by Helen Gosney
“Nobody forced them to come to Candellar. They could have got to their damned Moot some other way,” Lester said, amazed at Ranulf’s outburst.
“Ya. Through the Blackwater Swamp, I suppose. It’s either that, or over the Devil’s Teeth when you come from Wirran like they did,” Ranulf said. He frowned again and added softly, “And in the end their Moot was so important to them that they went around the town on that bloody ledge at night, and with their ponies as well.”
“How the hell could they possibly have done that, do you think?” Kein said slowly.
“No bloody idea. It’s simply impossible, but they did it, didn’t they?” Ranulf sighed and looked away for a moment, before turning back to the others with an unexpected determination in his face. “The forester was right. Some vows are made to be broken, he said, and it’s time this one was. Seventy bloody years is too long to be nursing a grudge like this. Besides, if anyone’s entitled to bear a damned grudge, it’s the dwarves. It was one of their girls who was raped by some of our men, remember?” he took a deep breath, “We need to stop this bloody madness. We need to agree to give the dwarves free access to the bridge, and we need to apologise to them for what we’ve done.” He rose to his feet as Lester opened his mouth to shout at him. “I resign from the Council, effective immediately. Thank you for a very good meal, Lester. A good night to you, and to you too, Kein.”
He turned and walked out the door without a backward glance.
**********
“This is all that bloody forester’s fault!” Lester said viciously, “If only he and his damned dwarf friends would just go away, everything’d be all right.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” a soft lilting voice said unexpectedly.
Lester was appalled to see the forester in question suddenly appear from the shadows beside a big bookcase.
“A good evening to you, Lester, Kein. I’m sorry that Ranulf’s gone; he’s the only one of you with any damned sense at all. Still, I hope you enjoyed your supper,” Rowan said pleasantly, “Just as well we didn’t block the northern gate as well, wasn’t it?”
“YOU! What the hell are you doing here? And how the hell did you even bloody get here?” the mayor shouted. Another thought struck him. “And how long have you damned well been standing over there?” An even worse thought came to him and he quickly stopped shouting. “What are you going to do…?” he almost quavered, seeing that Rowan bore his gleaming g’Hakken daggers at his hips, as he always did. A beautiful hand axe nestled by the one on the left hip. At least he wasn’t carrying his sabre or his full-sized axe as well, Lester thought, but that was small comfort.
Rowan smiled at him and Kein, who seemed to have been struck dumb. That was a blessing at least, he thought, and hoped that it’d last.
“So many ‘whats’ and ‘hows’, Lester. Which would you like answered first?”
Lester Figgins spluttered incoherently.
“I see. Well, in any old order, then. I came through the window as your housekeeper was bringing in that very tasty-smelling pie. Just as well I’d already had a bit to eat or I’d have been tempted to join you all then,” Rowan said, delighted to see the horror on the other men’s faces. He continued quietly, “But I had to move from behind the curtains as I was about to start sneezing. I’m sorry to say it, but your lady cooks well and dusts badly. Never mind that, though. Now, what else did you ask me?”
“How in the names of all the Gods did you get here? Saul always locks that gate, and we have a night watchman now.”
“Aye, Saul does lock the gate, and very damned particular about it he is, too. He’s a good man and the town’s lucky to have him. But as I think I’ve already told you both, walls are made to be climbed, just as trees are. And if I couldn’t get past your watchman, with all respect to him, I’d bloody give up. ‘Tis a nice dog he’s got though,” he added mischievously.
It was some sort of mastiff-cross, a huge ill-tempered brute of a thing, much feared by the townsfolk of Gabonsbridge, and a large part of the reason there were very, very few people on the streets after Claude Gevan began his rounds. Rowan was a Whisperer, though. The dog, Fang, had trotted up to him, snuffled and slobbered happily at him as he patted it, and finally returned reluctantly to its mystified owner. Claude had looked around, baffled, and finally supposed it’d simply left his side to chase a rat or perhaps an unwary cat. Or maybe it’d simply been investigating an enticing scent… and of course he was right in thinking this, but not quite in the way that he believed.
“And now we get to the most important questions of all… what the hell am I doing here when I should be sitting around a nice campfire, telling daft stories and scaring the youngsters half-silly? And what am I planning on doing? Why, I’ve just come to visit you, Lester, and purely in a spirit of neighbourliness. I didn’t realise you’d be entertaining guests, and I do apologise for eavesdropping. ‘Twasn’t intentional, but the conversation was so, um, interesting at times that I didn’t like to interrupt.”
“What!”
Rowan sat down in the armchair that Ranulf had just vacated, reached over and sliced a few pieces of cheese with one of his g’Hakken daggers. The knife that Lester had used looked very blunt to him, and by his standards, it was. Certainly it didn’t slice the hard, sharp-flavoured and somewhat crumbly cheese very well at all, whereas Rowan’s dagger produced thin, perfect slices. He cleaned the dagger carefully on a napkin, making sure not to slice the fabric, then resheathed it so as not to worry the other men any more than he already had.
“Some more for you, Lester? Kein?” he asked politely, “Please forgive me for helping myself, but if I was to wait for you, I suspect I’d starve. Anyway… the reason I’m here is to tell you, purely in the interests of neighbourliness, as I say, is to tell you that my kinsfolk are getting a bit, um… fed up. Fed up with you in particular, Lester, I mean. I’m sorry to have to say it like that, but ‘tis as it is.”
“They can go to hell!” Lester said loudly.
Rowan nodded.
“Aye, they certainly could, and indeed some of them just might, but that’s not the issue here. You see, when a dwarf gets fed up, he generally likes to, er… how can I put this? Smash things.”
“What do you mean, ‘smash things’?” Kein asked, more quietly than Rowan had expected now that the man’s voice had returned.
Rowan smiled at the toll keeper’s wide-eyed and worried face. This IS going well, he thought. He’s going to be a damned sight more worried in a minute though. They both are.
“Well, it varies a bit with the particular clan you’re talking about. The g’Farrien at home, now, they don’t smash things exactly, they like to throw things. ‘Tis usually knives, and ‘tis usually into poor innocent trees. Harmless enough, I suppose, if you’re not a tree and they don’t decide to use little axes like this one,” he said cheerfully, giving the axe at his hip a fond pat. It’d been very handy indeed when he’d been shaping planks for the fence, and it’d undoubtedly see a lot of use when he got back home again too. “But some of the other clans enjoy a good brawl, and we g’Hakken… well, we like to hit things too. Not people, generally, though. All the same, when a g’Hakken Master Smith hits something, it stays hit, believe me. And we’ve got two of them with us. Mind you, the clan’s adaptable. Since they made me a clansman, they’ve developed a fondness for chopping things down and, er, blowing things up.”
“Blowing things up? What the hell would a forester know about blowing things up?”
Rowan was pleased to see that Lester could still manage a bit of a bluster. It wouldn’t last though.
“’Tis like this: we cut down a nice unsuspecting tree for our own despicable reasons, and we find ourselves left with a bloody great stump. Now, sometimes we just leave them where they are, if they’re not in the way or not going to be a damned nuisance and sprout again if we don’t want them to… and sometimes we blow them out with blasting powder. ‘Tis handy stuff, blasting powder,” he said.
“You… you use blasting powder…?” Lester knew that the dwarven miners used it, of course, but he hadn’t realised anyone else did. The mining clans guarded the secrets of it like dragons guarded their gold.
And there went the bluster, Rowan thought. Also most of the colour in the mayor’s usually florid face.
“How the hell do you think we’d do it? Chew the things out with our fraggin teeth?” he asked, his face the picture of innocent mystification. He smiled again. “No, no, Lester, a bit of blasting powder and a nice long fuse can work wonders. But the problem is, some of the lads are starting to think they might work wonders in getting you to see some bloody sense in all this… I believe somebody was talking about the bridge at the time…”
Rowan hadn’t thought Lester’s eyes could get any wider, but he found that he was wrong. And a bit of fighting spirit seemed to have surfaced again too.
“The… the bridge…? You’re saying they’d blow up the damned bridge? But… but that’s bloody blackmail!” the mayor spluttered.
“‘Blackmail’, you think? Sorry, Lester, ’tisn’t a word I’m really familiar with. ‘Coercion’ is what I’d call it,” Rowan considered it a bit more, “Possibly even ‘extortion’… but whatever you like to call it, if the lads do decide to do the deed, I truly won’t be able to stop them. ‘Twould be a shame to blow up such a fine, useful bridge, but after all, dwarves built the bloody thing. I suppose they have the right to demolish it too.”
“You bloody devious Siannen bastard. And as stubborn as a damned team of mules, just as they say.”
Rowan smiled at him happily.
“Mr. Figgins, I was in the Wirran Guard for a good long time, and truly, I had years of folk trying to abuse, insult and offend me – and some of them were fraggin experts. Believe me, you’ve got a hell of a long way to go before you’re anywhere near upsetting me in that way. Besides, stubbornness is a good thing in its place. And right now that place is here at g’Beyans’ Bridge. How long do you truly think you and your council can hold out before the townsfolk get fed up enough to come and kick your backsides all the way to the south gate and force you to sign an agreement? Particularly if they happen to hear the lads discussing the best way to blow up the bridge?”
The mayor and the toll collector were suddenly very quiet.
“I see I’ve given you both some food for thought, and I hope that Ranulf has too. Well, I’ll leave you to chew it over, Mr. Mayor, Kein. Oh, and thank you for the cheese. You might try it with a nice crisp apple or pear sometime, ‘tis an interesting contrast in tastes and textures. A good evening to you both,” Rowan said softly. He stood up and strolled around the other men’s chairs, making no sound at all as he walked. Suddenly he was gone.
The mayor looked around wildly but there was no sound except the wind blowing the curtains. He hurried to the window and looked out, but saw nothing. He shivered, closed and locked the window, and hurried back to the fire. Kein hadn’t moved at all. He was sitting staring at the neatly sliced cheese, his hands shaking.
**********
There was an interesting conversation around the campfire when Rowan returned from visiting the mayor, and after the youngsters were in bed. Nobody really wanted to blow up the dwarven bridge, but that wouldn’t matter, so long as the townsfolk didn’t realise it.
“And there’s another slight problem, Rowan lad,” Finn said thoughtfully, “Where the hell are we going to get some blasting powder? I can’t see any merchants selling us any. Besides, the caravans have more or less stopped coming here now.”
“Aye, they have, too. Word travels fast, doesn’t it? As for the blasting powder… er…” Rowan shrugged.
“The g’Ballen would give us some,” Dann said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world – which in some ways, it was. The miners certainly wouldn’t hand it out to just anyone, but fellow dwarves in need weren’t ‘just anyone’.
Finn slapped himself on the forehead with his hand.
“Aye, of course they would. Forgot all about them. But they’re a decent ride from here…”
“How far, Finn?” Rowan asked quietly.
“It’d take at least a week and a half to get there and back. Probably longer if you don’t want a foundered pony.”
Rowan smiled at him.
“We’ve got plenty of time, so there’s no need to overtax the ponies, Finn. Besides, Ashen’s a bit speedier than the ponies, with all respect to the little beasties, and he can run all day with a bit of care and good management.”
“So he is, and so he can. I’ll draw you a map.”
**********
48. “we were wrong, very wrong”
Rowan and Ashen trotted back into the camp nearly five days later. Neither man nor horse looked anywhere near foundering.
“Did you have a good trip, laddie?” Finn asked, knowing it’d be a waste of time demanding details until Rowan had taken care of his horse. And really, that was as it should be, the dwarf thought, unless it was a matter of life and death. Even then, Rowan would probably see that someone looked after his horse first.
Rowan smiled at him as he dismounted, unsaddled Ashen and began to rub the stallion down.
“Aye, it all went well. The g’Ballen were pleased to help, Finn. In fact, they offered to send us some reinforcements if we need them, but I managed to talk them out of that idea. With so many away at the Dwarf Moot they wouldn’t have enough men left to work the mine properly, and… well, to be truthful, they struck me as being a bit, um, eager. Flighty, even. I thought they might blow up a bit more than we truly want to.”
“Ha! They are a bit like that, too. Good-hearted, but a bit liable to get overexcited over not much at times. Especially if most of the elders are away at the Moot. But you’ve got the blasting powder and fuses and such?”
“Aye. So, now ‘tis time to give our friends in g’Beyans’ Bridge a little demonstration. Claude Whatsit, do you think?”
“Aye. I can’t think of anyone or anything I’d rather blow up right now. I’ll make sure Anna warns the ladies to close their shutters to protect their windows from the blast. No reason they should suffer any more because of that old bastard,” Finn said.
And so it was that the good citizens of Gabonsbridge found themselves woken in the early, early hours of the next morning by a most horrendous explosion and the sound of falling masonry. On investigation they found that a certain ugly statue in the town square had been reduced to rubble.
**********
A very chastened Lester Figgins and several townsfolk arrived at the bridge surprisingly soon after Saul had gleefully opened the gates. To their horror, they saw that the bridge was now festooned with fuses and wires and odd little packages in strategic places.
“You… you’ve really wired the bridge?” Kein, the old tollkeeper, said in shock. He’d honestly believed the dwarves and the forester were bluffing, but after last night’s awful crashing boom, and now this, he’d changed his mind.
“Of course we have, laddie,” Finn replied, grateful that his magnificent braided beard would camouflage any merriment, because the sight of so many appalled faces was undoubtedly comical. He didn’t dare to look at Rowan, because he knew they’d both start laughing if he did, and that’d be disastrous. “We g’Hakken don’t bloody mess about, and I’ve found that foresters are even less inclined to do it. We just thought this’d help you to make up your minds a bit damned faster. You’ve had plenty of time to do the right fraggin thing here. The bloody Dwarf Moot’ll be over if you don’t get on with it!”
“Don’t be too hard on them, Finn,” Rowan said, keeping his face serious with an effort, though his eyes sparkled with mischief, “I do believe they’ve come to their senses. And more importantly, come to make peace with us dwarves and possibly even eat some humble pie.” He raised a questioning eyebrow at the mayor. “Lester? Do you have something you want to say to us today?”
Lester Figgins nodded. His belligerence seemed to have finally deserted him as
many more townsfolk came hurrying up to bear witness to what was about to happen.
“Yes, I have. I… I want to apologise to you and to your clan, on the town’s behalf and… and for myself too. I never thought it’d come to this, but… I can see now how much you’ve been offended by… by not being allowed to cross the bridge… we were wrong, very wrong. I was wrong. I’m truly sorry.”
The demolition of the statue had really shaken him. Like everyone else, he’d thought the dwarves’ threats were merely hot air and posturing, and it was simply a matter of waiting them out. After all, they hadn’t blocked supplies from the north, had they? He knew better now. If they’d felt like it, the g’Hakken could probably have starved them out and then levelled the entire town and nobody’d have been able to stop them.
Finn and Rowan exchanged glances at last. The dwarf nodded slightly, the signal that Rowan was to continue negotiations.
“Thank you, Lester. That means a lot to us,” he said, “And we’d like to apologise to you and the town, too, for inconveniencing you and for waking you up last night. It needn’t have come to this, truly. All you had to do in the first place was speak to the clan politely and respectfully, just as you would to anyone else and as you initially did to me, and not blame us for something that wasn’t our fault. Whoever was at fault seventy years ago, they’re long gone now and we all need to move on. So, will you now let any dwarf… all dwarves, as I meant to say, cross this bridge freely and in peace in the future, as the builders intended? And let them pass through the town too?”
“Yes, we will. We’ve drawn up a charter, so that nothing like this ever happens again.”
Finn and Rowan exchanged another quick glance. A charter? They hadn’t dared hope for that. An agreement of some sort had seemed achievable, but a proper and binding charter? No. Diplomacy was all very well, but a good threat did bring quicker results and this was the proof of it.