Wizard of Jatte - Rowan Erlking (year 2 reading books txt) 📗

very moment?”

He made a face at her. “Not exactly this moment. But the sooner the better, don’t you think?”

She took the paper from his fingers. “You are so bossy.”

“I’m bossy?” Theissen followed after her. She walked out of the kitchen right into the dining hall, beckoning Lill the former molewoman and Ferna the former birdwoman over from the tables where they had just been setting down drinks. “All I’m trying to do is ensure that the tax people don’t assume—”

“I’m teasing. Heavens. You have gotten really high strung.” Milrina passed the pen to Ferna who smothered a laugh as she glanced at Theissen. “What is with you lately? You’ve made yourself more busy than usual. Is it because Tippany stopped coming to see you at the tower?”

He slapped a hand to her mouth. His face flushed deep red. “Stop talking like that. It’s good that she’s gotten over me.”

“Then what is it?” Milrina had not stopped grinning at him, unconvinced. “You miss your flying pal?”

Theissen shot her a glare. “Though I do miss having Theobold around—”

“But glad his demon stink is gone?” Her eyes sparkled mischievously.

“Stuff it! Milrina, I am being serious.”

“I hate it when you are serious. This is what I’m saying. You have made yourself way too busy, even for a Carpenterson. What is going on?” She folded her arms.

Theissen hissed close to her ear. “I was about to tell you. But if you keep playing me like this, I’ll keep it to myself and then you can find out with everybody else.”

“Fine.” Milrina nonchalantly shrugged. “I don’t care. Why should I have precedence over the others anyway.”

“Because you used to be my fiancé, you stupid.” He pulled back, frowning.

Milrina winked at him. “Use to, being the key words here. You’re not reneging on that and proposing to me now, are you?”

“Quit playing!”

She just laughed.

“That’s it.” Theissen left the paper on the counter. “You have everyone else sign this. I’m not talking to you anymore.”

He tromped over to an empty table and sat down, sulking. He folded his arms across his chest.

“Did you have to tease him like that?” Lill leaned in with a whisper.

Ferna lifted her eyebrows at Milrina. “I’d be afraid to annoy a wizard.”

“Theissen?” Milrina smothered her smile. She lifted up the paper, passing the pen to Lill to sign her name. “Not a chance. The worst he has ever done to me when I have annoyed him is turn my clothes another color. He knows the weight of his magic. He knows it like the scars on his hands.”

“More beer!” One of the traveling lord baron’s men called out, lifting up his tankard.

Milrina frowned with a gesture to Ferna. “You go and fill it. I’ll get out the stew and bread. Lill, go back for the chicken.”

The women separated, returning to work.

Theissen watched them split off, settling more into his seat with a grouchy glower. He had been ready to share his secret with Milrina. But with the way she liked to remind him that they could not be so familiar by hinting at his responsibilities and of her coming marriage, it put him in a dark mood. She teased him into submissions at times, reminding him also that he had taken on a mountain of responsibility that he ought to consider more carefully. Of course, that was why he had trusted her with the inn. It took a load of responsibility off of his shoulders.

Ferna hurried like a bird, nearly floating when she rushed over with more beer for the already smelly man. She gave her smiles and batted her eyes like a flirt, but he knew it was all game to her. Part of the job, so to speak. The men seemed to know it as well, though some of the travelers stepped beyond the line of playful flirtation.

“Hey, you drinking?” one man in the familiar livery of some lord said to Theissen, scooting his chair over to his table. He hauled over his tankard.

Theissen shook his head. “No. I’m here on business. I’m just waiting for some things to get finished up.”

“What kind of business? We’re in Jattereen on the way to the capitol. You don’t look local.”

Glancing at his own clothes, Theissen shrugged. “I don’t? I bought the coat here.”

Shaking his head, the man waved at Theissen. “No. You’re too tall. Local Jattereen folk are shorter. Much shorter. Are you from the West?”

Blinking, Theissen nodded. “I’m from the Pepersin Peninsula, actually. How can you tell?”

“Oh, we’ve traveled all over Jatte. Our master is highly influential—pretty much the boss of all the fates in the nation.”

“That’s highly presumptuous, don’t you think?” Theissen lifted one eyebrow.

“Not at all.” A man walked down from the upper floors, crossing the inn’s open floor to them.

Theissen looked up, recognizing the voice with a start. Then he stood up. “You’re Lord Baron Kirsch’s steward.”

The man stopped, examining Theissen narrowly as he bowed. “I don’t think we have had the pleasure.”

“I disagree,” Theissen replied, bowing back. “We have. A long time ago.”

Mildly surprised, maintaining the same decorum as ever, the steward peered over at Theissen’s clothes and then his face once more. “Really? And when was that?”

“I was thirteen. Your master came to our town with outrageous orders, including an impossible one for my father.”

The steward’s memory did not seem improved any. “Indeed? And you feel you have the right to speak such impertinent words about my master?”

“About Lord Baron Kirsch?” Theissen then laughed. “How can I not? I hate everything about him.”

“Is that so?” another unwelcome voice answered.

Theissen turned. He looked straight at the lord baron who turned his nose down in a sneer. The lord baron stood at the base of the stairs.

Lifting his chest, Theissen also raised his chin.

Taking his last few steps, walking dignified over to his steward, the lord baron eyed Theissen’s clothes. Then he turned, blatantly dismissing Theissen altogether. He sat down in Theissen’s own chair, waving over to Ferna. “A beer please.”

“Don’t serve him,” Theissen said through his teeth, raising his hand to stop her.

Ferna shrugged and turned to go back to the kitchen.

Milrina lifted her eyes then met the serving woman as Ferna whispered in her ear. From there Milrina walked slowly across the room to join Theissen at his side.

“This is your business?” The eyes of the drunk man who served Lord Baron Kirsch widened.

“Impertinent man!” The lord baron snapped. “Who are you? Why are you denying me service?”

Theissen turned to the steward. “Tell your master about the carpenter of Lumen Village and his unique son.”

In a split second, the steward jerked back from him. “You?”

Nodding once, hard, Theissen turned towards the Lord Baron Kirsch. “I met a friend of yours at the city center. Captain Shmiter. I’m sure he’ll mention me when you see him.”

“Captain Shmiter? You’re impertinent to me because you know him?” The lord baron sat up.

Shaking his head, Theissen replied, “No. I was impertinent to him, because I know you and the kind of man you are.”

The front bell rang.

Another customer stepped in.

Milrina turned to greet them, maintaining also some sense of crowd control as a few others gathered to watch the confrontation between a powerful lord and the wizard.

“And what kind of man am I?” The lord baron’s voice mocked, his smile crooking to the side with wicked enjoyment. “You just hate me because you are nothing more than a carpenter’s son. I remember the mewling brats that the Lumen Carpenter had. What, are the one who vomited because of the fumes in that shop.”

“No. I’m the one that threw up because you stink!” Theissen snapped back.

Lord Baron Kirsch jumped to his feet. “How dare you! I’ll ruin you!”

“You can’t ruin me.” Theissen regarded the man with a sweeping glance, his eyes narrowing in a cold smile of understanding.

The room hushed, listening in. The steward turned with a peek, noticing. Everyone watched them intently.

“A carpenter against me?” The lord baron threw back his head in a laugh. It practically echoed in the eating hall.

“No. A wizard against you,” Theissen replied. He then looked to the steward. “Tell your master I want him out of my inn today. No delays or I’ll sink all his property into the ground where it can never be found again.”

He turned away, looking for Milrina. A few yards from his cousin, he saw Tippany staring at him. It had been a while since he had seen her, and his cheeks flushed.

Stopping next to his cousin, he announced with a loud voice, “Lord Baron Kirsch keeps mistresses until they die of the disease he carries. No one touch him.”

Without any more ado, he strode back to managing office where Vans was hopefully finishing his books.

An argument erupted in the eating hall once he was gone. The lord baron bellowed with fury, but his steward somehow quieted his master with a few words. Then the steward followed after Theissen, arriving in the office where both Theissen and Vans were discussing lamp oil costs.

“You have no idea what you just did to yourself!” the steward said. “This inn will never gain any other business after this.”

Turning a dry look on him, Theissen smirked. “Do you really want me to believe that? I traveled through Jatte, and only in the cities near Skarbrone had they even heard of your freakish lord baron, let alone of any favors anyone did for him. He’s full of it, and so are you.”

Blustering, affronted, the steward’s chest puffed up with indignation. He turned to march out of the room. “Your reputation is ruined. We’ll see to that.”

“Oh?” Theissen rose from off the seat. “Well then, in that case I ought to bring up the matter of the diseased woman to the courts so that they know how she really suffered and almost died in our village.”

“Almost died?” The steward’s eyes bugged out, as he digested those words. His face drew white.

Theissen smiled, gently nodding. “We gave you a fake corpse. I saved her life by taking her away from him. You won’t find her, because I won’t let you. But wouldn’t it be interesting if we went and exhumed the body…especially for her family to see that he preferred that she die so he could get himself a new mistress to use and destroy. I’d love to see that.”

“A fake corpse?” The steward recoiled from him.

“In fact, let’s solve this now.” Theissen walked past him back out to where the Lord Baron Kirsch was swearing up a storm to Milrina how much he would ruin them so that they would wish they were dead when he was done.

Theissen walked straight to the lord baron, tapped his chest as he said, “You are not allowed to talk to her. Get out now.”

“I am a lord baron!” Lord Baron Kirsch blustered. His chest puffed up again in his fury. However, as he looked down, his clothes changed colors into a bright pink. Then, all the threads unraveled themselves, falling off his body.

Ferna jumped back. She cackled as she grabbed hold of Lill. Tippany yelped, jumping behind Theissen. She covered her eyes with her fingers. Milrina just laughed, slapping a hand on her mouth. The men watching gasped, though the former demons in the room that had returned from their errands to sign the paper with their employment terms busted up.

“You’d better get him a coat,” Vans said to the steward, watching the man pale even more. Both had gone out after Theissen, though Vans only went to see what the commotion was.

The Lord Baron Kirsch lurched from Theissen, grabbing at the threads to cover himself. But it all just came apart in his fingers. Even his unmentionables.

The steward tore off his own coat throwing it over his master’s shoulders.

“He’ll have to climb out the window,” the ex-moleman, Kodo, said, gesturing to Pago to open it. “The hate ward is in the doorway. He’ll get stuck.”

Theissen nodded to Pago. “The window it is.”

“He is not climbing out through a window!” The steward shouted at Theissen.

Shrugging, Theissen walked away. “What