Remember Me (Thilbo - Bagginshield)

Sail to the Ends of the Earth

East Anglia, 819
19th Life
The goatherd and the farmer
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It was summer. Leofwine could hear the bugs buzzing and the birds chirping in the forest behind him, as animals crept through the underbrush. He closed his eyes, tilting his head back so the warmth of the setting sun could fall on his face. The heat of summer was welcome after the cold rains of spring.

He sighed. He knew the rain would not hold off long; it never did, in this country, but it was good for the fields and pastures, and so he would not complain. Drought would only lead to famine, and Leofwine knew all too well how devastating that would be. He had known far too many people who had died of starvation, when the harvest was bad, or the summer had been too dry.

He said a quiet prayer for a good yield that year. There had just barely been enough to make it through the past winter, and they had spent much of the later months straddling the line between survival and starvation. No one had died of hunger, however, and for that Leofwine thanked God, but they had been much too close. If the wheat harvest that year was not plentiful, he did not know if they would be so lucky.

The bleating of goats sounded in his ears, and Leofwine opened his eyes. He was resting against a fallen log and spread out in front of him was a pasture, the grass tall and green from the rainy spring. The pasture was full of grazing goats, a couple dozen or so. Some had begun wandering into the forest, and Leofwine stood with a sigh, grabbing his walking stick from where it was laying on the ground.

He hurried over to the meandering goats, quickly redirecting them back towards the rest of the herd. It was all too easy to lose a goat to the forest, full of wolves and other animals that would rip it to shreds in minutes. If they weren't watched, half a herd could be lost in one day.

Leofwine glanced up at the sky, squinting as the sun shone into his eyes. It would be dark within an hour or two. He would need to start towards home soon, though he didn't live far from the pasture; he could see the smoke rising from his house in the distance. Still, he began gathering up the goats, herding them in the direction of home. They could be difficult creatures.

The land he lived on wasn't his, of course—it belonged to a local thegn, along with the goats he herded. Leofwine gave the thegn a portion of his profits in return for the land and the goats, which he in turn used to earn his livelihood. It did not turn in a great deal of money, but it was enough to survive on.

His plot of land was small, just barely large enough for a home, barn, and a few crops. The land he grazed the goats on belonged entirely to the thegn, and Leofwine was able to use it with his permission. Most everyone in the area worked for the same thegn, save for the shopkeepers in the village, and they were few. They were a community of farmers and fishermen, all raising crops and animals on borrowed land.

Æthelswith and Ecgberht were outside playing when Leofwine arrived home. He waved to them and smiled, quickly herding the goats into their pen. He was careful to tightly secure the gate with a length of old rope, giving it a few good tugs before deeming it suitable.

"Fæder!" Ecgberht ran towards him, and Leofwine turned to gather the boy up into his arms.

"Hello, my son," he greeted, wiping a smudge of dirt from Ecgberht's cheek. "How has your day been?"

Ecgberht smiled a wide, toothy grin. "Good!" he said, quickly launching into a long retelling of his day. Leofwine listened with a happy smile. He glanced down as Æthelswith ran to join them, her sandy hair flying loose behind her. Taking her hand, he let her drag him inside, where Cynethryth was waiting.

The interior of their house was simple; it was a single room, with only two windows and a hole in the roof to allow smoke to escape. They had a table and three chairs against one wall, and a bed against the other, above which hung a small loft, storing a second bed. A fireplace sat in the middle of the room, with a large black pot hanging over it.