1629, Sea Season
Context
Lenta picked up a free use of Bless Pregnancy from the rebirth of Mellia’s Wyter, and wants to use it as well as she can. Session SA4.16.
Events
Day after the hospital is sanctified and the Moth Wyter has been welcomed to it’s new abode Lenta comes to see Yehna when she has relit the fire of her hearth, before Haran and others have woken up.
“Good Yelmrise, sister” the Esrolian greets the hostess.
Yehna’s stone house is an oddity in a village build mostly of wattle and daub or cob. She fills it with bustle on most days, but before dawn is a good time to be quiet. Yehna takes Lenta’s hands to pull her gently over to a stool. “Come be warm. Have you had breakfast?”
“Not yet. I just slipped out when I heard the birds singing.” Lenta looks around at the familiar objects and sleeping forms of Yehna’s family in their alcove1In fact, Yehna’s dwarf-built house is bigger than that, but her cousins might well be in the front room..
Yehna has more than one room in her house, nowadays. Luxury, in such a place. “I have porridge,” she says. “Do you want it with an egg mixed in, or something more Esrolian?”
“Just the porridge for now, please. Eggs are not meat, I guess, but for this week I’ll keep to cereals and vegetables only.” She tilt her head towards the general direction of Mellia’s hospital.
“Oh, they have eggs and milk all the time,” Yehna says wisely, but she fetches two bowls and nudges a pot out of the ashes of the fire. “But I know what you mean. Sometimes, you want to do a little bit extra.”
Lenta shrugs and gestures with her hands. Yehna is right and it is what it is.
Gratefully she accepts the bowl and wraps her fingers around it.
“It’s salted,” Yehna warns. “We’re still in the middle of Sea Season, so Mehrim will be working hard today.” She smiles through the open doorway to the little room beyond.
“Plowing? sowing?” Lenta looks outside “I did not really look at your fields on the way in as I should have… I guess I am a bad Ernaldan in foreign land.”
“There’s a spring harvest and a spring sowing,” Yehna says, without elaborating. “Nothing that needs him to get up before dawn, today at least.” She gives the satisfied smile of a young woman with a tired husband. “Mother is asking when she’ll have a grandson who is his as well as mine.” With Heri dead, that must be her mother-in-law.
Lenta smiles. “Well what a coincidence… I was going to ask you if you would have heard gossip of young women in the village who have been blessed by Ernalda and are expecting a child.”
Yehna chuckles. “Touch and go with us,” she says. “If I am it’s too early to tell, but I think I am. That’s not gossip, though. That’s good proper talk. There are probably… oh, a dozen who might be?”
“Congratulations. ” Lenta nods and smiles mischievously “And if that is premature, I suppose he can suffer the labour of trying a bit more for your sake…But a dozen… That is quite a lot. I suppose Merenelda would be the one who knows the best…”
Yehna nods, eating rapidly as the sound of murmuring from the room beyond indicates at least one child is about to need feeding.
With her spoon she points to herself, and then the door, looking the question – should she go and fetch someone?
Lenta nods at Yehna.
“Can you jolly the children along if they wake up?” Yehna has finished her food with commendable speed, and leaves her bowl where it is.
“Mamaaaaa?” comes Haran’s voice. Yehna winks, but speeds up.
“I can go look after her myself it is easier, sister” Lenta say in a low voice and smiles. “But I can talk with Haran and Berra too if you want to make a getaway.”
“Haran, I’ll be one moment.” Yehna pauses after all, to put a cloak on. “Can you see if you can guard your bed? There might be a monster out here.”
“A huge, nose stealing monster…” Lenta growls menacingly.
“Aaaaarh!” Haran squeals, and then comes in with windmill arms. “NOSE NOSE NOSE!”
Haran get hugged. “Now you big boy go that other room and fetch Haran for aunt Lenta.”
“SHE STEAL HIS NOSE!”
Haran dutifully wakes everyone up. There are the sounds of stirring from small children, cousins, husbands, and a small housecat, who pelts out of the back room and tears around.
“Good morning?” Mehrim says blearily, a room away.
“Good morning, brother-in-law. My apologies for the ruckus. Haran – if you want an egg in your porridge come here now!” Lenta reaches for the pot and looks for more bowls.
It takes a few minutes to restore order. Haran has cracked his own egg, with predictable consequences. Mehrim has wandered to the door and muttered a greeting, and gone to get dressed. Rebelanta, mostly-unflappable cousin of Yehna, takes charge of the daughter of the house, and suddenly there is peace. Into it comes Yehna, with Merenelda politely behind her.
“Oh, everyone is up,” says Yehna in well-faked surprise.
Lenta shrugs with a smile and raises from her stool to make room for the Ernaldan priestess.
Merenelda says graciously, “Thank you, lady Lenta. I understand Yehna wants… oh, hello Haran.” She is about to be overwhelmed.
Lenta looks around. In Esrolia it would be proper to suggest changing venue, but it would require permission from the hostess. She is not quite certain of customs in Sartar.2Pass Customs (Esrolia)
“Would you be totally offended if we abandoned you to have breakfast with your family, sister. If that is fine with you lady Merenelda?” Lenta nods at both other women.
“Reb, dear, could you?” Yehna takes her daughter and leaves her cousin behind. “Let’s feed her somewhere quieter.” Rebalanta neatly scoops up Haran before egg gets smeared on expensive skirts.
Lenta nods at Merenelda again and looks around. “Tea? Or would you prefer talk while walking?”
“Tea,” Merenelda says. “The child needs milk.”
A small procession begins, and Haran is allowed to open the door, which stops him from trying to be part of it.
Outside, Merenelda says, “You could spend more nights in the great house you know, dear?” to her daughter-in-law. Yehna pretends not to hear.
Lenta follows the older Ernaldan.
Yehna follows alongside, bouncing the tiny baby she carries, to keep it active or confused enough not to cry from hunger.
Merenelda has a room in the big house, but she walks over to the Ernaldan Temple instead. “It will be peaceful here,” she says, and as Yehna settles down to feed Meyamna the Priestess pours a cold, thick tea, honey and spice making up much of it. It has been soaking all night, no doubt. “You had a question, lady Lenta?”
“Yes, lady Merenelda.” She looks around “It might be a bit presumptuous. And it is a bit awkward….”3failed truth, passed harmony
“Oh, we’re all among friends.” She puts a cup down in front of Lenta.
“Oh, you are hungry,” Yehna tells Meyamna. “Do you like temples?” She is out of the conversation and into a different one, it seems.
Lenta wraps her fingers around the cup and looks at the drink. “While we were questing for the Moth wyter I was touched by something. I think it was tied to Chalana Arroy, but I am certain it was connected to Fertility and Earth and Pregnancy.”
Merenelda looks Lenta up and down, in a brief moment of calculation. “The White Lady’s mantle is broad.”
“In short, I feel in my liver I could ease someone’s pregnancy in same way our Lady Ernalda teaches us. But that feels unlikely to last beyond end of this season.” Lenta looks the Priestess levelly at the eyes.
Merenelda nods. “Ah, blessings be upon her.” She takes a sip of her honeyed tea, thoughtfully.
“If you trust that belief, and if you feel someone at Blue Tree would benefit from this, I would like to pass this gift forward?” Lenta swirls at her glass.
Merenelda glances at Yehna then, and back to Lenta. “Do you have anyone in mind? Such a blessing is always a gift.”
Lenta looks at Yehna too. “I don’t know. Maybe. But this is your village. You know who would perhaps need that blessing and be left without for one reason or another?”
“If there is nobody in particular, then you could probably help one of the outlying steads,” Merenelda says thoughtfully. “Having the assurance that the last few months and the birth will be easy is most helpful when one is isolated.”
Lenta nods. “Can you talk with her and make the arrangements. I will need to hurry towards Nochet I am afraid so if this can be done in a few days?”
“Oh, we can take you out there today if you like,” Merenelda says. “If you are in a hurry and do not mind doing it privately.”
“I don’t mind. I know trading gifts is a show too, but I feel this is just passing on Ernalda’s blessing.” She looks at Yehna “Or maybe Chalana Arroy’s. Mellia… “
“Then let us take a ride today. The woman I am thinking of will be in the fields. There are not many men in her family, and she is unmarried, although she has a steady lover. This will give her a little security and help make certain that Sosa is not needed later in the year.”
While Merenelda is certainly calculating, it is not at the expense of Lenta.4Pass Insight (Human). She means what she says, and does not seem to be directing the act towards where it will not be seen.
Yehna seems to be busy with feeding, and unworried by the answer. And, for all that they are related now, Merenelda did not suggest Yehna as a recipient.
- 1In fact, Yehna’s dwarf-built house is bigger than that, but her cousins might well be in the front room.
- 2Pass Customs (Esrolia)
- 3failed truth, passed harmony
- 4Pass Insight (Human).
