White Oaks: Part III - Apple Orchards
She did not go to the The White Oaks. Juniper declared to her own mind that if she were to speak with old acquaintances, it would be on her own terms. She would do things her way this time, certainly not by Charkol Daes’Kihe’s. She would not lightly trust others again, she’d learned her lesson painfully.
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Fekala swept her long cinnamon hair back from her face and tied it up with a golden ribbon. Her dark eyes were ringed with long dark eyelashes and heavyset eyebrows. She stared vacantly at the painting as she finished the last loop on her ribbon. The little white house was lovingly detailed with wood-grain and ivy crawlers. She watched as her cousin’s paintbrush made a delicate stroke across the canvas.
It was warm outside and in the comfort of their home. But it was an enjoyable temperature nonetheless
Fekala’s father walked into the room and sat down beside her in a plump cushion chair. He smiled at his nephew’s painting.
“You dream of these places you make Gaoce?” He asked him softly and sipped down some apple spice tea.
“Sometimes. This is not one though.”
“It is very beautiful.” commented Fekala. Gaoce blushed and went back to painting bright colors in the forest surrounding the white house.
Today was a day of luxury, a day of relaxing. It had been hard work bringing in the fruit of the orchards for the past week and each and every one of Fekala’s family deserved the break.
But a loud and rapid knock at the door disturbed their well earned peace. Her father got up and went to open the front door. Fekala ignored the commotion and let a cool breeze from the window soften the heat on her brow.
A young boy in red garb rushed forward onto her Father with an alarmingly desperate plea, “They took him. They took him! Please my Lord, save my father. Please Lord Allust.”
Fekala turned to the panting messenger as he stumbled over himself. The boy fell down to his hands and knees and bowed his head before the standing figure of the Master of the Apple Orchards.
“Who took your father?”
“The Wolves! The Wolves of the Ice Giant Prince took him when he was crushing my Lord’s apples for future prosperity in the markets to the east.”
“That is but folk lore and nonsense boy. Now tell me what happened or it may hinder my finding of your father.”
“But it is true my Lord. I carried the baskets of apples beside my father, towards the machine that would grind them into sauce and juice when a chilling fog came from the Black Forest edge. It was a bone cold fog that came at us in the heat of the day. And yet no sunlight could penetrate its looming frost. My father he said, ‘the Ice Prince has called for his wolves to bring him a sacrifice again.’
“And then he sent me inside our home, but I watched through a window that he brandished a simple sword against the gathering fog. It spread over the meadow that separates us from the Black Forest and in it I heard Them. I heard the Wolves cry their awful howls.” The boy shivered in remembrance. “And then the fog overcame my poor father. And he was gone. The sun returned to burn when that awful fog dispersed with my father.
“Please Lord Allust, save my father from the Ice Prince’s wolves. I have heard the tales, the Giant Prince will eat him.” And tears splashed onto the baked clay tile flooring of their home. Fekala’s father knelt down and pulled the boy up to his feet, but he refused to look up at the Master of the Apple Orchards.
“Do not falter in your hope, your father sounds to be of wise and courageous heart. I shall gather a great party that will search under every webbed corner, every pebble, and up in every bough, and ledge of the Black Forest until your father is found.”
“Oh, thank you Lord Allust. Thank you!” And the boy hugged her father’s middle tight. “I must go tell my mother and younger brothers of our Lord’s greatness and compassion.” And he ran out the door towards his fatherless home.
Fekala sat very still. Her cousin let his brush dangle above his canvas in mid-stroke. It dripped yellow paint onto the perfect little white house. Fekala’s father closed the door and began to pace the floor. Fekala bit her lower lip, troubled and concerned as her father continued to walk the same path into their rug. Her cousin put up his paints and and canvas. He would be at her father’s beckon call for immediate action, meanwhile he called upon their own house messenger to send out summons to the local leaders and standing army.
With only a few words, her father had four parties assembled, and three mobile. Two went to the missing worker’s plot of land on the outskirts of town. They searched for clues while the other party, led by Gaoce, searched the fringes of the Black Forest being careful to not go to deep into it. And the last group met at Lord Allust’s manor on the third day.
Pasir the silversmith, Fekala’s uncle, Chema the baker, another cousin, and Takodi the horse trainer, her grandfather, were all apart of the meeting for that evening, along with a few others. Only Fekala, it seemed, was not allowed to take part. It had been hard to convince her father to let her sit-in on the meeting, her grandfather had to help pressure her father into it.
Lord Allust started the meeting with the conversation he had with the boy, he paced the same rug as he told the story. His listeners drank tea or apple juice while they nibbled on biscuits. Fekala sat between Chema and Takodi.
Her Grandfather Takodi was a famous horse trainer in his old days, now he taught apprentices to be as good. Her cousin, Chema, made bread that brought tourists from miles away and they were never disappointed. It was his own recipe of honey biscuits that were served at the meeting even.
Gaoce who had just come back in time for the meeting, sat empty-handed next to his brother Chema. His face was grim and sweat was still on it. He smelled of the night air and grass.
When her father finished, he sat down looking a bit disoriented. Fekala observed the faces of her family members and other local leaders of the town. Many had gone pale and had dark, distant looks. Then Gaoce stood. It was his turn to tell of what the search parties found or rather of what they did not find, as it turned out.
In the end he spoke solemnly towards the Master of the Orchards, “We would need a guide to pierce the heart of that forest or a flame that can eat away the thick black roots and thorny black boughs of the Giant’s forest if we are to find the boy’s father.”
Silence drew upon the people in the Applewood Manor like a thick woolen cloth of despair. It was all that Fekala could do to not cry for the boy that had ran the miles into town to fall upon her father’s feet for salvation and assistance. It was a long uncomfortable silence of dread.
Fekala’s grandfather spoke up through the choking woolen cloth for them all, “This should be the ending of the Black Forest Terror. A full assault against the Giant Prince should be put to mind… And a guide should be sought for.” Again Gaoce looked endearingly towards Lord Allust.
“What does the Apple Orchard Master speak?” Grandfather Takodi pressed his son.
The next silence was expectant. The manor became a tense shrouded place for dark illusions and mustering hope. Fekala licked her lips and let her dark solid eyes bore into her father’s for that pressured answer. A faint flicker of the corner of his mouth, caught her by surprise. She found nothing amusing by Gaoce’s and Takodi’s ideas. True her father did not believe in the Prince nor the Wolves but something out there in those woods was certianly kidnapping their people.
The Master of the Apple Orchards nodded his head and spoke seriously however. “And who might this guide you speak of be, for we all know that no flame can burn the Black Forest’s boughs or roots?”
Fekala felt the audience cringe for her cousin. Yet, she thought she saw a glimmer of hope in Chema’s eyes that Gaoce might say another name than the one he feared his brother would say. And did say.
“Nemiso.”
“That mad old woman who my guards found just the other night walking barefoot beside the canals- picking up things only she can see? That woman?”
Fekala flinched at her father’s words. Gaoce stood firm. “Yes that woman. She is the only one who has gone into the Black Forest and come back.”
“I think, my dear nephew, that you are forgetting the state of which she came back in.”
“I do not forget easily, Uncle. I do not forget that what you too know still, that Nemiso foretold a terrible flood that would uproot our Apple trees long ago. I do not forget Uncle, that because bags of sand and ditches dug in precaution of her foretelling that the terrible storm that raged that spring did not uproot our trees and livelihood. I do not forget that Nemiso was the only one who would bare witness for the drunk Feu to save an innocent life from a mob. Yes Uncle, I do not forget.”
Humbled by his nephew, Lord Allust nodded in agreement. Then he flicked a glance at Grandfather Takodi who was disguising a smile for a scowl very poorly. Other heads were also nodding with Lord Allust and were now only waiting for him to say what they knew was the town’s last resort. Though The Master of the Orchard tried very hard to quell the stories of the Ice Prince and his Wolves, he knew his people believed Nemiso.
Sighing inwardly, “Only on my terms-”
“Oh, yes sir! Certainly.” Grinned Gaoce triumphantly.
“As I was saying… On my terms only shall this expedition take place… A small group, and I said a small group, will follow this old woman’s wild tales into that death trap of a forest. I choose the ones that shall go, and they will be chosen from volunteers.”
Gaoce’s smiled dazzled the audience, but not his uncle, nor his cousin Fekala.
“The group shall only be allowed eight days of search into its depth and if nothing is found they return.”
Gaoce persisted, “And if something is found?”
“Then a runner should be sent back to our town while the rest of the group waits for the reserves to meet up with them. “
“Agreed.”
They shook each other’s arms in a firm, almost satisfied, grip. Soon after Fekala’s father discussed how the group would be formed by volunteers that would be fairly judged.
Thorath the mason leaped to his feet when there came a knock at the backdoor. “I will send them away my Lord.”
Conversation stopped while they waited for him to shoo the disturbance away. A servant was meanwhile sent to get more refreshments.
Fekala took advantage of the distraction to lean towards Takodi the horse trainer. “Grandfather.”
“Yes dear?” He patted her hand. His soft fingers showed blue veins spiraling up them.
“May.. Maybe you could… Well, per chance you would give Father a hint towards my wanting to be apart of the expedition?” But she saw his dark eyes dim sadly. He opened his mouth to speak but there was a loud crack! that jarred everyone in the room. Their startlement was not without cause.
A yell called forth from the backdoor hallway, “Hey! Your not allowed in here! I told you this is a private meeting. Hey you! Stop! Guards! Guards stop him. I am sorry my Lord, but he would not listen to me.” Thorath tumbled in after a strangely cloaked figure. “Please forgive me my lord.” He panted and shriveled back from the figure trembling. A gust of frosty mist followed in the stranger and clung to his feet. His cloak drizzled water though it had not rained that day nor that entire week.
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