Chapter 4 - Acquiescence

Chapter 4 - Malthen 1

The blood crusted pelt of a northern squirrel is not so rough as the hardened leather into which it will be fashioned. It is not so rough as the whip or shackle it may become. Most of the men meandering through Kitford’s sunset market have never felt the rasp and sting of either, but I remember both all too well. Only six short months have passed since I slipped the noose of bondage, and already I perpetuate the system - selling hide to the tanner. Ironic how fate reminds you of your place. The free world is marvelous, however, and I will not let fate keep me from tonight’s revelries. It is rumored that an official of house Carsus is visiting with this small town’s mayor today, and that means celebration. In all my time with Pa Grayson, the family never missed an opportunity to celebrate exotic company. For better or for worse, the expansive continent which lies outside the Grayson house is revealing itself to be much like what lies inside. Perhaps, people are the same all over the world. I have only begun my travels, but I intend to personally investigate this notion.

Game sack now empty, slim travel pack slung over one shoulder, I watch with reserved indecision as the women of Kitford stream in and out of the Magma tavern in pairs, laughing as they cart in the night’s supplies. Dense breads, a shipment of southern rice, and all manner of spirits flow steadily into the heart of this small town, exuding an air of expectation. It seems these people have reached deep into their rough country pockets to humor this event. I once expected the country to be full of simple, mechanical people performing society’s back-breaking labor in removed solace. I never expected the unity that these men, women, and children seem to share. A pang of loneliness fills a vulnerable part of me I didn’t know I still possessed. I crush it with the swiftness of desperation. Self-pity is weakness, and weakness begets suffering. If there is one thing my 19 years have taught me, it is that weakness can never be tolerated. Not in myself. Not in others. Strength begets strength, and I think I have found the strength in this quaint place. Among the returning field workers is a giant.

He towers over his fellows, and while his face is placid, the empty space about him attests to the fear he inspires simply by existing. Someday, I hope to have an aura like this. I am not nearly so tall or powerful, but I have seen the Paladin Lux des Firor in the streets of Eychershire. He stands shorter than I, and there is not a man in the north who would cross him. Fear is a byproduct of strength, and I respect this man’s ability to invoke it. I will talk to him later. Show him we belong in the same pack.

Amber tones of sunset slowly give way to the flickering hues of lanterns within the Magma tavern, reflecting off of similarly colorful summer skirts and leisure coats of the wide building’s residents. A group of rough men wait outside, revelling in the last minutes of day. A giggling party of women and girls cascade into their ragged ranks like a scythe through wheat, causing the cluster to bow and fall about the street in a merry disarray. I feel the longing coming this time, and I stand abruptly at my empty wooden table. Perhaps tonight I can deal with this weakness in a more permanent fashion.

Behind the bar is a homely woman, mid-twenties most likely. Getting old already in a place like this. It is not her poise, but her age that turns me away. Among the assembly outside are many worthy prospects, but I do not wish to start a fight on my first night in this town. A girl of seventeen, perhaps eighteen peers from the top of a stairwell behind the serving bar. I catch her eye briefly before she scrambles back the way she came. I sit again, allowing myself to dream about what she might be. I imagine what she might have faced, what she might have done. It is easy to fabricate a story about someone, after seeing them only once.

My musings are interrupted by a surge in activity outside. The gaggle of soon-to-be merri-makers gathers about something. Someone. I stand again to get a better look. Straighten my coat. Make sure the hardy third legion longsword upon my back hangs gracefully against it’s leather strap. The crowd erupts through the doorway, sending its constituents cascading against the neat rows of tables and chairs. They pay no mind to the drapes and trappings they disturb, for they are too fixated on one man. I can see now he is a thick man, still wearing battle-worn chain mail under his hard leather shirt. He holds a long, glistening tusk for everyone to see, passing it to an awestruck admirer every once and awhile.

He takes a seat at the bar, bringing the party with him. Chairs are pulled out all about him, and his aura begins conversations among friends. Musings of his glory and the story he has not yet told. Men who have never seen this hero before peer upwards at him, yearning for recognition. Such is their fixation that no one seems to notice the giant as he ducks through the doorway.

His clothes are worn, stretched, and torn all over and his skin is smooth and soft under the thin layer of harvest dirt. He is not so imposing up close as I had expected. Now, close enough to see his poise, it is clear that he is removed, perhaps even shy. I turn from him, setting my sights on a new target as I consider my method of approach. Should I tell him of some heroism I have performed, just as he tells the enraptured crowd now? No. I look too young to be boastful. Perhaps, I should show him my blade - a token of scars earned? He would not know that the patchwork of scars covering my back and arms came from the coward’s whip and not the bandit’s blade. Perhaps….

“Plannin’ on fightin’ someone pal?”

I flinch away from the voice beside me, reflexively grasping the hilt of the blade I was already caressing. Damn my high strung muscles and lack of composure. Starting like this is a sign of weakness, and I cannot be seen to fear this small man who looks so carelessly about. At first glance, he appears to be in his thirties. His familiar attitude suggests that perhaps he owns the place, but there is something devious about his manner that makes him harder to read.

“No...I....you run this place?” I stutter despite my best efforts to regain composure.The man’s fledgeling smile widens into a questioning grin. He looks younger now. Perhaps only a few years older than I. He looks more deeply into my face, quickly finding the confusion of insecurity in my demeanor. His expression relaxes, and I fear he has written me off as unimportant. I stand taller and open my mouth to speak, but he beats me to it.

“Any particular reason you’re standin’ in front of this sturdy table?”

I can see now the polished lute slung over his shoulder and realize that he is not here to talk to me. Foolish ego getting the best of me again. Stupid. I step quickly out of the way and he gives me a playful nod, vaulting lightly onto the table.

“Goodfellows!” He hails the crowd as the hero of the hour concludes his tale of victory. Even as I spoke with the small bard, I maintained a perfect recall of the hero’s tale. One learns never to miss a detail in the house of a cruel master. Best to let someone else forget their task. Best not to attract attention. “Today I bring to you the tale,” the man’s dexterous fingers pluck a lively pattern on the wooden instrument. “Of the scourge of Kitford! And it’s fall to the brave…” he looks questingly at the tavern hero.

“Aduren, goodfellow!”

“The brave Aduren of…” he looks again to the man of the hour. Aduren’s face darkens slightly, recognizable only by those who have spent hours searching harder faces for the slightest trace of malice. Perhaps I can speak to him of home and family to soothe his spirits.

“Champion of the mighty Selune!” He calls proudly. The atmosphere in the room changes slightly as those who despise the Volcaryn pantheon recognize a loyalist in their midst. The tension is quickly dispersed as the bard launches into a ballad which, given the nature of the situation, must be improvised as he plays. It appears I am not the only perceptive one about.

Nightlife transforms Kitford into a bustling hub of excitement. In the gnarled, two-story citadel, the mayor and his cadre dine with an important Imperium figure. In the Magma, the ordinary people laugh and drink and project upon themselves the tales first of Aduren’s glory, then traditional legends of heroes of old. The streets in between are pocked with the lamplight glow of the occasional reveller, returning from relieving themselves or retrieving some comely treasure from their small home.

After looking in on Aduren’s circle for a frustrated period, I join a group of men and boys playing a game of dice nearby the hearth. They admit me with little hesitation, seeing me likely as yet another wonderous traveller. It is no use trying to blend into this place. Each man and woman knows every other like one of their own house. A boy of sixteen asks me about my service in the noble imperium legions and I give him my stock answer.

I joined their ranks at thirteen. True. I trained in the militant forge of Lionskeep for three hard seasons before pledging the Starbane Patrols. In reality I trained for only half a season before running like the coward I was. Never again. I have been relieved of service for a full season now, I tell them. The sword was given to me by a friendly commander as a symbol of goodwill and a job well done. I do not tell them how I stole it from the tent of that very commander who took me under his wing. Coran was his name, and he was a good man I think. I wish I had treated him differently, but these are the regrets of a boy long ago buried by who I am today.

It is so easy to fill the eyes of the young with dreams of glory, and even my simple story enraptures my small audience. The two men in the group, however, seem to see through at least part of my tale. They smile nonetheless, and one passes me the rough-hewn ivory dice. They are slightly lopsided, a dirty shade of grey, and marked with small holes. Likely carved by some soft-iron kitchen tool. In Pa Greyson’s house, I learned never to win a game of dice on which money had been bet, no matter how small. I have rigged smoother dice, and it would be easy now to coax whichever result I wanted from these rugged instruments of play. I don’t, however, because I do not wish to taint the charming evening with slights from my past.

I look away as I roll the dice about in my leathery palm, catching the hero Aduren’s eye as he looks over the shoulder of a girl perched upon his leg. I cast the dice, unable to look away in the strange moment of unwarranted connection. It seems his eyes and mine are the same. Perhaps I knew this man in a different life. If there is such a thing.

I flinch as one of the men at my table pounds the hardwood goodnaturedly with the butt of his closed fist. He shakes his head and gives a peevish grin, peering down at the double singles I have just rolled. The dragon’s eyes. The perfect roll for one just entering the game. The man slaps my shoulder and makes a cheerful show of squinting into my eyes for the skittishness of a cheater. For a moment I am afraid he will find what he seeks even when I have played an honest game, but then I realize he is looking for me to gloat. He wouldn’t expose me even if he saw perfidy in my eyes. Gillan I think his name is. His companion Attilan called him by it earlier as they sat down. He has the aspect of a woodsman. Slender and wiry, healthy but not enough body fat on him to hide the veins in his forearms and legs.

“Beginner’s luck!” I concede, taking my small victory as humbly as I can. Surprising both older men who expect the boastfulness of youth paramount in my seemingly simple person. Gillan slides the dice across the uneven table on which we play to another youth. Marshall. A young boy who sports the trappings of militia. Most likely a trainee. He carries his thin leather coat proudly, though, and looks about him with excitement as we await his move. He casts the dice. He pounds the table excitedly, just as Gillan did, but with different spirit. I am distracted from the result yet again as a ruckus has begun at the bar.

The men and women about Aduren have been drinking for a nigh on an hour now, and they begin to raise their voices in a common field song. The men chant their low chorus while the women decorate the soundscape with calls of the birds, tower worms, and locusts. Aduren sits alone amidst all of it, a merry glow about him, unsure of the words but glad to join in where he can. Behind him, two boys of similar age, perhaps brothers, collide in drunken quarrel. One knocks the mug from the other’s hand in a brash attempt to caress the leg of a woman lounging between them. The affronted boy stands and pushes his larger aggressor. They face off, noses millimeters from one another, neither backing down. Neither showing weakness.

Conversations and even drinking pause all throughout the room, waiting for chaos to erupt. A sturdy man with a powerfully masculine air stands as if to preempt the conflict, but Aduren stays him with a hand. The hero mutters something to the would-be peacekeeper, his eyes twinkling. The peacekeeper rolls his eyes. The bartender pauses mid stride, still holding a flagon under the tap as she waits for the inevitable. She exchanges glances with someone by the door, but I am too focused elsewhere to check who it might be.

Chaos erupts as the smaller man drives his fist into his opponent’s torso. The two grapple atop the bar and then to the ground as all about pound their tables and cheer for one man, the other, or just general good-natured mayhem. The barkeeper nods her head and smiles knowingly, and now I see why. Everyone does. The giant pushes his way tenderly and easily through the congealed crowd, nearly kneeling to pick the larger man from the smaller. Both combatants struggle as they are overpowered and held at arm’s length. The peacekeeper, Brandon I think, wends his way through the cleft carved by the giant to seize the larger man from behind. Both brawlers are then led out to the street and the drinking begins anew. The rhythmic pounding upon tables and chairs fades, but not to silence. Even after the last fist has fallen, the ground still trembles. I think I am the first to notice, but as I scan the outside through door and windows, my eyes meet Gillan’s. He rises slowly, patting Attilan on the shoulder, and makes his way to the door where he lifts a long bow and quiver from a convenient shadow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2vQ52mHoY0&t=2642s

The bard knows too, watching us through his shrewd green eyes. He pivots on his table, still strumming the lute upon his leg. I follow Gillan through the door and out onto the street. Outside of Kitford’s modest wooden walls, a glow tints the night sky. Not the glow of the sun. Not the glow of a rider’s torch. It is the glow of an army. A posse screaming through the night to do only harm and violence. A call of alarm rises from the north wall, but Gillan is already gripping me by my collar.

“Get th’ people upstairs! There’s a raid comin’! A RAID!!” He lets loose my shirt and sets off at a sprint towards the citadel. I don’t know what to do. Now is the time to prove my bravery. My strength. But now it flees as I am set upon by the impending stress of battle. I look down at Barten, one of the barroom brawlers cast to the street where he now retches. He looks up in confusion and fear as horns begin to sound all about. The whoops and war cries of the party bearing down on Kitford’s walls are now audible. They creep into the world first like the howls of coyotes and then like the screams of Weeves. I gather myself as best I can and hurry back to the Magma. I glance upward at the great white and brown letters above the doorway as I hurry through, and swear in that instant that they have been rearranged. Perhaps it is my fear and panic that see and not my eyes, but I swear the sign not reads not Magma, but Gamma.