Chapter 672 — The Age of Harvest
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
Autumn had set foot upon the West Continent at last, and the sweltering summer was over; it was as though the weather had turned cool overnight.
The sky was barely light, the great sun not yet spilling its rosy glow, and the lingering chill of night still wrapped the streets and alleys of Aldernan. A crisp breeze came sweeping down the street, gathering a few fallen leaves and scraps of paper from the corner, whirling between the buildings, then curling back to set the bells hanging in the windows chiming with a clatter of ding-ding and dang-dang.
Sam glanced up at the ringing bells, glanced at the daylight outside that could hardly be called bright, then lowered his head again and went on gulping down his breakfast, which could hardly be called appetizing—a small basin of gluey vegetable soup with torn chunks of coarse, hard bread soaking in it.
Soaking bread in soup was an effective way to speed up a meal, and it provided a rather effective sense of fullness besides, while easing the stomach upset that came of eating too fast. This, for what it was worth, counted as wisdom and experience the common folk had accumulated over a lifetime.
His daughter sat across from him, likewise wolfing down her breakfast, while his wife had gone out a quarter of an hour earlier—the owner of the textile mill had once again moved the start of the shift earlier, and the women workers now had to be inside the factory half an hour before sunrise.
After swallowing the last mouthful of soup, Sam smacked his lips and gave a deep yawn.
He was terribly sleepy, his back and arms ached fiercely, and he felt he badly needed to lie down and sleep soundly for a day or two—but he knew that was out of the question.
Every day there were mountains of crates and barrels to be hauled at the docks, and he had no holidays.
His daughter had finished eating too. The girl with the flaxen curls stood up and briskly cleared the table; her wrists were rather too thin, so that when she picked up the largest plate one almost feared the wrist might snap.
Sam could not help looking at his daughter. "Next Eighthday... we ought to be able to have smoked meat once."
The flaxen-haired girl raised her head, and after a moment of astonishment her face lit with delight. She pushed back a strand of hair, her eyes wide. "Really? Papa?"
"They're building a station in the south of the city. Every day a lot of goods come down to the docks nearby and then get loaded onto carts for the site. I should be able to earn a bit more."
His daughter smiled, faint pale-yellow lines showing at the corners of her eyes and on the inside of her lips.
Sam noticed those lines but said nothing—when they had first appeared a few months ago, they had indeed made his wife and him uneasy, but now several months had passed and his daughter felt no discomfort anywhere in her body, so surely it could not be anything of consequence.
Time was short, and father and daughter had little leisure for talk after the meal. They quickly gathered their things and left the little rented house.
Another gust came down the lane and caught Sam's collar. He tightened the coat that would soon seem too thin for the season, and nodded to his daughter, who was about to set off in the other direction. "Mind you stay safe. Come straight home after the shift tonight, don't linger in the streets."
The girl nodded, pressed down the soft cap on her head, and hurried off the other way—at the end of that direction, a towering chimney stood faintly in the depths of Aldernan's trademark mist, and through the mist billowed rolling smoke, rising and drifting high into the sky.