01 - The Price of Talent (45 page)

“How much money?” I asked.

“Oh a few bags of gold, some silver and a few coppers,” she said.

“A few bags of…” I trailed off realizing I had never seen that much money in one place before.

“Yeah, not really all that inspiring,” she said, then saw my expression. “Don’t worry, I didn’t take all of it. That would be obvious. Just enough coin to cover expenses.”

“Uh, how much was that?” I asked, a little gob smacked.

“Let me see…” she said rummaging around in her cloak. “Ah here’s the money bag I grabbed…”

              She pulled out a bag larger than my fist. It made my eyes water seeing it.

“About 25 gold, 50 silver and a few coppers…” She said, like that wasn’t ten times the annual earnings of your average farmer in this area

“Oh god!” I said… “They’re sure to miss that much!”

“I doubt it, this was one of like ten similar bags in the safe,” she said. “It’ll take them ages to figure out one went missing.”

“Ten… bags…” I spluttered.

“Yeah, with the fields having been harvested a couple months ago, I imagine most farmers have sold their extra crops and this is part of the tax revenue that brings in.”

“You stole some of the tax revenue…” I said.

              Now, I vaguely remembered my father stopping off to pay his taxes after marketing our goods at the end of fall and beginning of winter. But I had never really focused on the fact that EVERYONE else did exactly the same thing. All those coppers and silver pieces added up apparently. I was still in awe of the money, and the fact that Meredith thought it wouldn’t be missed.

“Besides, now we can buy some goods in the next town up and maybe stay at an inn,” she said. “I figure in the next town or the one thereafter we wouldn’t be recognized. And besides, it will be nice to sleep in our own beds for a change. It’s hard to sleep with ‘Mr. Pokey Pants’ next to you all night.”

“MR. POKEY PANTS?!!” I practically shouted.

“Oh please, Tyr,” she said. “I’m a doctor, I know how things work. Besides, I take it as a compliment. You shouldn’t be embarrassed. I operate on people who I knock out and put to sleep. That doesn’t prevent them from getting morning wood while we operate.”

“What!?” I managed.

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about,” she said with a mischievous smile. “But it would be nice to wake up without you poking me in the back for a change is all.”

“Oh god…” Was all I could manage.

“Anyway, we are now well funded for our little expedition,” she said with a self-satisfied manner. “I wish I knew why there was no one there though.”

“Could it be that the church official just has business elsewhere?” I asked, relishing a change of subjects.

“Yeah, it could well be,” she said.

              And with that we commenced putting away the other stuff Meredith had grabbed from her old house. It was a few useful things, like extra blankets and some changes of clothes. But there was one bit I didn’t get.

“What’s this bag here?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s an old waterproof tarp,” she said. “I figured we could use it to keep the weather off us at night. Just tie it up with some branches on top of the cart and we have a little house or lean-to to keep the rain and snow off us.”

“That’s actually a really good idea,” I said, genuinely impressed with the idea. “I had worried what would happen if the weather turned bad.”

“Yeah, I was too,” she said. “This seemed like the best solution.”

              Once we had all the gear put away in the back of the cart, we each settled into the bed together in our new blankets. Sleep came quickly for both of us, it having been a long night. The last thing I remembered hearing before falling asleep was my sword giggling about the “Mr. Pokey Pants” comment.

              The next day we hit the road. It was getting colder the farther north we went. We were both glad for the extra winter clothes Meredith had taken from her old house. It was really starting to feel like winter. As we approached the end of the year, it was only going to get colder.

              It took us a couple of days before we made it to a village large enough to trade for goods. Like Forsburg, this town, the name of which we never bothered to ask, existed so that the local farmers could trade their crops for new farm equipment and other sundries that they would need. It also served as the seat of local government for the area. So there was an inn, a general goods store, a blacksmith and a few other stores catering to various needs in the town.

              Meredith and I spent a good portion of the afternoon of that day looking for products we could sell easily in Nordshire. In the end we settled on some textiles, a bunch of root vegetables and some grain. It seemed generic enough as to be unremarkable to any guards that inspected our cart, and since our goal was to get in unnoticed instead of selling the goods to make a big profit, they suited us just fine. Besides, as a former farmer, I had some familiarity with root vegetable and grain prices.

              We spent that whole day worried about local church patrols around the town, but no one gave us a second look. Two random, if young, merchants were not that uncommon a sight in a town this close to the major north-south trade road. The few guards we saw in the market were so indifferent and laid back that they could have been asleep. This suited us just fine.

              We finished our shopping and loaded our purchases onto the cart near dinner time. Given the time, we went and found ourselves a room at the local inn. We decided on a single room instead of two because it was cheaper and the innkeeper had assumed we were husband and wife. We decided not to correct his mistake, as it would help our cover and better explain why we were traveling together.

              The room was nothing fancy, just a couple of beds, a night stand and a side closet with a chamber pot. Still, it was far more luxurious than sleeping in the back of the cart in old blankets. That night we ate dinner in the common room of the inn. The room itself was partially full with merchants visiting the town on route to other places. At least that’s what it seemed like from the conversations we overheard. There were also a few local farmers in for the evening sharing a few pints of ale and mead while warming themselves by the fire. Really it was quite a comfortable evening.

              Meredith and I decided that it would be better if we didn’t spend much time socializing with the locals. We didn’t want anyone to remember us too clearly. So instead of eating at the bar, we got a table in the back of the common room, paying a little extra for table service. The food was good, a beef stew with sides of bread and cheese to spice things up. Meredith and I tried some of the local ale and mead. I kind of liked the vaguely sweet mead, but I did not enjoy the bitter ale. Meredith pronounced the ale to be serviceable, but not as nice as the stuff her father had kept for special occasions. She had not had mead before though, so we ordered one or two more rounds of it. By the time we were done sampling, we were both feeling more than a little tipsy.

              Having been hung over once before, I thought it was best if we paid our tab, and headed back to our room. I didn’t want to overindulge and make it hard to hit the road early the next day. It was only after paying the serving woman and heading back to our room that I realized the ship may have already sailed on overindulging. I was finding it hard to navigate the stairs at my normal pace. Meredith as well seemed to be walking more carefully. Still, we got back to our room without any major mishaps, which I decided was fortunate.

              Once there we didn’t have much else to do except turn in for the night. Or so I thought. Meredith, on the other hand, seemed to have other ideas. I’m not sure if it was the alcohol or having spent so much time with each other, but that night, for the first time, we made love. It was one of those things that started with a kiss, which led to more. I will spare you the details, as the awkward fumbling of two drunk teenagers is not something I’m comfortable sharing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an experience I will not forget and not one I’m embarrassed about. I just think it’s better left to your imaginations.

              It’s odd isn’t it? I’m more comfortable talking about the first time I killed a man than the first time I had sex. While lighting the inquisitors on fire seemed necessary at the time, I still wake up at night horrified by reliving that experience in my dreams. I can sometimes still smell the burnt flesh, and the feelings of revulsion and nausea hit me afterwards. It’s not as strong a feeling, but it’s still there, all this time later. Meanwhile, an experience that I still remember to this day with fondness, is something I’m not comfortable sharing. It says a lot about a society that physical expressions of love and affection are private, while tales of death and destruction are shared at meal times with people of all ages around. But I’m digressing.

              That night, when we finally did get to sleep, we slept well. We woke up the next day without hangovers, thank goodness, but later in the morning than we had intended. I would like to think that it was the activities of the night before that put us in such a favorable disposition, but it’s more likely because we took our alcohol with food. Still, we both seemed to be grinning like idiots.

              Unfortunately, we didn’t get to linger in that room. We had a job to do in Caer Nord and it would get no closer by staying in bed. So we quickly got dressed; well, as quickly as we could given our clothes were strewn about the room. Then we headed down to have breakfast and pay the innkeeper. Breakfast was eaten quickly and with little talking. We were rushed, but also didn’t much feel the need to say anything.

              It was not till we were on the road that something occurred to me.

“Meredith, I realize it’s a little late to worry about this now, but what happens if you get pregnant?”

“Don’t worry about that, Tyr,” she said. “If that was an actual risk, I would not let things go as far as they did.”

“Um… Isn’t what we did last night exactly how pregnancy occurs?” I asked, genuinely confused.

“For couples without a training in medicine and without magical talent, yes,” she said. “But I’m a doctor with quite a bit of magical talent. I won’t get pregnant unless I want to.”

“Wait, you can use magic to keep yourself from getting pregnant?” I asked.

“Sometimes I forget how much you missed not being included in the general classes in Caer Sud,” she said. “Given how many boys and girls in their late teens or early twenties were together in the castle, did it not strike you as odd that NONE of them were ever pregnant?”

“Well, honestly, I never really thought about it,” I said. “At the farm we just kept the male and female livestock apart. I assumed that any of our classmates that were fooling around were simply taking precautions not to get pregnant.”

“One of the most frequently used services at the hospital was making sure that people either did, or did not, get pregnant,” She responded. “Infertile couples would come and get fertility treatments, where we would encourage ovulation and insemination magically. Couples who were not ready to have kids would have the opposite treatment. We would encourage the woman not to ovulate, or if she already had, that insemination not take place. Occasionally, someone would come in and need to be encouraged to shed her uterine lining early because there was a fertilized egg already there.”

“I never realized…” I said.

              It made sense though. Everyone knew that students fooled around. It was inevitable with that many young adults sharing space. Still, I was not sure I was comfortable with the idea of using magic to end a life before it began. The starting a life that wouldn’t have happened otherwise didn’t bother me much. Most farmers liked having a lot of kids as they were all free labor to work in the fields. As parents aged and were less capable of doing all the chores a working farm required, it was good to have enough kids to pick up the slack.

“It’s not that complicated a process,” Meredith said. “Since all of these processes are ones the body does naturally, it’s simply a matter of feeding small amounts of energy to the organs involved to encourage them to follow one process or another. Honestly, healing cuts and setting bones is much more difficult work. That’s not something the body is always particularly good at doing on its own and requires much greater uses of magical power.”