Chapter 131 – A Herd of Children

Verity had never really been around children, even when she was a child herself. She didn’t have any brothers or sisters, though she didn’t really know why that was the case, and neither of her parents had come from very large families, which meant that she hadn’t spent all that much time with cousins either. The closest she’d come to attending a proper school had been the conservatory, but she’d been old enough to feel like her own person by that point. Before that, she’d mostly just had private tutors and nannies.

Pucklechurch’s school was small, like everything was in the little town aside from the church. There were roughly fifteen students in each class, with their own room, teacher, and helper. The way things were set up, each teacher would be with the class for their entire education unless they moved away or went to get more education elsewhere. The room, then, would be the home to those students for a significant part of their lives.

Mrs. Colfield had gone into labor not too long ago, leaving her helper, Miss White, as the sole instructor of the five and six year olds. Miss White had put out a call for people to come help for the duration of Mrs. Colfield’s maternity leave, which might be as much as four months, if she wanted it. More likely it would be back in less than two, with the baby wrapped up and carried next to her chest, growing up as a part of the classroom until around three or four years old, when he would go join one of the other classes.

Isra and Verity came into the classroom together, and the children immediately erupted into cheers. A little girl with pigtails was the first to wrap Isra in a hug, but a lot of them piled in around her, either trying to hug her at the same time, or being more polite and waiting their turn. A boy with jet black hair stood back slightly and looked Verity up and down.

“Hello,” she said to him.

“Bob,” he said. His eyes went to her lute, which she had strapped around her back.

“I’m Verity Parson,” said Verity, placing a hand on her chest. “It’s nice to meet you.”

He turned and walked away, apparently having lost interest.

Verity waited expectantly for introductions, either from Miss White or Isra, but no introductions seemed to be forthcoming, and the children had circled Isra to take her to show their creations.

“Verity, was it?” asked Miss White. Verity wasn’t sure why she was surprised, but Miss White was young, maybe even her own age. She had the characteristic wide nose that marked Chelxic heritage, and her skin was a darker shade, though she was also sun-beaten in a way that called to mind a farmer.

“Yes,” nodded Verity. “I hope you don’t mind. I thought that if you were looking for help, I might be able to give a bit of a reprieve.”

“It’s extremely welcome,” said Miss White. She looked over at Isra. “She’s so good with them.”

Verity watched. Isra was good with them, which had somehow been unexpected. In Verity’s mind, the children liked her because of the animals, but there were no animals around, and the children were happily chattering, showing her various things that they’d found outdoors, or craft projects that they’d made, or in at least one case, recounting a story from a book they were holding. The child looked up after every word or two, to make sure that Isra was still listening. Isra was happy and enthusiastic with these children, smiling and bright, coming alive in a way that stirred something in Verity. There was a song somewhere in there.

“I was thinking that I would play a song,” said Verity. “If that would be alright?”

Miss White nodded. “We have story time in not too long, and sometimes there’s a song then. Were you planning to use bardic magic?”

“I don’t know,” said Verity. “Would that be alright?”

“Just try not to rile them up,” said Miss White. There was an awareness to her, a way that she was watching the children as they flocked around Isra, as though she was keeping every single one of the fifteen children in her head at once. Verity couldn’t help but compare it to a conductor watching an orchestra, but she thought the metaphor was probably not that good, because conductors didn’t typically need to rush over to talk one of the performers through a crying fit.

The black-haired boy came over to Verity and stood next to her, watching her. She thought his name was probably Bob, but that seemed like a funny name for a child, and he had only said it, ‘Bob’, so possibly he’d meant something else. Verity crouched down, taking a knee, so she was on his level.

“Hello. Bob, was it?” she asked.

He nodded. “Are you a wizard?” he asked.

“Um, no,” said Verity. “That is, not really. I’m a bard.”

“What’s that thing?” he asked, pointing at the lute.

“This,” said Verity, swinging it around to show him. “Is a lute. It’s a special entad lute that lets you play a lot of layered music at once, so when you pluck one string it’s like plucking a lot of strings.” She took the lute from her strap and held it out. “Do you want to pluck it?”

He plucked a string, then did a clumsy strum of it while she held it. He had a look of concentration on his face, like he was going to figure out lutes in the space of a few minutes.

“Here,” said Verity. She found a chair and sat in it, then held the lute in its proper position. “When you place your fingers here,” she pressed down. “You change how the lute sounds.” She demonstrated for him, a D, then a G. “And if you just strum your lute while you change the notes, that’s really all there is to music.”

Bob was watching her with hard eyes, as though he didn’t believe her. Miss White was mediating an argument, and Isra was sitting on the floor, braiding a girl’s hair while others waited their turn and played with her.

“You can play songs?” asked Bob.

“I can,” nodded Verity. “I think I’m going to play one in a little bit, for the class.”

“Can you play one now?” asked Bob.

Verity considered that. “I can, yes. What would you like a song about?”

“What songs do you know?” asked Bob.

“Um,” said Verity, considering that. “I know hundreds of songs, or I can make one up, if you’d prefer.” She drummed her fingers against the lute. “Give me a topic?”

“A topic?” asked Bob.

“What should the song be about?” asked Verity.

He had seemed like a serious boy, in a way that appealed to Verity, like a small, uncertain person, but after a moment of thinking he broke out into giggles and looked at her with a soft smile. “Farts,” he said, almost at a whisper. His eyes had lit up.

Verity considered this and strummed the lute once, finding a melody and devising some couplets.

My melodies are works of art,
But can’t compare to when I fart.

My girlfriend calls me ‘pretty lass’,
But makes a face when I pass gas.

I’m very smart, they don’t dispute,
But I displease them when I toot.

I charm the children of the class,
They giggle as I pass my gas.

When someone looks at my caboose,
I smile at them and let one loose.

My group of friends I’ve often thinned,
Because I love to break some wind.

When dungeons feel so grim and bleak,
I give out a one-cheek squeak.

I feel the pressure near my rump,
And then I give a mighty trump.

And when I’ve eaten too much corn,
I need to blow my bottom horn.

It went on rather longer than she had intended, and toward the end of it, she had gathered an entire collection of giggling kids. It was a very different crowd from the ones she normally played to, and it was fun to let the song hang for a moment of anticipation so they could get excited for the second half of the couplet. By the second half of the song, they were trying to anticipate the lyrics, poorly, and there was more laughter from them whenever Verity came in.

She finished the song with a flourish, and the children looked at her expectantly, so she started a new song, this one not at all about farts, but rather comparing the children to crops. She would strum the lute and ask them their names, then try desperately to find a rhyme, which sometimes required cheating with a slant rhyme or just switching their name to some other place within the lyric so it didn’t need to be rhymed at all.

The second song led to a third, and then to a fourth, and Verity realized that she could end up singing for them for the entire day. For the fifth song she sang about two rival princesses that ended up falling in love, and for this one, she wove magic into it, excitement and wonder. She wasn’t sure whether bardic magic was strong on children, but there was a way she could see it washing across their faces that didn’t happen with adults. Perhaps children were simply less restrained in showing their emotions.

When she finished, she gently put her lute away. “Now, I enjoyed singing songs for you, and will do it again sometime, if you’re all good.”

“Thank you,” said Miss White. “Class, please give a round of applause for Miss Parson.”

It was one of the smallest, cutest rounds of applause that Verity had ever gotten, with tiny hands enthusiastically slapping together. It was just about the furthest thing from a concert in Dondrian as you could possibly get.

There wasn’t that much of school hours left, so Verity and Isra got to sit with the children for snack time, which was sliced tomatoes with salt and black pepper, along with slices of bread with yellow butter. The children gobbled it and Miss White tried to keep them from making too big of a mess, but the mess seemed expected, because there was an entire stack of napkins and a washbasin with a stepladder propped up next to it. Verity watched the children as they went about their business. They were small, but they had learned to wait in lines and take turns mostly without a fuss.

When the children left, some of them with older brothers or sisters, others walking on their own, Verity was given hugs, and promises were extracted from her: she would come back, she would sing more songs, and she would let them braid her hair.

“You didn’t use the animals at all,” said Verity, once the children had left and it was just Isra and Miss White.

“No,” said Isra. “They like animals, but I’ve shown them off one too many times, and it’s hard to control an animal when there are so many small hands trying to touch them.”

“Help to clean up?” asked Miss White.

They did. The room was surprisingly clean, Verity had thought, though the small tables needed to be wiped down, the chairs needed to be put up, and there was still some putting away. Verity had helped to clean up the tavern more than once, when Cynthia was short-handed, and it was no different than that. Tomato juice and bread crumbs had spilled onto the floor, and these were mopped up and cleaned in the small sink. It was the sort of thing that Verity wouldn’t have dreamed of doing a year ago, even when she had thought about children of her own. That had been a different life, and if there ever had been partnership, and children, they’d have been raised largely by maids.

“I do think the fart song was a bit much,” said Miss White. “But I appreciate the help, and the children loved it.”

“It was our pleasure,” said Isra.

They made some arrangements for later, and Verity stood off to one side, not wanting to commit to that, not until she knew how Isra was feeling about them having been together. They hadn’t really talked, because the children were always wanting their attention. The time had flown by.

They walked home together — or to Isra’s home, or Mizuki’s home, or whatever it actually was. It felt like old times.

“We never really talked about children,” said Verity.

Isra gave a little laugh. “Add it to the list.”

They walked together again for just a little bit, silent.

“What list?” asked Verity.

“The list of things we didn’t talk about,” said Isra.

“Ah,” said Verity.

There was silence again. “And that we still haven’t talked about,” said Isra. She hardly wore her headscarf anymore, only really on temple days, and her curls bounced free as they walked. The new look, which wasn’t even all that new anymore, had taken time to get used to, and there was still something that Verity missed about the old Isra.

“Do we need to talk?” asked Verity.

Isra pursed her lips. Her eyes were on the road. “Do you like children?”

“I don’t know,” said Verity. “They get in your space more than I’m comfortable with. They’re very … touchy. But they are cute. I wanted to say ‘in a few years’, but …” She had no idea what to follow that with. It would require a serious relationship of some kind, the sort that she’d never been in before, except with Isra. She couldn’t conceive of getting into a relationship like that while still in Pucklechurch, mostly because the options were so limited.

“We’re both single children,” said Isra.

“Only children,” said Verity.

“Right,” nodded Isra. “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem,” said Verity. There was another pause in their conversation. At least they were talking again. “You had said you wanted to be a mother, some time back. I had never really — we should have talked about it then, maybe.”

“Maybe,” shrugged Isra. “Incidentally, I think then I said I’d seen a herd of children, which is the wrong way of saying it, but also, I realized that what I’d actually seen was a teacher with her — herd does feel like the right word, when there are so many. Flock? I had somehow got it in my head that these fifteen or so children all belonged to this one woman, as though she’d had a litter or something.”

Verity nodded. “Understandable.”

“Is it?” asked Isra with a little laugh. “You’re so nice about it, but it is ridiculous.”

“No, no,” said Verity. “You saw these women from time to time with fifteen or so children, and you had never gone to school or really known that much about it, so —” a laugh escaped her, “So you just thought that this was a woman who,” another laugh, “who had a lot of children, fifteen of them all at once, just a whole litter of children, and you,” she bit her lip, “you accept that as one of those things that,” she shook her head and couldn’t help herself from laughing. It was funnier because she was trying to be serious. Isra seemed to take it in good cheer though. “I mean, you know that women only have two nipples, right? Even for a sow, that would be a lot.”

“They could feed in shifts,” said Isra. “Look, I can’t say that it made a whole lot of sense, but I did figure it out on my own. I think at the time I was just hoping that I would have one of the smaller litters, because it did seem like a bit much.”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“Well, I think you’ll make a fine mother,” said Verity. It made her feel warm to say it.

“And you don’t think the same of yourself?” asked Isra.

“I don’t know,” said Verity. There were complicated feelings lurking below the surface, and she didn’t want to prod at them at just that moment. She had enjoyed being with the children, and with Isra, and didn’t want to dredge up anything unpleasant.

“I think you’d make a great mother,” said Isra. “So long as you had someone to counterbalance you.”

“Counterbalance?” asked Verity.

“Someone less serious,” said Isra. “Less prone to melancholy?”

“I sang a song about farts,” said Verity, rolling her eyes.

Isra gave her a light punch on the shoulder. “You know exactly what I mean. Serious, studious Verity, that’s the sort of thing where, for a child, I think that maybe it wouldn’t be as good.”

“Hrm,” said Verity. She kicked a small rock on the path, sending it into the woods.

“My own father was like that,” said Isra. “Not cold, but always easier to relate to when we were doing things together. Hunting, trapping, gardening, housework, teaching me to read, it was all easier for him than the other things. I’ve been talking about it with Hannah.”

“Ah,” said Verity. “And you think that’s the sort of mother I would be.” It made her feel slightly uncomfortable, though she didn’t disagree.

“I don’t know,” said Isra. She shook her head, and Verity watched the bounce of the brown curls. “We’re eighteen years old, we’re not static creatures that will never change. At least, according to Hannah. Maybe she doesn’t know.”

“I’ve been talking to her too,” said Verity. “She does think people can change, and I suppose the clerics would know. Most of what she says isn’t about changing though, it’s about … finding that balance inside of yourself, or creating it.”

Isra nodded. “Can I say that I’m glad we’re not a couple? Is that rude?”

“It is rude, a bit,” said Verity. And it did hurt, but she felt it too. “I hope we’re both better off for it.”

“You could move back into the house,” said Isra. “It would make things easier.”

“I might,” said Verity. “I worry it would be too … familiar.”

They reached the house. Verity had been anxious that Isra would ask a question about mating, and how they both felt about that, and she wasn’t sure that she had any good answer to it. She missed it, obviously, and if Isra had propositioned her, she would almost certainly have said yes, but there had been a growing feeling, especially after the last dungeon, that she needed to understand herself better.

Isra didn’t ask though, so they were spared the conversation.

When they came into the house, the living room was a disaster, piled up with dungeon things. The couch had been pushed to one side, and Mizuki was draped over it, flopped down. Her head was in Alfric’s lap, and he was stroking her hair.

“Don’t touch the needle,” said Mizuki. She gestured toward a small silver needle laying on the floor. “Makes you drunk.”

Alfric let out a sigh. “Just tipsy,” he said.

“Unless you get poked twice,” said Mizuki. She harumphed. “I’m not making dinner, hope brunch was enough.”

“I’ll cook,” said Isra with a glance at the kitchen. “Why would you prick yourself with a needle?”

“Testing,” said Mizuki, not moving from Alfric’s lap. “Glorious testing.”

“Are your fingers green?” asked Verity.

“Testing, I said,” replied Mizuki.

“Why would you poke yourself with the needle twice?” asked Isra.

“Oh no,” said Mizuki. “They don’t seem to understand the word ‘testing’ anymore. Do you think that’s what the quill did? Because you wrote down ‘test’, and —”

“Shh,” said Alfric, still stroking her hair. She quieted. It wasn’t clear to Verity how much of a joke any of that had been.

“We could put the needle on a stick,” said Mizuki. Her words were exaggerated and slow. “So it’s a tiny spear. Drunk monsters.”

“I’ll figure out dinner then,” said Isra. She turned to Verity. “Are you staying?”

“I think so, yes,” she replied. “I need to practice though.”

Isra nodded, and they went their separate ways.