Page 7

Chapter Seven

T he next day, everything was agony. His legs were sore, his spine was sore, his abdominal muscles were sore, his arms were sore, and his head ached fiercely.

Lyford did not come to wake him up, so Tam dragged himself out of bed with a grimace and went down to find some breakfast. It would do him good to move, probably, even though he very much did not feel like it.

Lyford was in his breakfast room with a cup of tea and some letters, and he looked up with a pleasant expression when Tam entered.

Tam held up one finger. “Do not speak to me. I have never been more of a goblin than I am at this moment. Everything hurts and I am not fit for human company.”

Lyford’s expression broke into a rueful smile. “There’s tea and food, if that would help.”

“I would like my own teapot,” Tam said, easing himself into a chair with a groan.

“That can be arranged.”

Tam declined Lyford’s offer of a carriage ride over to his shop, on the grounds that no one fucking needed to be staring at him like that, and declined the offer of going on horseback, on the grounds that his arse didn’t need to be aching any more than it already was.

He walked. It gave him time to think.

He had a quest: Grow the biggest marrow that Lyford had ever seen as a gift for Angarat. The delicate, fragile, weepy feeling had passed, and Tam had nothing left in him but grouchiness and fiery determination.

It was late in the season to be growing marrows, but Tam decided he didn’t care. If he didn’t start now, then he’d have to wait for next year to start them properly, and he didn’t bloody feel like waiting. If he failed, then he’d have to wait anyway, so what difference did it make?

The evil genius part of this quest, which Tam was not sure that Lyford had even intended or realized he was inflicting, was that Tam had to ask for help. He went to one of his old friends, Lys Notter, who was a farmer and had six kids now, and asked if he had any marrow seeds on hand and whether Tam could borrow a few. Lys was bewildered at the request, considering that it wasn’t the time of year to be starting marrows, but gave Tam a small handful—seven for luck, he said—and added that he was awfully glad to see Tam, and that it really had been too long, and wasn’t it astonishing how busy one got once one was grown up and married, and did he remember Lys’s wife Rose, and would he like to stop for a pint and a catch-up, and oh, come here, kids, come say hello to your Uncle Tam—

Tam left with seven marrow seeds in his pocket and that fragile feeling renewed in his chest all over again. Rose had said merrily that Lys worked too hard and that she’d been telling him not to neglect his friends. She’d asked him to come back sometime and drag Lys out by his ear if necessary, just to get him out of the house and doing something for himself one of these days. Lys had looked hilariously guilty about it, and Tam had sniped at him for it and made them all laugh.

It had felt good. He’d missed Lys—he’d missed all his friends. He wondered if that was the situation they were all in, busy with family and up to their eyebrows in things to do, rather than as disinterested in him as he thought they were. Lys didn’t seem to have turned his back on Tam at all, and he didn’t mention a single word of the gossip Tam had expected everyone to be talking about. It hadn’t been strained or awkward to talk to him, and Lys had been clearly working so hard to ask Tam about his life: how the tea shop was going, and whether he’d read any good books lately, and had he heard that their other friend Madda just had another kid, and would Tam be interested in going fishing sometime...

Seven marrow seeds clutched in his fist, and the priceless knowledge that there was someone who cared about what he wanted—and probably more than one.

Bitch, he thought at Angarat mostly out of habit, but it was exhausted and defeated.

He had to ask for help with the seeds, and he had to ask for help with the land to grow them on, because the tea shop was all he had.

He went to Geret at Brasshenge and asked if anyone was using Brassu’s area of the common, and could Tam stake out a little plot. Geret blinked at him in utter confusion, and said delicately that he didn’t really want the lawn dug up, and why didn’t he go to Anghenge and ask them if one of the community beds in their garden was available, since they already had them for explicitly situations such as these, because it was their job more than it was Geret’s and Brassu’s.

So Tam dragged his feet over to Anghenge, which had a pack of people in it that he very much did not want to confront.

In an almost disappointing anticlimax, he wasn’t confronted at all. It was midmorning, the middle of Angarat’s hours, and there was a small gathering of people in the henge for daily rites—including, Tam saw, both Mrs Hatter and Lyford, who had waved him off at the manor doorstep not two hours before. Tam sidled through the henge with his hands in his pockets ( not making eye contact with any of the carvings of Angarat on the standing stones) until the rites were finished, the offerings made, and the crowd vaguely dispersed as people left or grouped together in twos and threes to chat. Tam managed to buttonhole Granny Pella, the elderly priestess of Angarat, and asked permission for a corner of one of the plots in the community garden out behind the henge. She agreed and only interrogated him a little bit about why he’d volunteered for the festival committee since she hadn’t seen him at any Anghenge rites or gatherings in a dozen years. Just as he was about to escape, she caught him by the arm with one shockingly powerful, withered hand and peered at him strangely. “Anything interesting happen to you lately, boy?”

“Nope.”

“Why d’you want a plot, then?”

“Personal project,” he said promptly. “Probably won’t work out, anyway.”

“Bit late in the season.”

“Yep. Just an experiment. Don’t worry about it. I, uh. I’ll probably plant something properly in the spring.”

Her face lightened at that and she smiled, her thousands of wrinkles deepening and creasing so much that her eyes nearly vanished into them. She looked like a happy little raisin. “I’ll look forward to that. Seedsower bless your little project, then.”

“Thanks,” Tam said, wriggling his arm out of her grip. Mrs Hatter had just caught sight of him from across the henge. He half expected her to fly over and accost him. As he strode away, though, glancing nervously over at her, she only watched him go with a plaintive expression that sometimes shifted over guiltily to Lyford.

The bastard had probably told her off. Tam begrudgingly had to allow Lyford that, since it did involve him too. He supposed he appreciated (ew) Lyford setting Mrs Hatter and the others straight so that Tam didn’t have to. He was busy, after all.

Lyford’s shoulders looked very nice in that new coat. At the very moment Tam had that thought, Lyford looked away from the central standing stone and met his eyes. Tam flushed, striding out of the henge, and tried not to think about the strange light that had touched on Lyford’s head and danced through his eyes for a moment, like the goddess had dropped a kiss on his head.

I have to ask for help , he thought again as he planted the seeds in the plot he’d chosen. The soil was good, and Granny Pella had mentioned that the Nevhenge priest had told her that there was going to be a light rainshower tonight. But the season was turning quickly to harvest-time, and in just a few weeks, there would be night frosts, which wouldn’t be good for the marrows at all. They might bud, but they wouldn’t set fruit, not with the days getting shorter...

It was strange how much of the knowledge came back to him so easily, though he hadn’t thought about growing marrows since that tragic accident—fuck, when had he started thinking of it as a tragic accident rather than Lyford’s selfish act of criminal carelessness?

Tam put it firmly out of his mind and fussed over the seeds to buy himself some time before had to... ask for help. He didn’t want to wait until spring. He wanted it now , he wanted everything now, he’d never had patience for anything except marrow-growing—but just see how that had turned out.

He stood up and brushed the dirt off his hands and glared down at the soft black earth of the plot. “Hey,” he said. “ Hey. Angarat. I did your quest, and that poor little Nicolau of yours thinks it’s some kind of game of handball, because he’s returning the volley and setting me another quest. I’m supposed to grow a gift for you. So what if you join in this game of one-upsmanship and muck about with these marrow seeds, eh? He wants me to grow the biggest one he’s ever seen.” He paused, and added mulishly, “Please.”

Nothing seemed to happen. The sun was shining. The day was warm. The birds were singing and the village, off in the distance outside the common and its henges, was making all its usual sounds...

Fuck. Never mind it. Either she’d bless the plants or she wouldn’t, and that wasn’t Tam’s problem at this point. He had to go open the tea shop anyway, because whether or not he was getting quests from goddesses and local lordlings, he still had a business to run.

He went back to the plot the next day, a bit earlier. The seven seeds had all sprouted two delicate little leaves, which... was suspect. He hadn’t remembered them sprouting that fast when he was a child. Was it the rain and the warmth and the quality of the soil? Or was it her doing?

He patted his hands around in the mud to get them dirty. He had a feeling that she might like it if he prayed to her like that. Some gods wanted clean hands, he’d heard. None of the other six gods of Avaris cared one way or another, as far as Tam knew, but he’d heard that in other places there were gods that wanted you to wash your hands, or your whole body, before praying to them. Made sense, he supposed, if you had a god that you had to be respectful of, as if you were going to the local lord’s table for supper. (That is, if your local lord was somebody other than Lyford. Come to think of it, though, Lyford probably wouldn’t mind if Tam did come to the table with grubby hands, either because he’d just laugh and call Tam a goblin, or because he was favored of Angarat and dirty hands meant you’d been communing with his lady or some shit.)

Tam made sure the dirt was nicely caked under his fingernails. “Hi,” he said. “It’s me. Is this what you call a blessing? It’s fine, I guess. Maybe you know better than I do about... plants. Maybe it’s bad to rush them. What if you rushed them a bit more than this, though? I have things to do.” He paused. “Please.” He paused again. “Do they need food, or something? Do you need food? Is that why people give you snacks all the time? Ugh. Fine. I’ll bring milk and honey-cakes tomorrow. Just do something with these plants. Don’t embarrass me. Please. Thanks.”

The next day, he came earlier still, nearly into Mategat’s hours, and brought some honey-cakes wrapped in a napkin and jar full of milk. He also had an entire pot of tea for himself, because it had occurred to him the previous day that it might be a bit rude on some level to just show up, say a few words to Angarat, and then leave immediately. He was the worst person of anyone’s acquaintance, but he was trying to get out of that rut, wasn’t he.

The plants were all six inches tall. He eyed them as he sat on the dewy grass and unpacked his things. “That’s better, I guess,” he said at last, unfolding the napkin from around the honey cakes. “Here’s the milk and cakes for you. I don’t know if you want me to leave them here or put them on the plants, so... How about half and half?” He crumbled half of the cakes over the marrow sprouts, and sloshed a little milk at the base of each one, and set the rest aside neatly on the sapling log that served as edging for the plot.

He didn’t say much else as he sipped his tea—except for complaining that he’d forgotten to put milk in and borrowing some of what he’d brought for Angarat, and also filching one of the honeycakes—but it was... nice to sit here in the dew with his marrow-sprouts, drinking tea straight from the teapot. The community garden around him overlooked the vast sweeping green of the village commons and the other henges, the dirt paths leading from each to each, the flowers and trees planted around those henges for which it was appropriate: Ystrac, god of the wilderness, had a whole grove of trees, and only a very small and informal henge; Brassu had no trees, but the tidiest and most stately of the henges; Talesyn, Idunet, and Mategat had colorful decorations around theirs; Nevainy? had a vast henge and the cemetery, all surrounded by gardens like Angarat’s which were full of those plants used for magic, the goddess’s mysteries, and the funeral rites...

Angarat’s henge was cozy by comparison to all of those: Smaller, more homely, more comfortable. There were no restrictions on what people could plant in the community plots, no restrictions on when you could visit the henge or how long you could stay or what you could do while you were there. It wasn’t a home, because a henge was not a home, but there was a... a feeling.

Tam hadn’t felt that way in Brasshenge. He’d never gone to Brasshenge early in the morning just to sit with a pot of tea. He’d never felt quiet and peaceful there. He’d never rubbed his hands in the dirt and sat in the dewy grass with no care for whether it would ruin his clothes.

He watched the trickle of people, just a handful of villagers, arriving slowly for the morning rites to Angarat. Some of them came down the paths from Mathenge, leaving the dawn rites there.

“Morning,” said Lyford from behind Tam.

Tam drank a long slurp of tea. “Hi.”

“That’s new,” Lyford said, half laughing.

“Drinking it from the spout? Yes, I thought to myself, why bother drinking from the rim like it’s a cup? It’s not a cup. It’s got a spout.” Tam peered up at him. “It’s going to be all the rage in a few weeks, you’ll see.”

“Such a goblin,” Lyford said wryly. “What are you doing here so early?”

“Looking at my marrows.” Tam gestured to the plants.

“They look nice. Who had seedlings to sell at this time of year?”

“No one. I grew them.”

Lyford blinked at him. Blinked at the sprouts. “It’s been two days.”

“And?”

“You have sprouts eight inches tall.”

Tam looked back at them. They did look a little taller than when he’d sat down. Hm. “What of it?”

“Plants don’t usually grow that fast?”

Tam slurped tea out of the spout and shrugged. “Maybe everyone else needs to wake up earlier.”

“Maybe,” Lyford said uncertainly. “Are you coming to morning rites?”

“Got my own going right here,” Tam said. “Don’t need to be in some garbage henge for that, do I.”

“Perhaps not. Well. Good morning to you, goblin, enjoy your day.”

“Thanks, you too,” said Tam automatically, and spent the next hour trying to remember if that was the first time he’d had a pleasant interaction with Lyford that didn’t involve his cock.

Ugh. Tam missed his cock. It had been, what, a whole week ? But Lyford said he wasn’t going to sleep with him again...

“Listen, seedlings,” he said, leaning down to hiss at the plants, since he couldn’t be sure Angarat was listening. “I’m fucking counting on you. I need you to really concentrate and make a giant marrow , giant enough that Lyford gets all breathless and fluttery in his favored-of-Angarat parts and swoons off his feet and changes his mind about not fucking me. Okay? This is a team effort and I’m going to need you to put your backs into it.”

He sat up and slurped down the last of his tea before dumping the tea leaves out onto the marrows. “Also you, Angarat. Going around telling me that you know your job better than Mrs Hatter does—sure, fine, prove it. ”

The marrow vines were six feet long the next day and had overflowed the plot. Tam uprooted the smallest two to make space for the others, rearranged their vines, buried their leaf nodes in the soil so they could grow extra roots, and brought several buckets of water from the well. When he came back with the third one, he found a flower bud on one of them, and he immediately sent someone to post a piece of paper on the door of the tea shop to say he’d be closed for the rest of the day.

“This is fun,” he said, either to the plants or to Angarat. “It’s nice when it’s going fast and micromanaging it actually does something, eh?”

By that evening, he was sunburnt, but he’d hand-pollinated the nicest-looking flower bud, constructed a shade cover over it so the fruit wouldn’t burn, uprooted the rest of the plants so that nothing would be competing against the one he had chosen to be his baby, and brought a dish of milk to trickle onto the roots closest to the flower.

He collapsed in bed that night, tired but fiercely satisfied with himself, took himself in hand, and thought about how Lyford might fall to his knees in wonder at Tam’s gift for Angarat.