[Solo] Both sides of a wall

[Dove Brown]

45 Summer 515, morning

Dove looked from the pile of tumbled stone to the old man - Den, he called himself - she was working under.

"That's supposed to be a wall," he grumbled, pointing at the pile. "It was a wall, until some rider with more height than sense jumped it badly and knocked it part down. Then the sheep got over it into the crops and that did for the rest of it. It's got to be rebuilt, and sooner rather than later."

Dove looked at the trampled but recovering grain, nodded, and prodded the nearest slab with a booted toe. "I've never built a wall," she admitted. "But I can see the sheep need to be kept out. Where do we start?"

The man snorted. "You start by sorting those rocks by size so we can reuse them. I start by getting a good look at what's left."

Dove nodded again and bent to haul the stones apart. She set the biggest pieces at one end of thegap and started tossing small pieces towards the other end. The tossed stones landed in an uneven scatter rather than hitting the spot she was aiming for. Her braid fell over her shoulder and she flipped it back absently. It served to keep her hair together and out of her eyes, and that was all she really wanted from it. She'd seen some other girls preening around with loose hair, but from the clothes they wore, they didn't have to work. Or if they did, she thought, bending to haul another slab of stone away, it wasn't out here in the hot sun. It would be indoors, someplace cool and friendly with probably more pay than she ever saw. She earned enough though, and despite the sun baking her, she liked being in the open. She stretched her already aching shoulders, then bent again, wincing as the rough edges of the stones scraped her hands. The pile didn't seem to be getting any smaller, although she could see that she'd made other piles with various sized stones. All the stones seemed to be a whitish grey, and the same sort, though she didn't know what it was called. Her cottage was built of similar stones and she guessed it was a local stone.

"Where does it come from?" she asked shyly. Her curiousity always seemed to get the better of her.

"You ever stone-picked?" the old man responded with a chuckle. "The stones have to go somewhere, so they get turned into walls. Keeps them tidy."

Dove couldn't remember a time before she knew how to stone-pick in the fields. She'd been maybe three the first time, following her father, and learning that you threw the stones all the way to the edge, or you put them in a pail and carried them. If you threw and fell short, then you had to pick them a second time. Farmers couldn't afford to have the stones left on the surface, because if the plough hit one wrong, it either damaged the plough, or it flew out with the soil and hit the plough-oxen, or the farmer. If it hit the oxen, you had to stop and check them over. If it hit the farmer, she was likely to be bruised at best, or too hurt to continue at worst.

[Dove Brown]

She was glad to hear that all the stones she'd picked from the field actually had a use. At the time it had seemed an endless, hopeless task, because no matter how many you picked from the field one year, by the next year the field had to be picked all over again. It was as if stones grew like plants. For now, she focused on sorting them, hauling the large stones to one pile, the middling ones to a second, and tossing the little ones into their own pile. When she tossed one, she tried to throw it accurately. A hard flung stone could stun a rabbit or a bird long enough for her to close the distance and finish it off - if she was accurate enough. She wasn't always, and though she was learning the sling, she was still at the stage where a sling bullet might go in completely the wrong direction.

As she moved up and down the field edge, she also took care not to trample any more of the grain. There wasn't much else she could do for it at this stage, except make sure that the sheep didn't come back to do more damage. The pile of stones was now visibly three smaller ones and she straightened, pressing her hands into the aching small of her back and stretching to try and loosen the protesting muscles.

The old man hammered a stake into the ground where the wall was its full four foot height, then walked along the gap and hammered in a second one where the wall rose back to full height. "Stiff already?" he asked her, and she could hear the amusement in his voice. "You do the other side. Then we can mark the edges with string."

Dove took the stakes and the hammer he thrust at her and clambered over the rock piles to reach the wall. Some of the rocks slid under her feet, trying to drift across the gap between piles. She jabbed the stake into the ground by the wall and brought the hammer down crossly. The stake sank a bit deeper into the ground. The hammer skidded sideways and banged her thumb. She growled something rude under her breath, moved her hand and hammered some more, until the stake was firmly sunk in. Then she skidded and stumbled across the rocks to the other end and did it again, this time without involving her thumb.

The old man stepped over the remains of the wall, tossed her a ball of string and told her to tie it onto her stake and toss it back to him. Dove unwound a two handspan length of string, then folded it double, wrapped the folded end around the longer piece and stuffed the end through the resulting circle, just as she did when she was tying up hanks of wool or thread. She dropped the loop that resulted over the stake and pulled the knot as tight against it as she could. It wasn't ight enogh to stop the loop sliding down the stake. She grimaced and tossed the string back. It didn't go quite straight, but the old man's hand flashed out sideways and caught it anyway. He wrapped the string twice round his stake at about ankle height, pulling the string taut from her stake to his, then did a loop and thread similar to the thumb knot you put in the end of a thread. He made two of those thumb knots, then cut the string off. "Other side now," he said with a jerk of his thumb. He hopped easily over the string and the wall remains. Dove followed, but her foot caught in the string and she nearly fell.

[Dove Brown]

Den laughed gruffly, waited until she was steady again, and tossed her the string. Dove tried to copy the knot he'd used, and managed an approximation of it at the third attempt. She tossed the string back, getting it to go straight this time, and waited while he moved this one down to ankle height too.

"String's so we can match the rest of the wall," he told her, with a curt gesture that set Dove scrambling back over to the piles of stone. "Find some stones that match the width."

Dove looked from the two string lines to the stones and back, trying to hold the size needed in her head. One by one, she touched a series of stones that matched, or nearly matched, the width the wall needed to be.

"Good," the old man said. "Put those aside for halfway up. The base is still mostly here, just needs to be higher." He gave her a long look. "And no rushing things. The stones have to fit tightly so nothing wobbles. Otherwise it'll fall down again at the first chance."

Dove dropped her eyes to the stones, sighed as quietly as she could, and started on a fourth pile, for stones that matched the width. She'd learned from her father not to protest at extra work. It only led to even more being piled on you. Beside her, Den began to pick stones off the piles and set them on the wall. He worked along a layer from one end to the other, then back, fitting the angles and sides of the different stones together so that they nestled close. If she had known more games, she might have called what he was doing a jigsaw puzzle cut at random and with no picture, but as it was, he seemed to be working to a pattern she couldn't see or understand. They worked in companionable near silence for a couple of bells and a layer and a half. He pointed out stones that he wanted, and Dove hauled them over with aching arms and back. Sometimes he went over to the pile of the small stones and stirred them with his foot until he found one that fitted his needs and his pattern. Dove watched as the wall grew slowly. Clearly this rebuilding was going to take a while, maybe even days. She bit her lip to hold back the groan welling inside and shook herself. There were worse tasks. At least this one was outside and didn't involve hauling piles of stinking manure around.

[Dove Brown]

Den squinted up at the sun high overhead. "You're working hard, lass. Ready for a break?"

Dove straightened slowly, and shook out her arms. "Finish this layer first?" she suggested. "We're almost done."

"Deal. Pass me that slab. No, not that one. The one to the left of it." The old man pointed, correcting Dove until she hauled the one he wanted over to him. He took it and eased it into place over the edges of two other stones in the layer below.

The stones didn't line up neatly, and Dove's fingers itched to straighten them. She jammed her hands into her trouser pockets instead, stroking the worn-thin cloth that promised to become a hole soon. The familiar feel was soothing. She knew she should try and mend it before she lost anything, but it was hard to find the time, and patches meant buying more cloth, and buying cloth meant finding the money. She mended the obvious holes and tears first - there was a torn shirt waiting for her at home - because you looked more respectable without holes and tears. There were appearences to keep up, and food to buy before cloth. Food meant you had the strength to work harder and earn the money you needed. She could, and did, supplement her bought food with whatever she could find or hunt. "They don't line up," she blurted, before she could bite the words back. "The stones, I mean."

"They aren't supposed to," the old man told her with a bark of laughter. "If all the cracks and edges lined up, the walls would be weak as anything. They'd hardly last season. See, by having them across the crack below, it helps hold that layer together. And that layer repays that by supporting the layer above. They all look different, but they work together to make something solid. Like people make a town."

Dove thought about that and conceded the point with a grudging nod. She took her hands out of her pockets and lifted the next stone, as hunger pinched gently at her belly to remind her that it was nearly time to eat.

[Dove Brown]

The old man set a small triangular stone into a gap between two larger ones, tried to wriggle them about and grunted in satisfaction when they didn't move much. "That's that layer done. Time to eat." He picked up his bag and moved along the shadier side of the wall to a point where it stood to its full not quite four foot height. The sun was very high, which meant that there wasn't much shade to be had, but he settled himself on the ground in what there was and leaned back againt the wall. "Coming?"

Dove hesitated a moment, reaching out to push against the stones herself. She tried it with and without the small stone. Without it, the larger stones almost swivelled in place, so she put it back. Then she picked up her own bag and walked across. She slid down into a thin patch of shade. It did next to nothing to cut the heat of the sun though. She felt the stone as rough and warm against her back, as she leaned into it. It slanted slightly away from her, wider at the base than at the top, and she tilted her head back and looked out over the field they were protecting. The grain flowed away from them, green tinted here and there with gold as it began to ripen. A breeze ruffled Dove's hair and sped away, sending ripples out across the grain like water after a pebble is tossed into a pond.

Late last night, after things had cooled enough to make cooking bearable, Dove had cut slices from a day-old loaf of bread she'd picked up in the market. It wasn't as good as fresh bread, but it was cheaper, and just as filling. She cracked her last two eggs into her bowl, added a pinch of salt to bring out the flavour, and beat them together. She chopped green wild onion small, if unevenly, until she judged that they looked like chives and stirred them into the egg. She added a little oil to the pan, then set it over the fire to heat. As it warmed through, she dunked the bread into the egg mixture and added the slices to the pan. As the egg-soaked bread cooked on one side, she'd flipped it over to cook the other side. Once done, she slid it out and laid it on a clean plate to cool. By morning it was cold and portable.

Now, she took out the eggy bread, and some greens to go with it - more wild onion, ransoms, and young dandelion leaves. The greens had wilted in the heat as she worked on the wall, but she was to hungry to care. The old man, from what she could see, had something long and wrapped in pastry.

She chomped her way steadily through her food. He chewed through his. They shared a skin of lukewarm water to wash the food down. Den stretched gnarled arms above his head and whistled an old harvest tune. Dove half-recognised it and found herself humming along.

"Syna's getting the fields ready to hand over to Bala. And Bala's doing us proud this year," the old man said at last, hauling himself to his feet. "But it's up to us to look after it. Sitting here won't get the repairs done."

Dove stretched, her mouth twisting in discomfort as she found she'd stiffened as she sat. She looked the wall over, then bent to pick up a likely looking stone. "This one to start with?"

[Devi]

Your Grades have arrived! Dove Skills: Organization: 2 Construction: 4 Endurance: 2 Body-Building: 2 Observation: 1 Lores: Construction: Repairing a Wall Construction: Positioning of stones to support higher levels of a wall Comments: Dove certainly seems like a hard-grafter. She's going to work up some muscle doing threads like these! You requested some skill-points in farming - I haven't awarded any in this thread as although the act of repairing the wall will be beneficial to the farm she's working on and will increase her skill in construction it's not really increasing her skill in farming itself. If you have any questions about this then do let me know! Let me know if you have any questions or feedback. Don't forget to edit your post in the Grade Request Thread to say it's graded and leave a link in there for the Storytellers. Happy Writing!