Chapter 4: The Ties that Bind
"If you're a pretender com sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin
Come in!"
- Shel Silverstein
It was already afternoon when Olgierd reached the long snaking road a weathered wooden placard announced as "Winter." Old tall houses lined both sides of the narrow road. He looked over a doorway.
Number 358.
He grunted, annoyed, beginning a long stroll towards the end of the street towards the river bank. What were the chances Triss Merigold would be home at that hour? Knowing the caliber of his luck lately, probably none.
The road ended at a low wall overlooking the Pontar. He glanced at the building to his left: Number 1. The house immediately beside it was number 3.
Finally.
He strolled up to the half-timbered house, its latticed windows dark inside and rapped his knuckles briefly against the door. A few children ran up and down the road in front of the house, engaged in a lively game of tag. He waited distractedly for someone to answer the door, watching the children giggle and run, making bold and clever escapes from one of their companions who surged forward, waving his arms madly, raking his hands through the air as he tried to grasp any braid or collar he could. Olgierd smirked. For some reason, the hulking boy brought back memories he hadn't touched in…a long time.
No answer. He looked up at the building trying to discern any light, any other signs of activity to no avail.
He knocked again. It was perfunctory-clearly, no one was home- but he tried, nevertheless. He leaned against the wall and became absorbed in the children's game once more.
The boy chasing the others was big, dark haired.
He is probably a hell-raiser, he decided.
"Ha! I caught you!" he cried out to a golden haired girl he'd successfully seized by the sleeve of her white blouse.
"No!" she wailed loudly. "I don't want to be the Ghoul!" she whined.
The boy crossed his arms and flashed a cocky smile.
"All right, Ingrid. I will let you go…"
"You will?" she asked, her face crinkling as it broke into a radiant smile. The other children stepped closer.
"Aye! But… only if you give me a kiss…" he offered cheekily.
Olgierd raised an eyebrow. Scheming little bastard!
"How dare you!" the girl retorted feistily, stomping her foot and ramming her splayed hand into his face. The boy's hands flew to his nose as he yelped sharply. "You are the worst!" she stated angrily, beginning to walk away from the game.
"I just wanted a kiss! From you! Because you're pretty and I like you!" he complained.
"Well, I don't like you!" she shouted. "In fact, I hate you, Joachim!" The girl stormed away taking all the other girls in the group in her wake. The boys stood around their ailing comrade as if thunderstruck. They all remained in silence while Joachim rubbed his nose.
It came to Olgierd in a flash: Joachim was disconcertingly similar to Vlodimir, he found.
"There are better ways to go about that business, you know," he called out sympathetically. "Learn that lesson now and save yourself a world of grief when you're older."
The boy looked up at him, ill-contained fury in his expression.
"What's it to you, you sodding whoreson!" the boy snapped angrily.
There were many things Olgierd knew at that moment, courtesy of a well-earned experience. He knew, for instance, that he wasn't the true target of the boy's wrath. The lad had just been very publicly humiliated by the target of his affection and Olgierd had merely stepped into the line of fire. Olgierd also knew that the boy was just that: a whelp.
Someone entirely more reasonable would have simply dismissed the insult and minded his business.
Someone else.
Not he.
He stepped away from the wall, adopting a definitively more menacing posture.
"Are you determined to get a good thrashing today? Come here and repeat that to my face—man to man!" he growled.
He had known many little shits like the boy. Like Vlodimir. They only grew bolder and more brazen anytime they got away with such behavior. A little respect for fear, however, was the difference between recklessness and plain madness. He was equal measure annoyed and amused as he made to swoop down on the hapless group.
"What is going on here?" A slender figure wearing a hooded shoulder cape emerged around the corner, arms encircling and clinging to a heap of small parcels.
"Help us!" the boys all flocked to her.
"This man has threatened Joachim!" one of the boys cried out pleadingly.
"Call it what you will, at least I own up to my deeds!" Olgierd sneered, bending down to scowl at the boys as they rushed past him to huddle around the approaching woman.
"And what fine deeds! A grown man haranguing children!" the feminine voice chastised him loudly.
The wooden shutters of the house facing them flew open and the stern face of an elderly man peered out into the street.
"What in the devil's name is going on here!" The man cast his watery eyes on Joachim. "Get into this house at once!" The boy let his head droop and he silently slunk away from his friends, past Olgierd, and into the building. "And the rest of you! I will find you tasks to stay busy if you all are idling!" he threatened. The other boys began to scurry—a few disappearing into nearby houses and a couple turning down the side streets.
The woman with the parcels pushed past him and began to fumble for something in front of the doorway he had been waiting next to.
"Do you live here?" he asked in a hushed voice, hopeful.
"Don't you have anywhere else to go?" She faced him crossly, a pair of sharp green eyes peering out at him from a youthful, freckled face.
"I might if you help me," he countered.
"Anything, to make you disappear," she huffed, dropping one of her packages.
"The sooner you help me, the faster I'll be on my way. May I come in so we can talk?"
She halted and contemplated him suspiciously.
"You aren't making a good first or even second impression," she warned him. "No, you may not." She finally managed to find what she had been looking for: a large iron key.
Blasted boys. Riling him up like that, he sulked. That Joachim just reminded him too much of Vlodimir and Vlodimir had always been out of control…
"Please: your friends from The Chameleon assured me you'd be able to assist me," he embellished, reaching down to collect her fallen package.
Her eyes narrowed at him, but before she could reply, they were interrupted.
"Mistress Merigold!" the man across the way resumed crossly.
Her head snapped around, and as it did, her hood dropped, revealing a shock of bright red hair loosely arranged in a messy bun.
"Mistress Merigold, this is a proper, decent neighborhood," the man began ominously. "And we wish to keep it that way! It is enough that you come and go at all hours of the day and night to practice your trade, but it is a whole different—and serious— problem if you bring strangers to the house. Strangers of the male persuasion, no less! I need not remind you of the terms of your tenancy!"
She turned back towards the door to jam the key into the lock and pressed her lips tightly.
"Master Lindlak, I assure you that you have nothing to concern yourself about. Don't worry yourself over this man—" she indicated with a tilt of her head. "Because he is nothing more than—"
It was at that moment that Olgierd, contemplating her red hair, redder even than his, and limpid green eyes, brighter than his own, had an inspired solution to his conundrum.
"Nothing more than her brother, Master Lindlak," Olgierd intruded, with a penitent, reassuring grin and a polite head nod.
Another parcel toppled to the ground. He did not dare contemplate Triss' expression. He focused instead on the nosey landlord across the way.
"Olgierd Merigold," he declared formally, "at your service."
Silence and stupefaction were all he encountered on either side of his. His heart pounded from the rush of his brazenness like it hadn't in a long time. The old man's rheumy eyes scrutinized him carefully for a few seconds. Soon enough, the hard expression relaxed and the impasse was ended with a jovial cackle.
"I should have seen the resemblance!" he cheered. "And the red hair!" he concluded, tapping his own balding head. He let his gaze shift from one to the other. "Ah, I should have known! It is uncanny. Uncanny!" he continued.
"You gobermouch," Triss cursed lightly under her breath.
Olgierd smiled broadly.
"Genovefa!" the man called into the house. "Come! Come see! Mistress Merigold has a brother visiting! Now you need not fret so much over her!"
A petite, plump, red-faced woman emerged beside the old man, wiping her hands on her apron. One look at Olgierd and she clasped her hands, overjoyed.
"Blessed be Lebioda! Will you be staying with us long?" she pried.
"No!" Olgierd quickly offered. "I'll be on my way soon enough. Just a quick stop while I am in the region. I must be off as soon as possible."
He turned to Triss and winked winsomely. She appeared to be somewhat frozen as events unfolded.
"But you will sup with us tonight, won't you?" the woman proposed, crestfallen.
"I wouldn't dream of imposing," he stated cordially.
The elderly couple protested.
"You must. I insist!" the woman declared. "Joachim: one more setting at the table!" she shouted into the house.
"We are most interested in learning more about your brother, Mistress Merigold," the old man stated, taking in his fine attire approvingly.
"So am I." The key clicked in the lock loudly and she kicked it open. At the confusion in her landlords' faces, she retracted her statement somewhat. "Because it has been a while since I have heard of or spoken to him myself," she said, with strained amiability. She thrust all her parcels into Olgierd's arms and watched him with a twinge of spite in her lively eyes as the packages teetered and shuffled. "Come, dear brother," she beckoned him in an overly honeyed tone he understood well as her being greatly displeased with him. "We have much to discuss."
