Medieval Rain Read online

  Medieval Rain

  A Fantasy Novel

  by

  J.D. Sonne

  Medieval Rain

  J.D. Sonne

  Copyright © 2021 JD Sonne

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 9-798-4555-2298-7

  For my friends, family and students, who always believed. . .

  Also by J.D. Sonne

  Bred for Harvest

  The Maccabee Series

  Book I: The Eleventh Horn

  Book II: People of the Prophecy

  Book III: The Dusk of Dreams

  A Fitting Tomb

  A Fitting Tomb: the Shoot

  Acknowledgments

  As a former teacher who spent 34 years in the classroom, I believe that I still write because my students kept me from giving in to the dour advance toward middle or even old age. Having been out of the classroom now for seven years, I am fighting to keep real time from catching up with me; however, all I have to do to keep cloying Father Time from carrying me off is think of those wonderful moments during my teaching career when time suspended itself, and all things taught and learned came together. It didn’t happen with great regularity, but when it did. . .

  This book is dedicated to the girls who passed through my life and classroom throughout the years and bucked the odds of submitting to the patriarchy and became relevant, strong women. I stand in awe of them. They inspired the world of Rane.

  My friends. My family. The support has been surprising and touching. To all who put your money where your FB likes were, love and no words.

  Chapter One

  “There is no need to be cruel, Rane,” Titled Larad said. “Simply state what is to be done, and he will do it. You are never to mete out punishment. Leave that to Titled Oshrer. She will attend to the discipline.”

  “But he said—”

  “When he spoke, you should have referred the matter to Oshrer. There was no need for further action on your part,” Larad said, returning to her parchments and quill. “You must learn discipline on dealing with the viruls. You should not have bloodied him like that.”

  Rane sulked only for a moment, as she liked and respected her teacher even given her unrealistic ideas on virul discipline. Titled Larad was an esteemed philosopher and lecturer who had been close to the Rush family. She had many stories about the first Titled, Kagallen Rush, and Rane was particularly good, in study and out, of extracting homilies from Larad.

  Craftily, she said, “So how would Kagallen Rush have handled that virul?”

  Larad laughed. “I know what you are doing.” She pushed away the parchment. “Oh, very well. The first Viruls Kagallen trained at the work camps were quite resistant at first. They were too much like their fathers. Savages,” she said the last word under her breath. “One young virul called her a foul name and even raised his hand against her.” Titled Larad looked up at the ceiling for a moment and sighed. “Now, back then, there were not “Titleds” who could school wayward viruls, so Kagallen took it upon herself—and she was quite old at the time, probably forty—to demasculate the boy as an example to the others. The family is quite proud of that story. Imagine an old woman wielding the knife herself against a strong virul of fourteen. Now, of course, we do not do such a thing, for where would we get our little ones? But back then, it was quite a good deterrent to the youths who were left after the first purge. Now, back to Study, Lead! I am counting on you to be a good example to the others. You’ll help me, won’t you?”

  Rane stood and bowed her head. “Of course, Titled Larad! It will not happen again!”

  As Rane left the Study Head’s office, she straightened her sash, her fingers stopping at the latest warrior charm won. The scene of the competition entered her head at once and she reveled in the vision: her taking down of Rynan with a grinding blow at the ankles and swinging the chaff stick over her head in a celebratory sweep. The rest of the charms were old and not as sharp in her memory, but their quantity was satisfactory, nonetheless.

  In a strafing step past the kitchen, she acknowledged with a curt nod the bows of the viruls that briefly interrupted their scurryings and clangings as they prepared breakfast for the Leads and Titleds of the Study House. Still bowing, one even approached her with outstretched hands that held a tempting pastie dripping with treacle and honey. She took it and continued to Study.

  She saw the other Leads nudging each other as she entered the learning quarters and she sat down, pressing her hands down on her study parchment, liking its feel as she smoothed it to its edge. Titled Nooro was shuffling assignment parchments on her desk, eventually giving her attention to the teaching board behind her on the wall.

  “So, what did she say?” Saruah whispered when Titled Nooro’s back was turned. “Are you in punishment?”

  Rane picked up the stylus, dipped it in the little pan of blacking and said, “Of course not. After all, it was only a virul. And, I did not hit him that hard, for all that he deserved it.”

  “No, you did not hit him that hard. He will only be at the Healers for a week.” Saruah said and laughed.

  “Students! Tend to your lesson! Do not talk!” Titled Nooro glared for a moment and turned away, resuming her work at the teaching board.

  “You are lucky you did not get an official reproof,” Saruah said as the two left after dismissal. “You could lose your place as Aquan Leader.”

  Rane scuffed her feet along the gravel of the path to rid her boots of the mud from the study courtyard. “Aquan Leader is just a glorified label for ‘canal watcher.’”

  “Oh, which reminds me,” said Saruah. “Our shift starts now! We have to hurry!”

  Rane swore and said, huffing along to catch up with her friend, “Nice time to tell me! I thought our watch was not until sundown.” She looked up at the sun and went on, “We are probably a full ten pours late!”

  The mud renewed its claim on Rane’s boots as the two sludged down the path to the canal zone. Branches and tall grass reached out for them, almost grappling with the Leads as they ran along. Finally, the cardiac maze of water works came into view.

  Waters outnumbered people on this world. Oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, ponds and streams crowded Maraquan to the point that servaquans seemed an invader species. But, the hominids persisted, seeking to tame the torrents, sometimes managing very well and sometimes managing poorly with cataclysmic result.

  Viruls pushed, pulled, hefted and hewed myriad logs, the canal troughs and their stilts requiring constant maintenance: a leak here, a crack there, an occasional collapse. Due to luck and general competence, the collapses were only occasional, for when a trough failed, the flood was stupendous in its destruction.

  Cadets and their leaders, all standing at attention in the green uniform and sash of the Lead Servaquans, looked on, shouting orders at the viruls at their respective tasks, sometimes stepping in administering a cuff or a clout to an offending or slow worker.

  Rane climbed to the viewing platform, as was her place as the Aquan Leader and Saruah took her place along the canal itself, both receiving glares from their associates for their tardiness.

  She felt like shrugging, but the work was too serious to exhibit even a hint of disinterest and immediately she began her forceful scan of the troughs below her, looking for any aberrations of flow, liquid or virul. Because of the intensity of the surveillance, each round of shifts only lasted two hours, and that broken into 45 pours with fifteen pours of rest between each watch. It was crucial that nothing escape the leader and Rane had proven so adept at tracking the water flow and being able to pre-empt disasters that she had risen quickly in what she had derided a few moments before as mere “canal watching.” Her superiors had noted this art and seemed to be grooming her for a higher position, which may ha
ve been the reason for her escaping punishment for beating the snotty virul, who was much bigger than she was. It was true that the Leads received warrior training and the viruls did not, but still, she had acquitted herself well in the altercation.

  Water flowing, water flowing. She watched and then squinted. A slight ripple, even a bounce in the flow. She yelled, “Shore up that wall there! You! Apply pitch to that seam. Hurry! You, too! Hurry! Hurry!”

  A virul lugged the bucket of pitch, his eyes on Rane’s gesturing point so that he find the right place to apply the black stuff with the nubbed brush. Another small virul answered Rane’s shout and had to drag his bucket to the trough, earning a few clubs and slashes of the whip from cadets along the way.

  The slight shudder smoothed into a liquid pinstripe flow once again and she relaxed slightly, allowing herself to look out over the trough network to the landscape beyond. She thought of her mother.

  Mother, with her rages, stresses, and affection, raised both of her daughters to respect the water. She never said anything about serving the water, the word, “serve” with all of its conjugations, being anathema to Titled and Lead servaquans (with the exception of the species name they had adopted for themselves) because of their history of subservience to the males of the planet, but more a requirement to acknowledge the indigenous flow and its power. With Rane’s recent interest in Maraquan’s history came a better understanding of her mother and her peers and colleagues. The women of that generation were hard, showing a rigid resilience in the face of running a civilization and taming the waters. Rane suspected that this inherent rigidity came from their horror of their past male subjugation. Rane looked down at the viruls and shook her head. It was hard to imagine that the meek, scattering creatures could ever have used women as their thralls. And they were so easily managed, their eagerness almost saccharine. Fear was the foremost tool, but Rane found that occasional kindness worked too with a few exceptions, like her run-in with the uppity virul the week before.

  By now, her scrutiny was riveted to the water again; the rush was fulsome in its movement, but her thoughts came back to her mother. Tollichet was fair and a great fount of strength to her girls, but they learned early on to not cross her. Mother was fair, yes, but any aberration in following the rules of the house was dealt with quickly and severely. Rane remembered standing at attention through one meal, hungering throughout the evening because she did not heed her mother’s call to come in and share family supper. The discomfort of her stomach helped her to remember the rule forever and she was never late again. Fair. Then there was the time that she arose late one morning and was late for school. Her mother said nothing, but dragged her up to her bed, and using belts, horse harnesses and various strops from the tool shed, trussed her daughter to the bedframe so tightly that she couldn’t move. Tollichet left Rane there all day, only allowing viruls to enter to hold a pan under her so she wouldn’t soil the bed when she had to relieve herself. She was never late for anything ever again. Fair.

  The bell clamored and Rane looked up, surprised that her meanderings of thought had taken her to the first break. Her replacement put a hand on her shoulder, and Rane descended the stairs, Saruah joining her at the bottom on their way to the lounge hut.

  Rane took the proffered drink from one of the attending viruls in the hut, settling into one of the chairs that surrounded the hearth. The welcome flames warmed her and the rest of the Lead cadets taking their break.

  “Any problems today?” Tath, the Water Leader from the next sector over asked Rane. “I heard you gave quite a drubbing to the mouthy virul! Little verminous sludge. What really happened? The stories vary from his asking you a simple question, to his desiring to top you, or something to that effect.”

  A raucous laugh blurted from the rest of the Leads who had sat down at the hearth and Rane, good natured, joined them. She craned her neck to watch the flames circle up toward the opening hearth light cut into the roof planks above and said, “None of the above. He simply questioned my orders.” She raised her cup and added, “And, I did not like his tone.”

  This inspired more chuckles and Rhone, another cadet who happened to be Rane’s neighbor, said, “Not that anyone would care, but I saw him limp out of the healer’s this morning. He looked quite sullen—”

  “—but, hopefully a little more obedient,” Saruah offered, slyly.

  “I hope they assign him to my sector,” Tath said. “I want a turn at him. I also want to see if Rane is a good disciplinarian. I think we need to test her leadership skills.”

  “Very well,” Rane said idly, “but you had better adhere to the Ruled Disciplinary Practices, at least out in the open. Titled Larad made it pretty clear to me that beatings of viruls—that is, on the spot beatings—are not allowed.”

  “That is too bad,” Tath said. “But thanks for the warning. I was getting pretty close to taking down one of the pitch viruls.”

  “Why?” Rane asked.

  “He took a break without permission, and he scowled at me when he thought I wasn’t looking.”

  “Use your imagination, then,” Rane said. “There are plenty of ways to train a virul without breaking the Practices. And, Titled Larad’s warning aside, there are plenty of ways to break the Practices, if you do not get caught. But you certainly do not have to put up with insubordination--or his scowls.”

  The clang of the bell signified the end of the break, and as they slogged back to their posts, Tath asked Rane, “An example, please.”

  Rane considered for a moment, then said, “There was one real shrewd virul that kept getting away with—well, just petty whining and backtalk. You know how it is, the behavior starts out little, then escalates. That is why now I do not allow them to speak unless it is directly related to their work. Anyway, this sniveling dork thought he was putting one over, until I got a little group of cadets together, and cornered him in the woods after the shift. After one of my cadets pantsed him, I held one of our wood-burning irons to his fruits and made quite clear what would happen to him if he ever spoke or even looked at me again. He was to take orders and be silent.“

  “But you always have to have the means to follow up on a threat like that,” Tath said. “If any of us castrated one of the viruls with a hot iron, we would be found out.”

  “Not if you disposed of the body,” Rane said, matter-of-fact. “Viruls disappear all of the time. This one was not desirable to any of the Titleds or Leads and would not have been missed.”

  Tath looked at Rane with a new respect. “It almost sounds like you had to follow up?”

  Rane just smiled. The list of those she trusted was tiny; Tath was not on it. The two Leads resumed their places, the time flying by with the activity that accompanied the shift. Two sectors down, a leak poured beneath one of the joists that supported the stream, and the panic screamed its way clear to Rane’s position. She had Saruah take her place and she followed the crush of viruls to the point of breach.

  Luckily, she had experienced a leak of this type and knew an effective protocol that would deal with the issue. She had two upper viruls ease the trough off the joist and applied the pitch herself to the offending wound. She assumed the perch to watch the water and showed the assigned Lead the undulating ripple that showed further pitch was needed. This time they did not have to lift the trough, and the pitch virul slathered the pitch over the joists. The eddy smoothed out and the workings of the sector became calm again.

  By the time she made it back to her sector, the shift was done. She and Saruah slogged back to the town center fountain, stripped, handed their muddy clothes to the attending viruls, and washed themselves in the log-fired baths that adjoined every fountain in the city. Saruah had to hurry as her mother had scheduled her healer’s visit for that day, but Rane settled further down into the water, thankful that no healer would be examining her that day. She had not had enough monthly flows for her to be of interest to the healers yet. A small spark of worry invaded her innards and even spoke to her
, softly reminding her that her time was approaching.

  Saruah submerged her head, dousing her beautiful ribbon-like hair and sprang up, squeezing the water out of the thin coils with her hands. “So,” she said, “did you hear that Sondrae and Shukad are under punishment? Again. They were caught issuing false water notes to the lowblood females.”

  “Trust those two to pick on the least of us,” Rane said, lazy with the warmth ebbing around her. “We need to figure out a way to school those females so that they aren’t such easy prey.”

  “There is no way the Titleds would ever let lowblood females into the schools,” Saruah pointed out.

  “Maybe not school, but some kind of--oh, I don’t know, low-level civics and math,” said Rane. “If they learned the basics, they wouldn’t be so easy to fool!”

  “Well, luckily—there aren’t many of those females. Their kind are sterilized too quickly for their numbers to increase—”

  “Sometimes I wish I were a lowblood—”

  “Rane!” Saruah exclaimed, shock heightening her voice. “Don’t even think that—let alone say it!”

  “It’s true! That way we wouldn’t have to go through the disgusting mating with viruls!” Rane’s stomach plunged at the thought of the healer again.

  “Well,” Saruah said, getting up and taking the towel from her virul who had been standing quietly in the shadows with the others. “Wishing runs away with the waters. It’s no use, Rane,” she said, dressing quickly with the aid of her virul. “Perhaps you’ll come across a nice virul that will make the task a little less disgusting! Well, I’m gone. I do not want to be late. Titled Wruhl has not been her usual happy self lately.”

  Rane chuckled. Titled Wruhl, Saruah’s mother, was never happy, and Saruah’s little expression was a running joke between them.