Posted by Scourge on February 18, 2010
The last thing Harlon wanted to do was talk to Lady Ansul again, but if this flamboyant orc-minder was staying at her boarding house, he really had no choice. He’d put up with almost anything if the price was right. For all the moaning about keeping the missus in the manner to which she had become accustomed, Harlon wanted to be kept in the manner to which he had become accustomed as well.
Lady Ansul opened the door a few minutes after he knocked. In fact, he was raising his hand to knock again when she swung it open. She fixed him with a deadpan glare.
“Captain Harlon,” she stated in a tone that made him remember a particularly bad cart crash two winters ago when Barend had been covered with two inches of ice.
“I am here to see…” His voice trailed off when he suddenly became aware that he did not know the man’s name. The wheels started spinning quickly and ground to a halt when he came across the only memory he did have of their identities.. “Grak.”
He was pleased that Lady Ansul’s eyebrows twitched upward a hair’s breadth. He had surprised her. He stifled a smile. “I will see if he is available. You may wait in the garden.”
He couldn’t help but glance about the garden in hopes of seeing Celiaria back there, bent elegantly over the frog pond or kneeling in supplication before a magnificent flower. He was disappointed, but did not have to wait long for Grak to show up, trailed, thankfully, by the oddball. They strode up to Harlon and the man smiled.
“Ah!” he exclaimed, spreading his arms wide and sending his gold-threaded cloak into paroxysms of fluttery-ness when the wind swept across its folds. “The good captain who so helped restore order in the streets the other day.”
Harlon stepped back as the man swept past Grak and approached him with his arms outstretched, wondering if he would try to hug him. Instead, the man stopped at a respectable distance and grinned wider. “I suspect you really wanted to see me instead of Grak, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know your name.”
The little man stuck out his hand and Harlon shook it. “Torm Grapillia, at your service. And this…” He motioned over his shoulder at where the orc stood staring at the flowerbeds. “…is The Grak, Himself.”
Harlon peered around him at the orc who was wearing a much less frightening pair of blue pants and a fine silk tunic that day. “The Grak, Himself?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of him!” The man clutched the pleats on his chest and looked shocked.
“Umm… Barend is pretty isolated.” The man looked dismayed at the news, so Harlon tried to steer his mind in another direction. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me why you’re here and also, how I can help you out in any way.”
“Ah, yes,” he replied with a sad smile. “Grak is a star! I am a producer of small plays for the Natural Exploration Society. Besides entertaining fictions put on by the best actors, I have devised a new type of traveling entertainment based on dramatic speech and a series of artistic murals. I am working on one now.”
Harlon, whose artistic interest barely stretched far enough to ask what his son was working on when he was in town, quirked an eyebrow and frowned. “Natural Exploration Society?”
The man grinned. “Oh yes. World famous really. I’m here to construct a show on the Orcish Horde’s battles of the Krangoth Dyansty.” He waved a hand at Grak again, who had wandered over to the pond. “Grak here is the star of the show.”
Posted by Scourge on February 8, 2010
The missus whined and scolded a bit, as she always did when Harlon excused himself from one of these society dinners. She knew him well enough by now, surely, to realize he had no intentions of going to any of them. One thing you could say for the old girl: she could make excuses like the best of them.
So, while she donned a ridiculous turquoise gown and stuck an open fan in her hair – the latest fashion in Barend – he, pulled on his unpolished boots and planned how he was going to find the flamboyant stranger.
He was out the door in time to swing open the door to the coach grandly. “Make my apologies,” he said to a purse-lipped wife. The instant it rumbled out of sight, he turned the other way and headed over to the Corpulent Frog.
As expected, Stinky Delfarthing was at his usual spot, tucked up to the bar in the Corpulent Frog, and easily on his fifth or sixth drink of the night. Harlon strolled up and eased onto the stool next to him. “Hey Del,” he said, and the older man swung his head toward him cautiously, as if he expected it would fall off if he went too fast.
“Whosa talkin to ol’ Delfarthin tonigh’?” he blared. “Someone wan’s a lickin’?”
Harlon shook his head. “Its Harlon. I have a question for you.”
The drunk lowered his voice. “Questions cost.”
But Harlon was already pulling several coins out of his pocket and laying them on the bar between Del’s many empty glasses. The bartender – who actually looked exactly like the name of his establishment – sidled off and became interested in something on the other side of the room. He was a man more interested in booze and snack-food than questions.
“Whaddya askin’?” It appeared that Del had forgotten to swallow his last moutful and some of the drink dribbled out when he spoke.
“I’m looking for a new man in town. Colorful chap, runs about with a big orc.”
Del took another drink and Harlon watched him swallow carefully this time before replying. “Ah, yes.” His tone was suddenly quite clear and even lower than before. “I saw them. Odd fellow. And that orc! Warhammer?” He quirked his eyebrow at Harlon and shook his head. “Makes a man curious to be sure.”
Harlon nodded and slid a few more coins across the bar.
“He took a room in Lady’s Ansul’s boarding house. The orc went in with him, and two-three trunks of luggage hiked up on his shoulders – along with that warhammer big as a gnome – like they were nothing.”
“You’re a pal,” Harlon said, standing up. He clapped Del on his back. His mind was whirring again. Lady Ansul’s house. The same place Celiaria was staying. Odd, he thought, as he turned to leave.
“Sure,” Delfarthing replied, and tucked back into his cup. His free hand swept the coins off the bar and made them vanish inside his coat.
Something suddenly popped into Harlon’s mind and he turned back to Del. He opened his mouth to speak, but it was too late. Stinky Delfarthing had succumbed and was now lying on the floor, one boot still propped up on the barstool, in a pool of his own vomit.
Posted by Scourge on February 1, 2010
While Harlon munched on the dumplings and ignored the chattering of the missus, his brain was busy. The flamboyant man with the orc was a stranger… with money… Harlon had to find a way to turn this to his advantage. His eyes strayed to the window. Colorful nut. Battle orc. Easily upset. Profit.
Harlon was good at what he did. It helped that the real King’s Own Guard was mostly ineffectual, rampantly corrupt and not very willing to help out anyone south of the river. He always thought focusing on quantity over quality of clients was a wise business decision. For every unwelcome crowd he moved along, for every cheater he trounced, for every object he returned to its rightful (or more convincing) owner, he earned just enough to keep the missus in the manner to which she had been accustomed.
“… and please don’t forget to polish your boots, Harl.” The missus’s voice broke in to his thoughts and he shifted his gaze toward her.
Mouth full of cabbage, he frowned. “Wha’ was dat?”
“Oh Harl! Manners!” The magpie in the cage repeated the scold. “Manners!” it squawked, and fixed him with a beady eye.
He swallowed. “What was that about my boots?”
Her frown deepened. “Weren’t you listening?”
“Lots on my mind. New clients to consider.” He tried sounding brusk, but she just shook her head, her lips pressed together. “Sorry,” he muttered, and turned back to his plate.
“I said,” she crowed, “we are going to dinner at Lord and Lady Micdavver tomorrow night. Don’t forget to polish your boots!”
“Oh, oh… sure. Unless there’s work. Have to be a good provider.” He waved his fork at the plate.
It worked, just like it usually worked. He remembered being a rough young lad of seventeen, sitting uncomfortably on a peach silk sofa in his wife’s childhood home. She sat next to him, straight as a poker and almost bouncing with delight, as her father announced they were to marry. “He’ll be a good provider,” her father had said, and she had clung to that for all these years.
His mind slunk back into its figuring as she rattled on about the MicDavver’s new cook and what delicacies they were sure to enjoy. Harlon pushed the last bit of cabbage around his plate and glanced back toward the window. The magpie was watching him again. It opened its beak and then clacked it shut. Harlon sighed. It didn’t need to say anything for Harlon to know what it was thinking.
The MicDavver’s could whip up the most scrumptuous delicacies every imagined. He wouldn’t be there to enjoy them. The rainbow-hued man and his orc were the start of something big. Harlon could tell. He could feel it. While the missus made his apologies, he would be searching for his windfall.
Posted by Scourge on January 6, 2010
The idea that the Demi-Duchess was in Barend for work made Harlon even more confused than he usually was. He strode down Center Street, completely missing two pick-pockets and a man using another man’s head for a fighting practice dummy. His mind was full of other things, but mostly Celiaria. The image of her face and body burned into his brain blocked out most thought. It ran kind of like this: eyes… work?… lips…work?… white, swan-like neck… what type of work?… heaving bosoms… huh? what?
Captain Harlon’s mind was getting a real work out today, for when he rounded the next corner onto the considerably dingier street that led to his house, he ran into something that managed to dislodge Celiaria from his mind completely.
Now, it wasn’t that odd seeing an orc in town, though mostly they kept to the outlying fields and farms. It was a little odd to see an orc in armor, with a big-ass war hammer twice the size of Harlon’s skull. There was a growing crowd of townsfolk around the orc, who was snarling.
On the long walk home...
Harlon pushed through the crowd and stepped up boldly to the orc. “Hello there!” he called. “Nice, sunny weather!” Orcs could usually be distracted easily with comments about the weather. From what he knew of orcs these days, they were all farmers. And morons. Weather was about the only thing they could talk about at length. Weather and seeds.
This orc glanced at Harlon, still scowling, and proceeded to wave his war hammer about in a I’m-about-to-get-your-brains-on-this manner.
Harlon stepped back, or tried to. The crowd behind him was like a wall now. They were ready for the show.
“Umm. Hello? Mister Orc. Sir?” Harlon kept trying to get through to the great green lug, but it wasn’t working. “Excuse me.”
And then he was pushed rudely from behind. He turned to see a skinny man with an outlandish outfit on striding up to the orc with his hands spread wide. Harlon noticed the outfit first, to tell the truth, because it was primarily orange and red and glow-in-the-dark green and ultra-blue and the type of yellow that burns itself into your retinas and won’t get out again. It was silky. It flowed and flapped around him like a dancing girl’s scarves. The hat matched, except it had feathers too.
This weirdo stood in front of the orc and turnedto face Harlon and the crowd. “Excuse me!” he cried, in a tone of ripe indignation. “Kindly disperse! You are upsetting Grak.” He clapped his hands sharply then and cast a particularly jabbing look at Harlon.
Harlon knew a potential client when he saw one. This guy had to have money. No poor person would be caught dead in that outfit. He spun around and raised his hands up to the crowd. “You heard the man. Get the heck outta here!”
About ten minutes later, the crowd had thinned considerably and Harlon turned back to the oddball and his orc. “Anything else I can help you with?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow.
The freak looked him up and down and then flashed a smile. “Not at present. Thank you.” His smile dropped off his face like a rock into a pond, except without those circular ripple things. He grabbed the orc’s arm and led him away down the road.
Harlon watched them for a long moment, but finally turned and continued on toward home. There was leftover pork dumplings and cabbage for lunch. One of his favorites.
Posted by Scourge on January 4, 2010
Harlon took some time peering about the yard. Frog pond. Flowers. A couple of leafy trees. When his gaze found its way back to Celiaria, he still had no clue what he was going to say. And, since he found himself like this pretty often (though not to such a degree usually), he did what he always did. He blathered.
“Nice day,” he said, glancing up at the sky.
She looked up for a monent and smiled. “Yes.” And then she looked back at him, her smile fading by degrees.
“So!” he said, and rubbed his hands together. He immediately wished he hadn’t. “So. I… just came by to welcome you to Barend, officially as it were.” He grinned, but her smile had vanished completely by now. “We don’t get many visitors.”
One perfectly-plucked eyebrow arched up her alabaster brow. “Officially? I was told you were… ahem… self-employed.”
If Big Dubby, the Bruiser of Barkwood, had seen Harlon at that moment, he would have surely busted his nose and shoved his face in the dirt like he had one million times during Harlon’s school days. Big Dubby thought blushing was the most disgraceful sign of masculine weakness, and Harlon was a blusher.
His cheeks blazed. Self-employed. He cleared his throat.
“Umm… yes. And I just wanted to welcome you to Barend.” He arched his own eyebrow. “We don’t get many visitors.”
“This is a working holiday,” she said, and crossed her arms under her considerable breasts.
The effect made Harlon forget anything else he could possibly say. “Ahh!” he said, and then simply turned around and left, walking fast with his coat pulled snugly around his front.
By the time he reached the cobbled road, which stretched between the castle in the west and the graveyard in the east, he was able to take his hands out of his pockets. He took a deep breath and walked on. Working holiday. Working holiday. The words tumbled over themselves in his mind.
What? he wondered, would a demi-duchess be doing for work? And why was she doing it here, in Barend of all places?
He vaguely wished someone, somewhere had invented a method of long-distance communication so he could get a hold of the Duke and tell him to come fetch his daughter home already. She gave him too much to think about.
