3
Ellia’s cheeks were white like wax. She was only walking, but I had to jog to keep up. We reached the wagon, where her wife and my mother stood talking angrily to the mayor’s assistant. All three fell silent at Ellia’s approach.
“Stepan. What is this?” Her voice felt like I’d bitten iron. She waved at the green; at the stakes and ropes that divided up the grass; at the soldiers going to and fro; at the fallen twining pole, now come apart in the middle where it had hit the ground.
He looked like he had hardly slept since he came to our door last night. “They—they say this is the best place for their barracks. They say nowhere else will do.”
“Why is the mayor allowing it?”
“Yes, I’d just started to explain—he insisted they build somewhere else, but he’s been overruled. Apparently the emissary can do that. Overrule the mayor. They’re still talking now—” he gestured away toward the town hall, though his eyes were on his feet, “—but, ah, I think they’ve moved on to other things.” He pulled off his cap, and ran a hand heavily over his head.
“And that’s it? They want to do something one way, we decline, and they do it anyway? It’s not enough that they’re here in the first place? What do we have a mayor for?”
“Ellia, I don’t like it—please, please believe me.” I knew Stepan to be quiet, but cheerful. Now his voice was desperate, pleading. “But—but I think very little is going to stay as it was. I—I was there for some of their discussion, and I—” He looked to the side, where a loose group of soldiers approached, coming to unload the wagon. He urged us a few paces away, and his voice dropped low. “I don’t think yesterday’s threats were idle. Not at all. It’s better if we don’t talk about this here.”
At first, my mother and each of the millers alike seemed as if they would speak, but after a moment looking at Stepan’s frightened face, they said nothing. Two by two, arms full of boards, the soldiers left, ignoring us.
I watched their path, away toward the center of the green. Beyond them, beneath the eaves of the forest, I made out the form of a fawn, barely more than a shadow among the leaves.
It stood, watching.
At some sign I couldn’t see, it turned, and disappeared into the trees.
Stepan cleared his throat. “I was to tell you: someone will be by this evening to pay for the wood. But—but they’re only paying two-thirds the price.”
This time it was my mother who spoke. “They're not satisfied with tripling the tribute? They’re taking a third of this wood for free?”
He winced. “Yes. Not just this wood. Whatever they buy, from anyone.”
She snorted. “Then this will be the last time we sell to them. I loaded the wagon angry enough just at who it was going to. I did it because the mayor asked—because you asked. And I did it expecting to be paid. The next time they need wood, they can get it somewhere else. Let them cut it down and work it themselves.” The millers nodded.
“Anna, please don’t try to do that. Please.” He was very quiet. “No one may refuse them.”
“No one may?” Even so low, Ellia’s voice frightened me.
Stepan ran his hand across his face. “That is what the emissary said. And I believe—I believe he’ll enforce it, if he’s put to it.”
“Enforce it how?”
From down the lane, a hard voice: “You! Stefan—Stepan! The meeting’s done. Come on, you’re needed.” A soldier with more decorated armor stood, beckoning.
“I’m sorry. I have to go.” He swallowed, and pulled his cap back on. “I—I’m to serve him now. The emissary.” He turned, and left like a yoke pulled him down by the shoulders.
After a moment watching him walk away, Ellia shook her head. She climbed to the bench, and took up the reins. “Let’s go.”
I sat in the empty, creaking wagon bed, listening to my mother and the millers keep their rage below a shout, watching the road spool out behind us, watching the green slip away.