Chapter 6 – The Feast of the Departed #8
Sweet-voiced Darrigault of Ghis was gone to Segoile, so Bertin took his place, lifting his voice to begin singing.
Ye nourished well, o darkened soil
Through summer’s heat and harvest toil
There was a time to sow, to grow, to reap,
And now the time has come to sleep
The time has come at last to sleep…
In Segoile, the Feast of the Departed was burned to send the smoke of it to the stars.
But from ancient days, farmers across the Empire had given the feast to the fields, walking barefoot under the stars and feeding the soil that had fed them.
It was a feast shared with the earth, but a feast nonetheless, and until the last star winked out of the sky, the dead were still there, sharing this sustenance for their journey.
“The time has come at last to sleep,” Ophele sang along softly, the uncertain notes of someone who did not often sing.
Tearing off a morsel of bread, Remin handed it to her, and the Duchess of Andelin crouched down in the dirt and scooped out a hole with her hands, burying the bread and patting the soil back into place.
“The winter snows fall long and deep…” Remin’s own singing voice was fairly good, steady and strong, somewhere between baritone and bass. Ophele’s eyebrows winged up in surprise as she heard it, and their voices blended pleasantly together as she came for another bit of bread.
Bending, Remin dug and buried his own piece. The earth was still warm from the long summer, but the air had a bite of autumn. Already there were spots of red and gold in the forest.
Two thousand people. They were still streaming out the gate, moving further into the fields, singing as they bent to slip off their shoes.
There was Auber’s clan with their light brown hair, groups of burly masons and blacksmiths, and further up the hill he spotted Madam Sanai, Master Balad, and the other Benkki Desans, looking uncertain but willing to honor the customs of their new home.
Only Wen and his boys were missing, guarding the food supply and—in Wen’s case, wasting bread.
Two thousand people, spread out over the wide, dark acres. Barefoot, they walked and sang and planted together, bare feet compressing the soil for a season of rest, and it was long past sunrise when they finished. Remin kept them at it until every last morsel of the feast was buried.
“Are we done?” Ophele came to stand at his side, lifting a grubby hand to hide a yawn. “That was a lot of food.”
“My father always said to feed the fields generously, and they will reward it the next season.” Remin’s eyes narrowed as he looked to the furthest acres, where two armored men lifted their arms to indicate that the planting was done.
There was no further ceremony needed. When he turned back to the gates, everyone followed, thousands of bare feet patting down the earth.
It was going to be a quiet day in Tresingale. Almost everyone was going home to sleep off the lingering effects of the incense, and Remin felt pleasantly tired as he walked home with Ophele, clutching both his boots and her slippers in one hand.
Not too tired, though.
“No, leave it,” he said, as Ophele bent to pull a fresh chemise from her trunk. His arms went around her to pull her back to her feet, her naked skin glowing from washing. “I have a mind for one more planting. ”
“The fields need to sleep,” she whispered, but the way she looked at him through her eyelashes and the soft curve of her mouth instantly roused him. “Are you sure they’re…gone?”
Remin glanced at the hearth, but the fire crackling there was no different than any other fire, and there wasn’t the least wisp of smoke from the brazier.
“Gone,” he confirmed, his voice rumbling as he backed her toward the bed, his big hand sliding up her slender neck to cradle the back of her head and turn her face up toward him. “Next year, if we’re lucky, we’ll have a babe to show them.”
Her legs hit the bed, and he caught her to lay her down in the blankets, pushing her thighs apart with his knee.
“I want that,” she whispered, reaching for him as he moved above her. He was already hard, pushing his eager length against her, wanting to make her moan, make her wet, make her ready. “What…what if we don’t?”
“Then we’ll keep trying,” he murmured, the corner of his mouth curving upward.
He wasn’t ready to contemplate anything else, especially since he knew Ophele would blame herself.
He didn’t want to think about anything at all when she was under him and squirming, her teeth capturing his earlobe in the way she knew made him instantly hard as iron.
There were guards outside. There were always guards. It was still a battle to keep quiet, muffling their moans and cries into each other’s flesh. Remin held her hard against him, her face buried in his chest, taking him deep inside her as he filled her, willing his seed to take root.
But as they lay together, the question that had been tugging the back of his mind bubbled upward, and he was too tired to keep it from escaping.
“Wife.” His fingers stroked her cheek. “What did your mother have to do with the fall of my House?”