Post by brendur on Jan 8, 2010 9:26:00 GMT -5
By what criteria do we define an object as being alive? Must it breathe? Dream? Must it have emotional content? Surely it must hunger. Surely it must have the urge to survive and pass on its traits to the next stage of its evolution. If we define life by such things, then by definition, cities themselves are very much alive. They possess all the appropriate organs. They breathe in fresh faces every day only to exhale the tired and the worn at the end of the day. As for dreams and emotional content, walk ten feet in any city and you will find your senses assaulted with both from every direction. Cities know such a hunger as you will never, thousands of animals, tons of crops, hundreds of gallons of drink, all of these are sacrificed daily to its depthless needs and wants. Cities evolve, they grow in all directions, coming across smaller towns and roads, taking them into itself bit by bit, assimilating the surrounding territories. By such things are Cities alive, by such things was Esgaroth alive.
Once it had been a trivial creature, crouched over the great Long Lake, it lived as many small towns did, content to simply be, marveling as it began to unravel it’s potential. Then, during this delicate stage of growth in its life, a creature it could not even begin to understand descended upon it and tore at its skin, burning its flesh. It would know that creature forever as Smaug. By some tiny grace of life, it was spared death at the claws of this terrible creature, saved of all things, by a thrush and a very well placed arrow. The tiny little creatures that raced about its docks said this dragon, this Smaug was dead, but the city knew better.
Imagine living for thousands of years, years spent in spite of all life around you, with an eye for little but the shine of gold, and a nose for the smell of burning meat, and in an instant these thousands of years are snuffed out. Such emotion doesn’t die easily; men can keep their hearts beating with such emotion, and so can a city. Thus, as Smaug sank beneath the waters of the Long Lake, did Esgaroth take all his greed, all his hate, and made it its own. His hate made it tenacious, his greed made it strong.
As the long boat sliced across the Long Lake, Kruller had a sense of none of these things. Oh he knew well enough of hate and greed, but fear clutched at his stomach, and clouded everything else. Fear, and regret, how he was coming to regret throwing his lot in with the dark man so many months ago. Things had been going well, as the dark man had said, coin was coming to their pockets, and the corners of Esteldin were beginning to open to them. Then came the siblings. “Press them…” said the dark man, “under pressure they’ll see we are the smart choice.” Kruller didn’t feel very smart, he felt like he had seen his mates cut down under a hail of Ranger arrows.
One had taken him through the shoulder, thankfully (or was it regretfully?) he had the presence of mind to stay where he had fallen, they were only focusing on running targets anyhow. He’d remained still when they began gathering the bodies and tossing them into piles, then ran the moment night settled, digging his way out from under the bodies of his once friends. He didn’t get very far though, she had found him, and made it very clear he was to go with her. Kruller regarded her warily as he nursed the broken arm which resulted from that meeting. She crouched at the prow of the boat, seemingly paying attention to nothing but that counting instrument in her hand, occasionally running a hand over her bald pate, over the tally marks tattooed there. He couldn’t tell what the men and women rowing the boat were saying about her, they spoke in some clipped and snapping language, but he could tell by their hushed tones that it wasn’t anything respectful. Still, when she gave an order, they carried it out immediately. Under this strange Easterling’s gaze, the boat rowed with an efficiency born of some strange connection its sailors shared. Click click click, went the beads on the abacus, they danced under her fingers.
There were no cheers greeting the boat as it finally found it’s way home, nudging it’s way into the mire of longboats that berthed under Esgaroth, to the towns inhabitants it was just another shipment. Kruller gazed about in wonder at the sheer number of people below the decks of the town. He wagered you could start at one end of the town and run the length of it by stepping on adjoining boats. The smell of pipe smoke was thick in the air, and the drone of that strange language the rowers used could be heard in every direction, though it did little to muffle the tell tale clink of coin. Despite the clutter of boats, the Easterling and her crew picked their way though the maze with ease, and without molestation.
Kruller swore every pair of eyes that dared to meet his contained nothing but pity, they looked elsewhere quickly when they did, eager to forget the man before them. What was waiting for him when this boat stopped? His heart stopped when the boat finally came to a gentle rest against another, for a moment he considered throwing himself over the side and swimming for it, then a crossbow bolt tickled his ear and the bearded face next to it grunted.
“Don’t.”
That was all the instruction he needed.
Shivering against the cold under the docks, he contented himself with pulling his coat about him tighter. It was clothing built for the sunny days of the south, not the frost of the north, but then how he was dressed was the least of his worries. He focused on the conversation taking place in the two boats next to him. A rather rotund merchant stood by at the prow of a flatboat that stuck out like a sore thumb amidst all the long boats, his thumbs were hooked in a belt as he carried on at length about the newest of Dalinian steel. He carried on about how light it was, how it could withstand blows from a troll, and most importantly how it would never rust if left out in the rain. In the longboat docked to the side, a fine slender craft, a man stood listening with the patience of someone who was no stranger to the longwinded, while off to the side another fellow with a scale weighed bars of this “miraculous metal”.
The patient man held Krullers attention, it was the way he held himself, the stance of a man who wouldn’t kill you, but rather just gesture and expect it done for him. He wasn’t particularly tall, nor wide, but rather slender, his hair and beard were as white as hot ash, clipped short and neatly spiked. He wore a strangely elegant and functional leather coat, but this was all trimming. The man radiated outward from his ice blue eyes. Finally when he had heard enough about the astounding properties of this metal, he raised a hand and cut the merchant off, speaking in a manner as spiky and clipped as his hair.
“Enough. My counters have stated ye’ve brought twice the agreed amount.”
The merchant was all smiles, spreading his arms wide in a gesture of placation “Ah yes my dear Prince, well the miners found a rather abundant vein, we had hoped…”
Again he was cut off “Ye had hoped that we would purchase more, covering fer yer rather lean year oh crops.” Kruller thought he saw one corner of the Prince’s mouth start to turn up, but it could have just as easily been nothing. The merchant started to squirm on the spot, fingering at the buttons on his own flashy coat.
“Oh come now, Esgaroth has always been generous in the past…”
“Certainly, on previously arranged terms which have been decided long before the transaction took place. This deal is off, return next year when ye’ve a mind to make some money.” The men of his long boat prepared to shove off, as the man with the scales unceremoniously dumped the load of ingots onto the deck of the merchant’s flatboat. For a few moments the merchant stared in helplessness at the mess of ingots at his feet, it was but the work of moments for his despair to shift into anger. His fat fists pounded against the railing of his boat, his face crimson with indignation. “Damn you man! We put EVERYTHING into this!”
It was odd, how swiftly the mood of the transaction went from jovial to rabid. One moment everyone was all smiles, and then suddenly there were crossbows. Wicked looking devices whose coming into the technologies of Middle earth had been sounded by the cries of Roherrim on horseback, all of them wondering how that small feathered shaft had grown in their chest. Now they were in the hands of many tired, tried, and desperate men. Kruller found the eerie silence dotted only with the occasional creak of a crossbow string unbearable.
The Easterling was the first to act, rather she was the first to blur. There was no following her with the eye she was so fast, only the rattle of those damned abacus beads gave her away as she sped along the boat rails for the merchants vessel. One of the merchant’s guards was lucky enough to get off a shot, it proved only to be a dalliance with survival, for no sooner did the shaft graze her brow did she take him into account and slay him before his fellows. She landed on him, hard, the crackle of his throat beneath her foot served as punctuation to the poetry of her graceful arc through the air. Fist, foot, elbow, and knee lashed out without mercy at the men about her, shattering bone and bruising flesh at her command. After a series of painful expansions and contractions in this terrible work she had created, the merchant’s boat was littered with the beaten. Those who had escaped the beating now had their crossbows trained on the Easterling, momentarily forgetting they were surrounded, and just grateful to have some form of protection to put between themselves and her. They however weren’t the focus of her attentions, the only form that seemed to register to her was that of the huddled merchant, exhausting futility by pressing himself against the bow railing of the boat in an attempt to get away from her.
The Prince called out before her steps brought her to him.
“Coin! That’s enough!” he barked out. The clench of Coin’s fist told all aboard that boat that she didn’t happen to think it was, but that seemed to be all the resistance she put up. She stood stock still as the Prince shook his head and boarded the boat, eying a few of the men down the length of their bolts. His pitying gaze seemed to break the spell the Easterling’s massacre had sewn about them, they became even more nervous, not sure where to aim. A dangerous kind of nervous that , thought Kruller Bound to get someone killed.
“Really, I’m ashamed tis come to all oh this, petty violence. We lake men pride ourselves on our peaceful natures.”
“This is insanity Freylnir!” The merchant went crimson with rage as he blustered. “You think we won’t be missed? You’d never see trade from half the West if we don’t leave this town!”
Prince Freylnir regarded him with all the warmth and compassion one might afford a drowned rat. “If we left one of you walk all over us well then who’s to stop the world? No, best to set the standard and keep it there.”
He sauntered down the length of the boat a man with all the time in the world, he finally came to rest in front of the crossbow of the crew’s youngest member, a pale featured and blue eyed boy who couldn’t have possibly been older than fifteen. The point of his weapon twitched and shook from side to side in hands barely large enough to hold it aloft. Freylnir studied him for a moment before sitting on the railing of the boat next to him, as casually as if this was a fishing trip, rather than a fight waiting to happen.
“You look a little young to be out here…what’s your name boy?”
The young lad blinked, looking to the other members of his crew for answers to this strange turn of pace, finding only fear from them he offered up what the old man asked for. “Dagfin…s-sir”
The old man produced a lacquered pipe from his coat, stuffing a bit of pipeweed in it and smiling grandly as he did so.
“Dagfin….s’a good name that, pride oh yer house I’m bettin. Ye a smart lad Dagfin?”
Dagfin struggled to keep his crossbow up and face the old man at the same time, of all the people in his view he most certainly didn’t want to shoot a Prince. “M…m..mum says so.”
“N’ye should listen to yer ole Mither, that’s fer sure. Yer mum ever teach ye anything about power?”
Dagfin blinked “P-power s-sir?”
“Aye power.” A match flared to life in Freylnir’s hands, lighting the bowl of the fine old pipe.
“Don’t the elves have that?”
Freylnir barked out a laugh and slapped his knee, quickly shedding the stoic manner of a prince, and adopting the lovingly wizened manner of a grandfather by the fire. “Bless yer heart no lad. Everyone has power…did ye know that?”
“No, sir.”
“They do, yer friends here do, Coin does, I do, and well…ye especially have power here. “
“I do?” Dagfin seemed to relax a bit under this new information, his shoulders slouching slightly and the point of his crossbow bolt lowering.
“Indeed you do, but the thing about power, is that tis like a glass knife. Hard to see, hard to wield, and iffin ye twist it wrong, twill shatter, ruining yer hand fer life. With the right twist oh the wrist though, it can cut through any armor…” The prince reached up, and with a finger, eased the point of the boy’s cross bow to the floor. “Yer friends here, they’re in hock to me right now. Wasted my time, injured the pride oh my people, and have forced me to use methods we ain’t too fond of down here. Tis a dept that’s got to be paid one way or the other.”
Poor Dagfin looked around at his crew mates, at the merchant who was his uncle, who had convinced his mother to allow him to start earning wages. As he did so, Freylnir continued. “Ye’ve the power to send them home safely…ye understand that don’t ye?”
The boy nodded, and set his crossbow down gently. “I do.”
The Merchant Prince smiled grandly. “So then, what do ye intend to do with yer new found power?”
Dagfin looked around his boat one last time before clasping his hand to his chest and bowing before Freylnir. “Let me work off their dept to you sir…”
Freylnir at least had the good grace to act surprise. “Goodness gracious work fer me? Are ye sure? We work hard boy, n’I accept only the best in my ranks.”
The boy nodded once, ignoring the strangled cry of his uncle in the background.
“Hah! Very well, I accept” Freylnir extended his gloved hand, there was a little hesitation, but the boy accepted it and shook it. “Yer mither was right ye know, yer a very smart lad indeed. Go to my lad Jothfyrn in the back, ye’ll be livin with him from now on, have sympathy though, his own son wasn’t stout enough to handle the last bout oh pox that came through here.”
As Dagfin shuffled towards Freylnir’s longboat, the merchant was once again all bluster as he stormed up to the Prince. “Y-you can’t DO this! His mother’s my sister! I told her I’d look out for him!”
Freylnir smiled jovially to the merchant and patted his shoulder “ Then tell her ye’ve procured him a lucrative position in the Esgaroth trade force, and the next time ye try to come up here to lever coin out oh meself and my kin, I’d have a long talk with her about how ye plan to do it. Luthe! Pay this man, grab the goods! Coin! Back to yer boat afore yer charge escapes!”
The sounds of the market place seemed to return to normal at the Prince’s drecree, Kruller mentally chastised himself, that would have been the perfect moment to escape. As he was giving second thought to the attempt, Coin was suddenly before him standing watch like a patient stone statue, her head tilted to the side in challenge of his thoughts. Kruller decided his moment had come, and gone.
As they pulled up towards the Prince’s longboat, Kruller couldn’t help but hear the last snatches of conversation between Freylnir and his man Luthe.
“Shall I have these sent off to the smithy then sir?”
“Pshht, toss them in the lake fer all I care. We got what we came fer. Wait…wait, I’ve a better idea.” Freylnir held up a hand and looked back towards Dagfin, who didn’t seem to sure of what just took place. “ Save them, the boy will take them to Mirkwood in the Barrel Ride. Iffin he does well, his profits can go back to his old kin.” Lothe nodded, and nary another word was spoken on the subject.
When Coin’s boat nudged gently against Freylnir’s, Kruller’s world suddenly spun around him as he was tossed like a sack of potatoes at Freylnir’s feet. The Prince eyed the sprawled man up and down, taking a deep inhalation off his pipe before gently blowing smoke in Kruller’s face causing him to caugh.
“Ah..thank ye Coin, timely as always.” The Prince grinned down at Kruller, who decided he never wanted to see someone smile at him like that in his lifetime again. “Now then, I’m a very busy man as ye can see, so ye need to be very …forthcoming with me in the next few hours. Tell me everythin ye know about the children oh Ma Holst.”
Once it had been a trivial creature, crouched over the great Long Lake, it lived as many small towns did, content to simply be, marveling as it began to unravel it’s potential. Then, during this delicate stage of growth in its life, a creature it could not even begin to understand descended upon it and tore at its skin, burning its flesh. It would know that creature forever as Smaug. By some tiny grace of life, it was spared death at the claws of this terrible creature, saved of all things, by a thrush and a very well placed arrow. The tiny little creatures that raced about its docks said this dragon, this Smaug was dead, but the city knew better.
Imagine living for thousands of years, years spent in spite of all life around you, with an eye for little but the shine of gold, and a nose for the smell of burning meat, and in an instant these thousands of years are snuffed out. Such emotion doesn’t die easily; men can keep their hearts beating with such emotion, and so can a city. Thus, as Smaug sank beneath the waters of the Long Lake, did Esgaroth take all his greed, all his hate, and made it its own. His hate made it tenacious, his greed made it strong.
As the long boat sliced across the Long Lake, Kruller had a sense of none of these things. Oh he knew well enough of hate and greed, but fear clutched at his stomach, and clouded everything else. Fear, and regret, how he was coming to regret throwing his lot in with the dark man so many months ago. Things had been going well, as the dark man had said, coin was coming to their pockets, and the corners of Esteldin were beginning to open to them. Then came the siblings. “Press them…” said the dark man, “under pressure they’ll see we are the smart choice.” Kruller didn’t feel very smart, he felt like he had seen his mates cut down under a hail of Ranger arrows.
One had taken him through the shoulder, thankfully (or was it regretfully?) he had the presence of mind to stay where he had fallen, they were only focusing on running targets anyhow. He’d remained still when they began gathering the bodies and tossing them into piles, then ran the moment night settled, digging his way out from under the bodies of his once friends. He didn’t get very far though, she had found him, and made it very clear he was to go with her. Kruller regarded her warily as he nursed the broken arm which resulted from that meeting. She crouched at the prow of the boat, seemingly paying attention to nothing but that counting instrument in her hand, occasionally running a hand over her bald pate, over the tally marks tattooed there. He couldn’t tell what the men and women rowing the boat were saying about her, they spoke in some clipped and snapping language, but he could tell by their hushed tones that it wasn’t anything respectful. Still, when she gave an order, they carried it out immediately. Under this strange Easterling’s gaze, the boat rowed with an efficiency born of some strange connection its sailors shared. Click click click, went the beads on the abacus, they danced under her fingers.
There were no cheers greeting the boat as it finally found it’s way home, nudging it’s way into the mire of longboats that berthed under Esgaroth, to the towns inhabitants it was just another shipment. Kruller gazed about in wonder at the sheer number of people below the decks of the town. He wagered you could start at one end of the town and run the length of it by stepping on adjoining boats. The smell of pipe smoke was thick in the air, and the drone of that strange language the rowers used could be heard in every direction, though it did little to muffle the tell tale clink of coin. Despite the clutter of boats, the Easterling and her crew picked their way though the maze with ease, and without molestation.
Kruller swore every pair of eyes that dared to meet his contained nothing but pity, they looked elsewhere quickly when they did, eager to forget the man before them. What was waiting for him when this boat stopped? His heart stopped when the boat finally came to a gentle rest against another, for a moment he considered throwing himself over the side and swimming for it, then a crossbow bolt tickled his ear and the bearded face next to it grunted.
“Don’t.”
That was all the instruction he needed.
Shivering against the cold under the docks, he contented himself with pulling his coat about him tighter. It was clothing built for the sunny days of the south, not the frost of the north, but then how he was dressed was the least of his worries. He focused on the conversation taking place in the two boats next to him. A rather rotund merchant stood by at the prow of a flatboat that stuck out like a sore thumb amidst all the long boats, his thumbs were hooked in a belt as he carried on at length about the newest of Dalinian steel. He carried on about how light it was, how it could withstand blows from a troll, and most importantly how it would never rust if left out in the rain. In the longboat docked to the side, a fine slender craft, a man stood listening with the patience of someone who was no stranger to the longwinded, while off to the side another fellow with a scale weighed bars of this “miraculous metal”.
The patient man held Krullers attention, it was the way he held himself, the stance of a man who wouldn’t kill you, but rather just gesture and expect it done for him. He wasn’t particularly tall, nor wide, but rather slender, his hair and beard were as white as hot ash, clipped short and neatly spiked. He wore a strangely elegant and functional leather coat, but this was all trimming. The man radiated outward from his ice blue eyes. Finally when he had heard enough about the astounding properties of this metal, he raised a hand and cut the merchant off, speaking in a manner as spiky and clipped as his hair.
“Enough. My counters have stated ye’ve brought twice the agreed amount.”
The merchant was all smiles, spreading his arms wide in a gesture of placation “Ah yes my dear Prince, well the miners found a rather abundant vein, we had hoped…”
Again he was cut off “Ye had hoped that we would purchase more, covering fer yer rather lean year oh crops.” Kruller thought he saw one corner of the Prince’s mouth start to turn up, but it could have just as easily been nothing. The merchant started to squirm on the spot, fingering at the buttons on his own flashy coat.
“Oh come now, Esgaroth has always been generous in the past…”
“Certainly, on previously arranged terms which have been decided long before the transaction took place. This deal is off, return next year when ye’ve a mind to make some money.” The men of his long boat prepared to shove off, as the man with the scales unceremoniously dumped the load of ingots onto the deck of the merchant’s flatboat. For a few moments the merchant stared in helplessness at the mess of ingots at his feet, it was but the work of moments for his despair to shift into anger. His fat fists pounded against the railing of his boat, his face crimson with indignation. “Damn you man! We put EVERYTHING into this!”
It was odd, how swiftly the mood of the transaction went from jovial to rabid. One moment everyone was all smiles, and then suddenly there were crossbows. Wicked looking devices whose coming into the technologies of Middle earth had been sounded by the cries of Roherrim on horseback, all of them wondering how that small feathered shaft had grown in their chest. Now they were in the hands of many tired, tried, and desperate men. Kruller found the eerie silence dotted only with the occasional creak of a crossbow string unbearable.
The Easterling was the first to act, rather she was the first to blur. There was no following her with the eye she was so fast, only the rattle of those damned abacus beads gave her away as she sped along the boat rails for the merchants vessel. One of the merchant’s guards was lucky enough to get off a shot, it proved only to be a dalliance with survival, for no sooner did the shaft graze her brow did she take him into account and slay him before his fellows. She landed on him, hard, the crackle of his throat beneath her foot served as punctuation to the poetry of her graceful arc through the air. Fist, foot, elbow, and knee lashed out without mercy at the men about her, shattering bone and bruising flesh at her command. After a series of painful expansions and contractions in this terrible work she had created, the merchant’s boat was littered with the beaten. Those who had escaped the beating now had their crossbows trained on the Easterling, momentarily forgetting they were surrounded, and just grateful to have some form of protection to put between themselves and her. They however weren’t the focus of her attentions, the only form that seemed to register to her was that of the huddled merchant, exhausting futility by pressing himself against the bow railing of the boat in an attempt to get away from her.
The Prince called out before her steps brought her to him.
“Coin! That’s enough!” he barked out. The clench of Coin’s fist told all aboard that boat that she didn’t happen to think it was, but that seemed to be all the resistance she put up. She stood stock still as the Prince shook his head and boarded the boat, eying a few of the men down the length of their bolts. His pitying gaze seemed to break the spell the Easterling’s massacre had sewn about them, they became even more nervous, not sure where to aim. A dangerous kind of nervous that , thought Kruller Bound to get someone killed.
“Really, I’m ashamed tis come to all oh this, petty violence. We lake men pride ourselves on our peaceful natures.”
“This is insanity Freylnir!” The merchant went crimson with rage as he blustered. “You think we won’t be missed? You’d never see trade from half the West if we don’t leave this town!”
Prince Freylnir regarded him with all the warmth and compassion one might afford a drowned rat. “If we left one of you walk all over us well then who’s to stop the world? No, best to set the standard and keep it there.”
He sauntered down the length of the boat a man with all the time in the world, he finally came to rest in front of the crossbow of the crew’s youngest member, a pale featured and blue eyed boy who couldn’t have possibly been older than fifteen. The point of his weapon twitched and shook from side to side in hands barely large enough to hold it aloft. Freylnir studied him for a moment before sitting on the railing of the boat next to him, as casually as if this was a fishing trip, rather than a fight waiting to happen.
“You look a little young to be out here…what’s your name boy?”
The young lad blinked, looking to the other members of his crew for answers to this strange turn of pace, finding only fear from them he offered up what the old man asked for. “Dagfin…s-sir”
The old man produced a lacquered pipe from his coat, stuffing a bit of pipeweed in it and smiling grandly as he did so.
“Dagfin….s’a good name that, pride oh yer house I’m bettin. Ye a smart lad Dagfin?”
Dagfin struggled to keep his crossbow up and face the old man at the same time, of all the people in his view he most certainly didn’t want to shoot a Prince. “M…m..mum says so.”
“N’ye should listen to yer ole Mither, that’s fer sure. Yer mum ever teach ye anything about power?”
Dagfin blinked “P-power s-sir?”
“Aye power.” A match flared to life in Freylnir’s hands, lighting the bowl of the fine old pipe.
“Don’t the elves have that?”
Freylnir barked out a laugh and slapped his knee, quickly shedding the stoic manner of a prince, and adopting the lovingly wizened manner of a grandfather by the fire. “Bless yer heart no lad. Everyone has power…did ye know that?”
“No, sir.”
“They do, yer friends here do, Coin does, I do, and well…ye especially have power here. “
“I do?” Dagfin seemed to relax a bit under this new information, his shoulders slouching slightly and the point of his crossbow bolt lowering.
“Indeed you do, but the thing about power, is that tis like a glass knife. Hard to see, hard to wield, and iffin ye twist it wrong, twill shatter, ruining yer hand fer life. With the right twist oh the wrist though, it can cut through any armor…” The prince reached up, and with a finger, eased the point of the boy’s cross bow to the floor. “Yer friends here, they’re in hock to me right now. Wasted my time, injured the pride oh my people, and have forced me to use methods we ain’t too fond of down here. Tis a dept that’s got to be paid one way or the other.”
Poor Dagfin looked around at his crew mates, at the merchant who was his uncle, who had convinced his mother to allow him to start earning wages. As he did so, Freylnir continued. “Ye’ve the power to send them home safely…ye understand that don’t ye?”
The boy nodded, and set his crossbow down gently. “I do.”
The Merchant Prince smiled grandly. “So then, what do ye intend to do with yer new found power?”
Dagfin looked around his boat one last time before clasping his hand to his chest and bowing before Freylnir. “Let me work off their dept to you sir…”
Freylnir at least had the good grace to act surprise. “Goodness gracious work fer me? Are ye sure? We work hard boy, n’I accept only the best in my ranks.”
The boy nodded once, ignoring the strangled cry of his uncle in the background.
“Hah! Very well, I accept” Freylnir extended his gloved hand, there was a little hesitation, but the boy accepted it and shook it. “Yer mither was right ye know, yer a very smart lad indeed. Go to my lad Jothfyrn in the back, ye’ll be livin with him from now on, have sympathy though, his own son wasn’t stout enough to handle the last bout oh pox that came through here.”
As Dagfin shuffled towards Freylnir’s longboat, the merchant was once again all bluster as he stormed up to the Prince. “Y-you can’t DO this! His mother’s my sister! I told her I’d look out for him!”
Freylnir smiled jovially to the merchant and patted his shoulder “ Then tell her ye’ve procured him a lucrative position in the Esgaroth trade force, and the next time ye try to come up here to lever coin out oh meself and my kin, I’d have a long talk with her about how ye plan to do it. Luthe! Pay this man, grab the goods! Coin! Back to yer boat afore yer charge escapes!”
The sounds of the market place seemed to return to normal at the Prince’s drecree, Kruller mentally chastised himself, that would have been the perfect moment to escape. As he was giving second thought to the attempt, Coin was suddenly before him standing watch like a patient stone statue, her head tilted to the side in challenge of his thoughts. Kruller decided his moment had come, and gone.
As they pulled up towards the Prince’s longboat, Kruller couldn’t help but hear the last snatches of conversation between Freylnir and his man Luthe.
“Shall I have these sent off to the smithy then sir?”
“Pshht, toss them in the lake fer all I care. We got what we came fer. Wait…wait, I’ve a better idea.” Freylnir held up a hand and looked back towards Dagfin, who didn’t seem to sure of what just took place. “ Save them, the boy will take them to Mirkwood in the Barrel Ride. Iffin he does well, his profits can go back to his old kin.” Lothe nodded, and nary another word was spoken on the subject.
When Coin’s boat nudged gently against Freylnir’s, Kruller’s world suddenly spun around him as he was tossed like a sack of potatoes at Freylnir’s feet. The Prince eyed the sprawled man up and down, taking a deep inhalation off his pipe before gently blowing smoke in Kruller’s face causing him to caugh.
“Ah..thank ye Coin, timely as always.” The Prince grinned down at Kruller, who decided he never wanted to see someone smile at him like that in his lifetime again. “Now then, I’m a very busy man as ye can see, so ye need to be very …forthcoming with me in the next few hours. Tell me everythin ye know about the children oh Ma Holst.”