Chương 38: 4.7

The Wheat Harvest Festival had begun. The smell of baking bread, cakes and honey cookies filled the air all around the immediate manor since before dawn broke. The Manor staff had been hard at work baking fine sweet treats into the morning. Honey glazed rolls and even a few berry stuffed foldover bread snacks. There were even little hand-sized rounds of black grain wheat cakes being made in the temple, adding their own distinctive scent to the air.

But then all of that was set to cool and their last obligation was Jewel's family and the household breakfast. The morning meal was the usual plain porridge, only notable because it was the last thing eaten until this evening. And then everyone was given time to do as they wished for the day. The Temple held a congregation at noon to get out of the still baking sun and enjoy some cool shade while hearing about the pacts offered by the gods.

Further enticing those wandering with watered down wines and small beer chilled in their cellars. Her Family had attended and thankfully Mother had not drank too much for once. After this unofficial but required duty was attended the temple staff handed out that morning's black grain cakes to each of the attendants to eat in sacrament before the dance at sundown and that was the end of anything anyone was obligated to do. It was a respite and a gift for all the peasantry after all.

Except for preparations of the nightly festivities, no work or obligation was required of the peasants or manor staff. The footmen had almost the entirety of the daylight hours free to wander and handle their own affairs, with only four of them at a time required to cover watch duties. Jewel however was abuzz with anticipation all day long.

More so than the slowly growing pit of her empty stomach she could feel the tingling hunger to move, to swing her body around and find the rhythm of the world and share it with all around her. To finally dance with not just a few footmen or her family, but with all the village and staff of her home. In other villages across the barony she knew similar preparations were being made. But unlike with the Boar Festival there would be no traveling to meet with Father's own fair.

Instead every harvest was a local gathering for each hamlet and town. Instead of the near nine-hundred that had poured into the courtyard during that festival, it was only going to be the hundred and twenty some peasant men and staff who lived in the manor, plus the remaining hundred and seven women and children. Jewel flexed and twitched from her spot among the gardens along the fortress walls. She liked the stones here, they were the old stonework from before the Tyrant War.

With some of them being fresher cut replacements mingled into their neighbors afterward. She was free to do and be wherever she wished for the day. But all she wanted was for the festival to get properly started! It was practically a buzzing itch up and down her coils and through every limb and scale. She could no longer stand to sit still so she began to stride along the walls, weaving between the garden beds laden with herbs and vegetables that were yet to meet their harvest time.

Skipping along the old smooth worn grooves in the rock. Brushing each of the familiar friends with a flaw or the pad of her feet. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Jewel made her way along the walls of the manor and did a slightly longer hop to skip one bit. That one section of wall in particular was a whole third the age of the rest. And twice as long as Jewel herself.

She had looked and asked but no one knew why or how such a large span of the wall had required complete replacement. It was presumed to have happened during the Tyrant War but no battle seemed to quite match the documented ballads or histories. It was just a mysterious healed over wound in her home's flesh. Unknown and forgotten by all except her. The stones and mortar. She bounded over it on one of her circuits of the walls.

Then realizing how she was snubbing stones that had done nothing wrong made a point of striding smoothly and intentionally across it on her second pass. By her fourth circuit the evening sun was finally turning golden orange and red. She was already practically thrumming with the anticipation and a sense of music even though not a sound had been made. The villagers were gathering, lighting candles or bringing torches.

Gathering in little rivers of light across the manor as they began their slow amiable walk to the manor house and into the courtyard where wood had been piled high for the dance-pyre. Stacked with a delicate blend of favored woods and woven with the sweet sharp branches of pines and other shrubs. Some of the logs had been painted in fine smelling saps or oils prepared at the start of the hungry season. It was coming soon! The dance would be announced by Father at the final setting of the sun.

Already the torches were being laid in their place at the soon to be pyre and people were drifting into rings around it in the courtyard. The smell of the many cooked breads and local treats. Freshly finished either that morning or in the late afternoon was filling the courtyard and wetting the appetites of everyone present. Jewel amongst them.

Finally the fire caught, the scent of the oiled and carefully cured woods and the bound cores of sweet smelling herb bundles filling the sky with smoke and the air of the courtyard with sweet heady scents that ripened the day's hunger even sharper. At last, it was time. Jewel made her way down from the wall, nodding to her and Father's subjects. Listening to their heartfelt well wishes and appreciation for those goods she had done for them over winter.

The appreciations for her father's generosity that had seen them full bellied through the normally straining hungry summer. She took up her place with her family, coiled loosely upon the good solid ground behind Father and Mother. Alexander stood back from their parents on Father's right. Positioned just where so if she tilted her head exactly right she could ruffle his hair with a well placed puff or snort. The speech was the same as it always was.

A ratifying of the vow and obligation of Father's position and Lord, Baron and Guardian of his subjects from the specter of hunger. That he had shared for this fasting day with them. And so much more that just droned and itched under Jewel's scales. Tsulogothulan stood in their pond a bit away from the outermost circle of the gathered villagers. At last Father raised his sacramental cake. And from among their clothing the gathered villagers and staff all reached up with their own.

Not all had a whole cake to themselves but the less fortunate families broke theirs into pieces and shared with those children old enough to not wolf down the snack immediately. Mother herself offered Alexander and Jewel a whole cake themselves of course. The black grain from last year in Father's store was plenty for all the household to have a full portion. When all who would partake had presented their sacrament before the fire Father tore into the small dense bread with a vigorous bite.

A hearty chew and a solid and audible swallow. And then as one everyone old enough to participate followed. Jewel herself swallowed hers whole and with hardly a chew. And then with a woop from among those before the fire, the time had come. Jewel was going to dance.