A sleepy hamlet lay in silhouette on the horizon, playing foreground to the setting sun. It was quaint; a handful of rustic little buildings clustered together. They were elderly constructions, but not shoddy, and certainly gainfully inhabited, with chimneys puffing smoke and lighted windows that occasionally flickered with the shadows of evening life.

  To the eyes of Gregor and Mildred, who had by now developed the habit of interrogating the ways of the places they visited, the people here seemed to grow little, maintaining each only a wicker-fenced vegetable garden. And the lands for grazing nearby weren’t very extensive, with the cleared fields fading gradually into woodland not too far away from the small clutch of structures. Likely, they kept not too many cows for milk and meat, some chickens for eggs, and perhaps some goats or a few sheep, but not much else. Nothing to suggest inclinations toward profitable industry.

  It was a rustic idyll, like something out of a painting or a fairytale, and no doubt filled with simple people who were perfectly content to live their lives in peace and away from horrible things like ‘cites’, and ‘industry’, safe from all the inhabitants and proponents of either.

  To Gregor and Mildred, it meant a cheap roof for the night, and maybe a bed and a local meal – shelter from the snow and biting breeze, which were things that no traveller would choose to suffer while trying to sleep. Winter nights ought to be mitigated to whatever degree possible, as every adventurous sort of person knows.

  During the ride, all was not well in the party of two. Annoyance still lurked in the mind of Mildred while she observed her wizard, watching him as he watched the world – glancing around at things for the novelty of the experience, and also probably for safety, ever at work, blissfully and insolently ignorant of his unconscious crime.

  Looking at what little of his face was turned toward her, she saw his ear, and some of the long scar that had taken his eye. He claimed to owe her something – that a debt had been incurred, and that he was keeping track of favours and debts between them.

  Did their relationship really need to be so transactional?

  Friends – and she did consider them to be friends by that point – did not meticulously keep track of favours and debts between themselves. She didn’t want to have that kind of stiff arrangement with Gregor, where everything had to be equal and fair, and where favours were investments made in hope of some return.

  But perhaps he did, or perhaps he thought that she did, or that that was what they had, or perhaps he was just being a wizard and his attitude towards their dealings was no indication at all toward whatever feelings of familiarity he might harbour.

  He cared, she knew, very much about the strictures and terms of their dealings, and also for the simple fact that their dealings had strictures.

  It was important to him that some sort of vague (to Mildred) internal economy of value was preserved – that services rendered were honoured as being valuable through the mechanism of payment, and that favours and boons be balanced – not because he actually cared that he might be getting the short end of the sick, but because elsewise the situation would be improper, or unprofessional, or something like that. She had no words that could accurately describe it.

  To her, all of this was a very strange and convoluted way for a human mind to operate, but it was simply his way as a wizard. He was employed by Mildred under an agreement of protection for payment. She had payed him extra, so he felt that something extra was required from him. It was actually rather reasonable when she laid it out in simple terms, but Mildred was miffed. Her understanding was that people close to each other simply performed helpful deeds for no reason other than the fact that they wanted to, and she certainly wanted to help him. No reward needed.

  Could the inverse not be true? Or was she just a job – mere labour, even after all this time they’d spent exclusively in shared company?

  Whatever the case, Mildred had a solution. She planned to build familiarity, such as would solve their special social problem, beginning accidentally, though only mostly accidentally, with a slightly vexatious question about embarrassments.

  ***

  “Boars, Milord and Milady,” answered the old man. He met the gaze of Gregor’s glowing red orb, opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again to continue, now looking off and away. “Special boars from the wood. Can’t get ‘em nowhere else, so we sell the meat quite well.”

  He had appeared at the roadside, presumably come down from some far field after seeing that the hamlet had visitors approaching, or else must have been waiting in the bushes by the road for visitors to be approaching, which would be an onerous task for an older fellow. Evidently, he was eager to make acquaintances and introductions, and all the other things one might make upon meeting a valued guest.

  “We ‘haint near no biggish roads, so comings and goings ‘re rare, ‘specially people o’ your lordly like, Milord,” he explained, shuffling quickly alongside the horse while the pair rode.

  Gregor wasn’t a Milord, but he also certainly wasn’t about to protest the appellation. And to Mildred, this form of address was actually more sensical than not. After all, the now-republic’s old sorcerer aristocracy had been overthrown in her recent memory. It didn’t strike her as odd that sorcerers might still remain in common thought as Milords, or that rare holdouts of loyalist sentiment might still persist in insular places.

  “We’ve always be loyal to the proper order of things, Milord. Had no truck with the revolution here, no sir. My father’s father fought ‘em. Lost a leg, ‘e did, and never once regretted it! I remember ‘im raving ‘bout the dogs that did it – sayin’ that once they were finished with the Milords, they’d get right quick to eatin’ their own, and so they did! We’re mighty lucky that the madness ended afore they came ravening for us regular folk too, an’ pressed us into armies for civil squabblin’ and suchlike.”

  The old man leered at the pair, not meeting eyes, but examining every other inch of their bodies. Servile and stooping, of course, but bold and eager, motivated by something that might have been awe.

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  Mildred did not find him likeable, and the fact that she didn’t possess the greatest grasp of the language did little to improve her impression.

  The broad strokes of the monologue were fairly clear, but she couldn’t dismiss the persistent notion that some strange artefacts of nuance were lost to her in the gallimaufry of almost-sure meanings, to use a local word.

  In the near future, and at least for as long as they stayed within the republic, Gregor would need to do most of the speaking, along with what little diplomacy remained possible in his presence. This was a slight worry, but he should hopefully listen to her interpersonal expertise when it was offered. She also might need to conceal her accent.

  “It’s a shame, o’course, a great shame, ‘bout the new war and the defeat and us bein’ forced back to a republic, though it saved us from the madmen. My ‘Da fought there ‘gainst the Empire bastards, not for love of our damnable revolutionary government, y’understand, but for the people. We’re still loyal as ever, and we’ll be right happy when your lordliness is soon restored. And,” he spoke low, probably intending to seem conspiratorial, “Milord, we’ve a few vigorous lads who wouldn’t frown to help with it, when time comes, like my ‘Da and his before him.”

  Gregor raised his haughty brow at this, “A bed for the night is our chief concern, not revolution.”

  “O’ course, Milord, pray forgive the presumption.”

  Upon reaching the hamlet, they found rustic life in full swing.

  According to the elderly revolutionary-aspirant – who seemed to himself hate revolutionaries – four families lived here, all components of the humble Damont clan, and all very certainly reverential of the proper ancient order of the land. For money, they had the meat of wild-caught hogs, which were desirably unique in taste and peculiar to the lands of the clan. Evidently, the business was fruitful, and none of the families could be called small.

  Heads popped from windows to ogle the strangers, old and young. People who were already outdoors turned and waved or nodded or gave some other sign of greeting, and a troupe of children halted their game to leap into concealment around a corner, from which they proceed to peep and peer and gasp and whisper.

  All of them were smiling, which didn’t particularly bother Mildred in the case of the kids, but she found the adults decidedly creepy. Gregor didn’t really notice. He was immune to the sensation.

  The old man then brought them to a farmhouse of venerable age and made introductions to the equally elderly matriarch, who shared exactly the man’s demeanour and soon had the clan preparing a feast from their evening meals. Special boar to be specially included, of course. A wizard had come to stay, they couldn’t be lacking.

  None of the clan had ever actually met a sorcerer, and ‘folk never really had anything nice to say about the wizards in particular, but that was obviously not accidental. It was very certainly all the evil work of damn revolutionary rumour-poisons, slipped into the well of public opinion to fool the good people of the nation.

  That was craven work, corrupting the reputations of noble legacies. Almost as criminal as toppling them.

  Very soon afterwards, Gregor and Mildred were lured with promises of good food and drink through the doors of a barnish storehouse thing, which was mostly clear and whose hard-packed ground still bore the sawdust debris of woodwork.

  Seats were arranged, and they sat in bemusement while a small army of rustics arranged a feast before them. Tables were dragged inside and dragged together, then furnished with chairs and decorated with meals, some of these obviously being items prepared for dinner prior to the arrival of the pair, and subsumed ad-hoc into the grand meal, with others being cheeses and cured meats and assorted semi-precious foodstuffs that could be kept until some suitable celebration rolled around and people had enough of an excuse to reasonably enjoy them.

  The clan planned to greet their guests in fine fettle and full force.

  With an ordered quickness, the commotion settled. Young children prone to rowdiness were ushered out to the control of whoever was unfortunate enough to miss the feast, and one by one people, people delivered their food, completed their other tasks in support of the communal effort, and settled into seats, all seeming quite excited to catch a glimpse of a real lord and lady, which were a breed of people almost gone extinct in the republic. The barn fell to awkward silence with Gregor and Mildred at the head of the long chain of tables, flanked on both sides by watching eyes.

  Evidently, they were to eat first.

  “Ahem.” A sun-stained man cleared his throat, gesturing timidly to a nearby pot. “Boar cassoulet from my own table, Milord, and some roasted shoulder if you’d be wanting to try the meat alone. Butchered him three days ago. He was big, but we’ve none uncooked at the moment, I’m afraid. The beasts aren’t picky ‘bout the season, so more can be caught if your lordliness’d be wanting to place an order, hereafter-like.”

  Figuring that the eating needed to begin at some point, Mildred helped herself to the roast, and, whilst politically suppressing as much of her native tone as possible, politely asked that the clan not wait any longer on account of herself and Gregor.

  As they all started serving themselves, still mostly silent, she experimentally sniffed the meat.

  It had a curious scent – close to regular pork in the way that two flowers might smell different, but are both distinctly flowers. A connection of familiarity, but not necessarily of similarity. And it was unfortunately a scent that she knew. She’d never forget it.

  Since her meeting with Gregor, Mildred had seen and smelt an uncomfortable number of people being burned horribly.

  She looked around the communal table, setting eyes upon the old and the young. Quite a few had begun eating from the pot of people, and evidently found nothing wrong with the flavour. Most were looking in her direction. Under the table, her hand went to Gregor’s leg.

  A glance was exchanged, and her face spoke volumes. He’d spent a lot of time studying it, so he knew exactly what it said.

  All was not well.

  Faintly shimmering, the whole of the roast floated to Gregor for inspection. Nearby, a clansman attempted to stand, but found the task impossible. His arms were clamped in place.

  “…This is boar, you say?”

  Unique to the region, they had alleged.

  Did he kill them all, or simply take Mildred and leave?

  On the one hand, they had attempted to trick her and himself into eating peoplemeat. If they had succeeded, the damage to her would have been incalculable, and the mere contemplation of the deed was more than enough to deserve whole extermination. However, on the other (metaphorical) hand, this was not a few people. It was an entire clan. She would likely not approve, and if he went and did it anyway, she wouldn’t let it lie and she wouldn’t let it go, not like Harsdorf. He might scare her away.

  Gregor could ask Mildred what to do, but that would burden her with having a part in the decision, which might almost be worse than exercising his own discretion.

  Unexpectedly, the choice had already been made.