Moira snorted skeptically, as if she felt his offer was a ruse to get close to her. Since that was partially true, Wiz reddened.
“Very well, weed that section over there.” She nodded her head toward a part of the border on the other side of the garden.
The border contained tall fennel plants, their feathery pale green foliage smelling strongly of licorice. Sprouting thickly around them were broad-leafed seedlings, each with two or three yellow-green leaves.
Even though the smell of licorice made Wiz slightly nauseous, he set to work with a will, pulling up the tiny plants without damaging the fennel. The summer sun beat strongly on his back and before he had weeded five feet he was sweating heavily. The border was wide and he had to reach to get the weeds at the far side. In ten feet his shoulders were twinging from the reaching and by the time he had done twenty feet his back was sore as well. He took to stopping frequently to rest his aching muscles and to watch Moira at work on the other side of the garden.
Moira worked steadily and mechanically, flicking the weeds out of the bed with a practiced twist of her wrist. Her long red hair hung down beside her face and every so often she would reach up and brush it out of the way, but she never broke the rhythm of her work. There was a smudge of dirt on her cheek and her skirt and blouse were grimed and stained, but she still took Wiz’s breath away.
At last Wiz reached the end of the fennel and went to Moira for further instructions.
“It took you long enough,” she said as he approached.
“There were a lot of weeds,” said Wiz, bending over backwards in an effort to get he kinks out of his back. “I don’t think that patch had been weeded in some time.”
Moira looked up at him sharply. “I weeded it myself not three days ago.”
“Well, weeds must come up quickly here. They were all over the place.”
Moira got to her feet and went over to examine Wiz’s handywork. At the sight of the clean bare earth under the fennel plants she sucked in her breath and clenched her teeth.
“What’s wrong?”
“Those,” she said pointing to Wiz’s piles of “weeds,” “were lettuces. They were planted there so the fennel could shade them.” She sighed and stooped to gather the wilted plants into her apron. “I hope you like salad, Sparrow, because there is going to be a lot of it tonight.”
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“It is not your fault, Sparrow,” she said in a resigned voice. “I should have known better than to trust you with such a task.”
That made Wiz feel even worse.
“Go back inside. I will finish up here.”
“Lady, I’m really sorry.”
“I know you are, Sparrow. Now go.”
* * *
Finally, by appealing to Shiara, Wiz got a regular job. Under a shed roof against the palisade was a woodpile and next to the woodpile stood an old tree stump with an axe in it. Wiz’s job was to chop firewood for Hart’s Ease.
The axe was shaped like a giant tomahawk with no poll and a perfectly round straight haft. The design made it hard to handle and it took Wiz two or three hours a day to chop enough wood for the hearths and kitchen fires. He didn’t see how Ugo had been able to get the wood chopped with all his other work. Except, Wiz thought glumly, he’s probably a lot more efficient at it, than I am.
The goblin servant came by the wood pile several times to check Wiz’s progress and sniffed disapprovingly at what he saw. He also very ostentatiously examined the axe for damage each time and strictly forbade Wiz to sharpen it.
Worse than the boredom, Moira avoided him. She wasn’t obvious about it and she was always distantly polite when they met, but she contrived to spend as little time in his company as she could. Wiz took to standing on the batlements of the keep and watching her as she worked in the garden far below. From the occasional glance she threw his way he knew she saw him, but she never asked him to stop.