(2024-04-30) Leaving the Land

Details

Author:	Jessa
Summary:	Ismene Hazan has had enough. It's time for her to kick people off her land.
Rating:	T for Teen

Arc: Before the Cataclysm

The house had collapsed and it made no sense.

Ismene held the reins of her rented horse. That, she could comprehend. Could grasp, both physically and metaphorically. Wan faces, sweaty with effort and smudged with dirt, those she understood. The semi-circle of homes around the central wind-powered well, all comprehensible. The gap in the buildings, the roof askew, the tumbled walls, those were beyond her.

“I don’t understand,” she said, approaching the rubble as if proximity would make things clearer. “What happened?”

“Earthquake,” Walton said, wringing his hands in the air at his sides, fists clenching and relaxing. “I thought they were safe ‘nuff, milady, but I never reckoned on ‘em havin’ to stand up to earthshakes.”

“No, you couldn’t have.” Neither could she have, she knew that, but she also knew that everything that happened in the pear orchards, good or bad, was laid at her feet, ultimately. Even more so at hers than Ben’s, because she was the administrator. She had approved the purchase of goods and materials, she had approved the building plans.

This was her fault.

More than just that. “Who was in there?” she asked, careful with the question. Her gaze flicked from face to face, counting the living, subtracting the dead.

“Just Mason,” Walton said. “We took ‘im to Southshore, but.”

That was all, the complete sentence that ended with words spiraling in the air between them. But it was too late. But he was dead. But he stayed dead.

That was her fault, too.

I should have been here.

Ironforge had reaped the rewards of her negligence.

“Enough,” she said to the crumbled remains of what had been a home. She turned to the semi-circle of people, her farmers, her tenants. “That’s enough. You’re all moving out of here.”

Protests sparked from all sides, distilled by Walton’s raspy voice into one blaze of denial. “These are our homes!” he said. “Our farms, our good land, and we’ll not be driven out by a tremble, no matter how dire.”

“Enough, I said,” Ismene snapped, slashing her hand through the air. Her horse flung its head back as she yanked on the reins. “I won’t lose people over dirt. We can rebuild, I can’t—” But she could. “I can’t bring everyone back to life.”

“Not dirt,” Eliza Westborn said, stubborn and firm. “Homes. Land. Land wot actually blooms when we work it. Land not salted and dry.”

“Land not black and cursed.”

“Land not left to monsters and rot!”

“If you’re all dead, there’ll be no one to work the land,” Ismene said, raising her voice. “Ben would tell you the same thing!”

“Beggin’ yer ladyship’s pardon, but we’d not change our tune for his lordship,” Walton said.

“Walton. It’s not safe.”

“No place is,” he said. “That’s what they say over to Southshore. Sea risin’ up, storms outta blue sky, an’ the shakes all over. We’d as soon stay. Weather’s warm, we’ll sleep outside if the shakes come!”

“And your children?” Ismene asked. “Is that the choice you make for them, too? Sleep outside in case of earthquakes, sleep inside in case of terrible storms?”

“Where’d we go, iffn we leave here?” he wanted to know. “No place is safe. Our kin can’t take us back.”

“Darkshire,” Ismene said. “Darkshire!” she repeated, louder over the denials. “It may be dark and the land may be cursed, but at least it’s not subject to the kind of shakes you’re getting here. It’s far enough from the sea that waves aren’t an issue. We’ll put you on Ference land. When the danger’s past, we’ll move you back.”

“If we all go, there’ll be no orchard to speak on,” Kaden Farrow said. “’Tis spring, we’ll not be leavin’ the trees to rot and ruin.”

Desperate, Ismene shook her head. “At least send your families to safety,” she said. “Please, they’ll be safer in Darkshire than here, waiting for the mountain to fall on them.”

More protests, from the women present this time but Ismene marked how they pulled their children closer. Maybe, then. Maybe they’d listen.

“Who’ll tend the sheep?”

“Sheep! I’ll kill the sheep myself if it’ll make you leave,” Ismene said, “just see if I won’t.”

Walton looked around at the people he was seneschal over. “Maybe the women an’ childer, aye,” he said reluctantly.

“Not maybe.” Ismene’s voice firmed. “They go. This is my land, mine and Ben’s, and I say you go. If you think I won’t come back with an armed guard to roust you out, you’re wrong. If you’re determined to stay, some of you may. But the families move. Now. Today!”

“We’ll need time to pack!” Eliza said.

“You’ll take only what you can carry, and we’ll leave now. I’ll lead you to the gryphons myself, and I’ll pay for transport, but you’ll take only yourselves and your children. Now I said, and now I mean.”

“Milady, be reasonab—”

Ismene clenched her jaw. It would be good, at a time like this, to be as big and imposing as Ben. But she had only herself and her spine. It would have to suffice. “This is as reasonable as I get. I’m letting some of you stay, and Light only knows what Ben will say to that. Don’t be surprised if he comes back to drag the rest of you out of here.”

“You’re not kickin’ the apple farmers off,” someone muttered.

She couldn’t tell who. Eight families surrounded her, but they all looked vaguely mutinous. “The apple farmers aren’t my tenants,” she replied. “They’re Lord Fallon’s, and believe that I’ll be speaking with him. Now go. Gather what you can carry, leave the rest. But we’re leaving now, or at the end of a spear when I come back with reinforcements.”

Slowly, the crowd began to drift away toward their homes. Families clustered together, their voices a soft murmur in the afternoon air.

“That was ill done, if it’s not impertinent to say, milady,” Walton said, his voice low and somber.

Ismene discovered her temper. “It is impertinent, and you’ll keep such thoughts to yourself,” she snapped. “I’ll save these people with you or without you, and I’d drag you along if I could pick you up and throw you over my shoulder. Expect a visit from Ben sooner rather than later, and hope he doesn’t do just that.”

Walton bowed his head and took a step back, another, a third before turning and walking off to chivvy the workers into their homes.

Ismene tied up the stirrups on her rented horse. She would be walking to Southshore with the women and children, and the horse could carry some of the goods. She only hoped there’d be enough gryphons to get everyone to safety. There were a pitiful few; three women and five children. They’d be leaving behind seven men, three with wives, one a bachelor.

So many to save.

So many to rescue, if it came to that.

She stood in the sunshine and waited to drag her people to safety, whether they liked it or not.