Kushiel's Scion - Jacqueline Carey [46]
I did.
The first day, we cleared rocks. Not small ones, either, but great chunks of stone that must be dug out from the earth and carried to the verges of the new pasture, where they were used to build meandering stone fences to mark its boundaries. I sweated and swore and dug. I worried rocks loose from their deep beds, tugging at them until my nails bled, hearing my sinews crack as I wrenched them free. I carried them, staggering under the weight, to drop them on the mason's piles.
By the end of the first day, every fiber of my body was in agony.
Phèdre very nearly forbade me to continue. It was Joscelin who eyed me at the dinner-table, hunched in misery, and dissuaded her.
"It's his will," he said to her, raising his brows. "You did promise to let him make his own choices, did you not? Besides, he'll take no harm from honest work."
So I continued, laboring under the hot summer sun. Like the crofters, I threw off my shirt and labored bare-chested. Charles worked beside me, laughing and jesting. Together, all of us cleared the pasture of nearly all the stones small enough to carry. It took many days, but I grew hardened to the work. There was a certain satisfaction in seeing the land open to new growth, and watching the fence lengthen, stone by stone, foot by foot. When it was done, I thought surely we were finished, but Charles shook his head.
"Those have got to come out," he said judiciously, pointing at a pair of monstrously tall pine trees that jutted at an angle from the sloped ground. "That one and that one."
"Those?" I looked incredulously at him. "They're trees, Charles. Other pastures have trees. Can't the sheep graze around them?"
"Look." He led me uphill to the far side of one. "See how the ground is bulging and the roots are pulling loose? They grow shallow, you know. A hard rainfall or a strong wind, and they're ready to topple. Besides," he added, "where do you think the firewood that cooks your supper and warms your bathwater comes from?"
I sighed. "So they come out?"
Charles grinned. "They come out. And then we chop."
Felling the trees was a spectacle unto itself. The work was undertaken by an expert woodsman, and Charles and I were ordered to stand well clear of the site. Joscelin came, too. We all watched as the woodsman wielded his axe, swift and deliberate. It cut through the air, thunking deep into the wood, over and over. Chips flew fast and furious, and yet the woodsman moved with calm efficiency, not a single motion wasted.
"Could you do that?" I asked Joscelin.
"Me?" He shook his head, amused. "A sword's not an axe, Imri. Strange, though. I was just minded of Waldemar Selig."
"Selig?" I asked. "Why?"
Joscelin nodded at the woodsman. "Selig wielded a sword the way he does an axe. As though he were born to do it."
"Was he the best swordsman you ever saw, Joscelin?" Charles asked eagerly. "Other than you, I mean?"
"On the field of battle, yes, he was one of them." Joscelin was quiet a moment, and I knew he must be thinking about his duel against a fellow Cassiline. "Not the best, though, in the end."
"Isidore d'Aiglemort," I murmured.
"D'Aiglemort," Joscelin agreed. "He was like that, too. Born to it."
"He wasn't better than you, though," Charles said in stubborn defense. "No one is."
"Selig was." Joscelin smiled gently at him. "He beat me the first time we crossed blades. And Isidore d'Aiglemort defeated him. Who can say?"
"I can," I said. "You're the one left alive."
Joscelin glanced at me, thoughtful. "True," he said. "There is that."
The woodsman stepped away from the tree and pointed downhill, then stepped back to the mighty trunk. Once, twice more his axe bit into the wood. With a groaning creak, the tree toppled. It fell exactly where he had pointed, with a massive and resounding thud that shook the earth. Charles and I shouted, jumping about with unrestrained glee. Even Joscelin grinned like a boy at the sight. The woodsman allowed himself a small nod of satisfaction, then shouldered his axe and trudged toward the second tree.