- 15 minutes ago
Trapped by the Hunter
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Among we poor, wife-sharing was common.
00:04My husband sold me to the local trapper Rowan for $300.
00:09Rowan was considerate and promised not to touch me for seven days.
00:13I turned down his offer directly.
00:16It's a two-minute business for my husband.
00:19No point dragging it out, just close eyes.
00:23That night, the old wooden bed creeped for hours.
00:28Later, I understood that men were not all the same.
00:32So wife-lending was nothing new in places like this.
00:37Poor men sent their wives out to other households to cook, clean, and bear children.
00:42The cheaper arrangements ran less than $50 a year.
00:47If a son was born, there was an extra fee on top.
00:51Men who couldn't afford to court a wife of their own would scrape together whatever they had
00:55and contract one for two or three years.
00:57Long enough to get a child.
00:59A contracted wife was not there for comfort.
01:03Days were for labor.
01:05Destroyed by a knight.
01:07My best friend Clara had been contracted out by her husband.
01:10She ended up serving four men in that household.
01:13His father and his younger brother included.
01:16When I heard, I cried for nights.
01:18I never imagined I'd end up the same.
01:21A light flared in the darkness.
01:23A tall figure stepped out of the yard, carrying a light.
01:26It's Rowan.
01:28Lily?
01:29He must come to make sure I wouldn't run.
01:31I walked to his side, a bitter smile tugging at my mouth.
01:35Run?
01:36He thought too highly of me.
01:39Half hour ago, my husband Edmund had gone down on his knees.
01:44Fingers wrapped around my sleeve, face wet with tears.
01:48Lily, this is my last chance.
01:50I need that money for my test.
01:52Just one year, that's all I'm asking.
01:53When it's over, I'll come get you myself, okay?
01:56This was Edmund's fifth failed attempt at the qualifying exams.
02:00His family had nothing left.
02:02After talking it over with his parents, they decided to contract me out.
02:05Rowan had offered the most.
02:08Come inside, it's cold out.
02:10Watch the step, the threshold's higher than it looks.
02:12A hand touched my wrist, steadied me, then let go.
02:15Warmth faded fast.
02:16I pulled my thoughts back and looked up at him carefully.
02:20Rowan was an outlier here.
02:22His family had trapped and hunted these hills for generations.
02:26He lived alone at the foot of the ridge and kept to himself.
02:29They said he'd trained as a fighter.
02:31That he could kill a wolf barehanded.
02:34That he had a temper.
02:36A thug named Tom had once crept onto his property to steal
02:40and ended up strung to a tree and beaten through the night.
02:43After that, every ruff in the settlement gave Rowan a wide beret.
02:48Tom was the biggest man in the area.
02:50If Rowan had handled Tom that easily, then I...
02:53I swallowed and stole a glance at his broad back.
02:56Then I stopped.
02:57White.
02:58Bright, vivid white in the room.
03:02Rowan had shrugged off his coat.
03:05Under the thin material, the lines of solid muscle shifted with every movement.
03:10In the corner stood a clay vase nearly as tall as my waist.
03:14It was full of winter-flooming branches.
03:17Blossoms open wide, filling the room with a heavy sweetness.
03:21Edmund's room on our wedding night hadn't looked half this fine.
03:26Was Rowan getting married?
03:27Then why had he paid $300 to contract me?
03:30Was I here to serve as a maid to his new bride?
03:36You don't like it?
03:38I was told women like flowers.
03:40I stared at him, too surprised to speak.
03:43This was all for me, but I was just contracted labor.
03:46This wasn't a wedding.
03:48Something shifted in Rowan's expression.
03:50His jaw tightened.
03:52If you don't like it, I'll get rid of it.
03:55He turned to go.
03:56I caught his arm.
03:58Don't!
04:01It's beautiful.
04:02I love it.
04:04That branch alone must have come from an entire flowering tree.
04:08The Blossoms only group in the hills, a long climb behind the settlement.
04:14Hauling it all the way back without breaking a single step that would have taken real effort.
04:19And besides, the contract had been signed at the village elder's office.
04:24Both parties were bound.
04:25I was going to share a roof with this man for a year, whether I liked it or not.
04:30I couldn't afford to make an enemy of him.
04:36One punch from Rowan, and I'd be lucky to keep all my teeth.
04:45You really mean it?
04:46I looked at him properly for the first time.
04:48He was striking.
04:50Clean, sharp features.
04:52The kind of roughness that came from years outdoors and not from hardship.
04:56A strange feeling moved through me.
05:00Maybe, possibly, it was just possible that Rowan actually liked me.
05:07He walked to the table with both his hands and feet doing slightly different things,
05:12picked up two small cups, and carried them back to me the same way.
05:18Drink.
05:19And then settle in.
05:20Make yourself at home here.
05:22Was this a wedding cup?
05:24I had no idea why he'd arranged everything like a proper ceremony.
05:27But I took the cup and dipped my head.
05:30Alright.
05:34It wasn't the first time I'd drunk one.
05:36When Edmund married me, he'd been giddy as a boy finding treasure.
05:39He'd held me all through our wedding night and talked until morning.
05:43Telling me he'd admired me for years.
05:45Telling me I was the prettiest girl in ten miles.
05:49Marrying me was the best thing that would ever happen to him.
05:54A year later, I was a chore he'd forgotten to do.
06:00His mother complained I wasn't pregnant.
06:04Edmund himself lamented that I couldn't read,
06:07and there was no point discussing books or ambitions with me.
06:13A real wife could be discarded that easily.
06:17A contracted one for a year had no chance at all.
06:20I lifted the cup and swallowed it in one go.
06:26That burned.
06:27It went down my throat like a lit match and landed in my stomach like a small fire.
06:32My eyes watered immediately.
06:38Hey, are you okay?
06:39That's my fault.
06:40I should never have bought the rough stuff.
06:42Here.
06:42Here, water.
06:43Drink this.
06:43The man in front of me split into two and merged back together.
06:48I shook my head and tried to focus.
06:51Rowan was fussing over me the way someone handles a child who's hurt themselves,
06:55carefully tilting a bowl of water to my lips.
06:58I sipped.
06:59It was slightly sweet.
07:01Better?
07:01A little better?
07:03His hand moved in slow circles across my back,
07:07steady and warm even through several layers of cloth.
07:11A tall, handsome man talking to me in a low, gentle voice.
07:16My head swam harder.
07:18I was drunk, I thought.
07:21Definitely drunk.
07:22I reached out, grabbed Rowan's arm,
07:24and started pulling him toward the bed.
07:27Come on.
07:28Let's get this done.
07:30Rowan didn't move.
07:32He caught my hands with a look of something like panic.
07:36Face bright red.
07:37Stumbling over his words.
07:39That won't be necessary.
07:41You've just arrived.
07:44Everything must feel strange.
07:47We can take our time.
07:49Get to know each other first.
07:51And when you feel more comfortable, we can...
07:53I let go and gave him a flat smile.
07:57It takes two minutes to drink a glass of water.
08:00You're suggesting we drag this out for two weeks?
08:04Before I married, my sister-in-law had sat me down
08:07and explained what happened between a man and a woman.
08:11My wedding night with Edmund, I'd been nervous.
08:14Then it happened.
08:15And I realized it bore no resemblance to what I'd imagined.
08:20It was fast.
08:21Clothes off.
08:23A brief fumbling.
08:24Two or three movements.
08:26And it was finished.
08:28Quicker than drinking a glass of water.
08:31Rowan looked like something had broken in his face.
08:34He stared at me like worse.
08:36And my patience was gone.
08:39Stop standing there.
08:41Come on.
08:42We shared everything.
08:44Even the last of our food.
08:46When Clara was first contracted out, her face was bruised daily.
08:50Two months in, she was pregnant.
08:53After that, things improved.
08:54They stopped hitting her.
08:56She put on a little weight.
08:58Rowan's throat moved.
09:00His eyes held something like banked fire.
09:04Both hands were clenched at his sides.
09:07The tendrons standing out.
09:09A visible effort at restraint.
09:13Are you sure you want tonight?
09:16If you mean it, then I...
09:18I didn't answer.
09:20I walked to the bed and started taking off my clothes.
09:26The quilt had clearly been aired recently.
09:29Up close, it smelled like warm sunlight.
09:32It was going to be wonderful, comfortable to sleep under.
09:35Better than the lumpy, matted thing Edmund kept on their bed.
09:40I was exhausted.
09:42I just wanted this finish so I could sleep.
09:47Lily.
09:48Rowan's breath was hot against the back of my neck.
09:51I looked down at my own waist and found two large, steady hands wrapped around it.
10:02A night with no sleep.
10:04The old wooden bed creaked and groaned through every hour, rattling the wall against its frame.
10:10My knuckles had gone white on the sheets.
10:13My fingers ached at the joints.
10:15My breathing came ragged and uneven, and my throat felt raw even trying to draw air.
10:22Rowan's palms burned.
10:24His grip pinned me, without effort.
10:28His presence wrapped around me from every direction.
10:35My eyelids were heavy as stone, but there was no space to close them.
10:41Every bone in my body felt taken apart and re-estembled wrong.
10:46The dark at the window faded slowly.
10:49Gray light crept up in the east.
10:51I stared at the patch on the canopy above, and understood, disley, that it was morning.
10:58Rowan had gone all night.
11:00This was supposed to be a two-minute thing.
11:03How had it gone all night?
11:05The last thought I had before I lost consciousness.
11:08Men were not all the same.
11:11The difference was enormous.
11:16I was woken by sunlight.
11:18I half-opened my eyes, looked at the brightness pouring through the window, and scrambled upright
11:25in a panic.
11:27My legs buckled, and I sat back down on the bed.
11:31I thought about the night before, and couldn't help a short, disgusted sound.
11:40Rowan.
11:41He had the face of a simple, straightforward man.
11:45The reality was apparently far more complicated.
11:49Where had he learned any of that?
11:55I wanted to pull the quilt over my head and stay there.
12:00The door opened, and a shadow filled most of the frame.
12:04I had overslept badly.
12:05You're up.
12:06By the position of the sun, it was well past mid-morning, nearly noon.
12:09I had never heard of a contracted wife sleeping this late.
12:18I'm sorry.
12:19I didn't mean to.
12:20Last night just wore me out.
12:21Please don't be angry.
12:22I'll start the cooking right now.
12:24Rowan looked at me for a long moment with an expression I couldn't name.
12:27Then he sighed.
12:28Eat first.
12:29I noticed then that he was carrying a wooden tray loaded with four or five dishes.
12:33Scrambled eggs with chives, rich and yellow.
12:36Half a stewed chicken, tender and dark golden.
12:39Salt pork with cabbage.
12:40A plate of pickled cucumbers, pale green and bright.
12:43And in front of my place, a bowl of hot rice, piled high enough to overflow.
12:47My God.
12:48A landlord's table didn't look like this.
12:51I hadn't eaten in two days.
12:53My mouth was already watering and my stomach had started to plane.
12:58I grew up the oldest of five girls before my parents finally had a son.
13:03In a house like that, daughters ate last and least.
13:06I had gone a full year without tasting an egg.
13:09After I married Edmund, I found that his family's prosperity was mostly appearance.
13:13His parents ringed out every coin they had to keep him in school.
13:15Edmund got an egg for breakfast each morning to help him study and ate meat twice a month.
13:20I got stale cornbread and pickled scraps.
13:23Right.
13:24Food like this couldn't possibly be for me.
13:28The moment I reached for it,
13:30Rowan would call me a greedy, shameless woman and use it as an excuse to hit me.
13:40Lily.
13:40Rowan's voice sharpened.
13:42Here it was.
13:43Every muscle in my body locked up at once.
13:47Was he going to hit me?
13:48Good.
13:49At least get it over with.
13:51The waiting was worse than anything else.
13:53I paid to contract you.
13:54That means you do what I say.
13:57Doesn't it?
13:58I straightened, trembling, and nodded hard.
14:01Something flickered in his expression.
14:03Pained.
14:04But his face stayed firm.
14:06Then I'm ordering you to eat every single thing on that table.
14:08Every bite.
14:09I have some business to take care of.
14:11When you're done, tidy up the house and wait for me.
14:14He turned and took two steps toward the door, then came back and lightly tapped the top of my head.
14:19If you honestly can't finish it, leave it.
14:22Don't make yourself sick.
14:24Then he was gone.
14:25I stood in the middle of the room like I'd been planted there.
14:28The clean, sharp smell he left behind, wood smoke and soap and open air, faded slowly.
14:34The smell of the chicken soup kept moving into the space it left.
14:37I looked at the chicken leg.
14:38I had never eaten one in my life.
14:40Better to die full than die hungry.
14:42Even if this earned me a beating later, a meal like this was worth it.
14:48The eggs were soft and fragrant.
14:51The chicken fell apart at the touch, bones tender enough to chew.
14:56The salt pork with the cabbage was rich and savory with a faint sweetness underneath.
15:03Even the small dish of pickled cucumbers was perfectly crisp and clean.
15:08I ate with my head down, one bite at a time.
15:12Not stopping.
15:16Somewhere in the middle of it, without any reason I could name, I started to cry.
15:28In my parents' house, I had worked myself raw, raised the younger ones, nursed sick grandparents,
15:34done everything asked of me, and I never once saw a piece of meat from it.
15:40In Edmund's house, I rose before light and wove cloth by moonlight, and I never once got
15:46an egg from my trouble.
15:48But here, in this house, the man who had paid money to contract me had made me a chicken
15:54leg.
15:56I set down my chopstick slowly, feeling something I couldn't explain.
16:01I had cleaned the table completely.
16:04A full stomach meant there was work to do.
16:09I picked up a rag and a broom and walked out to the yard.
16:14And stopped.
16:16There was nothing to clean.
16:18The flagstones were spotless.
16:21The chicken wee poop had been raked that morning.
16:24Even the weeds in the kitchen garden along the wall had been pulled to the roots.
16:29Rowan, this huge, rough-edged man, was apparently very particular about cleanliness.
16:41A fist hit the gate hard.
16:44Twice.
16:44I was already heading over to wipe down the door for him when Edmund poked his head in,
16:49checked that the yard was empty, and slipped inside, pulling the gate show behind him.
16:57Lily, you must have had such a hard time.
17:01He'd barely said two words before his eyes went red and his voice broke.
17:05I'm sorry.
17:06I'm so sorry.
17:07Did he hurt you?
17:07Did he?
17:08He was looking at me while he talked.
17:09Looking me over.
17:10I was looking at him, too.
17:12My eyes moved from his pale, fine-featured face down to his waist.
17:16Back at Edmund's house, I had kept a patch of squash in the kitchen garden.
17:21Always strange things, squash.
17:23Came from the same soil, the same row.
17:26And some came out thin as a thumb while others grew thick as a man's arm.
17:29So men were like squash, too.
17:32You, you...
17:33He stopped.
17:34He touched you.
17:35He did, didn't he?
17:37Something in his face shifted.
17:38The guilt curdled into outrage.
17:40I looked down and found my collar open at the neck.
17:43The skin along my collarbone was marked with deep red.
17:47I thought of the night before, and heat rushed to my face.
17:50It had been exhausting.
17:51But the kind of exhausting that left a strange, warm feeling behind.
17:55Sweet and sour together, with something else underneath that I didn't have a name for.
17:59My legs were still unsteady.
18:00How could you let him touch you?
18:03Why didn't you fight?
18:04Why didn't you fight him?
18:05Edmund's voice tore through me.
18:07I looked at him, flailing and stamping.
18:09And the face I'd once spent hours glad to look at, became suddenly repulsive.
18:13Edmund, have you lost your mind?
18:17You knew exactly what a contracted wife was for before you signed those papers.
18:21A contracted wife serves the man of the house.
18:24You sold me to Rowan.
18:26What did you think was going to happen?
18:27I served him well.
18:29Rowan is satisfied.
18:31You should be happy.
18:33With every sentence I spoke, he took one step back.
18:37By the end, he was against the wall with nowhere left to go.
18:41His lips worked for a moment.
18:44He looked at me with the expression of a man who has been deeply wronged.
18:48Lily, why would you say that?
18:49I told you this was a necessary sacrifice for our future.
18:53Why would you degrade yourself like this?
18:55How can you do this to me after everything I've given up for my studies?
19:02I grabbed the feather duster off the hook and went at him with everything I had.
19:06Oh, very noble.
19:08Very fine.
19:10You sold your own wife to another man.
19:12Get out.
19:13Get out of my sight.
19:14I don't want to see your face.
19:16You're out of your mind.
19:18I came here out of the goodness of my heart and you attack me.
19:21The gate slammed.
19:23I leaned against it.
19:25Chest heaving.
19:26A fire burning somewhere behind my ribs.
19:28I knew it had been a mistake to drive him off.
19:31In a year, when the contract ended, I'd go back to being his wife.
19:35Back to that house.
19:36I'd made things worse for my future self.
19:39But I couldn't hold it in any longer.
19:43The fire died down slowly.
19:46I slid down against the gate and sat in the dirt.
19:49My hands were still shaking.
19:50Edmund had stood there, red-eyed and trembling, calling himself wronged.
19:55Saying I had degraded myself, asking how I could do this to him.
19:59He had sold me, like a piece of furniture.
20:03And then he came here to stand in another man's yard and tell me I owed him something.
20:07I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes.
20:11A year.
20:12I had to get through one year, then go back.
20:15Back to the cornbread and the pickled scraps.
20:18Back to his mother's complaints about my empty womb.
20:22Back to his father's resentment.
20:25Back to Edmund's sighing that I couldn't discuss literature with him.
20:29I sat there until the shaking stopped.
20:34Then I got up.
20:35I went inside.
20:37And started on the mending.
20:43Rowan came home before dark.
20:46He stopped in the doorway and looked at the clean room.
20:49The sweat yard.
20:51The pot warming on the stove.
20:54Something in his face softened.
20:58You didn't have to do all this.
21:03I wanted to.
21:04And I meant it.
21:06He sat down at the table and we ate together.
21:09He told me about the hills, the trails, the animals he tracked.
21:14His voice was plain and easy.
21:17He didn't perform.
21:19Didn't try to impress.
21:26After supper, he washed the bowls himself and wouldn't let me take over.
21:31That night he was gentle with me.
21:35Careful in a way I hadn't expected.
21:38And wouldn't have asked for.
21:43I lay awake afterward in the dark.
21:46Listening to his steady breathing beside me.
21:48I didn't understand this man at all.
21:53The days settled into a shape.
21:56Rowan went out early.
21:57Sometimes before I woke.
21:59I kept the house and the yard.
22:01He came back in the evenings with game or herbs.
22:04Or sometimes just his empty hands and a tired, honest face.
22:10He never raised his voice at me.
22:12Never found fault with the meals or the cleaning.
22:16Never made me feel like a burden he was tolerating.
22:20He asked me things.
22:22Not testing questions with correct answers.
22:25Real questions.
22:27What I liked.
22:29What I remembered from growing up.
22:31Whether I was warm enough at night.
22:33I started answering him like I meant it.
22:36One morning I found a bundle of wildflowers left on the table.
22:40No explanation.
22:42Just the flowers.
22:43I put them in a jar and said nothing.
22:46But I kept looking at them all day.
22:49The village didn't leave us alone entirely.
22:51People found reasons to pass the gate.
22:54Glances over the fence.
22:55Whispers when I went to the well.
22:57A contracted wife living well.
22:59That was interesting enough to watch.
23:01Some of the women were kind to me.
23:03Some weren't.
23:04Clara came to see me.
23:06We sat in the yard with a pot of tea between us.
23:08And she held my hands and looked at my face for a long time.
23:12You look different.
23:12She said.
23:14Different how?
23:15She thought about it.
23:17Less afraid.
23:19I didn't say anything to that.
23:21She told me how things were for her now.
23:23In that household.
23:24I listened.
23:25I didn't cry this time.
23:26But my chest was tight for a long time after she left.
23:30Edmund came back.
23:31Not crashing in through the gate this time.
23:33He stood outside it.
23:35In the lane.
23:36And called my name.
23:37Quiet.
23:37Almost careful.
23:39I opened the gate and looked at him.
23:41He had lost weight.
23:43His scholar's hands were dirty at the nails.
23:46I want to apologize.
23:49What for?
23:52For what I said.
23:54Last time.
23:58You should go.
24:00Lily.
24:01Edmund.
24:03He stood there a moment longer.
24:05Then he turned and walked away.
24:07I closed the gate and went back to the yard.
24:10The tightness in my chest didn't come this time.
24:13Word reached me a few weeks later through one of the village women.
24:17Edmund had told people in town that I had gone eagerly to Rowan's house.
24:21That I had wanted to go.
24:23That the contract had been my idea.
24:26A scholar's rotation.
24:28That was what it came down to.
24:31He couldn't be the man who had sold his wife.
24:35So I had to be the wife who had sold herself.
24:40I was drawing water at the well when I heard two women talking on the other side of the fence.
24:44Not even ashamed of herself.
24:46Walking around like she belongs there.
24:48They didn't know I was there.
24:49Well, some women are just built for that kind of life, aren't they?
24:53I set the bucket down.
24:54I stood very still for a moment.
24:56Then I picked up the bucket and went home.
24:59Rowan wasn't back yet.
25:00The house was quiet in the way a house is quiet.
25:04When it belongs only to itself.
25:08I thought about what Edmund had told people.
25:11I thought about my parents' voices saying they had no such daughter.
25:16I thought about how it felt to be sold and then blamed for being sold.
25:21I sat down on the step and I cried.
25:24Not in front of anyone.
25:26Just by myself.
25:27On the step.
25:29Until I was done.
25:31Then I wiped my face and went inside to start supper.
25:34When Rowan came home, I was at the stove.
25:36He walked in.
25:37Stopped.
25:38Looked at my face.
25:39Who upset you?
25:40No one.
25:41I said.
25:41He didn't push.
25:42He just came and stood beside me and watched the pot for a while.
25:45That was enough.
25:48Rowan still wasn't back yet.
25:50The house sat empty and hollow around me like that same hollow place in my chest.
25:55My heart had already died the day Edmund sold me.
25:57I had known that, but a small stubborn piece of it had kept on wanting things it had no
26:02right to want.
26:04That day, looking at Edmund's face and seeing the self-interest dressed up as feeling, that
26:09piece finally let go.
26:11I wiped my eyes.
26:13I was tired, kind of tired that lives in the bones.
26:17I wanted to sleep for a long time.
26:19Lily!
26:19What happened?
26:20Who did this to you?
26:21Rowan was back.
26:23He came through the door still cold from outside, dropped everything at his feet, and
26:27crossed the room to me in a few steps.
26:29He held me at arm's length and looked me over, front and back, lifted me slightly off the
26:33ground and turned me around once.
26:34Did you fall?
26:35Are you hurt?
26:36Where does it hurt?
26:37Show me.
26:39We're going to the doctor.
26:40Right now.
26:43I shook my head.
26:43I stepped forward and put my arms around his waist and held on.
26:47Rowan went completely still.
26:49Every muscle in his body tensed.
26:51He stopped breathing.
26:53I pressed my face against his chest and Lover's heart beat fast and hard.
26:59Rowan, I don't want to go back to Edmund's house.
27:05That night, he didn't touch me.
27:06He heated a full pot of water and let me soak in a long, hot bath.
27:11Afterward, he held me the way you hold someone who is tired, and he sang to me, badly.
27:16He was clearly making up the tune as he went, but he kept going until I fell asleep.
27:20When I woke in the morning, the yard was already swept and something warm was waiting
27:23on the stove.
27:25Rowan was in the yard, shirtless despite the cold, splitting wood with great cheerful
27:29enthusiasm.
27:30He saw me come out and grin.
27:32Did I wake you?
27:34I figured you'd be up by now.
27:35He was going back into the hills for five days.
27:38He wanted to earn more money.
27:40He wanted things to be comfortable for me.
27:42The morning he left, he made a pot of broth that would last, told me to eat on schedule
27:47and not go looking for trouble.
27:49I nodded.
27:50I watched him shoulder his rifle and walk out into the early mist, and I felt something
27:56I didn't want to examine too closely.
27:59Those five days I swept the yard every morning and kept a plate warm on the stove each evening.
28:04On the fifth day, at dusk, with the sky burning orange and red along the ridge, his shape appeared
28:09at the far end of the lane.
28:11He was walking fast.
28:12His face was lit up.
28:14His game bag was full and heavy.
28:17Lily, I'm home!
28:18He'd barely made it through the gate before he set the bag down and came toward me, eyes
28:22bright.
28:23I stepped forward to help him with the rifle, but he caught my hands.
28:27Hold on.
28:28I brought you something.
28:30He crouched down and opened the bag the way you'd open something that might break.
28:34Slowly, gently, with both hands.
28:36At the mouth of the bag, two white shapes appeared.
28:39Long necks, faint golden markings, soft as winter light.
28:43A pair of fesses.
28:46White ones.
28:48Rare enough that most people lived and died without seeing one.
28:53Are those white fesses?
28:58My eyes went wide.
28:59White pheasants were considered a lucky omen.
29:02Some people said they appeared only once in a generation.
29:05Rowan nodded, stroking the feathers with one finger, voice gentle.
29:09Found them deep in the backcountry.
29:10Took two days of waiting to catch them, not a feather out of place.
29:13News moved fast.
29:15By the next morning the whole settlement knew about the birds.
29:18A crowd had gathered at the gate, everyone up on their T's trying to see over, voices tumbling
29:23over each other.
29:23Lord above, they're real.
29:25Just like the old people used to describe.
29:27That's a genuine lucky omen.
29:28You know what those are worth to the county magistrate?
29:31At least a hundred dollars as a gift.
29:34Rowan's made his fortune.
29:36A hundred dollars!
29:38That's a regular family's whole lifetime!
29:40Someone pressed forward to tell Rowan, with a face full of flattering, that gifting them
29:44to the magistrate might get him a proper appointment somewhere.
29:46Rowan gave them a flat look and said nothing.
29:49He turned and carried the cage to the shaded corner of the yard, set it down, filled a
29:53small dish with millet and water for the birds.
29:56Don't listen to them.
29:58Once I've made the arrangements, I'll take them to town.
30:02I know someone reliable there who can get them to the county seat safely.
30:06I watched his serious face and felt something warm move through my chest.
30:10I nodded.
30:11I thought that was settled.
30:13I was wrong.
30:15That same afternoon, urgent fists hit the gate, and with it came a sound that made my stomach
30:19drop.
30:20Mrs. Hartley's voice, sharp as wire.
30:24Lily!
30:26Open up!
30:28Open this gate, Royal!
30:33Rowan read my face and put a hand on my shoulder.
30:36I'll get it.
30:37You stay inside.
30:38Don't let her get under your skin.
30:40I shook my head and took his hand off.
30:42I'll go.
30:44It was always going to come to this.
30:45Mrs. Hartley stood in the lane with the deliberate look of someone who has decided she
30:49has owed something.
30:49A few curious neighbors had already gathered behind her.
30:52Her eyes went past me, the moment I opened the gate.
30:55Straight to the corner of the yard, straight to the cage.
30:57Something lit up in her face that I didn't like at all.
30:59There it is.
31:00She pushed past me and walked directly to the cage, craning her neck to look at the birds
31:05inside.
31:06The hunger in her expression kept getting bigger.
31:09Rowan stepped in front of her, jaw set, voice cool.
31:12Mrs. Hartley, what brings you to my house?
31:15She turned, gave him a brief glance, and spoke with the confidence of someone stating an
31:19obvious fact.
31:20Lily is my son's wife.
31:22She's been contracted to you for a year, but she's still an Edmund Hartley family woman
31:26at the end of it.
31:27Whatever comes to her while she's in your house belongs to us.
31:30I heard that and felt the heat rise in my face.
31:34That is the most outrageous thing I've ever heard.
31:37I was contracted to Rowan.
31:39These birds are his.
31:40He caught them.
31:42Your family has nothing to do with any of it.
31:45Her expression went through two or three colors, and then, she launched into her speech.
31:52Edmund had sacrificed everything.
31:54The family had given up everything for his studies.
31:58Contracting me out had been done for our future, for my benefit, so I could one day be a scholar's
32:03wife.
32:04And now here I was living comfortably in another man's house and refusing to acknowledge what
32:09I owed.
32:09The white phaiasies were a lucky omen.
32:13If Edmund presented them to the county magistrate as a gift, the magistrate might be so pleased
32:18that he'd approve Edmund's credentials by hand.
32:21Edmund would pass.
32:22I would return to the Hartley household as a scholar's wife.
32:25Wasn't that better than staying with a trapper?
32:30The more she talked, the less any of it resembled reality.
32:35The neighbors were murmuring now.
32:37The glances aimed at me had turned strange.
32:40I looked at her shameless face and felt sick.
32:44No.
32:45The birds are Rowan's.
32:46I won't give them to you.
32:48Get off this property.
32:49If you don't leave, I'll have At Rowan remove you.
32:52She saw my face and saw Rowan's expression, which had gone dark and still, and something
32:57in her flinched.
32:59But she didn't back down.
33:00Don't push your luck, Lily.
33:02If you won't hand over those birds, I will go down on my knees right here in this yard
33:06and let every neighbor in this settlement watch you turn away your own husband's mother.
33:11Let them all see what kind of woman you are.
33:15Rowan moved first.
33:17He stepped forward and blocked her.
33:19His voice dropped to something close to freezing.
33:21Mrs. Hartley, I strongly suggest you leave.
33:25This is my yard, not your stage.
33:27If you don't go now, you won't like what happens next.
33:30He was a full head taller than her and built like a man who had spent his life in the
33:33hills.
33:34The force of him standing there, quiet and certain, went through her like a cold draft.
33:38She straightened up, shot me a look full of venom.
33:41Fine, the two of you.
33:43Don't think this is over.
33:44We'll see how this ends.
33:45She turned and marched out.
33:47The neighbors drifted after her, most of them stealing one last look at the cage before they went.
33:51I watched her go and let out a long breath.
33:54The anger was still sitting in my chest.
33:58Rowan came up beside me and ruffled my hair lightly.
34:00Don't let it in.
34:02She's making noise.
34:03She can't actually do anything.
34:05I leaned slightly toward him.
34:08I'm not worried about the noise.
34:10I'm worried she'll go after the birds.
34:12He was quiet a moment.
34:14You're right.
34:16Leaving them here overnight is a risk.
34:18I'm going into town now.
34:20I have someone I trust who can get word to the county seat.
34:23Have him send someone official to collect the birds.
34:27That's the safest way.
34:31I grabbed his arm.
34:33Just take them with you.
34:35I don't like them sitting here.
34:36No.
34:37These birds are fragile.
34:39The road to the county settle is rough.
34:41I don't want anything to happen to them on the way.
34:44If the magistrate's office sends a proper escort, that's safer for everyone.
34:48He paused, then added,
34:51After I leave, lock the front gate.
34:53Lock the inside door, too.
34:55Whatever you hear outside, don't come out until I'm back.
34:57I won't be long.
34:59I looked at his worried face and nodded.
35:03I know.
35:04Be careful out there.
35:08He pulled me in briefly, held on for a second, then walked out fast.
35:13I followed him to the gate and watched his shape disappear into the evening dark.
35:17Then I shut the gate, slide the bolt across, and checked it twice.
35:21The yard was quiet.
35:22Just wind in the leaves.
35:24The night came in fast.
35:25The moon went behind clouds and took the last of the light with it.
35:28I sat inside with my needlework, trying to keep my hands busy.
35:33It didn't help.
35:35I kept pricking my fingers.
35:37Small beads of blood dotted the cloth.
35:40After a while, something moved on the other side of the wall.
35:43Faint.
35:43Like someone testing their footing.
35:46I set the needlework down.
35:47Stopped breathing.
35:48Listened.
35:49A soft thut.
35:50Someone landing in the yard.
35:52Then careful footsteps on the flagstones.
35:58I was on my feet before I'd made a decision.
36:00I went for the door.
36:02Then I heard the voices.
36:04Move fast.
36:05Quiet.
36:06Don't wake that little rat.
36:07She's asleep by now, Ma.
36:09Let's just grab the cage and go.
36:11Edmund, get the lash open.
36:12Be careful.
36:13Don't spook the birds.
36:14These are our ticket out of all this.
36:18I threw the door open.
36:20Stop.
36:21Right there.
36:23All three of them spun around.
36:25For one moment, something like guilt crossed their faces.
36:28Then it cleared, and they looked at me like I was an inconvenience to be moved.
36:32Mrs. Hartley put her hands on her hips.
36:34We're taking those birds tonight, and you are not going to stop us.
36:39Keep out of our way if you know what's good for you.
36:41Edmund stood to the side, but the careful, softly-spoken scholar was gone.
36:45What was left was flat and cold.
36:47Lily, be reasonable.
36:49These birds can change everything for me.
36:51That's good for you, too.
36:52Let us take them.
36:53When I've passed and earned my credentials, I'll bring you home.
36:55I won't contract you out again.
36:57You have my word.
36:58I laughed.
37:01Your word.
37:02I walked forward and planted myself in front of the cage and didn't move.
37:05Edmund's father came at me first.
37:07He grabbed my arm and threw me sideways hard.
37:10I stumbled back and hit the wall.
37:12The air went out of me.
37:14Stop wasting time.
37:16Tie her up.
37:16Let's go.
37:17Edmund spoke without looking at me.
37:19Mrs. Hartley stepped forward and hit me across the face.
37:22Open harm, as hard as she could.
37:24The crack of it was sharp in the cold air.
37:26My cheek lit up with heat, and I tasted blood at the corner of my mouth.
37:30You ungrateful little wretch.
37:32You dare stand in our way?
37:33I will teach you exactly who you belong to.
37:36She kept hitting.
37:37His father joined in.
37:38I fought after everything I had, which wasn't much against three adults.
37:42I went down.
37:43My arms burned.
37:44My legs hurt.
37:45My face was wet.
37:47I wasn't crying because of the pain.
37:48I was crying because of the cold truth of it.
37:54Edmund crouched down and grabbed my hair, forcing my head up.
37:57His face above mine was stripped of everything I had once mistaken for feeling.
38:01Just contempt and something greedier underneath.
38:03Lily, you really are pathetic.
38:05Rowan is a trapper in the dirt defending his property than stand on your own two feet.
38:10You'd rather be his contracted woman than be my wife.
38:13Let me tell you something.
38:14Whatever you think you are here, you're still just a contract, a year's agreement.
38:18You'll never be anything more.
38:20But I will be someone.
38:21I will be respected.
38:23And when that day comes, even if you beg me on your knees, I won't want you anymore.
38:28Not a woman without a shred of loyalty or virtue.
38:31I looked at his face and felt nothing but nausea.
38:35I gathered what I had left and bit into his forearm with everything I had.
38:40Edmund screamed and kicked me away.
38:43She bit me!
38:44The woman's feral!
38:46Mrs. Hartley pulled him back.
38:50Forget her.
38:52Let's take the cage and go before Rowan comes back.
39:00They grabbed the cage and ran.
39:03I lay on the cold stone and stared at the sky.
39:06Rowan had spent two days in the hills waiting for those birds.
39:09Not a feather out of place, he'd said.
39:11I hadn't been able to protect them.
39:13The gray of pre-dawn was starting at the edge of the sky when the gate swung open and Rowan
39:17came in fast.
39:18A uniformed officer of the county court right behind him.
39:21He saw me on the ground.
39:22He stopped being calm entirely.
39:26Lily.
39:28Lily, are you hurt?
39:31The officer looked around the yard and frowned.
39:34Looks like you had a break-in, friend.
39:41Rowan saw me settled and went straight to the Hartley house with the officer behind him.
39:46The Hartleys had brought the birds home and put them in the cage, fed them water and leftover scraps.
39:52By morning, both birds were dead.
39:55I found out later that this was something At-Rowie had known would happen.
39:59White pheasants were high-strung creatures.
40:02Captured and put in a strange place without the right conditions, they would simply die of distress.
40:07The officer's patience ran out completely.
40:12He clapped all three Hartleys and irons and brought them, dead birds and all, back to the county courthouse.
40:20The magistrate had already sent word ahead to the regional governor's office.
40:26He had been waiting for that gift.
40:28What arrived instead was two dead pheasants in a family of thieves.
40:34He was so furious he could barely speak.
40:36He ordered fifty slashes apiece.
40:39When he learned Edmund had been studying for the licensing's exams, he added a permanent ban.
40:44Edmund Hartley would never sit for another qualifying exam as long as he lived.
40:48All three came back unable to walk.
40:51Mrs. Hartley's health was already poor.
40:53The punishment broke something in her that didn't come back.
40:56She went home with a fever that climbed and wouldn't break, barely conscious.
41:00His father took to his bed and couldn't feed himself.
41:03Edmund sat in the yard all day with the look of a man who's somewhere else entirely, muttering,
41:08The exams. My exams. I can't sit for the exams anymore.
41:12His hair went gray at the temples almost overnight.
41:15He aged ten years in a week.
41:16Everything he had worked toward was gone.
41:19Every plan, every sacrifice he had justified to himself and to me.
41:24The exams had been the only thing, and now they were taken away and he had nothing left inside to
41:29hold himself up with.
41:31No money for a doctor.
41:32No money for medicine.
41:34Mrs. Hartley's fever kept climbing.
41:37Edmund had nowhere left to turn.
41:38So he came to me.
41:40That afternoon he dragged himself to Roe's gate,
41:43knelt in the dirt,
41:45and knocked.
41:49Lily! Lily, please! Open the door!
41:52He was filthy.
41:53His face was streaked with dust and dried blood,
41:56and he looked ten years older than the man I'd married.
41:59He pressed his forehead to the ground when he saw me.
42:04Please.
42:05I'm begging you.
42:08My mother is going to die.
42:10The fever won't break and we have no money for a doctor.
42:16Please lend me what you can.
42:18I will repay you.
42:19I swear I will repay you.
42:21He kept bowing.
42:23Tears and snot ran down his face together.
42:26There was nothing dignified left in him at all.
42:31I looked at him.
42:33Do you actually think I'd help you?
42:37You sold me.
42:42You stood in this yard and held my hair
42:46and told me I was nothing.
42:49You let your parents beat me.
42:53And then you stole from the man who housed and fed me.
43:00What happens to your mother has nothing to do with me.
43:02I turned toward the gate.
43:05He lunged forward and grabbed the hem of my coat.
43:09Lily.
43:11Please.
43:12I know I was wrong.
43:14I know it.
43:15I'll do anything.
43:17I'll give up the exams forever.
43:20I'll work with my hands.
43:22I'll take care of you properly.
43:24Lily.
43:25Just please.
43:27Please help my mother.
43:30Rowan appeared beside me.
43:32He reached down and detached Edmund's grip.
43:35Voice empty of warmth.
43:40Edmund.
43:42Don't do this to her again.
43:45She's not going to help you.
43:47You brought this on yourselves.
43:49Go home.
43:50Edmund looked up at Rowan's face.
43:52And then at mine.
43:54And understood.
43:55That it was over.
43:57He let go.
43:58He sat back on his heels in the lane and stared at nothing.
44:03It's all gone.
44:04He said.
44:05To no one.
44:08Everything's gone.
44:12He tried anyway.
44:14He went door to door in the settlement.
44:16Asking to borrow money for his mother's doctor.
44:21No one gave him anything.
44:25Everyone knew what the Hartley family had done.
44:28His father lay in bed full of grievances and self-pity.
44:31Useless.
44:32His mother burned with fever.
44:34Drifting in and out of sense.
44:36Muttering about pheasances and credentials.
44:39And all the things she was still owed by a world that had stopped listening.
44:43She wasn't ready to die.
44:44She'd never had her good years.
44:47She was still waiting to see Edmund become someone important.
44:51When it became clear that neither Edmund nor his father could get money for her treatment.
44:56She acted on her own.
44:58She sent word through a distant relative to a moneylender in town.
45:01Borrowed a sum in her own name without telling either of them.
45:05She thought it was simple.
45:06Get the money, see the doctor.
45:08Then find a way to catch another pair of rare birds for the magistrate.
45:11Get Edmund his credentials and pay it all back slowly.
45:13She did not understand how moneyletting worked.
45:16The debt doubled in days.
45:18Then doubled again.
45:20Her fever improved slightly.
45:22The loanders came to collect.
45:24She did not understand how moneyletting worked.
45:27The debt doubled in days.
45:29Then doubled again.
45:30Her fever improved slightly.
45:33The lenders came to collect.
45:35Three large men walked into the Hartley yard one afternoon.
45:38Edmund and his father shook and begged for more time.
45:42The men were not interested in more time.
45:46Edmund's righting hand was broken.
45:48His father's leg was broken.
45:49They lay on the ground and screamed.
45:51Mrs. Hartley sat on the ground beside them and wept and no one paid her any attention.
45:56The lenders took everything that could be sold or carried to settle what they were owed.
46:00The deed to the house.
46:01The furniture.
46:03All of it.
46:06When the lenders left, there was nothing.
46:09Edmund and his father lay injured and couldn't move.
46:11Mrs. Hartley's mind had cracked somewhere under the weight of it.
46:14She sat in the empty yard for hours saying nothing.
46:17They had nowhere to go.
46:18They gathered a few rags of clothing and moved into the derelict chapel at the edge of the settlement.
46:23The place had gaps in the walls and a roof that leaked.
46:26No food.
46:27No blankets.
46:28They survived on whatever they could beg from passersby.
46:31Edmund had come undone completely.
46:32His writing hand was broken.
46:34He couldn't hold a pen.
46:35He couldn't sit for exams.
46:37He couldn't do the one thing he had organized his entire life around.
46:41He sat in the corner of the chapel and rocked slightly and said the same things over and over.
46:47My hand.
46:48My exams.
46:49I shouldn't have been greedy.
46:50I shouldn't have contracted Lily out.
46:53When Rowe heard what had happened, he took three dollars, went to find the Hartleys, and bought a legal divorce
47:00document from Edmund on the spot.
47:03He came home and put the paper in my hands.
47:06His face had that open, lit-up look it sometimes got.
47:12Lily.
47:13You're a free woman.
47:15Then he seemed to make a decision.
47:18He took my hand and held it, and his eyes were completely steady.
47:24Lily.
47:24Lily.
47:26Will you marry me?
47:27Not a contract.
47:28A real marriage.
47:30You and me.
47:31For the rest of our lives.
47:33I looked at him.
47:34This man who had cut winter blossoms in the dark hills and dragged them home for a woman he didn't
47:40know yet.
47:40Who had ordered me to eat until I was full and then pretended it was a command.
47:45Who had held me while I cried about someone else and asked nothing in return.
47:50My eyes were filling.
47:54Yes.
47:59Rowan threw himself into the wedding preparations the way he did everything.
48:04Completely and with great enthusiasm.
48:07He spent everything he'd saved from years of trapping and hunting.
48:11Fabric, ribbon, food, decorations.
48:14He got half the settlement to come help and transform the yard entirely.
48:17Red lanterns everywhere.
48:18Paper decorations on every window.
48:20The smell of good food and wood smoke in the air.
48:23A hundred times more festive than the thin, quick ceremony Eden had given me.
48:26On the day itself, the yard was full of people and noise and warmth.
48:30Half the settlement came to celebrate.
48:32I wore the red dress Rowan had bought me.
48:34Silver pins in my hair.
48:35Bracelets at my wrists.
48:37A little color in my cheeks.
48:38Standing beside him, I felt something I hadn't expected to feel again.
48:42Happy.
48:42Simply, cleanly happy.
48:45Rowan wore a new rough cloth wedding shirt and looked like himself.
48:48Big and solid and sincere.
48:50He looked at me the whole time with a softness in his face that he didn't seem to know how
48:53to hide.
48:54We made our vows.
48:55In the middle of the ceremony, a commotion started at the gate.
48:59The Hartley family had come.
49:02Uninvited.
49:03Unwelcome.
49:04They had come to eat someone else's wedding food.
49:07Edmund leaned on a crutch, his broken hand hanging in a sling.
49:09His face was gray and hollow.
49:11His father was being helped along by someone, his broken leg wrapped and dragging.
49:15Mrs. Hartley shuttled behind them, vacant-eyed, dressed in dirty rags.
49:19Everything about her at odds with the red and gold around her.
49:21The guests who saw them first went quiet, then the whispers started.
49:26Uninvited.
49:27Their own family in ruins and they come here to eat off Rowan's table.
49:29After everything they did to it, Lily, have they no shame at all?
49:33Rowan's jaw tightened, but he said nothing.
49:36He didn't send them away.
49:39The Hartleads found a spot and sat down, and they ate.
49:43Quickly, without looking up, like people who had forgotten what it felt like to have enough.
49:47Edmund drank.
49:48One cup and then another and another.
49:50Until he was past the point of knowing where he was.
49:53He raised his head and found my face across the yard.
49:57And Rowan's beside mine.
50:03And something wrecked and lost moved through his expression.
50:07He started talking.
50:09Loud enough for the people near him to hear.
50:12Lily.
50:13Lily, I was wrong.
50:15I know I was wrong.
50:16I shouldn't have contracted you out.
50:19I shouldn't have hit you.
50:21I shouldn't have said those things.
50:23Rowan, I'm jealous of you.
50:25I'm jealous you can give her what I couldn't.
50:27My exams.
50:29My hand.
50:30My house.
50:32My Lily.
50:33All of it's gone.
50:36All of it.
50:37The guests went quiet around him.
50:40Some looked away.
50:42No one argued with him.
50:44And no one comforted him either.
50:46When the evening was over, the dark had fully come in.
50:50A cool wind moved through the lane.
50:53Edmund refused his father's and mother's hands.
50:55He was going back to the chapel on his own, he said.
50:58He walked out into the dark, still muttering my name.
51:02Feet stumbling.
51:03Listing from side to side.
51:05The river at the edge of the settlement was running high that time of year.
51:10Spring floods.
51:11Fast water.
51:14Edmund couldn't see where he was going.
51:17At the bank, his foot slipped.
51:21He went into the water.
51:24One arm broken, he couldn't fight the current.
51:27The river took him.
51:28A few weak sounds.
51:30And then only the roar of the water.
51:33The next morning, someone found him downstream on the gravel bank.
51:37Soaked through.
51:39Face a terrible color.
51:41His expression still carrying the outrage of a man who had died believing he was owed better.
51:50Nobody cried for long.
51:56He had done this to himself.
52:03When the news reached Mrs. Hartley, what was left of her mind let go.
52:08She wandered the settlement for days, hair loose, calling Edmund's name and asking strangers when her son was going to
52:14pass his exams.
52:15His father was already bedridden from his injuries.
52:18When he heard his son was drowned and his wife had lost her mind, he couldn't take the weight of
52:23it.
52:23He stopped breathing there in the chapel, in the dark, alone.
52:27They said his last words were some version of I should not have.
52:30Nobody came forward to bury either of them.
52:33In the end, it was the village elder who organized a collection.
52:37Enough to dig two simple graves on a bit of unused ground at the edge of the fields.
52:41Mrs. Hartley was last seen walking out toward the hills.
52:45No one knew where she went.
52:46A charitable traveler may have taken her in.
52:50She may have died somewhere far from anyone who knew her name.
52:53There was no word either way.
52:55After the Hartley family was gone, there was nothing left connecting me to that old life.
53:00Rowan still went into the hills every morning.
53:02He still came back every evening.
53:04He never failed to bring something.
53:05Or wild berries or a spray of something flowering, just because he thought I might like it.
53:10Before long, I was pregnant.
53:12Rowan became someone I had not fully seen before.
53:15Careful, attentive, refusing to let me lift anything heavier than a cup.
53:19He would come home from a day's hunting and sit beside me in the evening with one hand resting on
53:23my stomach.
53:24Just there, just present.
53:26He kept to our small yard and our small house and our small life.
53:30Three meals a day, four seasons turning.
53:34Steady and warm all the way through.
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