The Story of Fiveton       Mark Roddy - Seattle University    
Please do not make more than one copy or modify without permission.
(206)296-5765     mroddy@seattleu.edu

Day One

Once upon a time, way over on the other side of the world, a little to the west of nowhere, there was the kingdom of Fiveton.   The kingdom was ruled by a king and a queen.   It had ladies and lords, knights, magicians, peasants, squires, farmers, shop keepers and shepherds, to name a few.  

Fiveton was nestled in an enormous valley that lay between two broad and tall ranges of snow-capped mountains.   In the valley there were rolling hills, wide open plains, rivers, streams, and dark forests where you would find squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, deer, foxes, wolves, bears, all kinds of birds, and once in a while, if you were lucky, you might find a unicorn.  

The castle's gamekeepers and foresters took care of the parts of the forest near the castle and the king and queen liked to go there sometimes and wander through the woods.   The queen had a special interest in the animals.   She kept a log, a special journal, where she kept track of all animals she saw on their walks: 4 squirrels, two crows and a fox one day, three deer and two squirrels the next and so forth.   They never ventured too far from the castle walls, though, for the forest could be a wild and dangerous if you weren't careful.   There were parts of the forest where no one had ever been, where the royal maps were blank.   The royal cartographers, whose job was to make maps, kept saying that they were going to go in there and see what was what but so far these areas remained unexplored.  

Most of the kingdom, though, was well-known, settled, and quite pleasant in all seasons.   Oh, there was the occasional winter storm when temperatures would drop, the wind would sigh in the trees and the snow would fall, sometimes piling up 2 or 3 feet!   When this happened people would mostly stay home - it was too hard to get their wagons and carts onto the roads and into town.   They would build up the fire, sit down with a good book or maybe play a game with the rest of the family until the sun returned and the snow melted.   This kind of weather was pretty unusual in the kingdom of Fiveton.   Mostly the weather was fine, sunny.   It might get a little hot in the summer except in the highest hills.   But it was just about perfect in the Spring and Fall with pleasant breezes, beautiful white puffy clouds and just the occasional shower or thunderstorm.   After the storm there would often appear a beautiful rainbow that stretched from the mountains on one side of Fiveton all the way across the sky to the mountains on the other side.   At the very end of the valley there was the ocean.   The people of Fiveton were not big seafarers.   Once in a while someone would build a boat and venture a few miles out to sea but no one had ever found land as fine as Fiveton and although a few people had simply sailed away never to return, most came back and were happy to live on land in their beautiful valley.  

         The people who lived in Fiveton, both men and women, were mostly farmers, ranchers or shepherds.   The land was quite fertile - good for growing crops and animals - and so if a family was willing to work pretty hard, their efforts were well rewarded with good crops that could be sold in the villages and the small town that stood near the old castle.   On market days, once every two weeks, the farmers would load up their carts and wagons, hitch up a team of horses or oxen and make their way to markets where they would sell their goods to the townspeople.   The best foods were often bought by the royal cook and served to the king, the queen and the folks who lived in the grand old castle.   Not only did they have the best food, they had the best clothes, the best horses, the best books, and the best toys.   They had servants who washed their royal clothes, servants who took care of their royal gardens, servants who kept track of the royal children, even servants who cleaned up after their royal messes.   To tell the truth, the king and queen had it pretty easy.  

         You might think that this would make them lazy or greedy or selfish or maybe all three, but no... for the most part they were pretty good as rulers go.   They did have responsibilities: to defend the kingdom from attack, to help those in the kingdom who were struck by misfortune, and to settle disputes that sometimes arose among the people who lived in Fiveton.   The queen had a real talent for this.   She was known throughout the kingdom as a fair and impartial judge, which meant that she didn't take sides, treating everyone more or less the same.   Every two weeks, on market day, you could find her in the royal Chamber of Justice.   She would sit on her royal throne or pace back and forth, listening to concerns of her subjects.   They would wait in line, sometimes 20 or more, each with a question or a concern.   Sometimes the questions were pretty easy.   For example, a farmer and the royal cook had arranged the sale or 250 baskets of apples.   They both agreed on the amount, 250 baskets, and the farmer and his family had arrived at the royal kitchens with 250 baskets of beautiful red and yellow apples.   But the farmer was sure that the royal cook had promised him 4 coins for each basket.   The cook claimed that she had promised only 2 coins per basket.   The queen thought for a moment, clapped her hands and declared a compromise.   The cook would pay the farmer 3 coins per basket and in the future they would write up a contract that would be witnessed by the royal record keeper.   The farmer and the royal cook agreed to this and the next people in line were shown into the Chamber of Justice.  

As I said, sometimes the problems were easy but sometimes they were hard.   This was a hard one.   The royal gardener had arranged with the royal woodcutter that he would chop down 4 acres of trees on the north side of the castle so that the royal gardens could be extended.   The woodcutter had promised to do the work over the winter so that the gardens could be planted in the spring.   The winter had been cold, though, and the woodcutter had fallen ill.   He and his children had done some of the work but most of it remained undone and planting season was just around the corner.   What to do?   The queen thought and thought, pacing back and forth before her throne, as she often did when the questions were hard.   She took a walk through the woods where the gardens were to be created. Then she went and spoke briefly with the captain of the guard, a knight who was in charge of all the other castle knights.   She then walked briskly back to the Chamber of Justice and declared her solution.   The royal knights would go the very next day and clear the land so that the planting could begin.   The royal woodcutter, as soon as he recovered, would chop the fallen trees into firewood for the royal knights, delivering it to them that summer so that they would be ready for the next winter.  

Meanwhile, the king, too, had been busy.   On market days he could often be found walking through the market place talking with the people to find out how their lives were going, whether their harvests had been fair or poor, checking to see who had been married, who had died, and who had been born, how school was going for the children and how was the fishing in the rivers that year.   The king took responsibility for wages and for taxes paid by the people in return for protection of the castle and he wanted to make sure that their pay and the taxes they paid were fair.  

Yes, the king and queen were all right.   Once in a while they made a mistake, but mostly they were fair and just and worked pretty hard to make sure the people in the kingdom had a chance for a good life.   Of course the king and queen weren't the only ones working in the kingdom.   Everyone had a job of some kind.   Even the children, whose main job was to go to school and learn all they could, had jobs at home or sometimes in the castle if they were old enough or had special skills.  

For example, Maria and Mario were twins.   They lived on the Cinco River with their aged mother and father.   When they were younger they had made a good living fishing and selling their catch in town.   The twins were born at the height of fishing season.   They had spent their early years playing on the riverbanks and helping their parents with the family business, tending the fish in the Cinco river.  

They were now nine years old and in the 4 th grade at their school.   They were not quite like their classmates.   Ever since they were babies it was clear that they had special talents when it came to fish.   They loved to be near the river and spent all their time there when they could.   It wasn't so much that they were great at fishing, more that fish just seemed to like them.   Wherever they went on the river, the fish followed.   Even when they were babies, as they crawled along the river you could see fish swimming alongside, sometimes jumping clear of the water to catch a glimpse of the twins.  

No one knew why the fish were so attracted to the twins but it was clearly so and when they reached the age of nine the Queen gave them an after-school job to supplement their parents' dwindling income.   They were to count the fish in the Cinco river and report to the royal gamekeeper.   The gamekeeper used this count to keep track of whether the river was healthy or not.   The twins would spend a happy hour on the bridge over the Cinco river.   Over the course of an average hour the twins would count nearly one hundred fish.   They did this each day, rain or shine, then walked into town to give the day's total to the gamekeeper who kept a record of their count.   For this they were paid 2 coins each day.  

End of Day 1 (of 11)