by B. T. Narro
I had thought Red was the owner of the tavern, but Reuben had explained to me that a man owning his own tavern would be like a farmer owning the farmland he worked. It was possible, but apparently it just about never happened around Newhaven. In Bhode, everyone did own their own homes and farms. We still had to pay taxes for the land, but there wasn’t rent involved.
Unfortunately, Red didn’t seem worried by Reuben’s threat. “I could take this up with the king. He’s a just ruler who would put an end to this nonsense. Might even toss you in a cell for the trouble.”
“Oh really?” Reuben sounded amused.
“That’s right, I could. I’ll march right down to the castle and send word that the nobles are trying to toss out us hardworking commoners. He dethroned the last king who didn’t care about his people. I’m sure he would love to hear about your threat!”
I couldn’t help but smirk. Red really was convincing, at least by his tone, and brave as well. But that was about to come to an end.
“You remember my friend?” Reuben gestured at me. I gave a little wave.
“The servant. He works for your father, I bet.”
“He’s no servant,” Reuben said. “In fact, he and I have a lot in common. We are both sorcerers of the king.”
“That’s bullshit. You come in here spouting lies in my place of business. Now I’m asking you to leave, or I will fetch the guards.”
“You really don’t believe me?” Reuben tested. “Need a demonstration?”
“First you say you’re a Langston. Now you say you’re one of them sorcerers of the king! I don’t know what you are, but you’re trespassing now. Get out and don’t come back, or—”
“Jon, go ahead.”
I already had the spell ready. I hit the table to my side with a powerful blast of dvinia. It shot into the wall, then fell with a crash. There was a large crack in the wall where it had struck.
The noise was deafening, startling everyone but the two of us. Red gaped at it, then at me.
It was silent for a long while.
“You know…” Reuben began coolly, “had Jon really been a servant looking for white wine, he could’ve been killed when you sent him off with those men last night. He gave you a chance to warn him, and you did not. I’d even go so far as to say that you probably knew those men were involved with dark mages.”
“I told him everything I knew!” Red claimed. “I had no idea they were involved with dark mages! I swear!”
“Do you think the king would believe that? You could march down there right now and ask him. I’ll even go with you.”
“There’s no need for any of that.”
“Damn right there isn’t. Because you are going to stop allowing this lady to be harassed.” He gestured at Burda, who still stood by the open door. She had her hand on it as if she’d intended to close the door a long time ago but had forgotten to act.
“How am I supposed to do that? Can’t report them. They aren’t breaking any laws.”
“You have seen them touch me!” Burda said, finally slamming the door.
“I haven’t seen anything of that nature.”
“He lies!” she told Reuben.
“I know he does,” Reuben said without taking his eyes off Red. He stepped forward and grabbed the man by his shirt.
I was worried Reuben might hit the man as I intervened. “Look, Red, just toss out the patrons who bother your workers. It’s not even a difficult thing to do. If they refuse to leave, get a guard. It’s what any decent man would do in your position. Your patrons will eventually learn that they cannot bother Burda, or they’ll find themselves in a dungeon cell.”
“I’d rather you let it keep going,” Reuben threatened. “My father will buy this building and put it in my name. Then we’ll see just how much you’ll have to pay.”
“Fine. I agree.”
“Was that so hard?” Reuben asked. He let go of the man’s shirt.
We started toward the door, but Reuben stopped and turned around.
“And if you dismiss this lady from your service or do anything to her as revenge, then you will suffer. She didn’t do anything wrong. She didn’t even report this. Jon saw it all happen before he lured out those men and witnessed them commit a crime against him.”
We headed out. I expected Reuben to stop in front of Burda, maybe drop a sappy line or show her how proud of himself he was, but he walked right past her as she stared at him in shock.
I waited until we were outside to tell him, “That was marvelous. I couldn’t even tell if you were actually angry or not.”
“Jon, I’m going to let you in on a secret that I expect you to keep.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’m always that angry,” he admitted. “So letting it out feels really good.”
“That explains a lot.”
“Wait!” Burda shouted.
We stopped and turned as she ran toward us.
“I’m sure she wants to thank you.” I squeezed Reuben’s shoulder. “I’ll leave you two alone and see you back at the castle later.”
“Are you joking, Jon? You are not making me walk back without you while I’m dressed like this.”
“You want me to wait here as you speak with her?”
“Hell no. Wait down the street.”
“Fine.”
I created some distance as I looked back at Burda stopping in front of Reuben. They spoke for some time before Burda gave him a kiss on his cheek. She walked back toward the tavern after, with a few looks back, but Reuben didn’t see. He was too busy grinning at me triumphantly.
“Did you see that?” he asked. “A kiss on the cheek means she likes me. The longer the kiss, the more she’s interested. It lasted a while.”
He sure didn’t seem angry anymore.
“Yeah, take this time to gloat. Smart. Or maybe it would be smarter to look back.”
“What?” He spun around.
Burda had waited near the entrance of the tavern. She gave a wave. He waved back.
We started back to the castle. I set a quick pace. There was a lot to do, but Reuben lagged behind. He turned around again, but she had gone into the tavern.
“Glad we came?” I asked.
I didn’t think he heard me. He held a little smile as he looked ahead.
“Reuben?”
“What?”
“You did well.”
“Oh, thank you, Jon. You did, too.”
“I thought cracking the wall with the table was a bit much.”
“It’s still less than what he deserves.”
“True.”
CHAPTER NINE
I found Leon after Reuben and I made it back to the castle, and soon we were headed out to meet Aliana’s mother. Leon asked me what I had been up to, so I told him.
He didn’t seem too impressed by the story, but he was never very much impressed by anything.
Eventually, we arrived at our destination. Gwen Forrester worked with a healer in a small place on a quiet street, but she wasn’t the one who greeted us. There was only an older gentleman with gray hair and a deeply wrinkled face. He didn’t look busy as he sat on a stool and faced the door.
I glanced around. This was definitely the right place. The backroom was cluttered with glassware filled with various substances. Most of it seemed to be herbal, though there were a few liquid concoctions as well.
“Are one of you in need of healing?” asked the man as he stood.
Leon approached. “My name is Leon Purage, and this is Jon Oklar. You’re in luck, healer. On behalf of the king, Jon is going to stay here for the next two hours and heal anyone who requires it, no matter what ails them. All payment will still go to you.”
“Well um, that is, um…” He scratched his head nervously.
“Leon,” I scolded as I stepped around him and offered the old man my hand. “Let’s try this again. I’m Jon.”
“Quincy.” His skin was leathery.
“I’m a sorcerer of the ki
ng and I would like to practice my Heal spell here, if you wouldn’t mind?”
“Oh, yes, yes. That is wonderful. Of course.”
“Like Leon said, you can still charge your normal rate and collect the coin yourself.”
“That is kind of you. A woman works with me. She’s out purchasing supplies right now but should be back any moment. Usually, I see the patients and she prepares the medicines.”
“All right,” Leon said. “It’s settled then.”
“Right,” I answered.
Leon turned to leave, but a woman carrying a bag with two hands started to enter. She didn’t look a day over thirty, pretty, not a wrinkle on her face. She had dark hair and familiar eyes.
“Let me help you,” Leon said as he took the bag from her. “Just tell me where you want it.”
“Thank you, sir. There’s fine.” She pointed at the one clear spot on a table in the backroom.
“Call me Leon,” he said as he set down the bag and offered his hand.
“Gwen.”
I looked at her closer. She had to be older than she looked. Nonetheless, she must’ve had Aliana when she was quite young.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Gwen,” Leon said.
I’d never heard his tone this friendly before. It almost sickened me.
“I’m not sure if your daughter mentioned me—”
“Oh, you said your name is Leon?”
“Yes, Leon Purage.”
Gwen clicked her tongue. “You are not what I expected.”
“Yeah, I can be a bit harsh on the students, but it’s only because I care that they improve.”
“Aliana has improved, so you must be doing a fine job.”
“Thank you, Gwen.”
I thought it odd how they held each other’s gazes so firmly. I cleared my throat.
“This is Jon,” Leon spat out quickly.
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
“It is nice to meet you, Jon.” She glanced at me with kind eyes, but her gaze returned to Leon as soon as the handshake with me was done. “What brings the two of you here?”
“We’re going to stay a little while to heal anyone who comes in,” Leon said.
“We are?” I asked. “You were just leaving, Leon.”
“So soon?” Gwen protested. “I would love to hear more about Aliana’s training. She doesn’t tell me much.”
“I can stay a little while.”
What was happening right now? More importantly, what would Aliana want me to do about it?
I looked at Leon differently. I wanted to see him through Gwen’s eyes. He looked like he was in his early thirties, but he had to be much older. From some of the things he’d said, I wondered if he might even be fifty years old. I supposed he was not hard to look at when he was behaving like he was now. He had bright green eyes and messy blonde hair. He had a prominent jaw, square and strong. I thought he usually looked a little scary, but I hadn’t seen him smile like he was now.
Curiously, Aliana’s mother had very pale skin while Aliana had tanned or even bronze skin, depending on the light. Aliana had wondered who her father was. Apparently, the man had helped finance certain endeavors in her life, but he had not been around for her when she needed him the most, like after their home burned down. He had not been there ever, in fact. She had never met him and didn’t know his name.
Her mother knew, and she refused to tell Aliana. It had been an issue of great frustration to Aliana, she had told me a while ago. But from the way her mother was looking at Leon, I was starting to believe that Gwen was no longer romantically involved with Aliana’s father.
There wasn’t much room for the four of us in this small space, but soon Gwen took Leon into the back room and drew the curtain as they spoke about Aliana. Quincy and I stood in the entrance room awkwardly, able to hear everything they said.
“Aliana is extremely talented,” Leon told Gwen. “We’re lucky to have her with us. She can track and hunt now, and she’s even learning to ride well.”
What he said greatly bothered me, and I didn’t know why. Everything he’d mentioned was true. Aliana was talented. She and the others who didn’t know how to ride horses had begun to learn, and she was picking it up quickly just as she had the bow. It wasn’t Leon’s words but something about his deliberately pleasant way of speaking that got to me.
I suddenly realized why. This proved that Leon was capable of being nice. He’d just never chosen to be nice to us.
A man walked in with a bloody scrape down his arm. “How much to treat this?” he asked nervously, his gaze bouncing around between the two of us.
“Let me see.” Quincy approached, but the man stepped back.
“I don’t want to be charged for a look.”
Quincy stopped. “I’m assuming you’ve seen Healer Gary?”
The man nodded.
“I don’t charge you for a look. I need to assess the cut to…actually.” He looked at me. “I almost forgot. Would you like to heal him, Jon?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Heal me? What do you mean?” The man stepped back to keep distance as I stepped toward him.
“It’ll cost you five copper,” Quincy said.
“Five? This could heal on its own.”
“It could,” Quincy said, “but it could also become infected and kill you, which I’m sure you know, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. Five is the cheapest price you’ll get. The ointment to prevent infection is usually more than five coppers on its own, but since Jon here will heal you without it, you will only need to pay five copper.”
Five copper really wasn’t very much. Even before I started being paid forty silver a week, I would’ve gladly paid five copper to heal a nasty scrape like the one on this man’s arm.
“What do you mean heal me? Like sorcery?”
“Yes,” I answered. “Sorcery.”
He looked at me for a long while with a growing curiosity to his expression.
“Five copper. Agreed.”
I stepped close and lifted my hand in front of his bloody wound. “This is going to hurt for a few moments, but that just means it’s working.”
“All right.”
I began the spell but almost stopped in shock as he let out a few very improper expletives.
“I’m sorry!” he apologized as I kept up the spell. “Gah! Bastard, son of a, gnnnahhhhh!”
“Done.”
He looked down at his arm. There was blood around where his wound used to be, but the wound itself was gone.
“Wow. That really worked. It’s not going to come back?”
“No, it’s healed.”
He didn’t seem to believe me as he moved the loose skin around on his arm and pinched around where the scrape used to be.
“Tell others,” I said. “I’ll try to be here at this time every day.”
He looked up at me in surprise. “Will do. Thank you. Thank you very much.” He pulled out his coin purse and handed me the five copper bits. I passed them to Quincy as the man strolled out.
“When did you learn to heal, Jon?” Gwen asked me, the curtain drawn back again. Her tone was as if she thought she should’ve known this about me already. “Aliana tells me things,” she added, probably after noticing my confused expression. “But she didn’t mention you can heal.”
“I can for a while now. Has she visited you recently?”
“Not for a little while.”
“I see.” I suddenly felt wildly suspicious about Aliana and her mother, but I wondered if I was overreacting.
I was soon distracted as another man entered, this one complaining of a sharp pain in his stomach. We went through a similar back and forth as with the last man before he agreed to have me heal him. This was my first case of trying to heal something that I couldn’t see or feel for myself.
I stepped up and put my hands over his stomach without touching. Normally I could sense the injury in addition to seeing it when I pushed out my mana toward the problem.
A message was relayed to my mind about what was wrong, and I felt like my mana knew exactly how to fix it. But here, I felt nothing.
“Leon,” I said. “Is there a technique to finding an injury I can’t see?”
Leon stepped up and moved his hands around near the man’s stomach. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“There is,” said the man as he groaned. “Terrible pain.”
“I assure you there isn’t an injury,” Leon said. “Jon, you would feel it like you have the others.”
“It’s not an injury,” said the man. “I think I’m sick with something serious. Quincy, I don’t want a sorcerer. You have to give me something.”
“It’s probably just what you ate,” Quincy said. Then in a lower voice he told us, “This isn’t the first time.” He asked the man, “Did your wife make her pastries again?”
“Yes, but it’s not that. This is different. Something is very wrong this time.”
He let out a fart so loud that it startled us. It continued on as he grabbed his stomach in distress.
When it finally came to an end, the stench hit me.
“My lord,” Quincy said. “The smell! Get out with that. Get out!”
“Never mind that,” I said as I pushed past the man. “I’m getting out.”
“Airinold’s taint, Jon’s right,” Leon said.
We all fled the enclosed room.
On the street, the man couldn’t seem to meet our eyes, his cheeks red. “I’m awfully sorry about that.” He was still holding his stomach, though he didn’t seem to be in as much distress.
“I’ll charge you next time you do that in my place of business,” Quincy told him. “Go home, and stop eating those cheese pastries.”
“All right.” He sulked as he walked off.
The rest of the people who came in for healing didn’t offer nearly as much excitement. It was easy to identify their problems and fix them. After an hour, I almost found myself wishing someone would come in with a life-threatening injury just for the challenge, but I wouldn’t actually wish that on anyone.
I slowly gained interest in the tidbits of conversation I heard between Leon and Gwen. The both of them had remained in the back room for some time now, no longer checking on me or Quincy. When I was distracted healing a woman’s sprained finger, I barely made out his quiet question to Gwen.
