From out of the Rubble

[Dora Lynch]

From out of the Rubble

There were spring onions planted everywhere, just waiting to pop up and show the city that new life and hope abound.

Dora Lynch ran from the destruction falling around them and along with as many elders, babies and children became a herd with her friends from the market place and migrated to the safety within the castle walls.

Afterwards, she was dazed as any of them, surprised to have survived when all about their path homewards lay the dead, those no longer suffering in this world.

“Why does this happen again and again?” Now friend and former adversary Flora Kent was at the other end of a shroud she and Dorie has sewn for young Armond Kent, her son, killed by arrows at the city gates.

“I cannot fathom the ways of the Almighty, Flora. He gathers the best and such a brave man was your good son.” Widow Lynch had seen more that her share of such scenes. Back in Wheatly Hill, in Ulster, in Aberdeen. “Such is the world,.” What was there to do but keep on, one day at a time?

Flora closed Armond’s eyes and folded the thick linen embroidered cloth over his face, while Dora stitched it up closed. It was a panel cut from Aegraine’s bed curtains, for there was a shortage of cloth to wrap the dead, even before they were all located within in wrecked homes.

Clovis the firewood vendor hefted the slight young man with ease and loaded him into his mule cart, along with five other adults and three children, all wrapped for the eternity in identical lengths of bed curtains. The three began another slow paced trip to the burying grounds, for in this section many died in that conflict with in this city. Old, still strong and weather worn, the former serf plodded along , in the good faith that all would be right in the Eterrnal Kingdom, if not in this.

“I get stone to set up, so you know which be him.” Clovis slung a nice cube of limestone into the seat area of his cart, while the three of them walked along. There were worse things and he had seen too many of them.

On the road back, the firewood collector watched for anything of worth scavenging to take home. The he noticed a particuar prize. From out of the rubble, Old Clovis pulled out an arrow shaft, here and there until he had a tote bag full; some broken and others near whole. He had him an idea, yes siree!

That night, long hours after the day’s dead were interred, the living they located found homeless were lodged under the roof of her employer’s house. Dora sat and stared into a sparse hearth fire, exhausted and discouraged. Clovis sat beside her, whittling something from a broken arrow shaft he had picked up along the way, listening as he did, a man of few words.

“What is that you do?” for all the world it looked just like one of her knitting needles. Dora turned to the old man and hoped for an answer. “Is that for knitting?”

“Tis. Maybe women folk be needing these once the spring lambs be sheared; some I seen have got left for two year now. There be spinning to be done. You can give these things out and some make new cloth?” He kept whittling , pacing his words with slow deliberation.

“You be a dear among men, Clovis o the Wilderness! Let me get you a bowl of this here gruel; it is not too bad. I found some spring onions to give it taste.” She handed him a carved wooden trencher of the thick, awful to the eye but good smelling gruel. The pair of them sat and waited through that night for dawn and talked about, well she talked and he listened for the most part, the spring time and how to get new work for the folks who needed it. Spinning wool, knitting the yarn from good Skye sheep began to sound like a reality, something that might work and let widows and the elderly make their own way, without taking alms ot charity. The seed of cottage industry in this town was set and in the warm days of spring , who knows, it might take root and grow.

Spring green onions sprouted their bright color into the drab after war rubble and sprung anew, in hopes of better days.

[Dora Lynch]

"Clovis?" Dora stood on the door still and watched as her employer rode off with Sir Zurban. "Have I been remiss in me duties? To watch over the girl and keep house for her". Dorie let the spindle drop from her hand, in process of spinning good Skye sheep's wool for the cottage group. From the rubble came the materials for her spindle that Clovis whittled and from the same destroyed city blocks her old friend Clovis made enough money so they might purchase more fleece, for their industry had begun.

"Naye. Let it be sweetie. Leave the man the chance to show his good side." The old man grinned at her, showing the stubs of his third set of teeth. Dark slicked black hair he had tied at the back of his neck. His leathery face just made jet black squinty eyes sparkle all the more. Clovis had tried to tell Widow Lynch not to take gossip to heart. "And speak of good, have you got your gown ready for tomorrow, for Beltane is upon us already." Clovis was of the old religion; Dora had faith in all good things so they decided to wed by hand-fasting, during Beltane.

"Yes, my friend Flora has it ready and you may not see until the ceremony." Dora walked into the very basic room that Aegraine had rented for a home. "Will you dine with me? I had her supper all ready..."

"Get used to making a hearty stew, Dor. I have me a good appetite." Clovis had to take the lid off the hearth pot and ladle him a good taste. "Tis to my liking. "

"Dora? I asked if you be young enough for having a baby. You did not answer me. It does not matter that much us being older, I know. But how are old be ye?"

"Forty, more or less. I have lost the count. I think it is too late; two husbands and no child. It were always too late."

"Clovis? Now that we are almost wed? I too need to ask you something. What is your last name? Clovis be your Christian name, right?

"Only that; Clovis. Not a Christian name at all. It be my child name, my slave name, my pit fighter name, my pirate name, me good Skye citizen name. If there be a need for a second name, I will share yours." So it was that the new weds were going to be both called, "Lynch", after her second husband long dead.

They sat at Aegraine's table, wooden trenchers filled with hot stew flavored with spring onions and ate their fill. Later, beside the hearth fire Dorie leaned her head against the old man's wide shoulder and asked, "Tell me once more of when you was a child. I love to hear it over and over."

So Clovis began telling of his young days with the Inuit," It was in the lands of nothing but ice and cold waters, I were but a bit of a child and had these dogs for company. Now we all wore skins of animal, so the swimming dogs with fish fins, " he described seals to her," were of valuable on a hunt." The tale wound on and on, calming old Dora and filling her mind with images foreign and beautiful, until she dozed and slept, safe and comfortable seated near the hearth.

From the rubble of the walls and city homes destroyed, this couple would find their new life and a family, once all the orphans were settled and some needed a good home.

[Dora Lynch]

Clovis and Dora Lynch now reside at their home in the forest: Skye, May 1, 1329 and for a year and a day.

In the autumn of her life, two bad marriages in the past and one tragedy after another, Dora Belle Lynch finally and freely got wed by handfast to Clovis. Now, the firewood vendor Clovis was a long time resident of this isle, having worked and lived in the woods for over ten years. In that time, he built a fine little home and furnished it with household goods, most carved and finished from trees and driftwood he dragged home.

Beltane. Lady Bethag gave her approval and blessing. The night of the big fire on the beach, once they were joined with the ribbons about their hands for one year and a day, the pair celebrated Beltane out in the nearby woodlands, taking the long route to their new home, a burning brand out of the fire to start their hearth. After that, all was quiet. The firewood route was manned by some of Clovis’ friends for a while and Dora left her work in town. Dame lePower was off, away visiting so no one missed her.

Days passed, or was it weeks. Dora’s flower crown hung on the bed headboard,, and the little house was tidy and clean. Now, there was a kitchen garden to put in, herbs to gather and Clovis had help with the farmlands, for the first time.

“This be good earth, Clovis.” Dora stood at field’s edge, her skirts pinned up to knee level and her bare toes clawed into the loam in the first row. She held up her an apron full of seeds, waiting for her husband to clear the second row to plant. There was new life in the spring air, in the smell of clean fresh opened fields and she was renewed.

The family mule was hitched to a crude carved plow, once a strange tree bent driftwood and Clovis turned to guide it another row. “I put in extra for charity. “ She has asked for one row; he added another three.
“Once we get back to the city, what you say we look for a few youngsters, ones who need a home and are of age to learn farm work.” Of course, he meant help with the firewood business, too.

“Only if we give them back if they got kin found; I would rather find me a little one, weaned but not too growed up.” Dorie began to sow the seeds along the new open row. One hand to hold on the apron and her other casting plants to be along the line. She had not given up her hope of having a babe born to them, while all logic and good sense said no.

“A family took me in when I was a child found on an ice float.” Clovis snapped the reins to get the mule walking again. ” I be not their kin, but none better there be. I learn to hunt and fish; gather what good things be found and they called me Clovis.” He began another one of his stories, too strange not to be true.

“We be good parents, to children who need us. Clovis. I agree to that. In the autumn, before the snows, we go to the city and see who yet needs a good home. Until then, ‘tis our honeymoon.” Goodwife Lynch began to pretend she was going to bear a child of their own. So strong her instinct to become a mother, why that morning she had been queasy.

[Dora Lynch]

Three Englishmen: Booke, Bell and Crandle

Several days later, Dora was weeding in the herb garden, She had great hopes of adding to the family income by delivering fresh garnishes to city folks, on the days she came to work distributing fleece to spinning workers in the at home work network. Her husband was in the house, getting washed up for their dinner. A caldron of fish and vegetable simmered, its aroma noticeable downwind for yards.

The old wife was bending at the waist, plucking a few sprigs of parsley to add into their dinner. When she stood, there were three horsemen just standing watching her. She took one hand and brushed some stray white hair back into her head cloth wrap. In slow motion, she stood and looked over.

“Hullo there, Old woman.” The taller, youngest of the three spoke with accent much like Aegraine’s so that did not alarm her. “ We have been on the road and request hospitality.” The dinner did have an appetizing aroma, clear out here in the herb garden. Thus she met the Englishmen.

“We be Sir Brooke, Sir Bell and myself Crandle. If you can get your man to tend our horses, we will dine upon whatever you have prepared.” Crandle half leaped off his horse, muddy boots hit the ground. The horse had not been watered and it breathed of being hard ridden.

Her skirts were pinned up knee high and old Sir Bell got caught gawking at Dora’s limbs. How long had it been he seen a woman up-close? Even an old one like this did not look all that bad to him.

“I run and get me man; he be nearby.” Oh she was intending to run but not to her house. As Dora looked up to Bell and Brooke, still mounted on their horses, she got the scent of something wrong here. Their armor was a bit rusted here and there, dented and battered. Parts of this and that did not match. Brooke’s breastplate had a huge hole through the heart. They did not sit proud like real knights.

It was too late to run, for Crandle caught her by the arm and twisted until it hurt, to keep her from sprinting into the deep wood. “You ride with me, hag. I want to see if there even be a man in your cottage.” So, Crandle threw Dorie across the saddle before him and got on his horse, to find the house. “If you tell me wrong, I will spank you old woman." He had a sarcastic chuckle “ Or not. “The young man with English accent held fast onto Dora’s long braid and bade her give good directions. As if the smell from the fish stew was not a beacon in itself.


Inside the house, Clovis got their wooden trenchers , for fish stew was a favorite meal, off hunting season as it was. “Dora? You there? I heard horses. Did yer Aegraine and her friend come a visit?”

Then he opened the door to trouble. How much poor Clovis could not realise. Today, his present and past came face to face as he stood, like a rabbit in torchlight. Transfixed.

[Dora Lynch]

After Booke and Bell departed the Isle of Skye, there came an announecment of a Mid-Summer Joust, a thing which Dora, Clovis and their frend Crandle were determined to see.

For Our Family

“A Father to the fatherless, a defender of widows. God sets the lonely in families and brings forth prisoners with singing.”…Psalm 68

Dora Lynch, servant to Aegraine and wife of Clovis, sat at the hearth of their home in the woodlands and worked on a myriad of crafts, all destined for sale at the up coming Joust, in Turas Lan, not a far ways away if the mule could be made to jog as fast as a man could. Clovis was carving another of dozens of toy horses with wheels for hooves, a big seller to the wealthy. Dora had the fine grained plane, smoothing yet another to add to the pile of toy wooden swords, a popular item, affordable to most city residents, for many children like such things.

“Have we got the loan of Crandle’s horse, for the toys? “ Dora inquired as she picked up another sword to finish. “I was thinking on fillin’ the wicker paniers I wove for the flowers and herbs and let the mule take them and the heavier things, the bits of armor we got from the after battlefield. Someone will like them, for a nice price each.” She had plans to sell the carrying baskets, too on the last day of the contests.

“Aye, the horse and the man; Cran wants to see the big city and maybe meet him a nice widow.” Clovis winked as he turned the toy horse over an over, inspecting it for any flaw. “Who can say? I met me a nice one, in the city, eh, Dorie?” He had her giggling and thinking of introducing their friend to Widow Kent.

“You told me we could find some orphans before autumn and I think this and a bit more will do it, for the cash money; crops have been abundant this summer and tis not feeding youngin’s that is a problem. They will need warm clothing and cloth be costly this year, since the war.” Dora had been knitting wool hats and socks but it was clear children need more than that to begin.

“I got offered some cash money for some work, Clovis.” The woman sat a stack of coins onto the table, for she had not been certain to tell him how she acquired such an amount, over half what Aegraine would have paid for the entire year, for one job. It was that job which bothered her. “Martin sended it; his aide tell me that alls I got to do is stick to Aegraine like I were her shadow and watch her good. “ The coins glittered on their table, lit to life by the small hearth fire flames.

“What? That be a insult, Dorie! You do your job, working for Mistress Aegraine just fine. “ Clovis looked at the money, enough to insure that they would be able to support four or five orphans the first year. Subsequent years would be easier as the children worked in the family business and helped with the garden, of course.

“I want to keep it , Clovis, but something tells me it ain’t right, to be watch dog for a grown lady who has her own mind. “ Dora had conversations with Marie, a servant from Lake Manor and from what she’d been told, there was nothing amiss to watch here.

“Then hand it back, Sweetie, Just give her Da’s money right into his hand and tell him what you told me. “ Clovis began to work on the head and mane of a stick horse, an outline of a horse head with a stick for a body, for toddlers and little ones to run with, playing jousts, of course. “The Almighty will send us ways to provide; we will shelter and raise youngins, Dorie. Like this joust? We will go an earn and I leave it to you to spend it wisely. You always do. We be family, eh? Now come on, give us a kiss, Dorie. Before dinner.”

Dora did as he asked and she relied on Clovis’s wisdom. “The Almighty will provide.” She vowed to return the money to Martin lePower, although it was going to be a most difficult task, letting go of those coins.

The day came and Dora, Clovis and Crandle took the horse and mule full loaded with crafts and flowers to sell at the jousting events, as well all three wore backpacks of toys to sell. Dora walked with a tray of nosegays covered over with damp moss balanced atop of her head, as well.

They walked closer to Turas Lan and the Jousts, forming into a long train with other vendors from the outlying area, to make some money and see the sights. It was going to be a wonderous spectacle, the Jousts!

[Dora Lynch]

Back to the Deep Forest

With her employer Aegraine increasingly away from the cottage, Dora saw a dim future, for herself and her husband Clovis. Since the war, fire wood was increasingly difficult to obtain and it and to come from deeper in the woods. Today she sat upon the door stoop and talked with Clovis. His assistant Crandle got into a scrap with someone over a gambling bet and went into hiding, until he was able to hitch a ride with the lePower group, heading back to Ireland. Now it was just the two of them to do the work of three.

“She don’t need me no more.” Dorie slumped and propped her head with both hands, facing facts. “I cook her gruel every day and she want scones! I sew her a nice linensey-woolsey quilt and she want damask! I am at me wits’ end, I tell ya!” She scowled into the sunset that filtered up over the new finished and fortified walls of Turas Lan. Above all, now there was no hope of earning enough to finance adopting several orphans from the war. By now, almost of them were back with their birth families or had found new homes by now. “Childs got better homes than we can give, Clovis.”

“Pig got into the big garden, Dor. Tore all the plantings again, it did. I dunno what next. “ He spat into the cobblestone street. “The biggest pig I seen, like a wild boar it was but I did na stay to watch. I hied me up the oak, I did.” Clovis waited to tell her that that boar took a swipe at him as he climbed up , close enough to tear a swath out of his only trousers. It was enough bad news that there was not going to be a crop this year in their major field.

“I owe all the coins I took in at the market place; and I had to pay back the Mistress Ae’s Da for the watching of her. I cannot even tell you where she is. Gone off with the man, again, I ‘spect.”

“How’s about we head into the deep wood, Dorie? You know, live simple. No mind who we owe or how we are gonna get through the city winter? I got my forest tools and you bring your basket of house things. We live the simple life?” His history had been one of being a loner.

“I be ready, I swear. “ She stood and looked at the buildings about her, thought about how she ought to be loyal to her mistress, but it all paled, things pulled up from the rubble of the city after the war. “I love the woods. Green leaves and the quiet and I go where you go.” She went and gathered a bag of sewing and cooking items. And she followed her husband out of the new gates of Turas Lan, into the wilderness.

“Where you go, I will go.”

[Dora Lynch]

“Where you go, I will go.”
………………………………........................................

“When I cannot follow; what will we do?”


They trudged into the deep, deep forest where her husband felt safe and secure, among the oaks and lindens; wrapped about with brambles and berry thorn bushes. Dora did her best to keep up with the love of her life, but the sturdy Clovis had the energy of a man one fourth his age, even more so in the woods, where sunlight was filtered into flickering light green lights and no one could see clear up to the sky.

At their noon campsite, Dora plunked her onto a stone and from there slid onto the ground, feet extended forward and her weary head back on the stone. “I had it for the day, Dearie. “ She gasped and held her stomach. "Me feet is swole too big for my shoes and I got me some pains. “

“Yer feet hurt? Here you wear my boots; they will give you some comfort.” Clovis pulled off his boots and was going to put Dora’s feet into them, until he saw how sick she was. “I be weary too; lets us stay the evening here and see how we feel on the morrow.” Not only her feet but her hands were puffy. Her usual wrinkled face was smooth, red and she seemed feverish.

“Ye say ye got pain?” Clovis was concerned and could have kicked himself around the town square for dragging his sweetie on this hopeless journey for a safer, warmer winter time home site.

“I got pains in my belly, both sides. Here and here” She motioned with her hands low on both sides of what was more than a pot belly. “Last night’s dinner come up and kicks me like it were a foot!” She showed her husband exactly what that looked like. “See? I think I be ailing; I feel like as if I was dyin’. it hurt so much!”

“When I cannot follow; what will we do?” She was determined to make the sacrifice to walk where he husband led.


Now Clovis spent his youth living in an Inuit traveling village, where the everyday things of life were close and familiar to everyone in the group. This illness of Dora’s was not new to him. The only thing new was that she was admitting to being unwell, at all. “You ever knowed what it is like when a woman is gonna have a baby? I know we talked before and you told me you was too old…but Dorie? I think you ain’t.”

“Do I need me a healer?” She had heard of old women who got “lumps inside”, tumors and died of them. Dora huddled into her shawl, drawing her legs closer in, holding about her bent knees. “I do not want to die in the forest!” The brave Dorie wept with the pain, which came again, in another of its waves.

“We leave the baskets and I take you back to town; if you can let me carry you. We can be back by nightfall.”

“I would have never gone this route, if I knew you was aling, Dorie. You never told me nothing.” If his skin had not been so leathery from the outdoor life, you might have been able to see the worry wrinkles in Clovis’s forehead. “ Dorie?” He gathered up his poor little wife up in both strong arms as if she had been a little child and began to walk back to Turas Lan.

“I can let you rest when the pain gets bad, but I really think we have to see a good town healer. "

So they left their household gear in the deep woods and Clovis and Dora went back into the city, to see Aslin or any healer she had trained.


“Clovis? What you mean maybe I ain’t too old to get a baby?” She asked as they were in sight of the new city gates.

“Dor, I do not want to get yer hopes up too far, but I think I know a unborn baby foot when I see one; that was not your dinner kicking you in the side. I bet a gold griffin on that one.”

That evening they couple arrived at the Healer’s and had hope for the best.

[Dora Lynch]

Blessings

A quick visit with a healer did verify that Old Dora was indeed expecting a little one, although she was required to get rest and sit abed most of the day. With a reduction of her workday to merely cooking the evening meal, which was a joy not a chore, Dora began to suffer less from the swelling in her extremities and if one listened, they could hear her humming lullabies under her breath, practicing in joyous anticipation.

One day, she sat outside in the field with sewing while Clovis finished harvesting what crops that maurdading pig from the woods had left them, when Dorie happened to look back at their house and see smoke coming up from the chimney. “Clovis? I thought we left the fire banked, so it would be ready to stir up into flame when we got back. Look. A fire cannot get that built up from how we left it, can it?”

“We need walk home careful, Dora.” He set the vegetables upon the ground and kept his sharp spade in hand. No guests were expected, for only Crandle or Aegraine knew the way here and he was too involved with Widow Kent to wander far from her, especially since she had paid off his gambling debts. It is said they are going to be man and wife by spring, or sooner. Aegraine has gone visiting out to Lake Manor and she would not bring Zurban here, without invitation for them both. It had to be a stranger in their home. It had to be.

They tried to walk without crunching the dry leaves that scattered over the little mossy lawn and were good about it, for there was no indication that their home invader noticed a thing. From the house there came a good smell of chicken roasting, the kind that gets a golden crackley skin covering fr its juicy tasty light and dark meat parts. Clovis and Dora found themselves salvating at the thought of such a good, rare treat as a roast fowl.

“Wait,” Dora held Clovis’ arm back, cautioning, How do we know it is not Sir Bell and Sir Booke come back to steal more from us? I am scairt o them, sweetie.”

“Naye. It cannot be them two.” Clovis continued on his way to the house, creeping closer to it, to peek into the shuttered window.

“But they was here and know the way, they can return..”

“Dead men cannot return. I know. I chopped them and buried them. Done.” He held the spade in his hand, loosely as if it was not a real weapon. “I had to Dorie. They wanted to sell you and me and Crandle to the pirate slave ship. I heard them talk in their real language, slaver pirates. I been there and it be worse than hell is. “ He did not tell his wife stories of his time as a captive. “It be someone, but not them two. That I am certain.”

They both peeked in through the cracks where the shutters did not quite meet and looked into the little window to see who was at their cottage. “Wha the…?”

Dora opened the door without hesitation and held out her arm to a bedraggled barefoot child who stood from the hearth, basting a roast chicken. “Liam! Child! I thought you was a gonner!” It had been since the woods back in Ulster since she had seen the little child, now eight years old and still wearing the same ragged clothing he wore at age six. “Welcome to me home!” She hugged the little lost one as if he was back from the dead, and in his case it had been close several times.

Liam did not hold his head up, but glowered up with his eyes, the look you see on an animal who has been beaten into a sembalnce of domecity but is wild enough to bolt the moment you glance away. He had round bright blue eyes, freckles on his round face and red curly hair. His Irish brougue was so heavy that he was barely understandable to the folks in Skye.

“I come for me home, Auntie Dora. You tole me if I ever need home and family, come to you and here I am. Me Gran died last month and I had a time finding you. I made us a supper.” He pointed to the cooking chicken at the fire. “ I got ‘em with the sling you make me, back in Ulster, Mum.”
So it was a chicken from one of the local farms the lad harvested as if it were wild game, he had done his best. It was clear the lad was going to learn a few new rules about the property of others.

“Here is your new Da, Meet my husband Clovis. This here is Liam.”

“Well met laddie.” Clovis set his garden spade in the corner and reached three carved wooden trenchers off the high shelf. “ Time to dine? You have quarters over there, beyond the hearth.” He pointed out a stack of three bunks that they had hoped to fill with adopted boys, well before this.

“I need to do something about your clothes, too Liam. It be cold weather soon.” Dora took a stick and rolled out some carrots she had roasting in the coal of the once banked fire. “This does make a fine meal!”

They gave thanks to the Almighty, as everyday but this time with extra gratefulness. The first child came in to their lives, walking in and such need that the tough little young man got to their hearts without reservations. So it was they Lynches had their first child. Liam age eight. Dora already thought about how he was going to need school if he was capable of it.

“For these blessings that we are about to receive….”