Ward of the White Worm

Graeffeld was an old village that stood at a very respectable one thousand three hundred fifty seven permanent residents, swelling to two thousand nine hundred twenty nil during planting and harvest season. It was the largest village devoted to farming in the Brynebourne since the abandoning of the moor. The vast tracts of land that were considered Graeffeld proper were primarily devoted to the growing of oats and barley, enough so that the philanthropist Miss Fossoyeur had submitted a report to Parliament calling it the ‘Most Southern Edge of the Oat and Barley Belt’, combined with rock-peas, with other small patches devoted to the growth of turnips and more miscellaneous edible vegetation. The village’s borders were marked with thick shrubs of blue tinted lavender, regularly harvested by the small children to be sold to wholesalers who would take it to the more fashionable and larger towns southerwards.

While the village of Graeffeld owed its name and its land to the noble line of Graef, with the actual Graef family living once within the moor proper and then within the Scatherbone Forest, the most important families in Graeffeld where its six original founders who through crumbling vellum documents could prove they were granted large landholdings ‘in the stead of the Earl of Brynebourne’. Or to put simply, since the earl was unlikely to be around they were essentially acting as his proxies. These six families acted just like most gentry would, by avoiding any actual farmwork and replacing it instead with visits, small merchant adventures, and attempting to avoid overly incestuous pairings when marrying their children off.

The most eligible bachelor to them, was an actual Graef. It had happened once before, Oscar, tenth Earl of Brynebourne, had married Carla who was the daughter of one of the six families who had the good sense of elevating her family through marriage and then dying immediately after childbirth to also provide her family with an excellent tragedy they could continue to use as a cudgel for generations afterwards in asserting their preeminence.

Olli knew absolutely none of any of this and was instead crouching next to a short shrub that had entangled itself in the lavender. The slowly shriveling lavender flowers were contrasted by the vibrant pink berries the shrub was growing in heavy bunches. “Miss Marsh!” She called out, “Uncle Theodore! I found more!” They had stopped earlier to have a small meal of in the lush green grass on a small hill

Miss Marsh was the first to arrive next to her, walking up with a basket with a small amount of the pink berries within. “Very good!” Miss Marsh congratulated as she kneeled down slowly, her dull grey skirt pooling around her as she started carefully snipping the berries off the branches. “We are lucky to have found a bush untouched!”

“Do they have more there?” Olli pointed into the village. She could see the pleasant looking cottages, workers in the field scrounging up the last of the current crops or planting new seeds. Dirty limbed children smaller than her sat on poles lifted two meters off the ground with buckets full of rocks. As soon as a bird was spotted, they would hurl a rock with startling precision, knocking whatever poor bird was in the path right out of the sky. Then other, even smaller, children would run over to squabble over the downed avian, the winners quickly disappearing into cottages.

“If they did, they likely would have been picked clean weeks ago,” Miss Marsh said, snipping another berry free. “Maidberries rarely stay on the branch for long, especially with children around.”

“Ah,” Theodore had arrived. Since he had no basket, he had used his hat instead, and while some pink berries laid within, there were green lump covered berries within as well. His sleeves had been rolled up mid-arm, revealing slender arms criss-crossed with thin scrapes and cuts that refused to bleed.

Miss Marsh glanced at the contents of Theodore’s hat. “Those are too sour.”

“They are not,” Theodore said. He offered one of the berries to Olli. “Try this.”

Olli was quite happy to put the berry into her mouth. The moment she bit through the thick flesh it felt like her mouth had instantly dried. Her eyes teared but she could not even spit it out and instead after a short struggle managed to swallow it.

Miss Marsh quickly gave her two of the larger maidberries. “Eat these, quick.” She then turned her attention to Theodore. “Sir, I said those were too sour.”

“I may have underestimated Olli’s tolerance,” Theodore admitted quietly.

Olli chewed on the maidberries, which had the same consistency of gum and the taste she could only roughly compare to a very vague mixture of perhaps orange, cream, and sugar. It certainly washed away the taste of the other berry she had eaten. “What was that?” She asked, looking at Theodore with a very displeased face.

“A witch’s nose,” Theodore said. “I was surprised to find a bush here. They grow plentifully in the south.”

“You are the first man I have met to actually enjoy those,” Miss Marsh said in light amazement.

“I am not a man,” Theodore shrugged before Mister Burke’s approaching form. He was carrying two small wrapped packages under one hand and a clay jug with the other. “Mister Burke, how was the visit?”

“Uh, calm sir. The ladies of the Loomer family were asking about you,” Mister Burke said, glancing over his shoulder. “I don’t believe they followed me though. They said they were visiting Mrs Berry.”

“What are those?” Olli asked, pointing at the wrapped packaging.

“Miss Olivia, this is a conversation for adults,” Miss Marsh gently admonished, although she too seemed curious.

“J-just some items to take to the baron’s.”

“One package contains a collection of ribbon made in Graeffeld, and the other is cured leather,” Theodore explained, “the jug is full of maidberry syrup. Baroness Cecilia is frequently ill, and maidberry syrup quells weakness of the heart according to the physicians. So when I do come to visit, I bring some with me. The ribbons are for the children, and the leather is for the baron himself.”

“Does he work leather?” Miss Marsh asked. “I have read that Baron de Maursagille is known to promote various tradework and crafts, but I did not know he was a leatherworker.”

“He imagines himself so,” Theodore answered mildly.

“Imagines? Is he not good at it?”

“Terrible.”

“Ah…”

Theodore then picked the maidberries from his hat to put into Miss Marsh’s basket, “we did stay slightly longer than I had planned for. I hope we have all finished stretching our legs. It is time we go back to the coaches and set off-Mister Burke, a berry?” He offered the anxious man a witch’s nose.

“Is it ripe?” Mister Burke asked, hesitant.

“Very ripe, we got them just in time,” Theodore said, convincing Mister Burke to take it. “What about you, Olli. Want to try again?”

“No thank you,” Olli moved to stand next to Miss Marsh lest the sourness return.