“And you want me to do that?” Oja asks, perplexed.
“Of course,” Emlyn grins, “You’ll know who we should contract with and who we should avoid or only contract with for less critical ingredients. You’re already here, so we won’t have to send someone from the Temple and pay for their room and board. That’s worth something to us. You know everyone, and, other than Benger, none of us know anyone. That’s worth a bit more to us. We’ll need someone to do things like accept deliveries of seeds, parcel them out to the growers, collect the crops, and notify us when they’re ready to be picked up and processed.”
“So, I’d make more than the other growers?” Oja asks.
“Of course,” Emlyn nods, “You wouldn’t have to grow anything, but I wouldn’t stop you if you wanted to do that too. I think that paying you to supervise would be a better use of our coin.”
“Come see my little veggie patch,” Oja chuckles. She walks up to a low stone wall topped by a fence made by weaving small branches and vines.
Strolling along the wall, Oja comes to a gate. The frame is made of wood, but it’s filled with additional woven branches and vines. Using her foot, Oja deftly rolls a log away from the bottom of the gate.
“We use that to keep the rabbits out of the garden,” Oja explains, “Since I keep the rabbit hutches in the garden, wild rabbits try to get in all the time. The stone at the bottom of the wall keeps them out there, and the log keeps them from getting under the gate.”
“Is that common here?” Emlyn says, looking around at the small farm-sized “veggie patch” that Oja grows to feed her family. Oja nods as Emlyn turns around, ogling the size.
“Let me show you something,” Oja says, pointing to the wall, “The stones are just dry stacked. It’s a bit of work to expand it, but depending on what we decide to grow, sometimes we need to expand it. For example, someone might install a permanent bed for herbs, berries, or medicinal plants, so the garden needs to be expanded to compensate for the lost space. When that happens, we stack up more stones, weave a few more fence panels, and start preparing the new beds for planting.”
“I see,” Emlyn nods, “So this is why you think that the mothers and daughters would be more agreeable to my ideas since they already have similar gardens. If the coin is worth the work of expanding the garden and tending the crop, they’d be more willing to do that since it wouldn’t pose a risk to the cash crop. For us, this would likely cost less than buying land and hiring people to do everything. The side benefit to this arrangement is that the women become more independent.”
Oja takes a seat on the low stone wall and looks at Nia curiously, “What do you mean?”
“One thing I learned from my older brothers,” Emlyn replies with a wry grin, “is that money is independence. When you have your own money and you’re not beholden to others for everything, you have a lot more freedom. Invest a bit wisely here and there, and then you can quietly become wealthy without the rest of your family being any the wiser. That kind of money gives people opportunities to change their situation if it’s… less than desirable. For people in that situation, there are ways we can help them, if there are any here.”
Oja looks thoughtful for a long moment. “There might be one,” Oja says slowly, “What can you do?”
“Quite a lot, as it happens,” Emlyn says, “We can give them two contracts. One contract will be public and won’t pay very well. That lets us keep the bulk of the money and the second contract on deposit for them at the Temple in Harito. That means that even if a family member tries to rob them of their earnings, they won’t know about most of it. They can provide us with directions on how to invest their money, if they choose to do so, or ask us to invest it on their behalf. We can give them an amulet that they can use to transport themselves to the Temple, in case the situation is critical. Our Temple guards can take it from there, and they can claim sanctuary if they wish. If there are children or animals at risk, we can send staff to retrieve them. Once they’re at the temple, we can talk with the person about what they’d like to do next and help them get on with it.”
“Why would your temple care?” Oja frowns.
“Our Goddess,” Emlyn shrugs, “has many aspects. One of them concerns fertility and childbirth. She doesn’t like to see women mistreated, and it’s usually, but not always, the women and children who are abused.”
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Frowning, Oja asks, “Are you sure that they’d do that?”
“They will,” Emlyn grins wickedly, “Those gasbag priests made me endure months of catechism. If they try to waffle, then I shall teach them how a tactician can use their theology against them. Once I’ve tied them in knots with their theology, they’ll do what I want just to get me to go away for a while.”
Oja laughs heartily, and Emlyn waves a hand at her.
“I was too injured even to stand up when they started, so it’s not like I could run away. They made me memorize every single conclave, including the arguments, the positions taken by the priests, and the final decisions, along with the reasoning behind those decisions. Since they made me memorize all that, it would be a fine bit of petty revenge to use it against them.”
“That sounds amazingly boring,” Oja commiserates.
“It was pretty awful,” Emlyn agrees, “By the end of it, I was having nightmares about being buried alive in catechism books. I’d start to dig myself out of the pile, and just as I start to get free, more would come tumbling down. That’s why I decided to start dressing inappropriately, so that they’d hurry up and get to the point so we could be done.”
“You didn’t!” Oja laughs and then looks more closely at Nia’s face. “You did.” Emlyn grins, and Oja laughs even harder. Wiping her eyes, the older woman grins back, “I think I’d pay to see that.”
“I got into a bit of trouble for it,” Emlyn grins, “but nothing too serious.”
“I see why Benger likes you,” Oja nods, “He doesn’t often bring friends home. We do worry about him.”
“You’re his mother, so I won’t bother telling you not to worry,” Emlyn advises her, “but I will tell you that I’ll be looking out for him just like Saris, Urlin, Falnor, Madil, and the rest of the cohort.”
“Can I ask you something?” Oja says slowly, and Emlyn nods. “Is Benger really so popular among the girls at the Temple?”
Rolling her eyes, Emlyn nods again before answering, “Half of them hate me because I spend so much time with Benger and his cohort. The other half all want to be my new best friend so that they can hang around with us. I think a third of them are convinced I took my oath to be around him.”
“Did you?” Oja asks gently.
“No,” Emlyn explains, “My old god had died so I couldn’t heal myself anymore. I was dying when the Goddess found me. We made a deal that I would become one of her paladins, and she would see to it that I was healed. Once we agreed, she took me to the Temple so that they could care for me. I’m not quite sure how long I was there. I know that when I recovered enough to be awake a bit here and there that I was wrapped more thoroughly than most mummies in medication-soaked bandages. I was worried for a time that I was paralyzed because I couldn’t move, but it was only because I was wrapped so tightly. When I finally started walking again, I was pushing myself too hard. After a few times of nearly cracking my skull on the stone floor when my legs gave out, Benger was assigned to help me, though it was more to catch me when I collapsed. Benger’s only seen me at my absolute worst. He’s had to pick me up and carry me like a child. Did you know that he threatened once to prop me on his hip and shove a binky in my mouth?”
Startled for a moment, Oja howls with laughter, “So it’s just friends then?”
“Definitely,” Emlyn nods, “Almost as close as my little brothers.” At Oja’s look, she shrugs, “I never got on well with my older brothers. They were always horrible to everyone, but to each other. My younger brothers were a completely different story. All of my sisters and my little brothers were my life, though.”
“You must miss them very much,” Oja says gently.
“More than I care to admit,” Emlyn sighs as she sits next to Oja on the stone wall. Emlyn’s eyes reflect a profound sadness that makes Oja’s heart break a bit. “It’s been difficult to adjust to them being gone. I’d give almost anything to talk to any of them or my mother again for just a few minutes.”
After a long pause, she adds slowly, “Hells, I’d even talk to one of my older brothers.”
“It will… soften after some time,” Oja says, giving her arm a friendly pat, “It might be a very long time, but give it time. It’s all much too recent.” Oja takes a deep breath, “It’s getting late. We should probably get back while the house is still standing, or at least before the boys raid the pantry. I’ll make some more tea, and we can continue our chat.”
“I think I’d like that,” Emlyn replies. Daki stands on the back porch watching the two women strolling back toward the house and grins to see his wife happy.
Daki looks at Benger, “About your friend. Do you think she’s going to do all that? Find mines that have better ore? Make better steel?”
Nodding, Benger sighs, “I do. I’m dead certain that Ember and Gethin are back in Harito right now, trying to figure out how to make it all work. Her swords caught the Goddess’s interest, and they’ve been trying to replicate them for a while now without any success. Once she was up and around a bit, she’s been working with our master smith to see if the two of them together can replicate that quality of steel. So far, they’re not having any luck. She says that her family worked in metal, and I believe her. She was able to tell him how to build and prepare the smelter to smelt the ore. She’s been out poking around all over Harito, looking at foundries, smithies, and ore.”
“What’d she think of it?” Daki asks.
“That it’s all horrible,” Benger replies.
“And you trust her assessment of it?” Daki asks.
“I do," Benger replies, "She says that her family built a water-powered hammer to help with the smithing. That’s not something you do if you’re dabbling in hammering out a bit of metal here and there. Her family was well-off too, judging by some of the offhand comments she’s made.”
“Like what?” Daki asks.
“Things like that, where she’s from, the practice of kidnapping high-status brides was a problem for her. That she no longer has enough of a dowry to be interesting to the prince or any of the duke’s sons. Our first sparring match was in a dream conjured by a mage, and she had golden insignia on her armor,” Benger explains.
“So, the two of you fought,” Daki grins, “How’d you do?”
“She trounced me all three times,” Benger admits with a shrug, “She’s going to be amazing once she’s recovered.”
“That’s… impressive,” Daki says slowly.
Have you ever tried to grow anything medicinal? Let me know in the comments.