Between the Veil and Crown

Arvek 41

He left in the morning and arrived in the second village shortly before the afternoon. They made arrangements for a night's stay, which turned out to be a similar situation as the first village: A room for other purposes had six beds moved in. The other rooms, as it turned out, where very small and the innkeepers did not wish to put the Crown Prince in such pitiable places.

Arvek requested that none of his guards or Rasinod inform anyone outside of the tavern of who he was. Given what happened in the previous village, he did not want a sanitized version of the soldiers. He did not want to see them at their best. He wanted to see how they normally behaved. Particularly, if they would hit up the tavern once the light started fading from the sky.

So he sat and waited in a corner of the tavern.

The entire time he was there, he noticed that there was also a Ranger. The Ranger had selected a spot out of the way, but occasionally was approached by a villager. He talked and joked with whatever villager approached him, but the conversations were never long. When he ordered any beverage, he took care to order something nonalcoholic. There was one point in the afternoon that he was joined by another Ranger, but the other only had a brief meal, a brief discussion, and then the other left.

The Ranger seemed aware of the fact that Arvek watched him so curiously, but paid it no mind. When their gazes met here and there, the Ranger gave him a cordial nod before continuing with carefully scrutinizing the tavern.

When the barmaid came over to ask if there was anything she could get him, he asked her about the Ranger never getting alcohol, as it struck him as odd. Sure, it was the middle of the day, but it did not appear the Ranger had anywhere to go.

"Oh, they never do when they're on duty," she told him. "If you see one drink, they're off duty or in trouble."

Arvek thanked her. He turned to the guard accompanying him, his lips pressed tightly together. The guard sighed heavily and nodded his understanding.

That should have been a standard expectation, particularly of the Harlofelp soldiers. If they were on duty, they did not drink. And yet, the Rangers were showing them up. The villagers could expect that the Rangers would be held accountable for breaking a standard soldiers should be keeping themselves.

For all his dislike of them, Jarven could stand to take a leaf from the Rangers' book.

The light outside of the windows began to dim, and soldiers began filing in. At first it was a few, which Arvek could tolerate as acceptable. Unless the situation called for it, he would expect occupying soldiers to always be on duty.

But that few slowly began to multiply. As Arvek watched, the Ranger shifted to a spot more out of the way and by the stairs. Chairs everywhere else were becoming filled up with just soldiers.

When the only chairs available were the ones at Arvek's table, a couple of soldiers headed over to him.

"We're gonna need these," one of them told him condescendingly as he snatched the chair next to Arvek- one that he happened to be resting his feet on. The second grabbed a chair next to the guard.

"Excuse me," Arvek said coldly, "I believe I was using that."

The soldiers just laughed and dragged the chairs over to some of their comrades.

The guard got up and marched over to the table where the soldiers had brought the chairs. "It is not becoming for a soldier to rip chairs away from others," the guard growled.