“We have much to do,” he said when Rae emerged, rumpled and blinking into the sunlight streaming through their front window. “If we have any hope to harvest enough grain for the king’s tax, we must work from dawn until dusk.”
Rae groaned, imagining all Buto’s boasts when she failed to show up. She longed to introduce his smug face to the dirt, to stand over him in front of all his arrogant friends and—
She clenched her fists.
Not today.
Her father thrust a hunk of bread at her and got to work attaching the sickle to the raw stump of his arm.
Rae grunted and took a bite of the stale bread. “Ugh,” she said, choking down the food and reaching for the water jug. “Do I at least have time to get some fresh loaves from the baker?”
“Fine,” her father said irritably, “but don’t be long. We have no time to waste.”
His face was deeply lined, and there were dark rings under his eyes. He was far from an old man, but the past two seasons had aged him considerably. They’d been hard days, and it seemed that they were only going to get harder. Rae felt a twinge of dread.
She washed with cold water from the basin, tied her hair up with a strip of linen, and shouldered past her father out the door.
“Don’t start without me,” she warned him. “I don’t want youhurting yourself trying to do too much.”
Her father gave her a look of contempt. “I’m not the one going into town and challenging every man in sight, now am I?”
Rae froze, a blush rising to her cheeks. “Youknowabout that?”
Her father laughed. “They took my hand, daughter of mine, not my eyes and ears. I’d have to be a fool not to see what’s really been going on. How many times can one person possibly trip over a rock and fall on her face?”
“Oh.” Rae could hardly meet his eyes. “Are you… are you angry?”
Her father sighed. “Your mother—may she live forever in the West—was a gentle woman. You didn’t inherit your belligerence fromher.”
Rae’s gaze flicked over her father’s shoulder to the small shrine in the corner of their house. There was a low offering table before a mud-brick pedestal, on which stood the small limestone bust of her mother. Her father had traded away a fine silver ring he’d gotten from King Rahotep to have her likeness made after she died.
“You have her eyes, and her smile,” her father went on. “But I’m sorry to say that the rest you get from me. I may not seem like much these days, but there was a time when I, too, had firein my belly. When war had me longing for a blade in my hand and an enemy before me.” He adjusted the sickle on his arm with a grimace. “But that fire went out long ago. Still, I cannot fault you for stoking one of your own. So no, I’m not angry.”
Rae exhaled in relief. “Thank you, Father.”
“That doesn’t mean I condone your behavior,” he added sternly. “It has not been safe in Sakesh since the Unification—and it’s even less so now. Trouble enough will find you without you looking for it. Find another way to cool your passions, Raetawy. I cannot lose you too. Understand?”
Rae nodded, contrite. “Yes, Father.”
“Good. Now get the bread—and be quick about it.”
***
After a hurried trip into the city, Rae headed back to the farm with two still-warm loaves in her shoulder sack. She walked along the river road, thinking of the conversation she had with Omari the day before. Her anger had burned itself out overnight, leaving worry behind in its ashes.
He had spoken passionately about this group of “like-minded men” and their collective calling to fight for Low Khetara. But he was a fool—a fool she loved dearly, but a fool nonetheless. There was nothing a few farmers and artisans could do against the immense power of the throne. He would only succeed in getting himself killed.
Rae shook her head that someone as even-keeled as Omari would be taken in by such a scheme.Aren’t I supposed to be the reckless one?Then again, affairs in Sakesh were dire, and everyone had their own ways of dealing with the strain.
He’s always been there to talk sense into me, she thought.It’s only right that I do the same for him.
When the reaping was done, Rae decided to visit his workshop.Surely if she laid it out, calmly and logically, Omari would see she was right and give up his plans.
She was just approaching one of the neighboring farms when she heard raised voices.
“Have you no heart?”
She recognized that one as Baki, the shepherd who worked the land. Baki was a quiet man, so Rae was surprised to hear him speaking with such vehemence.
