D. A. Houdek

Deb Houdek Rule

Web designer - Science Fiction author - Civil War historian - Genealogy researcher

Welcome to my personal website!

Of All the Western Stars

by Deb Houdek Rule

Chapter 13

Ashur watched the sun track its daily course across the sky, eyes half-closed, savoring the heat of it after the long time spent in the cold, dark of space. Strange, he thought, that he could even bear sunlight on his face after what he did to Capella. There were no shelters strong enough nor caves deep enough to save a world when its sun explodes. Despite the warmth of Earth’s sun on him, Ashur shivered.

Sitting on grass cropped to park-like neatness by a flock of sheep, Ashur leaned against a stone fence. On the other side of the fence half a dozen peasant workers, that Ashur was ostensibly supervising, hoed and weeded long rows of onions and beans. The clunk of a stone on the wall above him told him that one of the workers had piled yet another stone from the field onto the wall. Centuries of dirty, work-worn hands must have piled stones from their poor fields onto this fence. Likely it was the only legacy these wretched creatures had of their ancestors. By Ashur’s century this pitiful memorial would have long since been eradicated to make way for the bigger, the better, the grander, wiping all trace of these people from memory.

On his way here, leaning against the magnificently carved oak staff Lady Stafford had lent him, Ashur made the mistake of walking through the village. Shacks in the shape of rounded lumps that seemed to have been slapped together of sticks and mud with roofs of thatch lined what passed for a street. Little more than a sluice for sewage and garbage, skinny children splashed and played in it with pigs and chickens. Swarms of flies filled the air with a steady drone and Ashur was certain he saw a rat scurry from sight. The houses, if they could be called that, were nearly hidden behind the mountains of dung, livestock and human. A greasy haired woman with an infant sucking at her bare breasts stared at him from the entry of one of the hovels. After a gawking stare that seemed to measure the value of his attire and prestige of his person, she rewarded Ashur with a smile clearly meant to be seductive, easing the low neck of her crude garment even further to give him a better view. Employing the most intensive mind control he could, Ashur nodded politely to her, keeping sternly in mind the principles of noblise oblige, and holding his breath. The woman had only two teeth in her mouth and those were brown with rot. The stench from her home didn’t quite overpower the stench from her. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old. She looked fifty. How different than Lisette, was she.

As fast as his aching body would permit, Ashur left the village behind, holding his breath again as he passed the butcher’s shop. Once past, near the stone church with its single bell tower, Ashur paused to look back. He wondered what had become of this tiny hamlet in the centuries to come. Had it been wiped out by plague or famine? Or had it survived to grow into a center of Renaissance learning. Perhaps it had, or would, Ashur amended, become a tourist center with the descendants of that wretched woman selling cheap trinkets to visitors who would gawk with delight at some spotlessly clean recreation of a charming Tudor village.

And yet, as Ashur looked at these pathetic sub-humans, he felt a hint of gratitude to them. Their genes, the genes of people who had and could survive in the most adverse conditions, had gone into the mix that made possible the rise of the human race to loftier heights. Some of these English peasant genes may have gone into Ashur’s own makeup, he conceded, as had that of their counterparts from a dozen different cultures and creeds across this world.

The stone wall, padded by the coat he had removed when the morning’s chill turned to noonday heat, was solid behind Ashur’s back. It was easy to look forward with hope to the future when one knew for a certainty what that future was. These peasants, lost in a dark age realm of ignorance and illiteracy, must think of a future no further away than the next meal, the concept of "hope" no more than a black hole from which no light could escape. Closing his eyes to the cheerful sunlight, Ashur empathized with them. His own future stretched before him into an unknown that was black, impenetrable and bleak.

The voices of the workers grew louder and neared, their accents nearly incomprehensible to Ashur. He didn’t get up to join them in their meal of onions and sour beer. At the moment, more than anything else he would have treasured the staggering simplicity of a cold glass of water. No one here drank water, not ever, so Lady Stafford told him, unless it was as penance so dangerously unclean was it. Ashur wasn’t thirsty enough to chance water that was considered a punishment to drink.

Loosening the constricting lacings of the doublet, Ashur wondered if he’d cause a scandal if he removed this silly garment and just went about in his shirt. The peasants were casual enough about clothing, he’d seen one fellow drop his drawers and squat down while still carrying on a conversation with his fellow. Neither seemed to think it odd. He wasn’t sure of the nobility and Ashur certainly wanted to make sure he was taken for one of them, not consigned to join the peasantry.

As he plucked at the doublet, the shirt Lisette had made for him stuck out a bit below the doublet’s sleeves. Ashur again examined the leaves and vines Lisette had embroidered there. Curious that she should pick such a pattern, almost as if she had read his mind and fantasies about her. The very thought brought a grin to Ashur’s face and shifted his problems temporarily aside with a mental shrug. Why fret about them when there was a beautiful damsel to dwell on instead.

Holding his right arm up in the sunlight, Ashur turned his wrist slowly, following the intricately twining pattern around the edge of the sleeve. Considerable spatial aptitude, as well as artistic talent, had gone into this. Before he reached the backside of the circle he was interrupted.

"Milord Ashur!" he heard the call from across the pasture. A dull-eyed sheep who had been staring at Ashur as it placidly chewed its cud bolted, bleating in terror as that dimwitted maid of Lady Stafford’s romped toward him, her dirty skirt held bunched up to her waist showing her hairy white legs, and sometimes more, as she ran. "Milord Ashur," Maisy called again, though he was obviously in plain sight. A fresh bruise blackened one cheek. Ashur didn’t understand why she had returned to the household after she’d run away. Surely she knew that a beating for her mutiny awaited her plus, Ashur suspected, the servants at Stafford Castle weren’t being paid. Were options so scant as all that?

"Yes, Maisy. I’m here." Ashur struggled to his feet, pulling himself up on the staff. "What is it?" The girl’s expression resembled that of the cud-chewing sheep as she gaped vacantly at Ashur. Hitching her skirt high up her thigh, she scratched herself, giving Ashur an unwelcome view of her private parts. "What is it?" he repeated impatiently, understanding how Lady Stafford could strike the girl so.

Swaying back and forth, not dropping her skirt, Maisy made a blunt proposal, one that probably would have caused dear, innocent Lisette to faint in shock. Ashur was rather startled himself. He’d had dozens of women on as many worlds yet he’d never heard such a crude, poorly expressed proposition. Maisy ended with a shrugged, "You give me something nice and I’ll do whatever you want… milord," she added.

Ashur controlled his expression with an effort. He’d sooner sleep with a sow than this vile imbecile. With an imperious sneer, he glared down at the girl. "Have you a message for me from your mistress or not?"

The frostiness in his voice must have reached Maisy. Dropping her skirt, she raised a hand to rub the bruise on her cheek. "Yes, milord," she whispered. "Wants you to help her with something, she does. Says ‘can you come straight-away.’" In sulky tones she added, "I didn’t mean nothing by it. If you don’t tell the Lady, I could…"

"Enough." Ashur ordered. "Say no more and neither shall I. Now get back to your duties."

The servant girl, with an exaggerated display of humbleness, curtsied rapidly several times, then hiking her skirts up again, ran back across the pasture toward the castle. As Ashur turned back to pick up his coat he noticed his workers watching covertly from the shade of a tree. They passed a bowl of beer back and forth between them. One fellow belched as he laid another onion top from the small, young onions on the pile on the ground. It was, Ashur considered, likely their best meal of the day. Instead of shouting for them to get back to work in the Stafford fields, he called, "After you’re through with your dinner, you may spend the rest of the day working your own fields."

Cries of thanks followed Ashur as he started slowly across the pasture toward Stafford Castle’s feudalistic bulk. A lifetime trapped here would be long and tedious indeed.

From the brass trimmed chest, Agnes pulled an expanse of gold and white that made the young woman behind her gasp. The gown was of the thickest, finest satin Lisette had ever seen. It shimmered as the folds of material slid, opening out. The underskirt, peeping from beneath the hem of the white satin, and the inner sleeves, were of gold tissue that glistened in the noonday sun streaming in through the windows.

"Here it is," Agnes said, obviously delighted at the expression on her niece’s face.

"It’s magnificent," Lisette breathed, reaching to touch the silky richness. It flowed like water beneath her fingertips. Then her brow furrowed as she looked up at her aunt. "But white for a wedding?"

"I think you’ll look superb in it," Agnes asserted firmly. "‘Twas my wedding dress for my third husband. I took a bit of license with propriety by shedding my widow’s black too soon to wed him." She sighed and looked pensive. "He was a fine gentleman. I came very near to loving him." She shook herself as if banishing ghosts of the past. "Now then, it’s a bit out of date, so let’s see what we need to do to make you look perfect in it."

Lisette hugged her aunt tightly. They’d spent most of the previous day and late into the night in the hidden book room. Feeling the joyous sense of wonder of an adventurer discovering a new world, Lisette savored each word from the volumes. Glad that she’d come here, Lisette found herself revealing more and more to her aunt, telling most, but certainly not all, of her feelings about Ashur. For some reason she couldn’t bring herself to mention the shooting star that led her to the strange man, but spoke instead of divine guidance leading her to a place where she was needed. As she told more and more of the peculiar, but wholly wondrous, feeling just nearness to Ashur had caused in her, a smile grew on her aunt’s lips, sometimes turning to a chuckle.

"So it’s well it’s over and I’ll not see him again," Lisette had finished primly, pursing her lips at even a hint of the suggestion that something improper had taken place.

Agnes hadn’t answered, but there was a meditative twinkle in her eyes of which Lisette wasn’t quite sure what to think. Her aunt, childless herself, had always been a source of pleasures for Lisette and her sisters, bringing them surprises and gifts. Lisette had recognized in her aunt the same mischievous gleam before she changed the subject and asked Lisette to read some passages from Luther’s writings to her. Lisette hadn’t given that request much thought until now. Agnes held the dress at arms length, squinting as she did so, even though the room was well lit.

"Ah," she made a sound of disgust. "I fear these old eyes won’t be able to do the stitching." She sighed. "I did so want to do this for you. It’s been a long time since I’ve done any proper sewing and I did want it to be my wedding gift to you."

Closing her hand over her aunt’s, Lisette said softly, "The most blessed gift is this time spent with you, sharing your time and your wisdom with me. I do thank you. And I thank you right well for this dress, to be able to stitch upon it with your guidance will be another gift for me to count. Surely no lowly knight’s daughter ever looked finer on her wedding day than I shall… no knight’s daughter, that is, except you, dear Aunt Agnes."

Agnes chuckled and Lisette joined in. "Thank you, dear Lisette." She stood up briskly and opened another chest. "Now, then… I bought some Italian gold lace when I was in London. We’ll cut down the neck into a low, square cut. Oh! I’ve pearls to stitch on too…"

For Lisette the next several days were happily filled with alterations to her exquisite dress, afternoons and late evenings in the secret library reading and discussing with Agnes what she discovered. Each day she thought a hundred times, with a dull ache in her middle, of Ashur, wondering where he was, what he was doing. Alas, there was naught she could do, not even to send him a letter. Would the memory of one kiss be enough to last her a lifetime? Aunt Agnes only smiled mysteriously when Lisette spoke of it.

Too soon did the time fly by, the first week ending, then the next and it was time to return home. The magical crystal she’d secreted, without Aunt Agnes’ knowledge, in the hidden library room. With it were notes she’d made on the movements of the stars and planets and, in particular, on one star that fell to earth.

As Aunt Agnes’ well escorted carriage pulled away from the estate, Agnes waved to her niece and called out that she would see her in two weeks at the wedding. Two weeks, Lisette thought, the hard lump in her that had been chased away by these idyllic days returning vehemently. Swallowing, she forced her fears away, concentrating instead on the joy at seeing again her mother and father, and of waking up with dear little Alyce by her side. Smile she did, but always niggling at her was the merciless rush of time. Two weeks left, two weeks before her life would forever change. It didn’t occur to Lisette that her life had already irrevocably changed and she’d soon see the results of that change.

Ashur bent over Lady Stafford’s accounts, wishing for a good computer and an accountant to operate it. Upon learning that he knew math, something they defined quite differently than would be in his time. This was nothing but simple arithmetic, learned by the youngest of children. But here, like reading, it was an exclusive art.

The quill scratching on the vellum moved with agonizing caution. He’d fouled many pages at first with his lack of expertise in operating the barbaric feather pen. Ashur scowled, thinking how this seemingly simple task had rapidly taken on Herculean proportions. Organize and balance the accounts, if you’d be so kind, milord, seeing as how you are learned in math and milord is gone on business, the contemptuous old crone had said, managing to work in yet another mention of their magnanimous charity in taking him in. So Ashur found himself trying to decipher ledgers kept in a barely legible hand, with spellings that would send even a twenty-sixth century computer into spasms.

What a miserable and cumbersome means of keeping records, Ashur thought again. And who would have imagined that simple arithmetic could be so much work? But then, who in his time bothered to do arithmetic at all. Once the principles were taught to a child, machinery took over, handling all such transactions with swift, accurate and unshakable honesty. Ashur struggled with a bit of subtraction, trying not to use scratch paper which, until Ashur had blotted so many pages with gobs of ink, had been nearly as scarce as computers. Added to the problems was the unmistakable revelation that Lord Stafford had been indulging in what has been commonly known as ‘double entry bookkeeping.’

On clear days he’d take the accounts outside. There he could exclaim out loud about some particularly annoying piece of mathematical chicanery without Lady Stafford rushing to pester him with questions about the problem. The Lady was worried, and no wonder, the Staffords were not only broke but deeply in debt.

For nearly two weeks he hid the news from Lady Stafford, his stalls becoming ever more transparent, though surely she knew, else she’d have not started this audit in her husband’s absence.

Worse, that miserable cur Geraint hadn’t reappeared, sending word instead that he’d be back at the end of the next week. And he’d had not a word of Lisette. Ashur wiped his forehead on the back of his hand. He sincerely hoped that whatever gods or Fates guided the universe would see fit to send him a way out of this miserable place.