Lora of Two Worlds

Two days north. Lora had learned enough of the Empire’s cooking methods from the boat’s galley. Leon had applied the grass-bead poultice several times, and his legs had received one personal massage from his little cousin.

”These six pressure points, you remember them? Press three times a day, from the painful spots until you can’t feel pain anymore.” Lora used a quill to mark the points on Leon’s leg.

Lyle grinned: ”If the marks fade, you’ll come draw them again, won’t you, my lady?” ”If you can’t remember six points, do you still want Norton’s hand-bow?”

”I remember.”

Lora dusted her hands and stepped out of the forward cabin.

At the gunwale, she looked out. The riverbanks still had some green. The horizon was gray. The northern drought was severe this year.

Leon followed her out. She wasn’t leaving, she stood at the rail, gazing out. He walked over:

”We’re in Duxford territory. Highmarch was pacified two years ago, and the crown reorganized Caxton, Kendrick, Dale, and Jardine provinces into a new domain. This January, the crown granted the army name ’Yarrowvale.’ The former inspector, Eugene Osler, was made marcher duke of Yarrowvale.”

”Eugene Osler? Him? I’ve... heard of him. They say he develops local production, works alongside the common folk. A good official.”

She’d translated a classical text about him for an exam, her schoolteacher had mentioned him. Lora lit up, like running into an old friend.

Leon smiled: ”You’ve heard a great many things. From the abbey pulpit again? If that gets around, it won’t reflect well on Osler, sounds like he’s fishing for fame.”

”Oh, no, no, not the pulpit. Just... I heard it from a man from the north.”

That explanation told Leon everything: So the pulpit was a cover? Press her and she improvises. Could she be from even further in the future?

Oh! You’re bluffing me!

He’d assumed she was a fellow traveler. But the way she’d so earnestly asked about Southland grain, she didn’t seem modern. But maybe she was just bad at history? Let me try bluffing her too.

Lora pressed her lips and smiled:

”Odd changes, even stays the same. The sign looks at the quadrant.”

Leon: ”...”

She’d just quoted a high-school trigonometry mnemonic. No reaction? Let me try middle school:

”First square, last square, first-and-last square in the middle.”

Leon: ”Your poem...”

A nine-year dropout? Math’s a bust. Let me try literature:

”Grass grows, orioles fly in the second month. Willows brush the embankment, drunk on spring mist. Children leave school early, hurrying to fly kites in the east wind.”

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A primary school poem from a later era, surely everyone knew that?

This time Leon understood. He praised: ”Fine poem! Did you compose this too, cousin? The day you sent Norton with the quill, he wrote down a few lines, said they were yours. Might I have the honor of reading the full pieces?”

”No!”

”Why not?” Leon was puzzled.

Because I can’t remember the full versions.

Lora cursed herself silently. He didn’t even recognize tarocchi tiles, how could he be modern? He was just clever. I’m so desperate for a fellow traveler I’m losing my mind.

”No reason. I don’t feel like it.”

She lifted her chin and walked away.

What did I do wrong? We were fine a moment ago. She recited poems I don’t understand and gets angry? With women, best not to harbor illusions.

”Why have the boats stopped? There’s only a tributary lock ahead, that shouldn’t affect us. Leon, I’ll go down and check.”

Lyle, seeing guards going ashore from the forward boats, volunteered. Roland came from the bow:

”Let’s go see. It looks like some fishing boats are blocking the channel at the lock. A crowd’s gathered on the bank, something’s happened.”

Lora came over too. A spectacle? She waved at Shawn and Keane: ”Let’s go see! If we’re stuck, we need to find a place to cook!”

Perfect logic, and she was off like the wind. Roland looked at Leon. They followed.

Their boat was moored far. Roland caught up with Lora in a few steps and called Shawn and Keane back, they couldn’t all go.

”Sister, I finally understand. Your knowledge comes from your fearless meddling in other people’s business.”

”Brother, you’re perceptive. I’m sure you’ll catch up to me soon.”

Leon trailed behind them, reflecting: Was it because I didn’t praise her incomprehensible poems?

As they reached the edge of the crowd, Lyle, who shared their meddlesome spirit, had already squeezed out from the front. He reported without being asked:

”We won’t be moving for a while, not unless the Yarrowvale garrison comes to sort it out. The canal water is already low. They want to close the tributary lock on the Rush River. The farmers near the Rush won’t have it, cutting the flow is a death sentence for them.”

They looked at the lock. Several small fishing boats were drawn up. People were shouting:

”This is the Royal Canal, you know? Even if the Rush dries up, the canal can’t run short! Look, all these official boats. No water in the canal, you expect them to be carried to Yorvik?”

”We can’t worry about Yorvik. We can’t even save ourselves, what do we care about their boats?”

”Exactly! It’s almost irrigation time. Even if they only take half, that’s half our water gone. The fields won’t have enough. No harvest, and they still want taxes. Who do we complain to?”

A man in the crowd shouted:

”Can’t pay taxes? Let’s all become monks!”

The crowd laughed. They shoved and jostled him in fun, and accidentally pushed the clerk they’d been arguing with into the water.

He climbed out, cursing. The crowd howled.

Two middle-aged women beside Lora were chatting: ”My second boy says he wants to become a monk. My old man chased him and beat him.”

”Ah, if there’s really no other way, he should go. A monk saves one mouth’s grain. One less tax. Monks can beg for alms, and there’re donations from the charitable. At least they eat.”

”That’s what I said. If it’s truly unbearable, he can leave the order... If worse comes to worst, let my old man become a monk too!”

”Nobody has grain, nobody dares have children. If all the men become monks, there’ll be no one left to farm...”

The women sighed.

This... wasn’t I of the reasons for the coming suppression of the monasteries? Monks were exempt from corvée and taxes. They could eat. The Empire was dotted with abbeys, and huge numbers of young men had taken vows. Not only did tax revenue shrink, the labor force for public works, flood control, road repair, all of it evaporated.

People thought the monasteries’ copper statues ate the realm’s coin. They didn’t see that the abbeys also ate the men who farmed and paid taxes.

Lora stared thoughtfully at the reed rafts in the Rush. She asked the two women: ”Aunties, is there a lot of reed along the Rush?”

”Reed groves, yes. But with one or two years of no rain, many of the groves have flowered. If they close the lock here, the reed along the Rush will die too.”

”Exactly! What good is the Royal Canal if the people starve?”

The canal needed water. The Rush suffered.

Collateral damage.