The Raiselig Dossier: The Farmer Part 1
When Hollis was a young boy, he wanted to work with his father in the fields. He saw men and women both young and old toil in the rich earth, growing green plants and roots that became delicious and nourishing meals. In his young mind, farming was what his people did, and he wanted to be a part of it. He wanted to join in.
He didn’t know that was what he wanted, he just knew he wanted his own spade, his own hoe, his own water-pail.
He followed his father constantly and tried to grab the tools that fit so comfortably in his father’s hands, but they were far too large for him. Even in his youth, he understood the tool’s uses. The shovel cut into the ground and lifted it into the air. The drill made holes in a line. The water-pail carried water to sprinkle over the dirt. It was all very simple.
What didn’t make sense was the black woman.
Hollis’s father sometimes met with the black woman, sometimes did not. They talked about things that Hollis didn’t understand. If Hollis tried to speak with the black woman, like his father did, his father would shush him and carry him away. The black woman never even looked at him.
Hollis never forgot the first day his father handed him a shovel. It was perhaps half the size of his father’s. The wooden handle was sharp and weather-beaten. The iron head was bent in several places. But it was Hollis’s, and it was the perfect size in his arms.
Over the next season, his father followed him. No matter where he was, his father was right behind him, reprimanding him for crooked rows, shallow holes, and dry earth. No matter how hard he worked, it was never good enough.
He kept trying, and kept working. When his father’s hand gripped his arms, he grit his teeth and redoubled his efforts. His father was not an easy man, but he promised himself he would make his father proud.
He dug where is father told him, though he never seemed satisfied. Always he told his son to dig deeper, further, and harder. There was pain involved. The pain of learning, the pain of growth, the pain of a job poorly done.
And the fear.
All for what? Hollis wondered sometimes. There had to be easier ways to do what had to be done. The harvests were good, but for so much effort, he expected more…
And every season, his father marched down to the town square to speak with the black woman. Hollis was not allowed to go with him, anymore.
If there was one thing that Hollis loved in the world, it was Yellowtide.
As sure as the sun rose and fell, the seasons shifted from warm to cold and back again. When the burning sun had finished scouring the land, the winds began to blow a chill through the village homes and streets. The days grew shorter and the clouds grew thicker. The leaves of the trees began to turn a golden yellow.
The harvest was long and hard, breaking backs and arms as the adults of the village gathered their food together to celebrate Yellowtide, the festival of the harvest, the sun, and the changing seasons. There was singing, dancing, and thick rich food that sent everyone to bed happy. There were large fires to keep everyone warm, and a thick sweet drink that was not for children. There were games and sport and enough noise to rouse the dead. This was a time of life.
The black man was there.
When Hollis was a child, he had thought the black man was a woman. He couldn’t think why. Now that he was older, he knew how women dressed, and the black man didn’t dress like a woman. He must have been a man. A man like Hollis was.
The black man didn’t eat, didn’t drink, didn’t dance. The black man simply sat off to the side. He was never approached, and no one ever talked about him. He was a fixture in the town like a tree or a river; a piece of the landscape that no one considered worth mentioning.
Hollis was old enough now that he could be brave. He had asked his father one evening what he spoke to the black man of, and his father — with a strange look in his eye — answered him.
His father asked about weather and soil, about when and where to plant certain crops. He asked about ancient times, when the wisdom of the ages was passed from adult to child. He asked about the coming weeks and months, what rains would come when, and how to prepare. He asked everything that could bring prosperity to his fields.
Now, Hollis knew that his father was not the only one to speak to with the black man; every farmer in town spoke with him. They listened to him. They did what he said. He was powerful, this black man. Even his father spoke in hushed and solemn tones. His eyes burned a blue deeper than the sky, and what he said was more true than truth itself.
Hollis watched the black man, noting the position of his head, the pitch of his voice, the cut of his suit. He watched and he learned, and he ached to grow older still.
Hollis’s father had died. There had been an accident with a bull and a loose wagon-wheel. The panicked beast had crushed the poor man’s head, gored his chest, and been slain for its troubles.
Death was uncommon in the town; accidents were rare, and their physician was skilled. Bandits were rarer still, and when there was little food to go around, it was shared carefully. It was Hollis’s first death that came not from old age.
But the field still needed to be plowed, the seeds planted, the weeds taken up, the animals fed. There was still much to do, and not much time to do it. But it needed to be done.
Hollis didn’t mind the work. It gave him something to do. It kept his hands busy and his mind focused. He felt every push of the shovel into the dirt through the seasoned wood-handle. His foot pressed down on the sharp steel and he felt it bite into the earth.
“Son,” his mother stood at his side. “We need you now.”
“I have more rows to plant,” he said, sparing only the briefest moment to wave her away. “Not now.”
“The rows will keep,” she insisted. “There are others here who will work the fields for us.”
Hollis couldn’t bare the thought of any other townsfolk laying hands on his father’s shovel. “I’m doing it,” he said.
“It’s important you come.”
Hollis knew it was important. He had been told it was important since he was young. You had to do what had to be done, and this had to be done. But so too did the field need to be plowed, and Hollis needed to do it. He needed to be here, feeling the dirt under his feet and in his nostrils. He needed to be here, where his father had been his whole life. He had poured it, his life, into the soil as sure as the water from his pail. The food that Hollis had eaten, along with the people of the village, had been his father’s life. He couldn’t abandon it. Not now.
If he stopped now, if he left the fields fallow, surely that would be killing his father all over again.
After a time — Hollis didn’t know how long — his mother left his side and returned to the farmhouse. Hollis was glad of it. He hadn’t looked at her once. He hadn’t been able to.
He worked on until once again his mother approached him from behind. “They need you now.”
“I am not coming,” Hollis said through gritted teeth. “Leave me to tend to my father’s field.”
“It’s important you come.”
To hear his mother say such words again, Hollis could not bear it. He spun about to shout in his mother’s face, to demand he be left alone to be with his father’s ghost, when his tongue stopped short.
It was not his mother standing beside him, though he was certain it had been. The voice had been so quiet and calm, so maternal and caring, it could not have been anyone else. But the black person stood there, staring with burning blue eyes into Hollis’s face.
It was the first time in Hollis’s life that the black person had matched gazes with Hollis. How deep they were! How strong and gentle, how unnerving and unpleasant. Yet Hollis could not look away.
“You are being childish,” the black person said. It was not a reprimand nor caution — just a simple statement of fact. Hollis could not disagree; he knew it as soon as it was said. He wanted to apologize, but somehow he couldn’t. Not for this.
“I need to be here,” he said. “I need to till the field.”
“There are others who can till the field,” the black person said, again a simple fact. “You are needed for the ritual.”
“There are others who can do the ritual,” Hollis said. He wasn’t sure why he said it; for days his mother had told him that only family could perform the funeral rites. There was no one else. Yet he kept talking; “My father knew this town, and it knew him. There are many here not connected by blood, but I have an aunt on my mother’s side I’ve not seen before. She lives two towns over, and I know her no better than a stranger. The family we’re given is nothing, I think, compared to the family we make.”
Hollis clamped his mouth shut, ashamed of how much he had said. Had it been insulting? Foolish? He didn’t know, and the placid face of the black person made it no clearer.
At last the black person spoke again. “Interesting.”
Hollis didn’t answer as he continued turning the soil.
“There are,” the black person said again, “lands to the south where the ritual of work is not uncommon. The mausoleum is raised by the village to honor the departed soul, and there is not an hour that goes by for a week and a day where the family need lift a finger, so thick are the able hands. There are rituals of passing where a single tree is planted over the heart of the corpse, where graveyards are groves. There is even, I believe, a town on the Hercain peninsula where the coffin, tombstone, and burial garb are all made by the family, from start to finish. They shear the wool, weave the thread, cut the wood, hew the stone…all to honor the departed.”
The black person stepped closer. “You do not live there. You live here, in a village with four hundred and seven individual human beings. Some of them will someday be your family. The rituals between father and son may be performed at any time, but the rituals of the village operate on a timetable not your own.”
Hollis stared at the dirt of the field. He was almost half finished.
“If you wish,” the black person said, “I will help you with the paperwork in establishing a singular tribute to your father and establish a legal precedent. In the meantime, I suggest you show the village that you are ready, willing, and able to take your place as one of them, like your father was.”
Hollis gripped the spade in his hands. He wanted to say no. He wanted to push the black person away and keep turning the dirt of the field. But his father wouldn’t have wanted that.
In the house, his father’s body was already wrapped in white cloth. The candles were lit, and the bowl lay ready. They had been waiting for him.
It was his duty to mix the marking, a proper amount of both ground flour, water, and red mud from the southern river, so he did.
It was his duty to hold the bowl while his mother placed the markings on his father’s wrapped face, giving him the death mask that would see him safely to the Gates of the Dead, so he did.
It was his duty to blow out each of the candles as his mother chanted the prayers in turn, so he did.
And through it all, the black person stood silently in the corner, saying nothing, revealing nothing of their inner mind.
Only once did they move, and it was to adjust the position of Hollis’s hands as he held the bowl.
Allya was strong, kind, and had hands that could hold two grown pigs without dropping them. Her laugh could be heard across the town, and though she did not drink dark ale, she could drink more of the red than any other woman, and most men. Some whispered too much. Her hair was as rich a brown as the earth, her skin as dark as any tree. She knew how to handle animals — both of the farm and the forest — and would surely birth strong children to any family lucky enough to have her.
The men of the town thought her cold and shrewish. They did not want a woman of such bitter disposition, as quick with her fists as her tongue. There was no endevor that she would not quickly find fault with, and no man or woman she would hesitate to quarrel with, no matter who was in the right.
Hollis, on the other hand, had spent many hours with Allya, and had come to see the softness of her heart. She cared and loved for so many, so fiercely, that her chest was daily gripped with terror. So keenly did she feel loss, that she fought like a demon against friend and foe.
They spent hours together, late nights talking over pints of ale after the long days of work had finished. At first just as fellows, but as time went on, he began to think often of her firm jaw and strong back.
At long last, they decided to marry.
The black person looked up. “Excuse me?”
“A wedding,” Hollis answered, casting his eyes respectfully downward. “Our wedding. We want it done right.”
The black person, their skin deeper and darker than any living thing, slowly stood from their seat on the dais. They looked down at Hollis and Allya, their burning blue eyes a bright as the stars.
“You can help us,” Allya said. It wasn’t a question — the questions had been asked late at night on the hillside, their fears tumbling over each other like playful pups, growing into fierce wolves with sharp teeth as dawn approached. “You can make it work.”
“Can I?” The person’s voice was like steel.
“I have no father,” Hollis reminded the black person, “and Allya has no father. There will be no fathers for the wedding.”
“They will say our wedding is cursed,” Allya said. “That we are doomed to unhappiness, barren fields, and a childless home.”
“Then you had best reconsider,” the black person said without moving.
“We will not,” Hollis said. “We are decided.”
“We will be wed,” Allya said. “We will not reconsider.”
“So you come to me.” The person crossed their arms. “I was summoned and commissioned to handle weather forecasts, planting charts, and astronomical and agricultural planning — the rituals of farming. Handling marriages and weddings is not part of my current duties.”
Hollis felt Allya stiffen beside him. He could feel the bile building in her stomach, ready to fly out in a rage. Truth be told, he was feeling his own anger build — not because of the black person’s refusal, but because of the injustice.
“It is,” he said, crossing his own arms. “Today, it is.”
The black person’s eyes flared, and Hollis could feel the weight of a lifetime bearing down on his back. The black person took a single step forward, a movement that told Hollis everything dangerous about what he had just said.
He bowed his head. “It is not my place to tell your honor what your duties are,” he looked up again, “but I remember some years ago when I was a boy, you sat up with me and my mother as we buried my father. That didn’t have anything to do with farming, did it?”
The black person winced. A twich of the face was all it was, but it was the first sign of human emotion Hollis could ever remember seeing on their face. A moment of discomfort that offered Hollis the closest thing to hope he had ever felt.
After a moment, they said; “that shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have been involved.”
“But you were,” Hollis said. “You taught me that the rituals were not for me, not for my father. I could work for my father any time, and work for my father I have. Every time I put my shovel to earth, I farm for my father, and his father, and my mother, and her mother. You taught me that.”
The black person turned away, returning to their dais seat. For a moment they said nothing, pulling books and papers into view and setting them aside again after swift perusal. After but a moment, Hollis could hear the person was muttering to themselves. A moment more, and he could pick out the words:
“…There could be an inquest, but who would make such an appeal? They’re the only ones with standing…but if it goes wrong, they could file the same…Fool Scrivener…‘because he earned your respect,’ and now what? His son thinks you’re some kind of holy oblate…”
The black person looked up, the papers and books settled. “If I were to notorize your wedding, you would have to do exactly as I say. No more, no less. If you are uncertain on any point, you must ask me precisely what I mean. If you cannot do or acquire what I ask, you must tell me immediately. Do you understand?”
The two supplicants nodded.
“Very well,” the black person plucked a long rod from its place on a thick red pillow, and pointed like a wizard with their wand. “Tell me everything you know about your people’s wedding traditions. Leave nothing out.”