The Reeve Amidst The Green (15.5) Too Much, Too Quickly
Arnuvel walked around the back garden, carefully examining the ground. Sure enough, there was bare dirt running in a line from the house, and a great large bare dirt spot at its end, some thirty feet from the building. A “septik-tank,” Wanna had called it, was buried here, like a giant’s grave.
Arnuvel had returned home for lunch after the ogre affair, and had, upon arrival, met with a smiling Wanna, who had lunch ready, but Arnuvel needed to take his relievements beforehand, and had asked where the privy was … and had been surprised to find that it was right off his bedroom! “A privy, right there in the HOUSE?”
Wanna had seemed confused at his upset. “It doesn’t smell, or anything,” she said. “The shit goes away. Just pull the handle on the chain when you’re done, and it goes away. It doesn’t stay in the house. But if you want, there is an old-style outhouse over on the far side of the stable.”
“The shit goes away,” Arnuvel had repeated. “Where does it go?”
“The water takes it to the septik-tank,” she’d said, guilelessly, as if this was a thing anyone should know. “Out in the back. You can still see where the workmen buried it.”
“So,” Arnuvel had said. “Some sort of cesspool, then?”
“I don’t really know,” Wanna had answered. “You have to clean a cesspool. They say you only need to clean a septik-tank every four or five years. They’ve had one out at the Long House for more than a year now, and it’s never needed cleaning. There’s one at the Market, and I hear there are several at the House of Orange Lights…”
Arnuvel had, rather adventurously, tested for himself this “flush privy.” It had worked, as Wanna had said it would. It didn’t smell. The shit was gone, swept away by a little torrent of water. And Arnuvel had gone into the back garden, and all was as Wanna had said. It didn’t smell in the back garden, either, at least until you got a little closer to the stable.
Upon his return, Arnuvel was pleased to find a lunch less elaborate than breakfast had been – ham steak with red eye gravy, fried potato fingers, and some sort of round flat green beans, with rolls on the side. Arnuvel attacked his lunch with gusto, and invited Wanna to join him in the kitchen, which she did.
“If it please you, Wanna, I would like it if you would join me for meals,” he said. “I find that goblins are more willing to speak plainly with me than the local humans are, and I have much to learn. I would leave the dining room for when there are guests.”
“It makes it easier for me that way. If you have questions, I’d be glad to answer them,” said Wanna. She tore a roll in half, dipped it in the gravy, and took a bite.
“This privy thing,” he said, “this is a goblin invention?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s new. We didn’t have them until we settled here. There aren’t many. Most of us still use the old kind.”
“Are there any in Refuge?”
“I don’t know. There isn’t one at the greengrocer’s, the Greenwoods’ house, or the Dry Goods store, I know that.”
Arnuvel cut a chunk from his ham, swirled it in the gravy… and paused. “Wanna… are these privies magical, in some way?”
Wanna looked startled. “I don’t think so,” she said. “There are pipes, and one of the pipes leads to a well, for water, and one leads to the septik-tank. I don’t know mechanical things, but I’ve used them plenty of times, and they work. I saw the workmen put them in. There were no magicians. I thought they were a human thing. They don’t have them where you come from?”
“I wish they had,” said Arnuvel with a wry grin. “They do seem very convenient!” Picking up his mug, he took a sip, expecting water, and finding beer. Cold beer. Very cold. “Oh,” he said. “Do we have ice delivery here? I hadn’t expected that. This is excellent!”
“Ice delivery?”
“Where they bring ice to keep things cold in the kitchen?”
“No one brings ice,” said Wanna. “Lager beer is good cold, so I keep it in the himikar.”
“The what?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know the man word. The himikar. There, next to the cabinets.” She pointed at a tall wooden box that looked like a cabinet or smallish wardrobe. “It keeps things cold, keeps meat fresh.”
Arnuvel put down his fork and rose from his seat, and walked into the kitchen proper. The himikar had a handle, and he opened it. Inside were a number of shelves with jars and bottles, and a small beer keg, with tap. Arnuvel saw some of the leftovers from breakfast, in bowls. There were numerous plates of raw meat on the lower shelves. It didn’t feel cold at all.
Until he reached into the himikar, and just past its threshold, he felt the temperature plummet very sharply, around his hand.
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Shuffa’s first instinct was to bolt for the treeline, for the trees, dart to the safe and familiar, fast as a rabbit! Climb a tree, quick as a squirrel, escape to the next tree from there! Leap from branch to branch! Escape! Ogre, ogre, OGRE!!!
Shuffa’s first instinct was, however, blocked by the agony in her back, her thighs, her calves. There was no way she could run, not with any speed that the great creature couldn’t match with its long legs. And what if there was a droolok waiting just inside the treeline? And why was there a human with the ogre? And… why was the ogre wearing a halter and skirt? Blue and white stripes?
“Howdy!” called the human. “Are you Shuffa?”
Shuffa looked at the man and the ogre as they approached her. To her embarrassment, she realized she couldn’t completely stand up straight; the agony was that great. “I am Shuffa,” she said nervously.
The human extended a hand, in the human manner, and smiled warmly. “I’m Charli Buds,” he said proudly. “Looks like we’re neighbors! That’s my farm right there, far side of the fence! This here’s my sweet friend, Oddri!”
The ogre smiled grotesquely at her with its big teeth, its great tusks. “Howdy!” it said, incongruously, in a deep bass voice.
Not sure what else to do, Shuffa took the human's hand, and shook it, in the human manner.
“You sure got them weeds pulled up proper!” said the human happily, surveying her property. “Looks like you’re ready to cultivate! Good thing, too,” he added, looking at the sky. “I reckon it’s going to weather, and right soon! What’re you plantin’ this year?”
The ogre bent over and looked at Shuffa closely. Shuffa flinched. The creature’s great orangy colored face was closer than Shuffa had ever been to an ogre, and Shuffa couldn’t shake the idea that the thing was about to take a bite out of her, even if it did have a bizarre human-styled haircut, with a wave of black hair across her brow. Gods, was the creature wearing makeup?
“Is something wrong?” the ogre said softly, in the human speech, in its strange, deep voice. “Charli… she’s been crying…”
The human ceased its ebullient surveying of her land, and looked at her with an expression of concern. “I’m sorry,” said the human. “Is everything okay? I didn’t mean to…”
Shuffa opened her mouth to speak, and took a breath, and choked, and the tears came, suddenly, hot and uncontrolled, and Shuffa fell to her knees and wept, and wept.
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Arnuvel barked a short curse, and jerked his hand out of the wooden box, the himikar. It was like – winter, in there! Cold! Icy cold! He shook his hand in the warmth of the room around him, and peered into the box again. There was no ice anywhere in the box. Carefully, cautiously, he reached into the box again. Slowly. He felt his fingertips grow cold, the moment they crossed a line between “out of box” and “in box.” He continued to reach further inside. It was a bit like sticking his hand out of a window in a warm house into icy winter weather outdoors. He touched the inner wall of the box. Icy cold. Well, not quite icy. Not quite freezing, perhaps. But so cold! Colder than it had any right to be! What witchery was this?
Arnuvel straightened up, and drew his hand out of the himikar, and closed the door. He looked back at Wanna, sitting at the table. Wanna’s yellow eyes were slitted tight, and her expression indicated alarm; her hands were braced on chair and table, and her leg positioning indicated that she was about half a second from leaping up and bolting from the room.
Arnuvel took a deep breath, and worked to regain his composure. “I’ve upset you,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I apologize.”
Wanna did not relax, and her expression still indicated that she was still pondering the option of escaping from the room with the mad human in it. “Is something wrong?” she asked flatly.
Arnuvel looked from Wanna to the himikar and back again. “This box… is magical?”
“Yes,” said Wanna in a flat tone. She did not move. “Is this bad?”
“I have upset you,” said Arnuvel. “Wanna…. I give you my word, I will not harm you. If you wish to go, you may go. I won’t follow you. I see how my behavior has upset you.”
Wanna stared at Arnuvel for a moment, and rose from her seat, slowly, watching him. Arnuvel did not move. Wanna stepped sideways to the doorway. Still, Arnuvel did not move. Reaching the doorway, Wanna’s expression shifted slightly to the quizzical. “You act like you have never seen a himikar before,” she said.”
“I haven’t.”
“Don’t they have magicians where you come from?”
Arnuvel chuckled, a little crazily. “No! They don’t!”
Wanna’s expression shifted to complete surprise. “They don’t? None? No magic?”
Arnuvel moved… slowly… back to the table, where he sat down in his seat and rubbed his hand over his face. “Wanna,” he said. “This morning, I sat down in my office to try and write a report. I was interrupted when Constable Barnaby burst in to tell me there was an ogre running around downtown. I went to investigate, and spent an hour watching an ogre getting her hair done. After that, I came home for lunch to find a magic privy to crap in, a delightful lunch made for me by a pleasant goblin woman, and a box in the kitchen where it’s always winter. I am so sorry to have upset you, but this is a lot to take in all at once!”
“Oh,” said Wanna. “Was Oddri in town?”
“And that’s what I mean!” laughed Arnuvel. “Apparently, everyone here knows exactly what’s going on except me!”
Wanna looked at Arnuvel. “You come from a place,” she said, “without goblins, without ogres, and without magic. No wonder you’re confused. If I sit down and try to finish my lunch, will you do anything crazy?”
Arnuvel looked Wanna in the eye. “I’m sorry I have upset you,” he said. “If you had acted this way, I, too, would be upset. But you aren’t to blame for any of this. And I will try to upset you no further.”
Wanna stepped tentatively into the kitchen. Arnuvel didn’t move. Finally, Wanna moved closer to Arnuvel and put her hand on his. Arnuvel looked at it. Green, four fingered. Warm, on his chilled flesh. “I will answer your questions, if I can,” she said. “Would it be possible to finish lunch while we do this?”
Arnuvel smiled. “Perhaps that would be best.”
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Shuffa sat on the blanket spread out in front of her wickiup. She leaned back against an enormous feather pillow, a thing for which her back thanked her. In her hand was a mug of beer. The beer was good. It refreshed her. It also cushioned her confusion and wonder at the madness before her.
In her plot, on the far side from Charli’s farm, she watched the plow fly by in the distance. Plow was the name of the contraption. It had a metal wedge at the front, and seemed to do a fine job of turning the earth. It was normally pulled by a horse, Charli had said, and a human walked behind it and steered the thing. This was not what she was witnessing.
Shuffa’s entire plot was roughly a third plowed, already. Charli and Oddri had accomplished this in perhaps fifteen minutes. “See, Oddri pulls a plow faster than a horse can,” Charli had said, laughing. “And if all you’re growin’ is mustard, we don’t need to set the furrows real deep, not like potatoes. You just sit back and rest, and we’ll get this done in two shakes!”
The human and the ogre had been weirdly sympathetic. After Shuffa had finished having hysterics, she had screamed her frustration. She needed to get the soil turned, she needed to plant her seeds, the seeds… she was planting mustard seeds, she could get a crop in and grown and harvested before the Samhain holiday if she was quick, and she needed to get it done before the rains, but she was a fool, a FOOL, and hadn’t considered the work involved, and what it would do to her, and oh, the pain in her back… she was no farmer… she was a fool… it hurt so much, she couldn’t even straighten up!
The human and the ogre had looked at each other, then. “It’s just like you, Charli,” the monster had said. “Just like with the potatoes.”
The human had looked back at her and said, “You’re absolutely right, Oddri. Absolutely godsdamn right. You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”
“Godsdamn right,” the creature had said.
The madness had begun after that. The ogre had brought the blanket and the great feather pillow thing, and had arranged them in front of Shuffa’s wickiup, and laid Shuffa out on them, reclining at an angle on the great pillow. Then the two of them had run to the wagon, and had driven in to the farm half a hundred yards away. And then, they had come back with the great pointy contraption, the plow thing. The ogre had removed her clothing; it sat, neatly folded, on the corner of the blanket near Shuffa. “Pretty new clothes,” said the monster. “Don’t want them to get dirty!” And the human had handed Shuffa the mug of beer.
And, naked, the ogre had climbed into the plow fastenings, and had taken off. The human rode the back of the contraption as the ogre dragged it, plowing and turning the dirt as fast as a goblin child could run, almost. As they’d reached the end of the first furrow, the human had cried, “Circle LEFT!” and the ogre had stopped, turned, grabbed the entire plow contraption, with the human still on it, had turned it around at the top of the second row, turned back around, herself, and had charged forward, pulling the plow forward through the soil, second furrow, fast as a goblin child could run, her powerful shoulders swinging, her great legs pounding, her toes gripping the dirt. The two of them had plainly done this before.
“Yeeeeee-haw!” Charlie had screamed. Oddri had laughed, and kept pulling. Gods, these two were having… fun.
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Back to Chapter 15:
On to the second half of this chapter!
Posted Dec 30, 2022, 7:36 PM UTC · edited