Short Story: The Fallow Year

Blogging! That’s a thing I do, right? Well. I’ll be doing more of it soon, anyway — I’ve got a few posts that need to be polished up but are mostly ready to go.

In the meanwhile, I have a short story for everyone.

Title: The Fallow Year

Length: 5,300 words

Pitch: After the war; Consequences; A love lost

The Fallow Year

The knife became a candlestick, fallen from his hands, rolling through the rushes. The memory of war fled like the mists before the sun, leaving behind the faint, familiar stuffiness of the cottage. His father’s cottage, where outside the goats meandered in the grass and the soft morning rain stole across the hills. He had been somewhere else just a moment before, on some wheat field stained red with blood, in some other time. A man had come for him with a sword and they had tousled, rolling over broken bodies all across the hillside. But everything had changed in a breath, in the moment the blade slid up into his belly, the instant he opened his eyes.

And beneath him lay the man with those startling blue eyes, brought out by the soft paleness of his skin and the black of his hair. “Emyr,” Leolin mouthed the name more than said it, his lips trembling.

“Leolin.” Emyr sucked in a breath, his chest fluttering. He reached out like a man to a timid animal, softly and ever so slowly sliding his hands through the tear in Leolin’s tunic, warming the skin beneath. “It’s all right. Come back to me. The war is over, Leolin. You’re home. You’ve just been having another nightmare. You’re safe with me, now.”

“I was—” Leolin began, a sob stealing the words and air from his lungs. He collapsed, straddling Emyr, body heaving. He touched Emyr’s cheeks, felt the warmth of his body, and when he looked he saw the blood wet on his hands, the blood that covered him up to his elbows. He recoiled, his stomach lurching. “Oh gods…”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Emyr said, his voice a soft croon, pulling Leolin back down with his familiar, strong arms. “It’s all right. A plate broke, that’s all. You’re just fine.”

“I was back in the war. You were dead.” Leolin choked, his throat tight on the words. Memories clogged his mind like mud—what was real, what wasn’t? Broken shards of a clay platter lay scattered on the ground; fresh blood ran down his hands, dripping into the rushes. But none of it made the war less real, less dangerous; it clawed at him, fighting to pull him back under the place where it could hurt him again.

Overcome by a sudden need, a yearning that started in the pit of his stomach, he searched for something real to keep the dark at bay and found it in Emyr. Leolin kissed him with a searching hunger and Emyr didn’t fight it, but opened himself to it.

Their bodies met, wet with sweat or blood or both as they were, neither of them caring. Leolin banished the pain of memories for the present, lost in consuming, in hunger. The rain began in earnest outside, pattering through the sill and on their bodies as they ripped the clothes from one another, as nails scratched skin and their mouths found one another again and again, replacing haunted memories with a passion and lust.

He cried when Emyr touched him, but he hid the sound, not wanting it to stop. They rolled in the rushes, straw sticking to their backs, dots of muddy water and blood blooming on pale skin before being wiped away again. Leolin drifted, carried away on a current with Emyr until every thought had been driven from his mind and nothing was left but the soft, sweet soreness that followed.

Leolin laid beside Emyr, their arms and legs tangled together and their two hearts beating in harmony. Emyr smiled crookedly, brushing the hair back from Leolin’s face, mussed with sweat and dirt as it was.

“You’re a mess.” Emyr laughed.

“Gods know that’s true,” Leolin sighed. “I hope this is real.”

“It is.”

“In my… dreams,” Leolin began—dream was no word to describe it, but to say dream was easier, simpler, “I could hear the captain calling us back, just down the hill, just out of sight. We were so close to being safe.”

“You’re safe now,” Emyr said.

“For how long? I’m no fool. I’ve seen the way you look at me and I don’t blame you. Even if I don’t know myself at the time, or you, I remember later the way we fight when I think you’re someone else. When I think I’m somewhere else…” Leolin paused, his hand shaking as he reached for Emyr, touching the spot beneath his shoulder where bruises bloomed purple and green. “I remember it like a dream, but I know it’s real. I hope it’s real. When I’m awake… I see the bruises I leave behind. I see the way you flinch from me. It’s killing me.”

“Leolin…”

“When I’m awake,” he continued, fighting against the tightening in his throat, “it’s all I can do to try to stay on this side of things. It’s like building with mud, I’m… making memories, but it’s just, it’s all just—” A quiet, choked cry. One that shamed him, made him turn his face away, to bury it in the crook of Emyr’s neck.

“It’s all right. I’m here now, you’re awake,” Emyr said, curling his fingers through Leolin’s hair. Emyr held him and tilted Leolin’s face, forcing their eyes to meet. “See? I’m right here.”

“I don’t know what to do anymore. What about my father? I ought to help my father.” Leolin touched Emyr’s hands, holding them, forcing himself to not look away even when tears sprung into his eyes. “There are things he can’t do anymore. Things he needs help with. And you, what about you? You shouldn’t be stuck here with me. This is no life, this is just misery.”

“This is my place, beside you. You hear me?” Emyr touched his forehead to Leolin’s, taking a deep breath. “I’ll be just fine, as will your father. You need to rest and get your strength back. Everything will be better in the morning.”

“I can’t sleep. I can’t! If I sleep then I’ll—then it—” Leolin stammered, a chill growing in him, racing up his spine and making his teeth chatter.

“Nothing will happen. I’m here with you, now.” Emyr, twining their fingers together, squeezed Leolin’s hands to stop the shaking. “Your father and sister are here. We’re all with you.”

“The dreams will come,” a startled gasp.

“Then we’ll fight them together.”

“You’ll be dead!” Leolin knew it wasn’t real—that wasn’t a real thought, a real concern, but how not to feel it? How not to yearn for Emyr’s touch, just to feel its warmth and life, to want to stay up and fight for every hour; to stay alive by touching, feeling, living. He could not retreat again into darkness, and yet his eyes were so heavy and his body ached. Still, he protested. “Or I’ll wake up and I won’t be me any longer. I won’t be here. I won’t know you.”

“I’ll be here, very much alive, and I’ll remind you who you are.” Emyr, leaning in, silenced Leolin’s fears with a kiss until sleep stole over the small room and the only sound left was the pattering of the rain on the sill and the distant rumble of thunder, like the wheels of the funeral cart trundling down the road. Far, far away.

#

Emyr shut the door behind him and barred it as well, his fingers lingering on the solid oak beam. He’d removed the broken platter and anything else Leolin could hurt himself with, but there was no telling what might happen in one of Leolin’s fits. Pressing his forehead against the door, Emyr drew a deep breath and wished he had the strength to stay and watch over him through the night, wished that he didn’t fear waking with Leolin in a frenzy, threatening, strangling—

“Come and take some tea,” a soft voice by the fire. Leolin’s sister Lowri sat before the crackling flames, her dark hair hung around her shoulders and a swath of burgundy fabric laid across her swollen belly. Her knitting needles clacked softly against one another, the familiar shape of a sock already taking form in the pile of yarn.

“I don’t have the stomach for it,” Emyr said, leaving the door finally.

“Starving yourself won’t make him feel any better.” Lowri set the needles and yarn down in her lap as she scooted aside, nodding at the wooden platter sitting on the mound of blankets beside her: a hunk of cheese hardly picked over, the end of a bread loaf and the remnants of a crock of honey. The tea kettle still sat in the embers of the hearth, steaming.

Emyr knelt by the fire, scratching the head of old Ash, the grey and black deerhound who lay at Lowri’s feet, too tired to do much more than squint his cloudy eyes up in recognition and thump his tail once. Emyr picked at the cheese, eating one bite and alternately feeding another to the dog, while he listened to the rain outside sweeping across the hills. It would be a long, hard harvest this summer.

“Emyr?” Lowri must have caught the sadness in his eyes, frowning when he looked at her. She looked away, busying herself with her knitting, trying to hide the shine of tears in her eyes that the fire illuminated so clearly. “My brother isn’t coming back, is he?” She took a deep breath, not waiting for him before continuing. “It’s been a year now. Sometimes those men still come back looking for him. Did you know that? They want to take him back to war as soon as he’s well again,” she said and laughed bitterly, chokingly, the kind of laugh that replaces a sob.

Emyr touched the slope of her bowed back as she bent over on herself, stroking softly as she began to cry. “They don’t understand that he’s gone already. He’s not getting well again.” She brushed a tear from her eye. “Father was so angry with them that I thought I might lose him, too, right then. His face turned an awful color, he…” She set her lips in a tight line, pushing the hair back from her face. “It’s not right, Emyr. None of it’s right.”

“No, it’s not,” he said softly, untangling her hair and stroking her back. He wished that he could tell her they wouldn’t be back, or that Leolin would get better, but he had never been good at lying. “I’ll be here the next time they come. I’ll throw them out myself if I have to, Lowri. Don’t worry.”

The door swung open and Leolin’s father, Padrig, came in, the folds of his leather cap flopping about the side of his face and every inch of him drenched from the rain. Beads of water glistened in the white curls of his beard and dripped from his long eyebrows. Padrig stood in the doorway, staring at them for a moment as if surprised to find them there. He swiped a hand across his face, clearing the moisture from his eyes, and nodded firmly to Emyr.

“Damn thatching came down in the farm house again,” he muttered, sidling into the small house and squatting by his tool box, long since rusted over. “I think one of the beams has rotted through. It’ll need to be replaced or the whole thing will come down.”

“Sounds like a two-man job,” Emyr said, recognizing the need to turn their thoughts to a task they could do something about. Emyr lingered by Lowri a moment more—waiting for her to nod, a quiet gesture releasing him, and he went to kneel beside Padrig, helping him pick through his tools. The old man’s hands were arthritic, bent at the knuckles, but they were good, strong hands. They reminded him of Leolin’s hands. One day they would have become like that, old and lined with age and work.

“Aye,” Padrig said, placing a hand on Emyr’s shoulder as if to steady himself. He squeezed tightly. “Two quick hands at that, before this rain gets any worse. We’ll need nails and the hammer. We’ve a bit of wood still in the barn from the last time we fixed it. With any luck we’ll be able to patch it.”

“I’ll put together some food to take out with you, then.” Lowri pushed against the hearthstones to help herself up, making old Ash dance about and whine at her. Stretching a hand out, she cautioned Emyr away as he came to help her. “Best if I can do it myself,” she said, laughing a little as she strained to her feet, face reddening. Sighing, she patted her belly and rocked side to side in a lulling way, as if already tending to the babe. “You might be stuck there for the day if the rain hardens and it wouldn’t do for you to starve out there.”

“Oh, you needn’t worry about us uncivilized men, we’ll likely just eat the goats,” Padrig said, with almost the same jovial humor he had long, long ago.

A rattling cry snuck from the bedroom, shaken out like the dust from a blanket. A still quiet followed the sound, draped across the room like a shroud. They all listened. They were each waiting to hear what might come next: the sound of a table being broken, perhaps, or Leolin throwing himself against the wall, fighting the most brutal enemy he had ever known.

Emyr didn’t know if it was better or worse when no sound came to follow it. The tension lingered and they could not undraw the sharp breath they’d all taken, nor the way they all watched the door. Sorrow settled into their bones alongside a deep, longing guilt.

“Take Ash out with you, would you?” Lowri was the first to break the silence, putting together a small sack of cheese, bread, and apples. “The beast will just sit and whine by the door, otherwise.”

“Of course,” Padrig said, shaking his head as if waking from a dream. He took the sack from Lowri. “Come on, boy.” Padrig slapped his thigh and the dog got up stretching, tongue lolling out lazily. “Emyr, if you’d grab the hammer.”

They ran out towards the barn in the rain, three awkward shadows over the hill. Padrig limped from age, Ash loped about, half blind and wandering back and forth at the call of his master while Emyr wandered just as blind with half an eye back towards the cottage—the room—and Leolin.

The goats bleated inside the farmhouse but seemed content to stay lying while the storm’s winds made the building shift back and forth, the wood groaning. The thatching had fallen down in the corner across from the door and the rain lashed in. A few bales of hay still sat underneath the hole, sodden and ruined now. Emyr set to helping Padrig move them aside while Ash flopped down, his tail wagging in the straw, watching.

“The beam is completely rotted away from the inside.” Padrig looked over a piece of wood that had broken off from the rafters. It crumpled between his fingers and he tossed it aside, sighing. Padrig mopped the rainwater from his forehead. “We can patch it for now, but by winter the whole thing will need to be rebuilt. I don’t know how we’ll manage, but I suppose we’ll have to find a way. Help me carry over that beam, would you? We’ll cut it to size and use leather straps and nails to bind it to the nearby rafters.” He squinted up at the rafters, rubbing his mouth. “I’m afraid it’s going to be a long summer.”

“I’m not as familiar with tools or farm work as I could be, I admit, but if it wouldn’t be a hindrance…” Emyr paused, mulling over his words as he helped heft the beam over into the corner and leaned it against the far wall. Sweat and rainwater prickled on his face and stuck his tunic to his chest. “I wouldn’t mind helping for as long as you need it.” He looked back out the window towards the small house, the firelight orange in the window, Leolin somewhere inside—maybe sleeping. He hoped so. “I know how hard help can be to come by with the war and all.”

“No, no, we’d be glad of the help. We could damn well use it.” Padrig looked at the beam and up again at the rafters as if measuring them with an eye. His hands shook as he fidgeted with the nails, giving away the way his mind really turned. He sighed. “You’re a good lad, Emyr. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. I hope you know that.”

“I do,” he whispered, glancing away at the work bench back against the wall, most of the tools rusted or already fallen apart. A dried bundle of weeds rested at the edge, only partially dampened by the rain, their leaves wilted. Emyr ran his fingers over the thin cord that bound them. “Poppy weeds,” he said, smelling them. “For Leolin?”

“Aye,” Padrig grunted as he shifted the beam into place, beckoning Emyr over to help him hold it. With the nails held between his lips, he pulled over a bent old ladder and climbed up to begin tethering the straps around the old beam and the rafters, creating a temporary bracer. Padrig spat the nails into his palm, shaking his hand and making them clink together. “The doctor came and delivered them last night. We ran through the last batch already. It hardly seems to work anymore.”

“The body builds up an immunity to poppy over time. We had a man in our camp whose leg went bad after an infection. After a month the doctor had to stop giving him the poppy.” Emyr braced himself against the beam, holding it in place as the hammer beat the nails in. “The doctor said eventually he’d need too much… it would kill him.”

“Aye,” Padrig said when he’d finished hammering in a nail. He positioned the next, hammer leveled, but the strength seemed to leave his arm. He sat instead on the highest step of the ladder, his hands folded in his lap. “Told us that, too.” Padrig wiped the water from his upper lip. “We’re not there yet, though, and I can’t stand to think of not giving it to him. The boy hardly has any peace left at all. The gods have at least been good in giving you to him, he seems to find some peace there, when he still can… Damn it.” Padrig curled his hands into fists upon his knees, his body shaking. “I can’t just let him suffer, can I? But I can’t…” He shook his head, not willing to put the thought to words. “I can’t do what needs doing anymore.”

The rain came down harder above them, dripping through the thatching onto their heads. Emyr didn’t know what to say—what could he say? Anything would be cold comfort or none at all. Without saying or doing anything, though, Padrig began to smile—a small, ghostly smile on his face, lined so deeply with wrinkles. The ladder groaned as he sat back on it, looking out the open doors and into the fields.

“Leolin used to love to play out here when he was a boy. He’d come out and give the goats a hell of a time. Back when we didn’t even have Ash—couldn’t afford to keep a dog, even—he liked to pretend he was our little sheepdog. He’d chase the damned things all up and down the hills…” Padrig motioned with a hand, fingers outstretched, his wrist weak and limp. His lips moved over words seemingly forgotten, trailing off, and his hand fell back into his lap. His tongue moved over his dry, trembling lips.

“I could see that,” Emyr said, very quietly, so as to not break the quiet spell of memory that Padrig wove. Leaning back against the work table, he ran his thumb over the dried edges of the poppy weed. “He’s always been a little bit of hell on earth. Too much energy for his own good, everyone would say. Back at the start of the war, before the fighting got too bad,” Emyr began tentatively, watching Padrig, unsure of how he would react to such a story. The old man straightened a little, but sat still and looked, expectant, nodding. “After a day of marching he’d collapse in the tent and talk about how much he missed it here. He never complained, you know. Not even when everyone else was screaming their heads off about having to march another day.”

“Of course not. The boy never cried at all, not really. Never did much more than whimper even when I took a belt to his bottom. I don’t suppose…” Padrig began, folding his hands together and then undoing it as if unsure of himself. “I don’t suppose we’ll ever know what his life could have been like, if things had been different.”

“He would have been a good man. A good farmer, if the world had let him be. He used to talk about the farm constantly. We marched everywhere and most of the time it rained, it was miserable, but at night he’d lay back and look south and say the rain would be good for the wheat, and you’d be happy for it,” he said the last lamely, not looking up from the poppy weed, “He said you’d be in your glory with all of that wheat, like gold in the hills. He used to talk about how much he wished he could be home to help you with it. There wasn’t a day that went by when he didn’t talk about how much he missed you, how Lowri would have her babe and he’d teach the little boy or girl all about the farm, like a proper…” Here he paused, a breath caught somewhere in his chest, shaking. He hadn’t heard Padrig leave the ladder, but the old man put a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t have to. Emyr finished, “Like a proper family.”

“That means you too, Emyr,” Padrig said, patting his shoulder with the gentleness of worn years. He looked down at where Emyr’s hand lay upon the poppy weed, and then looked away. “You’ll stay as long as you can, I hope.”

Emyr nodded, not having the words to say, but blotting at his eyes with his sleeve when Padrig turned away, making an excuse of checking the new bracer. They did the rest of their work quietly, putting in the last of the nails and then stowing the ladder and moving the bales of hay back into the corner. The rain hadn’t eased during their work and so they stood at the door, watching it come down in great misty blankets across the hills.

“Make a run for it, shall we?” Padrig asked, already rubbing his hands together for warmth.

“Suppose we haven’t much choice,” Emyr agreed.

Padrig whistled for Ash and as the dog came loping out they stood in the rain, getting soaked as they hauled the doors shut and slid the bolt home. They ran back the way they’d come, two bent figures and a dog meandering up the hillside to the farmhouse where the door swung loose on its hinges, banging to and fro with every great gust of wind.

Emyr hurried inside last, fighting to shut the door, dripping a puddle onto the floor and pushing the hair back from his face. It was only when the door was firmly latched and the howling wind kept out that he noticed the dreadful silence and the cold that had grown in the room. Lowri sat by the dying fire, her bundles of blankets flung down around her legs, her hands on her belly and her eyes somewhere far away—fixed upon the door, but seeing something beyond it. Ash went to her immediately and fell down at her side, laying his head in her lap and whining.

“What’s happened?” Emyr asked, almost afraid to move.

“A sound,” she said, very quietly. The fire crackled for a time. “He woke and at first I thought he was feeling well. He began to talk like he used to in the mornings, that sing-song voice and all, I thought he’d come back… but when I got close to the door I heard a crash. He must have flung himself against the wall, and then he began to beat himself against the door. Crack, crack… I thought it would break, I thought he would… I thought…” Lowri stopped, touching a hand to her lips, her skin gone pale. “I was so scared.”

Padrig went to her, kneeling stiffly by her side and gathering her hand in his own. He ran his hand through the tangles of her hair and cupped the back of her head, whispering so quietly that Emyr could not hear the words. His head bent over Lowri’s, Padrig’s pale eyes floated up to the door, and then to Emyr.

“I’m sure it was only a bad dream,” Padrig said, and then to Lowri, “I’ll take Lowri out onto the porch for some air. The eaves have held well enough we won’t get drenched, aye?” He stood, helping Lowri to her feet and patting the back of her hand. He led her to the back door and, pausing, turned to Emyr. “Would you—could you give him his medicine?”

Emyr nodded, the words stuck in his throat. He hadn’t noticed he’d left the barn with the poppy weeds still in his hands, the dried leaves scratching the inside of his palm, rattling as his hand began to shake. “Of course, Padrig,” he said, raising his head some. Lowri mustn’t know—couldn’t know, and he just nodded again. “Go and get some air. I’ll take care of him”

Padrig led Lowri towards the door and lingered for a moment, looking back in, a veil of mist wafting in at his feet. He touched a shaking hand to his lips and, pressing that hand to the wall, let it hold a moment before helping Lowri outside.

Something rustled in the room behind the door, maybe nothing more than a cloth, but then the sound of pounding fists racking against the dressers and walls. Shaken from his reverie, Emyr retrieved the mortar and pestle from the table, filled a cup with the remnants of a sweet wine and went into the room, his head bowed, his jaw locked tight as if expecting a blow.

“I can’t go back,” Leolin said, his voice broken, stuttered as if he were choking on something. He lay in the far corner of the room, curled up beneath a blanket he had torn in several places. His hands stuck out, fingers bent and bloody where his nails chipped and broke, scraped against the wall. He didn’t pick his head up and his eyes didn’t follow Emyr around the room, but rather stared longingly up towards the window.

“No one is going to make you go back,” Emyr said, forcing each word out, fighting against the sobs that welled up in his belly. He tried to move Leolin, but Leolin shook away and thrashed, kicking his legs and only stilling when Emyr did. He sat beside him instead and Leolin let him brush the hair back from his face and touch his cheek. “You don’t have to go anywhere.”

“They want to take me back. They gave me a sword but no one taught me to use it. I had to use my knife. Th-the way my father taught me to kill the pigs. I had to use my knife.” Leolin paused, mouth open—then shut it and squeezed his eyes shut. “I need to go home. When can I go home? I want to go home. The harvest will be in soon. Lowri’s going to have a baby. I bet it will be a boy. She’ll be a good mother. When can I go home?”

“Soon, Leolin. You’ll be home in time to bring in the harvest.” Emyr looked away, shamed by the light that sprung into Leolin’s eyes, by the lie he had to tell and the sickness that gnawed at his belly. Setting down the cup of wine, he broke off one of the poppy blossoms and began to grind it in the bowl of the mortar. Soon he added another.

“Good,” Leolin said and sighed, a great tension leaving his body. His shoulders relaxed, his arms fell limply by his side and his head lolled onto the cold stone. “When we get there, I’ll show you the farm. I’ll teach you how to milk the goats.”

“I’d like that,” Emyr said. His hand stilled on the pestle—did he have to do it? They could stay like this, sitting in the milky light of the window, talking quietly, smiling at each other the way they used to. “I’d like that very much.”

“Emyr.” A small sound, a gasp. Leolin drew his arms about himself, pulling the blankets to his chin. “They’re coming—t-they’re crossing the field. The horn is blowing, do you hear it? We have to fight, we…” He tried to sit up but fell down again, teeth chattering.

“No, we don’t have to go anywhere, Leolin. Stay with me.” Emyr put a hand on his cheek, calling him back momentarily to himself. He began to grind the poppy weed again with haste. “Just stay with me. Let the other men go, you don’t need to.”

“I’m not a coward! I can’t stay. What would you think of me? What would my father think of me? I have to fight. They expect me to. I have to.”

“No one will think you’re a coward.” Emyr dropped the pestle and reached for the cup of wine. He couldn’t let Leolin be taken, not again. His hand shook, spilling, the wine turning his tunic purple. He shook the ground poppy into the cup and swilled it around, the grey leaves dissipating and leaving a shining film floating on the liquid. “I’ll be proud of you. Your father will be proud of you, just like he always is. Just stay a little while.”

“I can’t—”

“The captain is coming, do you see him?” Emyr moved closer, gathering Leolin with great care, cradling his head in his lap. He wiped the sweat from his brow. “He’s coming up the road with more men to help.”

“I see them.” Leolin reached out for something, his fingers curled, his body taught.

“The enemy is running away.”

“They’re scared. They know we’ve won.”

“They’ve dropped their weapons.”

“The men are banging their swords on their shields, calling their victory song. The captain is going to take everyone home.” Emyr took Leolin’s hand, his skin cold and damp, and pressed the wine cup into it. He helped him hold it through the shaking, though he nearly dropped it. Pulling Leolin up, he helped him to sit, held him in his arms. “Take a drink, Leolin. You’re going home.”

“Home,” he said, a smile in his voice, the first smile in an age. He drank deeply, rivulets of purple running down the stubble of his cheeks. He drained it to the last drop and then the cup fell, rolling through the thatches, and he turned his head to watch it. His hands curled around Emyr’s, he held tightly as if he might be pulled away. Emyr bowed his head against Leolin’s shoulder—he could feel the pulse in his neck, growing sluggish, becoming weaker already. “Look, Emyr. It’s stopped raining.”

Outside the window the rain dripped down the eaves; the light was grey and night was coming on, but the storm had finally passed. Emyr leaned back against the wall with Leolin curled in his lap.

Filed under: Short story