The False Princess

The False Princess Chapter 3

She would have to marry Pallit.

That was all Demetria could think as she rose the next morning. The cottage was freezing, but she pulled on her rough boots and stamped into the yard to see that the chickens were fed and their water was clean.

By the time she returned, her father and Eleina were up and the first rays of the sun were visible on the clouds in the east. By the expression on her father's face, Demetria guessed he had come to the same conclusion as she had. There was a grimness that hadn't been there the night before.

"I'll start on the barley as soon as it is light," she said as she finished the last of her eggs. "With luck, I'll get through a fair bit of the field before noon. The afternoon I'll bind what I've cut."

"I'll get the peas and onions planted," her father said, "and then see to an errand. Eleina will help me with the planting, then she'll come watch you in the field. I made sure the scythe was sharp yesterday, so you can get started straight away."

Demetria nodded as she stepped up toward the door and took the scythe from its place.

They had plowed the field with Garreth's mule in the spring, and the rich soil had yielded a thick ocean of barley that now waved gently in the dim light of dawn. With fingers already numbing from the morning chill, Demetria set to work, beginning at the southern corner. She moved slowly uphill, swinging the scythe in long, smooth pulls that saw the barley fall almost without resistance.

Her father had sharpened the scythe to a razor edge. His hip kept him from doing much of the work on the farm, but anything that did not require him to stand, he did and did well. Demetria knew he had pushed himself hard over the years to care for them, but all it filled her with was guilt.

She did not want to marry Pallit; she did not want to consign herself to a miserable life to take care of her father, but what right did she have to that? Her father hadn't asked to be lamed, any more than he had asked for a daughter that didn't speak, or to lose his wife. And yet without a complaint he worked from before dawn till after dark.

He had worked hard to take every opportunity to help them, and she had no right to demand anything different.

She swung the scythe so savagely that the blade twisted and she shanked the back half of the swing, sending a handful of ripe heads falling to the ground.

Pausing, she knelt to pick them up and dropped them in her pocket. They could not stand in the sheaves, but she could dry them, and a few more handfuls would provide seed for the next year, if they were careful.

The work warmed her, and by the time the sun had risen over the treetops, she was warm and loose, drifting into the rhythm of the scythe.

Near midmorning, she paused to catch her breath and saw Eleina taking her seat on the edge of the field, her twig doll in her hand. Demetria smiled at her and waved, and though Eleina looked right at her, she didn't respond.

With a sigh, Demetria set back to work. It felt good, swinging the heavy scythe, pulling it through the stalks of barley and watching them fall. Her arms were used to the work, and her back had grown strong from hauling wood and working the farm since she was a child. Even if she married Pallit, she would work here, or in a similar field. Did it really matter who her husband was? This was her life, and she was well suited to it.

The sun hung overhead when she stopped at last. She lowered the scythe and looked behind her. Less than a tenth of the field was cut, and she cursed herself for going so slow. The fallen barley lay heavy on the ground, waiting to be bound into sheaves and left standing to dry, and she would need to bind it all before nightfall, or risk the dew fouling it.