Her Dreadful State of Affairs

[Ladies' Man]

((Closed to Dipwood.))

It was a rare thing indeed to find Gabriel Talisman lying by himself, but it was even rarer to see the man on his back and looking perfectly content with his lack of company. The sun was similarly lonesome, a solitary golden orb in a sea of blue emptiness that the dark-clothed man could catch between his thumb and forefinger. He snickered up at the sky, squinting as he peered through the gap in his fingers at the blazing star overhead. His arm was sticking straight up from the shoulder, but the rest of him was flat on the ground, resting on a bed of crushed grass whose identical companions fanned out around him in a far-reaching field of golden summer growth.

Gabriel let his arm drop to his side with a contented sigh, wishing he had the energy to reach down and take off his boots to enjoy the full benefits of a lazy afternoon. He could hear the whisper of wind on grass and the occasional chirp of a cricket, but other than that the air was silent, just the way he wanted it.

It had been a long time since Gabriel had been far enough away from people to find an opportunity to enjoy a good bout of silence. He hadn’t yet missed the constant bustle and fuss of farming life that he’d grown up around in the weeks that had passed since he’d left his family’s land, and though his eventual destination was probably far louder than the small fief that he’d called home for the past twenty-five years, he was comforted by the thought that noise in the city would almost certainly not be originating from angry workers, nattering housewives, or unsettled cattle. Change was a good thing.

“Knife’s Edge,” he murmured aloud, smiling slightly as he moved to rest the ankle of his right leg against the knee of his other. He’d been there before, of course, but those visits had always been on business with his father, and he’d spent them being rushed from warehouse to warehouse and sitting for interminably boring meetings with all of the family associates as they discussed taxes and exporting and all manner of tedious affairs. This time he was going alone, and though he only had his purse full of money to keep him company, he was fairly certain that his present companion could do wonders to provide him with more.

His silver eyes drifted guiltily from the sky to his black leather backpack, which sat a few feet away from his head, its mint condition an accusing reprimand for his lack of motion. He frowned and looked away. It had been months since he’d left home and weeks since the last time he’d recovered one of the Girls, and though he’d promised his mother in a fit of dramatic passion to chase the thieves to the end of the world if necessary, he was only a few days’ walk from his family’s land, one or two fiefs over from the familiar acres on which he’d grown up. He’d been wandering around in search of clues, trying with an amateurish lack of skill to chase down the thieves who’d ruined his perfectly comfortable life, but he’d found nothing. He wasn’t convinced that he’d have any more luck in Knife’s Edge than he had out in the countryside, but having a clear destination and a potential goal towards which he could work did something to help alleviate his guilt. The longer he sat around, the longer it would be before he retrieved his birthrights and avenged his father. Gabriel’s good mood faded. Even dead the old man had an uncanny skill for putting a damper on his son’s happiness.

The longer he had to wander around after those daggers, the longer it would be before he could return to the comfortable standard of living for which he’d been born and bred. He sighed again and laced his fingers together on his stomach. Summer wouldn’t last forever, and traveling during an infamous Salvaric winter wasn’t even a plausible option. He needed to get back on the road. Soon.

His most immediate destination was a small community a few miles down the road, more of a collection of buildings than an actual town. It was known rather creatively as Tradepost, and it was a favorite place for lords to haggle and drink and with merchants who wanted the land’s rich produce and who would pit the lords against each other to see who would let them get away with paying the least for their fief’s crops. It was a village separate from the surrounding fiefs, practically a state unto itself, but it was so small that none of the bordering fiefs bothered to worry about it.

Ten more minutes and then I’m outta here, he promised himself.

A good half-hour later, Gabriel was shaken out of a half-asleep reverie by the noisy bellowing of an ox, and he sat up crossly to glare at the wagon that rumbled down the road past him. Maybe it was a sign. With a dreary sigh the young man pushed himself to his feet and slung his backpack over his shoulder, bitterly gazing down at the indent left by his body in the grass.

“No rest for the wicked,” he muttered. Or for those pursuing them.