Chapter 39

I took a sip of my wine as I picked up a stack of ten gold coins and moved them into the pot with my other hand. “Raise,” I said simply and looked calmly around at the four nobles I was gambling with. They were lesser nobles, two barons and two unlanded like myself, that had invited me to join their game when they heard from the tax collector that I was a gambler looking for a game. It wasn’t particularly high stakes at a minimum fifty gold, but they played every week or so, and this was my second time joining them. My first visit had netted me only a couple dozen gold after I lost a big hand near the end of the game, but I was up well over a hundred this time and one of the nobles had even been forced to bring more gold to the table after I cleaned him out early in the game.

Three of the men calmly called my raise while one folded, and I flipped over my cards to show a straight. The others sighed as they turned over two pair, three of a kind, and a lower straight. I smiled as I gathered the coins into a pile in front of me and began stacking them up. “You got lucky with the river there, Lord Nameless,” said the noble who had flopped the low end of the straight with a slightly irritated tone. He had had me up until then. I considered explaining to him the value of playing suited connectors with an open ended straight draw and a flush draw on the board but simply shrugged.

“I don’t know that I was born lucky, but I do have my moments,” I said, drolly, as I counted up my take so far today. That win put me up to almost one hundred and sixty gold not counting the fifty I’d started with. I yawned and stretched. “I think that will do for me for today, my lords. I believe I’ll go out on a win today, unlike last time,” I said with a grimace, referencing the loss I’d taken at the end of the game last week when this very noble had taken me for fifty gold just before we’d stopped for the night.

The noble chuckled as he remembered. “Very well, I’ll get you next time my lord,” he said in a more friendly tone.

Baron Tilamet, our host, gestured to his butler who brought over a few small bags to hold my winnings, and I filled them up, tying them to my belt. It was pretty heavy and was weighing down my sword belt quite a bit. I may have to think about getting a proper chest to carry winnings in if I’m going to play in any higher stakes games than this one.

“Deal me out for a bit, my lords,” said Baron TIlamet. “I need a quick word with Lord Nameless before he goes, but I’ll be back shortly. Try not to lose all your gold before I do,” he smiled at the men as they chuckled and waved him on his way as he joined me in leaving the richly appointed card room.

As we got out of earshot he turned to me and asked, “My lord, I had heard a rumor that you have been blessed with rare healing magic, and I wondered if I might ask for a favor involving its use.”

I shrugged. “Sure, I can’t guarantee anything without seeing the person I’ll be healing though. What are we talking about?”

He sighed, “My son is a bit headstrong I’m afraid and managed to break his arm when he fell from his horse while hunting boar yesterday. Do you think you’d be able to do something about it?”

“Be happy to take a look, Baron. Don’t think it’ll be a problem though, I healed my rock horse once when it snapped one of its legs, and he’s doing fine these days,” I said.

The baron gave a relieved sigh and motioned that I should follow him. We headed through his tastefully gaudy mansion as he led me to the second floor to a room at the end of the hall. The room smelled of illness, and a roaring fire in the hearth was making the room uncomfortably hot. I started sweating immediately.

“So cold,” muttered a young man around my age, perhaps a bit younger, laying in the large, draped, four post bed as we neared him. He appeared pale and was shivering even in the heat. What gives? I thought this was just a broken arm.

“If you’ll give me a moment to examine the patient’s magic, Baron?” I said to the man as he crowded me worriedly. The baron collected himself with a deep breath and took a step back to give me some room. I leaned forward and looked down at the boy’s magic with my hands clasped behind my back. I could definitely see where something was impeding the flow of the dark blue cloud swirling within his arm, but his magic cloud had an odd sickly pallor that was distinctly different from that which I’d seen in Ara when she was starving. The guy’s magic wasn’t a particularly thick cloud compared to the Baron or myself. I’d have ranked the boy a bit below Ara.

I reached out and pressed two of my fingers lightly to his shoulder above his splinted arm. The flesh was hot to the touch. Can broken bones get infected? That sounds vaguely familiar, especially if the bone had broken the skin, but it’s been a long time now since I watched House MD on TV. I ran my magic through his, and strengthened the cloud in his arm as my green lightning flickered through it. I heard the bone crunching as it snapped back into place and then felt it merge back into a whole. He was still shivering and whimpering though. So I drew my magic through the entirety of his body. I figure if it’s an infection then bacteria or something may have migrated throughout his body. I imagined my magic burning it away and leaving him healthy as I moved it from his head down to his feet. The color of his magic immediately improved to normal, and his flesh gained a healthy glow as he suddenly relaxed into normal sleep. I examined his magic one last time, and it looked just as healthy as anybody else’s at this point.

I gave a satisfied nod and stood back up with a sigh, turning to the baron. “That should do it, Baron. It’s good you asked for my help though. It seems the broken bone had become infected. I rather expect it would have killed him in a matter of days, if not sooner, as things stood upon my arrival. He should be fine now though. Let him sleep the night through, and I believe you’ll find him feeling ‘headstrong’ again in the morning.” I said as I smiled. I walked over and opened the window a crack. The cold night air blew in, and it felt great after standing in the sweat-inducing heat of the boy’s room. I leaned heavily against the windowsill and breathed deeply. That had taken quite a bit out of me, so I took a moment to collect myself before closing the window and walking back to the baron where he sat on the bed beside his son. “If you’ll excuse me Baron I’m going to take my leave. That was more exhausting than I had anticipated, and I believe I'll surrender myself to the tender ministration of my attendant before turning in early for the night.” I gave a shallow bow and headed for the door.

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“Just a moment please, Lord Nameless. Jiles!” called the baron to his butler, who immediately entered the room. He must have been waiting just outside. “Have the carriage readied for Lord Nameless. I’ll not have him walking home after exhausting himself at my bequest.” The butler held his hand to his chest and bowed deeply, leaving the room quickly. “If you are correct in your assessment, and I believe you were, considering my son’s condition, then I owe you a great debt my lord. Please, feel free to call on me if you ever need a favor of your own, and allow me to show my appreciation with a bit of gold. From what I hear, you’re involved in a somewhat…expensive endeavor at that forge of yours,” he said knowingly. I guess he’s heard about us employing locals for various tasks related to our armor construction project. Not that that’s particularly surprising since we’d employed both of the finest leather workers in the city, bonding leather to each of the steel scales among other various tasks. Might be nice to have an information network like that of my own one of these days.

“Wouldn’t say no. As you correctly surmise, my current ‘endeavor’ is indeed expensive. I’ll have to drop off a sample of the final project once we finish up so you can see some of what I’ve been working on,” I shrugged. “But really, it was no trouble,” I chuckled. “Not that it’s something I’d want to do more than once a day, mind you. Broken bone aside, that infection was a bit trickier than I would have thought it would be to diagnose, much less fix.” I walked through the bedroom door with a backward wave and made my way tiredly to the front door of the mansion. The two horse carriage was already pulling up as I reached it. Dang, that butler does quick work, he must’ve taken off running as soon as he was out of sight to have it ready that quick.

I gave the driver a nod and hopped in on the assumption that he knew where we were going. As I shut the door I noticed a small chest on the seat beside me. The carriage is one thing, but how did the butler know to get the coin and put it in the carriage too? I looked inside and found it was packed with gold coins. My eyes widened. Fuck me, there’s gotta be three hundred gold here. All of a sudden tonight was turning out to be incredibly lucrative, as I was now carrying around more money than I’d ever had before.

As I luxuriated in the feeling of being rather rich, I looked out the left window and watched the massive graveyard illuminated by the sunset as we drove past on its southern side. According to the locals, the graveyard was almost a thousand years old and had been started around the same time as The Mountain Kingdom itself. Generation after generation had used it, and it had expanded more and more over the centuries until it was nearly the same size as Lake City itself. The baron’s mansion bordered the southern side, as one of his primary duties was the protection of the ancient graveyard from graverobbers and vandals. It was said that at the very center of the graveyard stood the mausoleum of the first king himself. It cost coin to even enter though, so I had never bothered.

It had taken me about an hour to walk out to the baron’s mansion, but we found ourselves back in the city shortly thanks to the carriage. Ah, the trappings of nobility. I could get used to this. The driver stopped the carriage at the entrance to the smithy, and I let myself out. I gave the driver another nod which he returned, and he sped off into the rapidly deepening darkness as the sun dipped below the horizon. I carried my heavy little chest of gold under my arm as I made my way through the snow on the path to the front door. I could hear Dog barking inside. He must have heard the carriage pull up.

I opened the door and found everybody sitting in the front room eating some sweets that Ara had made and drinking tea. “Evening, everybody.” I pushed Dog off me as he jumped up and tried to lick my face. “Down, boy!” I said, laughing. I made my way tiredly over to the couch and sat down. I set my chest on the table and leaned back with an exhausted sigh next to Ara.

“How was your gambling, my lord?” asked Ara with a somewhat disapproving tone as she took a sip of her tea. She didn’t particularly like the fact that I gambled, even if I had won every time I’d played thus far. It seems her father had had a weakness for gambling himself and had on several occasions lost more money than they could afford.

“Oh, pretty good I guess,” I untied the sacks of gold at my belt and tossed them jingling onto the table next to the chest. “Made a little over a hundred and fifty playing cards, but the REAL windfall came when I healed the baron’s son with a little magic.” I flipped open the lid to show the gold inside. “If you include the fifty gold I brought with me, that’s about five hundred gold there. Pretty good haul if I do say so myself,” I said proudly. I tossed one of the sacks of coin in front of each of them. “So, if there’s anything you guys wanted to buy, we’re flush enough now that you can get pretty much whatever you need and we’ll still have more gold left in the nest egg than we started with.”

All three of them seemed a bit frozen as they stared at all the money on the table. Dog didn’t care though, and nudged my knee until I scratched his ears. Knick was the first to respond. “Damn, that’s a lot of gold for one night’s work, Nameless. Good job.” He grabbed the sack in front of him and tied it to his belt before grabbing a snack cake and taking a bite. “‘Ow many beeble didja hafta kill?” he asked through a large mouthful.

I laughed, “None this time. I’m trying to take Hammer’s advice and am playing nice. I figure now that we’ve got a tidy little financial cushion I’ll try to minimize my winnings too. No need to poke a sleeping bear,” I paused for a moment and thought back to my time in Tiga. “Saw a guy try to do that once actually. Poke a sleeping bear, that is. It didn’t end well for him.” I chuckled. “Let that be a lesson to ya. Running around in the forest in the dark is dangerous.”

Hammer startled and looked up from the bag of coins he’d been staring at open mouthed. “Wait a second. You took us running around the forest for two nights in a row!” he said in protest.

I shrugged, amused, “Well, sure, but I ran us around all three of the bears we came across. They didn’t bother us, did they? If you’d poked ‘em it woulda been a different story.”

“I-I didn’t see any bears at all,” stammered Hammer. Knick and I laughed at the chagrined expression on Hammer’s face.

Ara just sipped her tea primly, “I swear. Men,” she sighed to herself. Knick and I just laughed harder as Hammer put his hand to his face.