PDCOO Chapter 26

That was her resolution as she looked out toward the farm in the dark before dawn, as it was every morning. Any moment now, Bertram's large silhouette would be arriving to sweep.

...But the sky had grown quite light, and no large silhouette had appeared.

"Skipping out on me already, are you."

Karlah thought: a chance to have words with him at last.

But the sun cleared the mountain, and the sound of Anna tumbling out of bed reached her, and still no Bertram.

Karlah began tapping the edge of the table with her fingertips.

"...Has something happened to that big bear?"

She didn't deliberate long. Soon she was calling into the house with some urgency:

"Anna! I'm just running to the farm for a moment!"

"Mm...?"

A not-quite-awake Anna crawled to the doorway and peered into the yard. Her enormous eyes were still thick with sleep.

"Mama, what are you saying. Why the farm... is something wrong?"

"...No. Nothing's wrong. Have things ready for opening by the time I'm back. Understood?"

Karlah threw her apron at her daughter and ran toward the farm.

She'd said nothing was wrong, but in her head, the worst was already playing out.

Near the lodging were the communal farm and the livestock pen.

At the farm, the occasional fool surfaced now and then, lured by rumors of wartime treasure buried in the fields.

At the pen, wolves appeared sometimes.

It was a very low probability—but if Bertram, alone in his lodging, had somehow become the prey of wolves or worse—

'I'm the one who made him sleep there. I threw him out when I could have just laid a blanket in the kitchen—it wouldn't have been any trouble at all—'

The dark imagining drove her feet faster.

When the farm fence came into view, the smell of blood reached her on the wind and a chill ran down her spine. So the dark imagining wasn't entirely wrong.

The village men—militia included—were clustered around the farm. Karlah spotted her friend Dean and called out.

"Hey, Dean! What's going on over there?"

"Karlah. What brings you?"

He turned around without urgency—but both his hands were soaked in red.

"That blood—is that yours? Who's hurt? Is it you?"

"Not mine. Damn it all. Mountain goats came down out of nowhere and tore up the fields. We'd barely dealt with them when the wolves arrived."

"Wolves?... Good lord."

Stepping over the farm fence, Karlah took in the whole picture.

Several mountain goat carcasses on the ground. And wolf carcasses too.

Nearby, the young men who had apparently fought back with farm tools were wrapping each other's wounds. The blood on Dean's hands was surely theirs, or the wolves'.

The worst seemed to be over. Karlah let out a long breath—half relief, half something that hadn't quite released.

"Is there anything I can do? Were the other injured sent to the doctor already?"

"Other injured?"

"There can't be only this many hurt."

When mountain goats were rampaging, a broken bone or two was ordinary. With wolves in the mix, three or four people should by rights be badly bleeding and on their way to the next village's doctor by now.

But Dean shook his head.

"This is all of it. Your household worker happened to be in the communal lodging—he got all the wolves. Didn't get a scratch himself."

"What?"

"He had breakfast with the farm crew so he won't go hungry, don't worry. Ha—but how long are you keeping him around? The man is genuinely useful. Can't we borrow him?"

Apparently the days of giving Bertram the cold shoulder had been forgotten entirely, because Dean pressed close and whispered this without the slightest embarrassment.

A little further off, Bertram—in Hans's clothes—was visible. He was lifting mountain goat carcasses one-handed and tossing them clear of the crop rows. The worker beside him chuckled.

"Would you look at that. Good—we'll eat well tonight. Shall we bring them over to Anna's place?"

Bertram answered evenly.

"If you're bringing them to Anna, I'll clean the hide and horns and bleed them now."

"You've already done enough taking down the wolves. Rest yourself. Karlah's good at the skinning."

"All the more reason for me to do it. I'm right here—I can't have Karlah doing that kind of work while I'm standing by."

From his distance, Dean heard this and snickered at Karlah.

"Look at him go—sharp and quick as ever. I was scared of him at first, but now I find him rather entertaining. So? You're really going to send him off?"

"I'm more scared now than I was before! Was it even reasonable for an ordinary person to catch wolves bare-handed? Did any of you actually see how he did it?"

"What does it matter. Results are what count. Hey, Bertram! Your mistress of the house is here!"

"Dean!"

Karlah protested, but it was too late. Bertram heard the words and came bounding over in great loping strides, casting a vast shadow over her in a moment.

"I apologize for being late. I'll go trim the onions at once."

"Never mind being late—what is this? When did you get hurt?"

Blood was dripping from the tips of his fingers. Drip. Drip. Karlah grabbed his arm and yanked it toward her. The wound that had been quietly pooling finally let go, and blood trickled down in a thin stream.

"Dean, you son of a b*tch—you told me he didn't have a scratch on him!"

"...How am I supposed to know every inch of a man's body?"

"Nothing to say to that. Bertram, follow me. We need to get that bandaged. There should be a first-aid kit at the lodging somewhere..."

"I am perfectly fine."

"I'm not fine! Follow me right now, unless you want to watch me throw my back out trying to haul you somewhere!"

Karlah seized Bertram's collar. The fabric went taut between them. He gave up and followed her.

The communal lodging.

When the communal farm first started running, Anna had made it a residence for the workers she'd gathered in.

But the drifters had drifted on, and the residents had found proper homes of their own, so the lodging saw very little use now. Occasionally, shirking workers would leave it in a comfortable state of disorder.

It should, in other words, have been a mess.

"...Bertram. Did you clean all this?"

"Yes. Since it is communal quarters, I thought it should be kept clean, as you said."

"You only needed to keep your own space tidy—you've done a full deep cleaning! Do you enjoy cleaning?"

"Cleanliness was important in the military."

Karlah swallowed the 'this isn't the military' that rose to her tongue.

She couldn't keep snapping at someone who had done nothing but good things. Besides, he was injured.

"...Come here. I'll bandage that."

Bertram rolled up his sleeve. His left arm. A wound that looked very much like a wolf bite. The blood had pooled dark.

"This is a bite wound, isn't it? You should see a doctor. I'll speak to the village chief—"

"The green powder medicine in my bag will do it. Just apply that."

"Do you think we're still at war? You need a real doctor, not field medicine!"

"There is no better treatment than that powder."

Bertram, unusually, did not give way. He had that much faith in the medicine.

Being the young master of a fine household, he probably did carry quality medicines with him. Karlah muttered internally and wound the bandage around his arm.

"If it looks even slightly infected, tell me immediately. I'll drag you straight to the doctor in the next village. No restaurant today."

"I am capable of working."

"That's funny. What happens when you're cutting onions and your hands shake and you take off a finger?"

"...In that case."

Bertram said something unexpected.

"May I come to play instead?"

Karlah's mouth fell open.

Play?

This man who looks like he learned military crawling instead of baby crawling at six months?

The surprise made her far too honest.

"Do you even know how to do that?"

"I used 'come to play' as the conventional expression for a purposeless call. However, if a visit with purpose is preferred..." A pause. "I could learn how to do it properly from Anna."

'This little—'

An expletive reached the tip of Karlah's tongue and retreated.

Bertram looked at her thoroughly contorted expression and asked, "Miss Karlah. Do you dislike me?"

"Disgustingly blunt. Learn to soften that sort of question."

"If I did, you would soften the answer to match."

"...Ha. Clever enough."

Karlah scratched the back of her head and answered.

"Honestly, I don't dislike you. But there are too many uncertain elements for me to simply welcome a capable worker who turned up out of nowhere. Frankly—we don't even know who you actually are."

"Former officer, Bertram. I came to repay a debt. Everything I know about my connection to this village, I have told you."

"That's exactly the problem. A former officer could go straight home and live a perfectly happy life, and yet here you are, burrowing your way in to repay three onions. That doesn't add up. It makes a person think there's something else you're after."

The wariness from their very first meeting crept back into Karlah's eyes.

Bertram looked down at her, and thought back to something from a few days before.

Anna had told him:

'You are harmless.'

'Stop trying to prove your harmlessness.'

He understood those words now.

There was no way to prove yourself to someone who suspected you without evidence.

Therefore, what was needed was—