Published: 30 May 2019

Merchant-Adventurers

The Royal Road neared Decan and paralleled the gorge of the Saraan River. The river rushed and burbled over rapids or slid through quiet pools depending on its mood. The center flowed slowly, suggesting a deep channel through which boats could move.

The town of Decan was nestled between hills and the river. Aqueducts entered the city from the south, carrying water for the town’s cisterns, sewers, and mills. The town was fortified with high, stone walls on the south, east, and north. On the west side of town, stone docks projected into the river from lower walls.

Guards in livery greeted the companions politely enough at the gate, and the formalities were brief. In response to Alan’s query, the tween sembler who verified their identities suggested an inn near the south end of town, on the wall beside the river. “My sister owns the inn,” he said, “but, in truth, it is most pleasant and well priced. My name is Carl; please tell her I sent you.”

The Royal Road led directly through the town, with short side roads branching off to the docks on the right, and longer roads running toward the hills on the left. The inn—whose sign proclaimed it The Water Lily—was just inside the southern gate, which was still open in the long afternoon of summer at southern latitudes. The mistress of The Water Lily was brisk, but courteous. “Five of you, and five horses … you’ll want supper and breakfast?”

“Yes, Mistress,” replied Alan, “for three days. We’d like to stay through Mid-Summer day and leave the second day after.”

“Thirty shillings, then; that includes the horses’ feed. A barge with oats landed yesterday, and we got a good price on them. Supper tonight is one hour after vespers … and that’s in…” she glanced at the shadow of a gnomon on the wall, “… about two hours. Plenty of time to bathe. Eric will show you around.” A young boy who had been setting tables came over when he heard his name spoken.

“Eric, please take these boys to the stable, show them to the big room, and start the bath heating.”

“Yes, Mother,” the boy said, and gestured for the companions to follow him.

The stable was across the Royal Road from the inn, and behind a jeweler’s shop. “Your horses will be safe, here,” Eric explained. “This is the jeweler’s stable. He has a private guard, and the city guard keeps mostly to the Royal Road, anyway.”

There were three other horses in the stable: a pair of matching grays, and a large, well-formed roan.

“That’s a fine looking horse,” Alan said, standing before the roan.

“He certainly is,” James said.

“Thank you,” Eric said, and blushed. “He’s mine. I don’t get to ride him as much as I’d like … nor as much as he’d like, either,” the boy said and stroked the horse’s nose. “Since Pap died, and all my brothers gone off, it’s just Mam and me to run the inn. Not counting my sister. She’s married, and lives down the street. She comes in each day to cook.”

After assigning stalls to the companions’ horses, Eric helped Alan unload and curry Dasher, while the two boys talked animatedly about the virtues of each other’s horses. Afterwards, Eric showed the companions to their room. “This’ll be your room. It’s a little big for five, but all the others would be too small. I’ll go start the fire for the bath water … it’ll take a while to warm … about an hour.” Eric’s words tumbled from his mouth.

Patrick glanced at James and Kenneth, who both nodded. “That won’t be necessary, Eric. There’s more than enough heat in the stones of the building to warm the bath water with a little magic, and we’ll do that. Perhaps it will save you enough time for other chores that you can go for a ride with us tomorrow,” the elf said.

Eric looked startled. “You’re a mage? You sure don’t look like one. Are all elves mages? We don’t see…” The boy paused. “Sorry. Mam always says I’m too nosey and ask too many questions of the guests. Yes, I’d love to ride with you, tomorrow. I’ll ask Mam … I hope she agrees…” The boy rushed off.

“He’s lonely,” Thom said quietly to Alan as the two washed each other. Their companions were already clean and in the hot soak, which Patrick had heated to a few degrees above body temperature.

“Hmm,” answered Alan. He knew that Thom would finish his thought, and that he got more out of the boy by letting Thom know he was listening than by questioning.

“Eric is lonely,” Thom continued. “I know. He’s like me, with just my father. Eric’s happier; his mother is a lot nicer than my father ever was; but he’s lonely. I can tell.”

“Um-hmm,” Alan said as he applied boy magic to clean behind Thom’s ears.

“He misses his brothers, too. I never had brothers, so I don’t know what it’s like to miss them. I guess one of them initiated him in the Mysteries. It must have been nice,” Thom said, wistfully.

“Um-hmm,” Alan said as he added shampoo to Thom’s hair.

“I was probably lucky,” Thom said, “that it wasn’t one of my father’s cronies who initiated me. I had a friend, William, a tween who delivered straw to the inn’s stable, and took away the muck. His father and mine didn’t get along, but I think William’s father was responsible. He got my father to let me visit William on a farm just outside the city. William was sweet, gentle. He left home after I was kidnapped. I don’t know what happened to him.

“I think Eric would be sweet, too.”

“Does he remind you of William,” Alan asked, concerned that Thom might be trying to recreate something in his past … something Patrick and James had privately warned Alan about.

“What? Oh no, he’s a lot different. I just think he would be sweet.”

“Perhaps tomorrow, after our ride, you could ask him to share.” Alan suggested, to Thom.

“Oh,” Thom said, “Might I? I mean, should I? Would it be okay with you and Patrick? And the others?”

“Of course, Thom. As long as we are companions, Patrick and I are responsible for your safety. If we don’t know the boy, you must ask me or Patrick or James. But you may invite others to share your bed, if you wish. We would not refuse you as long as the boy were good.”

“Should we tell the clerics, here, about the attack on the monastery north of Nut Grove, and the missing cleric from that village?” James posed the question to Patrick and Alan.

Patrick pondered the question. “You could not do so without revealing yourselves to be clerics. Would they think it odd for clerics to be traveling with a hunting party? Would that create questions we’d rather not answer?”

It was Kenneth who found the answer to Patrick’s questions. “Alan’s father is a member of the Privy Council, as well as Lord Silvanus and a knight. It would not be unusual for his son to travel with his own healer and tutor, especially one who was also a swordsman and could double as a bodyguard.”

James was stunned. “Are you saying a cleric would hire himself out in the manner of a mercenary?” he asked. “That’s what it sounds like. Maybe a spoiled child of a noble family would be chaperoned by a cleric-tutor, but a tween?”

Kenneth blushed. “Um, my brothers and I always had a tutor, at home. And a bodyguard.”

Thom sniffed, “Spoiled, huh? So that’s what I’m smelling…”

“Oh!” James said. “Kenneth, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean you…” Kenneth’s grin showed that he’d not taken offense at what Thom and James had said.

James thought for a moment, and the continued. “I thought,” he said, “that the Arcadian meritocracy demanded that all children had an equitable opportunity to learn, whether it be a trade or a skill. Hiring a cleric to tutor a child seems to fly in the face of that.”

“Kenneth’s right, though” Alan interjected. “I did have tutors—and guards.”

“I had similar questions when I first came to Arcadia,” Patrick said. “I did not find it unusual that I would be apprenticed to the best healer in Arcadia, because the apprenticeship was arranged by a powerful, prominent man in Elvenhold. That seemed natural. It wasn’t long, however, before I found that one of Master William’s journeymen—who was my superior in both knowledge and guild rank—was the son of a stableman. Two of my fellow apprentices were from farm families. It took a while for me to realize that Master William accepted me for the same reason he’d accepted them: because we all had talent, and had shown we wanted to learn to use that talent and we were willing to learn. Master William hadn’t accepted me as a student because he was asked by a powerful elf; he accepted me because he had been assured it would be worth his while to train me.

“That’s only part of the answer, however. The other part is this: not every boy can receive the best available training. There are simply not enough of the best teachers to train every boy. Somehow, decisions must be made: who will be trained, and who will remain a farmer’s son. If there are flaws in the Arcadian Meritocracy, that is one. Another is that successful people may be able to provide their children more opportunities than people who are less successful and who have fewer resources.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Alan said. “It’s no different from a farmer giving the pick of the litter better food, and perhaps even killing the runts. Except we don’t kill people.”

“That is how a farmer improves his flocks and herds,” James said. “The horse breeders I lived among kept bloodline records going back hundreds of generations.”

“And, besides, Prince Auric and his father before him always found smart boys from wherever … the prince fosters at least a hundred boys at court, and makes maybe ten new pages each year. And they’re not from noble families. Well, most of them aren’t. But they’re all smart,” Alan said.

“I wasn’t smart, though,” Alan added.

“You are too, smart!” Thom asserted, seeing the pensive look on Alan’s face.

“Thom’s right,” Patrick said. “You have a unique way of looking at thing, and your love of riddles and puzzles shows it. And must have shown it to the prince.”

Mid-Summer Day, and the night of that day, were celebrated by people of the Light with bonfires and fireworks, symbols to affirm a commitment to the Light and to defy the gathering Dark as the days grew shorter and the seasons marched toward Mid-Winter. The rituals were symbolic rather than superstitious, and mostly offered an excuse for celebration. In Decan, as in many towns, the evening’s fireworks and bonfires were preceded by a daylong festival. Custom decreed that festival attendees be in costume. The companions were ill prepared.

“I’d like to go to the festival, but what can we do for costumes?” Patrick asked. “We have nothing but our ordinary clothes, and little time to prepare.”

“We could go as the Five Fishermen,” Kenneth said.

“I don’t know the five fishermen,” Thom said. “Who are they?”

“They’re in a fable that my eldest brother used to tell me,” Kenneth said.

We hope that you are enjoying this tale of World. David appreciates all comments to his stories. David dot Mcleod at CastleRoland dot Net.