Day 12, 10:05 AM

“Don’t forget to bring a towel.”

— Towelie

Namir is a humble settlement. The main street is actually a part of the main road, but I can see relatively clean packed-dirt streets, and the air smells better than Amplegord. Less civilization mixed with poor sewerage, more clear forest air mixed with fish. Lots and lots of fish, drowning most other smells.

The houses are smaller, made of whole logs, and none have a second story. I don’t know how many locals live here, but there’s a disproportionately large mixed crowd hawking all sorts of merchandise along the wide, main street. One glance tells me there’s many more people than should fit in the houses.

“Market day,” Manuella explains, apparently noticing my confusion.

“Thanks.”

Market day is good. It’s great for us, actually. Plenty of unfamiliar faces, peddlers and buyers passing by or visiting from nearby hamlets, trading their goods.

Nobody will notice us.

“Do you know why the gate is closed?” I whisper, and Manuella gives me her ‘you stupid?’ look.

“To keep wolves, foxes, and wild bloodhowlers out. There is a lot of traffic, and the air smells of edibles. If vermin snuck in, even a single fox, local residents could suffer accidents or loss before getting rid of them.”

When you put it like that…

“Thanks.” I flash her another winning smile.

“Restrain yourself from haggling too hard. We do not wish to leave a memorable impression.”

“Thanks,” I keep smiling. “Do you perhaps wish to do our bartering today?”

She stares at me for a moment, trying to digest my overly complicated question.

“You wanna haggle?” I grin, and she shakes her head.

I agree. The less she speaks the better. You can make out she’s a noble from the way she speaks, even if she doesn’t speak too much.

First, we buy a week’s worth of traveling rations. A bearded man is selling fine towels, which feel like sandpaper to the touch, but they aren’t any worse than the one I bought in Amplegord, so I buy another two. Having a spare won’t hurt.

Manuella insists we buy a needle, thread, a small pot of honey, clean white cloth we can boil and turn into bandages, and an assortment of dry herbs from the traveling apothecary. The healing supplies cost us an arm, six whole silver shields for a tiny parcel.

Finally, we buy a small earthen cooking pot, big enough for the two of us, before we search for the blacksmith.

“Good day,” I greet the sturdy hill of a man and shake his hand. The forty-year-old, pot-bellied smith’s grip is like a vise, but I’m no pushover, either. I clench his hand, and he winces, twisting his arm and body to free himself.

“Good day, good sir! How may I help you?” He greets me politely, and I let go.

I clap him on the shoulder while he’s rubbing his hand, flashing him a good-natured smile. He doesn’t even budge.

“You’re as strong as an ox, old man,” I say, and he grins back at me.

“And you, son, like a pair of young bulls, what do you need?”

I feel Manuella’s glare burning a pair of holes in the back of my head. I fucked up at something as simple as saying ‘hello’ in a non-memorable way, two seconds after entering the shop.

“I’m looking for a spear. Good, thick spear for hunting boars. Shaft about six feet long, but slightly longer will do. My old one broke. If you have just a shaft, that’s even better. But I would like you to reinforce it with a couple metal bands, if you don’t mind. I’ll pay.”

“Son, I can tell how you broke it just by looking at you. You’re supposed to ease your stance when impaling them. Most people have to do it anyway because they aren’t strong enough to withstand a boar’s charge, but you don’t, so you broke your spear. How many thrusts did she take?”

“Good two dozen.”

The blacksmith whistles. “Must’ve been good, old work. It’s hard to find decent timber nowadays. You have to cut the old trees, deep in the forest, but most woodcutters stick with the young ones around the fringes.”

I nod, no idea what he’s saying, but it sounds like he’s passionate about the problem of high quality timber.

“Give me a moment.” He turns around and disappears. Thuds and crashes fill the air as he rummages through mysterious piles in the back of his smithy.

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He re-emerges after a minute, holding a three-inch-thick length of brown wood, so dark it’s almost black.

“My grandpappy made this from a branch of a two-hundred-year-old bull-oak. He made several pieces, all my hammers have handles made of this thing. My pa replaced their heads once, I did as well, but there’s not a chip on the handles. There’s no need for bands, either. Nails would just bend when you try to hammer them in. Here, feel it.”

He hands me the staff, and the five and a half feet long piece of polished wood must weigh at least ten pounds, maybe even whole twenty. A laugh escapes me, and I look at the smith.

“It’s heavy,” I say, and he folds his arms and nods.

“You bet your ass it’s heavy, son. That there has been dried for sixty years, it’s a family heirloom.”

‘Why did it sound like you were rummaging through junk then?’ Blunt almost asks, but I bite my tongue. I don’t want to get kicked out from another store.

“How much is it?” I ask.

“Four crowns,” the blacksmith says, and I almost have a heart attack. Even Manuella hisses while sucking in a breath behind my back.

“But I’ll give it to you for three,” the blacksmith continues. “Trust me, with your strength it pays off. You will need to buy a decent shaft every year, costing you three-four shields. After twenty years, this one will pay off. Besides, you’re what, seventeen, eighteen? And you’ve already ruined one weapon and hunted two dozen boars. You can earn that money hunting boars and bears in a year, maybe less.”

I look at the man, he’s grinning at me happily, and my Bargaining isn’t triggering, meaning he’s already offering it at the minimum acceptable price. Maybe lower?

“Three crowns?” I repeat and gulp.

I look the blacksmith in the eye and draw a deep breath. “Thank you for the opportunity, but I don’t have that much on me. I have a crown and seventeen shields.”

He doesn’t even blink at the sum.

I turn around towards the door. “Maybe if I sold something, or Manny?”

I look at Manuella, winking. “Could you lend me a crown and three shields?”

“Are you insane?” she shouts in a passable male baritone.

“Please,” I beg, and she folds her arms, squeezing her breasts against her ribs instead of pushing them up.

“I get all the money from our hunting trips until you pay me back. And you owe me five pints of beer when you have some money.”

Her act is good, but not great. I can tell some flaws in her voice, and words, but it should fool the smith. I nod, eager like a dog, and she counts twenty-three shields.

I give the smith forty silver coins and one gold. He bites each, and checks the markings to make sure we haven’t shaved them, then hands me the rod. It’s slightly shorter than I wanted, but excellent nevertheless.

We exit the store, leaving behind one rich smith, who finally sold his ancestor’s long-term investment. The deal was a daylight robbery, I’m just not sure who robbed whom. From his point of view, the staff is worth a whole gold crown more, from my point of view, I could have bought a brand new boat instead of one fancy, dark-brown walking stick.

“Any thoughts?” I ask, and Manuella hisses at me.

“You were memorable. Very, Very memorable.”

She’s right, of course. We wanted to be subtle, easily forgotten, then I wrestled a blacksmith, bought his family treasure, and left a pile of money in his store. He will probably remember me until the day he dies.

“Do we need anything else, or should we leave?”

“We should leave,” she says, and we walk out a different gate on the other side of the paved road. Another destitute elder closes the door behind us, and we walk for five minutes in silence.

She’s steaming, like a volcano about to erupt or like pissed cartoon characters. I can practically see the air shimmer above her head, and once we’re certainly out of earshot, I seize the initiative.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her honestly. “I’m a people person—”

“What does being a people person have to do with—” she closes her mouth, and draws a deep breath through her nose.

“It is fine. He only paid attention to you. I could have sprouted antlers, sang, and juggled torches, and he would not have noticed I was present in the store. So maybe your actions did not expose us. And if he really has taken a liking to you, he is in no obligation to reveal who you are, where you went, and what you bought.”

She pauses for breath, calming down further. “That black staff is noticeable and memorable. If you plan to lead an armed rebellion, a weapon like that will serve you well and aid build your reputation. However, carrying something like that when you are a fugitive is no different from carrying a banner.”

I want to interrupt her and say the staff is just dark brown, but she keeps talking.

“What you bought is probably as close as timber can be to legendary ironwood. I guess your luck is good. Maybe even incredible, because I certainly cannot believe what happened after you tried to break a blacksmith’s arm,” she almost shouts that last bit. Understandable.

“Um, I’m sorry,” I smile, even though I know smiles don’t work on her. “But at least I got a cool stick out of it.”

She gives me that look, and my smile grows wider. “We could tie our bags at the ends and try to mask it like a really big yoke.”

She keeps looking at me, and I burst into laughter.

“What is so amusing?” she asks.

“You are so—” I clap my mouth shut with my left before Blunt flaps my tongue around, saying stupid nonsense I really mean.

“I am what?” she asks, actually stopping to tap her feet.

“Smart, serious, wonderful, tolerant…” I start listing random adjectives. I don’t quite believe all of them, not completely, but I believe she holds at least a smidgeon of each of the attributes I ascribe to her.

“You are making fun of me,” she stops tapping her feet, but her arms are folded, and she’s pushing her breasts up, not squeezing them.

I bite my lip and drop the joking tone. “I believe everything I just said. At least partially, if not fully. I can explain more when you trust me. We’re not there yet. I unconditionally trust everything you say. I may argue, but down to the core of my being I trust you.”

She gives me a cold look. It’s not the idiot one, but one which seems to say, ‘Stop fooling around and start acting serious.’

“You are lying and making fun of me.”

“I’m speaking the truth. If you know how I can prove it to you, just tell me, and I’ll do it. I feel like I’ve known you all my life, and like I can trust you with everything. I understand the feeling cannot be mutual. Not yet.”

She turns around and starts walking.

I look at her back and have a feeling that my actions just now drew us a bit further apart rather than drawing us closer.