Berach's Jewel

Chapter Four

Inside the dark stables, Daveth mounted the tall, dark, shire horse. Dust motes floated lazily through the air along with small bits of straw. As the horse walked towards the edge of the barn where all the horses were kept, the stable owner walked up to him, coins clinking in hand, smiled and let him out. Daveth pushed the horse to a jolting trot, bouncing in the saddle, until he had left the outreaches of the village.

As the horse carried on along the road, he weighed up his choices. Did he want to get there as fast as possible, by riding along the ridge? Or seem like he was meant to be in there and carry along this road and be seen? Could this old horse even manage travelling at speed up and down hills? He carried on along the dirt road that circled the hills to form a natural border between the two hunderts. He might have to stop for the night but at least the horse would still be able to gallop back if a fast departure was needed.

Slowly, the hundert of Jalde Dunstan came into view, with occasional border stones marking the lands of each Jalde. People were out busy harvesting the wheat and their own food before the winter storms ruined the crops for the year. Clearly not many people used horses for transport, from the stares that bore into him like maggots. He should have planned this better - but how could he known that his Jalde would have made him do this? To become a petty thief just to survive?

After hours of monotonous plodding on horseback, Daveth reached the gates that marked the main town in this hundert, where Jalde Dunstan's high-house was surrounded by the houses of the townspeople. Using produce brought from the outer villages, they provided the hundert with cloth, food and weapons.

As he reached the gate, Daveth dismounted the horse and asked the dishevelled guard, "Where can I find Ulteg's house?"

Swaying on his metal-tipped spear, he slurred, "E's thataway." Pointing in a vague direction he then turned and fell flat on his face. Sighing and rolling his eyes, Daveth made his way in the vague direction the guard pointed him in, leading the horse through the muddy streets, stopping often to ask passers-by the exact location.

"One, two, three." He counted in his head, as he neared the house. It was small but well kept on the outside, and the roof had been newly thatched. Dropping the reins of the horse, and tying them to a post, he knocked three times on the door.

The person who answered cracked the door open an inch - shutting it quickly with a short creak. Leaning with his ear to the door, he heard the woman speak in hushed tones, "Ulteg, don't let him in! He's never done a good thing to anyone."

"Paro, we can at least offer some food and drink after travelling so far," Her husband reasoned, who walked over to the door and opened it to a surprised Daveth. Ulteg welcomed him and gestured for him to sit down on a seat nearby as he took a seat beside Daveth. After a short while Paro wordlessly brought them a cup of mead each, quickly returning to look after her own stew pot.

"So, what brings you here...so far?"

Daveth shifted awkwardly, planning ahead was not a strong point of his. "Well, erm...I have a spot of money trouble, and I need to pay it by the end of the month and I was wondering..."

"Don't you dare come crawling here for money, you coward!" Paro brandished her spoon in his face angrily. "You always take and never give back anything in return!"

I..I wasn't going to," he stammered, "I just need to know where the Jalde's jewel is, the one that belonged to the adder, Berach."

Paro drew back and returned back to her pot stirring it vigorously, deep in thought. Her husband carried where the conversation left off, "But that piece of amber is hidden in a catacomb of passages, and no-one even knows all the entrances apart from Jalde Dunstan and his family."

"I know where it is," Paro spoke out of turn.

The men looked at her, confused. Carrying on with her cooking she carried on ignoring them, like they often did to her.

"You do," her husband asked incredulously, "How?"

She shrugged, not caring whether she answered, she had her own reason for helping her brother.

"Once the sun has set, I'll show you to the back gate, during the guard changeover." She paused, taking the cauldron off the hearth, leaving it to cool. "But, if I do this, you never speak or see me and Ulteg ever again," she spoke through gritted teeth.

***

After leading him through several winding back streets, Paro paused in front of an iron grate set into the stones that came up to their knees. "Here, take this - she whispered passing a small map to Daveth, "It has instructions on how to access the vault underneath and how to get to West Gate, your horse will be waiting there outside."

"Thank you, Paro, so much," he replied.

"Well, good," she said, snarling, "Never talk again to me again." Walking past him the way they had come, she was swallowed into the darkness of the autumn night.

Pressing himself to the wall, making himself as invisible as possible against it, he began to open up the map that Paro had given to him. It was scrawled in charcoal on cheap cloth - it was only needed to show what to press, hiding places, the exit route and the amber's location itself. Reading the map closely on how to begin, he felt along the bars of the iron grate and moved his hand above the fourth one until he came to a teardrop shaped stone. He pushed it.

A boulder that seemed to only lean against dropped inward revealing the entrance. Daveth paused to only quickly glanced around him before squeezing himself through the narrow passage. It quickly opened up to a short set of stairs downwards. Above him he heard the grating of the boulder settling back into place.

He was there! From his imagination he thought this vault would be grand and ornately decorated to show the wealth that Jalde Dunstan kept secret from the world, with many guards to keep it safe from thieves like...him. His eyes widened in the sudden realisation of what he was going to do. Did he have to immediately turn to crime to pay debt, rather than honest hard work? He thought hard, and began to look at his map for the exit route, ignoring the whereabouts of the jewel. He stopped dead. He could hear men talking outside, and the boulder door grating over the other stones as it opened.

He frantically opened the map again, scanning it for the nearest hiding hole, cramming himself behind the blind corner. The two men entered unknowing that they had an audience, babbling excitedly between themselves. "No, they aren't men, their voices don't sound like it," Daveth thought. As they passed him in the main room, he breathed shallowly, feeling that they could have surely heard the thump of his rapidly beating heart easily. The voices faded as they walked by Daveth. His mind changed by the close call, he couldn't leave without nothing after being so close to finding it.

Slowly, Daveth crept out of his hiding space and noted the location of the stone. Walking up to the shelf it was on, he grabbed the box, like how the instructions told him to do so, and where to go to leave. It was a small alcove with no exit. Reaching around he twisted a mask made from animal bones towards him, snatching his arm in as the alcove twisted so he could not escape, enclosed by the stones all around him. After what seemed a long time the alcove twisted back around again, letting Daveth step out outside the walls of the town and high-house. As promised, his cob-horse was there, waiting. Looking about him quickly, he hauled himself up onto the horse and galloped back home though the pine forest and heathland.

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