Arriving at Elsebeth’s parents home was a surprise. He had been expecting a larger place but it was smaller than many of the merchant’s houses he had passed on the way. It was set in a quiet backwater of Elseth. All the houses were detached and separated from each other by screens of trees and fences.
They walked along the drive, crunching the gravel. He noticed that there was no coach house or stables. Presumably the wheel marks came from delivery wagons. Possibly there was no need for transport when everything in the city could be reached by walking.
Before they reached the door, it was opened for them. The lady standing in the doorway was very clearly Elsebeth’s mother. The similarities were striking only a few age lines telling him that they were mother and daughter rather than sisters.
“You’re early tonight Bethel.” The tone was half questioning, half statement and there was a distinct question in her eyes when she looked at Nedric.
“Nedric here brought us some vital information which allowed us to put our plans into action. There was nothing left for me to do for a while so we left.”
She looked at Nedric with a puzzled expression. “Are you the same Nedric who is seeing Elsebeth?”
Nedric nodded.
“Then what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in Esteril?”
Bethel interjected. “Nedric has brought us some news of Elsebeth. Let’s talk about it indoors.” His tone let her know that the news wasn’t good.
They all entered. Nedric found himself inside a warm, family home. They went into a comfortable lounge and the older couple sat on a short couch, whilst Nedric placed himself opposite them. He repeated his tale as to what had happened to Elsebeth and himself, making sure that he put as much emphasis as possible on the likelihood that she was being well looked after as far as he knew.
As he spoke he could see Bethel place one arm over his wife’s shoulder and he grasped her hands with his other hand. She looked a little pale and shaken by the end of the story but quickly rallied and insisted that he stay for a meal.
He was shown to one of the four bedrooms. It had previously been occupied by Elsebeth’s brother and showed it. There were various awards for archery competitions, old and damaged daggers and other strange bits of metal that made no immediate sense. A few books were on a shelf with titles such as ‘A Mathematics Primer’ and ‘The history of the Duchies of Setherland’. He had seen other copies of these books many times; they were standards for tutors.
The best word for the house was comfortable. Nedric had grown up in a much larger building, owned by a minor member of the aristocracy. There was evidence of family life everywhere, from soft toys left in the corners of the upper rooms to drawings on walls. He thought that he might have preferred to grow up in such an environment.
He was given sufficient time to clean himself up before he was called down to eat. It gave him time to think about Elsebeth. In her home it was hard to think of her detained in another country. He hoped that they would be together within a few days if the raid were successful. A couple of days were not a long wait after the weeks he had already suffered. Still he would have much preferred to visit this house under much happier circumstances.
It was a minor dilemma in his mind what to call Elsebeth’s mother. She had refused to be called ma’am when he had called her that, yet it seemed disrespectful to call her by her given name, Elsebrianne. In the end Nedric avoided the issue by not using her name at all and just speaking directly to her.
The meal was an awkward affair as no one wanted to talk about what had brought Nedric to the house. He tried to ignore the red marks around Elsebrianne’s eyes. He could understand why she had been crying; he had come close enough himself. The small talk was about Nigh and how the work was going. There was a mention that Elsebeth’s brother would be coming home soon. He was a career soldier like his father but had recently seen much more active duty.
The food was good and plentiful and like all young men, Nedric didn’t need to be asked twice when he was offered more. Elsebrianne reminded him of his own mother, who had similar facial looks and a slight stoutness around the middle that suggested all food had been checked for quality before being served to guests.
After the meal he made his excuses and left, letting Bethel know where his lodgings were in case there was any news. He could tell that they would have invited him to stay but knew equally well that they wanted some time to themselves.
* * *
It was Nedric’s intention to spend the evening at the Black Lion. Given that he had a lot more money than he had previously thought and that he had nothing he could do for a while, he might as well enjoy himself. He made his way back to his lodgings to change into his less respectable but more comfortable outfit.
Whilst in the room, he hid the credit note in the sleeve of a spare jacket. He didn’t expect the landlady to steal it but you couldn’t be too careful with that sort of money. When he felt ready for the evening he locked his room and sauntered towards his goal.
The Black Lion was the same as ever, full of people intent on having a good time. He didn’t know for sure but he assumed that if he were to turn up at any time, day or night there would be people gambling their life’s savings. He had little intention of following that slippery path even though it looked as though he wouldn’t need mercenaries any more.
Instead he looked for the entertainers and a long drink. For a while he sat and listened to a bard singing. As most of the tales seemed to be of people who had lost their loves through death or had killed themselves in anguish it was more than a bit depressing and far too close to reality. He moved to a different room.
He saw the same young lady as he had briefly seen on his last visit, this time wearing fewer clothes, as she was part way through her act. He stayed but whilst her show was appreciated by most of the audience he found it tawdry. Perhaps he might have enjoyed it if he wasn’t thinking of Elsebeth.
Eventually he found a room where various light entertainers amused the audiences. He caught a brief glimpse of an act where somebody was juggling whilst stood on a large barrel that rolled as he moved. Nedric found the idea intriguing but wondered about the practicalities of taking a barrel everywhere with you. Of course if the man only ever worked in taverns it wouldn’t be a problem.
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The following act was a man that got the audience to tie him up in chains and then escaped from them. The actual tying and escaping couldn’t have taken more than three minutes in total but the man managed to make the show last a good twenty-five minutes mainly by his banter.
Nedric was laughing loudly by the end of the show. He couldn’t remember when he had last laughed. Probably before Elsebeth had been captured. The thought almost broke the mood but then the man said something else and he was laughing again. At the end he clapped as loudly as anyone and then searched for something else to entertain him.
He came across a group playing lively music. It was all the old favourites, songs in praise of beer or women, songs making fun of some person’s character or features. The music was good, the beer he had was beginning to warm him and he felt happy enough that he indulged in a couple of games and promptly lost more than a silver. That brought him to his senses and he made his way back to the guesthouse in a rare good humour.
* * *
The next morning Nedric awoke to the sound of someone knocking on his door. The sound was so unexpected that it took him a moment to realise what it was.
“Who is it?”
Nedric recognised the voice of his landlady as she replied.
“There’s some soldiers outside asking to see you.” The voice sounded extremely disapproving.
He threw on some clothes and opened the door. The landlady was there, looking just as disapproving as she had sounded.
“I’ve done nothing wrong and I’m sure that there’s a good reason why they are there.”
The landlady just made a noise.
Nedric didn’t waste any time arguing. He went to the front of the building and opened the door. The sight of an officer and his ten-person retinue greeted him.
“Can I help you?”
“Captain Bethel wants to see you.”
“And this requires eleven of you does it?”
The officer looked a little discomfited by this. “Well we didn’t know that you would be here and thought we might have to search for you. It was easier to bring searchers than take the chance.”
“It doesn’t do my relationship with my landlady any good when there’s a squad of soldiers outside her door.”
“Sorry.”
“Well it can’t be helped now, let’s go.”
Nedric felt slightly ridiculous walking at the front of a bunch of soldiers. He didn’t fit in with the group as he was dressed in his older work clothes and therefore he tended to draw a lot of attention. He felt more like a convict than anything else, although he didn’t think that he was likely to be taken to any prison. He wondered what Elsebeth’s father wanted with him.
By the time they reached the military headquarters he was also getting out of breath. The soldiers were obviously much fitter than him and had kept him moving at a fast pace across the city. He decided that he would have to take more exercise in the near future. It looked like his life was determined to throw bouts of exertion at him.
Bethel greeted him warmly and dismissed the other soldiers.
“Sorry about that, I asked him to find you and extend my invitation for you to visit me. He seems to have been a little bit too eager.”
“I don’t think my landlady was very impressed with a bunch of soldiers outside her door. She’s likely to throw my stuff out on the street and have done with me.”
“Well we can’t have you homeless so you might as well stay with me and my wife. She thinks you should be with family at this time anyway.”
Nedric wasn’t sure that he wanted to stay with Elsebeth’s parents. He didn’t really know them and with her father being a soldier he didn’t see how he could have anything much in common with them. Also there was the awkward situation with her not being there and his presence could only remind them of this.
However the way he had been asked was very warming. Apart from his mother he didn’t have any family of his own. He didn’t know how he could refuse, so he accepted. It made him feel warm inside, the way he had been accepted into her family.
“So why did you want to see me?”
“I wanted some advice and you seemed a suitable person to ask questions. Let me explain my problem. When war commences we will have the two armies fighting at the border. We have been planning for this for years and have supplies, fortifications and well-trained garrisons; they have the same only they have more soldiers. It’s possible for either group to get a small force through the gaps but we will have sweeper patrols in place to try and prevent this. The real problem is the mountains. We have a long border that is extremely mountainous and difficult to patrol. It is also difficult to cross so we don’t have a lot of defence in that area. What I am worried about is them taking a large group of soldiers over the mountains, if they do then they can attack us on a second front and they could be in amongst the farms before we could respond. This is why I need advice.”
“In what way sir?”
“We have a good signalling system, we can send a message from one end of the country to the other in less than a day. We can’t at the moment move troops fast enough. I want to know how difficult it would be to put a boardway about a days march behind the border. How long would it take? Would the impressors be happy to work harder? Can we move enough troops fast enough?”
“Well sir. At current speeds an impressor can do maybe ten planks a day that’s roughly three hundred foot. There are roughly twenty impressors so that is about a mile a day. That is if you are only thinking of one track. There are other impressors who could be called in to help but as far as I know there are no more than thirty in the country and I don’t know of any in other countries. It took four years to train us and it might be possible to speed up the training or use the people who didn’t make it from the keep but I can’t really answer those questions. Besides the preparation of the ground means that normally no more than a mile can be done with the current track laying crew.”
“A mile a day, with twenty impressors, I have perhaps ten weeks and over two hundred miles to cover. Even if I had all the impressors from the boardway working twice as long, I wouldn’t quite get it done. Have you any ideas?”
“Sir, you couldn’t have them working that much harder anyway, it’s counter-productive. Impressors need to concentrate and too much work will prevent that. You need a solution that will make them much more productive with the same effort or to vastly increase the number of them.”
“Well I can maybe find forty impressors altogether but that still only equates to one hundred and twenty miles even if they have no rest day. Is there any way to speed the process up?”
Nedric really didn’t want to let everyone know how to work twice as hard for hardly any extra effort but he could see that he was going to have to give up his secret. He could hardly ask the country to go to war on his account and do nothing to help the war effort.
“Sir I could get them producing at maybe sixteen or maybe eighteen planks per day with the right training. It’s a technique I developed so I’m going to have to teach it to them. I still don’t see how you’re going to clear that much area in that quick a time.”
“That’s because you are thinking of limited resources. I will have a load of unfit farm boys and merchants sons that will need training as soldiers. Getting them clearing ground will improve their general fitness and get them obeying instructions fairly quickly. If we also have them weapon training at the same time then we will have a partly trained force in place just in case an attack gets to the area before we are ready.”
“So I should go back to Esteril and start the process rolling?”
“No, if we are at war we can’t have our important resources in another country. I’ll have all the impressors moved here and they can work at the site. It means that our supply line will be longer but that can’t be helped. I need those impressors where I can be sure they’re safe. At least for the next three months.”
“Won’t the company have something to say about that?”
“The government owns the company, they won’t say a word. It’s the other impressors that will be harder to obtain. The ones who work for independent merchants.”
“How are you going to recruit them? I mean, at the moment there isn’t even a war on.”
“That’s the beauty of a merchant, you just pay them enough money and they will do anything for you, especially when the consequences of not helping are spelt out to them. There isn’t one of them who doesn’t have or want a government contract.”
“So what would you like me to do in the mean time?”
“Move over to our house and take it easy for a couple of days. With any luck we will have word about the raid before you have to set to work.”
* * *
Walking back to the guesthouse gave Nedric time to think things over. It looked like he was going back to being an impressor only a few days after quitting. He wasn’t actually sure that he was keen on the idea. It was beginning to dawn on him that he had only taken the job because he didn’t know what he wanted to do. He knew what he didn’t want to do but that wasn’t a very positive way of looking at things.
He opened the door to the guesthouse and went up to his room. He opened the door to find the room empty. Where were his possessions? He looked in the wardrobe but there was nothing in it. He heard a noise behind him and turned.
The landlady was standing there, arms crossed. The stern expression on her face was matched by the tone of her voice.
“I didn’t think you’d be back and now you are, you can give me the key and leave.”
“I only came back to collect my stuff. Where is it?”
The response seemed to catch the woman off guard.
“Where do you think it is? I took it downstairs when you were arrested and put it in safe-keeping.”
“I was never arrested. There was just a misunderstanding on how many soldiers it took to invite me to a meeting. Anyway I’m back now and just want my things before moving over to stay with one of the captains, so can I have it please?”
Nedric was directed downstairs and into a back room where his clothing and pack were piled in a corner. He checked the spare jacket for his credit note and it wasn’t there.
“Where’s my credit note?”
“I put it away safely, do you think I would steal it?” she sniffed at the thought.
She went into an adjoining room and there was the sound of something being opened. Emerging a few seconds later, she was carrying the note and a letter.
“This came today, I didn’t know where you were so I put it safe.”
“Thank you.”
By glancing at the writing, Nedric could tell that the letter was from Rialto. He quickly took his leave from the woman and opened his letter as he walked across the city. That the response had been that quick suggested that Rialto was fairly close.
Reading as he walked, he learnt that Rialto was on his way to visit. He would be arriving the next day and had something to show him. He also expressed his sorrow at hearing about Elsebeth’s capture. He finished by suggesting that Nedric keep away from the Black Lion until Rialto was there to look after him. Since Rialto was the one who was more inclined to gamble Nedric found this last bit a little rich but in keeping with their humour.