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First rule of baking; learn to make fire.
--Thomas Loaf
1.
Ser Geon doesn't sleep. Usually for many reasons, but he spent this last balmy night swatting mosquitos in his gambeson because he made a stupid promise, "Yes, I will bring your man back."
Two weeks ago, he remembers it all too well. He hesitated but only for a moment before banging a gloved fist against the bakery's backdoor. The smell of fresh bread washed over him like a siren song begging him to break his fast for just a quick bite. Who will know?
He would. And his oath means everything.
Most of the street smells like baked bread, maybe the whole kingdom. Ser Geon can even smell the fecking place at the barracks clear across town. The whole kingdom loves Thomas Loaf. Even the King hence the visit by a paladin and not a normal constable to find out what happened to Thomas.
In front the store is crowded with shoppers and the family is bustling.
"Go out back. I'll be right there."
That was fifteen drips from a clepsydra ago and he is growing annoyed with the time waste and how hungry he is becoming. He knocked again.
The door opened suddenly and a red-faced baker's wife was there wiping floury hands on her already very dirty apron.
"Yes, paladin?" Mrs. Loaf told him to go out back and knock but she looks annoyed to be interrupted like maybe he could have picked a better time. She looks like one would want the wife of a baker to look. Like someone who enjoys her wares as much as anyone else and then some.. She has fiery red hair sitting in an unruly bunch on top of her head. The flour covering her could be a fashion choice. Her eyes are bright with annoyance and flecks of blue. Her mouth is pursed as if she stepped in something foul. She reminds the paladin of the women of the mountain. Back home, a storm brewing on a hearthmate's face like this and a dwarf would know to be ready to run.
"I can come back if there is a better time, missus."
"No, this fine," and she waits, almost tapping her foot with impatience. Almost.
"I'm sent to find your husband."
She steps out of the kitchen at this and closes the door after her, as if to keep their conversation hidden. "They don't know. They think he died. And I want to leave it at that. He is not coming back. And no fool notion will reverse that reality, not even a royal one. And I've come to accept that, maybe even want to keep it this way. Maybe forever. Thomas was a good husband. He was a great one in a long line of great bakers that have run this place. Thousands of seasons of cake is built up in our chimney. Millions of loaves have gone through our front doors. Millions, I am sure of it. My children and I are doing fine without Thomas because he ran this business so well. The man is missed. The father is missed. The baker? This place is bigger than one man," she slaps the mortared wall beside her for emphasis.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"The king has tasked me to find your man, I thought it best to come and ease your mind that we have not forgotten the father of your children."
"We know the king has not forgotten. We are grateful, but not impatient. If the rumor is true..."
Her voice trailed off, likely because she was picturing the nightmare he was about to face.
That promise either comes due today, or he will have to accept he made himself a liar. And that will not do. This morning he wants to meditate on whether to violate his oath of honor or his oath of victory. It is a struggle but there is no help in that. Not with the end so far off his life until spoken for by the Great Hearth God Moroden. Tonight, he surmises, a taste of orange on the horizon, maybe longer, but that moment will come due, whenever it will be, so it is for then that he now prepares his mind.
In his two-hundred and twenty-seven years of life, this dwarf has become quite good at turning off the chatter in his head. Dwarfs of the Steel learn peace before they learn war after all.
It'll work out, it always does. I either lied or I will do the impossible, even his internal monologue is grave and it puts him off meditating.
He didn't sleep because his promise is impossible, and when combat comes, and the soldiers under him are in peril, he will do whatever it takes to make sure they go home alive. That’s all fine and whatnot, but the real problem is he will lead half a dozen of the king’s men against something with a natural state that conjures obscenities. From a baker plucking wood for his fire where and when he shouldn’t have to a monster that will likely die than submit to being healed if such a thing were even possible.
Magic and its users, a bane on civilized man, he mutters to himself stretching. He goes a bit too far and tweaks a muscle in his neck. He groans in pain. He also didn't sleep because of the pain of many broken bones and other devastating injuries healed with battlefield medicine. He flexes his right arm stiff with scars over once-lacerated muscle and skin. The king is still the king because many of these scars. Battle after battle, swing an axe for a god that demands martial perfection. There are thousands of soldiers under him. Some were wounded, many are dead or locked in the dungeon for a petty offense or in a few cases for very bad deeds. He could have picked anyone.
Yet he picked these six to do the impossible with him.
His shield is emblazoned with several marks for bravery as are most of theirs.
He has a constant ache from earning those marks. The cliche of old soldier. Too hardened to complain and maybe too useless to fight.
And with a final sigh, he also acknowledges he doesn't sleep because when he does, all the old battles wage in his mind, fresh as if he hadn't fought them thousands of times over the years. Battles he fought long ago. Battles he would rather not fight again and again but does.
So instead of sleep, his mind again loops back to the list. The list to ensure victory for the King of Balanor today.
It is long and as it reaches the end yet again, moving from item to item, the morning sun touches the eastern horizon, and Ser Geon knows the time for thinking and planning is past.
It is now time to do.
The paladin spends one final moment in prayer, "It is good to be humble before you, Sol, may your light be my path to righteousness."
He finishes his prayer, stands, places the helm back on his balding scalp covered in scraggly grey hair, and turns to help break camp.
Help as in motivate.
Ser Geon takes his first step with a soft, unintended groan, and makes his way back to camp. Soon, a cold breakfast of grain and fat cakes will be had, maybe some steaming tea, but Geon will have nothing. As he moves under a sky spreading with soft light, he rubs at a knot of worry in his stomach. With swamp birds chirping, and the always present stench of sulfur playing on wisps of steam, his mind turns to the idea of magic. A battle against, without, and ignorant almost always ends in failure.
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