Chapter 4 "Prosht Tells a Tale"
Stepping down from the cart and bowing deeply, Wyland offered the greeting due a Servant: "My thanks for your Service in the Light. I am Wyland Ibara of Ni'Baras Stand, my house stands ready in the Light." Holding his bow he waited for the response.
"My honor to serve, the Light shine upon your house, that it be strong against the night." Prosht seemed to imbue the words with the same respect that Wyland held for them. "I am overjoyed to hear the old forms held to here in the Fifth. Surprised, I'll admit, but overjoyed. Are the respects still taught to all the children of the Fifthland?"
Wyland answered as he straightened, "I am afraid not Servant, I was mentored by an Andoran from an old House. Tram Oldspir held the Servants with the same high respect that I do. I taught my children that respect, but to most in the Fifthland the Servants of All are as a myth."
"I suspected as much," Prosht said ruefully, "Since my arrival my dress has not brought a single question or even so much as raised an eyebrow."
"We all know the stories, and of course any child of the Fifth could tell you that a Brother wears the Black Livery and a Sister, the White, but none would associate a man in black clothing to the legends they've grown up with. I think my people assume that Servants walk around with the bright Light of the Creator issuing forth from both eyes and the mouth. People don't expect legends to walk into their village and take a room at the inn."
The Servant nodded and a grin momentarily flashed across the stony features of his face. "I suppose that is to be expected. Sometimes I fear what is lost in our focus on duty. We are all so sure that duty ties us to the nations and their leaders, to the great cities and great happenings. What treasures go unfound in the lands of the meek? Which leads me to my purpose Captain Brandiwyn. You."
"My name is not Brandiwyn, Servant Prosht." Wyland said, shaking his head slightly, "I am not a captain nor an unfound treasure. I don't wish to be rude, but what is your purpose, Servant?"
"Perhaps. So you do not know Conl Brandiwyn? Captain Conl Brandiwyn?"
"Conl Brandiwyn died a long time ago in Caemlyn. When the Queen offered to give him a position he knew better than to accept." Wyland said more rudely than he meant. "What is your business in the Fifthland?"
With a patient smile Prosht said, "That is a longer story than standing permits cordial company, will you accompany me into the common room?"
"Allow me to settle my team," Wyland said with a hint of lost patience, "and I shall meet you in the common room."
Bowing as deeply as Wyland had for him, Prosht said: "Of course, I'll await within."
Coming into the common room through the back entrance Wyland saw the Servant sitting at a table in a far corner, he pulled Trinl to the side before going further, "Trin, this conversation must not be fodder for village gossip. Please see that we are not overheard."
"A matter of course Wyl." Trinl said as if he wouldn't be trying to listen for any tidbit he could spread to liven up his custom tonight.
"Thank you Trin." Wyland resigned himself to the fact that anything Trinl Turalde could overhear would be expanded into interesting gossip over tankards of ale as they were paid for throughout the day.
Wyland saw that no pitcher sat on the table as of yet. "Trin, we'll take two sniffers of Brandy and a flagon of wine, please."
"On it's way, Wyl."
He wasn't lying; as he spoke his daughter appeared with exactly that order on a tray, placed it all on the table in front of the Servant, and whisked back down the stairs to the cellar.
"Master-not-Brandiwyn, I am afraid I have you at a disadvantage..." the Servant said as Wyland approached the table and took a seat.
"Mmm? How so, Servant Prosht?" Wyland eyed the man in black warily, raised the brandy to his nose and indulged in a whiff before tipping it back.
"Well you see I know so much of you, where you've been. Where you are going. What you are meant to do. Yet you know nothing of me." Prosht said almost solemnly.
"I know all that I need know of you, Servant. You are sworn to serve mankind and the Light against the darkness. Enough and more than any man needs know. But what is it that you think you know of me?"
"To tell you about you, first I must ask if you know much about the history of your home and your people?" Prosht didn't have the smug look of one lording knowledge over another, but the solemn look of a man who needed another to listen.
"I know that we have always been people of the land, farming, living...and fighting only very seldom." Wyland said as he sat back and removed his tabac pouch from his coat.
"This is true enough. Do you know where The Fifthland pulls it's name from?" There was a slight twinkle in the dark eyes of the Servant then, as if he hoped Wyland ignorant, only so he had the opportunity to teach.
Wyland thumbed a bowlful of tabac into his pipe and offered his pouch to the Servant. Prosht declined, only staring intently at Wyland with dark eyes full of depth, knowledge, wisdom. Those eyes commanded Wyland's attention, even if the Servant's words had not.
"Of the eight lands that banded together to form New Andor, we were the Fifth." Then he ran a striker across the table and used it's flame to light his pipe.
Smiling, Prosht leaned forward and said; "It's true yours was the fifth of eight temporarily warring factions to join the whole and create Andor once again." Grabbing the pouch and filling his own pipe after all, he lit it not with a striker, but with a flame that appeared suddenly over the bowl of his pipe from nowhere. "But the Fifthland was called The Fifth long before that." Pouring wine from the flagon into both tankards, the Servant continued: "The Fifth goes back to the time of th Dragon and his Steward.
"You see the Dragon, an Aielman, conquered Andor in the name of his beloved: Elayne. Elayne was the rightful heir but could not take the throne on her own because one of the Dark One's Forsaken held Andor in thrall. When the Aiel took a city, they claimed one fifth of the wealth of that city as their own. Instead of offering up one fifth of Caemlyn's wealth to her Dragon, Elayne gave over a fifth of her lands to Rand al'Thor. This land became known as the Fifth.
"The Dragon, Rand, was so busy conquering the non-Seanchan world that he named one of his trusted generals that was born in the Fifth as his Steward. This general, known to history as The Wolf King, was Perrin Aybara. House Aybara was the first to declare for Aviendorina al'Thor as the rightful Queen of what had been Andor, House Aybara was, through Failgon Aybara, House al'Thor's staunchest ally. It was the fifth signatory to the New Andoran Pact on the insistence of Failgon as a symbolic honor to Rand al'Thor's Fifth.
"After the Andoran War was won Aviendorina would have given Failgon anything he wanted; he and his people had earned it. Without House Aybara, al'Thor would have given in eventually to one of the other six claimants. The Queen would have married Failgon, wanted to desperately if some histories of the time are to be trusted, but Failgon was in love with a girl from the Fifth. All he asked from his Queen was that the Fifth be left alone. Left to govern herself in perpetuity under allegiance to the crown of Andor.
"While perhaps disappointed, Aviendorina could not refuse the fierce warrior who had helped win her crown for her. She allowed that the Fifth land to swear her allegiance should pay the fifth part of it's harvest to the Crown, and it's continued faithfulness, and nothing else, leaving the Fifth in the hands of Perrin's progeny in perpetuity."
Shaking his head, Wyland interrupted Prosht, "Aye, we pay our tax to the Andoran Crown, but no 'progeny' rules here. Fifthlanders are a free folk, bowing and scraping to no lord or lady but the Queen."
"This is true today, Wyland Ibara, but only because Failgon would not suffer the trappings of his post. Failgon named mayors for the freetowns of the Fifth, taking Ni'Baras stand for his own. He didn't pass rule to his children, but allowed his people to choose their mayors as had been the tradition of his people time without memory." Prosht sipped at his wine before continuing, "But before Failgon, Fifthlanders, or Two Rivers Folk as they were known then, had sworn their lives to House Aybara. Your people were vehemently faithful to the man who had led them in the Victory of the Light, and his heirs after him. Knowing that they owed their freedom and their very existence to the Dragon and his Steward."
Stopping Prosht abruptly, Wyland said, "This doesn't explain to me why you are here dragging my past back to me where it is not welcome."
"Because 'Ni'Baras Stand' should properly be called 'Faile ni Bashere t'Aybara's Stand' and you, Wyland Ibara of Ni'Baras Stand, should properly be called Wyland Aybara of 'Faile ni Bashere t'Aybara's Stand'. You are the direct heir of Perrin Aybara, The Wolf King. The rightful heir to the Stewardship of the Fifthland. And the world is in need of the heir to the Dragon's Steward."