“Yes, sir,” was all Herzer could say.
Herzer was muttering something under his breath as Edmund walked away.
“Hey,” said Courtney, kicking him on the ankle. “What are you saying?”
“ ‘Shit, shit, shit I’m gonna die.’ ”
Rachel looked up from her stew as her mother came into the kitchen. “Stew’s on.”
“Thank you, Rachel,” Daneh said, picking up a bowl and ladling some out.
“How are you doing?” Rachel asked.
“I’ve started throwing up in the morning,” Daneh replied, sitting down. “But not all day, thank goodness.”
“Are you sick?” Rachel asked, alarmed. She couldn’t imagine a worse situation for the town to be in than for their only trained doctor to have something incurable.
“No,” Daneh said, directly. “I’m pregnant.”
Okay, that’s worse.
“How? When?” Rachel asked then clapped her mouth shut. “Oh, Mother.”
“It’s not the end of the world,” Daneh said, taking a bite of the stew and nodding. “Not too shabby.”
“Mother!”
Daneh sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “Bad things happen. Bad things happened to me and they are still happening in a way.”
“What are you going to do?” Rachel asked, finally moderating her tone. She suddenly realized that she was in a real, honest-to-God “adult” conversation. And it seemed she needed to start acting like one. She suddenly wished her father was a girl. He would know what to say. “Am I going to have a little sibling? Or are you going to… do something about it?”
“What?” Daneh snapped. “Do you know how to do an abortion? I certainly don’t! And how, exactly, am I supposed to do it on myself? There’s tansy, but from the sound of it it can kill you. So what am I supposed to do about this… thing that is growing inside of me?”
“I don’t know, Mother,” Rachel said, quietly. “But from what I’ve been reading, childbirth is not a given thing. I mean, we’ve both got the… hips for it, unlike some. But… I mean, you’re the doctor. If something goes wrong with you, what can I do?”
“What can I do?” Daneh asked in exasperation. “I don’t have any proper tools! I’ve never attended a body birth! There hasn’t been one in a thousand years! What in the hell do I know about it? Why do you expect miracles from me?!”
“Mom, I don’t,” Rachel said, choking a hot retort. “But you at least have some idea what is going on. I don’t even know that.”
“Well, in that case, it’s time you started learning,” Daneh said after a moment of controlling her temper. “That’s your new research project. Whether it’s me, if I can’t get rid of it somehow, or someone else. You’re going to be the expert on the theory of childbirth.”
“Mom, I’m a virgin,” she shouted, suddenly out of temper. “You want me to be a childbirth expert?”
“Who better,” Daneh replied with an evil chuckle. “At least we don’t have to worry about you being out of commission. For the time being. I notice you’ve been spending a lot of time around Herzer.”
“Oh, Herzer,” Rachel said, averting her eyes and picking up her spoon. “He’s just a friend.”
“Right,” Daneh snorted. “So was Edmund. And look what resulted from that.”
Everyone was calling it the “Big Roundup” and the familiarization groups had been co-opted, along with just about everyone else in Raven’s Mill, to participate. The reason for it was simple; hunters had confirmed that there was quite a bit of feral stock in the woods and much of it would be useable for the planned farms. The stocks of food were also dwindling faster than anticipated. The intent of the “roundup” was to push animals out of the forest and onto some of the open areas. There domestic animals that were useable would be separated and pushed into pens. “Wild” animals would mostly be either pushed on or killed in the area and preserved.
To do this required a massive organization. The area that Herzer and Mike had worked on clearing, with the buildings that they had constructed, was intended as a giant slaughtering yard. Fences were being built, and more would be. When the time came groups of beaters would move through the forests pushing the game ahead of them. It was hoped that in this way sufficient farm animals could be gathered for all the farms that were planned. And since the protofarmers themselves would participate in the drive, there would be less of a stink about them getting the animals for “free.”
Two reenactors, a husband and wife from down the valley, had moved most of their herd of horses up the valley to Raven’s Mill. The reason was simple. Shortly after the Net dropped, all the controls on wild beasts had been released. Besides attacks on humans this had resulted in even more attacks on domestic herds. After losing a foal to what was probably a panther and having a horse badly clawed by a tiger, they had decided to relocate.
Horses were material and cost intensive. They needed either fodder or fairly large areas to graze. Although there had been nearly sufficient grazing at their home, it still would have been overgrazed by their large herds in the winter. But Edmund had agreed to cede a large pasture to them in return for using their horses as a base for the still nascent Raven’s Mill cavalry. After thinking about it for quite some time — use as cavalry would mean some of their babies probably would not be coming home — they had agreed.
Before that, though, the horses would play an important part in the roundup. Although they would not be able to move in the trees, the area that the game was going to be pushed into was a recently cleared area across the river from Raven’s Mill. It was hoped that between the horsemen and various half-trained reenactors it would be possible to sort the different species and then hold them in herds for further disposition.
The problem with that was there were not nearly enough trained horsemen.
And thus Herzer’s detailing by Edmund.
As Herzer walked towards the corrals he looked the herd over. There were two distinct “types” of horses and he didn’t know enough about them to know what breeds they were. One type was small and light-boned. When these trotted or reacted to the other horses they tended to trot with their legs held high, their necks and tails up. The trot looked like Bast dancing as the horses seemed to float across the ground.
The other breed was much larger and heavier bodied but it had some of the same grace as the smaller. When these trotted it wasn’t quite as showy, but Herzer noticed that the trot itself looked… smoother. It wasn’t as dancing as the first ones. And these were definitely fast. He saw one of the younger horses, a beautiful red one that he knew was called “chestnut” for some reason, dash from one side of the pasture to the other, apparently from sheer high spirits, and he was very glad he wasn’t on its back.
There were two women and about ten men gathered by the fence to the pasture, looking at the herd and talking in low tones when Herzer walked up. The tallest of the men looked over at him and nodded. The man was wearing an outlandish period costume. From the feathered hat, topping graying brown hair that dropped halfway down his back, through the pointed mustache, and open, lace-front shirt to the thigh-high boots he was clearly a reenactor, but he also seemed to be in charge.
“Good day, sir,” Herzer said, looking out at the horses. “I’m looking for the horse master.”