Hey, I’m not complaining about the view. I appreciate the rolling landscape, counting cows, and generally staying in my sheath all day. What with your little sword staying sheathed despite sleeping with a girl, I guess I don’t have much to complain about either.
What I do with…Wait, little sword? Just what are you implying?
That I’m over a yard long and it… ISNT!
Shut up…
At this point I decided sleep was preferable to being mocked so shut my eyes. I didn’t need grief from my sword about my sleeping arrangements. Fortunately for me, I managed to fall asleep this time.
Meredith woke up with the sun the next day, and thus so did I. It’s hard to stay asleep with someone else actively tossing off blankets. She didn’t say much about the sleeping arrangement, just got up and went about getting things ready for breakfast and our departure. With her up and rummaging about, I decided I should probably get up, help her and then hitch up the horse.
It took us another few days before we reached Forsburg. Each day was very much like the last, including our sharing blankets at night. After a while I got used to it and it stopped being an impediment to sleep. My sword didn’t stop teasing me about it though. It didn’t help that this sleeping arrangement increased the frequency with which I woke up with a morning tent-pole in my pants. Fortunately, Meredith said nothing about it, if she even noticed it at all, what with all the layers of clothes we were each wearing. And if you’re thinking her not noticing played a large role in my sword’s taunts, you would be right.
We got to Forsburg late one afternoon. We weren’t sure what we should do, because we had a much greater chance of being recognized here. We played with the idea of pretending to be merchants and staying at the Inn. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any coin and we didn’t want to risk being discovered. So instead we just rode on by, never leaving the road. It was only when we neared Meredith’s old house that we slowed.
“I wonder who’s in there right now,” Meredith said as we passed by the long path up to her house.
“Likely some pompous local church official with the right connections,” I said.
“It doesn’t look guarded…” she mused, looking pensively at the house.
“Was it ever that strongly guarded when you were living there?” I asked.
“Not really,” she said. “Father kept a few servants around, and there was always a procession of local officials who came through, but there really wasn’t much need. It’s not like Forsburg is some big city full of thieves or anything.”
“I didn’t remember seeing all that many people there when I was staying with you,” I said.
“I wonder…” She said to herself.
“Uh oh, that sounds ominous,” I said.
“Tyr, in a half mile, there’s going to be a track leading off the road,” she said with a devious look in her eyes. “I want you to pull off on it and head back into the copse of trees behind the house and hide out there. I’m going to go in and investigate.”
“Meredith, that sounds like a bad idea,” I said. “Whoever is in there likely knows what we look like and is sure to send Claudius a message if he or she sees us.”
“Tyr, that’s my house and there appears to be no one outside it,” she said. “If I wait until nightfall, I should be able to sneak in by the back door, scrounge up some food and coin or us, and be out before anyone notices.”
“This seems like too big a risk,” I said. “We have enough food to make it to Nordshire without having to pilfer anything and risk capture at your old house.”
“While you’re right about the food, I think our lack of coin is a bigger problem,” said Meredith. “If we are going to pose as merchants, we need to have goods. The only way we get those is with coin, since we have nothing to trade. I know where the safe is, and I know the combination. I also know all the hidey holes there to avoid detection. Trust me, this will be easy.”
“Well, if you insist, I guess there’s no stopping you,” I said. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“Uh… No, that’s ok, Tyr,” she said. “No offense, but you aren’t the most stealthy of people. You would wake up everyone within five minutes of getting inside. Better I do this alone. If you don’t see me by morning, come rescue me. But not until then.”
“I’m really not comfortable with this…” I said again.
“Which is why I’m not really giving you a choice!” she said with a big smile on her face.
Good to know she was treating this with the gravity it deserved… Still, she was right about the money. We weren’t going to be able to buy many products without money. Being merchants with no merchandise is a fairly easy ruse to see through.
True to her word, there was a track a half mile down the road. And despite my misgivings, we turned off the road and headed around the back of her old estate. Fortunately, there was a fairly large stand of trees and scrub behind the house. This gave me a good place to hide our wagon. As night fell, and we finished making camp. We ate a cold dinner so we wouldn’t have to start a fire. We were both concerned that a fire would alert anyone looking out the window because of the light it would produce or smoke above the treetops.
When it had been truly dark out for an hour or two, Meredith stood up and laced her boots up tight.
“All right Tyr,” she said. “I’ll be gone for a couple hours raiding the house. If I’m not back by sunrise, feel free to come rescue me.”
And with that she trotted off. I meant to wait up for her to make sure she was ok, but I was quite tired. I’m not sure when I dozed off, but I did. I was awoken many hours later, well past midnight, by the sound of Meredith coming back into the campsite.
“Blast it Tyr,” she said, as she dropped the bags she was carrying on the ground. “I’m gone for a few hours and come back to find you sleeping. Good to know my absence didn’t worry you.”
“You said not to go after you until sunrise,” I replied, blinking the sleep from my eyes. “I was just doing what you asked.”
“Well, fortunately for you then that I wasn’t in any danger!” She said with some vehemence.
“Well that’s good to know,” I said. “But that doesn’t make sense, what you did was quite risky…”
“It would have been if there was anyone at home!” she said. “Worse, there wasn’t any paperwork in the study or the files saying anything about the capture of my father. Just a bunch of correspondence between the local Church official and the church hierarchy.”
“Did you manage to find anything useful?” I asked.
“Well, I managed to grab some more food, and there was plenty of coin lying about,” she replied. “But nothing about my father.”
“How much money?” I asked.
“Oh a few bags of gold, some silver and a few coppers,” she said.
“A few bags of…” I trailed off realizing I had never seen that much money in one place before.
“Yeah, not really all that inspiring,” she said, then saw my expression. “Don’t worry, I didn’t take all of it. That would be obvious. Just enough coin to cover expenses.”
“Uh, how much was that?” I asked, a little gob smacked.
“Let me see…” she said rummaging around in her cloak. “Ah here’s the money bag I grabbed…”
She pulled out a bag larger than my fist. It made my eyes water seeing it.
“About 25 gold, 50 silver and a few coppers…” She said, like that wasn’t ten times the annual earnings of your average farmer in this area
“Oh god!” I said… “They’re sure to miss that much!”
“I doubt it, this was one of like ten similar bags in the safe,” she said. “It’ll take them ages to figure out one went missing.”
“Ten… bags…” I spluttered.
“Yeah, with the fields having been harvested a couple months ago, I imagine most farmers have sold their extra crops and this is part of the tax revenue that brings in.”
“You stole some o
f the tax revenue…” I said.
Now, I vaguely remembered my father stopping off to pay his taxes after marketing our goods at the end of fall and beginning of winter. But I had never really focused on the fact that EVERYONE else did exactly the same thing. All those coppers and silver pieces added up apparently. I was still in awe of the money, and the fact that Meredith thought it wouldn’t be missed.
“Besides, now we can buy some goods in the next town up and maybe stay at an inn,” she said. “I figure in the next town or the one thereafter we wouldn’t be recognized. And besides, it will be nice to sleep in our own beds for a change. It’s hard to sleep with ‘Mr. Pokey Pants’ next to you all night.”
“MR. POKEY PANTS?!!” I practically shouted.
“Oh please, Tyr,” she said. “I’m a doctor, I know how things work. Besides, I take it as a compliment. You shouldn’t be embarrassed. I operate on people who I knock out and put to sleep. That doesn’t prevent them from getting morning wood while we operate.”
“What!?” I managed.
“You have nothing to be embarrassed about,” she said with a mischievous smile. “But it would be nice to wake up without you poking me in the back for a change is all.”
“Oh god…” Was all I could manage.
“Anyway, we are now well funded for our little expedition,” she said with a self-satisfied manner. “I wish I knew why there was no one there though.”
“Could it be that the church official just has business elsewhere?” I asked, relishing a change of subjects.
“Yeah, it could well be,” she said.
And with that we commenced putting away the other stuff Meredith had grabbed from her old house. It was a few useful things, like extra blankets and some changes of clothes. But there was one bit I didn’t get.
“What’s this bag here?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s an old waterproof tarp,” she said. “I figured we could use it to keep the weather off us at night. Just tie it up with some branches on top of the cart and we have a little house or lean-to to keep the rain and snow off us.”
“That’s actually a really good idea,” I said, genuinely impressed with the idea. “I had worried what would happen if the weather turned bad.”
“Yeah, I was too,” she said. “This seemed like the best solution.”
Once we had all the gear put away in the back of the cart, we each settled into the bed together in our new blankets. Sleep came quickly for both of us, it having been a long night. The last thing I remembered hearing before falling asleep was my sword giggling about the “Mr. Pokey Pants” comment.
The next day we hit the road. It was getting colder the farther north we went. We were both glad for the extra winter clothes Meredith had taken from her old house. It was really starting to feel like winter. As we approached the end of the year, it was only going to get colder.
It took us a couple of days before we made it to a village large enough to trade for goods. Like Forsburg, this town, the name of which we never bothered to ask, existed so that the local farmers could trade their crops for new farm equipment and other sundries that they would need. It also served as the seat of local government for the area. So there was an inn, a general goods store, a blacksmith and a few other stores catering to various needs in the town.
Meredith and I spent a good portion of the afternoon of that day looking for products we could sell easily in Nordshire. In the end we settled on some textiles, a bunch of root vegetables and some grain. It seemed generic enough as to be unremarkable to any guards that inspected our cart, and since our goal was to get in unnoticed instead of selling the goods to make a big profit, they suited us just fine. Besides, as a former farmer, I had some familiarity with root vegetable and grain prices.
We spent that whole day worried about local church patrols around the town, but no one gave us a second look. Two random, if young, merchants were not that uncommon a sight in a town this close to the major north-south trade road. The few guards we saw in the market were so indifferent and laid back that they could have been asleep. This suited us just fine.
We finished our shopping and loaded our purchases onto the cart near dinner time. Given the time, we went and found ourselves a room at the local inn. We decided on a single room instead of two because it was cheaper and the innkeeper had assumed we were husband and wife. We decided not to correct his mistake, as it would help our cover and better explain why we were traveling together.
The room was nothing fancy, just a couple of beds, a night stand and a side closet with a chamber pot. Still, it was far more luxurious than sleeping in the back of the cart in old blankets. That night we ate dinner in the common room of the inn. The room itself was partially full with merchants visiting the town on route to other places. At least that’s what it seemed like from the conversations we overheard. There were also a few local farmers in for the evening sharing a few pints of ale and mead while warming themselves by the fire. Really it was quite a comfortable evening.
Meredith and I decided that it would be better if we didn’t spend much time socializing with the locals. We didn’t want anyone to remember us too clearly. So instead of eating at the bar, we got a table in the back of the common room, paying a little extra for table service. The food was good, a beef stew with sides of bread and cheese to spice things up. Meredith and I tried some of the local ale and mead. I kind of liked the vaguely sweet mead, but I did not enjoy the bitter ale. Meredith pronounced the ale to be serviceable, but not as nice as the stuff her father had kept for special occasions. She had not had mead before though, so we ordered one or two more rounds of it. By the time we were done sampling, we were both feeling more than a little tipsy.
Having been hung over once before, I thought it was best if we paid our tab, and headed back to our room. I didn’t want to overindulge and make it hard to hit the road early the next day. It was only after paying the serving woman and heading back to our room that I realized the ship may have already sailed on overindulging. I was finding it hard to navigate the stairs at my normal pace. Meredith as well seemed to be walking more carefully. Still, we got back to our room without any major mishaps, which I decided was fortunate.
Once there we didn’t have much else to do except turn in for the night. Or so I thought. Meredith, on the other hand, seemed to have other ideas. I’m not sure if it was the alcohol or having spent so much time with each other, but that night, for the first time, we made love. It was one of those things that started with a kiss, which led to more. I will spare you the details, as the awkward fumbling of two drunk teenagers is not something I’m comfortable sharing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an experience I will not forget and not one I’m embarrassed about. I just think it’s better left to your imaginations.
It’s odd isn’t it? I’m more comfortable talking about the first time I killed a man than the first time I had sex. While lighting the inquisitors on fire seemed necessary at the time, I still wake up at night horrified by reliving that experience in my dreams. I can sometimes still smell the burnt flesh, and the feelings of revulsion and nausea hit me afterwards. It’s not as strong a feeling, but it’s still there, all this time later. Meanwhile, an experience that I still remember to this day with fondness, is something I’m not comfortable sharing. It says a lot about a society that physical expressions of love and affection are private, while tales of death and destruction are shared at meal times with people of all ages around. But I’m digressing.
That night, when we finally did get to sleep, we slept well. We woke up the next day without hangovers, thank goodness, but later in the morning than we had intended. I would like to think that it was the activities of the night before that put us in such a favorable disposition, but it’s more likely because we took our alcohol with food. Still, we both seemed to be grinning like idiots.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to linger in that room. We had a job to do in Caer Nord and it would get no closer by staying in bed. So we quickly got dressed;
well, as quickly as we could given our clothes were strewn about the room. Then we headed down to have breakfast and pay the innkeeper. Breakfast was eaten quickly and with little talking. We were rushed, but also didn’t much feel the need to say anything.
It was not till we were on the road that something occurred to me.
“Meredith, I realize it’s a little late to worry about this now, but what happens if you get pregnant?”
“Don’t worry about that, Tyr,” she said. “If that was an actual risk, I would not let things go as far as they did.”
“Um… Isn’t what we did last night exactly how pregnancy occurs?” I asked, genuinely confused.
“For couples without a training in medicine and without magical talent, yes,” she said. “But I’m a doctor with quite a bit of magical talent. I won’t get pregnant unless I want to.”
01 - The Price of Talent Page 38
