Ranger Rising

Part 3.1 Errands and Ledgers

"Lena," Father said. "I have a task for you this afternoon."

I looked up from the plate that I kept pushing food around on. Father held a stack of papers and was binding them up with a strand of leather. He sat them down on the table next to my wrist. 'Rivers property estimated annum income' it read across the top in Father's neat, orderly handwriting. The ledgers and numbers he'd been working on the night before. It looked like he'd estimated three thousand gold pieces for this upcoming harvest.

Three thousand gold pieces!

I choked on the bread I was eating. Father shot me a dark look through my coughing and sputtering.

"That's more than double last harvest's profit!" I said between gasping for air and trying to dislodge the crumbs in the back of my throat.

"I'm aware of that Lena. It's part of why I need you to keep your head out of the clouds and focus on your reality."

"I..." I started to protest but Father cut me off before I had a chance to say anything else.

"We are not having this conversation again. After you've finished your meal, you need to take this to the magister's building."

I didn't answer because I was still staring in disbelief at the numbers on the page. We hadn't tried to earn that much from our land in years. Mentally, I tried to calculate the sums and differences in my head to see if three thousand gold pieces in a harvest was even possible for us. However, without sitting down and actually going through ledgers and expenses, there was no accurate way to actually determine that. Not that I had the patience to actually sit down and do so. Nor did Father have the patience to let me.

Something screamed inside my head though that it had to be impossible for us to make that kind of money on a harvest.

"Are you listening Lena?" Father asked. Suddenly it came to my attention that Father hadn't actually stopped talking. But I had most definitely stopped listening after I became engrossed in the grand possibility of turning three thousand gold.

"Sorry," I muttered.

Father sighed and shook his head.

"When you go to town, go straight to the magister's and then straight back. I don't want you dawdling in town."

I bit my lip to keep from saying anything out of turn. He never wanted me dawdling in town as he put it. Something must have been evident on my face because Father frowned and pursed his lips.

"I know that you want to spend time and enjoy yourself daughter. You don't think that I don't remember what it was like to be your age?"

He pulled a chair out beside me and sat down, even going so far as to place a hand on my knee gently. "Perhaps your flightiness is my fault. I haven't given you enough time to spend as you wish. Once the harvest passes this year, maybe there will be time for you to attend the barn dances and Holy Day socials. Perhaps that's the reason you've not yet found yourself a husband."

Father patted my knee before rising. The bread I'd nearly choked on started to creep back up my throat with bile and acid. Is this where we were back to? Me finding a husband, settling down, having children, and taking over the farm?

I looked up to see Father putting his wide brimmed hat back on. "When you come back from town, start weeding the Southern field by the barn. I don't think we'll finish it before nightfall but it should at least get started. Weeds are growing quickly this spring it would seem."

Father set his hand on my head and held it there for a moment like he had when I was a small child. "Oh!" he said suddenly, not taking his hand away, "One more thing. If you happen to run into Clive Terrin or the Mayor, you need to apologize for making a fool of yourself at that inner circle party last night."