a fighter and had yet to be licked by another since he was a boy who was all chest, arms, and forehead. Gregor would be on the floor in a breath, but he was a Vorner and his family was spread between this village and Berone. And, he was married to Aurie’s sister, Leta, which complicated things for Balor. Generally, Vorners went to sons. Well, except Coralin, which made them dislike Balian more than his wonderful personality. It was the Clevlan blood that brought girls and they had the sisters to prove it.

  “My tilling’s near done, Alden and I will lend our labors,” Balor swayed into Balian’s shoulder. That should suffice to shut him up so they could talk about what was important. The offlander. “That should allow you to pay them at least sixpence and don’t go on about how last season you no made enough to pay the taxes. We all know you made more than the rest of us.”

  “With half the property,” Soran Greshon, Dalfur’s uncle by marriage, added from the other side of Balor.

  “You get this upcoming week and Morin the next,” Gregor sat back on his stool.

  Morin Greshon, Soran’s younger brother, nodded with a lifted mug of thanks, “Much appreciated.”

  “Hear, here,” resounded from the homesteaders.

  “Now, can we please talk about the offlander?” Balor leaned to look at each of them. “I have no idea how you may feel, but we got six girls in need of husbands and methinks we needs push him out before our wives begin gettin’ ideas.”

  Another, “Hear, here.”

  “Balthazar will push him out,” Morin chuckled. He was the second to youngest of homesteaders, his father had been in his sixties when his mother pushed him out, and still kept his black beard trimmed as though he were an unmarried young laborer and not the father of five and husband to a wife that Balor found himself watching far longer than he wanted. “He’ll make the man cry to Alcer and Berone councils for laborers with no a pence to offer.”

  “I heard he bought the Kelger farm for double from Lord Taggerty and paid the taxes until his death.” Preston Vorner, Gregor’s cousin, sitting with his long legs straddling the far corner of the bar so that his belly didn’t tip the stool of whoever sat next to him, said with the intensity of a proselytizer from Utrecht.

  “I heard he was one of Sadie Kelger’s bastards and inherited it,” Balian had a need to be seen as better than everyone.

  “Bastards are always poor,” Morin nodded to himself as if someone else had said it. “If that be right, he must be as well, then.”

  “Offlander, even if he’s a Kelger, I say,” Freider said as he wiped out a mug with his apron and set it on the shelf. “He no get a sip from me.”

  “Hear, here!” Mugs thumped the bar.

  “Kelger’s farm always had good soil,” Balor rubbed his finger and thumb thoughtfully, “we could divvy it up if we push him out. And fast. Aurie’s already suggested that I consider him for Maud.”

  “Your little flower sure has been picky about what garden to plant herself,” Preston eyed him. “Samma would be a mighty fine match, if you have any sense.”

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  “Spoiled her rotten, you did, if I do say so myself,” Soran said, wiping his own beard with a sleeve.

  Balor’s eyes narrowed. The other men tucked theirs away from his gaze in silent agreement. He leaned on his elbows. He wanted to brawl his way through him for that. If only they were wrong. He was tired of having to feed her and all his plans to negotiate down the dowry he had saved for her were fading because of her stubbornness.

  “What will it take for her to want one of our boys, Balor? They need to start collecting rocks or what?” Gregor burst into a loud guffaw that was met by chuckles from the others.

  “Say what you like, but those rocks won me a Pole Kiss with the most beautiful woman in the village. All you looked mighty disappointed when I got my Claimer’s Dance.”

  Silence filled the pub and faces turned to their mugs. Even Tuck, who set his guitar to the side and strutted to the bar, a finger raised for a schnapps from Freider.

  “Well, she best hurry and pick one before Harvest Festival when my girls get their first dances,” Gregor muttered to his mug. “I raised them right. Not too picky and willing to Ribbon Dance against the lot for a good husband.”

  “I’d like to speak to you about that when you have a chance, by and by,” Soran lifted a mug to him. “My Chase’s been watching Anita since she got hips. I think she’d be a mighty fine addition to the Greshon family.”

  “I’d prefer your younger, but Chase might do.”

  “If we don’t push him out soon enough, he’ll be on that pole and one of us will be a daughter short,” Balor looked to each of them. “We must act. Even if it means burning that house to the ground. Then we claim the farm. I’m not risking my Windleaf getting swept up by some bastard offlander.”

  “Tell him to give her rocks, she won’t look twice!” Gregor smiled widely as the others began laughing and snorting.

  “Careful now, she’ll be drinking from him on her knees like your Leta did for you before the administrator can spell out his name on the certificate,” Balor quipped. The laughs burst louder.

  “Shit on you,” Gregor growled.

  “Shit on you, too,” Balor winked.

  “Speaking of your little Windleaf,” Preston stood awkwardly from his stool and wattled to Balor to put his sausage fingered hand on his shoulder. “Put in a good word for my Damon. He needs a woman to whip him into manhood. Too many women ruining the boy. Can’t get him to stop wanting to wear their dresses. And if she’s anything like your Aurie, she’ll do just that while keeping him happy as you.”

  “My Senna no good enough for you, Vorner?” Morin called.

  “Senna’s a twiggy, saucy shit and don’t you deny it,” Preston jabbed a finger at him. “She and your other three need to learn from Maud so they stop shaking their chests at every swinging dick in the county. Not that they have anything to shake.”

  “Asses too,” Soran chuckled from behind a tipped mug. “Though those are worth the looking.”

  Morin’s eyes shot wide. “Watch your mouths or I’ll have each of your hides!”

  “Come now, Morin,” Balor held out a hand. “He’s not wrong. Senna’s gotten plenty of stern looks and almost a good whooping from Aurie for advertising even to me. And your other three have followed their sister’s example as they come nearer to their first dances. We no trying to offend ye, just bringing it to your attention like the good folk we are. And you need some meat on that girl’s bones. She’s too skinny for any of us to think she’d give us strong hands in the fields. Truth is truth.”

  “Truth is truth,” was echoed, even by Tuck.

  Gregor chimed in to further calm him, “I’ll have Leta have a talk with her, little brother. She’ll set her straight and teach her a thing or two about what to show and who to show it to. And as for you, Preston, you say one more word about my nieces, I’ll be the one a thumpin’. She’s pretty as a pear and will make a fine wife to a man that can handle her.”

  “At least he’s aware of where her ass-etts really are,” Balian said as he sipped his beer with a challenging glance to his rival. The others burst with snickers, even Balor.

  “Give me a reason, little boy, I was thumpin’ better men while you were itching your daddy’s pants,” Gregor held up a balled fist.

  “Best set her with Dalfur then. We all know Egan’s had a good hand on his wife since she and Aurie got into it last season,” Frieder slid the small glass of schnapps to Tuck while eyeing Morin. “A blacksmith has his wife working the forge until the first son is born. Tradition is tradition. Do her good to get her hands dirty.”

  “Aurie whooped her into the next moon that day, I saw it with my own eyes,” Soran didn’t miss a beat. “That woman no give the rivers who it is, too big a smile at her man and she’s vicious as a boar.”

  “I’ve a mind to set him with my Windleaf. He’s always been on her like a fly to compost,” Balor let out a long breath. He’d spent the better half of a month trying to defend the black eyes and broken arm to the only blacksmith within a day’s walk. Not a moment he was proud of…for the most part. “So long as we all match our girls to someone before he makes one his whore, I care not.”

  “Speaking of, looks like he finally arrived,” Tuck drew everyone’s attention to the windows.

  Balor stood the moment he saw him. The others nearly tipped their stools to do the same. The man was everything he had hoped he wasn’t. Straight backed and chin held high like a nobleman on a pure white horse. His arms were long and their thinness might fool a blacksmith or a cotter, but they would never fool a farmer once they saw the thick veins feeding the muscles underneath. He had long auburn hair with streaks of gray that was tucked behind one ear to reveal a straight, squared jaw. He wore leather pants that would pay their taxes and buy new tillers for the entire village covering long, thick thighed legs. High leather buckled boots, that Balor would kill a man for, rested in stirrups that hung below the trotting horse’s ribs. Stirrups! Such wealth! And not a father could mistake his handsomeness. Those green and golden hazel eyes shining in the sunlight from above a perfectly placed nose and thick lips were obvious threats to their daughters’ futures. The longer he watched him, the longer they all watched him, the darker their glares.

  “If he doesn’t leave on his own,” Balian said through gritted teeth, “we drive him out or prepare the pyre for him.”

  “Hear, here.”