A Bandit Accountant
Chapter Pi, Roughly
Scene Six: Strange Footprints
“Did you really steal clothes?” Kurt asked Denario as they hiked up a hill. The evening air was turning out to feel a bit moist, as if a rain storm was coming. There were a rolling clouds on the horizon but none of them, as yet, dark enough to worry about.
“As far as you know,” Denario responded. He was put out by having this adolescent along, even if Kurt was stronger and tougher than he was.
“What's it like being a thief?” Kurt teased.
“About the same as being an accountant.”
“What's it like being an accountant, then?”
“Fun,” answered Denario truthfully. Studying under Master Winkel had made it joyous. Besides, almost everything was fun compared to his duties as a slave. “What's it like being a farmer?”
“I wouldn't know,” said Kurt.
“Because you're a wheelwright? Your father said there wasn't enough business for him to work that job full time. I thought you farmed.”
He shrugged. “I don't run the place. I just do jobs. Even my older brother Wolfgang has more say than me.”
“So you think you won't inherit the fields?”
“Wolfgang is a cripple. He can't work the land by himself. But I'm not going to take orders from him all my life, either. If he inherits ...”
“Ah.” Denario began to see the problem. “Could the farm go to you?”
“Maybe.”
“Are you not sure if you want to be a farmer?”
“I'm not sure I'll wait for my father to make the decision. After all, I can become something else, can't I? It's allowed. And then I could travel.”
Denario thought about the dangers of traveling. But a young man like Kurt would just laugh those off. Same for the discomforts. No, if a man was resolved to travel, he would do it. The problem with Kurt was that he hadn't trained for any other profession. He didn't seem to be aware that five to seven years of apprenticeship was usually involved. Even then, most jobs available around here didn't lend themselves to travel. How far could a farrier get from his horses? Where did a animal doctor go besides farms? Most skilled laborers in town, like glassblowers, blacksmiths, and clock makers, stayed in one place.
“You want to see other towns?” That would limit the choices. It might be better to hire on with a merchant. “Would you travel farther, if you could, to other countries or to those islands in the Complacent Sea?”
“I don't know. Maybe when I see another big city, not just Ziegeburg, then I'll decide.”
“Ah.” Since Denario knew that Ziegeburg was tiny compared to Oggli, Angrili, or Baggi, that illuminated another problem that Kurt would experience – perspective. Sailors who came to port in Oggli spoke of Guntar and other southern cities where the original Munstabi tongue was still spoken. Those were larger than the northern cities, although they were apparently a bit run down nowadays. Sailors complained that no one in Guntar wanted to buy luxury items in the spring. Every spare penny in the ancient cities got spent on food over the winter.
“Do accountants travel much?” asked Kurt in a hopeful voice. His expression was neutral but his question hung in the air.
“It depends. Some accountants stay in one place all their lives. But they can only do that in large, rich cities. Here, in the wilderness, most accountants aren't even trained. They learn on their own and then follow the work. My old master would have called them book keepers rather than proper accountants.”
“This isn't the wilderness. This is the Ziege.”
“Um.” Denario should have known that slightly shocked comment was coming. “Right. But this is still an area in which an accountant would need to travel. In fact, if the local baron, knights, or burghers don't provide enough custom, he might need to sell other skills, too, like geometry.”
“What's geometry?”
“It means 'earth measurement.' A geometer measures the natural world.”
“Like a surveyor? I remember a couple years back when the Haphmeyers and the Smiths had a border dispute because their creek bed changed. They had to hire someone to tell them where the property lines had gone.”
“Exactly. That's a peaceful job for a geometer.”
“What? They almost killed him! What's a non-peaceful job like?”
“I meant that, in times of peace, geometers don't make war engines to tear down castle walls or things like that. Surveying is nice. I did that twice with Master Winkel. He helped decide where roads should go.”
“Huh.” Kurt had crested the hill. He kicked a stone down the slope on the other side. “I don't ...”
“What's that?” Denario pointed to a brown shape in the distance. It passed between two clumps of maple trees.
“A deer.”
“With a long tail?”
“A horse, then.” Kurt trudged down through the thick grass.
“What's it doing here?” Denario couldn't say why it worried him. He hadn't seen a rider or a saddle. It might have had reins, though, which implied a former rider nearby.
“Someone lost it, I bet.” Kurt narrowed his eyes on the trees into which it had disappeared. “Must have jumped a fence.”
“But ...” Denario considered the possibilities. There weren't many draft horses around Ziegeburg, according to the town farrier. Anyway, it had looked like a short filly, born to run fast. Who had one of those? The question nagged him.
He trailed after Kurt, who strode onward impatiently. All of his concerns about accounting had fled. The usual background of math thoughts that flitted through his head vanished, too, replaced by hyper-awareness. He noticed the greenery, the rocks, the bracken, and three groves of small trees. He saw how the wants-to-travel, hasn't-learned-any-skills-yet teenager was lost in his own, personal misery. Kurt trounced right into the darkened underhang of branches, not far from where a horse had disappeared. Denario stopped there, unsure of whether he should go in.
“What are you waiting for?” Kurt asked irritably when he noticed Denario many yards behind him.
“Just listening,” said Denario. He couldn't hear any horse hooves. On the other hand, he couldn't hear any birds, either. The silence seemed alarming.
“Look, I'm the guide,” said Kurt. “I know how to get you to the Guntaffson's farm. It's less than a day away from Hogsburg and that's where you're going. But you have to follow me.”
“Shouldn't we be traveling at night? I think your father said.”
“We'll rest in the barn soon, wake in the middle of the night, and I'll get you to the Hogsburg trail before day break.” There was an undertone to his voice that said, I know what I'm doing. “See? I'll show you some hiking in the dark.”
“Well, fine.” Denario marched forward. It was only a horse, after all. If there were a rider nearby, he or she would be on foot.
As the minutes passed and they climbed the next hill, he convinced himself to relax. The sun was low in the sky. Kurt seemed to think that the farm he was taking them to was close. Down in the next culvert, they passed over a narrow stream on a sturdy foot bridge. Some farmer kept that bridge in good shape. It felt reassuring to think of the family members, any of whom could be working somewhere nearby.
Up the next slope, though, Denario noticed wisps of smoke to the north, almost directly in their path.
“Is that a campfire?” He pointed to where the the haze was most visible.
“Could be the Guntaffson home fires,” Kurt grunted. “Wait, is that right?”
“Then what's that smoke over there?” Denario pointed to a more distant spire of soot farther eastward.
“Huh.” Kurt stopped and put his hands on his hips.
Denario whirled around. He thought he'd heard a noise. A shadow next to the footbridge wavered. A bush shook in the breeze. Or was there a breeze? The bushes on the other side of the bridge weren't shaking in the wind.
“Something's ... odd,” said Denario. “There's almost a trail here in the ground.”
“That's not odd. The older Guntaffson boys come through.” Kurt laughed. It sounded forced. “They cross the bridge a couple times a week, at least.”
“Do they have a horse?”
Almost everywhere they'd gone, the grass was as high as Denario's waist. It was worse than a forest, in a way, since it was harder to walk through than leaves and bracken. So far today, the tall grass had hidden two snakes, one fox, seventeen groundhogs, six rabbits, four large anthills, and one thing that was too big for a farm cat but had all the right markings and about the right shape. That's why Denario had grown accustomed to letting Kurt lead the way. The boy seemed to know how to avoid the dangerous animals.
Occasionally, there were bare patches of ground amidst the green. In one such place, up the slope in front of them and to their left, two rough prints had been left in the spongy ground. Denario pointed to them.
“They keep a few sheep, that's all,” said Kurt. He meandered to the patch of dirt and knelt to run his fingers inside a hoof print. “Okay, now this is odd. It really is.”
“Could that be deer?”
“No.” The teenager snorted. "Tracks from deer hooves look completely different. Ye were right the first time. It's a horse. I just don't know what it's doing around here.”
He rose and studied the distant fires. Only one of them could have come from the Guntaffson chimneys. The other, well, that was a good question.
“Maybe ole Leif Guntaffson is burning something in his west field?” Kurt ventured. But since it was a question, not a statement, he must have hoped there was a simple, peaceful explanation. He just hadn't thought of any he believed.
“Do we go check it out or do we stay away from it?” Denario saw advantages to each. “That's the thing, isn't it ... guide?”
Kurt put his fingers to his temples. He rubbed his head. Denario knew what the young man had to be thinking: if they didn't go check and it was the farmer burning a stump or an anthill, they'd be considered rude. They might run into someone from the farmer's family, who would wonder why they were crossing the Guntaffson fields without saying hello.
“My father said to stay away from people.” Kurt nodded to himself. “So let's do that. If the Guntaffson's don't see us, they can't get in trouble with the mayor. We'll go around, directly north for a while. We probably won't get to one of their barns till sunset that way but it can't be helped.”
“Fine by me.” Denario had dropped his pack from his shoulders while they talked. He felt exhausted, nearly defeated by these hills, but the prospect of reaching a resting place lifted his spirits. He hitched his pack back up over his shoulder and took his first step in what he hoped would be the last mile of today's journey.
Directly in his line of vision, from the strand of trees in front of the campfire smoke, a man stepped into view. He was wearing a hard, leather vest that Denario had never seen before but otherwise, he looked familiar and not in a good way. He gave Denario a sinister smile.
To the left, directly north, another man stepped out from behind some trees. Denario knew him instantly, the curly-haired gambler from yesterday.
Denario glanced behind. There was a man at the footbridge now. He had his arms folded. He was there to block their retreat.
“Well, well, well,” said the curly-headed man. His name was Warren, Denario remembered. It hadn't seemed important yesterday, when the over-sized personality of Tremelo the Magnificent ruled the room. Warren strode towards Denario and Kurt with a look of self-confident humor. As he approached, he pulled a long dagger from his belt. “Everyone thought we was crazy. But we knew you'd have help. Yeah. We knew your friends would tell you to come this way.”
Chapter Four, Scene One
Stories on life, death, enlightenment, zen buddhism, religion, philosophy, stoicism, meditation, daoism, kindness but not meekness, and samsara.
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Not Even Not Zen 22: A Bandit Accountant, 3.5
A Bandit Accountant
Chapter Pi, Roughly
Scene Five: Holy Larceny
When Denario was nine and carried all his worldly possessions out of the slave barracks on his back, he was surprised to discover that Master Winkel traveled by donkey, and not by horse. The master lifted Denario by the armpits and set him atop a rough saddle blanket. The burro, whose name was Half-Stitch, barely flicked his tail. When Winkel hit him with a rod, Half-Stitch launched into a walking pace.
“Horses are unstable,” Winkel said by way of an explanation.
“They scare me,” Denario admitted from his seat on the donkey. No one had raised him to show false courage. He often came out with admissions that other boys would never speak.
The master accountant nodded his head as if dreading the presence of horses was perfectly sensible. Within the year, Denario would realize that the master feared those beasts even more than Denario did. Their huge masses of muscle, flared nostrils, wide eyes, and the sheer reek of their sweat kept Winkel in a state of alarm. He wouldn't touch the reins even if the owner guided him. It was so bad that, despite sitting at his desk in the counting house, Winkel would jump when he heard a horse snort outside his window.
He and Winkel took turns on the donkey as they traveled. Sometimes they would both walk to give the donkey a bit of a rest although Denario didn't much slow down the creature with his nearly unnoticeable weight.
“Why is he called Half-Stitch?” Denario asked.
“Because I don't own him.” The master let out a soft giggle, a noise he made when satisfied with himself. It could have been irritating to others but Denario found it endearing. “I share him with the tailor. You see? That's why the name. It's a joke.”
“You can't afford a donkey?”
“Oh, I could spend money on two or three donkeys or maybe even a pair of horses. Would you like that?”
“No.”
“Good. Neither would I.” He smacked Half-Stitch on the bottom. “I don't like needless expense. When I worked out that I only use my donkey about one quarter of the year, I searched for a way to lower the cost of owning him. After all, it takes money to feed and house a good burro like this. Plus I don't know how to do it and I don't want to know. I want someone to keep my burro for me.”
“Is that a job?” Denario's eyes widened. He was beginning to learn about all the ways that a free man could make money.
“Yes, I pay a stable master. He pays stable hands, buys the feed, and so on. But why should I pay for a whole donkey myself if I can't use him even half of the time?”
“Because you can't ride half a donkey?” Denario ventured.
Winkel laughed. "Very good. A donkey is an indivisible unit. That's true. But what if I share the donkey? That might be hard, of course. Sharing takes some work. But I found a tailor in town only one street from me who rented a donkey from the stables. He, too, only needed our little burro friend for a part of the year. But renting the donkey was, for him, quite expensive.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.” The master's narrow shoulders rose in a shrug. “Maybe if you rent a donkey for a week out of a year, the stable master still has to feed the donkey all year, so that week is expensive. Maybe the stable master says that's how it works but he just charges high prices so he can make a good profit. Who knows? Well, I do, actually.”
“You do? How?”
“I do the books for the stables. But never mind that. The point is, it was cheaper for the tailor to share the ownership expense of a donkey with me than to rent different donkeys twenty times per year. And I renamed our friend here 'Half-Stitch' in honor of the tailor, so the tailor was pleased. We both come out ahead in our arrangement.”
“What's the tailor's name?”
“Ah. You take an interest in people. Good. His name is Gregor Liveli. His sons are Lukas and Hansel. Their mother came from far-away Uberwald with quite a bit of dowry, so they have set themselves up well. The boys are fine workers. They make not the best clothes but they make decent ones, among the best for their price.”
The burro clopped onward up a slope. As they headed down the other side, Denario wondered, “Which is it? Does the stable master make a big profit on renting animals or does he only cover his expenses?”
“I won't tell.”
“I think I know,” said Denario.
“But I still won't tell.” Winkel made his announcement with a proud sort of smile.
In the late afternoon, Winkel bade Denario to get down and walk. Together, they led the donkey onto a narrow path off of the main trail. The strip of naked dirt led though a thicket of low scrub and stunted trees. A rivulet of mud and a trickle of water ran from a rocky precipice above. Winkel led his beast up a switchback. Denario followed. Finally, when the ground leveled off, they had marched almost to the top of a small hill. There were hardly any trees, only a few saplings. The rest of the space was dirt, grass and rocks. Many of the stones were boulders as big as a man's head. A few were as small as a fist and as craggy as a shriveled fruit.
The stones were laid out in some sort of pattern, never more than two feet high, sometimes in lines as wide as four feet or as narrow as a hands-width. Denario had the impression that the pattern would make sense if only he had the imagination to see it properly.
In the center of the dirt paths, encircled by stacked rocks, someone had dug a well. More likely, Denario realized, someone had found an ancient spring and built this odd edifice around it. Even now the water's surface lay only a few feet below the rocks. It seemed miraculous, as if a supernatural spirit had forced water up through the rocks deliberately.
The spring was probably related to the water source that fed the rivulet they had passed earlier. The same dribble of water collected in pools down the side of the hill and farther, across the main trail, then in fits and starts again down toward the Ghost Stream, which fed the river called Riggle Kill.
Winkel put his hand into a small, natural trough in one of the larger boulders. It was bone dry.
“Pull up a bucket for the donkey, boy. Then rest for a moment.”
“Master Winkel, why are we here?” Denario trotted over to a tiny earthenware pail. It had a hole in the bottom. He picked it up and tested it with his fingers. It seemed he would be able to plug the hole. “I mean, it doesn't seem like we've come this far to rest.”
“What makes you say that?” The master probed.
“We passed a bigger well not forty yards from the road only half an hour ago.” His hands went to his hips as he considered the problem. “Is the water there bad? I don't think it can be very bad because four men were drinking from a big bowl.”
“The water there is fine. And before you ask, the men are fine, too. I recognized them.”
“Then why? We made the donkey climb up pretty high. Did you come to write more on your map?” He scooped up a pail of water and sluiced it into a natural trough in the rocks. The donkey had been waiting there for him to do it. It wasn't hard to figure out.
“No, I finished my mapping here ages ago. We've come for the temple. Young man, these cairns of stones around you don't look like much but they mark a holy presence. This place is sacred to Melcurio.”
“Melcurio is a god?” Denario set down his pail.
“He's the god of accountants. Watch now. In silence.”
Winkel strode to the edge of the well. He made a sign with one hand above his heart. Then he reached into his moneybag, pulled out a copper penny, and tossed it into the rather shallow depths. It disappeared into a clump of algae at the bottom.
“What was that for?” Denario edged closer, looking for the coin.
“Melcurio, hear our prayers,” mumbled Winkel. “I have made this boy my own. Now I give him to you. I will train him into your service.”
“You're giving me away?” exclaimed Denario. He was shocked. He had already grown fond of the accountant's presence and thought he wouldn't need to leave.
“Only in a manner of speaking.” Winkel gave him a sly smile but it was reassuring, too. He was letting his pupil in on a joke. “For the gods, we sometimes run two sets of books. I'm writing you onto his ledger. But I've already written you down on my own. It's doubly entry of a sort. But don't worry, he'll understand.”
“He? Do you mean the god?”
“Yes. Melcurio is the god of accounting, as I said. He does a few other things, too, but mainly, it's accounting.”
“You're giving me to this god?”
“Of course. Wouldn't you like to become an accountant?”
“Will I get to do that?” Up to this point, Denario hadn't dared to hope. For all he knew, the master might be inclined to teach Denario carry his bags, no more. “All the math and geometry?”
He held his breath, waiting for the answer.
“I don't think I've ever met anyone more suited than you.” The patriarch beamed. “And it's an odd coincidence, if that's what it is, that you should come along in my life now. Two nights ago, I went to the temple of Melcurio in Oggli, as I always do before my journeys, and I prayed to Melcurio for an hour. Then, on almost a whim, I asked for something special. I don't usually do that.”
“Does the god listen to you?”
“I don't really know. That's how it is with gods. Anyway, I asked for a great task, a quest to give my life additional meaning. And I asked for an heir, someone worthy to succeed me, someone to whom I could trust my life's work. There has been much of it, you see.”
“What about your sons?” Winkel's beard was at least half grey. He was more than old enough.
“No sons, no wife.” He threw up his arms. “There were a few women who appealed to me but, apparently, I didn't appeal to them. And somehow, I was always too busy to arrange a suitable marriage for myself. My mother died long ago before she could do it. My father tried to buy me a good woman from a family of our class but his idea of a suitable woman differed from mine. Considerably.”
Denario must have given him an uncomprehending look.
“I prefer them to have teeth, among other things. Did you ever have someone who shopped to give you a present? Oh, no, you wouldn't have. But my father, I think he was one of those people who say they're getting something for you but really, they're getting it for themselves. He kept looking for women who he liked, never asking what I would like. He married one of the women I turned down. Then he stopped proposing brides to me and told me to look out for myself.”
“You're an accountant. Aren't you rich?”
“Ah. I see you have a basic grasp of romance.” It was the first time Denario had seen the accountant give an ironic smile. It wasn't too harsh. “Yes, I am well off, as most prospective husbands go. I could marry a woman who needed my money, if I tried.”
“But you won't.”
“I'm over fifty, now. My father is many years dead. Most of my friends have moved or died, too. I'm sometimes lonely, yes, but frankly, I've lost interest in women. My life has been busy and good. All I want is an heir. I have a young man at home who helps me out but his understanding of accounting is terrible. He has no love of math. If I'm going to leave my work to anyone, Denario, it's to you.”
“You're going to leave math for me to do?”
“Ah, no. You don't quite understand. But you're nine. And a slave. Or anyway you were a slave for all of your life until today. You're going to see a lot more of the world as a free man, as an accountant, than you would have as a textile worker. You'll understand after I teach you.”
“Do you like seeing the world? Is it good?”
“There are many nice people and nice places, yes. I enjoy them. Even the bad parts, I enjoy a little as I write down descriptions of them for other accountants. Say, can you write?” Winkel worried in beard as he considered the issue. “That's a question I should have asked before.”
“I don't know if I can write. I taught myself to read.”
Winkel sat on a short ridge of sacred stones.
“I'm a fool. You're bright. Yes, you are. But what am I doing? Oh, Melcurio, what a burden! What a gift you have given me!” He beseeched the sky. Denario couldn't help glancing at the clouds in case the god was coming down from them. A beam of light broke out from behind them. It cast a warm glow. “How can I serve this way? I was a fool to ask for it. I don't know how to be a father. And I see now that I need to be a father to this boy.”
The accountant flopped onto his back. He had the sense not to bang his head against the stones behind him but it didn't look comfortable. He breathed heavily, as if staving off an panic attack.
“Have you traveled anywhere at all?” he wailed.
“I've gone all the way to field number eight. That's as far as anyone goes.” He surveyed the sacred spring and the maze of low, stone walls. He was a long way from home but happier than he'd thought possible. “That is, that's as far as any of us were allowed to go, including me, until now.”
Tears appeared in Master Winkel's eyes. His lips emitted a burbly laugh. To Denario, the day seemed full of grown men crying without being beaten first. Very odd. Maybe that was a normal part of the larger world, people crying without getting any injuries. Denario just hadn't seen it before.
While the accountant mumbled to himself, Denario strolled to the circle of stones around the fresh spring. A few glints of pennies and half-pennies, most covered by green rust and algae, a few still half-shining, caught his eye. He reached in for one, fumbled, turned over a few slippery stones, and finally retrieved the coin. He inspected its corroded metal. The denomination stamped on it was obscured by algae, at least a few weeks' worth. He glanced at the silt he'd stirred up in the pool. There should be more pennies here, he realized. Some of the worshipers must steal them back. He wondered if this particular worshiper whose coin Denario held had gotten his prayer answered. Denario had never prayed before. No one had ever invited him. He supposed that gods weren't interested in slaves. But he wasn't a slave now, according to his master. Anyway, he'd seen how the prayers were done.
“Oh, Melcurio,” he began. He'd forgotten to make the sign over his heart, so he paused to do so. He'd watched his master carefully, so he was sure he was right. “Oh, Melcurio, hear our prayers. I give myself to your service. Only, you know, I give myself to Master Winkel's service, too. I'm to become an accountant. That sounds fun.”
He tossed the coin back into the shallow well. With a plunk, it shook the water's surface, turned over, and wobbled to the bottom among the silt and rocks. An edge shone in the sunlight. As he watched it, he felt an odd sensation ripple through his skin. He looked up to the sky. He couldn't see any birds. There was only the sun and the clouds. But he had a warm feeling inside. His new master had stopped crying and mumbling.
Denario didn't move. He felt that someone was waiting for him to say more. Was it the god? Was Melcurio paying attention? His heart felt light, almost giddy.
“Oh, Melcurio,” he said to the clouds. “I know a trick you might like. I've figured out how to reduce a number to its prime factors. Want to see the trick?”
He waited a requisite moment for the god to talk, just in case. His body still felt light. He was eager to show off.
“Let's pick a funny number. Well, 6552 would have the factors of .... 2, 2, 2, 3, 7 ... and 13.” He'd cheated a little on that one because he'd worked on that particular number yesterday. “Go ahead, pick any number.”
“One thousand, seven hundred seventy-one,” whispered Master Winkel from behind him. Denario pictured the number in his head, 1771, and realized that it had to be divisible by 11. He started there.
“See, Melcurio, 1771 has prime factors ... 11, 23, and 7. No more.”
“1313!”
“That's too easy because 13 is prime and it goes into 1313 exactly 101 times ... and 101 must be prime, too ... I can't seem to put any number smaller than 51 into it ... yes, it's prime.”
“Amazing!” breathed the elderly accountant. He had risen to his feet.
“It's just a trick.” Denario started to turn around to talk. Then, remembering the god, he bowed a little to the well and to the sky. “Ever since Tom told me what primes were, I've been thinking about them.”
“I must say it's well done.” Winkel hobbled up to Denario's side. “Get on your knees with me for just a moment. I can almost feel the god's presence.”
“Okay.” Denario knew what the accountant meant. He felt it, too. All the same, he also sensed that Melcurio didn't really go in for a lot of bowing and scraping. He fell to one knee, only, like the visiting knights did when greeting the baron.
They were silent for less than a minute, long enough to satisfy the master. Then they stood. Winkel brushed dust from his robe and pants.
“How did you guess, Denario? Or did you already know that Melcurio likes tricks?”
“I didn't. I just felt like ... you know, like someone was amused.”
“Yes, you've certainly lightened my spirits. Or the god has.” Winkel glanced up a the sun. A cloud was starting to drift over it again. “That has to be one of the more unusual offerings the god has received, I think. You may have gotten his notice. What possessed you to offer yourself?”
“You said you gave me to the god as a free man. So I thought I should give myself freely, too. Does this mean I'm free now? I'm not a slave?”
“That's right,” said Winkel. “You are not my slave. You are my apprentice.”
“I could leave if I like?”
Winkel raised an eyebrow. “If you like. Would you like to run away? Go somewhere else? Be something else?”
“Never,” announced Denario. “I will work for you to the death.”
Winkel was quiet for a long while. The donkey had finished with its water, so he wandered over to it and took its reins. He hopped aboard the saddle blanket. Without any directions from its master, Half-Stitch just stood and waited. After a moment or two, Winkel bowed his head. He seemed to remember what he should be doing. So he got off the donkey and motioned for Denario to come alongside of him. He led them all down the trail, the way they'd come.
“That's a noble sentiment of yours, Denario.” The accountant shook his head as they walked. “I feel blessed to have heard those words. But you are young, so young. We shall see. At any rate, it'll be to my death, not yours. By then, I'm sure you'll be a master accountant.”
“You'll raise me to be a master?”
“You? Oh, yes. Easily. Stay with me and you'll be the master of all money and all maths. You'll be a man who everyone talks about, an example for all. I'm a top master myself. You'll be second to none if I have anything to do about it.”
When they reached the bottom of the switchback, Winkel stretched. He sighed with relief and glanced at the slope behind them. Even Half-Stitch seemed relieved. He cantered four or five paces before settling down to his usual plodding pace.
“When can I start my lessons?” Denario wondered.
“Oh, well, I hadn't given much thought on how to begin ... I suppose I should test you more on what you know already. Do you have any questions? Maybe we could start with those.”
“Yes. What is 'double entry?' I hadn't heard you mention that before but you talked about it with the god. It seems important.”
“Ah, that's a form of book-keeping, Denario. It was invented by Luca Pacioli, a devout Melcurio worshiper, almost two hundred years ago. It's an excellent system for most businesses ... not all, perhaps, but I'll explain any exceptions later ...”
Chapter Three, Scene Six
Chapter Pi, Roughly
Scene Five: Holy Larceny
When Denario was nine and carried all his worldly possessions out of the slave barracks on his back, he was surprised to discover that Master Winkel traveled by donkey, and not by horse. The master lifted Denario by the armpits and set him atop a rough saddle blanket. The burro, whose name was Half-Stitch, barely flicked his tail. When Winkel hit him with a rod, Half-Stitch launched into a walking pace.
“Horses are unstable,” Winkel said by way of an explanation.
“They scare me,” Denario admitted from his seat on the donkey. No one had raised him to show false courage. He often came out with admissions that other boys would never speak.
The master accountant nodded his head as if dreading the presence of horses was perfectly sensible. Within the year, Denario would realize that the master feared those beasts even more than Denario did. Their huge masses of muscle, flared nostrils, wide eyes, and the sheer reek of their sweat kept Winkel in a state of alarm. He wouldn't touch the reins even if the owner guided him. It was so bad that, despite sitting at his desk in the counting house, Winkel would jump when he heard a horse snort outside his window.
He and Winkel took turns on the donkey as they traveled. Sometimes they would both walk to give the donkey a bit of a rest although Denario didn't much slow down the creature with his nearly unnoticeable weight.
“Why is he called Half-Stitch?” Denario asked.
“Because I don't own him.” The master let out a soft giggle, a noise he made when satisfied with himself. It could have been irritating to others but Denario found it endearing. “I share him with the tailor. You see? That's why the name. It's a joke.”
“You can't afford a donkey?”
“Oh, I could spend money on two or three donkeys or maybe even a pair of horses. Would you like that?”
“No.”
“Good. Neither would I.” He smacked Half-Stitch on the bottom. “I don't like needless expense. When I worked out that I only use my donkey about one quarter of the year, I searched for a way to lower the cost of owning him. After all, it takes money to feed and house a good burro like this. Plus I don't know how to do it and I don't want to know. I want someone to keep my burro for me.”
“Is that a job?” Denario's eyes widened. He was beginning to learn about all the ways that a free man could make money.
“Yes, I pay a stable master. He pays stable hands, buys the feed, and so on. But why should I pay for a whole donkey myself if I can't use him even half of the time?”
“Because you can't ride half a donkey?” Denario ventured.
Winkel laughed. "Very good. A donkey is an indivisible unit. That's true. But what if I share the donkey? That might be hard, of course. Sharing takes some work. But I found a tailor in town only one street from me who rented a donkey from the stables. He, too, only needed our little burro friend for a part of the year. But renting the donkey was, for him, quite expensive.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.” The master's narrow shoulders rose in a shrug. “Maybe if you rent a donkey for a week out of a year, the stable master still has to feed the donkey all year, so that week is expensive. Maybe the stable master says that's how it works but he just charges high prices so he can make a good profit. Who knows? Well, I do, actually.”
“You do? How?”
“I do the books for the stables. But never mind that. The point is, it was cheaper for the tailor to share the ownership expense of a donkey with me than to rent different donkeys twenty times per year. And I renamed our friend here 'Half-Stitch' in honor of the tailor, so the tailor was pleased. We both come out ahead in our arrangement.”
“What's the tailor's name?”
“Ah. You take an interest in people. Good. His name is Gregor Liveli. His sons are Lukas and Hansel. Their mother came from far-away Uberwald with quite a bit of dowry, so they have set themselves up well. The boys are fine workers. They make not the best clothes but they make decent ones, among the best for their price.”
The burro clopped onward up a slope. As they headed down the other side, Denario wondered, “Which is it? Does the stable master make a big profit on renting animals or does he only cover his expenses?”
“I won't tell.”
“I think I know,” said Denario.
“But I still won't tell.” Winkel made his announcement with a proud sort of smile.
In the late afternoon, Winkel bade Denario to get down and walk. Together, they led the donkey onto a narrow path off of the main trail. The strip of naked dirt led though a thicket of low scrub and stunted trees. A rivulet of mud and a trickle of water ran from a rocky precipice above. Winkel led his beast up a switchback. Denario followed. Finally, when the ground leveled off, they had marched almost to the top of a small hill. There were hardly any trees, only a few saplings. The rest of the space was dirt, grass and rocks. Many of the stones were boulders as big as a man's head. A few were as small as a fist and as craggy as a shriveled fruit.
The stones were laid out in some sort of pattern, never more than two feet high, sometimes in lines as wide as four feet or as narrow as a hands-width. Denario had the impression that the pattern would make sense if only he had the imagination to see it properly.
In the center of the dirt paths, encircled by stacked rocks, someone had dug a well. More likely, Denario realized, someone had found an ancient spring and built this odd edifice around it. Even now the water's surface lay only a few feet below the rocks. It seemed miraculous, as if a supernatural spirit had forced water up through the rocks deliberately.
The spring was probably related to the water source that fed the rivulet they had passed earlier. The same dribble of water collected in pools down the side of the hill and farther, across the main trail, then in fits and starts again down toward the Ghost Stream, which fed the river called Riggle Kill.
Winkel put his hand into a small, natural trough in one of the larger boulders. It was bone dry.
“Pull up a bucket for the donkey, boy. Then rest for a moment.”
“Master Winkel, why are we here?” Denario trotted over to a tiny earthenware pail. It had a hole in the bottom. He picked it up and tested it with his fingers. It seemed he would be able to plug the hole. “I mean, it doesn't seem like we've come this far to rest.”
“What makes you say that?” The master probed.
“We passed a bigger well not forty yards from the road only half an hour ago.” His hands went to his hips as he considered the problem. “Is the water there bad? I don't think it can be very bad because four men were drinking from a big bowl.”
“The water there is fine. And before you ask, the men are fine, too. I recognized them.”
“Then why? We made the donkey climb up pretty high. Did you come to write more on your map?” He scooped up a pail of water and sluiced it into a natural trough in the rocks. The donkey had been waiting there for him to do it. It wasn't hard to figure out.
“No, I finished my mapping here ages ago. We've come for the temple. Young man, these cairns of stones around you don't look like much but they mark a holy presence. This place is sacred to Melcurio.”
“Melcurio is a god?” Denario set down his pail.
“He's the god of accountants. Watch now. In silence.”
Winkel strode to the edge of the well. He made a sign with one hand above his heart. Then he reached into his moneybag, pulled out a copper penny, and tossed it into the rather shallow depths. It disappeared into a clump of algae at the bottom.
“What was that for?” Denario edged closer, looking for the coin.
“Melcurio, hear our prayers,” mumbled Winkel. “I have made this boy my own. Now I give him to you. I will train him into your service.”
“You're giving me away?” exclaimed Denario. He was shocked. He had already grown fond of the accountant's presence and thought he wouldn't need to leave.
“Only in a manner of speaking.” Winkel gave him a sly smile but it was reassuring, too. He was letting his pupil in on a joke. “For the gods, we sometimes run two sets of books. I'm writing you onto his ledger. But I've already written you down on my own. It's doubly entry of a sort. But don't worry, he'll understand.”
“He? Do you mean the god?”
“Yes. Melcurio is the god of accounting, as I said. He does a few other things, too, but mainly, it's accounting.”
“You're giving me to this god?”
“Of course. Wouldn't you like to become an accountant?”
“Will I get to do that?” Up to this point, Denario hadn't dared to hope. For all he knew, the master might be inclined to teach Denario carry his bags, no more. “All the math and geometry?”
He held his breath, waiting for the answer.
“I don't think I've ever met anyone more suited than you.” The patriarch beamed. “And it's an odd coincidence, if that's what it is, that you should come along in my life now. Two nights ago, I went to the temple of Melcurio in Oggli, as I always do before my journeys, and I prayed to Melcurio for an hour. Then, on almost a whim, I asked for something special. I don't usually do that.”
“Does the god listen to you?”
“I don't really know. That's how it is with gods. Anyway, I asked for a great task, a quest to give my life additional meaning. And I asked for an heir, someone worthy to succeed me, someone to whom I could trust my life's work. There has been much of it, you see.”
“What about your sons?” Winkel's beard was at least half grey. He was more than old enough.
“No sons, no wife.” He threw up his arms. “There were a few women who appealed to me but, apparently, I didn't appeal to them. And somehow, I was always too busy to arrange a suitable marriage for myself. My mother died long ago before she could do it. My father tried to buy me a good woman from a family of our class but his idea of a suitable woman differed from mine. Considerably.”
Denario must have given him an uncomprehending look.
“I prefer them to have teeth, among other things. Did you ever have someone who shopped to give you a present? Oh, no, you wouldn't have. But my father, I think he was one of those people who say they're getting something for you but really, they're getting it for themselves. He kept looking for women who he liked, never asking what I would like. He married one of the women I turned down. Then he stopped proposing brides to me and told me to look out for myself.”
“You're an accountant. Aren't you rich?”
“Ah. I see you have a basic grasp of romance.” It was the first time Denario had seen the accountant give an ironic smile. It wasn't too harsh. “Yes, I am well off, as most prospective husbands go. I could marry a woman who needed my money, if I tried.”
“But you won't.”
“I'm over fifty, now. My father is many years dead. Most of my friends have moved or died, too. I'm sometimes lonely, yes, but frankly, I've lost interest in women. My life has been busy and good. All I want is an heir. I have a young man at home who helps me out but his understanding of accounting is terrible. He has no love of math. If I'm going to leave my work to anyone, Denario, it's to you.”
“You're going to leave math for me to do?”
“Ah, no. You don't quite understand. But you're nine. And a slave. Or anyway you were a slave for all of your life until today. You're going to see a lot more of the world as a free man, as an accountant, than you would have as a textile worker. You'll understand after I teach you.”
“Do you like seeing the world? Is it good?”
“There are many nice people and nice places, yes. I enjoy them. Even the bad parts, I enjoy a little as I write down descriptions of them for other accountants. Say, can you write?” Winkel worried in beard as he considered the issue. “That's a question I should have asked before.”
“I don't know if I can write. I taught myself to read.”
Winkel sat on a short ridge of sacred stones.
“I'm a fool. You're bright. Yes, you are. But what am I doing? Oh, Melcurio, what a burden! What a gift you have given me!” He beseeched the sky. Denario couldn't help glancing at the clouds in case the god was coming down from them. A beam of light broke out from behind them. It cast a warm glow. “How can I serve this way? I was a fool to ask for it. I don't know how to be a father. And I see now that I need to be a father to this boy.”
The accountant flopped onto his back. He had the sense not to bang his head against the stones behind him but it didn't look comfortable. He breathed heavily, as if staving off an panic attack.
“Have you traveled anywhere at all?” he wailed.
“I've gone all the way to field number eight. That's as far as anyone goes.” He surveyed the sacred spring and the maze of low, stone walls. He was a long way from home but happier than he'd thought possible. “That is, that's as far as any of us were allowed to go, including me, until now.”
Tears appeared in Master Winkel's eyes. His lips emitted a burbly laugh. To Denario, the day seemed full of grown men crying without being beaten first. Very odd. Maybe that was a normal part of the larger world, people crying without getting any injuries. Denario just hadn't seen it before.
While the accountant mumbled to himself, Denario strolled to the circle of stones around the fresh spring. A few glints of pennies and half-pennies, most covered by green rust and algae, a few still half-shining, caught his eye. He reached in for one, fumbled, turned over a few slippery stones, and finally retrieved the coin. He inspected its corroded metal. The denomination stamped on it was obscured by algae, at least a few weeks' worth. He glanced at the silt he'd stirred up in the pool. There should be more pennies here, he realized. Some of the worshipers must steal them back. He wondered if this particular worshiper whose coin Denario held had gotten his prayer answered. Denario had never prayed before. No one had ever invited him. He supposed that gods weren't interested in slaves. But he wasn't a slave now, according to his master. Anyway, he'd seen how the prayers were done.
“Oh, Melcurio,” he began. He'd forgotten to make the sign over his heart, so he paused to do so. He'd watched his master carefully, so he was sure he was right. “Oh, Melcurio, hear our prayers. I give myself to your service. Only, you know, I give myself to Master Winkel's service, too. I'm to become an accountant. That sounds fun.”
He tossed the coin back into the shallow well. With a plunk, it shook the water's surface, turned over, and wobbled to the bottom among the silt and rocks. An edge shone in the sunlight. As he watched it, he felt an odd sensation ripple through his skin. He looked up to the sky. He couldn't see any birds. There was only the sun and the clouds. But he had a warm feeling inside. His new master had stopped crying and mumbling.
Denario didn't move. He felt that someone was waiting for him to say more. Was it the god? Was Melcurio paying attention? His heart felt light, almost giddy.
“Oh, Melcurio,” he said to the clouds. “I know a trick you might like. I've figured out how to reduce a number to its prime factors. Want to see the trick?”
He waited a requisite moment for the god to talk, just in case. His body still felt light. He was eager to show off.
“Let's pick a funny number. Well, 6552 would have the factors of .... 2, 2, 2, 3, 7 ... and 13.” He'd cheated a little on that one because he'd worked on that particular number yesterday. “Go ahead, pick any number.”
“One thousand, seven hundred seventy-one,” whispered Master Winkel from behind him. Denario pictured the number in his head, 1771, and realized that it had to be divisible by 11. He started there.
“See, Melcurio, 1771 has prime factors ... 11, 23, and 7. No more.”
“1313!”
“That's too easy because 13 is prime and it goes into 1313 exactly 101 times ... and 101 must be prime, too ... I can't seem to put any number smaller than 51 into it ... yes, it's prime.”
“Amazing!” breathed the elderly accountant. He had risen to his feet.
“It's just a trick.” Denario started to turn around to talk. Then, remembering the god, he bowed a little to the well and to the sky. “Ever since Tom told me what primes were, I've been thinking about them.”
“I must say it's well done.” Winkel hobbled up to Denario's side. “Get on your knees with me for just a moment. I can almost feel the god's presence.”
“Okay.” Denario knew what the accountant meant. He felt it, too. All the same, he also sensed that Melcurio didn't really go in for a lot of bowing and scraping. He fell to one knee, only, like the visiting knights did when greeting the baron.
They were silent for less than a minute, long enough to satisfy the master. Then they stood. Winkel brushed dust from his robe and pants.
“How did you guess, Denario? Or did you already know that Melcurio likes tricks?”
“I didn't. I just felt like ... you know, like someone was amused.”
“Yes, you've certainly lightened my spirits. Or the god has.” Winkel glanced up a the sun. A cloud was starting to drift over it again. “That has to be one of the more unusual offerings the god has received, I think. You may have gotten his notice. What possessed you to offer yourself?”
“You said you gave me to the god as a free man. So I thought I should give myself freely, too. Does this mean I'm free now? I'm not a slave?”
“That's right,” said Winkel. “You are not my slave. You are my apprentice.”
“I could leave if I like?”
Winkel raised an eyebrow. “If you like. Would you like to run away? Go somewhere else? Be something else?”
“Never,” announced Denario. “I will work for you to the death.”
Winkel was quiet for a long while. The donkey had finished with its water, so he wandered over to it and took its reins. He hopped aboard the saddle blanket. Without any directions from its master, Half-Stitch just stood and waited. After a moment or two, Winkel bowed his head. He seemed to remember what he should be doing. So he got off the donkey and motioned for Denario to come alongside of him. He led them all down the trail, the way they'd come.
“That's a noble sentiment of yours, Denario.” The accountant shook his head as they walked. “I feel blessed to have heard those words. But you are young, so young. We shall see. At any rate, it'll be to my death, not yours. By then, I'm sure you'll be a master accountant.”
“You'll raise me to be a master?”
“You? Oh, yes. Easily. Stay with me and you'll be the master of all money and all maths. You'll be a man who everyone talks about, an example for all. I'm a top master myself. You'll be second to none if I have anything to do about it.”
When they reached the bottom of the switchback, Winkel stretched. He sighed with relief and glanced at the slope behind them. Even Half-Stitch seemed relieved. He cantered four or five paces before settling down to his usual plodding pace.
“When can I start my lessons?” Denario wondered.
“Oh, well, I hadn't given much thought on how to begin ... I suppose I should test you more on what you know already. Do you have any questions? Maybe we could start with those.”
“Yes. What is 'double entry?' I hadn't heard you mention that before but you talked about it with the god. It seems important.”
“Ah, that's a form of book-keeping, Denario. It was invented by Luca Pacioli, a devout Melcurio worshiper, almost two hundred years ago. It's an excellent system for most businesses ... not all, perhaps, but I'll explain any exceptions later ...”
Chapter Three, Scene Six
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Not Zen 178: Flavors
"There is no need for the question," she replied.
The two butcherbirds fluttered from his larder patch to hers. It wasn't far, simply to the next bush. Their colony lived in a grove of paperbark trees above a thicket of wild grass and vines. It was a rich territory for the butcherbirds, full of brambles, thistles, flowers, lizards, and bugs of every kind, all attracted to the blossoms and loose, dry soil. This morning she'd found a green meadow katydid. She added it to her stash of food, which had grown bare as she'd raised her children.
Three days ago, her children had flown. She had set about replenishing her larder with pine beetles, darkling beetles, lizards, black flies, cabbage butterflies, and moths. After she added the katydid, she hopped back to admire the results of her handiwork.
"Do you think I know your mind?" her brother asked.
"I think you know your own joy." She stretched her gray wings.
"Well, then, I'd say that moments of happiness are fleeting. That is how they are to me. They seem sustained in you. That surprises me." She cocked her head toward him. He shuffled his claws and stammered as he tried to explain. "I dread the hardness of the coming summer. My anticipation makes this spring bitter. Yes, we have plenty. But don't you fear the coming drought?"
"Don't you appreciate your easy life today? Joys may be fleeting but there are an endless number of them. Everyone's daily experience is filled with an infinite variety of delight."
"You mean like tasting different beetles?"
"I mean like experiencing the treasure of each moment." She took a deep breath. "This morning, I am refreshed by the presence of my brother. Better, there are no predators in the sky. There are no men near the thicket and no dingos."
"You are merely feeling relief."
"Reliefs from burdens are flavors of joy. I would never casually dismiss them."
He glanced at a black spider as it hopped from the bark of the nearest tree. It was smaller than the tip of his talon. Since it wasn't big enough to put in his larder and he wasn't hungry, he ignored it.
"It's not that you don't have the same indulgences in your life," she continued. She'd watched him disdain what a smaller or hungrier bird would have eaten. "It's that you don't bother to appreciate them."
"How can you notice such slight feelings?"
Her head leaned back as she studied the trees and branches.
"At this moment, I see young ones in your nest," she said. "They fill me with pride in you. I hear my children singing nearby. They cause me to laugh. My mate casts a shadow from a bough above us. When I look up and see the glint in his eyes, it makes me swoon."
"I wonder if I have that effect ..." His gaze shifted to his tree.
"On your mate? Of course you do. I've seen it. Don't you remember how she danced with you? Sang with you?"
"Yes." The whole flock had seen.
"And wasn't it wonderful?"
"I think ... yes, it was." His voice softened.
"And wasn't dancing with her different than singing?"
That took him a moment of thought but the answer was definite. "Yes."
"Come, feel the separate joys. Experience the gladness in your limbs for a moment." With that, she snapped her wings for five quick beats and lifted herself between the trees. Seconds later, she rose above the treetops.
Her brother hesitated. He searched for predators in flight. Then he launched himself to meet his sister. He maneuvered along the arc of her path until he occupied a spot near her right wing. She circled the grove, so he followed. He gazed down at the leaves of the trees and at the thorny grasses. His sister dipped her wings toward the northeast boughs of their home.
"As I hover above the flock," she said. "I'm inspired by the beauty of it. Each and every butcherbird is magnificent. The branches of the trees entice me. The brambles below seem sweet. The thistles are sublime. You may think of it all as mundane but such moments are precious to me."
"I've felt the way you describe," he sighed as he remembered. "It was in a morning fog."
"I recall a day like that, a heavy mist."
"Yes. And for me, there was a quiet wonder of stillness." He nodded to himself as he flew.
"What made the moment special was how you took time to appreciate it." She inclined her beak to the horizon. "There are so many joys. There is pleasure in each taste of food, in each sense of the body. There is wonder in hopping on supple branches and dancing. There is a thrill in abstinence from food, from stopping before eating too much and feeling slow. There are so many things, each unique. I can't possibly list them all."
"The joy of wisdom?" he offered.
"Really?" She hesitated. "I hadn't thought of it but I suppose so."
"Perhaps there's a joy in seeing someone you care for grow wise."
"That seems like a different flavor."
"So it is," he said in a sly tone.
Their path swung them around the edge of the paperbark thicket and the roosts of their flock. They stopped flapping to gain altitude and glided along in silence. She absorbed scents in the winds and the colors in the clouds and boughs. Her brother thought of nothing at all. In time, he noticed a young butcherbird below. He caught a glimpse of it as it passed among the leaves. It hopped to the fork of a branch. The branch trembled.
"That's one of yours," his sister said. She'd caught the distinctive motion too. "This is a special moment. Your first child has left the nest. She is not yet flown but that day will come soon. Go to her now. Be her proud father."
It was, as his sister said, his tree, his branch. He circled down and alighted on the bough directly above his fledgling. He didn't want to disturb her. He merely watched. When he saw that her position was secure and that she was followed at a distance by his mate, he cooed to her. She gazed up at him.
"Beautiful child," he said. His mate cooed in agreement.
With care, he fluttered down to his daughter. He landed without shaking the branch. His mate held still. His daughter stared.
Then his daughter did an unexpected thing. She turned her back on him and walked farther down the thinnest fork of the branch. A few, long seconds passed before she turned around. Her eyes locked with his. She asserted her confidence in herself without a word. He felt amazed by her bravery, walking so far before she could fly. He felt awed by her fierceness of spirit.
For a moment, his child resembled his sister. Her gaze was so clear. Already, she knew her mind. He told himself to be thankful for the moment because it held a flavor of joy unlike any other. His daughter would fly away soon.
But he found the moment too easy to appreciate. He didn't need to remind himself of anything.
"I could have missed this," he breathed.
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Not Even Not Zen 21: A Bandit Accountant, 3.4
A Bandit Accountant
Chapter Pi, Roughly
Scene Four: Lucky Miss
“Damn,” Denario muttered to himself. There was a cart parked across the fork in the road. The folks who owned the cart had unhitched the ox. They'd tethered their beast to a tree. It grazed while the group rested.
Denario dodged off the trail to watch. He wished the three figures would finish their lunch and move on. Or had they stopped for an early dinner already? Was it that late? Denario felt the hunger that had fled upon encountering those dead bodies make an unwelcome return. He held his stomach as he waited. A minute later, when one of the figures hopped down and ran around the cart in circles, Denario realized it was a child, a boy from the look. There was something familiar about him. Denario had seen that cut of light brown hair before. The driver of the wagon seemed recognizable, too. He had a way of sitting, his elbow on his right knee, that was distinctive.
Denario got up. He was tired of tromping through the underbrush. His shoes weren't made for it. His feet had blistered. The rest of him hurt, too, although he'd only been on the march for a day.
“Gordi!” he waved as he crossed the clearing. The older man's face sprang into a smile. His youngest boy laughed and started running toward Denario.
“Den!” The boy used Pecunia's nickname for Denario. By the time he collided with Denario's stomach for a hug, Denario remembered that this one, Gordi's youngest, was named Olaf after Gordi's wife's father.
“It's good to see you, too, Ollie,” he said. He gave the boy a quick squeeze, then tried to pry him off.
“Why are you leaving Ziegeburg?” said Ollie, who had a strong hold on Denario's right leg. “Where are you going? Not to Pickle Bad? Where else is there?”
Denario tried to explain but the farthest town the boy had heard of before was Hogsburg and that only as a place to avoid. Bandits came down from the hills and stole children out of Hogsburg, or so Ollie said. Denario thought those sounded more like bogeymen than bandits.
“Ah, it's his mother that tells him those tales,” Gordi explained from the top of his wagon. He held out a slice of cheese for Denario. As he stopped moving to accept it, Ollie let go so he could keep running around. “Not that she's wrong, mind. Does a child good to be scared, now an' then. Being scared of strangers is a fine thing in it's way.”
“Does Hogsburg really have bandits?”
“Ye may get to know, lad.”
“Why?” Denario was willing to forgive Gordi for acting like his uncle. The cheese was the best in the world. Denario's mouth was probably two-thirds drool as he chewed. Anyway, the farmer really was old enough to be Denario's uncle.
“A bunch of men went down along the river trail. They figure yer going to hang a right at this fork, here, to try to get a boat or something.”
“That's right.”
“Well, they're waiting for ye.” He shook his head. He rummaged in the sack at his belt. “Yer lucky ye got out when you did. One of the mayor's men got killed, he did, and it's ye they're blaming.”
“But everyone saw me. All I did was run away.”
“I know that,” said Gordi, sounding oddly unsure. “It's just, well, yer getting the blame for everything now.”
“Do you know that the stagecoach was robbed?”
“Ye'll get blamed for that, too,” said Gordi sourly.
“No, I mean it wasn't the kind of thing you get even near Angstburg or Hogsburg. The bandits killed everyone aboard. Arrows through them, then cut their throats.”
“Yep. We saw. I had to shield Olaf's eyes. He gets nightmares enough already.” Gordi's lower lip shook. “It's out in the open now, I suppose. The mayor figures he don't have to listen to the baron. We know how that story ends. I studied our history in the temple. The baron's troops will come, sooner or later. People around here dyin' no matter who wins. Bad for the whole town.”
“I'm not scared.” Those were the first words Gordi's oldest son had spoken. He twisted in his seat next to his dad. His chin jutted defiantly at Denario, as if daring him to a fight.
Thing is, the boy wasn't particularly big or strong. He didn't look like he'd last more than a few seconds against the mercenaries Denario had seen. Maybe he didn't understand that.
“Anyway,” said Gordi, ignoring his son. “Ye can't go near the river. Ye been lucky, so far, but the gods help the wise more than the foolish.”
“Lucky?” Denario's face got hot. “First I get tossed by the mayor's goons. Then I miss the stagecoach, I can't buy anything, and I forget to ...”
“Ah, but missing the coach was lucky.”
“Was it?” The vision of the poor young man's body in the road came back to him. “Oh, yes, it was.”
“How did ye miss, anyway?”
“I went to see Pecunia and by the time I got to the stable, the coach had gone.”
“Went for a last kiss, huh? Maybe it saved yer life.”
“I guess it did.” For the first time in a day, he remembered the good luck charm Pecunia had given to him. He touched his neck. It was still there, beneath his layered shirts. “Gordi, this is worse than I thought. Pecunia said she could buy my way back into town but now it sounds impossible. If she did, I'd never trust it.”
“Me neither. Ye got to head back to yer home. That's what I'd do. Hire a wizard to send yer report to the baron, maybe.”
“I wasn't working for the baron.”
“That doesn't mean ye can't report to him.” Gordi gritted his teeth in exasperation. “Everyone thinks ye were working for him anyway.”
“Oh. I guess I never really understood that.” He kept denying it when they asked him. But it was just like denying that Pecunia was a witch. No one believed it.
They ate in silence for a while. Gordi handed Denario a crunchy loaf of bread, a block of cheese, and a wine skin with actual wine. Then he finished off a crust of bread he'd been holding in his lap while everyone else watched his youngest son run in circles around the wagon.
As Denario slowed down, he thought to offer back the half of the bread loaf he hadn't finished.
“Take it.” Gordi waved him away. “Ye need the food and I've got to head home, down near the Rune Kill, where ye can't go.”
“Gordi, what will I do? I thought I could catch a ride on a boat and get as far downstream as Angstburg. That's as far as people travel by water, anyway. No one boats through the heavy magic. From there, I could walk or rent a horse.”
“Ye'll have to take to the hills for fifteen miles or more. To be safe, Denario, ye should make it twenty miles west. Pass Hogsburg before ye turn south. The mayor's men have a long reach. They know the sheriffs in all these smaller places.”
“But the bandits?”
“There are bandits, real bandits, in the hills. But ye aren't much of a target. Keep off the trails during the day and ye'll be fine.”
“You mean hike in the night-time?”
“Haw!” The oldest boy laughed at Denario's apparent fear. Denario turned inward, mentally, for a moment while he checked his feelings. Yes, he decided he was afraid to travel by night but that seemed pretty reasonable. The confidence of the adolescent bordered on cockiness.
“Is there something the matter, Kurt?” Gordi asked his son.
The dimples disappeared and the impish snile faded from young Kurt's face. Although Gordi never beat his children, which was unusual, he was a stern taskmaster. His sons lived in fear of not living up to his standards.
“No, father. It's just that he's scared.”
“He should be.”
“But not of the dark!” The boy chortled again. His breath reeked of spiced meat. “I walk alone in the dark all the time, father.”
“Far away from home?”
“No, but that's only because you never let me go anywhere.”
Gordi rubbed the gray stubble on his chin.
“Very well. Denario, ye may take Kurt here with ye for the first night. He can teach ye what he knows of traveling in the countryside. Ye should reach the Hogsburg trail before morning. Then Kurt can come back home over Green Knob hill. That's the straightest path. Is that all right, Kurt?”
“Dad!” The boy gave his father a quick, one-armed hug. Denario got the impression that Kurt didn't normally touch his parents much because Gordi was visibly surprised. His son was pushing him away before he could properly return the embrace.
Kurt hopped down from the wagon. He made a face at his brother, who was just beginning to notice that something unfair had happened, at least from a youngest child's point of view. Then they all spent a few minutes getting and giving orders, re-organizing, and re-packing. Gordi donated all the rest of his food, mostly hard tack and cheese. He had no more wine but he gave his son a canteen of brackish water.
“Ye've got chores that'll go undone,” Gordi reminded him. “Yer brothers can help but ye'll have to finish what they don't.”
“Yes, dad.” Kurt was in a good mood. He was nodding at everything his father said.
“If you see anyone what even looks like a mayor's man, give 'im a wide berth. Don't talk to 'im. But if ye've no choice, be polite. They ain't looking for ye, just the accountant.”
“Yes, dad. I'll see them coming from way off. I won't talk.”
“Ye can sleep in ole Maizie Guntaffson's barn but don't even think about taking a thing from them folks. Not even a piece of straw that ain't yers. I'll hear.”
“Speaking of which, Denario. Where did you get your new shirt? For the forest, it's better than a red vest, but ...”
Denario thought about the words carefully. “I stole it.”
“What?” Gordi grabbed him by the arm. “I think I need to talk with ye a minute before ye go.”
The boys' young faces were agape. Kurt didn't even smile. Olaf's eyes went wide with horror. Maybe he thought Denario was about to get a spanking. And maybe he was. All the same, Denario couldn't tell anyone that Farli Haphmeyer had given the clothes to him. That would be a betrayal.
“I .... I don't recognize this.” Gordi rubbed his fingers over the raggedy shirt. By some miracle, no scrap of it flaked off in his hand. “Do ye even know who ye took it from? Was it off the stagecoach?”
“I know who it's from. I left money. He knows, too. But all the same, I'm not going to tell you. He's worried about being caught helping me.” A thought struck Denario. It spread prickles into his stomach. “Oh, Gordi, I didn't even think. You shouldn't help me, either. What if you get found out?”
Gordi looked around at the edges of the forest.
“I hadn't thought of that.” He shook his head. “I reckon that most folks wouldn't report me. My neighbors ... still, I'm not sure of all of them. Not of all. Maybe yer friend is right.”
They walked back in silence. Gordi was thoughtful as he put his youngest son back onto the front seat of the wagon. Denario tried to tell Kurt to get on, too, leave him. Traveling with a wanted man would be dangerous. Kurt seemed puzzled by the idea no matter how much Denario repeated 'don't.' Gordi stopped and watched his son to see how he would respond. But Kurt wouldn't go with his father. He was determined to have his freedom and, not incidentally, prove he was man enough to be a guide. After a minute or two of the argument, Gordi turned his back on them and strolled to his ox, which he untied. While Denario was still trying to convince Kurt, Gordi hitched his ox to the wagon, flapped his reins, and turned the cart slowly around to face the downhill trail.
“Be careful, son,” he said.
Kurt and Denario shut up. They watched the cart slowly rolled away toward the Rune Kill farmlands. Kurt's mouth hung open. He couldn't take his eyes off his father and youngest brother until they were a dark shadow turning around a bend in the path, silent, then gone.
Chapter Three, Scene Five
Chapter Pi, Roughly
Scene Four: Lucky Miss
“Damn,” Denario muttered to himself. There was a cart parked across the fork in the road. The folks who owned the cart had unhitched the ox. They'd tethered their beast to a tree. It grazed while the group rested.
Denario dodged off the trail to watch. He wished the three figures would finish their lunch and move on. Or had they stopped for an early dinner already? Was it that late? Denario felt the hunger that had fled upon encountering those dead bodies make an unwelcome return. He held his stomach as he waited. A minute later, when one of the figures hopped down and ran around the cart in circles, Denario realized it was a child, a boy from the look. There was something familiar about him. Denario had seen that cut of light brown hair before. The driver of the wagon seemed recognizable, too. He had a way of sitting, his elbow on his right knee, that was distinctive.
Denario got up. He was tired of tromping through the underbrush. His shoes weren't made for it. His feet had blistered. The rest of him hurt, too, although he'd only been on the march for a day.
“Gordi!” he waved as he crossed the clearing. The older man's face sprang into a smile. His youngest boy laughed and started running toward Denario.
“Den!” The boy used Pecunia's nickname for Denario. By the time he collided with Denario's stomach for a hug, Denario remembered that this one, Gordi's youngest, was named Olaf after Gordi's wife's father.
“It's good to see you, too, Ollie,” he said. He gave the boy a quick squeeze, then tried to pry him off.
“Why are you leaving Ziegeburg?” said Ollie, who had a strong hold on Denario's right leg. “Where are you going? Not to Pickle Bad? Where else is there?”
Denario tried to explain but the farthest town the boy had heard of before was Hogsburg and that only as a place to avoid. Bandits came down from the hills and stole children out of Hogsburg, or so Ollie said. Denario thought those sounded more like bogeymen than bandits.
“Ah, it's his mother that tells him those tales,” Gordi explained from the top of his wagon. He held out a slice of cheese for Denario. As he stopped moving to accept it, Ollie let go so he could keep running around. “Not that she's wrong, mind. Does a child good to be scared, now an' then. Being scared of strangers is a fine thing in it's way.”
“Does Hogsburg really have bandits?”
“Ye may get to know, lad.”
“Why?” Denario was willing to forgive Gordi for acting like his uncle. The cheese was the best in the world. Denario's mouth was probably two-thirds drool as he chewed. Anyway, the farmer really was old enough to be Denario's uncle.
“A bunch of men went down along the river trail. They figure yer going to hang a right at this fork, here, to try to get a boat or something.”
“That's right.”
“Well, they're waiting for ye.” He shook his head. He rummaged in the sack at his belt. “Yer lucky ye got out when you did. One of the mayor's men got killed, he did, and it's ye they're blaming.”
“But everyone saw me. All I did was run away.”
“I know that,” said Gordi, sounding oddly unsure. “It's just, well, yer getting the blame for everything now.”
“Do you know that the stagecoach was robbed?”
“Ye'll get blamed for that, too,” said Gordi sourly.
“No, I mean it wasn't the kind of thing you get even near Angstburg or Hogsburg. The bandits killed everyone aboard. Arrows through them, then cut their throats.”
“Yep. We saw. I had to shield Olaf's eyes. He gets nightmares enough already.” Gordi's lower lip shook. “It's out in the open now, I suppose. The mayor figures he don't have to listen to the baron. We know how that story ends. I studied our history in the temple. The baron's troops will come, sooner or later. People around here dyin' no matter who wins. Bad for the whole town.”
“I'm not scared.” Those were the first words Gordi's oldest son had spoken. He twisted in his seat next to his dad. His chin jutted defiantly at Denario, as if daring him to a fight.
Thing is, the boy wasn't particularly big or strong. He didn't look like he'd last more than a few seconds against the mercenaries Denario had seen. Maybe he didn't understand that.
“Anyway,” said Gordi, ignoring his son. “Ye can't go near the river. Ye been lucky, so far, but the gods help the wise more than the foolish.”
“Lucky?” Denario's face got hot. “First I get tossed by the mayor's goons. Then I miss the stagecoach, I can't buy anything, and I forget to ...”
“Ah, but missing the coach was lucky.”
“Was it?” The vision of the poor young man's body in the road came back to him. “Oh, yes, it was.”
“How did ye miss, anyway?”
“I went to see Pecunia and by the time I got to the stable, the coach had gone.”
“Went for a last kiss, huh? Maybe it saved yer life.”
“I guess it did.” For the first time in a day, he remembered the good luck charm Pecunia had given to him. He touched his neck. It was still there, beneath his layered shirts. “Gordi, this is worse than I thought. Pecunia said she could buy my way back into town but now it sounds impossible. If she did, I'd never trust it.”
“Me neither. Ye got to head back to yer home. That's what I'd do. Hire a wizard to send yer report to the baron, maybe.”
“I wasn't working for the baron.”
“That doesn't mean ye can't report to him.” Gordi gritted his teeth in exasperation. “Everyone thinks ye were working for him anyway.”
“Oh. I guess I never really understood that.” He kept denying it when they asked him. But it was just like denying that Pecunia was a witch. No one believed it.
They ate in silence for a while. Gordi handed Denario a crunchy loaf of bread, a block of cheese, and a wine skin with actual wine. Then he finished off a crust of bread he'd been holding in his lap while everyone else watched his youngest son run in circles around the wagon.
As Denario slowed down, he thought to offer back the half of the bread loaf he hadn't finished.
“Take it.” Gordi waved him away. “Ye need the food and I've got to head home, down near the Rune Kill, where ye can't go.”
“Gordi, what will I do? I thought I could catch a ride on a boat and get as far downstream as Angstburg. That's as far as people travel by water, anyway. No one boats through the heavy magic. From there, I could walk or rent a horse.”
“Ye'll have to take to the hills for fifteen miles or more. To be safe, Denario, ye should make it twenty miles west. Pass Hogsburg before ye turn south. The mayor's men have a long reach. They know the sheriffs in all these smaller places.”
“But the bandits?”
“There are bandits, real bandits, in the hills. But ye aren't much of a target. Keep off the trails during the day and ye'll be fine.”
“You mean hike in the night-time?”
“Haw!” The oldest boy laughed at Denario's apparent fear. Denario turned inward, mentally, for a moment while he checked his feelings. Yes, he decided he was afraid to travel by night but that seemed pretty reasonable. The confidence of the adolescent bordered on cockiness.
“Is there something the matter, Kurt?” Gordi asked his son.
The dimples disappeared and the impish snile faded from young Kurt's face. Although Gordi never beat his children, which was unusual, he was a stern taskmaster. His sons lived in fear of not living up to his standards.
“No, father. It's just that he's scared.”
“He should be.”
“But not of the dark!” The boy chortled again. His breath reeked of spiced meat. “I walk alone in the dark all the time, father.”
“Far away from home?”
“No, but that's only because you never let me go anywhere.”
Gordi rubbed the gray stubble on his chin.
“Very well. Denario, ye may take Kurt here with ye for the first night. He can teach ye what he knows of traveling in the countryside. Ye should reach the Hogsburg trail before morning. Then Kurt can come back home over Green Knob hill. That's the straightest path. Is that all right, Kurt?”
“Dad!” The boy gave his father a quick, one-armed hug. Denario got the impression that Kurt didn't normally touch his parents much because Gordi was visibly surprised. His son was pushing him away before he could properly return the embrace.
Kurt hopped down from the wagon. He made a face at his brother, who was just beginning to notice that something unfair had happened, at least from a youngest child's point of view. Then they all spent a few minutes getting and giving orders, re-organizing, and re-packing. Gordi donated all the rest of his food, mostly hard tack and cheese. He had no more wine but he gave his son a canteen of brackish water.
“Ye've got chores that'll go undone,” Gordi reminded him. “Yer brothers can help but ye'll have to finish what they don't.”
“Yes, dad.” Kurt was in a good mood. He was nodding at everything his father said.
“If you see anyone what even looks like a mayor's man, give 'im a wide berth. Don't talk to 'im. But if ye've no choice, be polite. They ain't looking for ye, just the accountant.”
“Yes, dad. I'll see them coming from way off. I won't talk.”
“Ye can sleep in ole Maizie Guntaffson's barn but don't even think about taking a thing from them folks. Not even a piece of straw that ain't yers. I'll hear.”
“Speaking of which, Denario. Where did you get your new shirt? For the forest, it's better than a red vest, but ...”
Denario thought about the words carefully. “I stole it.”
“What?” Gordi grabbed him by the arm. “I think I need to talk with ye a minute before ye go.”
The boys' young faces were agape. Kurt didn't even smile. Olaf's eyes went wide with horror. Maybe he thought Denario was about to get a spanking. And maybe he was. All the same, Denario couldn't tell anyone that Farli Haphmeyer had given the clothes to him. That would be a betrayal.
“I .... I don't recognize this.” Gordi rubbed his fingers over the raggedy shirt. By some miracle, no scrap of it flaked off in his hand. “Do ye even know who ye took it from? Was it off the stagecoach?”
“I know who it's from. I left money. He knows, too. But all the same, I'm not going to tell you. He's worried about being caught helping me.” A thought struck Denario. It spread prickles into his stomach. “Oh, Gordi, I didn't even think. You shouldn't help me, either. What if you get found out?”
Gordi looked around at the edges of the forest.
“I hadn't thought of that.” He shook his head. “I reckon that most folks wouldn't report me. My neighbors ... still, I'm not sure of all of them. Not of all. Maybe yer friend is right.”
They walked back in silence. Gordi was thoughtful as he put his youngest son back onto the front seat of the wagon. Denario tried to tell Kurt to get on, too, leave him. Traveling with a wanted man would be dangerous. Kurt seemed puzzled by the idea no matter how much Denario repeated 'don't.' Gordi stopped and watched his son to see how he would respond. But Kurt wouldn't go with his father. He was determined to have his freedom and, not incidentally, prove he was man enough to be a guide. After a minute or two of the argument, Gordi turned his back on them and strolled to his ox, which he untied. While Denario was still trying to convince Kurt, Gordi hitched his ox to the wagon, flapped his reins, and turned the cart slowly around to face the downhill trail.
“Be careful, son,” he said.
Kurt and Denario shut up. They watched the cart slowly rolled away toward the Rune Kill farmlands. Kurt's mouth hung open. He couldn't take his eyes off his father and youngest brother until they were a dark shadow turning around a bend in the path, silent, then gone.
Chapter Three, Scene Five
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Not Even Not Zen 20: A Bandit Accountant, 3.3
A Bandit Accountant
Chapter Pi, Roughly
Scene Three: Lucky Find
By noon, Denario felt too famished to be exhausted. He could have eaten a whole cow. Well, no, he probably couldn't. He'd passed them in the fields and they were huge. They snorted when he got close. He was sure they were looking for an excuse to trample him. Then their owners would trample him further. But he was hungry enough to wish he understood how cows were raised. It looked like they just ate grass but he knew it couldn't be that simple. It never was.
As he strolled along the cart path, he gave up on a tricky geometry problem regarding how to define curves and, instead, counted common objects to relax. He counted ox poop for a while but it depressed him. He stopped at sixty-three piles of poop.
The Marquis should have someone clean this place, he thought, as he stepped over another pile. He shuddered at the thought of writing to the Palace of the Marquis. Even if someone read his complaint, he'd likely be ordered to do the job himself.
Another item he counted during his hike was fences. There had been seven fences so far, one hundred sixty-one fence posts along the road, nineteen cattle, four horses, one of them gray, thirty seven sheep in a single flock, and two streams, both full of fish too fast to count.
Denario had filled his canteen at the first stream. The water tasted so good he'd turned around and headed back to it after he drained the canteen. He hadn't thought to grab for a fish.
At the second stream, he tried it.
"Damn!" After his sixth failure to even touch a fin, he gave up. His face had gotten wet. His sleeves dripped. Beneath them, his arms shivered up to his elbows. Shivers crept to his shoulders before they faded.
He hiked a quarter-mile with a stone in his shoe. He paused, removed the stone, and limped for another half-mile as if it were still there.
At one of the fences, behind thirty seven sheep, there was a girl too young to be a shepherdess. At least, that's what he thought when he noticed her, although she seemed to be watching a flock. She noticed Denario, too, and stared at him for a while. Since she didn't say a word, Denario didn't feel right trying to start a conversation. That kind of thing could get misinterpreted, which might lead to fathers and brothers with angry expressions and thick wooden staves that they'd use to protect their girl. As soon as he'd passed her, though, and she was on the other side of a hill, he wished he'd asked her for food.
Denario followed a wooded turn in the path. Trees grew thicker here. Even with the sun directly overhead, the grove was dark. He trudged on and wondered how many miles lay between Ziegeburg and the next town, which he remembered as a crossroads with four houses and two barns.
He accidentally kicked a piece of metal in the road.
It pinged off a rock. He crouched at it and rubbed off the dirt and mud. The object was the right size for a penny. But no, it was part of a buckle. It had been broken with considerable force.
He stood and looked around. There, by the side of the cart road, was a wooden chest. Its sides were inlaid with fine woods and a metal that might have been gold. Amazing. But the strangest thing was that it had been smashed and thrown away in the brush. It made no sense and, as he approached it, he glanced around again to make sure the road was deserted. Odd, he thought, that the owner hadn't tried to keep the chest and repair it. It had been worth sixty pence, at the least, when it was whole.
He hefted it onto his shoulder. It pressed a broken edge into him but he was determined to take it as far as the next town. He was sure he could trade it for something.
Unfortunately, he'd overestimated himself. The chest was small and it wasn't heavy but a hundred yards was enough for him to realize he wasn't going to make it. He set it down, rested, and hoisted it again. A few yards later, as he rounded another bend in the path, he noticed the dead body.
It didn't completely surprise him.
“Hello?” he said, even though he knew the blonde-headed figure was dead from the smell. He set down the wooden chest and approached. The corpse must have been lying in the road for hours. It rested in the ruts left by a recent cart and Denario could easily imagine that this man had staggered out of the trees in order to flag down the cart but had been too slow. Maybe he had tried to crawl after it. Anyway, he'd left a trail of blood behind him.
Despite the smell, Denario knelt and turned the dead face so he could see it. To his relief, he didn't recognize the man. Denario felt around the neck and the wrist for signs of a pulse. None. He listened for breathing. There was none of that, either. There was a lot of blood on the brown pants and tan shirt. It had crusted. Flies landed on it, rubbed their forelegs, and buzzed away.
As he leaned down lower and lower, concentrating on hearing a breath or a heartbeat, Denario realized he could hear a horse on the road in front of him. Someone was headed his way.
“Ahoy, there!” he shouted. He hopped to his feet and waved. There was no one he could see but surely any traveler would help. Then, as he saw a distant figure appear on the path, he doubted himself. Who had killed this man? A bandit?
“Ahoy?” he said more quietly. He squinted. The figure on the horse didn't seem to be getting any closer. There was motion around the horse, too, another person or an animal.
Denario ducked off the path. With a glance at the horseman, he darted back to the splintered wooden chest, hefted its remains, and took them with him into the underbrush.
About that time, the horseman seemed to notice him. At any rate, Denario heard a shout that could have been meant for him. He dropped the chest near a tree and slunk back into the shadows of the deepest woods. The horse didn't come any closer, although it moved back and forth across the road. After a few minutes, Denario's curiosity overcame his fear and he snuck closer to the horse and the people moving around it.
“Is that all?” someone cried quite clearly.
“Someone else got most of it, my boy,” said another voice.
“Probably bandits,” said the first voice, the one on top of the horse.
“Probably not. Shh.”
Denario paused in his tracks. The one on foot, an elderly woman, had glanced into the woods. Her gaze passed over him but she didn't seem to take note of his presence. He was glad, now, that he'd covered his red vest with the raggedy, plain farming shirt.
“We don't have to worry,” ventured the figure on horseback. “They must be long gone to the hills by now.”
“Real bandits don't leave this much behind, my boy. Who knows what folks did this? But someone else came after, that's for sure. At least one cart came through.”
“Do you think they got the tax box?”
The woman in her shawl grunted. Now that Denario had gotten close, he could see the debris through which she walked, mostly broken bits of wood, a carriage wheel, a fine wooden door, and a dead horse. The woman removed the bit and bridle from the mouth of the dead horse. Then she strode toward a rectangular shape in the shadows at the other side of the road. It took Denario a moment to realize what he was looking at. This was the stagecoach he'd missed. What had happened to it? Everyone knew there were no bandits this close to town. Then he remembered Jordin had said, “You's supposed to be dead on the stagecoach.”
He'd been meant catch the coach out of town. He was supposed be dead.
This had been the mayor's plan all along. For weeks, maybe, Figgins had intended to put the accountant onto the stagecoach along with the baron's taxes. Then he'd have his men attack the coach, steal the money back, and blame it on bandits. But it had gone wrong. Denario hadn't played his part.
That explained why the mayor hadn't been serious about killing Denario in town. He wanted to keep to his plan and, not the least, keep his money.
Denario's escape had been narrower than he'd thought.
“Of course they got the tax box,” said the old woman. In her way, she looked sturdier than her son. “Someone came behind and got other things, too, things that bandits, real bandits I mean, wouldn't leave. They didn't even check for jewelry! Can you imagine?”
“Ugh. Mom, that's gross.” The lad turned away from his mother as she pawed at a body that had an arrow through its chest.
“I'll bet it was the Farmars. Old Gordi comes through here every other day but he's the type who wouldn't stoop to searching the bodies. Or he took a couple things, I'll wager, because there are cart tracks all around. He couldn't help himself. Hmm, no, it would be more likely that his boys did it while he wasn't watching. But they didn't loot properly, not in front of their dad. And they'll report the loss of the stagecoach.”
“They will?”
“No question. They're probably in Zeigeburg right now, gathering up folks to come back and clean up, maybe even to send a letter to the baron. The coach is under the baron's protection, after all.”
“Ouuh, ma.” Something his mother did made him shudder. Denario didn't like the sound of it.
“Got to do it, my boy. Do you have any idea how much this stuff is worth? And look. Look at this chain. She had it around her, well, never mind.”
“That's awful.”
“That's gold, that's what it is, or near enough. And it's jewels, too, or pretty glass. Doesn't make much difference. Someone will pay well. Get down and search the driver. Make yourself useful.”
“He won't have nothing,” the young man complained as he dismounted.
“If bandits searched these folks, they weren't any bandits we know.”
“Do we know any, ma?”
“Oh! Like you don't know your uncles! Just keep looking.”
Denario felt sorry for the young man, who was trying to brush away flies and not look at the body he was pawing rather ineffectively. The driver had dressed in a classic black suit jacket that hid most of the damage from view, Denario was pretty sure. Well, there was no point in sticking around. Part of him itched to rush at these grave robbers and give them a scare. Maybe they would think he was a bandit and flee. Or maybe the boy would turn and stab Denario. Or maybe his mother would do it. That seemed more likely.
He could hit them with poison darts. The idea struck him as he took his first step away. But that didn't make sense. Probably they weren't bad people. They just saw a chance at free money. And if he killed them and then took their money and their horse, what would that make him? No, it was better to keep going. He would come to the fork in the trail soon. Then he'd make his way downhill to the Rune Kill and, with any luck, find a boat to carry him to Oggli, where his life would be sane.
That was a prospect he could look forward to. He would have skipped through the forest except for his need to be quiet. He'd almost forgotten that his partner Curo had gotten most of the money from this venture. Curo would have needed to spend some of it but still there would be a tidy sum awaiting Denario when he got back. He rubbed his hands together as he contemplated it.
Chapter Three, Scene Four
Chapter Pi, Roughly
Scene Three: Lucky Find
By noon, Denario felt too famished to be exhausted. He could have eaten a whole cow. Well, no, he probably couldn't. He'd passed them in the fields and they were huge. They snorted when he got close. He was sure they were looking for an excuse to trample him. Then their owners would trample him further. But he was hungry enough to wish he understood how cows were raised. It looked like they just ate grass but he knew it couldn't be that simple. It never was.
As he strolled along the cart path, he gave up on a tricky geometry problem regarding how to define curves and, instead, counted common objects to relax. He counted ox poop for a while but it depressed him. He stopped at sixty-three piles of poop.
The Marquis should have someone clean this place, he thought, as he stepped over another pile. He shuddered at the thought of writing to the Palace of the Marquis. Even if someone read his complaint, he'd likely be ordered to do the job himself.
Another item he counted during his hike was fences. There had been seven fences so far, one hundred sixty-one fence posts along the road, nineteen cattle, four horses, one of them gray, thirty seven sheep in a single flock, and two streams, both full of fish too fast to count.
Denario had filled his canteen at the first stream. The water tasted so good he'd turned around and headed back to it after he drained the canteen. He hadn't thought to grab for a fish.
At the second stream, he tried it.
"Damn!" After his sixth failure to even touch a fin, he gave up. His face had gotten wet. His sleeves dripped. Beneath them, his arms shivered up to his elbows. Shivers crept to his shoulders before they faded.
He hiked a quarter-mile with a stone in his shoe. He paused, removed the stone, and limped for another half-mile as if it were still there.
At one of the fences, behind thirty seven sheep, there was a girl too young to be a shepherdess. At least, that's what he thought when he noticed her, although she seemed to be watching a flock. She noticed Denario, too, and stared at him for a while. Since she didn't say a word, Denario didn't feel right trying to start a conversation. That kind of thing could get misinterpreted, which might lead to fathers and brothers with angry expressions and thick wooden staves that they'd use to protect their girl. As soon as he'd passed her, though, and she was on the other side of a hill, he wished he'd asked her for food.
Denario followed a wooded turn in the path. Trees grew thicker here. Even with the sun directly overhead, the grove was dark. He trudged on and wondered how many miles lay between Ziegeburg and the next town, which he remembered as a crossroads with four houses and two barns.
He accidentally kicked a piece of metal in the road.
It pinged off a rock. He crouched at it and rubbed off the dirt and mud. The object was the right size for a penny. But no, it was part of a buckle. It had been broken with considerable force.
He stood and looked around. There, by the side of the cart road, was a wooden chest. Its sides were inlaid with fine woods and a metal that might have been gold. Amazing. But the strangest thing was that it had been smashed and thrown away in the brush. It made no sense and, as he approached it, he glanced around again to make sure the road was deserted. Odd, he thought, that the owner hadn't tried to keep the chest and repair it. It had been worth sixty pence, at the least, when it was whole.
He hefted it onto his shoulder. It pressed a broken edge into him but he was determined to take it as far as the next town. He was sure he could trade it for something.
Unfortunately, he'd overestimated himself. The chest was small and it wasn't heavy but a hundred yards was enough for him to realize he wasn't going to make it. He set it down, rested, and hoisted it again. A few yards later, as he rounded another bend in the path, he noticed the dead body.
It didn't completely surprise him.
“Hello?” he said, even though he knew the blonde-headed figure was dead from the smell. He set down the wooden chest and approached. The corpse must have been lying in the road for hours. It rested in the ruts left by a recent cart and Denario could easily imagine that this man had staggered out of the trees in order to flag down the cart but had been too slow. Maybe he had tried to crawl after it. Anyway, he'd left a trail of blood behind him.
Despite the smell, Denario knelt and turned the dead face so he could see it. To his relief, he didn't recognize the man. Denario felt around the neck and the wrist for signs of a pulse. None. He listened for breathing. There was none of that, either. There was a lot of blood on the brown pants and tan shirt. It had crusted. Flies landed on it, rubbed their forelegs, and buzzed away.
As he leaned down lower and lower, concentrating on hearing a breath or a heartbeat, Denario realized he could hear a horse on the road in front of him. Someone was headed his way.
“Ahoy, there!” he shouted. He hopped to his feet and waved. There was no one he could see but surely any traveler would help. Then, as he saw a distant figure appear on the path, he doubted himself. Who had killed this man? A bandit?
“Ahoy?” he said more quietly. He squinted. The figure on the horse didn't seem to be getting any closer. There was motion around the horse, too, another person or an animal.
Denario ducked off the path. With a glance at the horseman, he darted back to the splintered wooden chest, hefted its remains, and took them with him into the underbrush.
About that time, the horseman seemed to notice him. At any rate, Denario heard a shout that could have been meant for him. He dropped the chest near a tree and slunk back into the shadows of the deepest woods. The horse didn't come any closer, although it moved back and forth across the road. After a few minutes, Denario's curiosity overcame his fear and he snuck closer to the horse and the people moving around it.
“Is that all?” someone cried quite clearly.
“Someone else got most of it, my boy,” said another voice.
“Probably bandits,” said the first voice, the one on top of the horse.
“Probably not. Shh.”
Denario paused in his tracks. The one on foot, an elderly woman, had glanced into the woods. Her gaze passed over him but she didn't seem to take note of his presence. He was glad, now, that he'd covered his red vest with the raggedy, plain farming shirt.
“We don't have to worry,” ventured the figure on horseback. “They must be long gone to the hills by now.”
“Real bandits don't leave this much behind, my boy. Who knows what folks did this? But someone else came after, that's for sure. At least one cart came through.”
“Do you think they got the tax box?”
The woman in her shawl grunted. Now that Denario had gotten close, he could see the debris through which she walked, mostly broken bits of wood, a carriage wheel, a fine wooden door, and a dead horse. The woman removed the bit and bridle from the mouth of the dead horse. Then she strode toward a rectangular shape in the shadows at the other side of the road. It took Denario a moment to realize what he was looking at. This was the stagecoach he'd missed. What had happened to it? Everyone knew there were no bandits this close to town. Then he remembered Jordin had said, “You's supposed to be dead on the stagecoach.”
He'd been meant catch the coach out of town. He was supposed be dead.
This had been the mayor's plan all along. For weeks, maybe, Figgins had intended to put the accountant onto the stagecoach along with the baron's taxes. Then he'd have his men attack the coach, steal the money back, and blame it on bandits. But it had gone wrong. Denario hadn't played his part.
That explained why the mayor hadn't been serious about killing Denario in town. He wanted to keep to his plan and, not the least, keep his money.
Denario's escape had been narrower than he'd thought.
“Of course they got the tax box,” said the old woman. In her way, she looked sturdier than her son. “Someone came behind and got other things, too, things that bandits, real bandits I mean, wouldn't leave. They didn't even check for jewelry! Can you imagine?”
“Ugh. Mom, that's gross.” The lad turned away from his mother as she pawed at a body that had an arrow through its chest.
“I'll bet it was the Farmars. Old Gordi comes through here every other day but he's the type who wouldn't stoop to searching the bodies. Or he took a couple things, I'll wager, because there are cart tracks all around. He couldn't help himself. Hmm, no, it would be more likely that his boys did it while he wasn't watching. But they didn't loot properly, not in front of their dad. And they'll report the loss of the stagecoach.”
“They will?”
“No question. They're probably in Zeigeburg right now, gathering up folks to come back and clean up, maybe even to send a letter to the baron. The coach is under the baron's protection, after all.”
“Ouuh, ma.” Something his mother did made him shudder. Denario didn't like the sound of it.
“Got to do it, my boy. Do you have any idea how much this stuff is worth? And look. Look at this chain. She had it around her, well, never mind.”
“That's awful.”
“That's gold, that's what it is, or near enough. And it's jewels, too, or pretty glass. Doesn't make much difference. Someone will pay well. Get down and search the driver. Make yourself useful.”
“He won't have nothing,” the young man complained as he dismounted.
“If bandits searched these folks, they weren't any bandits we know.”
“Do we know any, ma?”
“Oh! Like you don't know your uncles! Just keep looking.”
Denario felt sorry for the young man, who was trying to brush away flies and not look at the body he was pawing rather ineffectively. The driver had dressed in a classic black suit jacket that hid most of the damage from view, Denario was pretty sure. Well, there was no point in sticking around. Part of him itched to rush at these grave robbers and give them a scare. Maybe they would think he was a bandit and flee. Or maybe the boy would turn and stab Denario. Or maybe his mother would do it. That seemed more likely.
He could hit them with poison darts. The idea struck him as he took his first step away. But that didn't make sense. Probably they weren't bad people. They just saw a chance at free money. And if he killed them and then took their money and their horse, what would that make him? No, it was better to keep going. He would come to the fork in the trail soon. Then he'd make his way downhill to the Rune Kill and, with any luck, find a boat to carry him to Oggli, where his life would be sane.
That was a prospect he could look forward to. He would have skipped through the forest except for his need to be quiet. He'd almost forgotten that his partner Curo had gotten most of the money from this venture. Curo would have needed to spend some of it but still there would be a tidy sum awaiting Denario when he got back. He rubbed his hands together as he contemplated it.
Chapter Three, Scene Four
Sunday, November 22, 2015
Not Even Not Zen 19: A Bandit Accountant, 3.2
A Bandit Accountant
Chapter Pi, Roughly
Scene Two: New Shirts
“Down over the second hill, turn left.” The farmer pointed from the grassy hillock on which they stood. His finger led to a pair of other hills in the distance. The second was full of trees.
“How big is the cart path?” asked Denario. He shielded his eyes and squinted. There was no trail through the greenery that he could see.
“Can't miss it,” the farmer assured him.
The day had begun cold and miserable, as far as Denario was concerned. He'd never slept out of doors before. He'd huddled beneath a low fir tree as best as he could but he'd found nothing but pine needles to keep him warm. It turned out he was no good at making a fire so he shivered all night. He'd gotten up when the sky turned from black to purple and marched until dawn.
In the morning twilight, an aggressive rabbit had harassed him from the mouth of its burrow to a nearby border fence. 'Back!' he'd shouted as if the rodent were dog but it kept coming and trying to nip his feet. He'd hopped over a knee-high stack of shale stones to get away. Those rocks had turned out to be a fence and that was how he'd found the farm.
Farli Haphmeyer was the farmer's name. He was the youngest adult member of the oldest family on the Ziege. Although his father had married into the clan, the rest of his ancestors had been tilling the rocky soil here when stone tablets were used for the local temple records. His eyes had a sunken, weather-beaten look, a feature shared by many local families. Otherwise, his gaze was direct and clear. His lanky arms had, as shown by his rolled-up sleeves, the kind of strength that came from wrestling goats and sheep every day.
“Much obliged.” Denario touched his forehead. He missed his hat at a moment like this. In his room at the boarding house, he'd kept three fine hats, one of them an official journeyman's accounting cap, red with gold braid around the brim. It would have been good to have it to tip in thanks. That was always a friendly gesture.
He would miss his spare clothes even more when it rained, he suspected. Why had he grabbed his accounting bag and not his traveling bag?
“Going far?” The farmer recognized Denario and didn't seem to think there was anything unusual about an accountant hiking through the countryside. But he had an opinion about the way Denario was doing it. “Only, there ain't no more carts today and I see you got a pack on but no jacket.”
“Farli,” Denario began. He stopped. There was no way to know if he could trust this fellow. On the other hand, he felt ashamed to lie. “Maybe I should tell you why I'm traveling on foot.”
He tried to make light of his problems with the mayor and of how he was nearly broke because he'd sent his money ahead to his partner. He concentrated on the fight in the bar, which got a few chuckles. But Farli didn't ask many questions. He just nodded, most of the time. After a while, Farli raised his arm in almost the same direction he'd given before.
“Well, if you turn left between the hills, you'll see a sheep shed that I put up a few years back. I can't loan clothes to a fellow who's wanted by the law. I could get strung up for that. But I'm a busy man. Can't fight with criminals. Can't watch everywhere at once. If someone was to steal my spare work clothes from that shed, why, I probably wouldn't notice for days. Can't stop that sort of thing, ya know.”
Denario knew this young farmer was one of the poorest landowners in the hills. He came to town only twice all spring. Each time, he ordered exactly one pint and nursed it along for an hour. The offer made Denario feel ashamed. Then a thought struck him.
In a rough voice, he said, “The thief might leave some money for the clothes, of course.”
“No need, now. No need.”
“But you can't stop that sort of thing, you know.”
The young man laughed.
“You're all right,” he said. He jostled Denario on the arm. “In that case, there's a slate out in front of the shed door. It's covers a hollow space in the ground.”
Denario marched a few steps and turned.
“I only wish I could pay what I really owe you.”
“'Taint nothin.'” Farli shook his head. “But ya won't find many carts on the road, mind. Most of 'em have already gone by. There's been three to Ziegeburg, one to Pickle Bad.”
“Is that all of them?” Denario wondered. He had forgotten how small the town was compared to Baggi or Ahngrili. In only a few months, he'd come to regard it, the way the locals did, as the largest metropolis in West Ogglia. Ziegeburg seemed completely immune to bandits. The town walls were easily climbed or, for that matter, pushed over. The gates were always open. But no bands of men attacked, apparently intimidated by its size.
“Well, my ole aunt Ursula and her sons has got a crop of spring wheat coming in. Haven't seen them today. But if I ain't seen their cart by now, I won't see it till tomorrow. That's the way it is.”
“Right. Thanks, Farli.” Denario started to extend his hand, unsure of whether he was being polite or not. The farmer accepted the gesture and took him in a two-fisted, bone crunching shake. The pressure lasted only an instant, as if Farli hadn't realized how soft an accountant's hands would be. Then he grinned and Denario found himself smiling back at him.
Nodding, they parted. Denario glanced back once, caught the farmer's eye, and they exchanged nods again. Finally, Denario started huffing up the hill and began to wonder what he would discover over the rise. The farmer's shed turned out to be well built, although largely made of scrap logs. He ambled down to it and let his bag slip from his shoulder. It felt good to be free of it. As he rubbed his right shoulder, he stepped inside.
The floor of the shed was dirt. The shelves were filled with jars of sheep linament. Farm tools adorned the wooden hooks on the walls and, where they had filled all of the hooks, they sat in piles at the corners. Denario couldn't guess at the purpose of some of the implements. They were just bits of carved wood with stones or twists of metal lashed to them, each one different from all the rest. Some had blades. Some had tines. Many ended in barbs or curled shapes of some kind. They must be used for shepherding, Denario figured, although perhaps there were general farm tools among the wool-oriented collection. The shovel, for instance, didn't have any use for tending to lambs except, possibly, to bury them.
A pair of tatty overalls hung on a peg that had been pounded between beams of the log wall. Under the overalls were two shirts, both so full of holes they were barely fit for wiping up grease. But Denario felt grateful for them. He dug into his money pouch and got out double the value he thought Farli would put on them. That was the hard part. He was sure that, if he left too much, Farli would feel cheated of his honor or maybe he would guess that Denario was rich and could have left more.
Denario had never understood about people, not really. But he was lucky in this case because he was fairly certain he'd met a kindred soul in Farli. The old-looking young man didn't seem to understand anyone either. He didn't have any real friends in town, Denario knew.
“Damn,” he muttered to himself, money in one hand, clothes in the other. He didn't think the taller man's clothes would fit into his accounting pack.
So he stole a hard, leather tool pack from one of the corner piles of junk. It had two pairs of shears in it. Denario dumped them out. Then, feeling horribly guilty, he picked a pair of shears back up. He needed them to cut the cuffs of the farmer's pants so they didn't hang down past his shoes. He stole a bone knife, too, and left four brassers and eight pence under the paving stone. He hoped that was enough. And he hoped it wasn't twice too much.
Chapter Three, Scene Three
Chapter Pi, Roughly
Scene Two: New Shirts
“Down over the second hill, turn left.” The farmer pointed from the grassy hillock on which they stood. His finger led to a pair of other hills in the distance. The second was full of trees.
“How big is the cart path?” asked Denario. He shielded his eyes and squinted. There was no trail through the greenery that he could see.
“Can't miss it,” the farmer assured him.
The day had begun cold and miserable, as far as Denario was concerned. He'd never slept out of doors before. He'd huddled beneath a low fir tree as best as he could but he'd found nothing but pine needles to keep him warm. It turned out he was no good at making a fire so he shivered all night. He'd gotten up when the sky turned from black to purple and marched until dawn.
In the morning twilight, an aggressive rabbit had harassed him from the mouth of its burrow to a nearby border fence. 'Back!' he'd shouted as if the rodent were dog but it kept coming and trying to nip his feet. He'd hopped over a knee-high stack of shale stones to get away. Those rocks had turned out to be a fence and that was how he'd found the farm.
Farli Haphmeyer was the farmer's name. He was the youngest adult member of the oldest family on the Ziege. Although his father had married into the clan, the rest of his ancestors had been tilling the rocky soil here when stone tablets were used for the local temple records. His eyes had a sunken, weather-beaten look, a feature shared by many local families. Otherwise, his gaze was direct and clear. His lanky arms had, as shown by his rolled-up sleeves, the kind of strength that came from wrestling goats and sheep every day.
“Much obliged.” Denario touched his forehead. He missed his hat at a moment like this. In his room at the boarding house, he'd kept three fine hats, one of them an official journeyman's accounting cap, red with gold braid around the brim. It would have been good to have it to tip in thanks. That was always a friendly gesture.
He would miss his spare clothes even more when it rained, he suspected. Why had he grabbed his accounting bag and not his traveling bag?
“Going far?” The farmer recognized Denario and didn't seem to think there was anything unusual about an accountant hiking through the countryside. But he had an opinion about the way Denario was doing it. “Only, there ain't no more carts today and I see you got a pack on but no jacket.”
“Farli,” Denario began. He stopped. There was no way to know if he could trust this fellow. On the other hand, he felt ashamed to lie. “Maybe I should tell you why I'm traveling on foot.”
He tried to make light of his problems with the mayor and of how he was nearly broke because he'd sent his money ahead to his partner. He concentrated on the fight in the bar, which got a few chuckles. But Farli didn't ask many questions. He just nodded, most of the time. After a while, Farli raised his arm in almost the same direction he'd given before.
“Well, if you turn left between the hills, you'll see a sheep shed that I put up a few years back. I can't loan clothes to a fellow who's wanted by the law. I could get strung up for that. But I'm a busy man. Can't fight with criminals. Can't watch everywhere at once. If someone was to steal my spare work clothes from that shed, why, I probably wouldn't notice for days. Can't stop that sort of thing, ya know.”
Denario knew this young farmer was one of the poorest landowners in the hills. He came to town only twice all spring. Each time, he ordered exactly one pint and nursed it along for an hour. The offer made Denario feel ashamed. Then a thought struck him.
In a rough voice, he said, “The thief might leave some money for the clothes, of course.”
“No need, now. No need.”
“But you can't stop that sort of thing, you know.”
The young man laughed.
“You're all right,” he said. He jostled Denario on the arm. “In that case, there's a slate out in front of the shed door. It's covers a hollow space in the ground.”
Denario marched a few steps and turned.
“I only wish I could pay what I really owe you.”
“'Taint nothin.'” Farli shook his head. “But ya won't find many carts on the road, mind. Most of 'em have already gone by. There's been three to Ziegeburg, one to Pickle Bad.”
“Is that all of them?” Denario wondered. He had forgotten how small the town was compared to Baggi or Ahngrili. In only a few months, he'd come to regard it, the way the locals did, as the largest metropolis in West Ogglia. Ziegeburg seemed completely immune to bandits. The town walls were easily climbed or, for that matter, pushed over. The gates were always open. But no bands of men attacked, apparently intimidated by its size.
“Well, my ole aunt Ursula and her sons has got a crop of spring wheat coming in. Haven't seen them today. But if I ain't seen their cart by now, I won't see it till tomorrow. That's the way it is.”
“Right. Thanks, Farli.” Denario started to extend his hand, unsure of whether he was being polite or not. The farmer accepted the gesture and took him in a two-fisted, bone crunching shake. The pressure lasted only an instant, as if Farli hadn't realized how soft an accountant's hands would be. Then he grinned and Denario found himself smiling back at him.
Nodding, they parted. Denario glanced back once, caught the farmer's eye, and they exchanged nods again. Finally, Denario started huffing up the hill and began to wonder what he would discover over the rise. The farmer's shed turned out to be well built, although largely made of scrap logs. He ambled down to it and let his bag slip from his shoulder. It felt good to be free of it. As he rubbed his right shoulder, he stepped inside.
The floor of the shed was dirt. The shelves were filled with jars of sheep linament. Farm tools adorned the wooden hooks on the walls and, where they had filled all of the hooks, they sat in piles at the corners. Denario couldn't guess at the purpose of some of the implements. They were just bits of carved wood with stones or twists of metal lashed to them, each one different from all the rest. Some had blades. Some had tines. Many ended in barbs or curled shapes of some kind. They must be used for shepherding, Denario figured, although perhaps there were general farm tools among the wool-oriented collection. The shovel, for instance, didn't have any use for tending to lambs except, possibly, to bury them.
A pair of tatty overalls hung on a peg that had been pounded between beams of the log wall. Under the overalls were two shirts, both so full of holes they were barely fit for wiping up grease. But Denario felt grateful for them. He dug into his money pouch and got out double the value he thought Farli would put on them. That was the hard part. He was sure that, if he left too much, Farli would feel cheated of his honor or maybe he would guess that Denario was rich and could have left more.
Denario had never understood about people, not really. But he was lucky in this case because he was fairly certain he'd met a kindred soul in Farli. The old-looking young man didn't seem to understand anyone either. He didn't have any real friends in town, Denario knew.
“Damn,” he muttered to himself, money in one hand, clothes in the other. He didn't think the taller man's clothes would fit into his accounting pack.
So he stole a hard, leather tool pack from one of the corner piles of junk. It had two pairs of shears in it. Denario dumped them out. Then, feeling horribly guilty, he picked a pair of shears back up. He needed them to cut the cuffs of the farmer's pants so they didn't hang down past his shoes. He stole a bone knife, too, and left four brassers and eight pence under the paving stone. He hoped that was enough. And he hoped it wasn't twice too much.
Chapter Three, Scene Three
Friday, November 20, 2015
Not Even Not Zen 18: A Bandit Accountant, 3.1
A Bandit Accountant
Chapter Pi, Roughly
Scene One: A Bargain Purchase
Denario would have liked to be able to say that he didn't remember his slavery. But, in fact, he remembered the beatings quite well. As a young boy, he had never been strong enough or fast enough for the carders or the dyers or the weavers or for any group of the workers who produced cloth for the baron. He fell so low in status that no one called him by name.
“Boy! Hurry up with that spool!” the weavers would bellow. Someone else would shout, while he was stooped over a wrapped pack of wool he couldn't carry, “You'd better not drag that bale through the mud, boy! Keep it clean for the spinsters, else they'll have your hide!”
He was just 'boy' to most of the other slaves and servants. He made his anonymity worse, almost a sort of notoriety, by the way he stopped work when he got distracted by the beauty of the cloth making process. Eventually, someone would notice and yell at him again.
“Boy! What are you day-dreaming about?”
It got him into more trouble than any other child. Unlike some of the other slave children, who had mothers around to look after them, Denario's mother had died, accidentally beaten to death by a headman. He had no allies or friends among the other slaves. Oh, he tried to get along. He tried to be interested in his work. But no one wanted to hear his ideas for improving the looms. No one understood when he tried to re-sort the dyes and threads by frequency of use. What was the point of keeping the red spools farthest away when everyone knew that the weavers used them most? It made sense to keep them close. But he got beaten for that, too, when he tried to explain.
“Boy, you're putting on airs!” a foreman or a weaver would shout. They'd give Denario a swift kick and that would be that.
“What a lazy boy!”
For months in a row, sometimes, he would work only on machine threading. He would crawl on the floors to prepare the spinners or he'd climb on chairs for the looms. If he were lucky, he would be allowed to help the knotters or the knitters, usually middle-aged women who worked in groups together and were kind to him. They praised his skill with jobs that took small, precise hands. If he were unlucky, the more privileged slaves would take his indoor jobs and he would be sent to retrieve bolts of cloth or spools of thread, which nobody else wanted to do in the winter.
When he ran errands, that was the worst because he was always getting smacked by the weavers for being slow with the spools or by the head purchaser for dropping things or stacking bolts in the wrong order. Denario could get a whipping just for being too slow to with the water jug or with any of the other things that the children with mothers didn't need to worry about. Everyone knew where he ranked and it was at the bottom. They never let him forget.
“You don't get first in line with your bowl,” the cook would say. “Don't tell me you don't know that, boy. I don't care how long you've been waiting. You get to the back.”
Being smart didn't help. That just made other slaves and overseers angry. They could see that he was bored with spooling thread. They listened to his suggestions on improvements and it would usually be to their benefit if they took him seriously. But if they didn't like what he said or took his words as criticism, he got beaten. He got walloped by the herders for pointing out that they hadn't carded the wool correctly. He got knocked down by the dyer for noticing that the purple dye had been diluted. He got kicked by the shearers just for watching because they'd heard of the trouble he caused in other places. Finally, he got beaten by the purchaser for noticing that he'd shortchanged the baron on a sale.
The last one made him feel the worst because the stock room was one of the places where he'd been able to take refuge. In the bustle of supply and sales, the purchasing men appreciated his accurate hand on the spools and his nimble mind with the maths they wrote out on the floor. He was good at figuring the numbers and, at times, the assistants asked him to check their work. On slow days, the young men taught Denario how to help them with math. Even better, they hardly beat him for mishandling the bolts of cloth. They preferred to carry the bolts themselves when a nobleman or a wealthy merchant came in to bargain.
“Putting on airs, again,” said the master purchaser, an elderly, tough servant who no longer cared or was even much aware of what his assistants thought. Fortunately, his blows weren't as brutal as those delivered by the bigger foremen in the other work houses.
Denario cried anyway. The master purchaser was clever and he knew how to hit where it hurt. Denario kept his arms high to shield his face. When he dared to lower them, he saw the purchasing assistants and a customer, a thin, pot-bellied man in a robe, staring at him. He felt ashamed.
“What has the boy done?” the customer asked. He worried the end of his long, salt-and-pepper beard.
“He corrected the master,” said the head assistant deferentially.
“An apprentice then? Can't learn the math?”
“He's no apprentice of mine!” screeched the master. “He's just a slave child who hasn't learned when to shut up.”
“Was he wrong, then? Did he figure the sums incorrectly?”
The master paled. He looked as if he'd just remembered something.
“Oh, I'm sorry, Master Winkel.” He bowed, slightly. “I've got to go inform the baron of something. It's an important matter. Do you mind working with Tom, here?”
The master gestured to Junior Master Tom Lamplighter. Everyone nodded. Mumbling an additional apology, the elderly purchaser stumbled off toward the main house. He was, for him, moving quickly.
The customer turned toward Denario.
“I gather you were right, then.” The bearded man let go of the ringlets in his beard. He gave Denario a kindly smile. “And the sum involved was not insignificant.”
Out of their master's hearing, the assistants and apprentices laughed.
“Ah, but we shouldn't poke too much fun,” said Tom. “He's not a bad master and we'll all get old someday, gods willing.”
“Yes, but I'll be better at math when I'm my dotage,” said the lowest assistant. He was quite good already and got cuffed only lightly, with a laugh, for his impetuousness.
“Careful, or we won't teach you percentages.” Tom wagged his finger.
“I've already learned them from the slave!”
“Really?”
“Well, there's no surprise.” Tom shook his head. “Come on over, Denario. We won't bite.”
“From the slave? His name is Denario?” The man seemed a bit distracted but thoughtful. He had laughed with the assistants, initially, but had resumed stroking his beard and making 'hmm' noises to himself. He crouched as Denario approached them so he was almost on eye level. “You're teaching math, boy? But you look awfully young. Who's been teaching math to you, a slave?”
“No one,” said Denario. He was still sobbing. It was hard to speak. “I shouldn't do math. I won't do it again.”
“Now, now.” Winkel tugged on the collar of his robe. It was a warm day. Denario later learned that the master accountant had left his vest at home. He wore a faded, brown tunic underneath an over-robe that went to his ankles. “How old are you?”
“Nine.”
“Oh, hmm, you're a bit small for nine. And you look starving, almost. Don't they feed you?”
Denario froze, afraid of another beating. It was the head assistant who spoke. Tom Lamplighter had been a skilled slave and he'd bought his freedom six years ago. Now he was working to buy freedom for his mother.
“He's got no parents,” said Tom. “He gets scraps, mostly. I think he's learned most of his math from listening to us. We haven't been giving him any formal lessons, I'd have to say, but I was going keep him here this winter and make his place in the stock room official. He's not as much use anywhere else around the estate.”
In fact, Denario had learned almost everything from Tom as the head assistant corrected everyone else, including the master purchaser.
Winkel's fingers tugged at the ringlets of his beard again.
“No parents, no math lessons,” he mumbled. “But you know what percentages are?”
“They're fractions,” Denario replied.
“Not quite.”
“Yes, they are. They're fractions of one hundred.”
That opened Winkel's eyes. He crouched down to Denario's level and started to ask Denario questions about math that Denario had never considered before. He used some words that Denario had never heard, either, like interest, accrual, and depreciation, but Denario caught onto the idea of interest quickly, which made Winkel smile, and he succeeded in working out the monthly and annual interest percentages in his head.
Then there were questions about denominators, multipliers, and concepts that Denario partially understood from discussions around the purchaser's table but for which he'd never learned the correct language. Finally, there had come questions about angles, bisectors, and circumferences. Denario had been ignorant of those and worried he was disappointing the scholarly man. Winkel kept asking.
“If I told you only the width of a circle, like that wheel over there,” he said, pointing to the pulley used to lift spools of cloth from the high shelves. “Could you tell me how far around it ought to be?”
“Can I just take a rope around the circle and measure it?”
“No. You can't see the circle. For this case, imagine that I'm in a distant land and I've written you a letter asking how to know if my engineers have built it right. I want to make sure it's an exact circle, not merely something close.”
“And there's a rule for getting the distance around from the distance across?”
“Exactly.”
“Could I measure other circles for the distance across and the distance around, then work out the rule and tell you?”
Winkel pulled at his beard for another minute. It was, maybe, the longest minute in Denario's life.
“A word with you, Tom,” he said. He rose to his full height.
“Naturally, master.” The head assistant gave him a smile but the rest of his face was so solemn, the effect was rather grave. The two men strolled off to the road, together out of easy hearing for the rest of the stock room workers. One of the older boys leaned out of doors with a hand to his ear. He wouldn't have dared it if it was the master purchaser in conversation but he apparently knew Tom wouldn't beat him for it.
“Keep him in here for a while, won't you?” Winkel said after the whispering finished. “I'm going to talk with your slave handler.”
“Go to the baron's niece first. Ask for Mattie.” The purchasing assistant pointed to the big house across the courtyard. Denario had never stepped inside but the purchaser and his head assistant went there often and sometimes got invited to eat.
After the accountant had gone, Tom walked to the store room door and rested there with his hands on his hips. He gave Denario a self-satisfied glance. Denario didn't understand why. He stared for a moment, trying to figure it out.
“Should I see if the spinners have more spools to store?” he asked.
“Do you have any personal items in the barracks house?” Tom ignored Denario's question in favor of his own. He didn't even look at Denario when he spoke.
“A few,” lied Denario. Most slaves had something. But the others had stolen most of what Denario made for himself. All that he had at the moment was a spare tunic, a piece of broken slate, and a wad of stuffing he kept in rawhide for his pillow.
“Go get them now.”
“But the barracks master ...”
“Tell him Tom ordered it.”
"But he'll be cleaning and ...”
“Tell him. And come right back.” Tom turned slightly. Denario could see a tear run down his cheek. Startled by the sight, he turned his back on it. After a second's thought, he ran out to do as he was told. Partway to the barracks room, though, he spun around on the dirt path. He stared at the expression on Tom's face and tried to figure it out.
Chapter Three, Scene Two
Chapter Pi, Roughly
Scene One: A Bargain Purchase
Denario would have liked to be able to say that he didn't remember his slavery. But, in fact, he remembered the beatings quite well. As a young boy, he had never been strong enough or fast enough for the carders or the dyers or the weavers or for any group of the workers who produced cloth for the baron. He fell so low in status that no one called him by name.
“Boy! Hurry up with that spool!” the weavers would bellow. Someone else would shout, while he was stooped over a wrapped pack of wool he couldn't carry, “You'd better not drag that bale through the mud, boy! Keep it clean for the spinsters, else they'll have your hide!”
He was just 'boy' to most of the other slaves and servants. He made his anonymity worse, almost a sort of notoriety, by the way he stopped work when he got distracted by the beauty of the cloth making process. Eventually, someone would notice and yell at him again.
“Boy! What are you day-dreaming about?”
It got him into more trouble than any other child. Unlike some of the other slave children, who had mothers around to look after them, Denario's mother had died, accidentally beaten to death by a headman. He had no allies or friends among the other slaves. Oh, he tried to get along. He tried to be interested in his work. But no one wanted to hear his ideas for improving the looms. No one understood when he tried to re-sort the dyes and threads by frequency of use. What was the point of keeping the red spools farthest away when everyone knew that the weavers used them most? It made sense to keep them close. But he got beaten for that, too, when he tried to explain.
“Boy, you're putting on airs!” a foreman or a weaver would shout. They'd give Denario a swift kick and that would be that.
“What a lazy boy!”
For months in a row, sometimes, he would work only on machine threading. He would crawl on the floors to prepare the spinners or he'd climb on chairs for the looms. If he were lucky, he would be allowed to help the knotters or the knitters, usually middle-aged women who worked in groups together and were kind to him. They praised his skill with jobs that took small, precise hands. If he were unlucky, the more privileged slaves would take his indoor jobs and he would be sent to retrieve bolts of cloth or spools of thread, which nobody else wanted to do in the winter.
When he ran errands, that was the worst because he was always getting smacked by the weavers for being slow with the spools or by the head purchaser for dropping things or stacking bolts in the wrong order. Denario could get a whipping just for being too slow to with the water jug or with any of the other things that the children with mothers didn't need to worry about. Everyone knew where he ranked and it was at the bottom. They never let him forget.
“You don't get first in line with your bowl,” the cook would say. “Don't tell me you don't know that, boy. I don't care how long you've been waiting. You get to the back.”
Being smart didn't help. That just made other slaves and overseers angry. They could see that he was bored with spooling thread. They listened to his suggestions on improvements and it would usually be to their benefit if they took him seriously. But if they didn't like what he said or took his words as criticism, he got beaten. He got walloped by the herders for pointing out that they hadn't carded the wool correctly. He got knocked down by the dyer for noticing that the purple dye had been diluted. He got kicked by the shearers just for watching because they'd heard of the trouble he caused in other places. Finally, he got beaten by the purchaser for noticing that he'd shortchanged the baron on a sale.
The last one made him feel the worst because the stock room was one of the places where he'd been able to take refuge. In the bustle of supply and sales, the purchasing men appreciated his accurate hand on the spools and his nimble mind with the maths they wrote out on the floor. He was good at figuring the numbers and, at times, the assistants asked him to check their work. On slow days, the young men taught Denario how to help them with math. Even better, they hardly beat him for mishandling the bolts of cloth. They preferred to carry the bolts themselves when a nobleman or a wealthy merchant came in to bargain.
“Putting on airs, again,” said the master purchaser, an elderly, tough servant who no longer cared or was even much aware of what his assistants thought. Fortunately, his blows weren't as brutal as those delivered by the bigger foremen in the other work houses.
Denario cried anyway. The master purchaser was clever and he knew how to hit where it hurt. Denario kept his arms high to shield his face. When he dared to lower them, he saw the purchasing assistants and a customer, a thin, pot-bellied man in a robe, staring at him. He felt ashamed.
“What has the boy done?” the customer asked. He worried the end of his long, salt-and-pepper beard.
“He corrected the master,” said the head assistant deferentially.
“An apprentice then? Can't learn the math?”
“He's no apprentice of mine!” screeched the master. “He's just a slave child who hasn't learned when to shut up.”
“Was he wrong, then? Did he figure the sums incorrectly?”
The master paled. He looked as if he'd just remembered something.
“Oh, I'm sorry, Master Winkel.” He bowed, slightly. “I've got to go inform the baron of something. It's an important matter. Do you mind working with Tom, here?”
The master gestured to Junior Master Tom Lamplighter. Everyone nodded. Mumbling an additional apology, the elderly purchaser stumbled off toward the main house. He was, for him, moving quickly.
The customer turned toward Denario.
“I gather you were right, then.” The bearded man let go of the ringlets in his beard. He gave Denario a kindly smile. “And the sum involved was not insignificant.”
Out of their master's hearing, the assistants and apprentices laughed.
“Ah, but we shouldn't poke too much fun,” said Tom. “He's not a bad master and we'll all get old someday, gods willing.”
“Yes, but I'll be better at math when I'm my dotage,” said the lowest assistant. He was quite good already and got cuffed only lightly, with a laugh, for his impetuousness.
“Careful, or we won't teach you percentages.” Tom wagged his finger.
“I've already learned them from the slave!”
“Really?”
“Well, there's no surprise.” Tom shook his head. “Come on over, Denario. We won't bite.”
“From the slave? His name is Denario?” The man seemed a bit distracted but thoughtful. He had laughed with the assistants, initially, but had resumed stroking his beard and making 'hmm' noises to himself. He crouched as Denario approached them so he was almost on eye level. “You're teaching math, boy? But you look awfully young. Who's been teaching math to you, a slave?”
“No one,” said Denario. He was still sobbing. It was hard to speak. “I shouldn't do math. I won't do it again.”
“Now, now.” Winkel tugged on the collar of his robe. It was a warm day. Denario later learned that the master accountant had left his vest at home. He wore a faded, brown tunic underneath an over-robe that went to his ankles. “How old are you?”
“Nine.”
“Oh, hmm, you're a bit small for nine. And you look starving, almost. Don't they feed you?”
Denario froze, afraid of another beating. It was the head assistant who spoke. Tom Lamplighter had been a skilled slave and he'd bought his freedom six years ago. Now he was working to buy freedom for his mother.
“He's got no parents,” said Tom. “He gets scraps, mostly. I think he's learned most of his math from listening to us. We haven't been giving him any formal lessons, I'd have to say, but I was going keep him here this winter and make his place in the stock room official. He's not as much use anywhere else around the estate.”
In fact, Denario had learned almost everything from Tom as the head assistant corrected everyone else, including the master purchaser.
Winkel's fingers tugged at the ringlets of his beard again.
“No parents, no math lessons,” he mumbled. “But you know what percentages are?”
“They're fractions,” Denario replied.
“Not quite.”
“Yes, they are. They're fractions of one hundred.”
That opened Winkel's eyes. He crouched down to Denario's level and started to ask Denario questions about math that Denario had never considered before. He used some words that Denario had never heard, either, like interest, accrual, and depreciation, but Denario caught onto the idea of interest quickly, which made Winkel smile, and he succeeded in working out the monthly and annual interest percentages in his head.
Then there were questions about denominators, multipliers, and concepts that Denario partially understood from discussions around the purchaser's table but for which he'd never learned the correct language. Finally, there had come questions about angles, bisectors, and circumferences. Denario had been ignorant of those and worried he was disappointing the scholarly man. Winkel kept asking.
“If I told you only the width of a circle, like that wheel over there,” he said, pointing to the pulley used to lift spools of cloth from the high shelves. “Could you tell me how far around it ought to be?”
“Can I just take a rope around the circle and measure it?”
“No. You can't see the circle. For this case, imagine that I'm in a distant land and I've written you a letter asking how to know if my engineers have built it right. I want to make sure it's an exact circle, not merely something close.”
“And there's a rule for getting the distance around from the distance across?”
“Exactly.”
“Could I measure other circles for the distance across and the distance around, then work out the rule and tell you?”
Winkel pulled at his beard for another minute. It was, maybe, the longest minute in Denario's life.
“A word with you, Tom,” he said. He rose to his full height.
“Naturally, master.” The head assistant gave him a smile but the rest of his face was so solemn, the effect was rather grave. The two men strolled off to the road, together out of easy hearing for the rest of the stock room workers. One of the older boys leaned out of doors with a hand to his ear. He wouldn't have dared it if it was the master purchaser in conversation but he apparently knew Tom wouldn't beat him for it.
“Keep him in here for a while, won't you?” Winkel said after the whispering finished. “I'm going to talk with your slave handler.”
“Go to the baron's niece first. Ask for Mattie.” The purchasing assistant pointed to the big house across the courtyard. Denario had never stepped inside but the purchaser and his head assistant went there often and sometimes got invited to eat.
After the accountant had gone, Tom walked to the store room door and rested there with his hands on his hips. He gave Denario a self-satisfied glance. Denario didn't understand why. He stared for a moment, trying to figure it out.
“Should I see if the spinners have more spools to store?” he asked.
“Do you have any personal items in the barracks house?” Tom ignored Denario's question in favor of his own. He didn't even look at Denario when he spoke.
“A few,” lied Denario. Most slaves had something. But the others had stolen most of what Denario made for himself. All that he had at the moment was a spare tunic, a piece of broken slate, and a wad of stuffing he kept in rawhide for his pillow.
“Go get them now.”
“But the barracks master ...”
“Tell him Tom ordered it.”
"But he'll be cleaning and ...”
“Tell him. And come right back.” Tom turned slightly. Denario could see a tear run down his cheek. Startled by the sight, he turned his back on it. After a second's thought, he ran out to do as he was told. Partway to the barracks room, though, he spun around on the dirt path. He stared at the expression on Tom's face and tried to figure it out.
Chapter Three, Scene Two
Sunday, November 15, 2015
A Nerd in a Warrior Culture - Two Chapters
A Bandit Accountant
Chapter Thirty-Two Minus Thirty-One
Chapter Root Two Squared
Chapter Thirty-Two Minus Thirty-One
- Scene One, Fired
- Scene Two, Something Does Not Add Up
- Scene Three, One to the N Ponies
- Scene Four, A Tip on Poison
- Scene Five, A Desperate Game
Chapter Root Two Squared
- Scene One, Going Fourth
- Scene Two, Speak to the Point
- Scene Three, Fallen
- Scene Four, Friends Like These
- Scene Five, Another Plan
Being Geek in a Warrior Culture - Second Chapter
A Bandit Accountant
Chapter Root Two Squared
Chapter Root Two Squared
- Scene One, Going Fourth
- Scene Two, Speak to the Point
- Scene Three, Fallen
- Scene Four, Friends Like These
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