Evening rolls around and I gather my belongings to go to the Pale Pine. As I walk, I wonder who will be on time, who will be late, and who won’t show up at all. I land on Rakatha being very late, Ralith not showing up at all, Vong being slightly late, and Twitch being on time.
When I step through the threshold of the tavern, I am greeted by a lively scene. A bard is standing on a chair, serenading the crowd with a well-known folk song. Many sing along to the mirthful tune, belting out the raunchy lyrics with extra emphasis.
To my surprise, I find Rakatha already at the tavern, lounging against the bar with a mug of ale in his hand. I walk up to him and he flashes me a drunken smile, “Hey, you, you’re late.”
In fact, I am right on time. Sundown is a fairly exacting time of day. I don’t bother to defend myself, but instead tilt my head to suggest we find a table. He nods and follows me to an open table as far from the lively singing as possible. I flag down the serving girl and order an ale for myself using just hand signals from across the room. She ducks off to fetch my drink.
Rakatha focuses his attention on the bard with a wide smile. His head bobs to the tempo of the song in a way that makes him appear as though he is dizzy more than dancing.
“Where is Apul?” I ask.
He whips his head around, “Huh?”
“Apul, your squire.”
“Oh.”
His look implies that he’s forgotten all about the boy. He smiles sheepishly and shrugs, confirming it.
Behind him the door swings open and Vong comes in, with Ralith trailing along. As is typical, Vong wears a broad grin. Ralith seems off-put by the raucous crowd, very subtly shying away from touching anyone and anything, as though he were walking through a leper colony. This can’t be his first time in a tavern, can it? During the siege, he must have been around the rowdy soldiers rallying their spirits most evenings. I make a note of the behavior, but have to wonder at its reason.
Vong waves at us but swings by the bar to order a pair of ales for he and Ralith before coming over. He, too, is mesmerized by the bard’s song while he waits and Ralith has to nudge him three times to hand him his drink.
Sitting down, Vong asks, “Twitch not here yet?”
I shake my head.
“Or my squire!” announces Rakatha loudly, his unfettered foreign accent likely confusing eavesdroppers as to why this man is talking about his “square”.
“Oh, Pil?” asks Vong, but continues without waiting for a response, “He’s standing outside.”
I sigh inwardly. The boy is not in the Corps, but he’s dedicated his existence to Rakatha. Why ignore a servant begging to serve? His devotion is a gift. Too bad it was given to an even greater fool than he. It’s a kindness that the boy will soon die from it.
While we wait for Twitch, Vong begins to talk all about his family.
“The ceremony for my cousin Chun was today. My uncle was really broken up the whole time, and my other cousin, Vong, his older brother, was barely able to give the eulogy he had prepared. It was just my family and Chun’s family—my father’s brother’s family—today, but we sent word to our relatives in the other enVolls and extended family back in Dromatica. I know my aunt in Manos Vull will be heartbroken. Chun was her favorite nephew. We’re going to have another ceremony for the extended family in a few months, just before Inter.”
He doesn’t appear to be close to stopping when Twitch slams the door to the bar open, bracing against the timber like she fell sideways into the tavern from some alternative plane where gravity goes laterally. She sees us and huffs over, grabs a chair from another table, and sits down on it backwards. She’s dripping with sweat and panting like a dog. Without asking, she grabs the nearest cup—which happens to be Ralith’s—and gulps it down in one go.
Ralith, who already seems quite skittish tonight, reels back from Twitch’s brash behavior and looks at the empty cup she slams back on the table in front of him as though it is full of spiders.
All gathered and only quarter past sundown. How far they’ve come since needing more than a day to appear at a designated place and time.
“Hey, Twitch, good timing,” says Vong, “I was just about to get to planning.”
Was he, now? I don’t believe for a second that his family saga was coming to a close, and I can’t imagine his idea of a plan is what I would consider a plan.
“One sec,” Twitch pants. She goes to the bar and orders two more ales while we watch on. A minute later, she returns, setting one in front of Ralith.
Rakatha’s attention is pulled, at last, from the music and he remembers his own drink. He quaffs it in three large gulps and gets up to go order another.
I watch on silently. How many false starts does this group require before actually getting to work? Were this the first exhibition of this behavior, it would merely be frustrating. Because it has happened a dozen times in the last fortnight, for one stupid thing or another, I start contemplating how I might take to killing them while out on patrol.
Rakatha walks back with two more mugs, and keeps both for himself. Smiling the entire time is Vong, apparently engrossed by this display of disrespectful behavior.
Vong takes a deep breath, “Okay, I wanna get back out into the field. I’m worried I’ll mope around if I stay around here, you know?”
No, I don’t know.
“I already talked to Level earlier today, so he’ll be ready to send us out in the morning.”
Did he, now? Did he donate all our pay to charity, too? What other things did he decide before discussing things with the group? His presumptuousness stokes the coals of anger inside me.
“Did you get our pay?” asks Rakatha, apparently mirroring some of my own thoughts.
“No, didn’t you already get it?” Vong looks confused.
Twitch belches and speaks up, “No, the Corporal sent us off after you took off.”
“Oh weird,” says Vong.
I wouldn’t call it weird. More like procedure.
I try to add some clarity, “No report was turned in, so no pay was handed out.”
“Huh, okay,” shrugs Vong. “I gave Level my report when I swung by the Corps this afternoon.”
He what?! Has he no sense of the order of things? Of what is considered decent behavior? In all the places I have had to try to make a living, learning the local rules of social propriety has been something I have struggled to obtain. Once learned, I apply them such that I will be largely left alone to my own ways. It is quite the hassle to be such an obvious target just through my appearance, and then act in such a manner so as to amplify it. I would have been run out of town after town, had I had such little disregard for local ways as Vong continues to demonstrate. Yet somehow he grew up here? This boy needs a dose of reality.
Two can play at this game, though. I’ve been too lenient. I make a note to make a private report to Corporal Level about the ineptitude of the party.
The Wordbearer Chronicles is a dark fantasy web series with new passages on Tuesdays.
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