Breaking the Sword

A Tale Worth Telling (I)

The following morning, Tristram awoke when his employer's daughter dumped most of her wash water on his head. A girl of only ten years old, Maggie looked on without pity while the bard spluttered and shook the water from his hair, shielding his eyes from the reach of her lamp. It was her job to mop and clear the barroom each morning after the previous night's trade, and evidently she had taken great offense to his impeding her access to the floor.

"Rough one, yeah?" she said, her tone decidedly bare of sympathy even as she offered him a clean dishtowel.

"Tell me this, Maggie," Tristram croaked, struggling to raise himself backward from the flagstones onto the low stool beside the fireplace. "Why does being alive hurt so?"

"It would likely hurt less if you drank less and saved more," the girl responded practically.

"My girl, you are much too young to sound so much like your mother," the bard said, still shielding his eyes as he affected a put-upon air. "But I thank you for the bath. What time is it, anyway?"

"Two hours until dawn," the girl replied. With a grimace she poured the remainder of the bucket's contents out onto the floor. The resulting puddle was a sorry sight indeed, and not nearly enough to cover even a quarter of the space she was set to mop.

"Four on the clock, then," Tristram translated, wringing out his trousers so as to cover more of the floor. "Certainly an hour to be feared by those of any sense."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Maggie demanded. She kept her eyes on her work– to all appearances giving the bard little notice as she pushed her mop.

But Tristram knew better. He had seen the girl often enough among the children who gathered begging for stories whenever he showed his face in public. He knew well enough that Maggie had a dreamer's fondness for tales of the far-off and long-dead, whatever her outward performance as a pragmatist.

With widened eyes and a hand pressed to his heart, he said, "Why have you not heard the tale of Goodman Tearney, carried off by witches when he ventured out of doors at the hour of four o'clock? Or how Widow Lisbet's cats all woke her at that very hour, shrieking in terror at some foul demon a-prowling at its appointed time? And certainly, it is common knowledge in the province of Skadda that the Lightning Man walks between the hours of four and five, seeking his next victim to drag to his castle in the dark Other World. Or–"

"You're having me on," Maggie interrupted. "Even tiny babies know the witching hour is midnight."

"Don't be too sure, my young friend," Tristram answered in his most forbidding manner. "It does not do to be young and about at this hour."

"Well, then," Tristram's young friend said, hefting the heavy, empty bucket and waving it in his direction, "it won't do for a young one such as myself to fetch water from the well at such an hour, either."

Deflating slightly, the bard accepted the bucket from the girl. "For my part, I would not be so hasty to say that I am not young myself," he said. "However you are right to be wary, for wells are a most notorious center for the dark and mystical forces of this world. Thus it is wiser that I should go, and spare you the risk of being enchanted by some selkie or nymph of the waters."

The bleary-eyed bard at least had the reward of seeing the solemn countenance of his audience break briefly into a smile at his performance.

"I'm sure you'll be perfectly safe," the girl assured him with her own affectation of seriousness. "Selkies and nymphs prefer lakes and oceans."

"That's sirens, I think. Nymphs are drawn to running water. Like the underground river that feeds the city wells..."

"Best be on your guard, then. Good luck."