Weeds and Flowers

[Tolleson]

It had been pretty pitter-patters; merry, little, dewy drops of a late Spring day when the drizzle began. Delightful and for a few minutes quite refreshing. By mid afternoon the mild gray gave way to more substantial, bulbous and billowing travelers from over the mountains with thick, dark packs. The laden clouds came to rest in the valley and unloaded like a tinker come to town. Rain beat thickly against the sodden cloth of a drawn hood for three days straight. It had been a deluge that soaked the earth so thoroughly that every trudging step brought a squelching squish and sucking pull on muddy boots. Downcast eyes stared at the boots until the deeper dark marking the onset of night meant they couldn’t be seen. Until they came upon the meager light of a sheltered lamp, illuminating the sign at the fork in the road.

The Broken Dagger

Battered as it was, with splintering wood and faded paint, the sign stood true, marking the path. The Rememdium was visible a short distance away, but it didn’t hold the same promise as a meal, a bed, and likely couldn’t stable the limping horse. And so they trudged down the path toward a familiar inn.

[Tolleson]

Along the path to the stables the overgrown grass bowed to them, heavy with the weight of raindrops. Flowers and weeds bobbing to and fro from the impact of droplets, in silent celebration as the procession of two dark figures passed. The black horse whinnied as the stable came to greet them, seemingly overjoyed at the reception and promise of respite.

“Me too, girl,” came a low, quiet voice as they entered the relative shelter beyond the barn doors and slowed.

Water pooled on the straw covered floor below their feet. Out of the downpour, the man pushed back his hood and revealed curious brown eyes glancing about to see if they had managed a reasonable enough hour for a stablehand to receive them. At the very least, an empty stall and place to settle the tack for the night.

He didn’t wait more than the time it took to shake off some of the drops that hadn’t soaked through. Leading the mare to one of several empty stalls and beginning the process of getting her settled. He dropped a large oil-cloth wrapped pack that he must have been carrying for the horse. She fussed, bobbing her head into his hands and redirecting him to the foot she held slightly aloft. “It’ll have to wait until morning,” he reassured. Unsatisfied with this answer she whined and leaned her head into his body. Tisking, softly he pushed her head away then lifted the saddle off. “Better,” he asked with mock incredulity.

She huffed as if in reply and became quickly preoccupied with sniffing about the hay on the floor, nearby barrels, and troughs. He patted her again, not quite dry but a fair bit more so than some minutes ago. Aiming then to retrieve the discarded pack and cross the yard to the inn.

[Tolleson]

He didn’t bother to pull the wet hood back over the dark mop of already soaked hair. But as he looked towards the inn he hugged the bulky pack close against his chest and left the shelter of the stables at a jog. Though he had crossed the yard quickly, his momentum slowed as he climbed the few stairs of the patio. Odd how more than almost anything else, a smell could summon a long forgotten memory of a moment in time, a feeling, a place, or a person.

Spicy and sweet, a bit hazy, but undoubtedly orange and clove.

Just under the awning he paused to take it in. Years ago if he had come upon that scent he might have had a furtive glance each way, looking carefully as to not tip his hand or get caught by someone older and bigger. But he wasn’t small anymore and in truth he wasn’t much that same boy either. And now he noted the aroma was older, stale and blended into the earthy smell of wet wood and rain. Likely the smoke that carried that perfume, released with regular cadence over years and years had seasoned the railings, boards, and lintel, perhaps it clung to the cushions and curtains within as well.

[Glenn]

Rarely could a man be defined by stubble alone, but this man was making an earnest attempt of it. It sat upon a chin that could best be described as a square trying to escape the very notion of curvature. The scar upon his left cheek was positioned perfectly, exactly in between eyeball and top of the lip, between nose and ear, not too big, not too small. It spoke of a heated battle, daggers perhaps, in a tavern room just like this, the candlelight flickering and the storm raging outside.

His hair was short, not so short that it would speak to encroaching baldness. This shortness was instead a choice, to keep it neat, to make it tidy, because there were other pursuits to chase. If it had a bit of grey, well that only added seasoning, character. A man who had seen things. A man who had done things. And oh, it had changed him. And he had seen them with grey eyes and done them with grizzled hands, never mind the neatness of the nails for there was dirt underneath them.

Grey was apparently a theme, for his cloak was grey as well, thin and furred, a bit rough around the edges but of obvious high stock, though perhaps peculiarly so given that there were few animals that might produce enough hide to craft such a thing. Also peculiar was the way he was fidgeting, sitting by the fireplace as he did. Arms shifted, first crossing, then thirty seconds later, flexing a hand on a hip instead. There was a stretch another twenty seconds down the line, shoulders rising, back pressing outwards. Finally, he leaned forward and pressed both fists down on the tops of his thighs and exhaled with a satisfied sort of grunt, not loud but still audible, settling in with that unlikely but apparently comfortable position.

[Tolleson]

Best to get out of the wet, even if the cold would travel away with the storm, likely gone for the season. And if Tennant was here, what of it. With a self-chiding sigh at the hesitation, the pack was shifted, the door opened, and steps were taken to enter the candlelit tavern. Better to enter boldly, without reservation, warranted or otherwise.

Just within the doorway was a figure whose most notable feature so far was being utterly drenched, drops of water left a trail in his wake and pooled when he stopped to survey the room. Average height for a man and what looked to be masculine clothes were just visible behind strong arms that hugged his pack. A large, and overfull at that, saddlebag that blocked a view of much else. Even the mud caked on his boots concealed the quality of the leather, though it was fair to say well made enough to be up to the task of traveling.

Shifting and lowering his bundled belongings revealed a mop of dark brown hair, styled by the storm. Ends held the slightest curl and clung to cheeks that likewise clung to the slightest, soft swell of childhood. His jaw told another story, carving the portrait of a man with strength inside and out. That he was some six feet tall reiterated this fact, well on his way to growing into what might have be a gangly frame only a year or two ago.

Brown and steady, his eyes only flitted to the bar for a moment before landing on the person at the hearth; taking in the shifting, fidgeting movements like he watched a snake. Not the sort to fill silence with noise he approached and set himself close to the flames that they might begin to dry days worth of rain from his bones. He set the pack down with the same care as if putting a baby to nap and settled next to it as near to the hearthstones as was safe. And then his eyes returned, unabashedly regarding the scar on the large man now across from him.

[Glenn]

There are such things as subtle glances. This was not one of them. It began as a stare, interested, focused, unabashed. The figure by the fire, scar and all, looked every bit the sort that would get into a barfight over such a stare, save for he was the one doing it. Barfights for questioning the stare then. Maybe that was what he was looking for. Provocation.

Needs were what they were though, and this newcomer's needs seemed to more than offset any concern about a cold hard man with a cold hard stare. He approached the fire. As he did, a straightforward glance, a dot planted upon the graph of societal niceties, one planted all the wrong quadrants, became a line, a spectrum even. With each step, interest went from direct to indirect. A straight path between retinas and the dripping form meandered to a side-eyed one: an all consuming stare, a focused look, a sidelong glance (there, finally was the glance though it was hardly subtle), and then finally outright ignoring.

Except for he wasn't ignoring the man at all, because he spoke. He was looking away entirely but he spoke nonetheless, his voice harsh and raspy, like he had gargled with daggers and lived to tell the tale. "Very gentle how you did all that. Womanly you might say. Womanly, yes. Like a.." His eyes were now for the fire even if his voice and ear were both pointed at the new arrival. "midwife." If there was a point to get to, he seemed in no rush, as if maybe that had been the point in and of itself. But eventually, he did continue. "Makes one wonder, it does." Even through the rasp, there was satisfaction in the man's voice. It was somehow unmistakable even if it might have never sounded quite like that and for so little reason to a newcomer's ear. It took a while longer, but eventually he did get to something vaguely resembling a point. "Just what could be so valuable in that pack?"

[Tolleson]

Either the need to be dry and warm outweighed the risk of approach, the heft of the bag was equal to his audacity, or perhaps this young man simply lacked common sense. It could be all three. He certainly wasn’t oblivious; returning the older man’s social graces in kind. And he heard him too. A twitch, a furrowed brow, the slightest flash of something crossing his face at being called ‘womanly.’ But he schooled it quickly, glanced at the bag, so full it kept upright of it’s own accord, and shrugged.

He too seemed to let the silence linger as if considering the inquiry. Where the accusations and questions had come out raspy, his voice was soft in volume and tone, smooth, not terribly deep but certainly beyond the breaking pitches of boyhood, “it was a gift.”

Even if his company watched the fire as if a story unfolded in the flames, his eyes returned to watch the man for a moment. And after that moment his head cocked to the side slightly, as if considering whether to and what he might say to elaborate. But he only sighed and let his eyes wander the room more thoroughly than he had from the vantage point of the door. It was never so late that there weren’t some staff, especially here. A middle-aged woman sat at a table across the room, her feet up on the seat adjacent. In her hands she held a rag and a mug overturned, as if she was drying it. Except her eyes were closed and the mug, which rested on her breast, rose and fell in a gentle rhythm.

“I’ve seen a midwife work. Tender, surely. Efficient. Terrifying. A compliment really,” and there it was. All the words. Too many words. But better too many words than anger.

[Glenn]

"Surely. Surly." The man responded and far too quickly at that. There was no saying who or what the scowl that followed was for. Somehow the most likely possibility and least likely possibility both were that he was scowling at his own wordplay. The timing was right. The logic was daft. In this particular tavern in this particular locale, one generally did better trusting timing than logic.

The scowl didn't fade though, even as it did turn to the fire. When he spoke once more it was with hardly concealed disappointment, a certain drollness which led to the words marching off his tongue with a sort of irritating rhythm, dutifully but reluctantly arriving to their destination properly, but with no certain rush. "Yes, yes, we all know how capable midwives are."

When he turned back to the man, it wasn't to the man at all, but instead to his bag. Disappointment gave way to something else, not quite rancor but perhaps brushing up to the side of it. The scowl turned into a curl upward on either side, a facial expression that would have caused most men some real pain the following morning, a look just slightly off, the type that one's mother would note one might get stuck wearing, though she might just skip that and go straight to the switch too. It was that sort of face and there was something unpleasant underneath it that was impossible to define, the sort of thing that would never stand in front of a magistrate no matter how good one's solicitor might be.

"Gift," he began, still looking straight at that bag. "Are you sure? A gift is given freely. What did you offer of yourself in return?"

[Tolleson]

Wordplay with a scowl, how charming.

“Aye. A. Gift,” each enunciated word punctuated the air to solidify the claim. Mild annoyance pushed down the brow of the young man as his eyes slid away from the sleeping woman and returned to his scowling companion. “Your words imply I’ve bartered or stolen it,” he offered the statement flatly, rhetorically, his tone souring to frustration.

A twitch along his jaw seemed to trigger a deep, weary sigh. The sound was a bit ridiculous in juxtaposition to his youthful face, but he was drenched, and now clearly annoyed. His weight shifted for a silent moment as he seemed to debate his next action. Once it was decided though, he didn’t hesitate to lift two fingers to his lips and blow a few short puffs and one long drawn out note. Almost a bird call of a whistle if it hadn’t been for the longer, louder finale.

Across the room the resting barmaid startled and looked about for a frantic moment before locking eyes on the young man. She too scowled at him. But she blearily worked her way up and shuffled over, taking his measure in full as all barmaids must. Her face softened, either in recognition, appreciation of his handsome face, or simply mirroring him. In the time it had taken her to approach his cheeks had rounded in a gentle but not subtle smile, his eyebrows curved into an expression of sympathy. Someone ever so sorry to have troubled her.

“Apologies Miss, would you be so kind as to check the kitchen. Whatever is still warm would be lovely.”

When she didn’t immediately move, he awkwardly pushed his hand into the sodden pocket of his trousers, the fabric making the action clumsy and difficult. The few coins he wrestled free of the fabric were cold and damp, but she snagged them and looked to the other man in silent inquiry.

[Glenn]

The newcomer was a man who had business, the business of nourishment, and it was a pained and labored business indeed. So the grey man who had preceded him, who did not seem to currently suffer from hunger or thirst, simply waited. He suffered instead from mild impatience as the newcomer took his good time to attempt communication and succeed it only through the brandishing of apparently hard to reach or hard to retrieve or hard to part with (for the man did not know, though he could well guess the existence of overlap) coin.

Eyes darted back and forth over him, the primary though not only sign of impatience. The barmaid's scowl may have faded but his did not. "My words imply that you don't know the meaning of the word," the scowl deepened. Words and word. Word and words. Sloppy. There was an art to sloppiness and it wasn't that. "Term. The term barter. That you don't know what it means," he repeated, obviously slightly off balance due to a slip of diction.

Then he would nod to the direction of the barmaid's retreat. "Do you think all you exchanged with her was coin? Do you think all you may receive is whatever is still warm? There's other types of warmth and I don't mean the lurid sort," which he let hung there for a few moments, before forcing a belly laugh. It seemed that he might, just might slap the newcomer on the back in some sort of familiar gesture of fraternity, but he mercifully did not. "Did you barter away her scowl? What price did you pay?" His head nodded over to the bag once again. "What did you barter for it then? What did it cost you?"

[Tolleson]

She huffed some mild exasperation as she vanished into the kitchen. As the door closes the young man’s face falls with a flash of mild annoyance. After all, the older man who oscillates between fraternal and suspicious is now calling him obtuse. But he holds his tongue a moment and considers the words.

As for the coin, it was not particularly hard to reach nor difficult to part with, as he hadn’t given any meaningful pause before passing the coins. Rather the longest pause for consideration was more obviously to gauge how safe his possessions would be if he had physically gone to rouse the barmaid. Still, his sodden trousers were an obstacle, and an obstacle still as he tries to sit beside the hearth. The fabric clinging at his knees, pulling and making it hard for the shifting muscles beneath, resisting but unable to stop him from resting beside his pack.

“Do I not? You think I have no concept of social contracts, you delve into some greater philosophy when the barter I have done here is offer her kindness, perhaps some sympathy because I know what it is to be doing something you would rather not. And yes, a smile,” he offered a biting, mocking version of it now, with nothing of the earnestness and charm from a moment earlier, a bit of anger on the edge of his voice.

The words seem an exercise in dissecting social niceties. With red rising in his cheeks and the older man’s chuckle he inhales deeply and sits back, more upright, pulling down and back at his shoulders. Musing perhaps that his current company may not actually have any sense of social contracts, given his behavior.

Calmer but still aggravated the young man’s mouth is schooled into neutrality. He glances at the bag again and back to his company, as what else can their circumstance be considered now that they’re so thoroughly locked in debate over the understanding of ‘bartering.’

“I suppose even parents extract a price for their love, however unconditional," he states more plainly, turning then to the bag and freeing the clasp. Several items are extracted and set close beside him.

What looks to be a full and sealed jar of jam is set down first. It’s viscous, ruby contents gleaming with golden firelight, chunks of fruit like viscera with small dark seeds visible within. Strawberry perhaps. A leather band wrapped and well-used notebook, probably a journal as the back half of the pages lie more flat while the front are wavy and some stained with ink blotches. A thick, larger bound book with formal blue binding and tidy but worn text, ‘Physicians Compendium and Chirurgeonetic Practices,” it’s pages too are warped with use. Several smaller books follow to make a small tower, their titles illegible. A comb, a handkerchief with embroidery, a stoppered ink pot and two pens. The bag is not yet empty, but the sides collapse inward now that the structure is gone and the young man pulls nothing else free. He holds his hands open, arms almost wide as if to invite scrutiny.

“Does this sate your curiosity?”

[Glenn]

Words and deeds did not seem to align on this day. Annoyance was annoyance but results were results. The pack was not emptied, not fully, but much of it was. Perhaps the younger man held something back, made just an offering of the least important things, or, given their number, more held back the most important things. If so, he made a good show at it however. This had been blood from a stone, albeit it not much blood and from a stone that seemed particularly inclined to bleed, but the blood and stone nonetheless. The younger man had not wanted to open his pack at all.

And this left the older one at a crossroads.

This and that, that, of course, being the fact that he had leaned forward, had peered, had gawked, had taken in word and spine and pile, the academic tower and its associated detritus. It was hard to go back from such gawking.

But he tried.

"Ah, but you see," a sentence starter which always made friends of absolutely no one, "just because you, yourself, are endlessly curious, a curious sort, wanting to know everything, it seems, what with your large pile of books, you thought me the same. But I am not the same. I did not care what was in your pack, nor did I ever ask that," had he asked that? Directly? Best not to think back if it might mean he was contradicting himself. "I asked what it cost you. This, good sir, is a deflection, a rush to the bottom, a lowly move." At some point, he had lost the gruff dusty wanderer tone to his voice, and only here at the very end of his statement did it come back as he grimaced and squinted an eye and tilted a head. "It's not appreciated, trying to get one past me like this."

[Tolleson]

“Trying to get one past,” he echoed. It was a statement repeated as a statement, not a question; though the tone of it was curious, marveling even. His eyes squinted as if to read some greater meaning or decode the confrontation. Shadows slid down and across the older man’s face as his head tilted. The younger man watched those shadows as if hidden among them there was a clue that explained the elements of their exchange. He searched silently for a long moment for some overlooked piece of information that might help him better understand what the expectation was for this conversation. And that, he could concede was true, there was a cost, a price, an expectation for every interaction.

Even if they weren’t the same, these two were oddly good company with one another. Subjecting each other to their own flavor of tenacity and every possible way to say, ‘well actually.’ Perhaps there was some recognition of this as the younger man took a deep breath. It was not in preparation of a verbal deluge, exhibiting the frustration that was plain in his face. Rather, he breathed mindfully, an action that seemed to follow some active recognition of his rising anger. “I am curious,” he fianlly said and shrugged as he began to replace the items in his satchel. There was still a slight clinking sound from whatever remained inside as items were shuffled back into place.

“What do you suppose was the cost,” he flicked his eyes to the now closed door that lead to the kitchen and then back to the pack as the last of the items was gingerly secured. He asked this question almost as a statement as well, as if, for his part, he knew the cost to himself. Or understood at the very least the social currency aspect he had implied. But in the asking he provided an opporunity to better understand what type of answer his surly company was in search of.

[Glenn]

This was a man who had lost his gruffness somewhere in his last barrage of words and body language and only recovered it the very end. It meant, apparently, that he was going to double down upon it now. A question had been posed to him and instead of answering the question, he judged it. His nose squeezed in and out popped thin, stringy nosehairs. They almost seemed to pull towards the fire, a half dozen of them tightly packed on the inside of each nostril. They were fine things, the sort that could poke out an eye if one were to pluck them out and weaponize them. The squeezing came with a opposing force, an exhale, one that sounded like there was just enough snot packed in there somewhere to cause slight discomfort. "You turn that question upon me, do you?" The voice sounded now like something dragged behind a carriage over a poorly kept road.

"Do you?" A cough. Yes, a cough would follow that, a hacking, bitter thing which called back to the mucus oh so recently referenced. It was a cough. It was unquestionably a cough. There wasn't anything fake or false about it; it was quite possibly the realest, most vivid cough that the man with the book had ever heard. And after it, came a slightly less raspy statement. "Not your body. Not your coin. Not your labor, which isn't the same thing as your body. What did you even have to give? Knowledge? No, you were seeking that. Pride. Whatever form it may have taken, the answer's pride. And what form did it take, laddie?" Laddie was new. He hadn't used that word before. He seemed to revel in it though, for it was said with such matter-of-fact conviction that one might think he'd been saying it all day. Perhaps that was the point.

[Tolleson]

If his company was a man that had lost gruffness only to see it’s return, here was a young man easy to anger and returning to it. His hands worked carefully but with a hint of brusque staccato, practiced at fitting and folding, tucking the leather flap to secure the recently disemboweled pack.

Laddie? His head twitched, eyes popped wide. The address caused the younger of them to raise a brow at the older, as if they had known one another long enough for it to be out of place. Given how well the words were woven into the gruff stranger’s vernacular it was likely a flash of anger; the feeling of being patronized in a way that only younger people feel, when they are labeled young.

“I genuinely cannot fathom what price I have ever paid that is greater than the burden of this conversation,” it was too many words to truly spit and yet he managed.

His lips pinched together, immediately regretting that they had let the thought escape.

“I am hungry, I am wet, and I am tired,” he offered with no less spite, but a measure of control. These were all true but thin excuses for an angry outburst.

“Would you be so kind to speak plainly, if there is something you require,” the control remained, tight and straining his words. With a deep breath he gently pushed his bag aside and glanced again to the kitchen, as if he might find salvation in the form of dinner or perhaps to avoid staring at the obscene hair.