Worlds That Weren't

“Now-you can tell me about the vision.” Yolande kept her conciliatory tone with an effort. “And I mean tell me about it. No more putting visions in my head! I don’t know what I’m meant to make of that. What God wants me to do. But I do know it scared me.”

The young man ignored her.

“I’m getting a farrowing shed ready.” Ric nodded across to the huts against the wall.

Yolande saw one with the wooden door standing open, and bracken and thin straw piled inside on sand used for litter.

So those strip fields do yield a grain or two-I thought we were never going to eat anything else but tunny.

“Screw your goddamned farrowing shed! I want to know-”

“So I ought to be working,” he interrupted, glancing around, as slaves do. “ I want to speak to you.”

“What about?”

Another nod of his head, this time taking in the sprawled and noon-dozing swine. “These. They have to be safe!”

“Ric, they’re… pigs.” Yolande took her courage in both her hands and squatted down. This close, there was a scent to the pigs-more spicy and vegetable than those back home. Particularly the boars’. And they were not dirty. A little dusty only.

Mud-that’s what I’m missing. I expected them to be covered in mud and shit… Maybe they have dust bathshere, like chickens.

She felt the shaded earth cooler under her hands, and sat down nervously, shifting her gaze from one to the other of the large animals. “Your church is different; Leviticus, I suppose. ‘Unclean flesh.’ We just…eat them.”

“No, not these!”

His vehemence startled the animals. One of the younger swine got up from a heap of gilts, with much thrashing and rolling, and stood with its head hanging down, peering directly at Yolande. It began to move toward her, agile now it was on its feet.

About to jump back, she felt Ric’s large hand grip her upper arm. If she had not been so disturbed, he would not have come that close. She restrained herself only an instant from smashing her elbow into his nose.

“You can stroke her.”

Held, Yolande was motionless on the ground for just long enough that the pig ambled up to her, wrinkled its slightly damp snout forward and back, scenting her.

The boy’s hand pushed her arm forward. Her fingers touched the sow’s warm flank. She expected it to snap; tensed to snatch back her hand.

It slowly moved, easing itself down toward the earth-and fell over sideways.

“What?” Yolande said.

The boy’s hand released her. “Her name is Misr tah-like the salt marshes? Scratch her chest. She likes that.”

Misr tah had her eyes closed. Yolande sat, more terrified by the animal’s proximity than by the fight on the deck of the galley. It shifted its snout closer to her thigh and-eyes still closed-gave a firm and slightly painful nudge.

“Hell!” she yelped.

Ricimer’s strained face took on a grin. “You don’t want her to rootle you hard! Scratch her!”

Yolande reached out again to the slumped, breathing body of the pig. She encountered a warm, soft pelt. She dug her fingers into the coarse hair over the pig’s ribs. The body rolled-leaning over, disclosing the teat-studded belly. A grunt made the flesh vibrate under Yolande’s fingers. The dense, solid body shifted. She startled.

“You just got to be careful. They’re big and heavy.” The young man spoke with a quiet professionalism, as if they were not in the middle of a quarrel. “She would only hurt you without meaning it.”

“Oh, that’s a comfort!”

The sow’s long body rolled over even further onto its side, with a resonant short grunt. Misr tah stretched out all four long legs simultaneously, as a dog stretches, and then relaxed.

“It’s solid.” Yolande pushed the pads of her bare fingers against meat-covered ribs. “Hard.”

“It’s all muscle. That’s how come they move so fast? Bang! ” His illustration, palms slammed together, made a couple of the larger boars lift their heads, giving their swineherd a so-human stare.

“One minute they’re standing, next second they’re in your lap. All muscle. Three hundred pounds. You can’t force them out of the way. If they want something, they’ll push their way to it.” Ric gave her a mock malicious grin of warning. “Whatever you do, don’t stop scratching…”

There was something not entirely unpleasant about sitting on the dry ground, surrounded by breathing clean animals, with her fingers calling out a response of satisfaction from Misr tah.

“Oh…I get it.” Yolande ran tickling fingers down the hairless skin. The pig in front of her let its head fall back in total abandon, four legs splayed, smooth belly exposed. It grumpled. “They’re like hounds.”

He pounced. “So how can you eat them!”

“Yeah, well, you know what they say about hounds-eight years old, they’re not fit to do more than lick ladles in the kitchen. Nine years old, they’re saddle leather.”

“Shit.” Ric put his hand over his mouth.