Forest of Wheat
The wheat reached up like a forest. The stems were thick like a man’s fingers and yet the heads drooped low with heavy kernels.
Fregnite rolled some heads of wheat in his fingers, feeling how fat and full they were. He had to squint when looking at the field. The wheat glowed golden in the morning sun. It shone like someone had polished it. It was perfect. He felt his chest tighten with pride. “Pretty good,” he said.
Granite chuckled. “Play it as cool as you want, Fregi. You know it’s amazing.”
Granite was as tall as Fregi. They were both less than a metre and a half tall and built like bulls. Fregi was stockier, but Granite’s beard was shinier and immaculately groomed. He was leaning on a scythe that was over a head taller than he was.
Fregi nodded and bumped his fists together, one on top of the other, in the dwarven gesture of approval. His arms looked like he could bend a metal rod. In all probability, he could. He let his gaze linger on the golden field and glanced at Granite’s scythe. The blade was far too polished for what a scythe’s blade needed to be, but Granite was fussy about everything. His hair was just right, the borders of his fields arrow-straight and his scythe honed to a razor’s edge. This was all normal, but the timing of the harvest was not. “It’s not even summer yet,” Fregi said.
“The wheat is ready,” Granite said.
Fregi looked at the kernels he had been rolling around in his hand. He had to agree. He dropped the kernels onto the ground and bumped his fists together once more.
“Fregnite!” a rough voice shouted.
Fregi turned around to see Flint walking over from the next field. Flint’s field had barely sprouted and was still light green. Growing well, but nothing compared to Granite’s wheat. Flint was shorter than either Fregi or Granite, but even stockier. His beard wasn’t cut short but braided and tucked under his belt, in traditional miner-fashion. His clothes were dusty and worn through at places.
“Yeah?” Fregi asked as Flint got closer.
“It’s not fair,” Flint said.
“You wanted beer, so you planted barley,” Granite cut in. “There’s nothing unfair about that.”
“Well, wheat beer is swill,” Flint said. “Still, at this rate, you’ll have a second harvest before I get my first!”
“Boys,” Fregi said. “Someone always has a better harvest and someone a worse one. We’ll share in fortune and misfortune both, you know this.”
“It’s not misfortune if barley grows like it always does,” Granite muttered.
Flint hmph’d. It sounded like a rock falling onto another.
Fregi wondered how Flint had held on to his miner’s physique even after two centuries of farming. He had even kept his old chosen name Mountainpick, where other dwarves in Böndelheim had chosen names more suited to their current situation. Granite Ironspade. Fregnite Freetrade. Some humans snickered at Fregi, but he was a simple man. He was free, and he was a trader. Anyone who had a problem with Fregi’s name was free to come and tell it to his face. Few did.
Fregi heard someone approaching and glanced over his shoulder. Fregi frowned as he recognised the man as Jordan Rye. As a human, he was much taller and leaner than the dwarves. He had short salt and pepper hair and a thick bar of moustache that covered his upper lip.
“You’re thinking too small,” Jordan said. Dwarven voices carried well, and he seemed to have had no trouble following the earlier conversation.
“What do you mean?” Flint asked and turned to Jordan.
The man stopped a bit further away from where the dwarves were talking to each other, so as not to tower over them. Any of the dwarves could break an arm clean off him in an arm wrestling match, but it was still awkward if they had to crane their necks to look him in the face while having a discussion. Jordan was very conscious of things like that. “If the wheat is going to grow that fast, you could pull up the barley, sow the field with wheat, and still have a harvest before the barley would have ripened.”
Flint made a rumbling sound. He glanced at the golden wheat field and the light green field where he had just come from. “If it’s the wheat. What if it’s the soil? We’d just be wasting two harvests instead of gaining any.”
“Your field has always had better harvest, though,” Granite said.
Granite and Flint had a tradition of friendly competition that Flint pretended to ignore, and Granite always lost. They experimented with different fertilisers, tilling techniques, and rotated crops, constantly seeking ways to outdo each other.
“Well, true, but this is outlandish. It feels like magic,” Flint said.
All four of them spat on the ground, even Flint himself.
Granite glanced at Jordan with a worried look. “You know better than to say things like that.”
“Sorry, I obviously didn’t mean it like that. I’ve seen you at your field every day and I know how hard you work,” Flint said quickly.
Jordan glanced at Flint and nodded. “Of course,” he said. “It’s just a good year for wheat and we should take advantage of that. I have my farmhands retilling the fields as we speak.”
“Hmm,” Fregi said and rubbed his chin, still looking at Granite’s field. The sheen of the wheat captivated him. “What are you planning?”
“This is the year we’ll put Böndelheim on the map,” Jordan said.
Flint and Granite both raised a brow.
Fregi glanced at the man. “We haven’t really looked to be on the map.”
“I don’t mean tourists or anything. I just mean that if we double down on wheat now, we can beat everyone to the market,” he said and ran his hand softly through the swaying wheat. “People will kill for this.”
“It’s true that no one else will have any wheat to sell for a month or two,” Fregi said. He let the thought hang in the air and rubbed his beard.
“And they won’t have wheat like this at all!” Granite said proudly.
Flint frowned and crossed his thick arms before his wide chest. “You can’t live on wheat alone. Your teeth will fall out.”
“We’ll buy proper beer with the profits,” Granite said flatly.
“Ah, true,” Flint said.
“I’m requesting you call a town meeting,” Jordan said to Fregi. “We’ll discuss it together.”
“Order, order!” Fregi shouted.
The meeting had started as the village meetings did. There had been the traditional first half an hour of banter and gossip. The bachelor club took most effort to quiet down. They heckled Fregi endlessly about finally settling down and were the worst gossipers in the entire village.
“Everyone is here, so let’s start already,” Fregi said as the room had quieted down.
“Why are you in such a hurry? You don’t have anyone waiting at home!” Flint shouted.
The innkeeper, Slate, slapped Flint on the shoulder. Slate was a dwarf as well, so both the shout and the slap were loud. Slate had cooked for the dwarves after they left the mines, and just kept on doing that ever since. He had a tonsure-like bald head, the dome of his scalp ringed by dark, coarse hair. His long, thick mustache was braided and tied behind his back, so as not to dip into anything.
Fregi sighed and banged his gavel on the table to drown out the laughter. Mugs rocked up and down.
Slate winced with every strike. “We’re just having a bit of fun. No need to wreck the place,” he said quietly, wiping some spilt beer off the table with a rag.
Fregi smirked at Slate and set down the gavel on the table. “Let’s begin. Jordan Rye has a motion for the village.”
Jordan stood up and looked around the inn. Fregi followed his gaze around the room. All the farmers of the village were present, except Heck. Still, as he was known as the potato hermit, Fregi hadn’t expected him to attend in the first place.
“Thank you, Fregnite,” Jordan began. “Back in my ancestors’ days, Böndelheim was known for its wheat. We were the breadbasket of Velonea. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have taken up other crops, but it’s time to get back to our roots.”
The villagers listened in silence. Rye family had always been influential, and they had always had the largest fields.
“Böndelheim was built on wheat and this year is a sign that we should return to what we have always known best,” Jordan continued.
“Your fields just struggle with vegetables,” Flint said. His voice cut through the general hubbub of the meeting, as dwarven voices did. “The Rye lands have always been better for grain.”
“They have!” Jordan shouted back. He made a sideways cutting motion with his hand. “We ache to reap the harvest again. Instead of digging around on our knees in the dirt, crawling around like animals.”
“Nothing wrong with getting your hands dirty,” Flint grumbled.
“Flint, you’re growing grain already,” Jordan said, now almost pleading. “You saw how much further ahead your neighbour’s field is. You can’t deny the golden sheen, the ripeness of the heads.”
“I’m not trying to—” Flint began, but Granite cut him off.
“Most of you have wheat growing already. Why do you need a meeting for this?” he asked.
“I have been talking with many of the farmers,” Jordan said. “We want to pool our resources.”
The human farmers nodded around the room. An unusual number of dwarves lived in Böndelheim for any kind of settlement, especially a small farming village, but the humans were still the majority.
“You don’t need to circle the issue,” Fregi said. “You mean you want to get at Granite’s wheat.”
“We don’t want to getat it,” Jordan said and turned to Fregi. “We want to buy it - at a fair price! We ask you to share it with the village, invest in the community, instead of just shipping it out to please some cake-fancying mage.”
The humans kept nodding, and one spat on the floor when mages were mentioned.
Granite frowned, but Fregi saw the gleam in his eyes. He knew his friend had always felt left out as a farmer and inferior to Flint, especially. Granite had embraced farming with enthusiasm. Yet Flint got better crops, while seemingly farming only grudgingly and out of necessity. Granite was a hard worker, but back in the days, he had understood nothing about buying farmland. The fields he had bought had turned out to be practically barren. Granite had toiled for years to get them to grow anything. Painstakingly, he had nursed the fields back to life. Mulching the ground, trying out and rotating multiple crops, coping with minuscule harvests and finally seeing some progress.
This year, all the work had finally paid off for Granite, and Fregi was happy for him.
Fregi sat in the now empty hall, listening to the quiet. Only Flint had stayed behind as everyone else left. Granite had accepted the otherwise unanimous proposal after hearing the price Jordan suggested.
Flint went behind the counter and drew two mugs of beer. Slate had rushed home to let Frida take the rest of the evening off. It should have been his night in the first place to keep company with Frida’s mother, his mother-in-law, but Slate had claimed he was needed for the meeting.
“These people don’t remember what it was like back in the days,” Flint said, as he set the mug down before Fregi. “The crops were failing. The wheat was stunted.”
“It isn’t stunted now,” Fregi said.
“You’re right about that,” Flint said. “Good for young Granite.”
Fregi took up the mug. “Good for everyone, if Jordan is right,” he said and took a long drink.
“I really hope so. It’s going to be a long spring, digging up the fields again. I crumbled under the pressure too. Shame for all the barley. It started out strong this spring.”
“Just say the word if you need extra hands. I have no trips planned at the moment. The next caravan won’t be here until later,” Fregi said and gestured dismissively with his hand towards his back. Most of the village’s trade with the outside world ran through his small trade company.
Flint bumped his fists together. “Thanks, Fregi. I might take you up on that. Spring is pretty far along already.”
They sipped their beers in silence for a moment.
“You ever think about going back? You could get back to mining. You wouldn’t have to care anything about any seasons.”
“You’re talking to Flint Mountainpick. What do you think?” he said, but then grimaced. “You know it’s not going to happen, though. I have a whole life here now. I might try to visit one day, but that’s that.”
Fregi’s mouth twitched and he lowered his gaze towards the floor. “I know. I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came from.”
Flint bumped his fists together again. “Don’t worry about it. You want another?”
“Nah, I’m heading home. I’m spent.”
“I can believe that. I’d rather shovel manure than listen to Jordan when he’s on a rant,” Flint said and chuckled. “Take care, Fregi.”
Fregi placed his mug on the counter. He turned to leave and let his face droop after Flint couldn’t see it anymore. He had a weird premonition about the summer. Maybe it was just because he had mentioned the mines, or maybe it was the other way around. He shook his head. It didn’t matter. The spring would be too busy to think about things that happened centuries ago. “Take care, Flint.”