2
The birds’ dawn chorus was growing loud overhead, but here, under the trees, it was still as good as night. Ellia the miller walked the path beside me, our footsteps nearly silent on the soft earth and fallen needles.
“Tell me, Falke,” she said, her voice quiet, “what do you notice?”
In the predawn darkness not an hour before, Ellia had come to the house with Sarah, her wife, their wagon groaning under the weight of a load of lumber. From my window I’d watched them pull up to the broad doors of the workshop, dim shadows on the pale road. Thin lanternlight spilled into the lane, and together with my parents, they’d carried out rough beams, sawn boards, anything we had more than a few feet long, to add to the wagon.
For the barracks.
Leaving my sisters still asleep in their beds, I’d dressed in silence, and crept down the stairs to watch.
Once the workshop stood half empty, my mother had said she would join the millers to make the delivery. “And ask the mayor why he’s allowing this, while we’re there.”
My father had hugged her, and said he’d stay home, for when my sisters woke.
“I want to go.”
They’d all four looked at me, and then at each other. My parents shrugged, and Sarah nodded. But Ellia had hesitated.
She’d thought for a long moment. “Four’s a tight fit on the wagon bench—what do you say you and I walk?”
“Tell me, Falke, what do you notice?”
There was little to see. Night-blooming flowers, soft white spots among the dark leaves. The pale smear of the path like a hazy line of chalk, dissolving away before us. The vague shape of a shrine, patches of moss dark against the worn stone. Fingers of branches on thin faint patches of sky. The sights of the forest were hushed in the lingering night.
But there was the feel of the air on my skin—it said we’d have clouds all day, but probably no rain until evening.
And on the breeze—the smell of mushrooms near the path, good to eat. They’d be gone after the rain. And beneath their scent, fainter, something dead, rotting. Why the wolves or bears hadn’t eaten it, I didn’t know—maybe it was a deer that had fallen into a fold of the stones, where it couldn’t be reached; or something smaller but nearer by, that had died in its burrow and hadn’t yet been dug up.
And there was the call of a bird that didn’t live here—a visitor from other valleys. Ellia had told me the name once, but I couldn’t remember.
It cried, long and low, but the chorus didn’t answer.
All this I told her.
She nodded, shadow against shadow. “A whittle. That’s the bird.”
We walked on a while in silence.
Then—“Did you notice anything change just now?”
I thought about it. “No?”
“This is a subtle one. What do the needles feel like?”
I rolled the whole sole of each shoe over the ground as I walked, feeling for the texture beneath me. “Dry. They crumble easy.”
“True. There’s something else, though, too. Try walking this path again later—before the rain. And pay close attention to the needles. You might try it with your eyes closed—I don’t think the light will help.”
I nodded, and resolved to walk the path until I got it.
Her voice changed. “Falke. How are you feeling? About the soldiers, I mean.”
I knew four would fit just fine on the wagon.
My parents had asked me more or less the same thing the night before. “I wish they’d stayed away. We pay their tribute already. Why do they need more?” I ran my hand through a patch of ferns beside the trail. “And they seem . . . I don’t know. They seem . . . like they like feeling angry.”
“Mm.”
An owl drifted over the path, returning home without a sound at the end of the hunt.
“Why didn’t anyone do anything? Why didn’t the mayor send them away? There are a lot of them, and they have their swords, but—there aren’t that many. There aren’t as many as us.”
“No. Not as many as us. Not here, at least. Not right now.”
“So why, then?”
She was quiet a moment. Daylight had begun to gather, still finding its feet. “I think people are afraid. Any one of us alone would still be nothing before them. I think people feel that keenly, and I think they’re hoping it won’t be too bad, and they can just wait it out.”
“Will it be bad? My parents say they don’t know. They’re worried.”
Ellia gazed out among the trees as she spoke. “I don’t know either. The emissary might be exaggerating what they’ll do—this could all be just to impress us. Maybe they’ll leave before winter, and the tribute will go back to normal. Or things could become very hard—maybe for a long, long time.”
“How long?”
“Well. The previous baroness reigned for something like thirty years.”
“No! They can’t stay that long! They can’t, can they?”
“I don’t know, Falke.” She sighed. “I’m sorry.”
Again we walked in silence. Squirrels ran through the underbrush, black fur shining in the growing light.
“But Falke, listen. However long they’re here, and however bad things get, I want you to remember the forest can help you. Your family will be there for you—and you’ll be there for them, I know. But whatever weight you’re under, they’ll be under it too. They may have less to give than they’d like. But knowing the forest well—having it to retreat to—not everyone has that. Let the woods take up the weight when you can.” She reached up to touch a low branch. “I don’t mean don’t ask for help. And I certainly don’t mean keep your pain hidden away. But you know the peace of being alone in the trees; you know it deeper than most. And you’ve learned a lot of how to make your way in the wood already—more than many of our neighbors ever bother to know. Let it support you. Let it carry some of the worry.”
She stopped walking. “And Falke. I don’t mean to frighten you. It probably won’t ever come to this. But if you ever need to flee—no, no, I don’t think you will. But if you do. You know where to find food. How to make a bit of shelter. And I’ll teach you more—some lessons I thought we wouldn’t come to for a long while might be worth getting to sooner. I’ll bring my boys along, too; they have catching up to do. Just—just remember. The forest is here for us.” She put a hand on my shoulder for a moment. “It was here long before we ever were, and it’ll be here long after we’ve gone.” She began to turn a slow arc, first to the south, where the mountains were nearest. Then to the southwest, where the valley road left our village and wound down toward the others. “It’s stronger than our fears, and it’s stronger than any soldier, anywhere.” She turned to the north, where past the far side of the village the river ran twisting, leaping the falls and swirling in ravines. And finally to the northeast, where the paths died out among trees deep and dark, and miles away the sharp high peak at the valley head climbed up against the sky. “Trust in it. Remember.”
This wasn’t how we usually spoke of the forest. I felt I was trying to feel my way through a darkened room. Ellia looked as solemn as she ever did when teaching something, but sadder, now, too. Her gaze burned like coals in a distant hearth—fierce, intent. But too far off and across too much shadow to light a path.
I whispered, “I will.”
I didn’t know what else to say.
At last, she nodded. She took a long breath. “Alright, that’s enough of that.” She straightened up, and put on a smile. “Let’s get going—if we’re quick, maybe we’ll see some deer on the green.”
We walked on.
At dusk and dawn, deer slipped silent out of the trees to graze on the village green, vanishing again if you tried to get close.
I tried to shake the feeling of the dark room off my back.
Even if there were no deer, the twining pole was up in the green’s center, taller than houses, ready for celebrating the first harvest, and it would be good to see. It was good luck the soldiers hadn’t come sooner, and taken that wood, too; my parents had finished carving their section, and carried it down to be joined with the others and raised, not a week before.
Embers glowing on the far side of a deep gulf.
I looked up at the sky, willing the image to go away.
When we could see the lines of kiln smoke rising above the trees, we took the next turning, north, back into the village. Rabbits crouched beneath the hedges, ears twisting as we passed. Through open windows I could hear bits of conversation, the clack of a spoon in a pot.
Ellia was frowning. I looked around. I listened. The dawn chorus was broken—in among the songs were calls of warning.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I’d guess the work’s already begun, and the birds don’t like it.” She shook her head.
I heard the faint knocking of an axe somewhere ahead.
“I expect they’ll build in that stretch of brush just beyond the gate, but they’ll have to clear it first—and there are plenty of nests in the trees there.”
We turned another bend, and walked down the next lane. Too fast, the sound of the axe grew loud. We came around the last corner.
With ropes and stakes, the soldiers were platting out their barracks on the soft grass of the green.
“No—!”
The axe struck a final blow.
With a groan, the twining pole began to fall.