"Oh that's just Oscar. He's harmless, for the most part. But he has the foulest mouth I've ever heard, and I've heard my share. Sometimes, I wish that when he opened his mouth to spew some of his filthy talk at me, he'd get the hiccups instead." She huffed a wisp of hair back off her face. "And now he wants another mug. I'm sorry. I talk too much. I'll get your tea, Master Ryb..."
"Ruben."
"Ruben." She gave him a pretty smile before hurrying off.
Eating while he waited, Zedd watched the table of noisy men. A small wish. What could it hurt? Julie returned with the tea and a cup. As she set them on the table, Zedd crooked his finger, urging her to bend closer.
She leaned over, tightening the apron strings behind her back as she did. "Yes, Ruben?"
The wizard gently touched a finger to the underside of her chin. "You are a very lovely woman, Julie. Oscar shouldn't speak to you in foul language, or touch you again." His voice lowered to a slow, powerful whisper that almost seemed to make the air sparkle. "When you give him his ale, speak his name, and look him in the eyes, as I look into yours now, and you shall have your wish as you have spoken it to me, but you won't remember asking it, or that I have granted it."
Julie blinked as she straightened. "I'm sorry, Ruben, what did you say?"
Zedd smiled. "I said thank you for the tea, and I asked if anyone here has a team of horses, and perhaps a carriage for hire."
She blinked again. "Oh. Well..." She looked around as she pulled her bottom lip through her teeth. "Half the men in here, well, half the men who aren't dressed as fine as you, are drivers. Some hire out. Some haul freight and are regulars, just passing through." She pointed at a few tables. "They... and they, might hire out. If you can sober them up."
Zedd thanked her and she went to get the ale. He watched as she carried it back across the room and set it in front of Oscar. He leered up at her with a drunken grin. She stared into his eyes. Zedd saw her lips speak his name. Oscar opened his mouth to speak, but hiccuped instead. A bubble floated from his mouth, up into the air. It popped. Everyone at the table erupted in laughter. Zedd's brow pulled together in a frown as he watched. That's odd, he thought.
Every time Oscar opened his mouth to speak to Julie, he hiccuped, and bubbles floated up. The men roared with laughter, accusing her of soaping his ale. They all agreed that if she had, it would serve him right. She left the men to their laughter when the lone man in the booth caught her attention. She nodded after he asked for something and then headed for the kitchen.
Julie paused at Zedd's table, giving a nod back toward the lone man. "He might have a team. He smells more like a horse than a man." She giggled. "That wasn't kind. Forgive me. It's just that I can't get him to spend any money on ale. Just Tea. He wants me bring him more."
"I have more than I can drink. I'll go share mine with him." He winked at her. "Save you a trip."
"Thanks Ruben. Here's another cup, then."
Zedd put the last large piece of roast in his mouth as he surveyed the room. The men had quieted down, and Oscar had stopped hiccuping, as they all listened to the bard singing a sad song about a man who had lost his love.
Zedd picked up the tea pot and cups, and started from his table. He cursed under his breath when he remembered his hat, and swept it up, noticing the cane and snatching that up, too. He deliberately passed close to Oscar, looking him over carefully. He couldn't figure out why he had hiccupped bubbles. Zedd gave a mental shrug. The man seemed normal enough, now, if a little too drunk.
The wizard paused next to the booth with the single man. He held up the pot and cups.
"I have more tea than I can drink. Could I share it with you?"
The man watched with a forbidding scowl from under bushy eyebrows. Zedd smiled. The man did indeed smell like a horse. He unfolded his huge arms, slid the coiled whip to the side of the table, and pointed for Zedd to sit before folding his arms again.
"Well, delighted, thank you. I'm... Ruben."
Zedd tossed his hat on the table and lifted his eyebrows in invitation to reply.
"Ahern," he said, in a deep, resonate voice. "What do you want?"
Zedd placed his cane between his knees with one hand and with the other tugged at the heavy robes as he sat on the bench, trying to pull a thick fold from under his bony bottom. "Well, I just wanted to share my tea, Ahern."
"What do you want?"
Zedd poured the man tea. "I thought perhaps you might need some work."
"Got work."
Zedd poured tea for himself. "Really? What sort?"
Ahern unfolded his arms and sat back in the booth, appraising his new table companion's eyes, and nothing else. He wore a longcoat draped around his massive shoulders, over a dark green flannel shirt. His thick, mostly gray hair was long enough to nearly cover his ears, and looked to be infrequently pestered by a comb. His deeply creased, weather worn face was splotched with pink, windburned patches.
"Why do you want to know?"
Zedd shrugged as he took a sip of tea. "So I can gauge if I can make you a better offer." Zedd, of course, could produce any amount of gold the man could ask for, but judged that not to be the best tack. He took another sip of tea as he waited.
"I haul iron from Tristen, down here to the smiths in Penverro. Sometimes over to Winstead. We Keltans make the finest weapons in all the Midlands, you know."
"I heard differently." Ahern's frown darkened. Zedd folded his hands over the silver topped cane. "I hear them to be the finest swords in all the three lands, not just the Midlands." The bard started a new song about a king who lost his voice and had to command by written instruction, but had never allowed any of his subjects to learn to read, and so lost his kingdom, too. "Heavy loads to haul, this time of year."
Ahern gave the slightest hint of a smile. "Worse in the spring. In the muck. Then's the time we find out who can drive, and who can talk."
Zedd pushed the full cup a few inches closer to the man. "Steady work?"
Ahern finally took up the cup. "Enough to keep me fed."
Zedd lifted one coil of the braided leather. "I thought you looked to be a man familiar with the use of this."
"There's different ways to get effort from a team." He pointed with his chin in the general direction of the room "These fools think they get what they want by laying to with the whip."
"And you don't?"
Ahern shook his head. "I crack my whip to get their attention, to let them know what I want, where to put their feet. My team works for me because I trained them to work, not because they get the whip. If I'm in a tight spot, I want a team that understands what I want, not one that jumps when they feel a whip. There are enough gorges strewn with bones of man and horse. Don't want to add mine to the lot."
"Sounds like you know your work."
Ahern gestured with his cup to Zedd's elaborate robes. "What line of 'work' you in?"
"Orchards," Zedd said, pointing a finger skyward. "The finest fruits in all the world, sir!"
Ahern grunted. "You mean you own land, and others work to grow you the finest fruits in all the world."
Zedd chuckled. "You have it true. Now, anyway. It didn't start that way, though. I started by myself, working, struggling, for years. Tending my trees day and night, trying to produce the best fruit anyone ever tasted. Many of the trees failed. Many times I failed, and went hungry.
"But I finally was able to do better. I saved every copper, and bought more land in the years I could. Planted, tended, picked, hauled, and sold it all by myself. Over time, people came to know my fruit as the best, and I became more successful. In the last few years, I've hired people to tend things for me. But I still keep my hand to the work, so that it lives up to what people know me for. Would you hope for any less success, in your work?"
Zedd sat back, smiling, proud of the story he had just invented on the spot. Ahern held out his cup for more tea.
"Where are these orchards?"
"In Westland. Moved there before the bound
ary went up."
"And why are you here now?"
Zedd leaned forward, lowering his voice. "Well, you see, my wife is not doing well. We are both old, and now that the boundary is down, she wants to visit her homeland. She knows healers there who may be able to help her. I'd do anything to help that woman. She's too sick to travel on horseback any longer, what with this weather, so, I'd like to hire someone to take us to her healers. I'd pay any price, any price I can afford, to get her there."
Ahern's face softened, somewhat. "Sounds a fair enough journey. Where do you be headed?"
"Nicobarese."