Cut grass

Bent over, a tiny old woman with a deeply lined face hovers on the verge of the road. A faded and thinning shawl is wrapped tightly round her shoulders. Home spun, it offers little warmth. Cold fingers clasp tightly at her middle, a tired basket wanders at her side.

She shuffles and waits, then steps forward again, all the time keeping to the uneven grass to the side of the road. A few steps further from the edge a drainage ditch is filled with high grasses and small thickets. She scans the foliage for berries. Not many remain so late and cold in the season. She continues to search; hunger does not know seasons.

She finds a few wild greens, which she lays in the basket alongside a scattering of nuts and fruits.

Just ahead stand a couple of distressed trees. She continues towards them more quickly, hoping to find a few nuts below. If there are none, at least she could lean against a trunk and rest a while.

Busying herself in the ground around the trunks, she mutters and hums. Nothing is said though a dialogue between two parties seems to emerge. One voice questions, the other placates. After a time, she sinks to the ground, shuffles so her back is against a trunk and closes her eyes. Her breathing slows and quiets.

Time slides by in the cold pale light.

She hears the sounds of a horse. Then comes the creaking of a saddle. A rider on a horse is coming down the road. She looks up. He is tall, large and dressed in a uniform, dusty and creased.

She scuttles to her feet and tries to scurry to the drainage ditch out of sight. She is too late.

The rider sees her and makes a demand. She does not understand him: he does not speak her tongue. He demands again, louder. She cowers closer to the ground, head down.

His manner becomes contemptuous. He is unused to receiving no response to his demands. With slow, carefully spoken words he insists on his demands.

Again, she does not answer but balls herself up more tightly, frozen in the grass.

Then comes a moment of stillness. The cold afternoon seems to stop and wait.

And suddenly, swiftly, he draws his sword leans over from his saddle, carves the blade through her neck.

She topples over, a small thing, into the grass.

He wipes his sword, returns it to its sheath, signals his horse to continue and rides on into the west.

Slowly, light flees the scene and only the small sounds of scurrying remain.