Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards: Chapter Three, Part One

 Notes: On we go! Let's get ready to meet some more of our merry (and not so merry) villagers :)

Title: Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards: Chapter Three, Part One

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Chapter Three, Part One

 

Meddling in the Marketplace

 

Hiram woke up to the uncomfortable sensation of his stomach trying to eat itself. He sighed and rubbed his cheek against the smooth, warm bedding, weighing whether or not it was worth getting up before the sun had even bothered to rise just to find food. He tried rolling over, a tactical mistake, because then his bladder was able to pass on its complaints as well and…

“Fine.” He might as well get up, then. Hiram slid out of bed, took in the wrinkled state of his clothes, and almost banished them altogether before he remembered he didn’t do that anymore. Instead he took the time to open his carefully packed bags of clothes and store them in the wardrobe, and by the time that was done he practically had to run to get to the corner of the backyard for a proper piss.

Too bad I don’t have a compost pile yet. Or a bathroom—suspiciously missing from the little tour Mistress Tate had given him. There was no standing outhouse, but a little wander showed him a particularly verdant patch of yard in a suspiciously square shape. So—no outhouse any more.

At least they filled the hole in. Well, if there had ever been a more practical use for his traveling portal, he couldn’t think of it. Hiram usually used it for getting rid of trash, and occasionally assassins, but a little creative carpentry and he’d have a very nice toilet that let out a very high distance over a very hot volcano. It was perfect.

Not for the first time, he wondered whether he should have brought so many of his most magical belongings with him. It was one thing to have a fantastic treasure trove when you were a wizard, quite another when you were trying to keep a low profile as an herbalist.

But, Hiram reasoned, that was what the bag of holding was for. No one else could get into it without losing a limb, and that way he didn’t leave Andurion a windfall that would make him even more powerful. He’d already given Misha his cloak of invisibility, which would serve her well, and left the other pieces of Phlox’s reliquary to his former students. He’d taken care of the people who needed it, and left those who didn’t deserve care no worse off than they already were.

That, Hiram thought, was pretty fucking generous of him all things considered.

The well was another overlooked piece of the property. The stone wall at the top of it was partially tumbled down, and the crank, rope, and bucket were all missing, but a little investigation—aka, accidentally knocking a rock into it—proved there was still water in it. He just needed to get it.

Luckily, Hiram traveled with a bucket. Several buckets, in fact, but this one had a sturdy metal handle, and before long he was dipping it down into the well and, eventually hauling up perhaps a gallon of water. The water was clear, and at first taste clean, but he’d boil it anyhow just to be safe.

While the kettle was warming on the top of the iron monstrosity in the kitchen, Hiram began to plot out his garden. He walked the length of it, measuring carefully, then began to map it out in his mind. Cooking herbs here…medicinal herbs here…magical herbs here…plants purely for aesthetics over here…

Chickens would be nice, he decided as he considered the yard. He’d have to put up some anti-fox and hawk sigils, but that was…

“Not how they do things in Lollop,” he reminded himself. He could make them invisible, of course, but that would be cheating. “I’ll ask Mistress Tate,” he decided, then headed inside as the kettle began to scream to make himself a cup of tea.

He checked his travel stores and found some of the dark brown bread he’d bought two days ago, still decently fresh, as well as some herbed butter and ham that was so salty it almost brought tears to his eyes, but Hiram was weak for food that made him work for it.

The sun was still filtering through the trees as he set off, turning the road into a patchwork quilt of dappled light that met the rising mist in an enchanting way. Even if Hiram had been inclined toward conversation, Phlox was quiescent in his opal, rare enough that he would leave him that way. He had a bag over his shoulder for essentials, money in the pouch beneath his belt for commissions, and a day of exploration ahead. Hiram was in a good mood…one that gradually faded in the wake of the shouting he heard coming from up ahead.

The next house down the little lane—almost a mile distant, so not exactly a neighbor but the closest thing he had to it—was half again larger than his, and the heavy cart in front of it was half-full of caged rabbits of all shades and morphs. In and of itself, it wasn’t anything remarkable, but the man standing beside it shouting abuse at the children who were rushing to fill it was. A silent woman with gray-streaked hair stood on the porch, a child no older than five clutching her legs with his face tucked against her skirts. She looked at the scene blankly, like her body was there but her mind had gone elsewhere.

Her children weren’t so fortunate.

“You can’t stack them on top of each other like that, dunce!” The man swung a heavy hand into the back of one of the older boy’s heads. “You want ‘em to get to market covered in piss? How do we sell a rabbit like that, eh? Fix it!”

“We can’t load as many as you want to sell if we don’t stack, Da,” the next-oldest person present, a girl—no, young woman—snapped.

The man stared at her grimly. “You giving me lip, Letty?”

She did, in fact, push out her lip pugnaciously before replying, “No, Da, but—”

“You think you’re pretty big now you’ve turned sixteen, hmm?”

“No, Da, but—”

He was beside her in a second, shoving her so hard that she almost fell down. “If we’re late to market and I can’t get enough coneys sold to put food on the table this week, you’re the one whose going without, you hear me, girl? Now help your brothers pack the damn cart!”

Hiram had slowed down as he got close, and came to a complete halt when he saw the man push his daughter. It was the sort of casual, everyday cruelty he had witnessed frequently growing up, but for some reason he hadn’t expected to see it in Lollop—at least, not so quickly.

The man noticed him and turned with a glare. “What’re you looking at, eh?”

“Nothing of note,” Hiram replied airily. “I simply couldn’t help overhearing and was a bit concerned that everything was well, that’s all.”

The man spit to the side, his hands clenching. “Well now you’ve seen that all is indeed well, sir,” he said with false obsequiousness, going so far as to take a mocking bow. “You can get your fine self on your way and leave us poor folk be. Letty!”

The girl, who’d been staring wide-eyed at Hiram, jumped. “Yes, Da?”

“Get on with it!” She got back to work, not without another glance at Hiram, but he already knew there was no step he could take here. Not yet. He smiled at her and tipped his wide-brimmed leather hat, then continued on down the road.

Another few miles and he was back in Lollop proper. There was Fuzzle Pinkie’s Drinkies, now wearing a sign that said The Yew Brew with what almost seemed like an air of relief. There was the smithy, there the tannery, there the court of law—interesting, one wondered what sort of cases came before such a rural judge—and just beyond it all, in a wide cobblestone circle, were dozens of stalls that hadn’t been there yesterday. Lollop’s market.

Hiram rubbed his hands together in anticipation. Unpacking yesterday had ignited something inside of him that he hadn’t felt in a long time—an urge to feather his nest. He had a home now, but living there surrounded by nothing but the remnants of his former life felt like living in a memory. He needed new things, things that could belong solely to Hiram Emblic, not his former self. Now, to find his guide…

She found him first, actually, at a stall on the outskirts of the market that was handing out cups of something hot and milky. “Mr. Emblic,” Mistress Tate called out before he could get lost in the crowd. She looked him up and down as he came to join her. “Heavens, it’s just a market,” she said mildly as she handed over one of the ceramic cups. “There’s no need to dress so finely for it.”

Hiram looked down at himself. He was wearing dark brown leather breeches, a white shirt, a leather vest that laced in the front, and a single-sleeve linen cape that was the lightest covering he owned. “What about this is so fine?”

“Not many can afford to use leather for clothes beyond aprons and shoes,” she said as she sipped at her drink. “But I suppose things are different where you’re from.”

“Rather,” Hiram said. Clothes. I need new clothes.

“It will make you even more an object of interest than you already are,” she continued, then smiled. “But you’ll give everyone a good story out of it, and they’ll get used to you soon enough. Do try your tea,” she added.

Hiram took a sip, and almost startled at the sweet, spicy taste of it. It was thick on the tongue, honey and black pepper and cardamom, and a hint of… “Vanilla?”

“Just a touch,” Mistress Tate said. “It’s hard to get, but it adds so nicely to the flavor, doesn’t it?”

“It does.” He drank more deeply, making sure not to get the milky concoction in his moustache, before handing the empty cup back. “It’s quite good, thank you,” he said to the gnome manning the cart. “What do I owe you?”

“I’ve already paid,” Mistress Tate said, setting her own cup back down. “Thank you, Gerry.”

“Aye, Mistress!” the young gnome piped.

Mistress Tate waited expectantly, and Hiram held out his arm for her to take. “Shall we, milady?”

“Let’s.”