I don't know if I'll post another excerpt after this one. This is the first seven chapters and a good start. I'm a bit wiped. I've written 14,000 words in just a few days. Every time I wondered if I should just slow down and read some more, I just kept cranking it out. The story was coming too easily to stop. Now, however, I'm going to go home and sleep. I was podcasting until 2:30 last night and I'm totally wiped. I'm shocked that I managed so a high word count for today at all. So, here are chapters 4-7. I hope you enjoy.


Chapter 4

Nashau willed with all his will for Podome to help him. He stirred, pulling his head from his hands. His face is flushed.
“It is my understanding,” Podome said, “that Baron Avid was a cruel and unforgiving man. How is it you were sacked and not sacrificed?”
A fair question and a hopeful sign the conversation was retreating to more civil ground. Nashau had asked himself that same question more than once. It wasn't until he encountered one of the baron's couriers delivering a message to West Bluefield's mayor that he received an answer.
“His son Dadam,” Nashau said. “He had too little patience and too much ambition. I am told by a reliable source that Baron Avid suspected his eldest of plotting against him and that the accident of my prophecy spared him the scandal of murdering his own son.”
Podome leaned back, rubbing his neck. “Nobility,” he said.
“I would not say I knew the baron well, but I attended him directly in court claims as to his temper are well founded.” The baronial court in Laketown was diminutive in comparison to the larger duchies, one would not presume so by Baron Avid's behavior. It was often joked that he had no need for royal couriers because King Lulloyd could hear the racket all the way in Brandarbra.
“And you thought to be so fortunate in the ducal court as well?” Podome asked. Nashau was slow to answer. He relived the arguments he had with himself, the frequent arguments he had with his sister, when he first devised his plan.
Nashau shook his head. “I had no plan to approach the duke directly. I hoped you might introduce me to Duchess Faywan.”
“The duchess?” Podome's eyebrows rose, restoring some of Nashau's masculinity misunderstanding the man's intent.
“She is Baron Avid's sister. I made her laugh when she visited the court in Laketown. I hoped she might remember me.”
Podome nodded his head. “I see where you were going. It might seem a suitable plot for one not acquainted with the ducal court. I can assure you, my friend, the duchess' fidelity is without reproach.” He rubbed his neck again and smiled that way men do when discussing women the way men do.
“Fidelity...” Nashau said, shocked. “No!” he finally took Podome's meaning. “I would never...Duchess Faywan is a widow bride.”
Podome's eyebrows rose higher. He must not have known that.
“The former duke, saints protect him, arranged Faywan marriage to his oldest son, Jepe. She was passed from brother to brother as each one died. Dagwhit is her seventh husband.” Podome seemed to know Duke Dagwhit's business so intimately, Nashau was shocked that he knew so little of the duchess. A six-time widow bride was still the talk of old women and new fiancées in East Bluefield.
“I...” Podome stammered. “I never knew that.” He looked uncomfortable. Nashau wanted to know what he wasn't saying, but necessity outweighed his curiosity.
“I believe that Faywan would lend me what aid she could if she learned Jepe was still alive,” Nashau said. He took a deep breath. Time to lay it on the line. “Do you think you could get me an audience with her?”
Podome sat silently. At one point, Nashau could not tell if he even breathed. He waited patiently, giving the man time to weigh his decision. Better to have a well-thought out opinion now than have second thoughts later.
Nashau hadn't noticed how large the room was. When he was pacing, it had felt insufferably constraining, but now that the two men sat on the floor with the weight of the future hanging above them, it seemed huge, inescapable. Nashau could not flee the room much less the city before that weight dropped down and crushed him. The burden of prophecy was upon him.
If one thought about it, a prophet was much like a Chosen One in that it was his obligation to find the C.O., questing until he was found and appointed. He had never thought of it that—
“No,” Podome said. “Duchess Faywan has made it clear to me in no uncertain terms that I am never welcome in her presence again.” That same look was on his face. Mothers were always hardest struck by the loss of their children. “Even if she would, Duke Dagwhit has declared any prophet—vizier, speculator, or flimflam—entering the palace is to be arrested on sight. That path is closed to you, Nashau.”
Podome stood up, grunting as various joints creaked and popped. The room grew smaller with his form taking up so much more space, bringing the weight above them that much closer. Nashau was certain that if he did not follow this vision to its conclusion, fate would crush him as it did all C.O.s that denied their destinies.
Nashau looked up at Podome. The man stared out the window, watching something—or nothing—across the street. “You attended the court when it traveled, did you not?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Not just in Hillsborough, but to the other duchies as well.”
“Yes.”
“You've been to Jarol and Brandarbra. And you were born and raised in Tinadian. You said so yourself.”
“Yes. What are you getting at?” Podome wrenched his attention from the window and glared at his seated colleague.
“It's you,” Nashau said. “I misread the symbols. I thought I had to approach the duke, but it was his prophet. You are the Pathfinder. You will lead the way to the Chosen One.” Nashau's face brightened. He rolled to his knees then hopped to his feet, brushing out his robes habitually. “You know the cities. I can describe the buildings I saw and you can lead me to my C.O.”
“Me? A Pathfinder?” Podome says incredulously. “Listen you, I want nothing to do with Dagwhit, Jepe, or Faywan. The Duchy d'Hillsborough is a prison to me and one I mean to survive. That won't happen if I go traipsing around the city with you looking for a dead man.”
“You must! This prophecy determines the fate of our profession. Would you deny your holy duty and invite a third Age of Reciprocity? The symbols have marked you.” Nashau stepped forward, pressing Podome back toward the wall and window. With the bed to the right and the writing desk to the left, he was effectively cornered.
“Don't try to bamboozle me,” Podome snapped back. “I was prophesying when you still thought women gave you koodies. I know the importance of the Pathfinder, and I know just how much of that role depends on the interpretation of the soothsayer.” Unable to move freely, Podome walked over the bed. Lice be damned. He had more than a few already.
“Follow your folly if you want,” he started to shout. “But leave me out of it.” He grabbed the door handle and made to leave.
“A white tower!” Nashau shouted back. “A white tower with a gold dome, shaped into a point at its top.” Podome froze. He shut the door and turned, refusing to let go the handle. “Do you know it?”
He nodded his head. “The North Star, holy tower of Saint Kishen, patron of architects.”
“Where is it?”
“Brandarbra. The northernmost tower of the royal palace.”
“It was in my vision,” Nashau said. “Jepe hides somewhere in Brandarbra. I need your help to find him, Pathfinder.”
Podome shook his head. “Jepe is dead. I cannot help you,” he said. “I attended his wake. I saw the body in the coffin.”
“Saint Jilisha tells me he is in Brandarbra. Have you ever denied her gift to you?”
“N...no. I have not.”
“Would you have me deny her then? Or would you come with me, ou of this city, out of this duchy, where Duke Dagwhit's arm does not reach.
“Dagwhit has very long arms,” Podome said dryly.
“Not longer than fate's. Pathfinder.”
A long silence as Podome's urge for self-preservation fought with his profession. He knew what it was to name a Pathfinder. He knew what ruin fell upon those that denied their roles in a prophecy, prophet, Pathfinder, or Chosen One. Would denying the latter spoil the former? Could he hope to survive both Duke Dagwhit and Saint Jilisha?
“Fine,” Podome finally said, his hand falling from the door handle. “I will accompany you. But I promise you, when our journey is complete, you will know as I do that Jepe d'Hillsborough is dead.”

Chapter 5

“I am alive!” Bastin shouted. He jumped up on the table, knocking over mugs and kicking aside plates, and threw up his arms in triumph. The guests at the Migrant Goose Alehouse cheered raucously. He lowered his arms, making to step down from the table, then thew them up again to even louder cheers.
Bastin's face glowed with the satisfaction of a performance well done. That glow infected everyone around him. It had always been so. Not unattractive by any means, Bastin spent his early years the pet of rich widows who craved his youth. Tall, with strong bones, good teeth, and firm muscles, he practically looked sculpted, his wavy brown hair imperturbable. His wanderlust kept him from becoming a wealthy widow's second husband and his mischievousness kept him from joining a military company. Acting was a gift Saint Leroch blessed him with, but his was not meant to be a life of poverty.
So he came to places like the Migrant Goose, and he killed himself for profit.
“You lie!” a voice peeled through the crowd. “Shenanigans! Shenanigans I say.” A brute of a man pushed his way from the bar past the over-crowded benches and their diners who had been willing to let Bastin knock aside their food, but less tolerant of this bellowing stranger.
A number of men stood, attempting to shout the man down, but he was larger than two of them put together. His neck was lost to the mass of shoulder muscles that bulged from beneath his shirt, a shirt that had no sleeves for they never would have contained his arms, the biceps of which looked like barrows of earth and stone rather than a man's flesh.
A few shoves and his roadblock was cleared. He stood beneath Bastin and pointed an accusatory finger.
“Shenanigans!” he hollered. “Flimflam!” The room fell quiet, all eyes followed the two men. For all his sculpted beauty, one solid blow from this rock of a man would most likely crack Bastin's head.
“Shenanigans my good man?” Bastin exaggerated shocked for all those in the back. “You would me! I would never come to such a distinguished house as the Migrant Goose intent on shenanigans. Mayhap Brown's across the street, but never the Migrant Goose.”
The audience cheered. Mugs pounded on tables in approval, spilling their contents in the process. The alewives passed along the benches, pouring beer with one hand and collecting pennies with the other.
“No man can kill himself and bring himself back to life. You wagered you could come back to life. You're a cheat.” The hulk looks at the bench in front of him, wanting to step up onto the table. As it was, he was accusing Bastin's crotch. But none of the men in front of him made room and he was not so agile to jump over them without collapsing the entire table in the process. He resolved to make his case from the floor, squaring his shoulders and puffing out his chest.
Bastin had to force his face to remain neutral. The man must be a farmer. The man must be a farmer's plow horse. He could crack walnuts with his chest, Bastin would wager (and would win that bet one way or the other).
“A learned man, I see,” Bastin shouted, bowing to his accuser. “You study history and medicine and theology. Long have I traveled in hopes of finding one as great as you to match wits with. No surprise, says I, that I would find you in the Migrant Goose.” Bastin turned in a circle, pointing at the man and stomping his foot emphatically.
“What?” the man said so quietly that it was lost beneath the din of the crowd.
“I too have studied history and medicine and philosophy. As much as you? We will just have to see.” Bastin pointed at the ceiling, signaling the beginning of, “A CONTEST!” he shouted. The alehouse erupted in cheers and the alewives made another pass along the benches. The farmer looked around him, confused. Everyone seemed to know what was happening except him.
Bastin levered his arms, drawing the room to as much quiet as was possible in a place like that. “You claim that a man cannot kill himself and bring himself back to life, correct?”
“You bet I do,” the farmer shouted, clinging onto something he recognized.
“A bet you say? A bet accepted, says I.” Bastin clapped his hands and stomped his foot, punctuating the bargain. “I say to you that you are correct that a man cannot kill himself and bring himself back to life, but rebut that you have not fully considered woman.”
“Woman? What are you talking about?” the farmer asked. A number of people around him offered similar inquisitive looks.
“Who is the patron saint of medicine?” Bastin asked.
“Uhhhh...” the farmer said.
“Jeluc!” someone shouted. “Challion!” came another. “No Ashima!” a third.
“Saint Ashima indeed, sir. I pious man amidst us humble drunkards. Pray for our souls for Saint Michard is greedy and likes company when he pours his vintage. And for all the divinity of his blessed grape, it is a woman's bosom men crave when they drink where Michard has little and Ashima has plenty.”
The taproom erupted. The farmer covered his ears the racket was so loud. Bastin dances in circles, catching in his hat pennies and the occasional stirling thrown his way. His feet were nimble, tiptoeing up and down the length of the table without tipping a single plate or mug. The patrons were doing a fine enough job spilling those on their own.
Once the racket died away, Bastin continued. “I mention Saint Ashima, you see, for she is the patroness of medicine.”
“I knew that,” the farmer shouted defensively.
“I know you did. I never doubted. But you see Saint Ashima's father was a doctor, her mother an apothecary in the Age of Reciprocity where there were no prophets and plague was common.
“And so it was that Saint Dachand, patron of corruption, came to her village and stole from Ashima her father and her mother. Without its great doctor and his herbalist wife, the village was damned to
Dachand's depredation.”
Bastin bent over and wiggled his fingers menacingly. The tavern said, “Oooooooo” on cue, the sign being used regularly in wagon theatre.
“Ashima mustered all her knowledge and all her courage and all her conviction and she mixed herself a draught. She poured the brew into a glass vial. It steamed and bubbled though it was not hot. It was quite cool to the touch. The grave is always cold against a good person's skin.”
The taproom was enraptured with the story. The few Alewives that were not equally ensorcelled by the story gave Bastin dirty looks. No one was drinking. Even the farm stood trance-like, watching the drama play out. His mouth hung open, and he blinked frequently.
“She walked to the village square where the sick had been laid out on pallets. Those still well tended their family and neighbors, waiting until the corruption took them as well. She thanked them for their service and laid hands on those that needed comfort. And there among her people she tipped back her vile brew, swallowed once, and died.”
An audible gasp crossed the room. The farmer looked over his shoulders, spooked, like a squirrel that hears a branch crack nearby.
“Saint Dachand would have to wait to take her as a prize. The newly dead rest in a state of grace and until that grace passes on to heaven, corruption has no hold there. Dachand was forced to stand at a distance and howl at his loss for Ashima was very comely.” Bastin made an hourglass shape with his hands and a few patrons hooted and whistled. Most just waited for the story to continue.
“There is no patron saint of death, as the esteemed farmer can tell you. No, life and death are the purview of the gods, forgotten though they may be. And then it happened!” Bastin clapped his hands sharply and those seated closest to him jumped back.
“Ascendancy!” Bastin raised his arms and shook his hands, the theatrical sign for miracle. The crowd raised its collective arms and did likewise.
“The little girl with the draught of death woke, a risen saint. Saint Ashima, Andaria's first physician. Doctors we had many, but she brought with her the miracle of physic, the knowledge to fight Dachand, cure his corruption, and restore health and wellbeing to the weary.”
Cheers from all around.
“Do you see, friend farmer, how you have lost this wager” Bastin looked down at the farmer. The farmer looked back up at him and blinked.
“Huh?”
Saints alive, the man really was a plow horse.
“Saint Ashima killed herself then brought herself back to life.”
“But she's a woman,” the farmer protested.
“She's a fine woman,” Bastin agreed. “And a woman is different than a man, you say, because she is gentle and beautiful.”
“She ain't got no cock!” the farmer thundered.
“A cock you say?” Bastin gave his overly-shocked expression again. “The little worm between our legs is the measure of a man? Perhaps your studies have not led you back far enough. Before the gods were forgotten and the saints ascended, man was brought forth from the other creatures of the world. We shed our fur and walked upright, but were quick to die for we had no children. It was the gods you see, that found these furless animals so intriguing that they struck us in two, making man and woman, neither complete without the other. Try as you might to push your worm into a sheep or a goat, you will not know wholeness until your worm finds its way back to its beginning. When you join with a woman you are whole and your body remembers what it is to be one.
“So you see, farmer friend, that man and woman are just two halves. Cut an apple in two, does one half stop being an apple? Nor is it with woman than they are not cut from the same flesh cloth as a man.” Bastin knelt slowly; a copper penny appeared between his thumb and index finger with a flick of his wrist. He turned it, showing one side then the other. “Man, woman, we are the same. And if Saint Ashima can kill herself and bring herself back to life, then man can do so and there are no shenanigans here, only her divine miracle.”
Bastin bowed his head and the taproom exploded with applause. Farmer's shoulders scrunched up to his ears and what little neck he had disappeared completely. He gnashed his jaw, trying to find some argument he could make. The man spoke so quickly and everyone seemed to agree with him.
“You ain't no saint,” the farmer shouted over the uproar.
Bastin leaned over the men on the bench so he could speak directly to the farmer's ear. “No, but I am a sinner, and the difference between the two is less than you think.”
Farmer roars and lunges for Bastin. The man on the benches in front and behind him surge out of their seats and grab him and pull him away. One could beat on a man for cheating, but not for winning. There were no sore losers in the Migrant Goose. Maybe in Brown's, but this was a finer establishment.
Bastin paid the farmer no more attention, but walked up and down the benches hat in hand, collecting coin and congratulations as he went.
He was a beautiful man, attractive to most, but never was he more radiant than amidst the applause of a performance. He smiled broadly and laughed jovially. He was alive.


Chapter 6

Bastin sat on an overturned milk pail in the alley behind the Migrant Goose. His cloth hat sagged in the middle, heavy with a job well done. He picked through it, pulling out the tin bits skimmers tossed in instead of money. He'd keep them too. Everything had a use if one was clever enough. More than once he'd answered a demand for coin with the jingle of a purse full of tin.
He wanted to pocket the silver, too, before Legha came asking for her cut. The crowd had been particularly generous. He counted four stirlings amidst the pile of copper pennies. He took three and slid them through a narrow slot in the heel of his wooden shoes. No one would notice it unless they knew where to look. And unlike leather shoes, he never had to worry about the soles coming apart in wooden shoes.
Of course, he had to buy new shoes every time he wanted access to his bank, but usually by then he needed new shoes anyway.
He left the fourth stirling in the hat. It was Legha's, he knew. She always through one in to keep him honest. She never said so, but he saw her drop it in when she thought his attention elsewhere.
Legha demanded a fair ten percent cut from all professionals, twenty percent for the novices who hadn't mastered the magic of making money appear from closed purses. Bastin once met an actor who had performed at the Goose once. Only once. He would never return. He hadn't lucked into any stirling, but someone had been generous enough to chip in a pearl earing. Ten percent of that would have cleaned him out of pennies, a treasure indeed, but one he could not sell. He was a foreigner with all the wrong connections. He knicked it before Legha came out, hoping she'd take her cut from the pennies.
And there she came walking out the pearl earring's twin dangling from her ear. The actor insisted that it must have dropped on the floor during one of his pratfalls—man shouldn't have been holding onto his money in the first place if he was going to give them the tumbles, but that's neither here nor there. Legha turned the man inside out until she found her earring and took his pennies too.
Bastin chuckled to himself. He hadn't noticed the back door open or the bear of a woman that walked through it. Helga came from farm stock, one of a long line of mothers that bred a dozen children at the minimum. Broad shoulders, wide hips, and a mass of solid flesh in between. It was her string bean husband that had brought her to the city and opened this alehouse. She had the running of it. He spent all his time in the basement, working on his various brews. Legha preferred it that way. She liked being in charge.
“You gave them a show today, Bastin.” Legha's gray hair was tied back in a bun, but blonde wisps, remnants of her youth, floated loosely in the afternoon breeze.
“And they gave in return,” he said, jingling his hat. “The guests of the Goose are always a cut above. You should be please.”
“It will be better soon,” she said. She walked to the building across the alley and rubbed her hand across the stone. “My oldest, I married her off to a mason.”
“Congratulations,” Bastin said obligatorily.
“Not just a mason, an architect.” The pride was clear in her voice and she had every right to be so. Bastin smiled more genuinely this time. An architect would give her a good life.
“We are going to buy this pit of a building and my new son will renovate it. We are going to expand. There will be a walkway, here,” she pointed at an invisible path in the alley. “Stairs there. We've already leveled off the roof so we can put tables and chairs and people can dine outside. There will be doors between the two kitchens, there and there. Jara and Sama, my second and third—you remember?—they will run the kitchens. The middle girls for alewives and the youngest for scullions.”
“The Goose will be the largest establishment in the city,” Bastin said.
“In the kingdom,” Legha corrected. “And not just the largest, the finest. Not just sailors and merchants, but the aristocracy, guild men and professionals. I will feed the king before I die.” She wasn't looking at Bastin or the imaginary lines she had been drawing between the two buildings. Legha had moved on to the grand banquet she and her daughters would prepare for King Lulloyd.
Without warning, Legha stepped forward and picked Bastin from his pail like a frog snatches a fly. She carried him to the wall and mashed her lips against his. His feet dangled a foot above the ground, the girth of her body and the solidity of the wall suspending him in the air. Her tongue pushed his lips open and her hand searched for the knot in his belt.
“You were amazing today,” she breathed. “I have never seen you so. I have never seen anyone so. I must have you.”
Bastin was flattered and a bit aroused, but more scared for his safety than anything. Either he would be crushed against the wall, or it would give way and Legha would fall on top of him. He would be crushed either way. Then there was the matter of his working relationship. He enjoyed his days at the Goose but though she ran it, Legha's husband owned it and a word from him would prevent Bastin from performing there again. It was already one of the few quality establishments left in Brandarbra that would allow non-actors to perform for pay.
“Legha, my love, your husband...” Bastin squealed.
“He can have you after,” she said, biting his neck and tousling his hair. “For now you are mine. Give me a son.”
It was not uncommon for women to ravish Bastin. He found it erotic, and ironic given the mountain of poetry that had the man always ravishing the woman. And there was something about large women. They had a passion for life the small ones seemed to shun. She might have had him, but...children! Children were a bucket of cold water that lived forever.
Bastin renewed his struggle and wiggled his way out of her arms, squirting out from beneath her stomach like...a newborn child.
He shuddered.
“Legha my dear,” Bastin held up his hands defensively, taking slow steps backward. She advanced on him, implacable. “I respect your husband too much to dishonor him in such a way.”
Legha squinted like she tasted something sour, and tossed her hand over her shoulder though she lacked a pinch of salt.
“He would thank you, pretty boy,” she said. Bastin stopped and stood upright. The tone in her voice wasn't what he was expecting. He expected her to try and cajole him, but there was a note of...pleading there that wasn't the sound of a sex-deprived wife—and really, with that many children, how could she be sex-deprived—but one with dwindling hope.
“We have no sons,” she said and looked at him as if he should understand what she was saying. Bastin shook his head. “My husband is a good man. He has given me thirteen beautiful daughters, a dry roof over my head, and his eternal love. But he cannot give me a son.”
“Sons are overrated...” he tried to counter, but she gave him that sour look again.
“We cannot leave this place to the girls, don't you see?” Bastin caught his jaw from falling open. Never had he seen Legha so...soft, so human. She was the rock on which the Migrant Goose was built. “If something happened to my husband, an fire in the still or an accident in the road, we would lose...” she waved her hand at the alehouse beside her. “It would go to my good-for-nothing brother-in-law. That moron can't manage a donkey team in Springfield much less the best alehouse in Brandarbra.”
Bastin felt for her, saw the anguish in her eyes, heard it in her voice. But...but...
He shook his hat, jingling the coins within. “We should count your cut.” He took another step back and held up the hat between them, one barrier he knew she would not cast aside.
Legha stared at it for a few moments, working up her resolve. Business was at hand and she managed the business. DampXxx the fire in her blood and get to cold currency.
She nodded and held out her hand. She felt the heft of the hat and nodded approvingly. A good performance indeed. She pulled the cloth apart and pushed the center up with a fist, sprinkling the coins down to the hat's sides in every direction, giving her a good view of the various coins within.
“Only one stirling?” she said. “I thought for certain I saw more thrown in.” She looked at him with a blank face. Bastin smiled. He would never play poker against that woman. At least not with any expectation of winning.
He held up his left hand and showed her the tin bits he had pulled out earlier.
“I thought so too, but no luck. A bunch of tin and only one stirling.” He pulled out his prize. “And look at this. My heart stopped, I thought someone threw in a karat but the little bugger took a tin bit and colored it yellow.” He laughed, but the mood did not lighten. He held it out to her. She looked at it, but it did not reach to inspect it. Bastin worried she was about to offer him her cut to sleep with her, a persuasive proposition if not measured against the obligation of paternity.
“Only one stirling,” she said again. Not what he expected.
“Yes.” He kept his right foot flat on the ground. He didn't need any jingling right now, not that his hollow heel had ever jingled before, but why invite Saint Alize's divine humor.
“I chipped in two stirlings, Bastin,” Legha said.
His heart stopped. The rest of his body followed. All she need do was push him and yell timber.
“So...,” he said slowly, “here or should we go to your bedroom?”

Chapter 7

It became clear during the course of their joining that Legha and her husband had devised the plan together, measuring all the vagabonds they let perform on their tables for intelligence, beauty, and certainty that they would not trade the value of the Migrant Goose and the coin they could make to keep quiet for the obligation of fatherhood. Bastin had been the best candidate. A backhanded compliment, but a compliment nonetheless.
He was pleased that they were not only okay with but expectant that the child should never know the truth of his paternity.
Even with a woman as fertile as Legha, there was the chance that a son would not be conceived immediately. She took him for the rest of the day and that evening. It was shocking, terrifying, horrifying, exhilarating, thrilling, amazing. After the first few times, Bastin found he was very enthusiastic to the activity and gave it his level best until Legha said she was satisfied.
Bastin was thankful that her husband never appeared. His enthusiasm might have flagged a little at that. Not that he hadn't been with married women before, but she was different. He liked her, as a peer. She flimflammed the flimflam man. Not many people, man or woman, could do that.
When their tryst concluded, she wasted no words on romantic sentiments or false promises. “That was my cut,” was all she said then got dressed. He did not argue, no false modesty, no false chivalry. He pocketed all the copper and the fourth stirling and found his own clothes.
Watching his bare ass as he dug under the bed for his pants, she returned to the Legha Bastin was used to. She sighed happily, smiled, and slapped him on the ass.
“I have one question,” she said. “You made a good show of the farmer, but I heard you twist him into a wager. It's not like you to leave without collecting, even from one as large as that bull.”
Bastin sat up, giving his pants a firm tug. The stuck pant leg popped free, and he fell backward. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small goatskin purse.
“You know, with all the...excitement, I almost forgot.” He opened it and looked inside like a curious cat.
“The farmer's purse?” Legha asked. He nodded, and she laughed. Her laugh was as large as her body, and just as jolly. Saints preserve him, could he ever be with a small woman again?
“I'll be damned,” Bastin said.
“What is it?”
He reached inside the purse and pulled out a small, perfectly minted coin. The bedroom, small in comparison to the woman that lived within, was lit by a single candle, but that was more than enough light to make the gold shine.
“He had a karat?” she asked, shocked.
“Where the hell did a farmer get that kind of money?” he asked the question they both thought. If he had a blessed crop and worked his people and animals into the ground, a farmer could turn a karat or two, but his home would be ruined after. Seed, supplies, and field hands would cut those karats to a more respectable handful of stirlings.
It hit him like a hammer.
“Legha?”
“Mmm?” she watched the coin, not blinking. If she blinked, the illusion might end. The Goose was a profitable alehouse, but she and her husband reinvested their money. They made less than farmers in actual coin.
“Has the farmer come in before?”
“No,” she said. She did not have to think about it. Her mind was a trap. She remembered every customer that came through her doors.
“Do we know he is a farmer?”
“What else could he be?”
That had been Bastin's assumption as well. Maybe an overworked smith, but that kind of girth almost always came from the fields.
He may have, but if his mother was like Legha, he may be the last of a long line of brothers with no hope of inheriting any land for himself. Andaria was fully settled. Sons wanting to make a place of their own traveled north across the border to Ioan, a wild kingdom in need of strong men to tame it, or they came to the cities to look for work.
Everyone came to the cities looking for work, to ply their trade. But there were no farms in the cities for farmers to farm, so they had no trade to ply. Desperate for work, they were inevitably scooped up by—
“He's a leg-breaker?” Legha asked, following his train of thought. Bastin shrugged. Maybe he came to the city with his inheritance. Maybe...maybe...
“Bastin honey,” Legha said. “You're always welcome here. You're a good boy and you do good work, but you should maybe head out for awhile.”
His mind stilled and action came. He knew what to do. He'd done it a hundred times before. Put his pants on. It all started with pants. Then shoes. Then the road beneath his feet. He was a monied individual, and the sooner he got rid of it, the better.
There was a knock at the door.
“Love?”
The husband.
“There are some men downstairs.” Legha and Bastin looked at either. No need to ask what they were there for. He had hoped that it had been a farmer with a family inheritance or money to stake his claim in Ioan.
“Legha, my good woman, could you check the window and tell me if there is someone outside watching it.” He grabbed his shirt. Always put on the shirt last. A man without pants stuck out like a sore thumb, easy to follow. A man without shoes couldn't run as fast, but a man without a shirt was a man without a shirt. Plenty of sailors walked around Brandarbra equally dressed.
Legha opened the window and breathed heavily. She was an alewife wanting fresh air, not looking to see if her home is watched. Bastin was thankful for her discretion. Legha inhaled deeply and stretched her arms wide. Her dress was still unbuttoned in the back and her back muscles stretched noticeably beneath the thin fabric of her shift. Now that she'd got him going, he didn't want to stop. The throbbing in his pants reminded him that he'd has turn and then some. Time to focus on the men outside that want their own pound of flesh.
“There are two of them,” Legha said, taking in the street below. “Saints alive, that's Concor Baker down there.” She finished her yawn and closed the shutters, locking them from the inside. She turned and looked at Bastin.
“A friend of yours?” he asked. A friend might help him slip out...which was why she locked the shutters and looked panicked.
“Hardly,” Legha said. “He's a Baker.”
“A Baker baker?” Bastin almost yelled. She nodded her head. Now panic threatened to take him as well. “That no-necked plow horse was a Baker Boy?” The Bakers didn't just make delicious bread, they ruled the Brandabrian underworld. They were the toughest gang in Andaria, hell in the whole of the seven kingdoms!
“So, that means I took their dough?” Suddenly that karat didn't seem such a prize. Baker Boy bread was expensive. Very expensive Anyone that didn't pay met with an unfortunate accident. They converted their extortion money to large coin for ease of transfer. And Batsin stole it. Fantastic.
“Fantastic,” he said sotto voce.
How did he get out of this one? He could go down the back staircase down to the basement, hide in a barrel. Course, that would ruin a whole batch of brew. He doubted he'd be very popular for that one. He could give the dough back. They might only break all the fingers on one hand. That would be getting off light, but Bastin was allergic to being mauled. He could jump out the window. Surprise the fellows below and make a run for it before they recovered. Assuming he didn't break his legs in the fall.
Another knock at the door, more urgent this time. Sounded like the Baker Boys were done being stalled.
“Dear, are you decent? We have company.” Gruff voices quieted Legha's husband. There was no making the back staircase. The Bakers were right outside the door. Much longer and they would break the door in.
“Legha,” Bastin whispered. “I need you to distract the men on the street. Something that will make them look away from the window.”
Legha gave it only a moment's thought. She unlatched the shutters, grabbed the chamber pot from beneath the bed, and hurled it out the open window.
“Heads up!” she hollered, flinging the urine in a wide arc to scatter any standing below. Bastin sprinted across the room. She ducked out of the way at the last second. He stepped on the windowsill and launched himself out. He grabbed the top of the window with his hands and the force of his leap swung him upward in a violent arc. He let go and flew upward. If he did this wrong, he'll most likely break his neck. If he did this right...
Bastin lands on his feet atop the Migrant Goose's newly flattened roof. The tar is cool but gummy beneath his feet. He looked around. Can he make a run for it? Brandarbra was an old city and the Goose was in an older part of town. The only two buildings with flat roofs were the Goose and the building next door they were buying. Everything else had high, pointed roofs with clay shingles.
Curses were shouted up from the street below. The Bakers had recovered from their golden waterfall. Bastin dropped to the roof. If they saw him, he'd be trapped. If they thought he left earlier—and any self-respecting flimflam man would have after lifting a purse that rich—then they just want to know where he went. If they find out he's here, they'll burn the place down with Legha and her family still inside.
The tar wasn't hot. It didn't burn, but it was warm and soft. The longer he lay there, the more it irritated his skin, like the building was slowly swallowing him. He dared not move. He held his breath and listened for noise from the window below.
The bedroom door slammed open. “Where is he?” Plow horse man shouted. Damn, did they know he was here? He didn't know how. The farmer must not have noticed his missing purse for some time if he was only now returning. Even with the time it took to gather reinforcements, if had known right away, this would have happened earlier, when Bastin was still on top of Legha. Bastin hoped that she had her wits about her to put that together too. If she panicked and said he went out the window, then she had been harboring him and the Bakers wouldn't look kindly on that.
“My husband is right behind you, you oaf,” Legha snapped. “What other man do you presume to find in my bedroom?” Bastin smiled. The woman was a rock. Nothing could make her crack, not even the Baker Boys.
“The actor from earlier,” plow horse growled. Bastin wasn't an actor. He put on a good show, for certain, but that alone didn't make him an actor. The flimflam was an art, not some rote memorization and recitation that was called acting. His skill was never properly appreciated.
“I tried to tell them, my dear, but they wouldn't listen,” Legha's husband said. Him too. Bastin was impressed. He dealt with the man rarely, and if Legha had oversold his acceptance of their liaison, this would have been an easy opportunity for revenge. But he was as steady as she. What a family.
“Lunch was over hours ago, gentleman,” Legha said. “Our entertainment ended with it. Where he went from here isn't my business, and he didn't see fit to inform me of his destination before he left.”
There were loud bangs below, a chair overturned, a feather mattress pulled from its frame. Any place the Bakers thought he might be hiding, they checked.
“Most men like him take their earnings and pick their poison until it's time to perform again,” Legha said “You can stay and wait for him to return, if you want, but I'll thank you to keep your hands off those flowers. My husband picked them for me.”
There were some mumbles and some grumbles from below and the men trudged out the room. Bastin waited for the all clear from Legha, but one didn't come. They must have chosen to stay. He could try slipping down the back stairs, but he'd rather just wait them out. They hadn't found his hiding place yet.
And he wasn't sure if he could stand. It felt as though the roof had glued itself to his clothing. Bastin tried to lift a leg, but the tar held tightly to his pants.
“Great,” Bastin whispered. He tried to lift his head, but his hair was stuck in the tar as well.
So he waited. The sun ran its course across the sky, the rooftop cooled, and the gummy tar became rock hard, and he its prisoner. It was well after dark that the bedroom shutters opened below and Legha called up, “Bastin, it's safe to come down.”
Now if he could just figure out how.