The Baron's Ring

by Mary C. Findley

  Tristan released the blacksmith and he got to his feet, looking sullen. “Do you want me to heat up the tongs?” Tristan demanded. Mickle cringed and grabbed a broom in one hand and a scuttle of coal for the fire in the other. Tristan stepped out under the awning where Janos stood, looking at him wide-eyed. He also looked at the tongs, still dangling from Tristan’s hand.

  “I need your help,” Tristan said to him. “If you do exactly what I say I’ll help you run that cart back and forth to the tavern with the kegs as many times as we need to. With the two of us it shouldn’t be that hard. Everything Mickle promised you, he’ll pay to you. I just need you to help me with this boy.”

  Janos took some convincing, especially after Tristan explained what he intended to do. “You a doctor?” Janos asked.

  “No,” Tristan admitted.

  “Ever do this before?” Janos persisted.

  “I’ve seen it done,” Tristan replied. “Look, that boy’s in pain you can’t imagine. He’ll be a cripple if we don’t. You know his family?”

  “Know ‘em,” Janos nodded. “Good folks, see ‘em at the church more’n most. Alex’s a good boy, a hard worker. They had t’ beg an’ beg t’ get Mickle t’ take ‘im on. They don’t even know this happened. Live two days away ‘cross th’ valley.”

  “He’ll never go home on his own two feet again if we don’t do this,” Tristan urged. “This man who deals with herbs you spoke about, I think I remember him seeing to me when I first came here. Little, shriveled-up fellow?”

  “Aye. Jerez.”

  “Think he has any laudanum?”

  “Heard he does, but he don’t give it away.”

  “Go tell him about this boy. See what he says. We need enough to knock him out for two hours at least, knock him out completely.” Janos left. Tristan was impressed to see a clean area next to the fireplace, a good fire going, and Mickle laying a blanket over a fresh pile of straw. The blacksmith flinched out of Tristan’s way as he dropped the tongs, brought the boy into the forge room and made him lie down on the blanket-covered straw.

  Janos came in with the man Tristan vaguely recalled as having tended him at Thomas’s. “Oh, is it you, then?” Jerez asked. “How’s that side?”

  Tristan grunted. Jerez frowned and looked Alex over. “This won’t do it any good, you know, if you’ve even got the strength.”

  “Are you going to do it?” Tristan challenged. Jerez looked at Alex. He looked back at Tristan. “I brought the laudanum. Got it from Thomas, what he had left from dosing you. It’ll take a little time to get him to sleep. I have to be careful.”

  “Then we’ll make our first trip to the tavern, all right, Janos?” They went outside and began the jogging through the mud with the cart, Janos on one side, Tristan on the other. It seemed relatively easy. When they returned, Alex lay in a heavy sleep, Jerez hovering over him. The blacksmith shop was so clean it was hardly recognizable.

  “I’m sorry, Alex,” Tristan said to the boy, thankful that he couldn’t actually hear him. “After this, you’ll never call what you felt before pain. Janos, get behind him and grab him round the chest. Hold on, and don’t move for anything.” Tristan grasped the boy’s thigh. He looked hard into Alex’s sleeping face. “Think about running all the way home and giving your mother the biggest bear hug she ever had,” Tristan said softly. The boy smiled in his sleep.

  Chapter Six

  So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth.

  Psalm 58:11

  Afterward Tristan’s side felt like he had something sharp stuck in his belt. That went on for hours, as they jogged back and forth from the forge to the tavern with loads of kegs. They were empty, but they were not light. They rested once and the little, near-sighted tavern host gave them bread and cheese and a mug of hot tea as they sat on his front steps beneath the narrow overhang, black mud smeared up to their armpits. The rain let up as they ate and the sun peeked out, the sky much as it had been the night before when Thomas had led Tristan outside. “How is it that it just stops raining like this, the sun or the moon comes out, then it begins raining again so quickly?” he groaned.

  “I’ve lived here more than twenty years,” The landlord chuckled. “It’s always like that in the spring. You think it rains two months straight, but every day there’s a little peek of sunshine, or moonshine, just God letting us see His face again and letting us know He hasn’t forgotten us. I think it’s good for the grapes.”

  “The grapes?” Tristan echoed.

  “You don’t know about Tarraskida’s fortune?” The landlord asked. “Gregor the wine merchant has an estate over to the west, half a day’s walk, I suppose. His family has perfected the soil, the drainage, the clay and the sand balance, everything necessary to grow the best grapes and make the best wines in the Realmlands. That’s what makes Larcondale so valuable. This valley was a fine place to begin with for growing grapes, and Gregor’s family has just kept improving it generation after generation.”

  “You said the man is a merchant,” Tristan said. “He travels, then? He might go to Parangor sometimes?”

  “Nobody can go anywhere right now,” the tavernkeeper snorted. “And Gregor’s not even here. He wintered somewhere down south, and won’t be back until things dry out. I suppose when he does return you could speak to him.”

  Tristan forced himself to eat and tried to ignore the fact that his side seemed to be on fire. The scalding tea felt good rushing into his icy insides, but it was hard to keep the food down. It didn’t seem polite to refuse the landlord’s hospitality, however, and Ilesa’s bread and milk was certainly long gone. He and Janos took turns wearing the cloak, which was black from the rain and mud but still kept dry on the inside. He tried switching sides on the cart shafts, but his side didn’t hurt any less no matter what he did.

  Darkness fell early, since of course it had hardly been very light to begin with. At last the final trip to the tavern was made. Tristan staggered and fell on the step after he and Janos had passed the last keg over to the tavern owner.

  “You can get that cart back to Mickle on your own now it’s empty, can’t you?” The landlord asked Janos. “I think your friend wants a rest.”

  “You get a share o’ what Mickle pays me,” Janos insisted to Tristan. “I’d’ve never got this done without you.”

  “Never mind about that now,” the landlord growled. “Settle up that stuff later.” Tiny as he was, he had a commanding manner that set Janos on his way, trotting between the shafts of the empty cart after he had clasped Tristan’s hand tightly and looked into his eyes with a mixture of gratitude and utter disbelief.

  “Can you get up? I can see you’re in a lot of pain,” the tavernkeeper said kindly to Tristan. “Come inside here, lad, and never mind the floor.” With the landlord under his arm Tristan managed to stumble into the public room and collapse on a bench before the fire. The landlord hung Tristan’s cloak up alongside the fireplace, and in spite of his side raking him with pain at every breath Tristan noticed the little man seemed to be studying the cloak for some minutes before letting go of it.

  “I’m going to have my girl draw you a bath and let you sleep here for the night,” the landlord said. “I have a few rooms as well as the tavern. By the way, my name’s Brentin. We’ll get your clothes washed out, too, and clean your boots. You’ll want to take care of those. You’ll not see another pair as good as those hereabouts.”

  “Why would you do all this?” Tristan asked uneasily. “I can’t pay you for a bed and bath.”

  “Actually, I believe you can,” Brentin said with a crafty smile. “I’ve heard about the fellow Thomas has been taking care of, the prince who washed down the Lahina. Folks here joke about it, but having seen your boots and your cloak, I know they weren’t made for a common man.”

  “I didn’t steal them, if that’s what you think,” Tristan said wearily. “And they didn’t come lined with gold.”

  “
Don’t be too sure of that. Anyway, if you had stolen them, they wouldn’t be in such ruinous shape,” the landlord laughed. “No thief would be stupid enough to nearly destroy such valuable stuff. And the boots fit you perfectly. How likely is it that if you stole them? The cloak, though, seems as if it were made for a shorter, broader man. What’s happened to the lining? Some sort of silk, wasn’t it, no doubt very pretty? I can see you tore it out, but you didn’t throw it away, did you?”

  “I need to get back to Thomas’ house.” Tristan suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable in the landlord’s presence. “Ilesa will need help with the evening chores.”

  “I doubt if you can get up, my boy, much less chop any more wood for the minister’s wife,” Brentin chuckled. “Sit still. I already sent a message to her to say you’re staying here tonight. She’ll hear all you’ve been doing today, if she hasn’t already, and conclude it was too much too soon for that rib you’re supposed to be taking care of. You’ve done a bit of work for your first day out and about in our little town. These are strange deeds for a prince – rescuing a mistreated pony, reducing a poor boy’s dislocated hip, running about playing carthorse with Janos. Seems you’ve even reformed Mickle, who’s been taking advantage of people for far too long. I wish I could’ve seen you tweak his ear with those tongs. But here I am chatting away, and you drenched and muddy and in pain. Have a soak in the tub, and I’ll find you something dry to wear while your clothes are washed.”

  An hour later Tristan felt a little better, though his side was still painful and his muscles had begun to complain about the unaccustomed labor. Brentin tried to help Tristan wrap his midsection but it only afforded a little relief. Brentin practically fed Tristan some broth and tea as he sat propped up in bed in a small room.

  “Now, trust me and tell me about the cloak lining. I’m the town magistrate, and I know you’re not a thief. I have a reason for wanting to know that’ll benefit both of us.”

  “I didn’t throw it away,” Tristan replied. “I was cleaning up the cloak inside the church. The cloak was my brother’s. He had our women embroider an image of an idol, what he called the river god, into the silk. The river ruined it, and I’m glad. I was going to throw out the lining, but I heard Janos outside struggling with the pony and I just left it in there on the floor.”

  “With your permission, I’ll send my boy to get it,” Brentin said. He brought the leather cloak over to the bedside and made Tristan look closely at the clinging threads of the lining that remained. “Look there at that bit of thread,” the landlord said. “See how it shines in the light? That’s not silk. This lining was partly worked with gold thread. I mean threads made of gold, boy. I used to be a tailor in Gannes, the capital city. I know what cloth of gold is worth. This isn’t that, of course, but it’d pay us both for me to pick those gold threads out of that lining. I know how to do it, and I will, if you’ll share the worth with me.”

  “I don’t know,” Tristan grunted. “It’s like I’m profiting from my brother’s paganism. I wanted to just destroy that thing, because of what it used to be.”

  “Don’t be foolish,” Brentin exclaimed. “The gold didn’t ask to be made into some false god. Gold exists to help man, to feed and clothe him and please him with its beauty and worth. God told us where to find gold at the beginning of His Book when the world was perfect. What harm can there be in putting it back to its proper use –rewarding those who take the trouble to dig it out?”

  “Gladly, then,” Tristan said, realizing that he’d truly met another believer. “Do you think there would be enough to buy some books?”

  “Books?” Brentin echoed. “Of course, if you can find any to buy. What do you want books for?”

  “A schoolteacher has to have books,” Tristan said with a grin.

  “Schoolteacher,” Brentin said, shaking his head. “That’ll make all you did today seem easy, lad.”

  “Oh,” Tristan murmured. “I was hoping it would be easier.”

  A little later Thomas came by to see him. “Here you are confined to bed again,” the minister frowned. “You can’t have done all the things people are saying you did just today.”

  “You told me to try to find a way to earn my bread,” Tristan said with a shrug. “I got breakfast, lunch and supper.” That shrug made his side hurt again.

  “I told you to go easy, not try to do too much. Well, you’ve tried woodcutter, roof repairman, cart horse, farrier, doctor, all in one day,” Thomas chuckled. “Though I suppose you won’t succeed if you want to go in for milking. I saw the storeroom in the church. I’m sorry. I never go in there anymore and didn’t know it would be in that state. I’m very glad you made other sleeping arrangements. Mickle came to see me, to make some sort of confession, I suppose, for all his wrongs all these years, and because he didn’t really know where you were. I told him you were here, but he was afraid to come see you himself. Perhaps he thought you’d kept the tongs by you. He said he wanted to hire you as a farrier,” he chuckled. “He also said the boy Alex seems comfortable and he’s cleaned out a proper resting place for the pony on dry ground. I told him he could talk to you about the farrier business tomorrow, if you’re up and about. Brentin says you’ll be rich, with the threads from that cloak lining, eh?”

  “If there’s really money to be had from that, some of it’s yours,” Tristan said. “I owe you my life, and for a whole new life, it seems.”

  “The church accepts offerings,” Thomas said, dropping his eyes. “But if it’s true that you’ll teach the children, you’ll pay me back.” Thomas patted Tristan gently on the shoulder. “Get some rest.”

  “So I have to wait,” Tristan told himself later as he fought off his various aches and pains and wished he could sleep. “I suppose I can try the farrier work, see if I can do it. It seems odd that what I did to pass the time with Gladring, to get away from Dunstan, might turn out to be the thing that I can do to earn my living. I can’t imagine the gold threads in Dunstan’s cloak are going to make me rich. From what I’ve seen in this place, even if I have money there’s not much to buy. Money won’t dry up the mud or make a path back to Kenborana. Until that Gregor fellow returns there’s still no way for me to get home. So I’ll see what God brings tomorrow.”

  Tristan made his way through the rain to the blacksmith’s shop the next morning. He met Mickle in the same place on the porch where he had been yesterday, but Mickle hastily got up as soon as he saw him. “I understand you want a farrier,” Tristan said, as if they had just met, making absolutely no reference to yesterday’s events. He did glance into the forge area and noted that Alex looked a thousand times better and was sitting up eating gruel by the fire, awkwardly trying to stay off his injured hip. The place had become rather cluttered again, with dirty pots on the hearth and a stained blanket thrown over the chair on the opposite side of the fire from the stool on which Alex sat. Apparently Mickle lived, ate, and slept at his place of business, in that one room.

  “Aye, I’ve never been a hand with the beasts,” Mickle said. “Lots of business to be had from folk wantin’ horses took care of, even cattle. Reckon you could handle them?”

  “I’ve never worked with cattle, just horses,” Tristan said.

  “Cows are just bigger and badder-tempered,” Mickle shrugged. “I speck you’d catch on. Nobody else doin’ anythin’, bad or good.”

  “If I came here, there’d have to be some changes,” Tristan said.

  “Changes?” Mickle echoed. He looked around nervously. “Oh, aye, cleanin’ an’ such.” He wiped at the grime on his chin and ground it deeper into his stubbly beard. “Aye, I just got breakfast for the boy. Be tidyin’ up right away.”

  “I mean living arrangements. We can’t all crowd into this forge room. We’ll have to build on to your shop and make rooms. One for each of us.”

  “One for each?” Mickle scowled. He scratched himself. “Wood’s dear. That’d be a lot o’ buildin’. You a carpenter, too?”

  “All right, Ale
x and I can share, but you’re the master. You should have a room of your own, not just sleep in a chair by the forge,” Tristan argued. In reality he balked at the idea of sleeping near Mickle, whose person was about as clean as his shop had been. Mickle lit up considering himself as Master of the Forge, pushing his greasy hair out of his eyes.

  “Does the carpenter have a horse?” Tristan asked.

  “Aye, cow and goats, too.”

  “I’ll offer to take care of his animals in exchange for his building us rooms, and work on it with him,” Tristan suggested.

  As it turned out, the wife of Gringus the carpenter became their housekeeper, because Alex was her sister’s boy and she wanted to help nurse him. And Mickle did smithy work for the carpenter and his wife, whose name was Ethra, to pay for the housekeeping and so that she would not tell her sister what Mickle had been doing with her son. Tristan helped with the building, and learned a good deal of carpentry skill in the process. The carpenter looked at him in stupefaction when he offered to share his cloak as he had with Janos. There was no putting off all work till the rain stopped in a Larcondale spring, Tristan learned very quickly, or you’d put it off till summer. And though the two finished rooms together were tinier than his wardrobe had been back at Castle Kenborana, they were sound and leak-free and Mickle’s pungent odor stayed on his side of the wall. The night the room was finished, Alex sank gratefully onto the wood-framed, rope-springed cot on his side of the room he shared with Tristan.

  Tristan found that it was possible to work out bartering arrangements with many of the people in Larcondale. People knew Mickle as an unrelenting cash-only tyrant, but his new farrier made deals in his name that he reluctantly honored, because a great deal of profit of non-monetary sorts came to the shop when money wasn’t available. A fat ham hung by the fireplace, payment from the butcher for Tristan’s treatment of his newborn calf’s case of the scours.