Wizard of Jatte by Rowan Erlking (ereader ebook .TXT) 📖

The steward turned with a calm smile. “Do not worry. On this subject I will remain silent, but warn your boy not to display his magic in front of my master while he is here.”

With a feverish nod, the carpenter glanced back at his son, whose eyes had now been drawn to the pair of them watching him at the gate. “I will talk with him.”

“And tell him to curb his tongue.”

The carpenter nodded again.

The steward was soon gone down the road.

“Theissen!” The carpenter turned and marched back to the shop, ready to give his son yet another talking to.

The lord baron did not arrive until the afternoon on the following day. However, despite the steward’s warnings, the carpenter continued to work on his projects throughout most of the day, doing most of the carving and sanding in the morning and the gluing and painting for the afternoon. They were working on staining the wood of the vanity. Theissen was flecked with walnut colored wood stain nearly up to his elbows. Kolbran was varnishing his stool, keeping his other eye on the door.

They heard the rumbling of the carriage first. Of course the horses alone made enough noise to herald the nobleman, giving the carpenter sufficient time to close up their cans of varnish and wood stain then sweep up the last bits of sawdust off of his floor. Theissen was still busy rubbing off excess wood stain from the vanity molding when the steward walked in to announce his master.

“Ew! What is that smell?”

Kolbran nearly dropped his varnish-dipped brush onto the floor. It was a woman’s voice. He turned with puzzlement towards his father, but Theissen was also covering his nose as if he suddenly smelled the same thing.

“Lord Baron Kirsch Rinchant Persillan Landownerson of Scarbrone City.” The steward stepped aside, letting an elegant middle-aged man enter the room. From his head to his foot he looked the part of a lord, his waistcoat, suit coat, and traveling cloak all too elegant for words. The carpenter had seen lord barons. However, this particular one was exactly what the steward had said. No other lord of Jatte could possibly surpass him in opulence, grace, or in pomposity. Trotting in right after him was a woman in the most flamboyant and frilly summer-sun dress they had ever seen, exposing about as much cleavage as possible without running topless into the room. She had a light spacey look in her eyes as she covered her mouth and nose, crinkling the ridge between her brow. She coughed with a high-pitched squeak.

“Is this the man?” the lord baron asked his steward, looking down his long nose at the carpenter who actually stood taller than him.

The woman walked in mincing steps after him, as if moving about on her tiptoes. “It smells in here.”

Theissen coughed as if sympathetic. However, his eyes were fixed on her, his own face scrunching up with revulsion. He even looked a little green.

“Indeed. Is this how my furniture is going to smell?” the lord baron asked the carpenter.

Giving a slight smile, the carpenter bowed. “No, my lord. The odor only lasts a few days. I’m afraid you came on a staining day.”

“Did I not tell you to prepare him?” Lord Baron Kirsch turned toward his steward with a steely look. “This floor is barely swept!”

“Just barely, sir,” the carpenter replied for the steward with another bow. “I’m afraid you caught us in the middle of a busy season. We were just finishing an important order for Lord Baron Grianne of Tucken Town to the north. His daughter is getting married in the next month and it could not wait.”

Lord Baron Kirsch looked across his nose at the carpenter again. “I see. Do you not know that I am more important than that townsman? I am a city lord.”

He seemed to turn and pace as he lectured his own self-importance to the carpenter, casting disdainful glances at Theissen as he attempted to go back to wiping off the rest of the wood stain from his project. It was nearly complete, but he paused occasionally as if to catch himself from vomiting.

“I am afraid my circle of knowledge only extends to the West Coast,” the carpenter said with yet another bow. “My apologies.”

“Then you will know us better!” The lord baron seemed pleased at how the carpenter debased himself, at least as best as he could while standing. The lord baron walked around the shop as if admiring a product he had just purchased. He examined the finished furniture they had been working on with a great deal of pleased scrutiny. His eyes focused on the scrollwork as well as the molding with intense pleasure as he turned and continued to speak with what Theissen thought as unwarranted authority. “I will be expecting your full attention on my project, as no one else should benefit from your associations while my business is incomplete.”

The carpenter opened his mouth as if to object, but he saw the warning glance from the steward to hold his tongue. Kolbran just stared, his own mouth open as the lord baron rambled on. Theissen wasn’t paying any attention at all. His face was starting to change shades towards a sick green. He swallowed several times, trying to avert his eyes from the woman who also looked like she was about to swoon from the paint fumes. The steward opened a window, gesturing towards it to the lady with an obliging nod.

“…Therefore, when I return you will have all fifteen pieces made, marked and finished. My steward will help you with the packing for travel. You need not accompany it.”

The lord baron looked pleased with himself.

“Fifteen pieces? And when do you plan to return?” the carpenter asked, at last noticing Theissen’s changed pallor though not daring to break off the business conversation.

“Within the next month,” Lord Baron Kirsch said.

“A month?” Kolbran nearly shouted. He clapped his hands over his mouth, looking straight to his father in apology.

The carpenter frowned at him. “I can finish it in the month, though my best work really does require more time than that, especially if you want the scrollwork and carving that you described.”

Theissen moaned. This time all eyes turned toward him.

The lord baron glared at him disapprovingly. “What is his problem? Too much of that paint?”

“Yes.” Theissen bowed to him. “Father, can I please leave right now. I am going to be sick.”

The carpenter nodded, though he watched his son with growing concern. “Go outside in the bushes. Let me know how you feel afterward. Kolbran, get Doreen and fetch him some water.”

“He can get his own water—” But Kolbran immediately clamped his mouth shut, seeing the warning glare from his father. He stomped out of the shop, dropping his brush in the washing bucket.

“Much better,” the lord baron said. “Children shouldn’t be in here when we talk business.”

“I beg your pardon, but my sons are my apprentices. This how they learn to do business. By watching me.”

Theissen had vomited in the bushes twice. He rested on the wooden bench outside listening to the men haggle over price. His father was an excellent haggler. So was the baron. The main issue for price this time around was for the rush that demanded his father’s undivided attention. The baron kept going on and on about his ability to spread his father’s fame, or infamy depending on how well he produced his desired furniture. It was easier for Theissen to listen here since the smell was not so strong.

It had not been the paint fumes. It was the woman, and to some respects, the lord baron himself. Unfortunately, just as his stomach had settled, the reek came on strong again and he nearly doubled over from the rank of it.

“Please, let me sit here.”

Theissen looked up. The woman was no longer rosy and vapid looking, but tired and pale. Her hands were shaking as she rested her backside on the edge of the bench and drew out a small colored bottle of liquid, downing it in one gulp and then sighing with relief.

“What did you drink that for?” Theissen asked, covering his nose again. The stink was awful. It was smell he had breathed in only once before, and he knew now what exactly it was and how it was spread.

She gave an honest sigh. “Medicine. I am ill.”

Nodding to that, Theissen glanced at the bottle. “That’s not medicine.”

The woman pulled it back from him protectively. “It is too. The lord baron buys it for me to care for my ills. He gets it from an herbalist.”

He blinked at her. “An herbalist? You mean a witch?”

With a chastising look, she said, “That is a cruel name to call such people. They deal in herbal remedies.”

Theissen merely shrugged, trying to contain his own nausea. “If you say so, though our town magician says all herbalists are crackpots that are a blight on the nation.”

“Magician did you say?” She tossed her head back. “Of course a magician would say that. They hate herbalists because magicians consider themselves so high and mighty.”

“Like lord barons?” Theissen replied, raising his eyebrows.

She looked uniquely shocked.

But Theissen merely coughed and pointed at the bottle again. “Well, I don’t know anything about herbalists. All I know is that the stuff in that bottle is nothing more than grass mixed in sugar water. With what you got, if you don’t get it treated, you will die within the next three months.”

Her eyes grew wide and she pulled back, glancing at the bottle in her hands.

He tapped it. “I bet your lord master decided he didn’t want to spend the money on more medicine. You’re not his wife, are you?”

Going her own sick color of green, she lowered her head in a glare. “Don’t give me your country morality! I happen to live well.”

Shrugging, Theissen stood up, trying to dissipate and redirect the stink of her disease away from his nose. “You are dying.”

Her jaw clamped shut. Her eyes narrowed into slits.

He leaned in, lifted his eyebrows and asked, “Come on. Do you really like living like that?”

Theissen saw her take a peek towards the carpentry shop door from the corner of her eye.

She whispered. “Three mistresses lived with him and died before me. But I have no choice.”

He drew back. “No choice?”

Covering her mouth again, she started to shake, tears coming to her eyes. “I know I am dying, but there is nothing I can do about it. He is bored of me.”

All the laws of Jatte ran though Theissen’s head. There was no law against letting someone die of a disease. It was not counted as murder. Yes, Theissen knew the disease she had. Women were the most affected by it. Men were merely carriers. The spinner had it, but the doctor was able to cure her once he knew what was truly wrong with her. He had the magician help, actually. Theissen could see full well how this woman’s disease had nearly overrun her body. She would die if someone did not intervene. But listening to the way this lord baron worked, he was not a man that would simply let her go. It was clear with the way he bartered with his father that he loved to control every aspect of the lives of all those he met. No woman would be allowed to leave him except through death.

Glancing at the scars on his hands and then the one on his wrist, Theissen wondered what kind of law would punish a man if he interfered with the law once more. He knew he was not allowed to punish this tyrant, but maybe….

“I have an idea.”