The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 44 Carping on

Spencer and Eliška walked the two kilometre distance, chatting together, punctuated at intervals by the blasting higher up on the building site. To be fair it was Eliška doing most of the talking and it was Spencer listening to her observations about the countryside. He answered the occasional question and most remarkably, he answered them honestly, rather than giving a diplomatic reply. Spencer felt happier than he could remember being in his life. Since he had met Eliška the day had far surpassed any expectations he had imagined.  

From time to time Eliška would see some medicinal plant or edible greenery, and she would make her apologies and run ahead to pick some leaves, skirts riding high up on her thighs. With each specimen she was meticulous in being careful not to take too much and killing the plant. She made every cut as clean as possible and made a point of thanking the plant for its contribution.

"Look those little flowers are foxgloves in English!" Eliška observed. "Naprstnik in Slavik!"

She stroked the top bloom and it released drops of water

"Their Latin name is Digitalis and they contain a chemical that is good for people with heart trouble," Eliška said, "but it is also quite toxic in large quantities, it can make you quite ill and if it is growing here then it shows that the soil is really quite acid.

Spencer was impressed with her knowledge. "Aren't you going to pick some?"

"I don't need any at the moment," Eliška said with a smile, "so it would be wrong to pick them, just so that I can look at pretty flowers at home. I can see them in their natural state here. It is said that when you like a flower, you just pluck it. But when you love a flower, you water it daily... One who understands this, understands life... We don't even need to do the watering here now because there is so much rain."

Her viewpoint was refreshing to Spencer. Sir Percy would have had the lot of them uprooted, put into pots and then stuck in some greenhouse, probably somewhere that he would never remember to visit anyway. Or more probably he would have them destroyed to stop others being able to enjoy them just out of spite.

Each time Eliška gleaned some leaves, she bound the stems together to make the bundle easier to carry using some hay then she would explain all the curative properties or the herbs that you must combine them with for different medicines. Spencer had never met anyone like her in his life.

"It's not far now," Eliška promised, almost skipping along, swinging her little bundle of leaves happily. "Just over that ridge and down toward water. Do you see little cottage?"

"I think so!" Spencer ventured uncertainly, and then when they had gone a few more paces, he saw smoke rising above the trees, "Oh yes!"

"When I was little I always wanted to live there but Uncle Vladia said that he didn't have time to look after children." Eliška said. "I used to dream that we had nothing but fresh carp to eat. That was under previous landlord and before Skidges. We paid landlord for fishing licence and then we could fish. Old Vladimir used to be landlord's fisherman. Your lord and master threw him out of his job."

Spencer felt guilty. Since Sir Percy had bought the property recently, in all probability it had been Spencer, as Sir Percy's secretary, who had signed the relevant documents to effect the changes, but if he had then he had no recollection of doing so.

Eliška picked up on his sense of guilt.

"Sometimes we have no choice but to do what we are told." She said pragmatically.

This reminded Spencer look at his Dudat to make sure that he hadn't missed any messages but for once there were no new orders.

Spencer had been expecting the place to be another hovel, but as they drew nearer what he saw was more like the type of cottage that he had seen pictures of in fairy tales as a child. The cottage had a chimney and from the smell drifting towards them it was burning wood. This meant that Vladimir had been quite well paid in his previous employment and could pay for firewood, or he was a brave, perhaps foolhardy, thief of Sir Percy's or the navy's wood.