The Farmer's Wife #010

As the sun sunk down toward the horizon, the five travelers crested a hill, and the forest came into view in the distance. The jagged treeline cut across the gently rolling hills to the northeast and southwest, as far as the hills allowed Matthias' eyes to follow it.

Ahead of them, the road sloped gently downward towards the notch in the treeline that marked the loggers' work. The forest was already reclaiming the small patch of land they had cleared; seedlings advanced from the forest's edge, and saplings followed behind.

Almost exactly in the centre of the cleared land sat the cabin. It looked like a small animal cowering beneath the giant trees.

Matthias felt the darkness creeping into his thoughts and shook his head. He glanced at the woman, walking steadily along in front of them. Her words had shaken him more than he had thought.

But nonetheless... There was something about the forest, that ineffable sense of wrongness that he was slowly beginning to recognise. If they were looking for darkness, they were on the right path.

As they approached the building, Matthias saw that it was larger than he had thought. It was a squat log cabin, low against the ground, but long and wide. Two dozen men or more could live there with space to spare.

Anya pushed open the building's one door and led them into a long room, lined on either side with simple wooden beds. Matthias' nose wrinkled. From outside the cabin had seemed in good repair, but the inside stank of damp and rot. Mildew clung to the walls, and whatever bedding had been on the beds was now a stinking mess.

Thanos gagged visibly as he entered the room; he looked around with a mix of disgust and disdain, and turned his head as thought to make some cutting remark to the woman. Fortunately for her, Anat spoke first.

"It seems we have a lot to do before the sun sets. We had better get started."

He began looking around the room, making observations and issuing orders to the other four. He had never seen the Beneficar so much in his element, thought Matthias as he piled the rotting rags of bedding in the fire-pit in the centre of the room. He did his fair share of the work, but he ordered Valdis, the woman, even Thanos about as though there was no doubt as to his absolute authority, and all of them, even Thanos, obeyed without a word.

Before long, a fire was burning in the fire-pit; Anat had recited the Hearth-Blessing as Matthias has sparked the fire from his flint and coaxed the tiny flame into a roaring fire, and now the mildew and rot and filth were floating up with the fire's smoke, through the hole in the roof above the pit and out into the night.

The beds had not been spared from the rot. Half of them had been condemned to the fire, and none of them were willing to trust the remaining half with their weight through the night. The four cenobites laid their satchels at their heads and lay on the earthen floor in front of the fire; Anya laid out her bedroll and did the same.

Matthias stared at the smoke rising through the ceiling as he drifted off to sleep.