Click Here for last chapter
Chapter 5
Adjusting
Life in Great-Aunt Hilsida’s house was completely different than anything Tabitha had ever experienced. As the maid had explained to her, it was only during the morning hours that the servants did any work inside the house: by teatime they were all happily ensconced in the stables or gatehouse. There was little urgency to any of their tasks except cooking meals, and only the cook had to do that. The maids’ only duties were to dust the two main rooms that Great-Aunt Hilsida used, and do laundry every other week. The two footmen mostly haunted the kitchens and pestered the cook unless there were some heavy lifting that required doing and then they grumbled their way to doing whatever it was. Roger the Butler supervised all of this from a corner of the kitchen with a sneer plastered over his face: it was rare that anyone ever heard him give an order, and his main duty seemed to be polishing her tea set to a mirror finish and bringing it to her at the appropriate time. The gardener and under gardener were generally only seen walking around the grounds once a day whereupon they promptly retired to a shed and spent the rest of their time inside. (Quite often there were strange smelling smokes that wisped their way through the shed roof, and once one of the footmen swore that he saw the two gardeners come running out of the shed with their pants on fire. What the footman couldn’t understand was why their pants were on their heads) John the stableboy had only the lightest of tasks (sweeping out the stable, replacing the hay and occasionally hauling water for the cook) and he was often finished inside of an hour.
Despite the light nature of all their tasks, none of the servants seemed to have time to wait on Tabitha. They rarely remembered to light her candles or fire, they could hardly be troubled to bring her breakfast to her room, and for all that she was a guest of the house they gave as much care and notice to her as they did John the stable boy.
Tabitha loved it.
She loved how they didn’t seem to care what she did.
She loved how they forgot to bring her breakfast so she was required to go to the kitchen and eat with them.
She loved lighting her own fires and the feeling of independence it gave her.
She even loved how they didn’t do much (if any) work because that meant she and John could do whatever they liked all day long.
And the things they did!
John was an eager accomplice to anything Tabitha had in mind, and her mind was constantly filled with plans and schemes and games that required nothing but a spirit of adventure and a few props.
For instance:
Not even a week after Tabitha arrived at her Great-Aunt Hilsida’s house she and John were still exploring the grounds and neighboring houses—I say they were exploring when perhaps I should say Tabitha was exploring; John of course knew the area already but he was content to run by her side and show her everything she wanted to see and tell her everything she wanted to know. But it was this day that Tabitha met cows for the first time, and the encounter did not go according to anyone’s plans.
A few hours after dawn Tabitha exited the house with Wulafric frolicking at her feet. They’d both eaten a good solid northern breakfast (bowl of porridge so thick a spoon would stand up in it, thick slices of bacon that were mostly fat, a heap of eggs and a cup of tea nearly as thick as the porridge) and they were ready for whatever the day held. And since it was Tabitha who was ready, the day knew it would have to do a lot of work to impress her.
“John! Jo-ohn!”
John poked his head out of the stable loft doors. Wulafric barked happily at him. “Tabitha?”
“Are you done with your chores yet?” Tabitha’s voice suggested that if he wasn’t, she really didn’t know what he’d been doing for the past few hours. (Tabitha understood chores. She understood that there was work that needed to get done every day—by people other than her. And if she was up and ready to be impressed—or at least entertained—by another day at her house, John should be ready too)
A nervous look crossed his face and jigged down to his fingers. “Uhh…yep. O’ course.” He ducked back into the loft and Tabitha waited (very patiently) for him to cross the loft, descend the ladder, speak briefly to one of the other servants, walk down the long line of stalls, and then open the stable door. The fact that these activities resulted in a lot of noise and shouting and a very out of breath John coming into the courtyard right on time—well, Tabitha was a forgiving sort. Perhaps he needed more exercise.
She grinned at him. He grinned back. Wulafric danced between the two for a moment before flopping onto John’s feet, but he was rudely displaced as John reached out for Tabitha’s hand as they ran out of the courtyard as fast as they could manage to leave behind half-done chores, crazy great-aunts, and all the sorts of cares that children don’t care about at all but always seem to get grown-ups in a twist.
With the wind in their faces and tufted grass under their feet Tabitha and John laughed as loudly as they wanted because there was no one but them in the whole world.
“Where are we going today, John?”
“You got a choice. Still haven’t seen th’ upper fields and Old Har’s secret still, or there’s th’ cattle fair near th’ village. People come from as far south as Garbrook. One time, a man came all th’ way from Torrich! But he din’t buy anythin’ and got ran off for thievin’.
“Really? Do you think there’ll be a thief this year too? That would be wonderful. He might be a pickpocket, or a, a cattle rustler—” It was clear which option Tabitha found more interesting, if only for the possibility of seeing an actually thief. “—and we could spot him, John, and make him give everything back unless he has something he stole from somewhere else—oh, a diamond ring, or a ruby necklace! And then we could keep it because there’s no telling where it came from and as long as everyone here gets back what’s theirs, who’d know?” Tabitha lapsed into a moment of silence, imagining herself bedecked in a diamond ring and ruby necklace.
“Umm, I don’t remember there being that many thieves. Just th’ one.” John felt obliged to be truthful.
Tabitha forgave him for it. “They’re probably just so good that no one noticed. But we will. No one pays attention to children, but we’ll show them all!”
“We’ll show ‘em all!”
Wulafric barked, wanting to join in. He’d rather like to show them all too, although being a dog, he wasn’t quite sure just what they were showing. But that was no reason not to be involved in all the fun. He barked again and Tabitha and John howled back, the three of them making more noise than a pack of wolves in a henhouse.
The normally placid village of Cotton-on-mar was transformed into a bustling metropolis—at least, it appeared so to those who hadn’t ever seen a real bustling metropolis. A real metropolis had so much bustle there wasn’t any space to even sit in the same room as it. Whereas Cotton-on-mar (pronounced Cotnamar) looked merely like a metropolis that had been feeling poorly and didn’t like to get out much.
Even Tabitha who had lived in a bustling metropolis couldn’t help but catch the excitement surrounding the cattle fair and in her eyes this small village took on the appearance of Rome at it’s peak, Paris in it’s glory, with all the headiness of Babylon and the sultry nature of the Orient.
Albeit if these famous cities had been filled with cows.
Tabitha however, had never been close to a cow before, and she wouldn’t have traded any of them for the riches of all the kingdoms of the earth. (Although that was what each of the cattle merchants was attempting, it should be mentioned. That’s why they were at a cattle fair).
“Do all cows look like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like that.” The young girl pointed to a nearby example of the bovine race. “How glorious!”
John looked back at the cow just to check it had not been transformed into something glorious the moment his eyes had left it. It hadn’t. He turned back to Tabitha. She was still gazing enraptured at it, and her face was taking on a look of bright determination that even John (who had only known her for a week) had come to recognize. It also made him slightly nervous.
“C’mon, Tabitha, we’ll see better over ‘ere.” He managed to drag her off a ways out of the main traffic and toward a smaller pen of cows at the edge of the north section of the village.
It is perhaps conceivable that he assumed a quieter area and a smaller amount of cows and people would be a safer place where Tabitha could not make use of that brightly determined look. Alas, John the stableboy had only known Tabitha for a week. In the future he would learn that to truly distract Tabitha from a fledgling plan, one must do more than change streets. In fact, one must change continents (very quickly and possibly with the aid of lots of rope and a blindfold and gag)—and even then one should keep on hand several interesting books for her to argue with.
They drifted closer to the pen of cattle and Tabitha hoisted herself up on the slats of the fence in order to get closer to the ‘glorious’ animals. (If asked to describe a cow in one word, it is inconceivable that John would ever choose a word such as ‘glorious’ to describe a cow. Perhaps: stupid. Or, boring. Or if given more than one word, dumb as rocks).
Wanting to remain in Tabitha’s good graces, but having seem plenty of cows in his life and not all that interested in staring at some more, John decided he needed a slight errand that would take him away from here for just a few minutes. Tabitha wouldn’t get into any trouble if he didn’t leave her too long.
“Tabitha? M’throat’s dry. I’ll be a moment over at the well. Be back soon.” She nodded absently and he sighed (inaudibly) with relief. And then hurried off.
To say that Tabitha barely noticed his absence wouldn’t quite be fair. She certainly was aware he was gone, but there were these splendid new animals in front of her, and she’d known John for a whole week already. Besides, he’d be there tomorrow: the cows wouldn’t be. (a slightly incorrect analysis, but Tabitha hadn’t fully grasped what being ‘in the country’ meant. It meant cows every day if she chose. And sheep too).
It didn’t take long for Tabitha to reach out and start petting the cows in front of her. In a spirit of fair-mindedness, she sidled around the other parts of the fence to pet as many cows as she could reach. Discovering that there were still several cows in the center of the pen who had not yet been petted, Tabitha proceeded to climb over the rest of the fence. It wouldn’t be right to only pet some of them, you know.
The sudden arrival of a somewhat pallid and round-shouldered man put an end to her attempted foray into the cattle pen as he grabbed her shoulders and hauled her back out.
“What are ye doin’? Git out o’ there! Are ye tryin’ t’ spook me cattle?”
Feet firmly planted back on the ground, Tabitha stared through narrow eyes at him. “Spook?”
“Aye, spook! Ye’ll git ‘em nervous and there’s no much room for ‘em to shift. They’ll have the fence down in an instant! And nothing for it but to chase ‘em down and keep thieves from stealing ma cows! So go on with ye! Do yer mischief somewhere else.”
Theives! A subject newly dear to Tabitha’s heart. “What’s to keep someone from stealing your cows right now?”
“What? Me, o’ course! They’ll no get a single hair off ma cows while I’m standin’ ‘ere. And besides, they’ve all got ma brand.”
Tabitha cocked her head and examined the helpfully presented hindquarters of a nearby cow. “Is that supposed to be a cactus, or a poor representation of male genitalia?”
The man sputtered. It was the sort of sputter that suggests water being spewed out involuntarily, but as the man wasn’t drinking, he had to make do with his own spittle. It was quite enough. “Wha—what—ye canna—“
“I can’t what?”
“Ye just don’ say things like that—“
“Like what? You have an objection to cacti?”
He sputtered again, then decided that the best way to deal with this small girl was to end this conversation quickly before it got any worse. “I tol’ ye before, get on with ye! I’ll not be havin’ ye here.”
He was too late. Tabitha was paying a closer attention to his cows, and especially their brands.
“It’s very interesting,” she remarked. Refusing to be drawn in, the man remained silent and pretended to be busy facing a different direction from this disconcerting girl. “It’s very interesting,” she repeated, “that some of your brands are slightly different from the others.” A wet fish slapped across his face could have hardly have caught his attention more firmly. Ever so slowly he turned around.
Tabitha smiled with a remote satisfaction directed toward the cows. “Yes, I do believe that some of these brands are different. Now, if I were a clever man, I’d realize that a brand of a similar design could be masked by placing another brand on top. The results may not be perfect, but who ever looks that closely? People are so very dim-witted, you know.”
The man’s face alternated from white, to red, and then seemed to explode into a purplish hue that suffused his head and his neck. His hands were outstretched as he stepped towards Tabitha and whatever plan he had it would be wise not to guess. But a single word from the girl stopped him dead in his tracks.
“Thief.”
The word repeated again in a louder volume acted as a physical blow and he stumbled back a few steps. A few heads turned their way.
“Thief.”
Tabitha knew she had him, so she smiled as she used her not inconsiderable lung power to shout, “Cattle thief!” The heads that had turned their way were followed by the bodies that owned them and the man Tabitha was accusing panicked and fled.
John reappeared precisely at this moment, just in time to see Tabitha racing off into the crowd after a man shouting, “Thief, thief!”
“Tabitha! Tabitha wait!” But it was no use: she had already disappeared into the crowd of jostling adults.
John tried desperately to follow her. Pushing past large men who smelled of cow dung and farmers wearing kerchiefs to appear well off he turned his head this way and that to try to spot Tabitha. No use. He was trapped by the taller forms of adults and he nearly fell several times but he managed to keep his feet.
“Tabitha! Tabitha where are you?” Hoping a nearby wall would give him the height he needed to see above the crowd, John clambered onto it when the screaming started. At first he couldn’t see anything other than a mass of people, but as the screaming grew louder the crowd pressed back into alleys and doorways, some even going to far as to pull themselves onto low hanging roofs with the strength of terror in their arms. And it was only a moment before John saw it too and sent such a prayer of gratitude up to God that he was already on top of the wall and not trying to outrun…that.
That, being an angry stampede of mooing cows pounding their way down the suddenly empty streets of Cotton-on-mar. Correction: the mostly empty streets. One unfortunate individual was running bug-eyed and breathless just ahead of the lead bull whose horns were on the verge of grazing his hind-quarters.
And on top of the bull, urging it on to greater and greater speeds, was Tabitha.
John felt the moment would be best memorialized by letting his jaw drop until it reached his chest.
As she thundered past his perch the little girl freed a hand to wave serenely at him before again devoting all her attention to chasing down the man whom she believed to have committed the heinous crime of cattle theft.
It is incredibly fortunate that only John noticed the little girl atop the enormous bull, or else the consequences to that day’s adventure would have been correspondingly severe to the total damages occurred. To whit: various broken fences around the village, several smashed walls, one incident of a cow inside someone’s house, another incident of two cows found on top of the church in the choir loft (a pulley system had to be rigged to get them back down), assorted pulled muscles from outrunning the stampede, and one broken leg. (Although the responsibility for that last one was more due to excess of drinking than the surprise of finding a cow licking his tankard).
Tabitha’s alleged thief however, was never seen again in Cotton-on-mar. You may decide whether or not this can be counted as a damage.
John managed to catch up to Tabitha by the old mill pond, where it seemed the stampede had tired itself out enough to become more thirsty than interested in running any further. Tabitha was standing by the bull as it drank from the pond, patting its shoulder. Wulafric was sitting by her feet, happy to be near her again. Tabitha looked up as she heard John approach.
“Wasn’t that wonderful? I chased him for over a mile! I don’t think he’ll ever steal a cow again, do you?”
“Tabitha—you can’t—I mean, you just don’ do—“ But John found he couldn’t continue as laughter overwhelmed whatever objection he had been trying to make. He laughed so hard he nearly fell over and when he tried to stop laughing, Tabitha’s infectious giggle set him off again. Wulafric stared at the both of them like they were crazy, but he took the opportunity to lick John’s face when he got close enough to the ground for him to do so.
“Stop it Wulafric, no, get off!” John said breathlessly as he attempted to recover from the laughing fit. “I just can’t get it out o’ my head—you on top o’ yon bull, townsfolk runnin’ scared, and that man’s face—“ he started laughing again. “D’you think anyone knows it were us?”
“Why should they?” Was the girl’s prompt reply. “But they’ll probably come looking for the cows soon, so we’d better be off.”
“Back home.”
“Oh no. I’m sure there’s still plenty to see back at the village.”
John’s laughter abruptly dried up and his smile went sickly. They’d caused so much trouble he wanted to stay as far away as possible. But there was one important thing to remember about Tabitha: it didn’t matter where she went, she was always Tabitha, and she would always do exactly as she pleased.
They walked side by side back to the village, stopping occasionally to shoo away the bull that wanted to follow them.
No comments:
Post a Comment