Magic and Destiny: Fate

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Dominic woke early in the morning, going to the office, and grabbing some of the items he would need for that day's meeting with the chief. He put all of the items in a leather bag he had with him on the table. It was payday for the wood cutters. He opened the pay drawer, and withdrew all of the leather pouches that were there. They were all enchanted to open only to the person the pouch belonged to after the money was inside it.

They were all empty. Dominic had made them early on when they were beginning the wood cutters guild. It was necessary, no one could be a hundred percent trusted. He found that out in previous villages he had stayed. These were the pay pouches, impenetrable, inoperable unless you were the one it was keyed to. Dominic knew which was which, and opened the chest that held the money. He tipped about seven coins into each of the thirty-five pouches, and an additional coin into some of the other ones. Rewards for services rendered. For those that he had sent to help the neighboring village, he gave a total of thirteen coins each.

If one of them had died, he would have gone to the family of the slain, and given them a were-gild of fifty coins, and a promise of support should they need it.

They had been lucky this time. Dominic closed the pay coffer, and the drawer, locking it in place again. He would hand deliver the four pouches to the team, in addition to a few extra pieces of something special.

The morning went smoothly; the woodcutters came into the office to grab their equipment from the locker room, a requirement to keep them there for work purposes. You never know when you would come in one morning and find a shiny new axe waiting for you. One by one they filed out, leaving their pay pouches on the side of the wall. They all chose to wait until the end of the day in order to grab their pay; they didn't want to lose the pouch in the woods.

Jeryn came in, and went to go for his axe and pack. "Hold it, friend. You are not working today. You still need to rest."

"I cannot, Dominic. I have been going crazy since we got home yesterday, I need something to do."

"Fair enough. If you must have something to do, you have two options. I have some errands that need to be run rather discreetly, so in about an hour, I will not be here. You can either help the office with paperwork, looking it over and making appropriate decisions and filing them away, or," he smiled slyly. "If you demand physical labor, the village is going to need firewood for the coming festivals two months from now as well as needing to be stocked up for the winter. I have been having some of the wood set aside for just that purpose. It is piled around back."

Jeryn narrowed his eyes a bit at the two choices. "You like humiliating me, don't you?"

Dominic's brow rose a little at that. "Humiliation is not my goal. Your safety is my goal. I want you behind the walls of the village, being active to support the guild. You can be active in the office, or stock piling wood. The choice is yours my friend. Oh, and help yourself to some tea. I just put a pot on about thirty minutes ago, so it should be nice and hot by now."

Jeryn chewed over Dominic's words for a thoughtful moment, noting the merit in how he worded his response, and the fact that yes, he was injured quite bad in the ambush on the way home yesterday and was still technically recovering. "Humiliating or not, your choices are sound. With the wound in my side, I cannot justly do manual labor of firewood. I might rip the stitches open, and I hate bleeding. Office work it is, Dominic." He said as he walked over, towel in hand and removed the tea pot from next to the fire, setting it on a ceramic tile on the table.