Chapter 9 Wayfarer
One day not long after, a new figure guided by a dray team of Gobballs meandered down the little used path which parted the dense forest beyond the woods, not far from the village itself.
The master of the team was handy with a whip, which kept the two unruly white balls of wool that pulled the wagon working together as a team. His shouts to them were surly and short tempered, bringing attention to the thickset stout-boned Ouginak on the driver's bench of a medium-sized wagon.
He continued to follow the mostly circular path that seasons of time and many sets of paws and feet had worn around the circumference of the village. Only when he drew near to the center of the village did the wagon master and his team halt their curt and noisy procession.
The canine in charge betrayed no fear of anyone being so foolish as to attempt to steal his wagon. First, because his Gobballs had a truly mean temper, and second, because he retained his whip as he dismounted. Anyone running afoul of him might almost certainly wish to be fed to the Gobballs instead of facing his whip.
The driver cast narrow, beady eyes around the center of the village, as most of the inhabitants went about their work. Many of them were thinking about food instead, it being close to midday.
The village itself was small enough to allow most of the artisans and workers to go home for lunch, that is if they did not already work in another part of their own homes in the first place.
So a fairly good number of the villagers fell under the unkind eyes of the wagon driver as the formidable figure made his way to one of the largest buildings in the village. It was the building which both instinct and his nose told him was the village inn.
It seemed almost to be some sort of unwritten law, and one that held within this village as well. The inn was the unique purview of an Enutrof adventurer. The retired explorer managed to see a Kama or two, while taking care of a small but steady influx of travelers, who found the village different and far more attractive in many ways that another stopover in a crowded, mostly dirty, and sometimes dangerous city further along the road.
As he stopped in the doorway, filling up the width of most of the double arch, the canine teamster didn't care much of anything at all about the atmosphere, nor it seemed, the peaceful nature of the village around the Inn.
The teamster waddled more than walked into the wide open main room, set with the bar along one wall, and a half a dozen tables and chairs to fill out the corners of the wide room.
Quickly, and without a word of welcome or greeting, the thick canine grabbed one of the chairs, the first one to fall under the short thick fingers of his hand. He sat down in the chair in such a way as to not care if it gave way under his considerable weight. And as soon as he was settled, and new and gruff voice rang out over the generally quiet sounds which normally filled the lunch time inn.
"BARKEEP!" The teamster roared at what must've been the top of his intimidating voice. "Drink for me, and board for my team."
The Enutrof watching over the tap had seen more than his share of rough and tough customers saunter and stagger into his establishment. So he was not very startled by the brusque manners of the new arrival.
The first across his path wasn't the barkeep himself. Rather, a short but curvaceous Ecaflip girl with short bangs, long ponytails and a bright smile was the first to turn a tray full of mugs toward the inn's newest customer.
"Welcome to Amakina Inn, good sir!" Mavis said brightly to the dark and dour figure now casting a pall over the table where he sat alone, still holding his imposing whip as if it was to be used at any time, and on anyone he fancied.
Usually, Mavis bright smile matched her eyes, and her figure was enough to distract most any drinker from common flashes of alcohol induced anger. But the curvy female's presence did nothing to lift the teamster's evidently sour mood, and even more sour attitude.
"I'll have food, and your best, and you'd best be quick about it my girl!" The teamster growled at her as only a canine could. "And just you mind that it is the best, you hear?" The teamster snapped at her. It was as if Mavis had accidentally trodden on his tail, rather than giving the new customer the standard social smile.
The rough outburst caught the attention of a few of the patrons in the main room. Three or four of them glanced up from their lunches to check the source of the unaccustomed rude noise.
The wagon master must've felt the eyes of strangers upon him, so he sounded a low growl that shook the heretofore friendly room filled with noontime crowds.
The low threatening sounds raised short hairs on the people around about the common room. Many of them looked back to their plates.
The teamster nodded shortly, and with a satisfied air, he set eyes on Mavis once again. "You'd best be moving, wench!" He snapped at her once more. "I want lunch before dinner, if it's all the same to the likes of you."
The Ecaflip had been an entertainer as well as a server in her heyday, and Mavis, like the innkeeper, was used to dealing with the occasional "overheated" or gruff patron.
But this time, there was something in the teamster's voice. Something sinister, well beyond the bounds of an implied physical threat.
As she stood still before him, Mavis felt cold fear trickle down her spine. Her normally dancing blue eyes took on a visible cloud of fear.
"By your leave,Sir.." She said in a small frightened voice to the teamster still holding his whip.
Some reflex deep inside her made her move quickly and instinctively out of range of both the darkly cloaked canine figure and his whip.
Mavis was certain to take the long way back to the kitchen, along the route which kept her at a safe distance from the inn's newest customer.
Bruno, who was the cook and daytime manager saw Mavis shrik into the kitchen. Normally coquettish and happy, the servant girl's obvious terror radiated from her, filling the entire workspace with fear.
Bruno looked up from a pot of Gobball Stew, and looked urgently at the cowering Ecaflip girl.
"Mavis dear, what's wrong my little dove?"
"It's table twelve, Bruno. He's the most brusque and horrible sort." Mavis whispered, still in the grip of a fear that Bruno had never seen from her, or from anyone else who was a coworker and a friend.
"Sounds like another hard head that needs cracking." Bruno replied as he set down the soup ladle with one hand, and untying his kitchen apron with the other before reaching above the fireplace with both hands to lift a shovel from a spot on the wall where he had mounted it several years before.
The handy tool, and symbol of the Enutrof became Bruno's sometimes answer to a rough customer over the years.
Bruno stepped out from behind the low counter meant to do side work in the kitchen. Using his shovel like a staff, he playfully scooped Mavis from the spot where she was standing right up off the floor, and onto his free shoulder on the opposite side. The Ecaflip girl overcame her fear, and hugged him gently as he smiled at her.
"Now then, my little one, let's go see who this big bad bully happens to be." Bruno replied.
"Careful Bruno, this dog has a whip, and I'll wager he knows how to use it." Mavis warned him in a quiet whisper since she was so close to his ear.
Bruno nodded, and stooped enough for Mavis to fit under the top of the kitchen door, and still keep a place of safety and security on his shoulder.
"Hey you, stranger!" Bruno said in a slightly raised voice as he came through the door and cast a long shadow directly over the stranger's table.
The teamster who still held a hand full of short whip made no reply.
Bruno instantly caught sight of the whip which Mavis had mentioned. It had a long, thin tapering handle about two feet long. It gave way to a number of thin cords,, each with a small lead weight woven into the end of the strand. The cords were about 6 inches longer. This gave the whip a reach of just over a yard, plus the length of the strangers slightly thicker arms and shoulders.
Bruno kept well back. The reach of his shovel was almost double that of the stranger's whip. If the ill-mannered canine chose to start something, Bruno knew that he would have the advantage.
"Where's my order, innkeeper?" The canine asked Bruno in a low voice. "Or couldn't that silly wench remember my order?" The canine asked, moving no more than his eyes as he spoke.
"Listen stranger!" Bruno spoke up in a somewhat more boisterous way.
"Mavis here is a friend of the house, and a friend to everyone in this village. If you want your food and your lodgings here, and not in the public stable, you'll do better to mind your manners." Bruno rebuked the canine guest in a surly tone. One that began to draw interested looks from some of the other regulars sitting around the room. One or two of them got up from the food and seemed to move quietly toward the main door, and out of the way of trouble.
"Now make up your mind stranger." Bruno continued on after a moment. "If you apologize nicely enough to Mavis, I may let you stay. Now start apologizing, or start leaving, right now."
The canine made a sudden and well practiced sweeping arc of his whip arm. As the end of his whip coiled for a moment around the length of Bruno shovel, the canine attempted a strong pull, intent on disarming the larger Enutrof.
But Bruno had seen this move before, and was both balanced and ready. As the whip entangled his shovel for a moment, Bruno took advantage of the fact that the canine found himself slightly extended, and a bit off balance. Before the canine could manage the pull that would have disarmed Bruno, Bruno managed a yank of his own. The canine teamster seem to fly across the short space between himself and the taller man whose shovel blade was already moving.
As he pulled the canine teamster out of his seat and across the table toward him with a powerful heave, Bruno turned the shovel in both hands, so that one of the two blades on either end of the shovel came down with a stern crack on the canine's head!
The next second found the unmanageable customer sprawled on the floor of the inn, as if someone had spread out some sort of new animal skin to soften the steps of the customers.
While the rude teamster was busy counting stars, Bruno put a foot none to gently onto the wrist of the hand that held the teamster's whip. With his other free hand, Bruno relieved the canine of the obvious and threatening weapon. Bruno handed it off to Mavis, who was still seated on his shoulder. From her higher perch, Mavis could cast the whip across the room, and into the fireplace.
The main room was filled with an acrid smell for a moment or two, as the dried leather implement seemed to dissolve in the flames.
That done, Bruno looked down at the nasty tempered teamster, now without his weapon, and decidedly without friends in the great room.
"I suppose this means we won't be friends." Bruno said to the teamster who was still laying stretched out on the floor. The canine was only now beginning to recover his senses.
Before his unruly former guest could make a try at causing any more trouble, Bruno set Mavis down gently in a chair at the table where the canine teamster had been seated.
"Now you just sit there, my dove. And after I am done taking the rubbish out, this time, I'll bring you your lunch."
Once Mavis was safe and steady, Bruno reached down, and simply hefted the semiconscious canine across his wider shoulders. This way, the dog couldn't move, or try to start any more trouble.
Bruno swung around with his burden across his shoulders, carefully ducking out of the way of the customers who had kept their seats.
When he got to the big main doors of the inn,, Bruno took exactly two steps outside of his door, and simply heaved the semiconscious stranger toward a knoll of soft grass near the fountain in the middle of the town square.
The canine teamster landed more softly than he deserved, only a yard or two distant from his unusual team of sheep and wagon.
For his part, Bruno was both careful and deliberate, walking back into the inn, and closing both of the wide doors behind him so the stranger would not return without notice or effort.
Once the great doors were locked with their bolts of ancient iron, Bruno simply put his shovel up over another set of pegs, above the fireplace this time, and turned to tending to Mavis, who in spite of her fine show of bravery, was still lightly shaken from the encounter with the rude dog.
As the dazed and nasty teamster lay face down in the
soft grass, contemplating his newly acquired headache, a pair of smooth black boots, polished tune absolute perfection filled his blurry vision.
"Well my fine canine." A cultured voice seemed to rebuke him from somewhere far above. "I do hope you've learned a lesson by which both of us will profit." The voice finished with a definite note of contempt for the figure still sprawled out upon the ground.
The nasty dog managed to collect enough of himself and his disheveled form to look up at the owner of the boots. But when he did so, it was with a distinctly different glance than he had focused on the serving wench.
"But Maxim!" The slightly used dog growled. "They took me by surprise!. " The canine whimpered pathetically as he rubbed the top of his head with a light and careful touch.
"Yes my canine friend, the skull that has no brains is yet unbroken, no thanks at all to its idiotic owner." Replied the tall man in high black boots and riding gear.
"Now get yourself up, and be quick about it. You're embarrassing me." Maxim rebuked more sharply.
The nasty canine made a supreme effort to pull himself together and stand before his betters. "Yes sir, as you say, Sir. The nasty dog seem to recite, while his manners turned from rude to slightly obsequious.
"Now come along, you stupid blunt object." We have work to do about the town, and you have made things no easier. We must first mend the fences which you have broken down." Maxim said in a cold voice absolutely without any note of pity for his compatriot.
"Set another paw out of line, and when we leave here, it will be you pulling the wagon, rather than the expensive trained Gobballs."
"Yes, Sir. As you like, Sir." The now obsequious servant muttered in reply.
A tall man with an aristocratic air and a determined gait moved swiftly toward the inn, with his now cowed friend walking silently in his wake.
Together, they waited outside the door, until they opened again to let a group of patrons return to work.
He was in among them, and walking in the other direction into the main room before the doors closed again. When Bruno turned and saw the somewhat shrunken brown figure standing in the middle of the main room, his first and only reaction was to make a fast grab for his shovel.
He was already swinging on the brown figure, when the tall aristocratic man intervened with a half step and with the point of one elbow, deflected the downward shovel strike on his companion.
"Now, now my good innkeeper, that's certainly no way to welcome a guest, and someone who wishes to make his sincerest apologies for disturbing the peace of this fine establishment." The man wearing the black boots said in a cultured and well mannered voice.
It seemed to disarm Bruno, who was still taking in the shock of having his best strike so casually brushed out of the way. His temper defused somewhat, Bruno let the shovel blade fall, and touch the floor in a nonthreatening position.
"Oh does he now?" Said Bruno right out loud with the kettle full of suspicion still in his voice. "Do you know whom he has to apologize to, and what for, my good man?" Bruno asked, looking and sounding every inch the owner and manager of the establishment.
The man in the black boots and the aristocratic dress cast hard eyes on the canine teamster. Then he looked back at Bruno more sympathetically as he spoke once more.
"I can well imagine, given his ill-mannered and inexcusable behavior. Judging from the looks that he's getting from the young lady just behind you, I'll wager some offense was made to her. Am I correct, good sir?"
"Yes, yes, quite right, Sir. Bruno replied somewhat shortly but with much less anger in his voice and posture.
"I'm quite well aware that no amount of money can buy refinement, or good manners. But as you have been offended, I am also prepared to augment my apology with a certain amount of coin for both yourself, and most naturally for the attractive young lady who his been affronted by this cad."
The black booted strangers refined use of language and manners seem to mesmerize everyone in the room. His hand moved slowly to a large rectangular box hanging on his belt, one which matched his boots. He opened it slowly, and raised the leather lid, so he could show the room the gold in the boxlike pouch, and that the pouch itself contained no weapon that could be seen.
"For yourself a good innkeeper, and an Enutrof, in less I'm fairly wide of the mark, one-thousand Kama. Both by way of apology, and for the purchase of your finest which the establishment may offer for myself."
"Done!" Said Bruno quickly, accepting the small stack of gold coins from the aristocratic fellow, who also wore black gauntlets that covered his hands, and reached up his arm toward his elbows. "Fine!" The aristocrat replied.
"Done and done." He added before making a game attempt to look around Bruno to the cautious figure of Mavis, who was sheltering behind the innkeeper during the entire exchange.
"Now then, to the offended young lady, I offer the return of her honor by way of apology, and to make certain that she is happy and fulfilled in her life, I offer the same, one thousand Kama."
"But sir, that's more money than I've ever seen." Mavis protested, even while another stack of gold coins put a golden glint in her eyes.
"A lady such as yourself should see money flow like rain in the springtime." The aristocratic man answered with a sweeping bow.
As he stood up, his eyes shifted once again to Bruno.
"Tell me innkeeper, who makes the finest clothing in this village?"
"That would be Roxanne the dressmaker." Bruno answered at once. "Her work is known from Brakmar to Bonta, and well beyond. Her work is well worth seeing, as well as wearing." Bruno added, not at all stretching the truth in any way.
"Fine, fine my good man." Maxim replied. "For I propose not only mere money for this fair flower, but a new wardrobe, more suited to her work, as well as her soon to be extended social life." The aristocrat added casually, as if he were buying one more bail of grass for his sheep.
Hearing this, Mavis let out a combination giggle and shout of sheer glee.
"Roxanne is my very best friend. We've known each other since we were young. I've wanted to wear her fashions ever since we could walk!" Mavis blurted out like an excited schoolgirl given the highest marks in the class.
"Very well then. So you shall, my pretty lady, so you shall."
Then, just for a moment, Maxim's demeanor seemed to change as he looked again on the canine figure trying unsuccessfully to make himself as small as possible behind him.
"Stand up, you, and take your medicine from this young lady, and from these patrons. Have you nothing to say for yourself, you worthless pile of dog?"
As he spoke so harshly, Maxim stepped, or more like slid to one side, leaving his unruly servant unprotected from the patrons of the Inn.
"Please, good people, and fair young lady. Please forgive my rudeness and my anger. I meant no offense, and I hope you'll forgive me."
Maxim now looked directly at Bruno, for inside this building, his word was law. And the aristocratic man respected that when dealing with servants.
"Well, given what he just said, and if he stays out of trouble, he is welcome to stay, as are you, my good Sir." Bruno said after a moment's consideration, and a brief nod from Mavis, who was now standing beside him, rather than behind him.
"My servant will sleep in the stables along with my sheep. And lucky he is to have a place. I request your best room, both for tonight, and for the time being, if you would be so kind." Maxim spoke to the innkeeper in the same tone as a gracious guest.
Bruno consider the proposition while he looked at the line of gold coins now spread out from corner to corner across his palm.
The room was certainly paid for, just as their grievance had been repaid, with interest and sincerity from someone of quality.
"Done, and once again, welcome for as long as you wish to stay."
"I knew a great and gracious inn when I saw it." The man in the black boots said. "Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Maxim, Maxim de la Fer." He began in a sociable tone. "I am an explorer, mapmaker, and sometimes treasure hunter, an occupation which I feel our host can well understand." Maxim continued, before he bowed to the room with another wide sweeping turn that put him on course for the flight of steps which led upstairs. The man seemed to slide across the room in one long stride.
"If I can count upon the assistance of the lovely young lady, I should like to see my room. I have been many days on the road, and for the moment I need a soft bed as much as the excellent food which is obviously a part of this inn."
Bruno gave a reassuring nod to Mavis, and the servant girl became a guide as she kippered across the room, and with the bow of her own, Mavis showed Maxim the way up to his room. "This way Sir, if you please." Mavis said, assuming her second job without missing a beat.
Maxim bowed to her in return, and swept up the stairs, passing her by a step or two, to allow Mavis to lead him up the stairs from behind, and also so that no one could mistake his intentions with the young girl alone in his room.