Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Vosges Mts.
The castle was built where once there was a hunters’ woods and now around its outer walls are little plots of tillable land. Each tiny field has a little hut on the edge which is the place where the poorest of poor farmers are kept safe from dangers real and imagined. But this arrangement is not as it would seem — a charity for the poor. Rather, the serfs are responsible to provide for the wealthy nobility an abundance of foods that allows the aristocracy to have a grand buffet for every dinner, feasting appropriate for showing off a high station of wealth.
And now, I’ve discovered my son-in-law, serf, Will, with a clear love of fermented barely, has been granted some barely seed for starting his field. Will, a hunter by birth, knows just how to place an arrow to promise his family can always dine on the best cuts of boar, now finds the changing world has restricted the hunt and left him only a patch of raw earth and a few seeds of barely in a mildewed bag. Now, he has a wife and soon a child to feed, and here I am, his father-in-law come to assess his flaws.
In his mind, and maybe mine also, I’ve come to be assured that caring for my daughter and the grandchild, yet to be born, requires protecting Layla from him – keeping her safe. Maybe I came here thinking it is my duty to pronounce him unfit and dangerous, a failure of a farmer! Maybe his poverty makes him impotent for the hunt and unworthy for anything else. Let us never forget he was the one who complained when, at our house, we feasted on lamb at Easter and not on pig.
Now, as I think about what I’m saying, I have a little glimpse of understanding, maybe a prodding at my conscience in answer to my prayer. I can’t blame away the needs of my son-in-law by simply hiding my daughter from him.
“You have to get up off the straw and come with me now, Will!”
He wakes knuckles first, “What’re you doing here! Where’s Layla? You’ve got my wife! You $#%@.!!”
One blow knocks me down. “No need for another.” I said, “Come with me now Will, we have to get some better seed for your field.”
If I go home without bruises Layla won’t think I’ve done my work here.
(Continues tomorrow)
Lazarus Ink 