Earl stood there entangled in his reins. But the donkey didn’t fall.
What a disaster, Montague thought. Six months of arduous work were on the verge of being lost. Out of a total of twenty-five, there were only ten dry bags left resting on top of fifteen others which were soaked. If the herbs and spices weren’t already contaminated by bacteria, the moisture would surely promote mold before they could be properly dried.
He held his hands to his broken heart. Montague was devastated, but he needed to keep moving. There was only one bag left of the precious nutwood and pigroot. Reflexively, he stuffed it under his arm so he could hold it tight. The princess, he thought. With each dry bag weighing thirty pounds, the middle-aged farmer could only carry one other dry bag on his own. He loaded as many as five on Earl’s back before the ass’s legs began to shake. So Montague took one off to ease his trouble. The rest would have to be left behind. Maybe, Montague thought if animals didn’t scoff it all up before his trip home he could salvage more. He covered the stack of herbs with the bonnet of the wagon.
Montague pulled the donkey through a mile of soft, cold dirt before they came to the edge of the dense forests leading to Illyrium.
Only minutes into the vine-choked path, Earl paused and his ears stood high. The sound of scattering in the long grass warned Montague that a pack of heavy-footed animals had surrounded them and were closing in fast. When a gibbering pig grunted, Earl trembled. Three pudgy faces with opaque eyes peeked through the long grass, their mouths drooling thick yellow mucus. The donkey brayed then rose up on his back legs, dropping the four bags he carried, and ran off into the woods, leaving Montague on his own.
But Montague had met feral broom pigs before. They became vicious over black radish, one of the twenty plants he had packed. This time he carried pounds of it. The pigs must have caught the scent, he thought. They could charge, kill him, and eat everything. Fall deliveries were the most difficult. The weather and animals were unpredictable.
Although Montague was a mere farmer, he was quite capable of defending himself with a sword. But his hands were full, carrying two bags of herbs. If he should need his sword, he would have to sacrifice one to grip it.
The sounder ran straight for the bags that Earl had left behind. Driven by the raging hunger of a broom swine, they didn’t even acknowledge Montague. In their ignorance, he stepped back into the brush far enough that he was able to reach another path, one parallel to where the pigs had ambushed him and his donkey. He went unnoticed by the gang of pigs now ravaging the majority of his supply. But Montague knew he wasn’t out of trouble yet. He heard heavy, congested breathing behind him. A fourth pig stood in the outskirts of the feast, right where Montague was trying to escape. The boar’s hair puffed. It sniffed in the rich scent of a light breeze through its sopping nostrils, then charged.
Montague had to make a decision; either drop the bags on the high grass to handle his sword and defend himself and the last two bags of medicine, or try to outrun the beast while carrying sixty extra pounds of weight. There was a choice that was plausible. He placed one bag on top of the thick, stalky grass for a cushion, keeping the herbs marginally elevated from the ground’s moisture. The farmer couldn’t part with the bag that contained the princess’s medicine. It was too valuable. So Montague held onto it.
Unsheathing his blade with his right hand, he gripped the handle tight and close to the cross-guard. In the broken columns of waning light shining down between the trees, the pig appeared massive. Montague knew that if it charged he had only one chance to stop it before it trampled him. He took a step back, then another. As he distanced himself from the herbs the pig moved closer. But it stopped about ten feet away, took its eyes from Montague and snapped at the bag. The swine gobbled the herbs, snorting between bites.
With the beast occupied, Montague trudged onward to his destination. Now in the valley’s eastern shadow where giant sequoia trees lead to the land of Illyrium, he knew he was only minutes away. It was a good thing he held onto the more important of the two bags, he thought. The farmer was tired and his muscles were sore.
The last bag of rare herbs and spices was worth only enough coin to buy a new wagon and pay the blacksmith for new rakes and to sharpen worn sickles. Montague didn’t have enough to spare for the street folk at the markets. Nor would he keep any for himself. There were others that needed it more. He just didn’t know how he would pay for goods and taxes for the next seven months. Perhaps the king would cut him a break, he thought. Just before Montague’s father died, more than ten years ago, he had been to the castle with his parents for dinner. The royal Volpis liked his family very much and wanted to publicly thank them and other farmhouse names for providing the kingdom with the necessities of life. During the king’s words before the meal that night, he looked at Montague’s father and said, “You can always tell the quality of a family by the soil beneath a man’s home.” The La-Roses were blessed with fertile land.
The trails leading to the capital were usually patrolled by officers of the king. But today, Montague saw none. And when he finally arrived at the northern gates, he didn’t see Sully, the man who had always accepted the La-Rose deliveries since
