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The Jevlir Caravansary

Category: Fantasy Short Stories

  • Condemned by the Gracious Governor

    The storyteller, as usual, seemed to start in the middle of the tale …

    When Perd fell on his face in front of the governor, he had little hope. It was his second time to appear in this position, and what hope did he have of getting clemency? He had promised to reform, to learn a skill, and to get a job, but he had done none of those things. It had seemed much easier to steal. What’s more, he thought he had learned a lesson the last time. No, not the lesson he was supposed to learn. He thought he knew how not to get caught.

    This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between persons, places, things, or events and those in the real world is purely coincidental.
    Copyright © 2012
    Henry E. Neufeld

    Now he found himself sentenced to death for a large robbery in which he had seriously injured a man with his knife. And here he was again, on his face, in front of the governor.

    The governor was known as a gracious man. In fact, he was not required to see every person who was sentenced to death before allowing the sentence to be carried out. He could just sign the death warrants, or even allow a secretary to do it for him. But he disliked seeing people beheaded, and he sought every way to prevent it, especially for people who had been sentenced for something other than murder. The law might allow the sentence for someone who had merely threatened the life of another, or done injury that might have led to death, but the governor didn’t like it.

    The governor remembered Perd.

    “Your honor commuted a previous sentence of death against this man,” droned the pardons secretary. He continued with the particulars.

    When the pardons secretary had finished, the prosecutor spoke. “The defendant Perd has despised your honor’s grace given to him before. He has proven himself unworthy of your mercy. He is a threat to the province which you govern by the king’s leave.” The prosecutor mentioned the king, because he hoped that the governor would be afraid. The prosecutor was known to have connections in the distant capital. It would be impolitic to mention those connections directly, but they crept out through the pauses in the prosecutor’s speech.

    The governor motioned to the pardons secretary who turned to Perd and asked in a low tone of voice, “Do you have anything to say for yourself?” He used a low tone of voice because he couldn’t see any reason why anyone should listen to someone with Perd’s record.

    From his position with his face on the paving stones, Perd just said, “Mercy, your honor, mercy!” Then he was silent.

    The prosecutor smiled. The pardons secretary didn’t smile (he didn’t really know how), but he managed to look satisfied. No sad story to touch the gracious governor’s heart and produce a pardon or even a commutation.

    “You beg for mercy,” said the governor, “and mercy you shall have.” Shock swept through the audience chamber. The prosecutor opened his mouth to protest, but then he saw the determined look on the governor’s face.  Connections in the capital were all well and good, but the capital was two weeks journey to the south, and the governor was right here. The prosecutor decided it would be better to be silent. He could include a note in his next letter to friends and family, perhaps starting a rumor that would weaken the governor’s position with his superiors.

    “I place before you a choice,” the governor continued, allowing this idea to sink in. “Out in the courtyard there is a headsman, with his axe sharpened. He is quite a good headsman, and will doubtless remove your head efficiently and with minimum pain. Considering that you could be executed by less pleasant methods, you should consider this a good option. On the other hand, I have a friend who is travelling north into the wilderness to search for gold and precious stones. He will probably be travelling for two or more years. He is a skilled man, and I doubt you will escape him. If you should think of escape, or of doing him harm, you should be aware that I give him my blanket permission to kill you, with no questions asked. If you are more of a burden on him than a help, then he can kill you just for that. Should you return from this trip alive, you will be granted my pardon and your freedom.”

    The prosecutor had lost his smile when the governor first mentioned mercy, but now he had it back. The look on the pardons secretary’s face had gone from a carefully practiced strict neutrality to one of satisfaction. Perd did not look like the sort of person who could survive one of those trips to the north. The governor was clearly being extraordinarily cruel by providing this choice between two deaths.

    The governor looked at Perd, who was too frightened to look up. The mountains immediately to the north were known to be a good source of many precious things, but they were also known to be a place of incredible danger. The explorers and miners who travelled in that area were known to be the toughest and nastiest people anywhere. He could very easily endure months or even years of agony, and still be killed, or die accidentally, before he could return home. A clean beheading almost sounded attractive!

    Almost! But not quite. The alternative sentence did keep him alive, and offered some hope, however little. Perd thought, was better than none.

    “Your honor, I will go with your friend,” said Perd. He almost thanked the governor for his mercy, but under the circumstances he thought that wouldn’t sound sincere. Nobody could expect him to be thankful for a slow death instead of a fast one.

    He was taken in chains to the explorer, name Ka’at. He was left in chains in an unfurnished room overnight. The next morning Ka’at dragged him out into the courtyard where he saw two fully packed mules. Ka’at was in his travelling gear as well. He wondered if he would make the entire journey in chains. Before they went out of the city gates, however, Ka’at took him to a blacksmith’s shop, where the chains were removed, but replaced by a set that would handicap his movement less, but nonetheless make him much slower than Ka’at. The latter looked very fit and quick as well.

    So Perd began his march into the mountains still in chains, albeit lighter ones. He was still expected to work and carry a pack. He wanted to be angry because of the pack, but as he started to open his mouth to complain, he realized that the pack Ka’at was carrying himself was substantially larger than his, and heavier even if one considered the weight of the chains. So he thought better of that complaint.

    He knew that those who mined gemstones up in these mountains, and often searched for treasure from ancient times, were considered dangerous and uncouth. Ka’at, on the other hand, hardly said a word during the day. In the evening, he would make comments on what Perd had done during the day, and what he should do. He’d always end his comments by saying something like, “You’ve been more of a help than a burden today,” or “You’ve been more of a burden than a help, but I’ll let it pass,” or sometimes “You’ve been about as much trouble as help.”

    Since he thought his life depended on it, Perd paid attention, and tried to do the things that made him more of a help than a burden. These things involved habits he had never learned before, such as learning how to cook a meal rather than expecting someone else to do so for him, how to mend and sew, how to care for the mules, and eventually how to hunt. By the time Ka’at gave him a hunting bow, he was so far into the mountains and so uncertain of how one would get home, that the thought of killing his master never occurred to him.

    Then came the day when Ka’at removed the chains. He didn’t lecture about it. He just called Perd over, and with a few quick strokes of hammer and chisel, removed the chains. Again, partly because he had no idea where to go, and partly because he was now in the habit of doing the day to day chores, Perd didn’t think seriously of running. When he thought about his situation, he was amazed that he didn’t hate Ka’at. He’d assumed he would hate someone who had the power of life and death over him. Despite his pleas for mercy, deep inside himself he had hated the governor as well. Who was he to have Perd’s life in his hands?

    But Ka’at worked hard than Perd could ever manage, even though Perd was finding himself stronger and stronger. He was doing work that only weeks before he had no idea how to do. Now it came easily. And they were finding gems as well. It took a lot of digging, but as the bags on the mules became lighter and lighter as they used up their supplies, they were being filled again with valuable items. Looking at a Ruby that he and Ka’at had just dug up, Perd suddenly realized why such stones commanded such high prices. He knew there was nowhere inside his homeland where one could find them. The trip would pay well, but there were few people who could survive this. He knew that without Ka’at’s knowledge, particularly of the wild animals, they would both have been dead.

    Then it happened. It could happen to anyone, no matter how skilled. It had happened to Perd earlier in the trip, and Ka’at had been there to save him. But this time, it was Ka’at who stepped on the wrong stone, which broke off, and in turn loosened others, resulting in a fall. Ka’at ended up hanging over a gorge from a single small tree. He was in Perd’s power.

    Instantly, the thought came to Perd’s mind. If he just let Ka’at go, he would be free. He need never return home to where he was known. He could find another place to live. But he rejected the thought instantly. It wasn’t until Ka’at was back on the trail that Perd realized that it hadn’t been his need of a guide to get home that stopped him from just letting Ka’at die. No, he’d suddenly realized that he liked the older man and didn’t want to see him fall. Yes, he’d realized how his sentence could end with Ka’at’s death, but he’d rejected it. It was an odd feeling. He couldn’t recall doing anything for anyone before just because he liked them.

    Ka’at, as usual, was quiet. He just nodded his thanks. That evening he said simply, “You were a great help to me today.” Was that a twinkle in his eyes? With Ka’at, who could tell?

    The day came when Ka’at and Perd rode back into town. They looked much the worse for wear. To Perd’s surprise, Ka’at led them straight to the palace. To Perd’s even greater surprise, they were admitted to the governor’s private audience chamber. Ka’at walked up to the governor’s desk and spread out the rubies they had found. They had a few other things, but that was more than 90% of the value of what they had brought out of the mountains.

    “They’re all there,” said Ka’at, spreading the rubies out on the desk. He divided them up, two thirds in one pile and another third in another.

    He looked at Perd and pointed to the smaller pile. “Take them,” he said. Perd knew from their discussions in the mountains that an assistant such as himself, always supposing the man was free and not condemned to work for nothing, would normally get five or ten percent of the take they had helped find. This was a junior partner’s share.

    Perd just looked at the stones.

    “Take them,” said the governor. “You’ve fulfilled the terms I set.”

     

    “Now tell me,” said the storyteller, “Did the governor act graciously? If so, in what way? Which of his actions were actions of grace, and which not? Should he have been known as the gracious governor?”

     

  • When the Orange Sky Gleamed

    “I’m going to tell you a story about the time when the orange sky gleamed,” said the old man.

    The children gathered around the fire moved closer. Some of them leaned forward so that they could hear the story. One of the older children wasn’t quite as interested.

    This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between persons, places, and events and those in the real world are purely coincidental.
    Copyright © 2012
    Henry E. Neufeld

    “The sky is blue in the day, and black at night. There are clouds. Sometimes they turn orange in the evening, at sunset. But the sky is never orange and it doesn’t gleam.” He was just into his teens and pretty smart. He wasn’t going to be awed by eerie sounding opening lines to old men’s stories.”On this day, it was orange, and it gleamed,” said the old man. Before the confident kid could interrupt him again, he continued. “We got up in the morning and there was just a bit of orange in the southern sky. It was a bad omen.” The confident kid rolled his eyes.

    “The shaman said it was a bad day. ‘When there’s orange in the south, stay under your roof,’ he told us. But the chief wouldn’t listen. He needed to get a caravan going to pick up gold, gems, and various items of bronze, iron, and even steel from the south. The shaman told him again not to go.

    “‘How long should I wait?’ asked the chief. ‘Until the orange sky no longer gleams,” said the shaman. But the chief wouldn’t listen, especially when the shaman wouldn’t tell him how long the gleaming would take to go away. So he sent out the caravan anyhow. In fact, he went with it. I begged to go. I was about your age.” He pointed to the confident kid. “I was just as stupid too. But they wouldn’t let me go.

    “Days went by. Almost the entire sky to the south turned orange, and it gleamed, sometimes with white, sometimes with various colors, but always with an orange tint. To the north, over the sea, the sky was pretty much clear. It was windy, but the whether was not too bad. Nobody had an explanation for the time when the orange sky gleamed.” The confident kid rolled his eyes again. He wasn’t going to be taken in by the repetition of the eerie phrase.

    Other children weren’t so jaded. “What happened?” they asked eagerly, leaning forward to hear the old man’s answer.

    “A week went by, and the orange started to fade from the southern sky. But the caravan didn’t come back.” The old man paused for a moment and pretended to be falling asleep. The children started to ask what happened next. They were acquainted with waiting for a caravan to return. It was how their town made its money. But they couldn’t remember a time when a caravan just didn’t return.

    “Another week went by and the sky was completely back to normal. But the caravan still didn’t return. The shaman didn’t say ‘I told you so,’ but one could see it on his face. It was really quite obscene to be so happy about a disaster. The chief’s son, who was in charge in his absence still thought the caravan might have been delayed. Maybe the load hadn’t been ready. But after three weeks it was hard to pretend that there wasn’t something terribly wrong.

    “So the chief’s son sent out a patrol to look for the caravan. They rode horses, so they moved faster than a caravan. They couldn’t find any sign of the caravan. They did find that the sand dunes looked somewhat different. The men were used to the sands moving about some with the winds, but this was like they were traveling through a different country. Finally they arrived at the foot of the southern mountains where the town was where they usually picked up their loads.”

    He paused again and pretended to be falling asleep.

    “What did he find there?” asked an eager voice.

    “Oh what?” The old man pretended to wake up suddenly.

    “What did he find? Did he find the caravan? Did they get back home?”

    “So many questions!” said the old man. “Well, no, they didn’t find the caravan. In fact, they didn’t find anything at all.”

    “You mean, except the town,” said the confident kid, not sounding quite as confident as he had before.

    “No, there was no town there. They could see the mountains rising up from the sand. They had all the landmarks. But where they were there was nothing but sand.”

    The confident kid made a dismissive motion with his hand, got up, and walked away. The other kids were horrified. They demanded another story, claiming they couldn’t possibly go to sleep now.

    The confident kid grew up, and he never forgot the story. He became a caravan merchant himself. New towns had grown up at the northern edge of the mountains. They bought things from the miners in the mountains as they always had. Caravans from the northern coastal towns came and carried them across the strip of desert land between the mountains and the coast and then sold them to trading ships. The winds rearranged the sand a bit, but not so much that one couldn’t find one’s way.

    Then one day the confident kid sat down around another campfire and heard another story. It was an old man from the mountains. He also told about the time when the orange sky gleamed. His story was a bit different. The gleaming started to the east and built quickly. He described a bit of fire in the sky to the south as well

    “What did everyone do?” asked the young man who had once been the confident kid.

    “Oh, nothing in particular. We just stayed inside for a few days mostly,” said the old man. Then he paused, expectantly. But the confident young man wasn’t going to ask. Finally he couldn’t resist. He had to finish his story. “After the sky cleared we took our next load north to the town at the base of the mountains, but the town was gone.”

    The confident young man was startled. He thought it had been an old man’s tale, but here was another tale to match. He wasn’t sure it was the same town even, but the stories matched so closely.

    It took him some weeks to find someone who knew where that town at the base of the mountains had been. The current town was in an oasis which had a spring. It was entirely a new town. The elder who finally admitted to remembering where the old town had been could only tell him it was no more than a mile or so off to the east of the new one.

    “But the town is lost, young man,” he said. “There’s no reason to worry about it. It’s buried in the sand.”

    That was precisely what the young man thought. “Who owns that land?” he asked the elder.

    “Owns a piece of the desert?” said the old man slowly. “Well, nobody.”

    “So the confident young man went back to the coast to hire some men. Nobody was very interested in his plan, but he was able to find enough people who needed the work. He took them back to the place where the village had disappeared, and set them to digging. It required a month of digging.

    The townspeople were delighted with all the money they were paid for food and water for the men digging in the desert. It never occurred to them to question the motives of the crazy man from the coast. But after a month he found what he wanted. There was the town, and there was the bodies of people, hidden in houses and covered in sand. He found even more than he expected. Though there was no way he could identify the people involved, he could tell there had been a caravan in town, and their cargo was well preserved under the sand.

    The confident kid who had grown up into the confident young man became quite a rich man. But he never told the townspeople what he had found. His workers were more than happy to share the wealth and head for home.

    Every few months after he returned home he would go to the great campfire in the town square and tell children a story. It was often the story of when the orange sky gleamed. And then he’d tell them the moral of the story. “Pay attention to the stories your elders tell. They might just have something important in them to help you grow up and become rich.”

    (This story was written for and submitted to the one word at a time blog carnival – orange.)

    There was a new town by the stream near the base of the mountain

  • Silly Who

    Karl’s Story

    Karl was pleased that his daughter Ellen spent so much time out in the woods. That way he wouldn’t have to be embarrassed by the silly things she did. He knew he should watch her more carefully, but he had never been able to bring himself to actually do it. If he tried to control her, things just got crazy.

    Ellen couldn’t speak and many thought she couldn’t hear either. She just made incomprehensible sounds. The reason some people thought she really could hear was that she had an uncanny ability to notice what was going on around her. Those who depended on the fact that she couldn’t hear and tried to play tricks on her generally were unpleasantly surprised. Her practical jokes were usually embarrassing and sometimes painful, but never fatal.

    This is a work of fiction. All persons, places, and events are products of my imagination.
    Copyright © 2012
    Henry E. Neufeld

    Still, she behaved so strangely when she was in town. She’d spend time down at the shrine just looking at the inscriptions on the walls. She’d sit for hours just watching people on the street. She was nosy. She showed up at places she didn’t belong. She never did any chores. In fact, Karl thought, she was completely useless as a person and he quite frankly admitted to himself and to his neighbors that he resented the cost of feeding her. But he was much too responsible, and though he’d deny it, gentle of a man to actually do her real harm, and so he just let her run wild.

    But he was delighted that she mostly ran wild far out in the woods. There were plenty of dangers out there, but at least he could pretend they weren’t his problem.

    This arrangement worked well until one day Ellen came into town and went straight to the village headman. She got his attention and then began drawing in the dirt with a stick. Her father, who had followed her to try to keep her out of trouble—well, let’s be honest, to keep himself out of trouble by keeping her from bothering people—thought that what she was drawing looked hauntingly familiar, but he wasn’t sure why. The village headman had no idea, however, and he roughly pushed Ellen to the ground, told Karl to “control his daughter” and stalked off.

    Karl tried to grab Ellen. The last thing he needed was to get in trouble with the headman. But Ellen was too fast and she disappeared into the woods. Karl chose the path of least resistance. He could always hope she would disappear again into the woods. He forgot entirely about the hauntingly familiar figures Ellen had drawn in the dirt.

    Karl couldn’t read. Neither could the headman. In fact, nobody in the village could read. To them the figures on the walls of the village shrine were just strange religious symbols. They knew the shrine was very old, but nobody really cared. One just went there to offer sacrifices to the gods, though nobody knew why. They were sure the figures had sacred power, but they had no idea what they were, or what they were supposed to depict.

    In the woods around there were ruins of other buildings, but nobody knew much about them either. They were just part of the landscape. Ellen had once led her father to one of those ruined buildings outside the village. She tried to point out things on the wall to him. He’d told her she was very silly, and that there was no point wasting his time.

    In fact, Karl thought whoever had built the stone buildings must have been pretty silly themselves. Why go to that much work for shelter when a few tree branches and some woven grass would do just as well. It was probably right that his silly daughter spent her time in all those silly piles of rock. He had left her there and returned to the village, never noticing her look of disappointment.

    For several days nobody saw Ellen at all. Karl was so pleased not to have to deal with her that he didn’t really get that worried about what might have happened to her. Surely she’d reappear in time.

    Ellen’s Story

    Ellen ran quickly through the woods to one of her caches of supplies. She had a hunting bow and a knife there, really all she needed to survive. She didn’t understand the problem. Did they imagine she would like about a thing like that? She was sure she had the symbols right. Why hadn’t they gotten her message. Over the 20 years of her life she had tried many things, including trying to move her lips the way other people did, but she’d always thought that when she drew the symbols people would understand her. But they didn’t.

    Silly villagers, she thought. And silly me. Why didn’t I realize they never used the symbols themselves?

    She ran through the woods for hours. Through the river gorge to the north ran a major trade route. At this point it didn’t belong to any country, king, or noble. It was considered wilderness. The caravans traveled with guards. Ellen had observed them many times before. She knew there were scraggly and poor caravans whose guards were dangerous themselves. She had barely escaped from contact with some of them before. But there were others whose clothes were rich. She had practiced writing the symbols she saw on the walls. It was with a caravan guard that she had finally made the connection between the symbols, the pictures, and events in her life.

    So now she went looking for a caravan and the guards. She’d have to pick one carefully, because she didn’t want to be captured and enslaved. But with the right caravan, she might get the guards to come and help her deal with what she had found in the woods. It would be good for them too.

    It was a full days travel on foot to the cliffs above the caravan road. Horses could make it much faster. When she arrived at the place where she usually climbed down the cliffs she found that the path was held. She should have thought of this. The people she had found near her own village would be planning to raid caravans, and this was the one place one could get down to the road easily. It would be impossible to sneak down the cliff where she had planned to.

    There were other places to climb, but she had never done so. She moved perhaps a mile further along the road, going downstream. She knew from the guards that they were near where the canyon came to an end and the road moved into territory owned by a king and patrolled by his troops. She felt her first true fear as she faced the cliff. She hadn’t been afraid when she found the bandits. She hadn’t been afraid when her father had tried to catch her. She hadn’t even been afraid when she saw the path blocked. She had never climbed down a cliff like this.

    She very nearly didn’t make it. Several times she came close to falling, and there wouldn’t be any second chances. She was so tired when she reached the bottom of the cliff that she couldn’t do anything but just lie there and try to recover. And then she fell asleep.

    She was wakened by a man in armor. He was poking her with a stick. She jumped up and tried to reach her weapons, but he knocked her to the ground. It was the first time she had been caught asleep by an enemy, and this guard clearly proved to be an enemy.

    It was lucky for her that the caravan was moving. These were the sort of merchants and guards who would not treat a girl in their midst well at all. But since they were moving they didn’t have time to do anything except throw her into a cage. She was not the only person in there. Apparently this caravan included slaves in its cargo.

    The other women in the cage tried to talk to her, but she couldn’t hear them, and she could get nothing from the movement of their lips. She tried drawing symbols on the floor of the cage, but they just thought she was crazy and moved to the other end of the cage. Ellen thought if they got together they could break out of the cage. Prepared, she was sure she could break away from these guards. But the silly women weren’t cooperating.

    Finally she scratched symbols for “ambush ahead” into the floor of the cage as carefully as she could. One of the guards looked at the symbols, but the silly man either couldn’t read or didn’t care what some girl had to say.

    So the caravan was completely surprised by the ambush. The other women huddled at the back end of their cage, but Ellen watched carefully for any opportunity. The opportunity came when one of the guards was hit by an arrow and fell against the bars of the cage. Ellen was able to grab his dagger and cut the ropes that held the door. In a moment she was outside and grabbing a bow. It was heavier than her hunting bow, but she was able to pull it, and she started to shoot, while carefully and frequently checking behind her.

    She moved slowly toward the cliff and she used her arrows against the attackers since it was clear that they had the advantage. She found these warriors much easier to hit than the game she had hunted in the forest, and most of them were not that well armored. If she had given her full effort, she might well have made the difference for them between victory and defeat. As it was, she killed the last of the attackers just after he had killed the last of the caravan guards.

    What was left was a small number of the merchants and their servants, none of them armed. They huddled together and waited to see what this apparition from the forest would do to them. Silly people! Some of them didn’t even realize she was the girl who had been captured just an hour or so earlier.

    She tried to release the women from the cage, but they were afraid to move as well. Silly women! They didn’t know who to trust even though she hadn’t given them any reason to fear her that she could see.

    She tried to get the caravan folks to understand that they could go ahead and get moving, but they didn’t get the idea. So she sat on a ledge just above the road and watched them. She hoped another caravan would come along. She still wanted to talk to some real guards, and she knew that there were more bandits than had been involved in the attack.

    It was past noon before anyone more showed up and it was a small patrol of guards. She had no idea where from. The lady who led the guards tried to motion her to come down off her ledge, but she kept her bow in hand and motioned for the guard to come to her.

    When the lady came up to the ledge she tried to talk, but of course Ellen couldn’t understand her. Ellen motioned as though she wanted to write, and the lady produced a pencil and some paper. It was nice to deal with someone who didn’t just think she was silly! She slowly wrote down the basics about the ambush and then she drew a map showing where the bandits had their large camp.

    After that things were easy. The guards hunted the bandits, and they were very skilled. They also released the women and promised to escort them back to town. They arrested the caravan merchants because they had taken the women from their town.

    When it was all done, they returned to Ellen’s village. Ellen wrote a question for everyone. “Why is everyone so silly?” she asked. “The villagers ignore me, the caravan guards ignore my warning, the women think I’m dangerous. I think I hate these villagers.”

    “Things look silly when you don’t understand them,” said the lady. “What’s really silly is when you won’t learn.”

    (This story was written for and submitted to the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival – Silly.)

     

  • Farmer Jack’s Arsenal

    “Old Jack has quite an arsenal,” said one villager knowingly to another.

    The stranger sitting in front of the village pub perked up. This was the sort of thing he wanted to know.

    “Who,” he asked, “is Jack?”

    “Farmer Jack,” said one of the villagers.

    This is a work of fiction. All persons, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination.
    Copyright © 2012
    Henry E. Neufeld

    “Yes,” said the other. “We call him Old Jack or Farmer Jack.”

    “What do you mean that he has quite an arsenal?” asked the stranger. It was a risky question. People often reacted badly to someone who was too curious about their stock of weapons.

    But the two villagers just laughed. “You’d really have to see it,” said one. The other just snickered.

    So the stranger set about discovering just what kind of an arsenal it was that this Farmer Jack had. If his boss was to gain control of this village and the surrounding farms, he would certainly have to get rid of any arsenals that might be in the area.

    That evening he asked a few of the people in the pub about Farmer Jack’s arsenal. He wanted to do it subtly, but it was rather difficult. “I heard there’s a Farmer Jack around here who has quite an arsenal, ha ha, do you know anything about it?” That sounded rather silly, but the reactions he got just weren’t normal. Some people looked at him as though he was crazy. Others laughed. A couple of them finally explained that in the mountains behind Farmer Jack’s farm there was a cave which was filled with weapons. What weapons? Oh, swords, crossbows, crossbow bolts, maybe even a ballista or two. One never knew what Farmer Jack might collect.

    He thought he noticed a number of people trying to conceal their faces. He thought it might be that they were laughing, but he set that aside. What could be funny about a cache of weapons? That was one of the things his boss would want to know. He’d want to grab the arsenal first.

    Over the next few days he tried to watch people as they went about their business, especially as they went to surrounding towns. But he never saw what he was looking for. He wanted to see some town militia or maybe even one or two people going and getting weapons or putting them back there in the arsenal in the hills behind Farmer Jack’s farm.

    So he sent in a report to the boss and the boss sent a couple more scouts to the town. It was important to locate this arsenal before he made his move. His men would be spread thin, and even one well-equipped militia might be able to bring down his entire plan to control the area.

    The new men actually scouted the area behind Farmer Brown’s farm. They looked through the hills, but they didn’t find any weapons, nor did they find anywhere that weapons might have been stored, nor did they see a single person carrying weapons one way or another. Well, except for one hunter who was using his hunting bow to hunt deer. They thought the hunter hadn’t seen them. It was important that nobody realized they were looking for the arsenal. That would just make people start to believe they were planning something, and that would be dangerous.

    Finally the boss decided to make his move. In order to make certain that everything was safe, they decided to send the majority of their troops to secure Farmer Jack and to close off the path to the arsenal. It wouldn’t do, after all, to let people go get weapons from there.

    They swept across the farm, surrounded the house, and grabbed Farmer Jack. The captain in charge of the operation congratulated himself on his success. There wasn’t so much as an injury, provided one didn’t count Private Smythe, who had turned his ankle in a post hole in one of the fields.

    Farmer Jack was an old man. The captain thought he might be 80 or 90 years old. “Where’s your arsenal?” he asked. “We want your arsenal!”

    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Farmer Jack.

    The captain slapped him a couple of times, but one of his lieutenants pointed out that with such an old man, a slap might even be fatal. So they just told Farmer Jack that he might as well tell them, because they’d be there until they figured out where the arsenal was. They’d find it eventually, so why not make things easy?

    But Farmer Jack seemed uninclined to make things easy. He just sat in his big living room chair and thought. In the meantime, the captain’s men made a thorough search of the area for the arsenal or for any path that might lead the the arsenal. They didn’t find anything that wasn’t part of the ordinary farm equipment.

    But at least, thought the captain, nobody else could find it either.

    Just after dark they heard the sound of horse’s hooves on the path leading to the house. Such men as weren’t still searching for the arsenal prepared to stop the approaching horses. But what met them was a knight on his horse and with him several men-at-arms. If they’d all been there, they might have stood up to him, but as it was, they had no chance. The men surrendered quickly, and it was only minutes before the knight was in the house with Farmer Jack.

    Now the captain was sure there was an arsenal, cleverly hidden. What else would make an obviously well-off and well-equipped knight show up at one very old man’s farm?

    “Your plan, and your boss’s plan is finished,” said the knight. “I and my brothers in arms have seen to that.”

    There was a long pause. Finally the captain couldn’t stand it. “I have to know,” he said. “Where is the arsenal?”

    “The arsenal?” said the knight.

    “Yes. Our spies reported that Farmer Jack had quite an arsenal.”

    The knight stood staring at the captain for a long time. Then he started to laugh. He laughed long and hard. Finally he got control of himself. “You think there’s an arsenal around here?” he asked.

    The captain nodded.

    “Well, I suppose there is,” He reached out to shake the captain’s hand. Meet Farmer Jack’s arsenal,” he said. “Well, part of it, at least.”

    The captain looked blank.

    “Yes, I suppose I’ll have to explain.” He paused a moment. “You see, Farmer Jack has been living here for a long time. None of us are quite sure how old he is. Twenty years ago his wife died, and since then he’s lived on his own. Well, except for one thing. Any child or young person could find a meal in Farmer Jack’s house. They could find a job on the farm. And if they’d hang around long enough, Farmer Jack would teach them to read and write and the basics of handling farm tools, and yes, weapons. He was once a sergeant in the king’s army. He had so many of them that people took to calling them Farmer Jack’s arsenal.”

    The knight turned to Farmer Jack. “I take it the current crop is safe,” he said.

    “They’re out in the hills,” said Farmer Jack. “That’s where I keep my arsenal when there’s trouble.”

    The knight looked back at the captain who still looked confused. “Don’t you get it, man?” he asked. “Half the government officials from here to the king’s court once found shelter here at this farm. We don’t talk about it, because Farmer Jack doesn’t like us to. He’s says it’s just what someone who has something ought to do. And yes, I said ‘we’, because I too learned which end of a sword was which right out there in that yard.”

    “People took to calling us Farmer Jack’s arsenal, not because we might help him, but because there were so many of us. But you heard me say he–and his good wife–taught us to read and write. Not one in ten people up in these hills can read and write. Not one in twenty know even the basics of using a sword. So when we left here most of us made good. We had the skills.”

    “So we really didn’t need to go after this farm at all,” said the captain.

    “Oh, it didn’t really matter,” said the knight. “Farmer Jack sent word to several of us a couple of weeks ago. The kids noticed your spies searching the hills and got suspicious.”

    “They said nobody had noticed them.”

    “Doubtless they never noticed the kids. Nobody ever does. But they were the arsenal, in more ways than one.”

    (This story was written for and submitted to the one word at a time blog carnival – arsenal.)

  • I Want Them to be Jubilant

    It was a long way to the capital where the king lived, so Baron Jubal was pretty much the law in all his lands. Recent decades had not been nice to his neighbors, so he was, for practical purposes, lord of all he surveyed. He was feared. He was obeyed.

    But he was not loved.

    This really bothered Jubal. He thought he was a good baron. He took an interest in all aspects of his people’s lives. He was not merciful or kind, he knew, but he considered himself just. It didn’t matter who you were. If you stole something a second time, you were beheaded. He regarded this as only just. But he thought he deserved to be loved.

    This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of the characters, places, or events to anything in the real world is coincidental. Copyright © 2012, Henry E. Neufeld

    Each year on the anniversary of his accession to his holdings he held a celebration with a parade. He would appear to his subjects and speak to them. He would wave and accept their applause. Otherwise he did not appear in public. He didn’t think people needed to see him. He had subordinates to take care of such things. It was unfortunate for him that the day of his accession was the same as the day his father died. His father had been much beloved.

    After the first year, Jubal was very dissatisfied. He called in the man who had been in charge of the celebration.

    “I am much dissatisfied with the response to my appearance before the people,” he said.

    “What would you like to see,” asked the manager.

    “I would like the people to be happy to see me.”

    “I think the people were happy. They are not very demonstrative people.” The manager said this, not because it was true, but because he was searching for any excuse that would work. The people had indeed been very cool toward their ruler.

    “It’s not enough. I want them to be jubilant.”

    “Yes, my lord.”

    “Since this was the first year, I will allow you to keep your job and your head.” One of the least endearing features of the baron was that he could say something like this as though he truly believed he was being generous. It wasn’t even dark humor. He really meant it. “See that things go better next year.”

    The next year the manager talked to as many people as he could. He told them that the baron expected a more positive response, applause and shouts of joy, when he appeared. He suggested that the baron might be very angry if these were not forthcoming.

    Unfortunately for him the people didn’t really believe the baron could do that much to everyone who was attending the parade, and they didn’t feel very thankful for having to go through checks by the barons guards, then standing in the sun for hours, and finally seeing the not very beloved face of their ruler. So they clapped and said “hoorah!” in an ordinary tone of voice. It was worse than silence.

    The baron called the manager in and had him beheaded. Then he appointed another manager. The new manager was very motivated. He was aware of the fate of his predecessor.

    When he gathered people for the event he told them that if there was not an adequate response when the baron made his appearance, he would see that one in every ten of them was beheaded. He added that he would have spies in the audience who would see who was not cheering and would make sure the quiet ones were first to lose their heads.

    When the celebration came and the baron made his appearance, there was indeed a loud shout. There was cheering. People waved. At first Jubal was very happy, but then he noticed that people were not smiling. He was certain they were faking it.

    He called in the manager.

    “How did you get the people to cheer?” he asked.

    At first the manager tried to lie, but soon the king got the tale.

    “If you hadn’t tried to fake the response,” he said, “I would have mercy on you. But since you have tried to deceive me, you will die. And he had the new manager beheaded as well.

    The rest of the baron’s servants avoided him for some time, but finally he set his sights on one of his guards and appointed him to manage the next year’s celebration. The guard tried to claim he was indispensable in his current position, but Jubal was having none of it. And again he presented his desire. “I want them to be jubilant,” he said.

    The guard thought and thought as days turned into weeks. He couldn’t think of a way to make the crowd jubilant. But then he had an idea. At first he dismissed it. Could he carry it off? Would the people actually be that stupid? Yes, he thought they would be. In fact, if he did it right, they might not even have to be very stupid.

    The day of the celebration came. It had been a hard year. Besides all of the normal hardships, there had been a crime wave. Instead of just the normal thefts by the hungry or the marginalized, there was a new factor. A criminal who killed and tortured as well as robbing and vandalizing. He was known only as “the murderer.” One or two of his supposed cronies had been caught and executed, but the man himself was elusive. There was a pretty good description of him. He liked to leave people alive to spread the terror. But nobody could lay hands on him. Three guard captains had lost their heads during the year because they had failed to catch this criminal.

    What the people didn’t know when they arrived at the celebration was that “the murderer” had been caught by the baron himself. The manager of the celebration arranged a dramatic introduction of the baron, explaining how he had finally had to personally take over the search, and that it was only through is action that the murder had been caught. The people were so afraid of the bandits and of the murderer himself that they were prepared to believe anything as long as they could think that the attacks would cease. Their fear of the murderer overcame their coolness toward their ruler.

    When the baron appeared, the crowds were truly jubilant. They were also jubilant when the man presented as “the murderer” was beheaded. He fit the description so well that nobody questioned that he was the right person.

    The manager had correctly assessed the intelligence and observation skills of the people, but he had failed to consider the baron. So he nearly fainted at the look the baron gave him. It was a knowing smile.

    “A very good plan,” said the baron. “The people were truly jubilant. I think some of them even love me.”

    There was a long pause.

    “But I think their memories are short. What are you going to do for next year?”

    (This story was written for and submitted to the One Word at a Time blog carnival, on the word “jubilant.”)

  • I Am Justice

    “But I am Justice!”

    “I think you misunderstood. I came to this town looking for justice. A rich man in my village robbed me, and I came here for justice.” The woman looked bewildered. Justice—for that was indeed his name—just looked stubborn.

    “I’m Justice. People hear you wantin’ Justice, they call me. I’m Justice. What you want I do?”

    Copyright © 2012 Henry E. Neufeld
    This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of the characters, places or events to anything in the real world is strictly coincidental.

    “I want Justice!” she yelled. Then before Justice could frame his reply (he had been about to say “I am Justice” again) she got back on her donkey and started to ride toward home. She was nearly out of money. She couldn’t go any further. What’s more she was so disgusted with this joke that the townspeople had played on her, doubtless taking her for a rustic stranger, that she didn’t want to go further.

    Justice wasn’t used to being left behind. Ever since he had started to grow into the muscular young man he was, he had been called to help with various problems. His mind wasn’t quick, though he wasn’t as stupid as he sometimes looked and acted. People joked about him. As the strongest man in town he was often in demand. “You want justice?” people would ask. “Just call him!”

    So when this very troubled woman headed off down the road into the hills, Justice decided that he couldn’t leave things as they were. When people called him he was always able to help. It was like a law of nature in his mind. It never occurred to him that the reason he could always help was that people always called him to do things that required strength, like moving their furniture.

    Nobody even noticed when Justice grabbed a bag, filled it with clothes, a few tools, and a little bit of food, and headed off down the road. They assumed he would be back sooner or later. He was a fact of life.

    Five days later, Justice showed up in the tiny village of Marani. He settled himself in at the local inn and ordered ale. It was hard to miss Justice. In a room full of people he stood out. People were afraid of him. Not that he looked angry or made any threatening moves. It was just that he looked like he might carry off some of the furniture without noticing he’d done it, sort of like other people might pick up a coin.

    It wasn’t long until someone asked him who he was and what he was doing there. “I’m Justice,” he said, “I here to help da lady.”

    “What lady?” they asked. But Justice just kept his silence. The people thought he was being enigmatic, but the problem was that he didn’t know the lady’s name, nor did he know who it was who had robbed her.

    By the next day the lady heard that Justice was in town. She didn’t go to see for herself. She didn’t want the Lord Mayor, as he styled himself, to realize she had asked for someone to come to town. Especially since she hadn’t.

    By evening, however, the Lord Mayor got word that Justice had arrived in town. Justice, said his agents, was very large and muscular, and could doubtless carry away the inn on his shoulders should he choose to do so.

    “Perhaps his presence here is just a coincidence,” said the steward.

    “But he says he’s here to help the lady,” said one of the agents.

    “It could be some other lady,” said the steward.

    The Lord Mayor just looked at the steward, but his eyes said, “You idiot!” That was what he was thinking, because there really wasn’t any other lady that Justice could be here to help.

    “If he wasn’t named Justice,” said another agent, “it might look different.”

    “Yes, but he is,” said the Lord Mayor.

    The next afternoon the Lord Mayor stopped in to see Justice. Justice seemed uninterested in the problems of ladies at the time, and just wondered if the Lord Mayor needed anything moved. The Lord Mayor concluded that Justice was very enigmatic, and was playing with him. The fact was that Justice was smart enough to realize he would need money if he was going to stay in the inn, and had already made quite a bit by moving large things for various people.

    Next the Lord Mayor went to the lady and asked her, quite belligerently, whether she had asked Justice to come to town. She told him the truth, that the people in the town had sent her Justice when she asked for justice, and now that the young man had followed her here. The Lord Mayor laughed and laughed.

    But when he got home he heard about Manny the pickpocket, and how Justice had broken his arm when he found it in someone else’s pocket. People were starting to say that justice had been done. By Justice.

    Justice had no such plan. He just didn’t like to see people robbed or hurt. He hadn’t actually intended to break the man’s arm, but Manny had struggled so hard while failing to let go of the stolen purse, and Justice being as strong as he was, he accidentally broke Manny’s arm.

    Perhaps there was more to this than he supposed, thought the Lord Mayor. So he told one of his agents to kill Justice. Maybe he was just a strong young man, but maybe not. Might as well be safe.

    The agent spent all that evening looking for a chance to slip a knife into Justice, but he never really got a chance. Every time he got close enough he was somehow blocked. He was perfectly willing to do the deed in public. The Lord Mayor (as he styled himself, of course) would protect him. But he could never quite get into position. Justice was always turning to face him at just the wrong moment.

    Now the Lord Mayor was really concerned. Could it be that this was an expert agent of the Baron, or perhaps even the Duke or the King? He needed to think of some way to do something about it, but what could he do? If the King, heaven forbid, was aware of his activities way out here in the wilderness, what else might he know?

    He tried twice more to have Justice stabbed in the back. The second guy actually managed to swing his knife at Justice’s back, and cut him, but he just threw the attacker against the wall (a couple of broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder), and went about his business.

    By this time the Lord Mayor was so worked up, he was convinced that an agent of the King was playing with him, and that it was only a matter of time until he was arrested, taken to the capital (so far away he wasn’t sure where it was), and doubtless beheaded.

    After another quite day or two (ominously quiet, thought the Lord Mayor), he decided that his only option was to flee the town before he was taken. So he loaded most of his riches on a mule, and got on his best horse, and headed out of town early in the morning. What he didn’t realize was that Justice also went out for walks in the hills early in the morning. So as the Lord Mayor left town, there was Justice standing at the edge of the road, looking out over a valley.

    Justice was just enjoying the view, but the Lord Mayor was certain that Justice was there waiting for him. He had one chance, he thought, and that was to push Justice over the endge of the cliff. The drop off wasn’t very high, but it would be high enough. He spurred his horse forward, intending to turn just as he hit Justice, and thus be rid of his problem.

    But hearing a horse behind him, Justice stepped aside. The horse managed to stop right at the edge, but the Lord Mayor flew out into the air and with a scream fell to his death below.

    Justice verified that the Lord Mayor was dead, then took his body, his horse, and the mule containing most of his riches back into town. The townspeople gathered around, and called the lady. She took the horse and the mule, and its load, and claimed the Lord Mayor’s house. It had all been stolen from her in the first place.

    She made sure to reward Justice as well. “When they sent you to me, I thought they were playing a joke. But now I see they were right. You are justice.”

    Yes, I am Justice,” said Justice. But he looked puzzled. He still had no idea what the lady wanted him to do.

    (This story was written for and has been submitted to the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival.)

     

  • Are You Sure You Don’t Want More?

    Ferod stood in shock in front of the shrine. He’d distinctly heard the words.

    “Are you sure you don’t want more?”

    He didn’t really believe in the old gods. Nobody even seemed to remember the names of whatever god or gods this shrine might be dedicated to. But he had run out of money to pay for seed grain, and if he had no seed grain there would be no planting, then, of course, no harvest, and therefore no seed grain for next year either. So he came to the shrine and asked the gods, whoever they might be, for money to buy seed grain.

    “No,” he said, inwardly cursing himself for responding to the imaginary voice. “I just want money for seed grain.”

    He said this because he didn’t believe in the gods and didn’t suppose they were going to give him even that much. So why ask for more?

    On his way home he tripped over a rock and fell into the ditch beside the path. As he was scrambling back out of the ditch he felt something smooth and hard. When he got back to the path he brushed the object off and found that it was a large silver coin, worth precisely the amount he needed to buy seed grain.

    Stupid gods, he thought, making me fall in the ditch in order to find this pitiful coin. But at least it will buy me that seed grain.

    Ferod’s farm went reasonably well for the next few years. He didn’t get rich, but he always had enough to feed his family, with seed grain left over for the next year.

    Then his wife got sick. The village shaman performed rituals over her, but she didn’t get better. He applied all the folk remedies he could remember from his mother, but she only continued to get worse.

    Then he remembered the shrine. He hadn’t been there since his prayer for the seed grain. He really didn’t believe the gods had provided the silver coin. Clearly it was just a coincidence. But it could hardly be less effective than rubbing his wife’s body with that noxious smelling green mixture he had simmering in a pot on the stove.

    So he went back to the shrine. “I would like my wife to live longer,” he said.

    “How much longer would you like her to live?” he thought he heard. What an imagination I have! he thought. Here I am holding a conversation with a pile of rocks.

    But he answered just the same. “I’d like  her to live five more years,” he said. By then the children would be old enough to work in the fields, and she would be older than many women he could name. Yes, five years would do.

    “Are you sure you don’t want more?”

    He didn’t bother to answer. He felt too foolish. And besides, he didn’t believe the gods would do anything in any case.

    But when he returned home, his wife had taken a turn for the better, and had thrown out the noxious smelling green stuff he had been cooking on the stove. So things got much better.

    Better, that is, until five years later his wife fell from a ladder, broke her neck, and died. Ferod was too grieved and angry to notice that it was five years to the day from his visit to the shrine.

    Still, the children were older, and were able to work in the fields, so life went on. It was lonelier. Much of the life went out of the farm. But they kept on living.

    Then came the great drought. Not only was Ferod’s farm dry and unproductive, but so were all the farms around. The river was nearly dry. There came a day when Ferod knew that if they didn’t get rain immediately, they were all going to starve.

    So once again Ferod went to the shrine. He didn’t really believe it would help, but he went anyhow, as had been his habit when he was desperate. The shrine was covered with vines now so that the rocks could hardly be seen.

    “I need enough rain to water the crops,” he said.

    “Are you sure you don’t want more?” he thought he heard again.

    “Why do you always ask that?” he shouted. “OK! I want more! I want lots of rain! I want it to rain and rain.”

    He said this because he didn’t believe the gods would do anything. Besides, the question made him angry because he felt foolish.

    But before he was halfway home clouds were gathering and the rains began. It rained all the rest of that day. It rained all night. Then it rained the next day. In fact, it kept raining for two weeks. The river rose ominously, but it hadn’t overflowed its banks.

    Nobody considered that it was raining in the mountains as well. But then there came a day when a rocky barrier was swept aside in the mountains and a wall of water swept through the village. It took away houses. It washed away the crops and most of the soil in which they grew. When it was done there was nothing left of Ferod’s village.

    Ferod managed to survive, clinging to a large tree on top of a hill that wasn’t quite completely submerged. When the water receded he went to find the shrine.

    There were only a few stones left scattered where the shrine had been. He raised his fists and yelled at the gods. “Why did you do this to me?” he asked.

    “We only did what you asked,” said the voice. It might have been in his head. It might have been carried on the wind. He wasn’t sure.

    The voice seemed to mock him. “Are you sure you don’t want more?”

    (This post was written for the one word at a time blog carnival, on the word “more.”)

  • On the Worship of Umnam and Umnan

    “Why were you in such a hurry to leave the last village?”

    Roban looked at his daughter. She was also his apprentice in his trading business. He drove his wagon on a circuit amongst the towns and villages that extended hundreds of miles and weeks in time, buying and selling things that were available in one place but needed in another.

    This is a work of fiction. All persons, places, and events and products of my imagination. Copyright © 2012, Henry E. Neufeld

    He had convinced himself that, if his oldest child had been a boy, he would not have had to deal with so many questions. When he mentioned this conclusion to his wife, she broke into gales of laughter. But right now, whether it was sensible or not, he wished for a practical, down to earth, boy child. Yet he knew that nothing short of a real answer would satisfy his daughter.

    “Because,” he said after a pause, “tonight is the heathen festival of their evil god Umnan.”

    “Why do you call Umnan evil?”

    “Because he is an evil god.” Roban tried to sound final, but he knew it wasn’t going to work.

    “But Umnan sounds just like our god Umnam. There are lots of words that end in ‘n’ in these southern villages that end in ‘m’ back home.”

    This made Roban think. Of course he’d noticed this before. It was essential in adjusting his speaking so he didn’t sound so foreign. Sounding foreign was bad for sales. He paused again, this time for a couple of minutes. He covered the pause by pretending to look over the oxen and the load, making sure all was well.

    “It may sound like that,” he said finally, “but it isn’t really. Umnam is kind, just, and loving. He preserves us and defends us from the hostile spirits of nature. We sacrifice to him out of our love and thankfulness. Umnan is evil and nasty, and is out to get everyone in sight. He uses the hostile spirits of nature, the wind, storms, fire, and water. If his worshipers don’t sacrifice to him regularly, he will strike out and kill them.”

    He hoped this would divert her, even though he hadn’t answered the question of why he was so determined to leave their village before the feast.

    Temporarily, it seemed to work.

    “Why?” she asked. This was normally his least favorite question. Right now, however, it offered a long diversion.

    “Do you remember the story of the great flood?”

    “Of course I do, daddy!” And that was very true. She tended not to forget things—anything, in fact—and she loved the ancient stories.

    “Well, give me the outline.”

    “Men were evil, so the gods sent a flood to destroy them. But Umnam saw that some of his people were obedient, and sent them warning by the prophet Urvam. They fled to their boats and rode out the flood. Many perished, but Umnam preserved the faithful and brought them to land again. When they reached land, they still had to face falling branches and unstable rock piles. But the sun came out again and a rainbow appeared, which was the sign that Umnam loved them and would preserve them forever.”

    It was an admirable summary. Roban had hoped his daughter would tell the story in more detail, thus taking up more time and giving her an opportunity to forget her original question.

    “Quite correct,” he said. “But the story of the great flood told in the south is quite different. Their story says that Umnan was angry with his people, and chose to destroy them with storm and flood. But a great hero, Urvan, learned that the flood was coming, and rode downstream on his horse ahead of the waters, warning his people to flee to their boats. Many were lost in the flood, but the survivors made it to shore. At the last moment the chief’s child was struck on the head by a falling branch, loosened by the wind. Thus the people learned that Umnan demands his price.”

    He paused again. “You see how they pervert the truth with their demonic story?”

    Several minutes of silence ensued. Roban found he approved, but at the same time it made him nervous, almost like the moments while one waited for a wild beast to strike. Of course, this was his daughter!

    “But if you look at it differently,” his daughter said finally, “it could be the same story.”

    “No, it couldn’t!” Roban came back instantly. “The two stories are not alike at all!”

    And then it came. “I see,” said his daughter, deceptively calm. “But you still haven’t told me why you wanted to be out of the village before the feast.”

    “Well, I’ll tell you. I didn’t want to, but I will. Every year at the feast, one child is chosen as a sacrifice to Umnan. That is evil! If you were in town, I guarantee they would choose you!”

    The daughter truly did believe that was evil, but she still thought the stories were much too much the same.

    I wonder whether Umnan actually wants a child sacrificed to him, she thought. Maybe a branch just fell, and that’s the way people interpreted it. But she was actually more cautious than her father gave her credit for, and she didn’t say it out loud.

    (This is an exercise in taking a different point of view on a story. You should recognize similarities and dissimilarities with the biblical story of the flood, focusing on the lectionary passage Genesis 9:8-17. I’ll be discussing this in The Way Sunday School Class at First United Methodist Church, Pensacola, February 26, 2012. We ask members to bring various responses, art, poetry, stories, other thoughts.)

     

  • We Should Have Learned to …

    “We’re not going to bother with any of that marching crap,” said Jeffords to his troops. They were his because he was the only one in town with experience in combat, little as that was.

    The villagers were lined up, sort of, in front of him. The idea was that he would prepare them to fight in the great war should their baron call for them. He had hated all the details of military life, the drill, the order, uniforms, and theory. What was important was for people to learn to fight.

    This is a work of fiction. All persons, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination.
    Copyright © 2012
    Henry E. Neufeld

    His troops had spears and crossbows. The crossbows weren’t very good, but they were the preferred hunting weapons in the area. Jeffords suspected any real hunters had hidden those crossbows they actually used to hunt, and these were the remnants.

    So Jeffords set about teaching the villagers to use those crossbows. Marksmanship was the order of the day, with a little bit of work with the spears (just in case the enemy got that close) on the side.

    Then word came that enemy troops were approaching their own town. The baron had called for them. It was time to go to war.

    “There’s no point trying to learn to use crossbows effectively,” said Karl. Karl, much like Jeffords, was the only person with military experience in his town. He was convinced that the peasants could not learn to fight properly, and the only possible way they could be used in battle was if you made them into a coherent unit.

    “What we need to learn to do,” he told them, “is to learn to point those spears forward together, hold our shields locked together, and march forward together until those spears are sticking inside our enemies.” He did his best imitation of his drill instructor’s voice.

    So Karl’s troops drilled constantly until they could make a solid wall of their shields and a nice hedge of their spears.

    Then the word came that they must go to war for their baron.

    It so happened that Jeffords’ groops and Karl’s troops faced one another when the day of battle came. Karl couldn’t quite suppress his worry as he saw all those troops carrying crossbows. If they were accurate enough for long enough, things could be very tough for his people.

    Across the field, Jeffords had his own worries. If those troops across the field could hold that nice wall of shields and move forward with all those spears pointed straight forward, things could get pretty tough for his men. He was remembering how rarely his folks hit their targets, and it looked like this might start at longer range than they’d trained for.

    Then the orderly line of troops started to march forward with their shields in a wall. On the other side crossbows began to fire. It was ragged—they’d never really learned to fire in a volley. Most of the bolts ended up in that wall of shields, though an occasional yell indicated a hit.

    Jeffords realized the only possibility was for his troops to get behind. He began to yell the order. Unfortunately, nobody had practiced this particular maneuver. In fact, they had barely practiced any maneuvers.

    So some chose to run around the right flank, others tried for the left flank, some thought it must be a retreat and started to run away, and there were a few who seemed to thing they should run forward with their spears.

    Unfortunately (this time for the other side), some of Jeffords’ troops did make it around and it turned out that they did know a bit more about fighting than Karl’s troops did.

    When the battle came to a close, or more accurately wound down due to the dwindling number of participants, there were quite a large number of bodies on the ground. Some of them were pretending, but who could tell?

    Jeffords pulled himself up off the ground. His leg was cut wide open and he knew he wasn’t going to be walking soon. He looked at the mess.

    “Maybe we should have learned how to march,” he muttered.

    Across the field Karl looked around. He was in better shape than Jeffords, but he didn’t have much fight left in him.

    “Maybe we should have learned how to fight,” he said.

    (This story was written for and submitted to the one word at a time blog carnival: Marching.)

  • Of Gold and Good Advice

    The old man sat in his simple room looking at the bag of gold. “Use it however you want,” the rich young fellow had said. “I feel I need to give it to someone, and I have no idea who. I think you may know.”

    The old man was renowned for his wisdom and his kindness. He had never sought attention or fame. He lived simply. He gave away whatever he didn’t need, and he needed very little.

    This is a work of fiction. All persons, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination.
    Copyright © 2012
    Henry E. Neufeld

    And here was a bag of gold, enough to buy the entire town. At least.

    He thought of a plan. He divided up the money, and then he set out to find three young men.

     

    “I believe you’re about to go and seek your fortune,” said the wise, old man to the first young man. “I want to make you an offer.”

    “What? Make it snappy!” said the young man.

    “I have here a bag of gold. It’s quite a considerable amount of money. I will give you a choice. Either I’ll give you this bag of gold, or I will give you a wise saying that will help you as you seek your fortune.”

    “Give me the gold, if you have any,” said the first young man.

    So the wise, old man handed the young man a small bag of gold. The young man was delighted with his good fortune. He went on his way, richer than he had ever imagined he would be.

    “I will offer you a choice,” said the wise man to the second young man. “A wise saying to help you live a full life, or this bag of gold.”

    “How much gold is there?” asked the second young man. “Can I get a sample of your wise advice?”

    “This bag is filled with gold coins,” said the wise, old man. “And no, you must choose between the gold and the saying. I didn’t say it would be advice.”

    The second young man was a thoughtful sort, and he had heard of the famous wise man. “I can always earn money,” he said, “I’ll take the wise saying.”

    “You have within you a gift that can connect you with the universe,” said the wise, old man.

    “Is that all?” asked the young man. “I should have taken the gold. It wasn’t a fair test.”

    “What has fairness to do with it?” asked the wise, old man. “It’s my gold. I can give it or not as I choose. Here! I’ll give you the gold as well.”

    The young man went on his way, still fuming. He had the saying and he had the gold, but somehow he felt cheated.

    “I will give you a choice,” said the wise, old man to the third young man. “You may either have this bag of gold, or you may have a wise saying that will help you live a full life.”

    “I’ll take the wise saying,” said the third young man.

    “You don’t care how much gold I’m offering you?” asked the wise, old man.

    “Not really,” said the third young man. “I’m not asking for it.”

    “Very well, then. Here is the saying: ‘You have within you a gift that can connect you with the universe.’”

    The third young man looked thoughtful. “Thank you,” he said. Then he started on his way.

    “Here,” said the wise, old man. “I have no use for this. Take the gold as well.”

     

    Some years passed, and the wise, old man heard news of the young men he had encountered.

    The first young man went to the nearest city. He lived well on the gold. In fact, he could have lived for many years. But within the first year he invested the gold in a trading caravan that promised enormous profit.

    The caravan was lost and never heard from again. The young man ended up penniless and eventually took his own life.

    The second young man was very much disturbed by the saying given him by the wise, old man. He thought and thought about it, but he couldn’t see any value in it. Wise sayings should be easy to understand and put into practice! He thought the test had been unfair, and even though he was rich beyond his wildest dreams, he was angry, resentful, and very difficult to get along with.

    His belief that the world was essentially unfair, setting traps for unsuspecting young men and treating them unjustly led him into conflict with others. He eventually killed someone in a drunken rage, a person who had treated him unfairly, and he ended up in the king’s dungeon.

    The third young man was delighted that he had a gift within him. He wasn’t quite sure what it meant to connect with the universe, but he set out to discover what that gift might be. Each time he discovered something that appeared to be a gift he set to work on it to see whether it would help him connect with the universe. He wanted to discover what that would be like.

    Over the years he found that he had many gifts, and as he put his best effort into developing every gift he discovered, he found he could do many things. He spent the gold very carefully, living on what he earned, and using it mostly to help him in his quest as well as to help others.

    He became quite popular and well liked. He didn’t try to be popular, but there were so many people he had helped or taught, or even just served well when he worked.

    Many years later he was sitting in a bar listening to the talk of the men and women from the caravan route. They told the story of a wise man who had a talent for helping people with his knowledge and his money. He recognized the story. It was his. But the speaker attributed it to someone in a town he had never heard of in a country he couldn’t have placed on a map.

    “… connect you with the universe.” He suddenly realized just how connected he had become.

    He chose to bring his story to the wise, old man himself.

    “What do you think of the results of your experiment?” he asked.

     

    Now you, reader, what do you think?

    The LORD’s judgments are true.
    All of these are righteous!
    10 They are more desirable than gold—
    than tons of pure gold!— (Psalm 19:9b-10a, CEB)