Chapter 27 - Ryeamund's Garden II
Ryeamund had initially all but hated being gardened. Until he hit a certain point. That point being, the moment. The Gentle Man, that had two Gentle Women under him had taken Ryeamund aside. It was a rare thing for any instructor to spend seemingly idle time alone with one student, while the rest were still gathered with the instructors.
The overly patient and overly polite man, had initially explained something to 'Little Rye', as most called him. The man made sure he understood that he was very pleased with Ryeamund. That Little Rye had a fine set of ancestors, and that it showed. His real father had been simply a great man, and a great-man both. That it was easily spotted that such was in him. It lived in his soul. It was in his blood, and so it ran through his veins. It came out of his lips, when he repeated his dead father's wisdom. That it permeated his character, and no, that it was not the VinterBludden. That was another matter entirely separate.
The Gentle Man also took great pains to explain to Little Rye, that his adopted parents, had both been great people. His mother? Had not known any of their ways, yet she had sought to geft her husband with a son. Not just any son, but a son of what she felt would be a son of the highest possible strength, intelligence, character, dexterity and even wisdom.
Mother had looked around, and saw the Great-men. Fighting the outlanders and winning. Big, strong, fearless men. Men that gave their lives when it seemed a good idea to do so. Men that would actually argue and bicker for the righ, to hold a narrow pass or bridge, against insurmountable numbers pursuing them on a tactical retreat. Men that wanted everyone, and particularly the enemy, to see what they were all made of, what folly it was to seek to overcome such a people.
These men, once given leave, would stand and smile at their pass or bridge. Dare the entire group of enemy to try to get past them. When they yelled he would surely die? The man would laugh, and heartily. Because many more great-men would survive, as a result of but one great-man giving up his own life.
You can't possibly truly beat men like that, in the end. You could win battles, but the war was already all but won. It just needed to run its course, the conclusion was already firmly founded.
Mother had seen this, and been amazed. It had contrasted, and sharply, with all she saw around her in the other men of their own land. Drunkards. Selfish. Witless. Low character. Low to nonexistent manners. If Mother was going to geft her man, who could not make a son himself… she had picked what she thought would be the very best. Then? She chose to die, rather than live, to see it all bear fruit.
Father? He too, had gifts the other people around him had not been born with. With no gardening, he had wisdom. Great wisdom. Perhaps he had been in on the plot, perhaps he had not. But, did not the village men come to him for advice? Perhaps father had simply felt politeness and quietude was wiser. Perhaps, he was in on the whole plot… and sought to wisely imitate the great-men in as many ways as he was best able to.
Father had seen the village boys, and how they treated his son. Chased him back to his farm and out of the village at every opportunity. When little Rye had shown strength and an ability to fight? They had summoned their extremely low character and piled on him, to chase him off in numbers. A complete lack of anything even remotely resembling honor.
His father had first seen him a blacksmith of sorts. So he could have the blacksmith's arms and back and iron will. Despite his inability to be a fine smith. When that had run its course? Father had him become a woodcutter. They would make use of his great strength he was clearly developing. Enhance it further.
So that when Ryeamund was not even a young man yet? He could fight and win. So he could finally have some small measure of peace.
His father was extremely wise, the Gentle Man claimed. Father had not known anything of WinterBlood, yet he had seen it. Figured out there was something different about his son. He had him become friends with the animals. So, his son could know something of friendship. Of love. Of caring. Of nurturing.
All so that little Rye would not grow up, to use his great strength to become a monster. So that he would fight only when he had to. So he could learn his strength was to protect people, not to harm them. Even if the people around him did not love, nor even particularly like him. Men like the village boys that grew up finally. Ryeamund struck down the giants. Men that no one truly enjoyed.
His father not permitting him to profit from his great strength? Had been perhaps the wisest thing of all. His father had taught him to slay giants, not to become one himself.
The Gentle Man that explained all of this to him, in patient detail, had ended with a promise. That when he was done being examined at the Garten? He would be shown something that would make him both happy and proud beyond all measure.
Ryeamund went back to his instruction, and to his ways.
Ryeamund found himself laughing at his condition at the garden with Eira in the evening. One of the bigger, older boys? Had figured out that the beast that was Little Rye, would not lift a finger against any of the other children, no matter what, nor even tease back. He acted much like the village boys had been to him when young. Emboldening the older boys around him in his group, to enjoy having great sport with Little Rye. After all, no harm could come of it. Why not.
Eira had been amused that her scary husband had been laughing about it. It didn't bother him? How could it, Rye claimed back.
The instructors did not find nearly so much idle humor in the situation. A young potential lord, displaying such behavior? Was beyond intolerable. A young giant displaying such a portion as that of his inner character? Was completely out of the question. They admonished the boy and his cohorts, as gently as they did on any other matter. Force was no part of the Gentle Way, that was for the BladdenMeister's to impart later onto the boys, and even the girls that chose it.
One day though, a really big man had been found sitting idle outside the Garden, while the children were all inside. He had waited patiently, to be noticed. No one would dare interrupt the Garden while it was running. It was far too important.
A robed Gentle Woman had politely excused herself, and gone out to see what the gigantic man wanted. They had quiet, pleasant words. They pointed and gestured at the classroom behind them. Sat at the spring water fountain, talked and laughed.
When the children were done with noon play and lunch, they had all come back in and resumed sitting about the instructors. It was explained they had a guest. It was the huge man that spoke with the woman at the fountain, then gone away for his own lunch.
He was the father to one of the older boys. He had his boy come up to stand with him. He quietly explained, that he had not known that Little Rye, was the adult man at the garden. He explained to his big son, once again, how important character was. In particular that taking advantage of a situation, to make sport of others, was a mark of the lowest possible character.
How could he then trust his son, would not be rude to smaller children? How could he then trust his son, would not learn what to say and do to pay lip service to good character, then turn around behind his back and do the exact wrong things. That an adult submitting to gardening, was a wonderful thing. Particularly if the adult man merely sought whatever small measure of the garden that he could grasp.
The big young man was naturally, quite nervous. When his father was done, he told him to go and sit back down, and to remember what he had told him. It was important.
The giant turned to leave, then suddenly remembered. His wife did have some small errand she wanted her son to perform, on the way home after the garden broke at the end of the day. He gestured for his son to come up, and hear this instruction. The boy, now no longer nervous that this period of great danger had passed, trotted over to hear him.
The father whispered something in the boys ear, and he nodded. When the boy went to sit back down, as the giant was turning once again to leave? He had turned and grabbed his son by the shoulder, his upper arm in his large powerful grip. All but lifting the big son's body off of the ground as he turned his own around, and all but whirled him into his meaty fist arcing in, that left a couple of big eggs on the forehead of his errant son, big enough they melded together into a single misshapen one.
The man touched his fingers to his own forehead, and released his hand out and down. Apologizing to Ryeamund, that word had so slowly reached his own wife's ears of his son's behavior and low character, and that it had been even slower to reach his own.
Would they kindly allow his son to take his "noon nap", and that when he was fully awake, would they please explain why he was napping. The man smiled gently, and explained that he had a large farm, with lease farmers under his own. That he could not possibly raise a son that would grow up to act even half as badly to the lease farmers.
Ryeamund slowly learned what the man had been afraid of. If a person failed at becoming declared a Kingmaker or a Lord, that was all well and good. Not everyone could be the best. It was honorable to even be in the running for such an honor.
But, if a person was doing well, and lacked character traits that were desirable? Particularly honor and humility, or if they were to display selfishness? They would then fall. To lower than anything in their society. No woman would have him as a husband, nor dare to breed with him. His seed had been declared unusable.
He would be 'farst' out. Would have to live alone the rest of his life, with practically no friends. No trade would accept him. He would almost certainly end up going off to an out-land. A cast off. He would have to live and breed among the barbarians, that would in all likelihood, approve of his low character.
His line would end. If he were the only son, as in this case? The family scroll would have no further entries. They would be all but dead to their own people. They would become an example to everyone else. A negative example. What not to do.
The high king no longer allowed fathers to kill their own sons, but fathers existed that openly proclaimed they wished they were allowed to. Because, what were they inflicting upon some poor out-landers if not pissing and shitting in their garden. Tainting their gene pool. Lowering the people of even the lowliest out-land, that would only come back to haunt them one horrible day, if the errant seed found purchase and managed to sprout such tainted seedlings.
Ryeamund found out much later on down his own road, that it had been his own 'little niece' that was so proud to have as a 'great friend' the son of such a famous Dark Lord. Apparently, when she poked the big young man, and politely explained what was so wrong, he had laughed about the problem.
Apparently more, the little niece had reminded the young giant… that Ryeamund was older, but still the son of such a great man, that had been a great-man. Her 'uncle' was not dim, he was but an example of why gardening was so important.
The young giant had asked the little seedling. Sure, his father was great, yet what had the mother surely been? But some hairy barbarian.
When the young giant refused to 'take it back'? It had been the little niece. Who had taken it upon herself to go and explain to her mother what was going on. Her mother had been horrified enough to go and talk to that boy's mother. What she was nourishing in her garden that she didn't know about.
That mother? Was scared what her gentle giant of a husband might well do. But in the end? Her fears overcame her concern for her son's well being.
Because in the end of all things? A child must respect their mother. The mother had to respect the father. And the father? Was ultimately responsible to make a wise decision. The father, as it had turned out? Had growing up been "touch and go" by his own admission if he would meet lord status. His own father, another giant lord, had been keen enough not to see his line end, and be gossiped over as a father to a giant that people felt a burden to have around.
It was far too important. It simply couldn't be risked.
When Ryeamund was finally done? He could read. He could write. He could reckon. Not well, but more than enough he was simply the envy of the big non-Rhyshian big-men. Eira was ecstatic. As a kingmaker, her heart's desire was to find a man that she both loved naturally, and that was deemed worthy by her own people to breed with.
Ryeamund was a declared Lord.
He had never forgotten what the Gentle Man had told him that day, however. He went back and asked the man, what had he forgotten to tell him that he promised he would, if he finished his examination. The man had taken him back to the family that had originally had the daughter that first noticed the family resemblance between her Uncle Rye, and the famous Dark Lord, SkullSplitter.
Knowing he was not, nor ever could be, a high reckoner… he knew not to touch the scroll and handle it. But, the parents could and would. Showed him what they had been asked to show him. He could now slowly read for himself.
He was a Niall. The end result of a long line of the clan Niall. SkullSplitter's ancestors had come from the greatest line of the ancient Celts, way back before they had been chased out of their original homelands. Before they had once again been chased out of the lands they had then melded into.
They had been the undisputed warlords of their people as far back as anyone had recorded history of. When their people were threatened, they always were the first to fight. The last to quit fighting. They not only desired to do it, they were asked to do so.
Niall was the oldest speak of their people for 'nail.'
They were the NAILS of their people. It was their responsibility to NAIL their enemies to the ground. Permanently.
It was said of many of the Niall men, that they 'pounded lesser men into the ground, as easily as a hammer pounds a nail'. With even their hands, if they had no weapon available to them. The men were nearly all Winterblood. Full of great wit and reason and logic. Cold blooded and ruthless to their people's enemies. Devious. But? As honorable overall, as they were dangerous.
No council or gathering of any kind, would have anyone but a Niall to oversee it. It was said, that by the other people's own lips…
'A Niall always sits at the head of the table'
Ryeamund was heavily cursed or gifted with Winterblood. He would never truly understand fear, nor many other feelings other people experienced. He could not really sit and sob or cry, although as he would share with Eira… it did not mean he did not 'feel' the hurt inside him that would surely produce it in normal people.
He had grown up hating himself. Hating his ancestry. Hating the gods that had cursed him. When he found out that everything that was so wrong, was actually what was so right?
He had wanted to cry.
When Eira asked him why he trembled so, even recounting it?
"Because, my high reckoner… my father, the father that raised me? My fondest wish, that I can never have? Would be that he had lived to see all this."
Eira had left him be. Ryeamund had simply sat, most of the night. Staring at the wall. He would neither take food nor water. He would not take mead. He would not take wine. He just sat there. Still as a statue for the most part.
The only movement that betrayed he was even alive and capable of movement?
He slowly clenched and unclenched his fists. He would look at them and marvel at them, then go back to it.
When Eira tried to put her hand on his arm, to attempt to comfort him? She drew her hand back. His skin was warm and almost hot to the touch. She found his face to be different somehow. His voice, when she finally got him to speak? Seemed different to her. His eyes had changed.
When her husband finally deigned to address her back? She was quietly taken aback when he referred to himself in the third person, a thing she knew that he would not do in speech normally.
"Woman. Ye have naught to fear of me. I would ask you to unhand me. Yer Ryeamund… he will be back. Later. If it might please you… I would beg you. Leave him be."
Eira was not scared, but she was concerned. Ryeamund seemed to have a great fever. Yet, he did not appear to be sick. How could he have skin that hot to the touch, and not be sweating? She went off to bed and finally fell asleep, after a time. Alone.
That voice, the voice he had addressed her in.
That… was not her husband's voice.