Across the ocean Book 1: On the run

Chapter Twelve : What Times Has Changed

Mayen sat at a table made both with skills and beautiful wood. Coming from a wayside village of lumberjacks, or rather being himself the son of one, he could appreciate the distinctive light reddish-brown colours and the spider-webbing pattern. Streaks of darker shades, some close to black, varied and width and at times decided to break the unspoken rule of being parallel to each other and give birth to unique shapes. He knew oak, pine, maple, birch, and cypress, but for the first time he saw and touched a piece of furniture made of rosewood.

There were many other details, objects and pieces of furniture which would be worthy of mention when sharing his tale with Allos back home, and most likely Ilyanna. For a start, the trend in this city to have the upper floors projecting beyond the dimensions of the floor below, a technique called jettying which was both new and of foreign influence, was unique to Mildoyest within the whole Empire. Then the presence of a long tapestry which froze in time the scene of a decisive moment for an army fending off some invaders from their shorelines and back unto their boats. Again, Mayen could clearly exclude this work of art from the realm of Kastosian arts. Last thing worthy of mention was the bookshelf which was clearly Kastosian for its intricate details referring to the Empress Kastonia.

Mayen knew why he would tell it all to Allos, because they were best friends, and they never had any secrets between them. He knew a bit less why with Ilyanna, however. Though be believed he wanted to know if she could recognize the jettying or the rosewood, deep within his heart he wanted to give her the same impression she had on him : he had seen the outside world. Asking one about their past by demanding how they built and with what was but a mean which had fooled even him in thinking it was the end. She had come from somewhere outside the Empire and almost never spoke about her past, so Mayen thought he could probably have a door into her secret past life with these details he promised himself to remember. Yet, there was something in him which was similar to infatuation while being much more subtle.

He came close to realize he was genuinely attracted rather than simply being interested in knowing her past, that he was in truth enjoying her presence as an individual of the opposite gender. Incredulity made him reject out of hand the subtle hints and in their place, he laid down a rational of his own to explain his behaviour towards her. And despite it all, he felt a little part of him beneath the skin and behind his ribs forced into a compact ball. "I do not want to marry her, just to know her." The thought somehow contradicted him by how he shifted from a first interpretation of his own explanation as being self-explanatory to another which begged him to reconsider and be open to the possibility there was maybe a reason why his heart had reacted.

-"And so that is how you became a minister of finance! Unbelievable!" Rowen raised to his lips a mug with ayondrimerup wine, a flower close to the dandelion which grew only within the central and southern soils of the Kastosian Empire. "Soren, I know I should not be surprised, but... Sheesh! Because of your mere personality you managed to simply gather around you like moths to some rushlight all the clients you needed to become a renown sells person and then from there managed to hire people to work the fields for you as you simply got into buying and reselling different merchandise..."

-"Hoho! Coz, there's more to it yet!"

Listening to the two men and doing nothing felt so good to Mayen due to three sources of comfort he was delighting in. When they had arrived, they were given time to wash themselves. Instead of having been a rag with a bucket of water, it had been an actual tub filled with water. Nothing bested this sensation of being clean and fresh after several days of travel. Then there was the wearing of clean cloths, a nice forest green cotte which had not been worn during the journey so not to dirty it with sweat and dust. More than anything, it was the herbal tea which gave a warmth which, despite the heat of the day, maintained him somehow cool by regulating his body temperature.