67. The Property
The Property
The days continued to pass, and the weather grew colder.
It wasn't quite winter yet, not by a long shot, but the days were often cloudy and drab, and several fall storms blew through.
They stripped the leaves from the trees and made it appear to be far further along into the fall than it really was, and as the temperatures plunged, the illusion continued.
Kain continued to spend nearly all his time at the Kettle, at least during peak business hours.
In between the rush hours, though, Kain found time to come back down to the farm to get done what needed to be done.
In particular, the afternoon shift was his best time to get things done down out of the city.
One day, as he finished wiping out the last of the mugs of ale, Sasha came up to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
"All right, Kain. I've got it from here."
"You sure?" Kain glanced over at her.
"Right. Oren will be here in a few moments, and Carol said she'd help with the fried onion rush at around three." Sasha shrugged. "And don't worry, she'll still be here when you get back around five for the start of the dinner rush."
Kain nodded. "I've got things to do."
"I know. You've been talking about mulching your garden for the past three days," Sasha said. "Run along, I've got this. I'll see you in three or four hours. And if you're late no harm in it, though I wouldn't mind your presence by six at the latest."
Sasha set the towel down. She looked at him a beat. She picked the towel back up.
"Go on."
"I'll be back at five." Kain wiped his hands on his shirt.
He slipped out back where Roan was hitched up, and soon mounted up and rode off down the hill. As he passed down out of the town, a cold wind blew down from the north, hitting him squarely on the back. It blew his cloak around him in a flutter.
The wind smelled of copper. Of death. It passed in the blink of an eye, but he noticed it. The dungeon was still there, always there.
A handful of warriors passed him on the road, out taking rides around the town.
One of them in gold armor nodded to Kain as he passed, and Kain nodded back.
Not all the warriors were rude, a few of them were quite nice, though none of them really understood anything about what they were seeing or experiencing.
When Kain made it back down to the house, he rode in through the gate and up to the paddock, then swung down and put Roan inside. As he latched it shut, he heard hoofbeats behind him, and turned around as the gold-armored warrior rode in.
The man was slightly younger than Kain, C-ranked, and simply rode in without asking. He came up to Kain and pulled up short, stopping so close that the horse's breath snorted against his face. Kain didn't step back, but looked up at the man.
"Can I help you?"
"I was just wondering if I could watch you do some farming stuff." The man shrugged. "It all looks so quaint."
Kain shrugged. "Be my guest. Can't say as it's the most exciting thing in the world, but you're welcome to stay. You're even welcome to help, if you want."
"Nah, I'll pass. Don't want to get dirt on my armor. Just wanting to take a look at things."
Kain shrugged. "More power to you."
He checked to make sure that he had latched the gate properly, then went up and into the barn. There, he took down a rake and carried it out to his garden patch, then returned to get a bale of straw.
The warrior remained there for about five minutes, which was four minutes longer than Kain had expected. By the time that Kain had lugged the bale of hay out to the garden, the man had turned around and rode off up toward Tillamore, and Kain shook his head.
"I probably used to be like that," he said. "Never able to sit still for more than a few seconds."
It wasn't quite true. Mercenaries had been forced to be patient, much more so than warriors or adventurers, but it was also accurate in that Kain would never have grown the patience needed for farming simply by being on the road.
In any case, now that the man was gone, Kain cut the strings for the bale of hay and began to spread it across the garden, mulching it carefully.
He put the layer of straw across the whole garden, across all six main plots and all four expansion plots, then went to the compost bin and drove the shovel deep into the pile.
He turned it a few times, getting the richest stuff from the bottom, and carried it back to the garden.
It took a bit of time and care to get the compost scattered over the top of the straw to help hold it down, and he worked slowly to make sure that he didn't simply use up all the compost, but he did what he could.
When he was done, he stepped back and looked it over. The mulch would help preserve the soil over the winter, and might even make it a little better if he had done it properly. He leaned upon the rake, then stretched and turned around.
"All right," he said. "That's done."
He put the rake back in the barn, then grabbed the smokers and hauled them back. They had been cold and inert most of the season. He hadn't had the time. Still, if this winter ran anything like the fall had been, he would be eating most of his meals at the Kettle anyway.
Once the smokers had been stored away, he walked out and closed the door to the barn. He stood at the door a beat and looked out across the property. Ghost padded up next to him.
"Come on," Kain said. "Walk with me."
Ghost's ears pricked up, and Kain turned and walked away from the road.
He put his hands behind his back and strode down through the grass, back toward the rear of the property.
He went along Roan's fence, and he placed his hand upon the wooden rails, letting his fingers run across the smooth grain of the wood.
It was already showing signs of weathering, but not in a bad way.
The color was fading, and the lines were smoother.
Some of the splinters that had been there when he had first bought the wood had been worn away, now.
The fence posts were still solid, none of them were tilting or leaning. It was real. It was solid.
He reached the far end of Roan's pen and went on past it.
The grove of trees was the grove of trees he had grown to know.
It would have to come out at some point.
The grove made the better part of his expansion plots unusable, and the unusable was the kind of thing a man on a forty-year piece of work cleared by inches.
It might take him thirty years to clear it.
He would have time after. The trees ran down to the swimming hole.
He ran his hand along the top of the old, stone wall as he made his way further back down the farm, feeling the bumps of the stone and the cracks in the mortar. How long had it been standing there? Far longer than he had been walking the earth. It stood, and it watched. Just as he was doing now.
When he made it to the very back, he paused at Mark's memorial. He knelt down and traced his finger across the Silver Hands emblem. He didn't cry. He just looked at it.
He thought of all that his brother would have done with the farm, with Sasha and with Matthew, and with the Copper Kettle. He thought about what Mark would have done differently. He said nothing. There was nothing to say that the farm hadn't already said.
From there, he continued his walk around the property, back around to the other side and down toward the road once more. He came closer to the house, and his shoulders eased.
The house had been unlivable when he came up the road.
The first night had been rain through three different leaks and his bedroll moved three times.
The roof was solid now. The house held its own weather inside it.
He looked at the barn, which told much of the same story.
When he had arrived, it had been full of mold, with broken shingles and broken siding.
It had spoken of years gone past, of a glory that had been lost, never to be reclaimed.
A horse called it home. A wolf too, when the wolf chose. It had been rebuilt by his hand and Mark's and Jeremiah's and Carol's and the work would keep coming.
He turned and walked back over to the paddock, where Roan was watching him.
As he did so, more hoofbeats echoed on the road, and he glanced over to see several merchants winding up the path, making their way toward Tillamore.
They wore extravagant clothing and had bells jingling from the reins of their horses.
Kain shot them a single glance, then paid them no more attention.
「Property Status Report」
「Garden: 10 plots mulched for winter」
「Cold Frame: Operational | Smokers: Idle」
「Stone Wall: Standing (frost-heave addressed)」
Traffic on the road had tripled since he bought the farm.
When he had come, it was rare to see more than one or two people go up and down it every day.
Now, there were many, and his road was one of the random side roads that didn't connect to much of anything.
The road that had been empty was now becoming a highway.
He reached the paddock and placed his hand on Roan's neck.
The horse leaned into the motion, and Kain reached into his pocket and pulled out an apple.
Before he fed it to the horse, he cut it up into chunks, then passed it one piece at a time to him.
Roan gobbled it down within seconds, and Kain stroked the horse's neck.
Roan leaned into the flat of his hand and lipped after the last of the apple.
The rail held under Kain's other hand, the grain gone smooth where a year of weather had taken the splinters off.
None of it was going anywhere. The work would be waiting in the morning, the same as it had every morning since he came up the road.
He had spent his whole life on that road, one more man riding toward whatever a town had to offer and out the far side of it when the coin changed hands. This was the first place he had ridden to and not left. He meant to keep it.
Out past the ridge, the dungeon was still there, and the road into Tillamore would keep filling with the men who came for it. Some of what came up out of it wouldn't stay underground. He had known that since the letter.
He couldn't hold the one without standing in front of the other. The quiet he'd built was going to change. He meant to have a hand in how.