Tales of the Dragon's Bard, Volume 1: Eventide

by Hickman, Tracy

  In the end, Lord Pompeanus never returned to the Guild Hall. Ward Klum was called out of the room a few minutes later, followed quickly by the lord’s two escort knights. It was left to Ward Klum to return to the confused assemblage and pronounce the results of the inquest.

  The highwayman was dead, his head and body lost forever to the Wanderwine River. Squire Tomas had killed him in defense of his honor, his home, and the community. The sad tale of the highwayman was closed.

  All that was left was to celebrate the secret wedding of the couple who now were already settled in the reasonably distant town of Welston. Though the couple were not at the party that evening, Tomas assured everyone of the best wishes to them all from Evangeline Melthalion and her husband—a farmer by the name of Henri Smyth.

  In the years to come, Evangeline occasionally returned home, but no one ever saw Henri Smyth in Eventide. However, Harvest Oakman reported many years later having visited a tall, strapping farmer with uncommonly good looks working a lovely little farm outside of Welston. He occasionally during conversation would reach up and rub his left shoulder. When asked about it, he replied it was an old injury from a previous job and the main reason why he had taken up farming. His name was Henri Smyth, and with his happy wife, Evangeline, he had five children—four daughters and a son by the name of Dirk.

  Jarod slipped through the celebration crowd in Charter Square outside the Griffon’s Tale Inn with a large piece of hog’s meat in his hand. He was a free man—which meant that he could move the two floors back up to his room above the countinghouse instead of below it—and although his name was cleared of all charges, the slight aroma of his having been associated with such a scandalous tale had made him more noticeable after all.

  Perhaps, he reflected, too noticeable. He was as much trying to avoid Vestia Walters as to look for Caprice Morgan. Jep Walters’s missing money had not, it now seemed, been stolen at all but had somehow reappeared in the cooperage in the bottom of one of Vestia’s trunks, where it had mysteriously fallen. Now Vestia was more interested in Jarod than ever.

  Jarod took a bite from the hog’s meat and turned again in the crowd—running directly into someone he had not seen behind him.

  “Oh, pardon me, sir, I . . .”

  It was Meryl Morgan—Caprice’s father.

  “It’s all right, Jarod,” Meryl said with a distracted chuckle.

  “Oh! Master Morgan!” Jarod blurted. “I see you’re out for a . . . I mean, it’s terribly good to see you, sir!”

  “You mean it’s good to see me out in the town,” Meryl nodded. “Caprice and Melodi insisted. It’s a wedding celebration, after all.”

  Meryl looked away for a moment, apparently to a distant, happier time. Jarod, shocked at finding himself unexpectedly in the encounter that he had occasionally daydreamed about, suddenly realized his mouth was saying things before his mind could stop him.

  “Father Morgan,” Jarod heard himself saying, “I have the utmost respect and esteem for your family and, in particular, your daughter . . .”

  Meryl came back from his painful, joyful memories at the sound of his name. “What, Son? Oh, of course you do.”

  “May I have your permission to call?” Inside, Jarod began to panic at the words, having been so long rehearsed in his head, coming out of his mouth of their own volition.

  “Of course, Jarod! You are welcome to call upon me and my daughters at any time. I’ve been thinking lately that I need to see to that part of my daughters’ lives. I’ve been meaning to get around to that, but . . . well, there’s been so much to do. If only Brenna were still here, she would know how to take care of it.”

  “Thank you, sir!”

  “I really must see to the girls,” Meryl said. “Especially Sobrina. She has to be married first, you know.”

  “I didn’t . . . what do you mean ‘she has to be married first’?” Jarod asked quickly.

  “It’s bound up in being wish-women,” Meryl said. “I wish Brenna were here to explain it. She knew all about it and was so smart and wise. The firstborn must be married before the others may be courted or the well may fail altogether. So, feel free to come calling on Sobrina anytime you like, Master Jarod!”

  Meryl spied his daughters through the crowd and moved quickly toward them, leaving Jarod standing with what seemed like hog’s meat in one hand and his heart in the other. The assistant accountant saw Sobrina towering above her sisters, her stern look a permanent fixture on her face.

  “Oh, joy,” Jarod thought without any joy at all. “Not only do I have to win Caprice for myself but I have to find someone else who will wed the frost queen of the well!”

  Courting Fates

  Courting Fates

  Wherein Jarod tries a conspiracy of

  wishes with another suitor of the

  Fate Sisters . . . and discovers that good wishes can have dire consequences.

  • Chapter 14 •

  Broken Wishes and Mended Hearts

  You’re sure he’s the one?” Jarod said, his eyes stinging, filling with tears.

  “You can believe in me, Jarod, when I tell you there isn’t another man in all of Eventide who desires Sobrina Morgan more than this man!” the Dragon’s Bard choked out. “I’ve had it on . . . just a moment . . .”

  Edvard took a step to the side, turned his head, and gagged.

  Abel, standing behind the two, was forced to hold his stylus in one hand and his writing tablet in the other and therefore was unable to shield his nose in any way except by the conscious effort not to breathe more often than absolutely necessary.

  “I’ve had it on good authority,” Edvard continued, his right hand pressing a scented handkerchief to his nose. It was like trying to hold back the tide with a teaspoon. “Both Beulandreus Dudgeon and Alicia Charon confirmed it to me in the most ardent terms. This is the man we want!”

  The three unhappy callers stood at the southern end of Boar’s Island just above the confluence of the West and East Wanderwine Rivers and the marshes beyond. The enclosure took up nearly half an acre of property, with the rooftops of low buildings just visible over the high walls. A massive double gate stood closed before them with a weathered and nearly illegible sign next to it proclaiming: “Visitors Welcome—Please Pull.”

  Jarod tried to take in a deep breath, coughed, and then reached forward and yanked hard on the chain that ran over the wall next to the sign.

  A loud bell clanged in the space beyond the gate. Nothing happened for a full minute, and Jarod was just reaching for the chain again when he heard the lifting of a heavy crossbar and saw the gate swing partly open inward. A swarthy face between two large ears and an explosion of jet-black hair pushing outward from around a gleaming bald dome of a head popped out of the opening.

  Jarod, Edvard, and Abel all took an involuntary step back with the sudden onslaught of aromas pouring through the open gate.

  “By the heavens! Jarod, how are you?” Lucius Tanner exclaimed as his face broke into a wide grin. He extended his hand, then abruptly pulled it back, wiping it on his apron before extending it again with undiminished enthusiasm. “I can’t tell you what a delight it is to see you here—you and your friends. Come in! Come in!”

  Jarod could only nod. None of the rest of them dared attempt to open their mouths to speak.

  “You know, we just don’t get many callers here,” Lucius chattered on as they stepped into the tannery. “But you’re always most welcome. Our work is a little slow today, but we’ve got a shipment of new hides coming in tomorrow. Still, I’d be delighted to show you around!”

  Lucius Tanner was slightly shorter than Jarod, with broad shoulders and a wide, sturdy build. He wore a long-sleeved shirt, canvas trousers tucked into the tops of tall boots, and a large, heavily stained leather apron. Thick gloves were tucked into the apron where they might be readily grasped and put to use at a moment’s need.

  The interior courtyard was littered with low-rimmed vats filled with noxious-looking li
quids. Sheds and a handful of buildings ringed the interior space, and everywhere one looked there were gnomes—each one no more than two and a half feet tall, and each wearing a strange, orange, conical felt hat with a feather in its peak—dashing from place to place in a frantic rush.

  “May as well give you the full tour,” Lucius grinned. “Now, over here in this covered shed is where we keep the dried skins. They come in just the way you see them: dried, stiff, dirty, and largely with their gore still attached. Those we take over here and soak in water vats to get them all cleaned up and softened. Then we take them over to these sheds where you can see Jurt here beating the hides and scraping off all the old flesh and fat. Of course, we still have to get the hair fibers out, too, so we bring them right over to these vats over here.”

  Jarod was decidedly losing color in his face at this point.

  “Here we soak the cleaned skins in these vats of urine,” Lucius said proudly. “It’s the best thing in the world for removing hide hair. Of course, it takes quite a while, and the process only loosens the hairs. The hairs have to be scraped off the hides with a knife. That’s what Klisten’s doing over there right now . . . how is it going, Klisten?”

  The small gnome woman was nearly hidden by the enormous, reeking hide that she was scraping. She waved back at the group with her knife as she flashed them a bright yellow grin.

  “Once Klisten’s finished, the hide gets a dip in that salt solution over there and then we take it to the most important part of the process—the bating of the leather. That’s right over here.”

  Jarod was having difficulty keeping his stinging eyes open.

  “Here’s Klauf and his wife, Enuci, giving their personal touch to the most important part of the art,” Lucius said with pride, pointing toward the far corner of the tannery. “In these rather impressive vats is our special mixture of dung and some, well, additional unsavory ingredients. Dog feces and pigeon droppings are generally the best, although, as you see under that shed over there, we maintain a supply of all kinds of dung for every hide-tanning occasion. You see how Klauf and Enuci are stomping down through the mixture with their bare feet? That kneads the dung into the hides . . .”

  “Master Tanner!” Jarod belched the words out.

  “You had a question, Jarod?” Lucius asked with eager anticipation. “Was I going too fast?”

  “We . . . we need . . .” The stench was overwhelming.

  “We have a most important matter to discuss with you,” the Dragon’s Bard managed to force out in a single breath.

  “Oh, of course.” Lucius’s smile fell slightly. “But I haven’t shown you the drying and stretching yards yet—”

  “Urgent!” Jarod had discovered he could manage single words but nothing more in the odiferous confines of the tannery.

  “Oh, in that case, you have my full attention . . .”

  “Outside!” Jarod blurted out. “Private!”

  “Ah!” Lucius nodded with understanding although he did not understand at all. “As you wish . . . but I hope you’ll all stay for lunch?”

  Lucius and Jarod had one thing in common: since they were both young they had each been in love with a Morgan girl.

  Lucius found the prickly, distant Sobrina to be an object of abject fascination for him. His father was the tanner in the town, as had been his father before him, so he grew up knowing the wishing well and the wisher-women who tended it. His mother, a free-spirited perfumer woman with the mysterious name of Khaisai Zarkina, had come from Mordale originally and insisted that Lucius be schooled under the tutelage of a young scribe who had recently started at the countinghouse by the name of Ward Klum. He had been dutiful and had proven himself to be an apt student until a tragic dung-cart accident took the life of his father when the boy was seventeen—just as the romance between Lucius and Sobrina was starting to blossom. Lucius took up the family business at the tannery, and the promise of their union evaporated with it.

  This was because of the great Tanner blessing—and curse: Lucius, his father, his father’s father, and his father’s father’s father before him all had one unique gift that ruled their choice of trade, their fortunes, and their fates.

  Not a single one of them had any olfactory sense at all.

  None of them could smell a thing.

  In the tanning business, this was a tremendous comfort and blessing. The process of tanning hides into leather is the most onerously odiferous profession in all the known realms. The lack of any sense of smell allowed the Tanner family down through the generations to perform their seemingly destined trade far more efficiently than others of their profession in other towns.

  But it may also have been a major contributing factor in the dung-cart accident that took Clifholm Tanner’s life.

  Worse for Lucius, it was the major reason his romance with Sobrina had gone sour. Working now in the tannery, rather than in the musty but reasonably odor-free countinghouse, Lucius rapidly acquired a distinctive scent that announced his approach to the townspeople of Eventide—depending upon the current wind direction—well in advance of his even being seen. Even Mordechai Charon, to whom Lucius sold all his leather and by whose artistry both of them profited tremendously, had to stand at some distance from the man in order to conclude their negotiations. Tryena, a mysterious trader in pelts who occasionally came to Charon’s Goods, would never deal with Lucius directly—she would only sell her pelts to Charon, who in turn would deal with the tanner.

  Lucius was at once keenly aware of the problem and incapable of doing anything about it. He knew that he smelled to other people although the concepts of “smell” and “odor” and “stink to the ninth heaven” were outside of his experience. He also knew that if he bathed and cleaned himself up, people found him more acceptable and he could get closer to them before they fled. But without any ability to gauge his own odor, he could never know if he were acceptable in company. He would occasionally scrub himself raw in the East Wanderwine River and risk a visit to the wishing well, but whenever he saw Sobrina—no matter how hard he tried—down the years she would stand farther and farther off and always upwind.

  His mother moved back to Mordale, and for several years her son supported her there, but she passed away during an epidemic in the city. That left Lucius alone.

  Then Klauf Snarburt, a gnome, had showed up at the tannery gates one day two years ago, seeking employment. When Lucius’s wages proved to be more than fair, Klauf invited several family members to join him, and, as the Snarburt clan’s abilities in tanning leather were unsurpassed, soon the success of the tannery was beyond Lucius’s dreams. The output of tanned leather tripled, and a future filled with gold coins accruing in his account at the countinghouse seemed assured. He had nearly cleared all his father’s debts on the land and the buildings and was starting to turn a nice profit.

  He knew he would become wealthy in just a few more years, but Lucius found no solace in it. All he could think about was Sobrina Morgan still standing well upwind.

  “I can sympathize with your problem,” Aren said as he glanced over the top of his book. “But there may be some hope for you yet. Perhaps a wish is in order after all.”

  The centaur sat with his legs folded under him on a large floor cushion beside a fireplace that nearly filled the end of the room. A cheerful blaze crackled and hissed above the grate, illuminating Farmer Bennis’s main room in this home. The evening had turned unusually chill for the early summer season, and the aging centaur felt the need for a little warmth. Jarod was glad, for the fire brought out the details of the room: the dented shields that were mounted decoratively on the walls and the pair of short swords crossed above the mantel. The fascinating was mixed in with the mundane: a helmet with a lobster-tail plating down the neck sat on a shelf next to a number of crockery jars. A jeweled dagger lay across a round of cheese. Most intriguing of all was the segmented suit of torso armor standing in the corner on a frame, nearly hidden by the farmer’s leather coat draped over it. Jarod
took it all in from his polished chair without questioning any of it while Abel sat opposite him enjoying a slice of rye bread and cheese offered to him by the centaur.

  “But the well is broken,” Jarod shrugged. “How can that help?”

  “Just because the well is broken doesn’t mean you can’t make a wish,” Aren chuckled as he rubbed his weary eyes. “I see you’re wearing a wishing amulet. You could try that.”

  “No.” Jarod shook his head. “I’m not ready to try this one yet. Caprice gave it to me, and she said it was broken.”

  “She should know,” Aren mumbled as he turned a page. “She has enough broken wishes of her own.”

  “So what would be the point of—”

  “Jarod, listen to me,” Aren said, setting his book aside in frustration and looking straight at the young man. “There are things you need to know about the broken wishes of the well. The reason they were broken in the first place is because so many pilgrims were using the well to wish things for themselves. That’s what the great wizard did when he finally broke the well, but it had been weakened long before that. A selfish wish is a hard wish because it does no greater good. It does not contribute to the spirit of the world from which it came. It is also a weak wish because it is self-serving. The best wishes—the kindest and strongest—are those that we wish for others. If you sincerely wish to help Lucius win the somewhat imperious Sobrina for himself, then perhaps your wish has a better chance than you think.”

  “I’ve got to go,” Jarod said, suddenly jumping up from his chair.

  “You’ve got to . . . but you just got here,” Aren protested.

  “I, uh, I forgot something I have to do,” Jarod said. “Thank you, Master Bennis. I’m much indebted to you!”

  Jarod had closed the front door behind him before the centaur could respond.

  “You are welcome, young master Klum,” Aren chuckled as he reached again for his book. “Would you care for another slice of cheese, Abel? Please help yourself.”