“Aye,” Bercie said, her voice soft and sad.
Jerrold glanced at his mother again, but she stared straight ahead, not looking at him, not really looking at anything, mind.
The knot grew between his ribs, an ache that twisted tighter, hard and uncomfortable.
“So explain to me again,” Old Petro thumped his cane against the wood of the wagon, between grain sacks.“Explain to me again why you are offering themmyfarm.”
Jerrold had learned to just let the old man go when he got a burr up his ass.
“And by the Lady’s own laughter, what kind of Lady High Baroness gets teary-eyed at the sight of a pantry?”Old Petro demanded.
“It’s a right proper pantry,” Mother Bercie agreed.“You crafted that by your own hand, didn’t you?Spacious, even with the table in the center.The wood still gleams,” she added.“Under the dust and debris.”
“Well, aye,” Old Petro said, pride in his voice before his indignation returned.“Butshegot down,” he continued.“On hands and knees, mind, got down and found those old pickling crocks tucked in the back.She hugged me,” Old Petro sounded so offended Jerrold had to hold back a chuckle.“Me in my coarse spun and her all covered with dust.What in the name of all the hells was that?”
The wood creaked under Jerrold as he shifted in his seat.
“Not what you’d expected,” Mother Bercie observed.
“Expected?”Old Petro sputtered.“I expected all fancy talk and formal robes and demands, and there she was in tunic and trous, asking about the fields and the garden before she even climbed in the wagon for the ride down.Asking about crop rotations, and when last the fields were manured—” He paused, probably shaking his head, though Jerrold did not turn to see.“Ain’t right.Ain’t proper.No good will come of this, mark my words.”
“She seemed to know what she was talking about,” Jerrold offered, despite himself.
“Well, aye, that she did,” Old Petro didn’t sound pleased.“Even seemed to know a bit about thatching repairs.”
“Went through the farmhouse, every room, every floor,” Bercie said.“Sharp eyes for what needed doing.”
“Aye, well,” Old Petro grudgingly agreed, then sputtered on.“But that Lord High Baron Orval, that lad of the Blood, now, he knows nothing from nothing.”He snorted.“No calluses on those hands.Bet he never did a day’s work in his life.”
“Scribe calluses, though,” Bercie pointed out.
“Aye, well, yes, but him hoping to find ink and paper inmyfarmhouse?Makes no sense.”Old Petro scoffed.“What kind of Lord High Baron is that?Wasn’t he looking overwhelmed?Holding his son, looking around.City-bred, I wager.And letting his son drool all over him?”he asked.“Man even had drool cloth, of all things.Like no Lord I’ve ever seen.”
“Seems to me your boys did a bit of slobbering, back in the day.”Jerrold’s mother cast a look back at Old Petro.
“Aye, they did.”The man’s voice softened with memory.“All red cheeks and wondering eyes and slobbered worse than wild dogs when they were teething.”
Bercie caught Jerrold’s eye with a slight smile, and opened her mouth, but Jerrold gave her a sharp look.He did not want to hear her reminisces on that topic.
His mother gave him a sly side-look before she spoke.“Cirda did the same.”
“But I am not a ‘lord’ now, am I?Nor is Jerrold, for all that he’s the mayor.”Old Petro was getting warmed up.“And that one is city-bred, certain sure.You can see it in his eyes.No lick of sense, I wager.No knowing the land.”The old man snorted.“That Roth, now, he’s got a fighting man’s calluses and a wary look.”Jerrold heard him shift position, no doubt twisting to give him a look.“He kill any of our folk?”
“Says not,” Jerrold replied.“Says he served in the Palace guard in Edenrich, trained to defend.Never in the Black Hills.”
“Huh,” the man took that in with a grunt, then to Jerrold’s surprise he chuckled.“Now that Rosalind, now, she sure lit into you.”
Jerrold grunted, less than pleased to be reminded.That woman was so obsessed with tapestries when there are other, pressing concerns.
“The boy seems a good’un, though.”Old Petro continued.“Did you see how he grinned at the idea of his own room?He wasn’t put off by a bit of damp and a few rats.”
“Shame what’s happened to the place,” Bercie agreed in a mild enough tone that Jerrold felt immediately suspicious.“All that damage and disrepair.Like you said, it was a jewel, before—”
“All it would take is a bit of work,” Old Petro sputtered.“The jewel of the barony, just as I said.Fertile fields, plenty of water, woods for the goats and pigs, plenty of graze.”He was spitting with rage, Petro was.“And what business do you have offering it to them, answer me that.”
“What did I say to you, before I took the wheels off your goat cart?”Jerrold said, keeping anger out of his voice even as that damned knot grew tighter.
“Eh,” Petro growled.“Said I was too old to be out there by myself, too isolated from help.Work that needed doing needed strong backs and hands.The buildings not defensible, too attractive a target what with being off the road between the town and the Keep and the first place to be attacked if an army moved along the—” The old man went quiet.
