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

at you, all fancied up!” The potato woman shouted, waving her pudgy hand.

“A great deal,” the farmer’s wife suddenly retorted, hefting up her chest. “He helped my husband clear his land and make the corral. He’s been up working with my husband from morning till night, and I don’t think he is any weaker than Brodik!”

“That’s not work!” the potato woman blustered. “Work is slaving from sun up to sundown, barely scratching up a living and going to bed starving.”

Theissen blinked at her and then handed their bucket to the well woman who smirked with enjoyment at the gathering crowd against their visitor.

“You call that work?” Theissen shook his head as he leaned back against the well. “Not having success after doing all you can?”

The potato faced woman glared up at him, but Theissen could not stop laughing to himself, still shaking his head.

“No wonder your spirits are damp.” He glanced at his cousin’s wife. She was the only one smiling, as if recognizing her husband in his manner. He turned again to face the potato-faced woman and said, “My idea of work is finding the better way so that things do work. Maybe you all ought to rethink your methods if you aren’t having success.”

“What do you know?” The potato-faced woman blustered.

“Yeah! You’re an outsider!”

“From a successful village,” he added with force.

Several pulled back, though others grew angrier.

“Look, if you want to live better than this, maybe you ought to find better ways of doing things.” He collected the bucket full of water and turned towards the farmer’s wife. “For starters, why don’t you all work on improving the way you treat people?”

“What did you say?” the tailor’s wife snapped back.

Not allowing his nerves at being surrounded by such crow-like women to take hold and claw off his courage, he said, “Maybe then merchants might decide to sell or even settle down here. You know, if you bite a stranger’s head off before you even know his character, you are in fact biting off opportunities that might help this village.”

More of the women pulled back silently. Only a few were left fuming at him, the potato faced one more severely.

“No one would even look at our village, let alone stop here! They think it is beneath them!” she said.

Theissen gave her a straight look. “Then how about cleaning up the village. It may not have much yet, but did you ever consider at least making it clean?”

The woman swiped up with her empty bucket, striking him across the face.

“Cousin!” the farmer’s wife shouted, setting their bucket down and crouching to look at his face. He had fallen against the well, startled more than anything else.

“I’m fine,” Theissen said.

But there was a scratch across his cheek and a growing bruise. He was bleeding. The potato faced woman loomed over him, ready to beat him with her now broken bucket again.

“See, that’s exactly how you are,” Theissen gestured to the bucket, ignoring the cut. “You hurt others and at the same time hurt yourself. Now you can’t get water.”

She stared at her bucket and then at him, raising it again anyway. “I’ll beat you into that well!”

“And poison it with a dead body?” Theissen was grinning despite her threats. She wasn’t stronger than him anyway. He just wanted to make a point. The other women actually pulled her back from doing it, besides.

“Get out of our village, you puffed up piece of city trash!” She kept struggling despite the others, though Theissen straightened his vest and carpentry belt on his hips.

He shook his head. “No. Because first of all, I’m from a village, the same as this. The difference between my home and this is attitude, and not much else.”

Theissen picked up the bucket of water his cousin’s wife had set down. He smiled to her with a nod to indicate it was time they headed back to her home.

“Attitude? Do you actually think attitude is the only thing that divides us?” the lean weaver woman said, her hands perched firmly on her hips.

“Exactly that,” Theissen’s nod was sharp. He stared directly into her eyes so she could not mistake him. He looked around at the village square. “This area has the same set up as my home. The only difference is that we are all like family, helping one another when we need it. Here, you all stand like sticks in a yard, side-by-side but useless against holding things together. And yes, we are in each other’s business. But now I miss that. At least I knew if my mother was sick some neighbor would have told another about it, and food would arrive within the hour, enough for as long as she is unwell. What do you do when others are ill? Or need help? Or are lonely?”

The women squirmed.

The potato faced woman jerked from the other women’s hold. “We mind our own business. And you should do the same!”

He shook his head sadly at her. “A prosperous woman like you who obviously eats well should not talk like that. Look at your neighbors. They’re starving.”

And he walked back out of the square, hefting the water that the farmer’s wife covered with a wooden lid so none of it would spill out. All eyes followed him, though no fist or angry word chased them. In fact, many stared at him as if he had suddenly come out of the blue with revelation from a forgotten god.

They were well down the road back towards the farm when the farmer’s wife spoke. “That was very brave, though I wonder if it wasn’t fool hardy.”

Theissen gave a small smile. He hefted the water bucket up a little bit. “Well, it had to be said.”

She laughed.

“Are all people in Lumen Village as outspoken as you, or is it because of you-know-what that you can do? I bet you are afraid of nobody.”

The notion almost made him stop to think. Still lugging the water, which started to feel uncommonly heavy after such a long walk, he said with a shrug, “Neither, I think. I mean my family tends to be outspoken. But then my father has always been one to speak out against wrong.”

“Isn’t he afraid of being mobbed?” she asked with a wry smile.

Theissen shook his head. “Mobbed? I should say not! That’s considered brawling. Punishable by getting your hands chopped off under Jatte law.”

She stopped and stared. “You mean, they actually do that in Lumen? Corporal punishment?”

“It’s better than mobbing,” Theissen answered, still going towards the farmhouse, which he could see just around the bend. He didn’t want to hold the bucket for very long.

“Yes, but losing your hands. Or some of those punishments are even worse! I hear you can lose your tongue for saying a falsehood.” She chased after him.

Theissen nodded, turning around. “Yep. Certainly deters people from lying, now does it!”

She shook her head. “But that’s brutal! Hurting to prove hurting is wrong? It is backward.”

He blinked and stopped where he was. “Pardon?”

“Don’t your people ever consider the pain they cause? The fear of such a cruel punishment?” Her face stared up at him as her lower lip trembled. Indeed, he could see that such fear seemed real to her.

With a sigh, Theissen set down the bucket. Then he folded up his sleeves, extending his arms and showing his palms. “I do think about it. Look. I was punished for stealing when I was eight. The scar across my wrist was for brawling when I was a little older than that. I have been a law abiding citizen since.”

She stared at the marks all right. Then she looked up at his face, touching the scar along his wrist. “But you still have your hand.”

He shrugged, and dropped his arms, reaching back for the bucket. “Well, that’s the advantage of being a wizard.”

The farmer’s wife did not quite understand that, though she followed him with silent wonder, watching him more. “But you really…lost them.”

“One,” he said with a nod. “But I was only a child when it happened.”

“And the other one brawling?” Her voice grew very quiet.

Theissen smirked. “He really deserved to lose a hand, but to be fair, I reattached it for him.”

“You can do that?”

He nodded frankly. “Yes. It got the doctor using me for a while too. What a fiasco that was.”

She quickened her pace and then reached up to the scrape across his cheek. “Then what about this? Why aren’t you healing it?”

He blinked and then laughed. “Oh! Well, I forgot it was there, until now.”

But he did not heal it, grinning to himself as he continued toward their garden gate. He nodded for some help to open it as he hauled in the water. The farmer’s wife hurried to do so, glancing at him with more curiosity then looking for her husband. He was out in the yard, but they were heading into the house.

“So why not heal it?” she asked, opening the front door also.

“Thank you.” He set the bucket down. Then seeing she could not be dissuaded, he said, “Actually, I want to keep it. At least until I see the witch.”

She had just been starting towards the water bucket, lifting the ladle to scoop out a drink. Instead, she dropped the thing. It clattered to the ground. “See the witch? Are you insane?”

Theissen shook his head. “No. Curious. And I figured since he dispenses cures and all that, I ought to come in with something to heal. Wouldn’t you agree that is a good way to do it?”

“It is not a good thing to stop by the witch! He’s scary, I tell you!” She picked up the ladle and went back to scooping out water. The farmer’s wife wanted to bring some to her husband who was finishing off plowing in the garden. With Theissen’s help, he was able to plant more for that season.

Theissen just shrugged. “All the same. I’ve decided I ought to at least meet a real witch before going on my way.”

She just stared. Then she shook her head. “Alright, just don’t let him know we are related. If he sends a blight on my husband, I will blame you.”

“I’ll be careful,” Theissen said with a smile. “But first, um, I wonder if you have any ink. I checked my bag and realized that I didn’t pack any with my writing kit, and I promised to write my mother. I think after two weeks and no letter, she ought to be upset with me for not sending anything.”

The farmer’s wife smirked at him, though she did fetch a small glass bottle nearly half full of the stuff. “Why bother? Post collectors rarely stop by here. Almost no one sends letters to our village anyway.”

“I might,” Theissen said with a nod, taking the inkbottle. He set it on the table and opened it. From his bag, he extracted a nib pen, checking it then dipped it into the well. The farmer’s wife looked on the metal and wood pen with some jealousy. They mostly used quills that had to be trimmed often.

After a bit of uncomfortable silence, the farmer’s wife left to carry the water out to her husband in a small jug. With Theissen alone in the kitchen, he pulled out his nice stationary to compose the long overdue letter:

 

Dear Mother, Father, and everyone else,

I am sorry I have not written earlier, but I forgot my ink and I barely just found a place to rest my feet, let alone find a table to write on. I cannot tell you how surprised I was to see so many inhospitable villages there are along the way to Pepersin Town. Actually, it is entirely upsetting. It makes me miss home too much.

Good news, I met a cousin of ours. I’m staying in Danslor Village with a farmer who says he is Brodik Rimtil Sardon, a former Carpenterson. Dad, you should know his father as your older brother. Bad news is, he tells me that my uncle has passed on