THE FAR FELLOWS
BEING A RECORD OF A JOURNEY TAKEN FROM THE COUNCIL LANDS TO THE LAND OF THE FAR FELLOWS.
By Tim Torkildson. December 21, 2010.
Chapter One
The United Councils had sat long past the customary hour for dinner, dealing with nothing interesting or important – instead floundering in details and semantics under the mistaken impression they were sacrificing their time and talents for the good of their respective regions and organizations.
The sour smell of hollow stomachs and sweaty buttocks pervaded the room, which had large cathedral windows that had been painted shut years ago so that fresh air would never be allowed to revivify the counselors and merchants and captains and burblers who gravely sat through tedious redundancies.
Merdin Jernagin, the current Grand Master of the Merchant's Guild, finally raised his well-scrubbed fist and brought it crashing down on a stack of reports detailing the annual production of wool and suet in West Knitting.
"I want my dinner, you peahead!" he roared at Darius Bumpity.
Bumpity, a finicky clerk and functionary on a very limiting salary, dropped his wordy report detailing the resurgence of beards among elderly men to glare at Jernagin with enough sharpness to dice granite. Gathering his scattered papers together in a tidy rectangle, he sat down on the edge of his chair with a hiss of disapproval he mistakenly thought was inaudible.
"By the guts of my aunt Gertrude, I am not going to perish from starvation while you throw pebbles at us! Beards, indeed! I move we adjourn this meeting until such a time as someone has something of importance to communicate instead of all this rish-rash of a nothing that constitutes, that constitutes . . . that frustrates the very reason for this Council of Councils to exist, namely . . . "
Here Jernigan ran out of steam and vocabulary; he resorted instead to glaring silently at those around the dark, archaic, table, as if daring them to step outside to settle things with battle axes.
Master Jernigan's secretary, a thin fellow who liked to suck on the tip of the long brown feather that curved out of his velvet cap, hurriedly came up to him with a whispered suggestion.
"Ah yes, thank you, Fundling, thank you. I have an important matter to bring before this Council myself! But not before I've had my dinner and a flagon of mead
and a burr nut tart and then a good night's sleep. I move we adjourn until tomorrow morning at nine, and don't say another word, you creeping charlie!"
This last was directed at Darius Bumpity. Bumpity's eyes narrowed, which caused his sharp, feral, nose to bend upward unattractively. But he was a clerk and a functionary on a very humble salary, so he held his peace.
Master Jernigan was extremely pleased with himself as he hefted his considerable girth from the antique blackwood table – a table with cunning scrollwork that was centuries old, and which occasionally caught at the blouses and tunics of those that sat at it to decide on policies and procedures for the Council Lands. There was a thin ripping sound and Master Jernigan's tunic, of a deep, rich purple with seed pearls around the hem, was rent up his ample belly.
"May the Black Pit take it!" he exclaimed, then willfully wrapped his blue cape around himself to conceal the breach. Nothing was going to stop him from his dinner, especially not an inanimate object that ought to have been kindling for a roaring fire long before.
"Franklin, get a seamstress to my room while I'm dining to fix this thing!" he instructed his feather-chewing secretary, whose name he never pronounced the same way twice. "I'm going to Pothouse Annie's."
He stalked out of the council chamber, wrapped up tightly in his cloak like an indignant cabbage roll, to the general relief of those left in his wake.
"Things were a bit boring, weren't they?" said Captain Strangeheart to fellow Council member Jon Ironny. Ironny shook his head and replied "I still want a brief summary of our defense needs and concerns tomorrow, Captain. The Council Lands have peace today, but I'm interested in learning what you think tomorrow holds for us."
"I'm working on an illustrated map that should make matters plain and simple – and short!"
"Very well. Tomorrow, then."
Once the room was empty two worn-looking women in coarse grey dresses came in to begin cleaning. While one swabbed the floor with a greasy mop, the other woman listlessly rubbed the blackwood table with a streaked rag.
"It smells of wet onions in here, it does" said one.
"More like a pig's bladder with the air let out" said the other.
They grinned at each other and continued to work.
At Pothouse Annie's there was the usual crowd of hearty eaters and sloppy drinkers. The tavern was a noisy gathering place for merchants, cattle dealers, horse swindlers, clerks pretending to prosperity, and anyone who relished a solid meal and an insult from Annie. She had sharp red hair, freckles, a pug nose, and a bosom that she pushed around like the prow of a ship. Her age was a matter of conjecture, but it was known she had buried two husbands already and the third one, unsteadily making his way from table to table with jugs of mead and platters of roast potatoes with sausage, looked none too robust. She wore out men the same way she wore out the woven gorse carpets laid down between the tables and benches.
Jernigan burst into this hurly-burly with a wave for everyone, heading towards his favorite table near the fireplace. The table was already occupied by several reedy-looking men who were sipping their drinks and worrying about what their wives were spending in the shops along the road. Annie blasted them out of their seats easily:
"Stop sniveling, you milk dips! Finish up and make way for a man who spends his money on his belly! Move it, or I'll toss you up the chimbley for the crows to pick at!" The men duly drained their cups, dropped a few coins on the table, and scurried away.
Annie unceremoniously heaved the table farther away from the chair against the fireplace, motioning for Jernigan to sit.
"How are the Council meetings going, you great tub of froth?" she asked him.
"Annie, my love; bring me mulled cider before I drop over with exhaustion and frustration. These Council meetings are more torture than a bed of thistles!" He unwound his cape to take off his tunic, which he handed to his secretary.
"Have it back by the time I finish my meal or don't bother coming back at all"
When Annie returned with the cider Jernigan glanced critically at her long apron.
"I see you've got roast beeve, still. I'll take that with mashed roots and some soft bread – none of that crusty stuff you give the other poor fools here. I'm on to your hash house tricks – and be quick about it!"
Arms akimbo, Annie let out a derisive snort before answering.
"Master Jernigan thinks he's a toad on the stove, so he does! Puffed up and ready to blow me to pieces, are you? You're too late for the roast beeve – it'll be stew for the likes of you and good brown bread that will keep those teeth of yours in good health in that soft head of yours!"
Further debate would have been interesting, and no doubt blasphemous, but Jernigan and Annie were interrupted by Annie's husband; he meekly approached his wife and whispered something in her ear.
"What?" she cried. "He won't pay! Oh, by the gods of Thrip he shall pay, and pay well!"
Annie rolled across the room to a swarthy, stocky man dressed in leather and chaps – an obvious horse dealer. He was boasting to his coterie that he wouldn't pay for such a scrappy meal – all gristle and grease and chalky dumplings, with watery ale that was lukewarm to boot. No sir, he continued, to his now-vanishing clique of friends (for they had seen the approach of Hurricano Annie) he knew when he had been blinkered and would not cough up a single copper. Annie picked him up by the back of his shirt to shake him like a wet dish rag.
"Wait! Wait!" he cried piteously as Annie dragged him to the door. "A mistake – I meant no harm! I have funds! I have cash! Here! Here! Please take it!"
But his words were wasted on pug-nosed Annie. She replied with a grating shout:
"So Master Horse Dung wants his meal free? Free he shall have it! And a free bath as well, by all the imps in the Black Pit!"
With that she swung him by the collar into a horse trough half full of dirty green water.
"And take your louse-infested business elsewhere from now on, you pimple arse!"
She reentered the tavern to a stout round of applause, whistles and guffaws.
Reddened and blowing from such vigorous customer service, she pulled up a chair next to Jernigan's and took a deep pull from his goblet.
"Annie, why didn't you have the soldiers lock that waster up until he paid his bill? You've put on a fine show but lost the cost of a meal doing it." Jernigan quickly snatched his goblet back to anxiously examine it for any dregs. Pothouse Annie had a prodigious appetite for her own product.
"Posh! You think too much like the fat merchant you are -- that there jackanapes will spread the story everywhere and no one will want to cheat me out of the price of a flea in their hair while they're in here. Hey there, my frail gall bladder – bring me a tot of something to sooth my feelings!"
Her husband hurried over with a tall glass tumbler full of an amber liquid, holding his nose away from the top of the glass lest he be rendered unconscious by the fumes.
"Here you are, my dear."
"Thank you, honey dew." She gave him an affectionate tap on the shoulder that sent him reeling across the room and nearly through a window.
"To your health, rate shifter." She lifted her glass to him.
"To your health, barkeep." He raised his goblet.
They both drained their drinks. Annie put her glass on the floor and lifted herself up to go see to Jernigan's dinner. An innocent cockroach, survivor of a dozen applications of poison powders and beatings with a flattened stick, crawled into the tipped over glass and was promptly asphyxiated.
Jernigan looked after her with half a smile. What a shrewd female! She had nothing but cash customers at all hours of the day and night – nothing at all like his own business, where credit was extended and pulled back so often that he had to hire a building full of crookbacked clerks to sit on stools and keep track of the debts. He knew a dozen bankers; one day they were his bosom companions and the next they gave him the stink eye.
"Hi! Honey dew! Bring me a refill, sir!" he shouted at Pothouse Annie's husband. The timid man nodded and handed him the brimming cup in no time.
Jernigan stared after the man, wondering how long he was going to last before giving out. Since his own wife had passed into the shades so many years ago he had often thought of remarrying – but not to some pale society maiden or pudgy old widow. He wanted a sound investment, something that ran on a cash-only basis. Sighing, Jernigan pried a splinter loose from the table and idly began picking his teeth. Without his purple tunic on he gave the appearance of a blacksmith gone to seed.
"May I join you, Master Jernigan?" In all the noise Jernigan had failed to notice Captain Strangeheart enter and come over to the fireplace.
"Most certainly, Captain!" Jernigan leaned over and took a stool from under a nearby table. "What will you drink, sir? The cider is horse piss but the ale is barely palatable." The Captain smiled faintly, saying he would be glad for a cup of citrus juice only. "I rarely drink anything stronger unless I'm out on a campaign or inspection tour."
The merchant roared out a request for citrus juice, to the jaundiced surprise of those who overheard him. Pothouse Annie's frail spouse bobbed back into the kitchen for the juice; Annie herself came out to see what ailed Jernigan that he now wanted something so mild. Pulling the ear of one of her barmaids who was sitting comfortably on a cushioned seat talking to a lonely customer until she rose in the air with a shriek, Annie took the chair for herself.
"Captain! Haven't seen you in here in a crowd of years. Not since the Maggot Wars ended. You it was as ordered some fruit punch, eh? – not this old windbag. Won't you have a glass of some of my Special Reserve instead? Tis very bracing!"
She spoke to the Captain in an altogether different tone of voice than with her other customers. She respected the Captain, and almost feared his never-failing solitary reserve.
"No thank you, mistress. I must keep a clear head and be ready for tomorrow's Council meeting, when Master Jernigan will no doubt bring up the curious absence of the Far Fellows this past spring."
"Aye, tis passing strange, this altogether void they left not only in my pockets but in the pockets of every other merchant here in Gem City." Jernigan had a distracted air, glancing at the kitchen doors and wistfully inhaling the sturdy aromas of baking meat and potatoes.
"Staring the eyes out of your head will not make your dinner appear one tick of the clock sooner" Annie told him.
"Blast you, woman! Where is the Captain's citrus drink? When I treat a man I expect him to join me in it today, not sometime tomorrow!"
"A fig for your hospitality! I notice you didn't offer our good Captain some dinner, now did you? I have some prime roast beeve, Captain, if you'd care for a thick slice."
"What? You told me . . . "
"Hush, you great infank! I'm speaking directly to our Captain right at the moment, not you."
"Again I must decline, but with great thanks. I am no longer in the habit of a heavy meal so late in the day. Some other time, perhaps."
"As you say, Captain. George, where is the Captain's juice?" This latter she roared in the direction of the kitchen in such a loud voice that the mullioned windows rattled like castenets. George came out of the kitchen with the juice and placed it in front of the Captain.
"I'm sorry, my love, but I burnt my thumb while looking at the roast beeve and have been putting butter on it."
Annie dropped her blusterous front to tenderly examine the damaged digit. She was very fond of husband number three – he sang very prettily to her in their bedroom late at night. And was a wizard at keeping the accounts straight.
"Does it throb, dear? Never mind. Run upstairs and rest you this evening. I can handle this passel of guzzlers and gorgers. I'll close up shop early and we'll look over your butterfly collection together, what say?"
"Yes, dear. Very thoughtful of you. Good night, gentleman. I bid you a good evening." And he scampered off as if he were a school boy just sent on holiday.
The Captain sipped his juice and looked at Merdin Jernigan and Pothouse Annie with quiet amusement. He kept his troops well-disciplined, and practiced the same iron discipline on himself, so it was an enjoyable change of pace to witness the riotous skirmishes of these two. He wanted a private word with Jernigan but could wait for them to finish their verbal jousting.
Annie surveyed her frowzy kingdom with a sharp eye – on the lookout for cutpurses who might be wanting a victim or a clerk, made bold with drink, secreting a pewter knife up his sleeve. Jernigan drank deep of his goblet, forming his next barrage of complaints. But before he could speak the kitchen doors swung wide to reveal a platter piled high with roast beeve and mashed vegetables, with a basket overflowing with soft white dinner rolls, all carried by lusty barmaids who set the food in front of a beaming Jernigan and then flounced back into the kitchen to continue their gossiping and tippling.
"Hah! I knew it all the time, you divine woman. Roast beeve and mashed vegetables aplenty! And soft white bread, to boot! I shall eat until I burst! A round of wine for the house!" Jernigan drew out his purse bag with a flourish and waved it above his head. There were ragged cheers as Annie's patrons rushed to the wine kegs. Annie, of course, was pleased, but not surprised. She always played that old goat Jernigan in one way or another to get him to spring for dozens of drinks. Wouldn't little George be happy going over the profits tonight!
"Well, I must be off to see that those trulls in the kitchen don't eat and drink me out of house and home, and to try and get some work out of them – the worthless souls! You need anything just throw a bread pill at Betsy over there and she'll take care of you."
So saying, Annie got up and very quietly slid into the kitchen – where the ensuing noise and passion indicated she had indeed caught her charming young workers exploiting their mistress's larder.
Jernigan tucked into his delayed dinner with undisguised relish. After the first few carnivorous bites of meat he settled into a more staid routine, wiping his lips between forkfuls of food and beaming kindly on the Captain. The Captain decided to speak his errand.
"Master Jernigan, I am told that when the Far Fellows sent a messenger this past spring to declare their apologies at not coming to trade, that messenger had a lengthy, private, discussion with you about why they did not sail into our port this year. Is that so?"
"Tis so, yes." Jernigan was not one to waste words when there was good food that needed eating.
"I do not wish to be intrusive, but in this private setting could you tell me something of what that messenger told you?"
Jernigan chewed thoughtfully a moment.
"I can't see the harm of it. He said there was civil war among the Far Fellows. No trading expedition this year but next year it was hoped the situation would be resolved – his words – and that they would resume their trade with us."
"What was the cause of this war between brothers, did he say?"
"Some twaddle about religion and loyalty to their king – twas as nonsensical as a clown's riddle."
The Captain looked sideways at Jernigan. Beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead as he continued to plunge great chunks of meat and vegetables into his mouth. On the surface Jernigan appeared to be nothing but an arrogant, roaring, purse proud buffoon – but the Captain had looked past the blubbery façade to see a man with common sense and compassion, as well as a shrewd understanding of how mankind was likely to behave. Jernigan would be impossible as a soldier, of course – too lazy to rise at dawn and too questing to ever follow a direct order in silence. But Jernigan had not risen to become the city's richest merchant by accident; he traded in a large assortment of items, beeve hides, beeswax, fish, lumber, and rare metals and stones – to name just a few things – and he had managed to keep his head above water when other merchants failed and were sent to the stocks for nonpayment of debts. Jernigan planned carefully, shared his inner mind with no one, and won his financial victories without crowing. The Captain knew that the nonappearance of the Far Fellows this past spring had been a terrible blow to the economy of Gem City, to the economy of the entire Council Lands, yet Jernigan did not seem unduly upset. Jernigan was a civilian the Captain could work with.
"Master Jernigan, I would crave some of your time tomorrow at the Council meeting to go over, very briefly, our defenses and purposes to keep the Council Lands safe. I have a large illustrated map that will make it quite easy and eat up no time at all. Is that agreeable to you?"
"Betsy, you wench! More gravy if you please! Certainly, Captain. A picture map is just the thing – even those simpletons on the Council can understand and absorb it easily and quickly."
"Very well. I will bid you good evening now, Master Jernigan. I wish I could ravish enemy armies the way you are ravishing that roast beeve."
"Hah! Well spoken, Captain! Until tomorrow, then."
Captain Strangeheart strolled out into the cool evening, relieved to be away from the noise and smells of a rude, busy tavern. He preferred the ordered quiet and standard hygiene of a military camp. Although as Captain of the Hosts of the Council Lands he had a large house at his disposal in Gem City he usually bedded down up on the Lumby Hills with the army. Tonight he walked through the cobbled streets until he reached the outskirts of town. Then he turned and confronted the ragged man who had furtively been following him since he left the tavern.
"What is it you want, fellow? My purse, most likely. It's meager enough, but my dagger must have its say about such things." The Captain slowly pulled his steel dagger out of his waistband, spread his legs as he crouched down, and awaited the other man's attack.
The man in rags shambled closer to the Captain, mumbling that he only wanted the price of a meal and bed for the night, he had no harm in him – then swiftly threw aside his ratty cloak to reveal a cutlass stained with the blood of other victims. He rushed the Captain, intending to stab him in the belly and grab the purse while the Captain writhed on the ground in agony. It was a standard bandit's ploy, and as such well known to Strangeheart. The Captain side-stepped the thrust and gave his assailant a deep jab in the right arm. They struggled silently a few moments more before the bandit gasped in pain and fright and took off down a narrow alley, blood still dripping from his injured right arm.
Captain Strangeheart let him go without raising any kind of hullaballoo. The man would have a devil of a time stanching the flow of blood, for Strangeheart had struck deep. The villain might bleed to death, which would not bother the Captain one whit. However it turned out, it was punishment enough. Wiping off his blade, the Captain continued his long walk up into the Lumby Hills to the army's encampment.
Gem City had no regular constables, only occasional patrols of soldiers that walked the streets at odd hours to check for fires or such ruffians as the Captain had just encountered. Do I look that defenseless and foolish that some evil-hearted clod would try such a stunt, he wondered. The Captain abjured military insignia and pomp. He wore a simple but finely woven suit of brown linen in the summer, and the same, but of wool, in the winter. On his ring finger was no wedding ring, but a massive gold band engraved with arrows and pikestaffs. His only concession to his position as leader of the armed forces of the Council Lands.
The Captain decided to instigate regular, hourly patrols in the city. The enemy within, he thought to himself. How could a man become so low as to rob another, possibly leaving him to die? Wasn't there work aplenty in the looming yards, the fisheries, the green fields, the rookeries and on the farms? Even a man with no skills and no inheritance would do well by joining the army – the pay was modest but you never spent a copper on food, clothing, or lodging. And every soldier was taught a set of skills and had a pension waiting for him at the end of his career so he could live in comfort and security until the final summons. Strangeheart himself had begun that way – orphaned and fighting dogs for scraps to eat, he had lied about his age and joined at 12, not even knowing how to use a knife and fork and never having slept between linen sheets. That first night in training camp he had slept on top of his blanket, not knowing he was allowed to crawl under it for a warm night's rest.
That was forty years ago, and now he led the defensive forces of an entire nation. The United Council Lands. He reached the top of one of the hills close to the army's camp and looked around him at the city by the sea, and then away from it at the provident plains where farmsteads stretched away for a month's march, and then dwindled into a brown prairie inhabited by nomads and outcasts; a flat, unemotional land that had been unruly and dangerous once, and could become so again. The nomads followed their chieftains, when they felt like it, but for the most part kept themselves in family units, grazing their stock far from each other. But 300 years ago a chieftain had come along more canny and brutal than the rest. Through bribery and terror he had amassed a nomad army and marched to the bronze gates of Gem City before being turned back by brick walls, fire wax, and the bloody pox that had dropped his unhygienic soldiers in their tracks. Their nomad leader, Amberlick, had then drunk himself to death and the nomad bands broke up and returned to their brown pasture lands – leaving behind a land burned and tortured and starving. That is when all the separate lands that had been ravished sent their representatives into Gem City to form the Grand Council for Defense, out of which grew the United Councils that now governed, by consensus, this part of the world. There were no kings or queens or dukes or lords or priests or warlords – not for the last 300 years. The United Council included the heads of all the trade and work guilds, a banker, a designated ship's captain, and the Captain of the Host – himself.
Captain Strangeheart thought it had worked out pretty well. Since the time of Amberlick there had been petty squabbles between farmers and merchants, between civilians and soldiers, and other tempests in a tin pot, but they had all been settled by arbitration and the army had merely been used as a vague and distant threat if the parties involved did not learn to stick to their own business. In his own day he had only been called out once for combat duty, for the so-called Maggot Wars. A strange episode. The Captain sat on a small boulder, thinking back to those times. There had been drought for 3 years straight; the land as brittle as a cracker. Then in the spring of the fourth year the sky had burst over the land with a torrent of rain. And the grubs had come out of the ground – from eggs laid over the previous years by some unknown insect that hadn't bothered the farmers enough to be noticed. These grubs, maggots they were called, were voracious and highly mobile. They ate everything, including flesh, as they crawled in mass blankets over the land. Crops and cattle disappeared under them, and when families started to be eaten alive in their beds at night the army had been summoned to find a way to destroy them. Fire wax had proven effective; soldiers armed with small barrels of the stuff and crude pumps sprayed the white wax over the teeming maggots and then got out of their way. The fire wax, once exposed to the air, burst into spontaneous combustion. It had taken months to exterminate all the maggots, and careless or unlucky soldiers had died in agony if the wind blew the fire wax back on them.
Strangeheart stood up and stretched. He walked closer to the camp. No glory or medals in that campaign, he thought; just dirty, dangerous work. But the maggots had never been seen again and the countryside quickly recovered its fertility. So he supposed he was a hero. Captain Strangeheart, maggot slayer! He smiled to himself.
A cold northern breeze suddenly came up and just as quickly disappeared. The North. Frozen wilderness as far as a man could go with nothing but twisted brush and gravel beds. He had taken patrols up there from time to time to keep an eye on the prospectors who dug for the rare metals and gemstones that could only be found there. Desperate hard work it was. Caught in a cold storm, a man would freeze to death in no time at all even if he were buried in layers of wool and fur. But never any snow; just a fall of ice crystals that lay like shattered glass on the ground. It was a land without people or purpose, except to either kill you, make you mad, or make you wealthy. Jernigan boasted he had gotten his start there long years ago. Was the fat old merchant lying? It wasn't the Captain's business to know, or to care.
Another cold breeze sprang up. The Captain wrapped his cloak more securely around himself, but the coldness he felt was inside him, not on his skin. He had schooled himself to read his own emotions and feelings when they first arose – he was surprised to find he was feeling discontent, or perhaps it was boredom? His predecessor as Captain of the Host, old Morgan Hammer, had once told him:
"When you reach the top, lad, there's naught to do but go down again – you only get to choose whether you drop fast or slow."
'The Hammer' had gone prospecting to the North when he was retired; he was never heard from again and his body had never been recovered.
Strangeheart felt the pull of deeds yet undone.
"Am I a gosling, then, to go questing after fairyland?" he said to himself in disgust.
He entered camp, returning the salutes of the sentries. His tent was no different from all the others in camp – outside of the flags that listlessly blew around it and his personal sentry in front of it.
His sentry snapped to attention at his approach. What was the man's name? Sturwell? They changed every four hours. This must be Sturwell.
"All well, Sturwell?"
"Yes sir. Quiet and peaceful. Two men unruly in town and thrown into the blinkers until morning, pending your judgment, sir."
"Their sergeant can deal with them adequately. I'll be in Council all day. Make a note of it in the log under my name, will you? And have cookie give you something warm – I'm turning in and can spare your protection for the moment."
"Yes sir. Thank you, sir!"
Sturwell marched off to make the log entry and the Captain went to bed.
Jon Irrony, a powerful banker from the southern port city of Quidmaiden, began the Council meeting the next morning promptly at nine. He dressed entirely in black and had a short beard and close cropped brown hair that he massaged with sweet oil to prevent baldness. No one, he knew, trusted a bald headed banker. They looked too much like the avaricious villains portrayed on stage during fair days. He had Darius Bumpity quickly read the minutes of yesterday's Council meeting. Bumpity read the minutes while nervously keeping one eye on Merdin Jernigan, who, well-fed and well-rested, showed none of the bumptious wrath of yesterday.
Doctor Pennocker, of the United Council University, Gem City, was given leave to then make a request for additional funds for the University for general upkeep and the hiring of a teacher in rustic industry – as more and more young people poured into the cities, leaving the family farm to the old people who were in no condition to keep plowing and planting. It was thought that an inspired teacher could help convince the younkers to return home with some new ideas that would make life both more interesting and profitable. The funds were allocated with little comment; the Doctor had pressed his case with the majority of the members for the past several days, with a good deal of flattery and the promise of honorary degrees scattered like confetti.
Captain Strangeheart was invited to unscroll his map of the Council Lands and make his report.
There was no unusual activity to the north; the Captain unemotionally told the Council that the army had recovered 17 frozen bodies of prospectors during the past twelvemonth. None appeared to have died suspiciously, only through incaution. To the east, past the farms, the nomads were quiet – keeping to themselves. They had recently become addicted to racing horses around and over stone fences, and the sport was catching on with the farmers as well. A waste of time, perhaps, but not a material threat to anyone.
To the south the Murther Range of mountains continued to safeguard the Council Lands from whatever or whoever lay beyond. The Council still offered a large reward to anyone finding a viable passage over the mountains to what lay beyond, but those ambitious enough to explore either came back disappointed – or didn't come back at all. The lower mountain slopes were still thickly forested with blackwood, burnwood, greywood, and sliding oak – which were all important building materials, but the Captain, being a military man, had no suggestions to make as to the disposition of those forests. He would continue to send patrols through the woods from time to time, with the Council's permission. It was good training.
The port cities of the Council Lands, Gem City, Waterglory, Deep Pool, and Quidmaiden, each had army encampments nearby and infrequently sent patrols through the cities to keep any ruffians at bay. The Captain proposed a change in the schedule – regular patrols at regular hours, as he had reason to believe this would continue to keep crime and riot under control. This would entail no further expenses to the Council, and so it was voted unanimously so.
As to the western ocean itself, the Captain pointed out that he continued to be in favor of building a small navy to patrol and explore this vast and mysterious area, but the Council, in its wisdom, had never yet seen the need for one. Merchant craft hugged the shores and the only long distance contact overseas came from the Far Fellows – who, he believed, had not arrived this year at all. Seating himself, the Captain quietly said that perhaps this was a subject on which his fellow Council member, Master Merdin Jernigan, had best be given leave to expand on.
Jon Ironny thanked the Captain and turned the time over to Jernigan.
But before the Grand Master of the Merchant's Guild could begin there was a commotion at the door. A boy who was kept at the door to prevent irrelevant interruptions and take messages was rudely thrust out of the way, and in stalked Pothouse Annie. Half the Council members politely stood up, while the other half buried their faces in their hands in consternation at the thought of what this could mean.
"I want to declare this Council meeting as irregular as your bank's bookkeeping!" she said directly to Jon Ironny, who was one of those to stand up in her presence. He paled slightly, but managed to bow his head and ask what irregularity she was referring to.
"I mean that our Tavern Guild representative has took sick and not been here and yet you go ahead with plotting tax increases on us that serves the public! That's the irregularity I am referring to, Mr. Jon Ironny!"
"I assure you, Mistress Annie, we were not planning anything irregular. I apologize for not noticing your representative being absent. We normally hear so little from that sector." Jon Ironny looked down the long blackwood table for any empty seats. There was one next to Doctor Pennocker.
"Well, he ain't here and won't be here because of an unfortunink accident which he had with one of his customers at the Three Bunnies – a pewter mug was applied to his noggin and he is now laid up in bed with brown paper soaked in vinegar wrapped around the same. I am taking his place, by your leave – or without it!"
She made her way down to the empty seat, on which the Doctor had absently placed some books he was glancing at during slow moments of the meeting. She scooped them up and dropped them on the Doctor's lap, causing him to exhale roughly and emit a rather unscholarly expletive. She sat.
"Now you can proceed regular-like, moneybags."
"Thank you" said Jon Ironny coldly. "Master Jernigan?"
Jernigan stood up, being careful to keep his prominent belly far from the table's grasping scrollwork.
"Thank you, Master Ironny. Members of the Council, and Mistress Annie, and anyone else I may have neglected to recognize . . . ah, I thank you for this opportunity to expand on the problems we will face by the lack of trade this year with the Far Fellows. The lack of trade is a problem, and I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to expand . . ."
Here Jernigan began to flounder badly, realizing he was trapped in a verbal loop that had no exit. Pulling an expansive silk handkerchief out of his sleeve he mopped his brow and repeated himself again.
Doctor Pennocker sighed and opened one of his books.
Jon Ironny gave Jernigan a gentle prompt.
"Can you tell us why they were prevented from trading with us this year?"
"Yes, certainly. Civil war. The blasted pinheads apparently are quarreling amongst themselves like cats over spilled cream and could not summon the wherewithal to gather their usual trade stuff and man the ships to come to us."
"Pardon" interrupted Captain Strangeheart. "But I am not particularly familiar with what they bring to us for trade, Master Jernigan. Could you give us an idea?"
"They bring us the sneezing spice, which we can't seem to grow here. Rustless steel ingots, which again our own smithies seem unable to duplicate. The lard of rastinacks, humperlinks and durndals – which our bakers find indispensable for the finest bread and pastries. Nard for perfume. Snakehorns. Dimdaubs for the ladies. Ishpebbles and quickstone for our builders. Lodestone cookware and cutlery. Dragondust for the army – who seem to want an alarming amount of the useless stuff to play with!" Here Jernigan stopped and glared briefly at the Captain, who merely nodded his head in acknowledgement.
"Oh, the list is longer than a woman's tongue – I could go on forever. Attar of willow bark. Clover oil. Chainery. Dried dewlops. Smoked cuttlemeat . . ."
"And don't forget the sneezing spice – I need a plenteous amount of that for my spiced ale!" said Pothouse Annie.
"I already mentioned that, you buxomy trull!"
"Yah, watch that mealy tongue of yours before I have it out and pickled!"
"I'll pickle you, you flame-headed floor mop! I'll have you . . ."
Jon Ironny rapped the table with his gold knuckle mace.
"Please, good people. Cease this constant bickering! As the only banker here in the Council I would wish to know just how deeply this affects our merchants and others, and the taxes they pay. Darius Bumpity has some disturbing figures I wish him to read."
Jernigan snorted and sat. Bumpity arose in all his statistical glory to recite a litany of reduced and delinquent taxes that put the Council Lands on a very restrained budget.
"Another year of loss like this and our roads will disappear under brambles, farmers will be unable to bring their produce in to market, the streets of all our cities will remain unlit at night, and the army will need to be humbled numerically."
At this last comment the Captain stood up quickly.
"I demand to know how you would humble us in numbers!"
Bumpity looked at Ironny, who gave him a subtle nod.
"Reduce the number of camps, the number of soldiers, and perhaps take up the slack with private mercenaries in the pay of public-spirited, well-to-do, men."
"Such as Master Jon Ironny, I suppose" said the Captain sarcastically.
"I would be willing to entertain the proposition" Ironny replied softly.
"And what of our history, which plainly shows that such private, mercenary troops ravaged and plundered this land long ago until Amberlick brought us together and to our senses? If you must reduce soldier wages, do so! I will be the first to submit to austerity. But to bring back the old evil of private armies, accountable to no one but their paymasters – tis madness!"
"Hear him! Hear him!" roared Merdin Jernagin.
Doctor Pennocker, who had fallen asleep over a passage of Lackwhip on beeve gestation, awoke, dropped his heavy tome on Pothouse Annie's foot, and was covered with vigorous curses by her.
Voices rose, arms waved – the meeting descended into chaos. Ironny rapped with his golden knuckle mace in vain.
As quickly as it had started, the spirit of discord fled the Council room. All were quiet, all were astounded at their own rude behavior. All, that is, but Pothouse Annie. She rubbed her foot and spoke:
"As for me, I can't afford none of this austerity that the Captain wants to invite into his bed. My taxes can't go no higher, and I need that sneezing spice badly – nobody drinks plain ale anymore and I've got an ocean of it sitting in hogsheads in my cellar. I say that if the Far Fellows don't come to us, why -- we will just have to go to them!"
"An expedition, you mean?" asked Doctor Pennocker, suddenly as awake and delighted as a child let loose in a candy shop. "A voyage of discovery!"
Encouraged by this enthusiasm, Pothouse Annie continued:
"If the money don't come to us, then we can go to the money, as my grandpap always said about customers – and he was a good 'un at it – taking wagon loads of good stout ale to the thirsty farmers and whatnot. Our sailors have been babied too long as it is – it's a flaming scandal, the way they won't go out 'o sight 'o land!"
Captain Strangeheart started to object, but then the very thought of such an expedition sent an unfamiliar warmth to his heart. It would be a military exercise the likes of which he had never experienced – and suddenly he very much wanted to be a part of it.
Jon Ironny looked gravely around the Council table before speaking:
"And do we know exactly how to reach the Far Fellows?" he asked quietly.
"We do not" said Merdin Jernigan. "They have never encouraged us to visit them; insisting they would rather bring us their wares than have us in their land. I take it to be too much a prideful thing and perhaps tis time to pay a call!"
But Ironny was not to be swayed so easily.
"And have we the naval skill, the strong boats, the manpower, for such an undertaking? And . . . who pays for this madness?"
"I'll buy us a boat, by the beard of Narthax! I want to horn in on this sneezing spice trade and get my wares at wholesale, not retail – a pretty kettle of coppers twould bring me!" So spoke Pothouse Annie to the astounded Council.
"I can see that such a vessel is manned by soldiers trained to the water" Captain Strangeheart said.
"I shall attend this expedition myself, as navigator, investigator, and medico – all of which I have made a study of these many, many years!" cried Doctor Pennocker. "And then I shall write the History of such a brave endeavor!"
"I vouch for the Merchant's Guild that we'll supply the wants of the crew and a right good cargo to trade with the Far Fellows – they have a very weakness for gemstones, zithium, and herkimer! Great Amberlick's ghost – this could make us all richer than yon Banker Jon!" Merchant Jernigan pounded the table with his fist, and, unfortunately, caught his tunic on the gingerbread again to produce a small rip in his tunic.
Responding to a ferocious frown from Ironny, Darius Bumpity suddenly declared that it was nearly the luncheon hour and discussions would be tabled and continued after a good hearty meal.
"No need, my sour burr nut," said Annie. "I thought we'd be at it a longish while, so I brought fodder for the lot of you. Betsy! George! Bring it on, my gallants!"
Once again the unfortunate boy who guarded the Council door was thrust aside (and this time he didn't come back – he went home to his mother in tears) so Betsy and George could bring in the comestibles. Cold beeve sandwiches with sour root dressing, hard boiled goose eggs, pale and pungent smithy cheese, a half dozen still-warm burr nut tarts, and a round dozen bottles of snap dragon wine – with a bottle of citrus juice for the abstentious Captain.
Jon Ironny looked on in silent fury as the Council set to with a fearful appetite.
Darius Bumpity slumped in his chair, moaning: "Oh, the crumbs! The crumbs!"
Amidst the jolly sounds of corks popping and jaws munching there came a still, small voice:
"Ahem. I would like to vouch . . . "
"Aye? Who speaks? Tis a whisper like a mouse." Jernigan managed to say this much before choking on an incautiously large piece of smithy cheese. Betsy gave him a resounding pat on the back to prevent his untimely demise.
"I just want to say that on behalf of the Tailors and Shoemakers Guild . . ."
"Thrip rot your bones, man – speak up!" said the recovered Jernigan to a meek little man who had tried, and failed, to snatch a beeve sandwich from the fast diminishing pile on the Council table.
"We will make sea-worthy clothes and slippers for the crew!" said the little man as he desperately lunged for the last beeve sandwich.
"Has this whole Council gone spoony?" demanded Jon Ironny, looking on the saturnalia with distaste writ large on his face. He turned to say something private to Bumpity, but that worthy, if underpaid, clerk was not in his place; instead, he was tussling with Doctor Pennocker for the last burr nut tart. Momentarily distracted, and delighted, by a pat on his rear delivered by the lubricious Betsy, the Doctor lost his grip on the pastry. Bumpity took it in triumph back to his chair, where he was met by daggers from Banker Jon's eyes.
"For you, sir" he said winningly, holding up the war-torn burr nut tart.
"A pox take you and that filthy pastry!" Ironny snarled back. Bumpity slunk to his chair and devoured the burr nut tart in gloomy silence. Ironny templed his fingers in front of him; there must be a way to take advantage of this farce.
He knew that Jernigan and most of the other major merchants were near the end of their financial tethers; they needed the banks and would pay a goodly rate of interest. This Far Fellows trip might set them up again, might give them enough of their own capital to snap their greasy fingers at Ironny's bank. Unless . . .
The Captain was at his side, laying a friendly hand on his shoulder.
"Come, Jon. You see the Council members are all for this outing. Look past the clowning of Jernigan and Mistress Annie to see the great opportunity for us all. We must rule by consensus, and if I said anything in the heat of passion about paid mercenaries I am truly vexed and wish your pardon . . . "
Jon Ironny shrugged his shoulders and pursed his lips.
"So be it. I won't play the villain of the piece. Let us see if I can now restore some semblance of order to this spoony bin."
Ironny rapped sharply with his gold knuckle mace. Faces, buttered and dimpled with crumbs, turned to look at him. The susurration of happy mastication subsided.
"It appears to be the Council's wish to undertake this frivolous and perhaps dangerous expedition. May I have a show of hands of all those who are in favor of this rash enterprise?"
Hands shot up, triggering a few stifled belches.
"I will bow to the consensus of my fellow Council members. I, too, will go along with the proposal."
"Well, old moneybags is a good egg after all!" exclaimed Pothouse Annie.
Ignoring her, Jon Ironny continued.
"However, in the interests of sanity I insist that the ship be purchased and outfitted in Quidmaiden – where, I assure you, I will keep all details of this frolic under my close, personal scrutiny."
"How now, fellow?" This from Master Jernigan. "I pay your Quidmaiden merchants for provisions and they, no doubt, pay you a little something under the trestle, eh?"
Stung by the truthfulness of this charge, Ironny slowly removed the gold knuckle mace from his fingers and disdainfully threw it on the blackwood table.
"If I am to be accused of dastardy because of my prudence, I hereby resign from the Council . . ."
"Hold! Peace, my good Ironny. I'm sure Master Jernigan only meant it as an ill-timed jest – didn't you, Master Jernigan?" The Captain looked at Jernigan pleadingly.
"Oh, very well. Twas a joke, nothing more. Ironny, I heartily apologize for such rude words." Jernigan bowed stiffly to Ironny, who in turn bowed stiffly to Jernigan. Ironny picked up his gold knuckle mace. The Council hummed along with business related to the coming expedition until the sun was nearly set.
"This time next week I'll arrive in Quidmaiden to begin the purchasing, as I vowed!" finally said Master Jernigan.
"I'll come with ye, my hearty trotter – to begin looking for that ship of ours" responded Mistress Annie.
And so the Grand Council Meeting of the Council Lands for the year 301 stood adjourned. The Council room stood empty until two worn-looking women in coarse grey dresses entered, bearing candles against the gathering twilight.
They looked over the ruin of food and drink that lay everywhere.
"Enough leftovers to feed the bairns tonight, eh?" said one of the women, beginning to stuff discarded sandwich crusts into a sack.
"They eat rich enough to fart coppers, they do" said the other woman. "And I wish they did -- I could get my man out of the blinkers, so I could."
The women silently picked up every crumb they could find.
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