Scarlet Rose

Chapter 3 - The Family Dinner

After the sheep had been brought back from the fields and the table was set for supper, Scarlet Rose decided to remind her father of her age. She announced it halfway through the meal of beans and bread that no one was hungry for. It did not go over well.

"Thirteen!" gasped her father, after he had finished choking on an especially slippery bean. "But that means! No. I need you with the sheep!"

Oh that reminds me," said her mother quietly. "I just finished your present yesterday, it's in the bag by the door." She got up slowly and walked to the door, fumbled a little with the bag and drew out a hat, woven out of the rushes that grew by the creek. "To protect you from the sun when you are working."

"Mother, I might not be out there working much longer. But thank you for the hat, I'm sure it will be useful whatever I end up doing." Her father groaned and leaned back in his chair.

"You will not end up doing anything else! I need you here and here you will stay!"

Scarlet hated to go against her father, but she knew that her future would depend on this conversation going in her favor. Her mother, as far as she knew, was on her side in the argument, but she had to check. "Mother? Do you think I should at least go to the village to see if I have to pursue a different career?"

"Yes dear, I do, and your father WILL take you there, no matter what he thinks of this, after all, he was the one who had you registered in the first place."

Father looked slightly embarrassed and his face turned a shade darker, which was never a good sign.

"Besides," mother continued, "it isn't very likely that Scarlet Rose will have a different career anyway." As she finished she gave Father the look that meant that the discussion was over, and there was nothing he could do about it. Father sat up and sighed, he had lost. Slowly his face returned to its normal colour and he asked in a falsely calm voice,

"Well, I will take her to the village tomorrow, and since we're there do we need anything?"

"No," Mother replied, "At least, not anything that I would know of. How about you?"

"I need a new whet stone for the shears and the axe," he said. "And now," he turned to his daughter, "go to bed early, it's a long walk to the village."