A Fistful of Dirt

[Vigil]

(Quick.)

Staring out the window and into the passing countryside, Liam Duigenan's gaze followed the rolling hills that sat above forests of crooked, dead trees that had met winter's touch. Pulpy, tumultuous seas of frozen mud that had once resembled fields lingered just over the ridge, hungry for a spring thaw that was still more then a month away. As his black carriage rocked along the narrow, icy road, the old man swayed back and forth which began to lull him into a bored, fitful sleep. He fought the urge for awhile, but after looking at the passing countryside for hours with only mild interest and deafening silence, his eyes began to grow heavy. Eventually, his age began to show and the old man fell asleep only to wake again after twenty minutes. But with another passing hill, a frost riven boulder, and a migrating bush, his eyes grew heavy and his breathing slowed until he mercifully slipped from the waking world and back into the realm of sleep. He awakened minutes later to a bump that rocked the carriage and continued the routine for about an hour until he grew so frustrated that Liam opened the carriage door, leaned out of the warm, comfortable compartment and into the icy stillness of a world consumed by winter. Smacking the wooden side of the carriage with the flat of his palm, Liam got the driver's attention and shouted, "Stop. Yes, Paul. Stop! Now!"

The carriage, which had been moving at a sluggish pace already, began to creak to a halt as the driver pulled the reins, causing the horses to whicker. Before it even came to a full stop, Liam grabbed his cane and Stetson, jumping from the carriage and onto a spot of mud that he was sure was frozen. Walking to the front of the carriage, trying to stretch his legs, Liam looked up and regarded the bearded driver he knew to be Paul coolly. The man wasn't an Irishman nor Catholic for the old man hadn't wanted word of his recent travel spreading more then it needed to, his destination meant to be kept in strict confidence. Paul looked haggard, was fairly quiet and the only thing about him that bothered Liam was the fact the driver was nearly deaf and he had to shout in order for him to hear anything he said at all. On a trip outside of the capital that only a handful of people were meant to know about, it kept conversations brief and Liam was already rethinking the wisdom of all of this.

"Paul!" Liam bellowed as the driver cocked his ear and looked at him full in the face dumbly. The old man smacked the side of the carriage and repeated himself, "Paul!"

"Huh?!" The driver replied loudly in a way that anyone but Liam would construe as being rude.

"Paul.. Lord's Grace.. Paul! Take a break! .. I said Take. A. Break! I need a walk!" Liam loudly explained, already growing embarrassed even though the pair were completely out in the middle of nowhere.

"Huh?!" Paul repeated, cocking his ear in an effort to hear him better.

"For F-.. I said to T-.. Pah! Forget it!" Liam roared angrily and stormed off, leaving the driver with a confused look on his face.

Moments later the Irishman's keen hearing heard the driver mutter as he crawled off the carriage, which wasn't particularly hard to hear considering the near-deaf man had trouble controlling the volume of his voice anyway, "Man needs taken down a peg or two.. mannerless, well-off foreigner.."

Liam ignored him and instead walked for some time in the cold, shrugging and readjusting his overcoat occasionally, trying to clear his head. He looked back periodically to make sure that Paul didn't get a wild hair and try to up and leave him stranded in the countryside. The driver didn't, instead he was watering the horses and meandering about in the same way he always did when he was thinking about when he wanted to eat lunch. Even though they couldn't communicate very well, he and the driver had taken each other's routines down fairly well and worked well within the bounds of their contract. The driver never listened and occasionally Liam needed to wander off before he tried to strangle him.

The pace out of Radasanth and onto the road had been agonizingly slow, which is why Liam hated traveling by carriage, but he and his confederates found no other means to get him to the town of Les without him being discovered. Though at this rate, he might as well be waving a red flag and telling people where he was, he thought, but it was just a mild case of paranoia. However, as much as Liam tried, he couldn't ignore the fact that every moment he spent on this road left him more and more concerned about his safety. Highwaymen were notorious for popping up at the wrong time along abandoned roads, and a carriage belonging to an unassuming, defenseless Irishman without guard was sure to raise eyebrows as soon as he spoke.

Frustrated and feeling defeated, the old man gazed down the road and into oblivion as he soon lost himself in thought. "Why am I even doing this?" Liam said not too loudly. You need to move, he thought, you need to go back to the carriage, get moving and keep moving. Go now. Now.

With a defiance that almost seemed juvenile given the stakes he and his partners were playing at, Liam lingered until the whinnying of horses anchored him back to reality. Ears red, nose running, the old man turned and headed back to the carriage to get out of the cold. It was a week long trip to the town of Les by carriage, and maybe if he got Paul started now they'd make good time before nightfall.

It was midday and on a Monday, so somehow Liam doubted it.

[Vigil]

The pair managed to travel several miles along the lonely, desolate road before night fell. Liam had been tempted to urge Paul and the horses on to make more time while he slept in the carriage, but the danger it posed to both the horses and the cargo was far too great. The cold, oily black was so thick it was palpable and even the old man who had spent much of his youth in the wilderness found his eyes had trouble adjusting to the darkness. The road, icy and ravaged by time and nature had proven to be especially treacherous and the peril of a horse breaking its leg or damage to the carriage leaving the entire party stranded in the middle of nowhere caused Liam to call Paul to a halt. The carriage was brought to the side of the road and the horses were given their food and watered. Not trusting the deaf driver with anything outside of his expertise, Liam had left him with the horses and hazarded a journey off the road and into the wood line to collect brush for a fire. He had to travel slowly and was especially careful with the knowledge that he could not even see his hand in front of his face. It had taken more then an hour, he had fallen several times, but his perseverance had been rewarded. It had been an especially foolish thing to do during a cold night and without a torch, but Liam had eventually returned with an armful of twigs and any other debris he could get his hands on.

Realizing his error of waiting far too long to set up camp, Liam built a fire with the aid of lamp oil and matches, finding the frustrating ordeal of striking tinder in complete darkness with only a deaf man at his side to help him to be a fruitless task. Still, the acrid chemical odor of burning oil mixed with the smell of wood afire as it blackened and crumbled in the flames was a small price to pay for warmth. The fire was kept on a side of the carriage away from the horses and near the ditch off the side of the road. They would both sleep outside of the carriage and only retreat inside the event of ill weather; however the carriage itself provided good shelter against the occasional chilling breeze and the pair remained outside to remain watchful of anything that would intrude upon their camp. There was no where else to go and to take the carriage off the road posed to great a risk, so camping in the open remained their only option.

Sitting at the crackling fire upon slabs of cold rock covered in cloth to keep themselves from getting wet, the pair shared and ate a tin of beans, some hard cheese and husks of day old bread. The warmth from the fire seemed to abate the tension felt between the two and for the moment acted as a haven against the unsettling, frigid night that threatened to consume them. As frustrating as it was to communicate, Liam tried whenever he could to befriend Paul and remain amiable to him whenever they were off the road. He owned the carriage, the horses and served as Liam's only means of transportation to Les, so it was always in the Irishman's best interest to remain in his good graces even if he had paid a substantial fee to be ferried over the countryside road. It had been difficult within the first couple days of working with another as Liam had always had to repeat himself to get the message across and Paul only seemed to be able to listen to him when he made eye contact with him. Paul, on the other hand, because of his deafness spoke far too loudly and was constantly being shushed by Liam that he too had been getting flustered. Instead, the pair had begun to work out a system of communicating, especially at night that was both safe and allowed them to converse without much animosity.

At first, Liam had attempted to try quieting the driver and write notes to him in order to speak with him, but that had fallen apart when Paul had admitted that he was unable to read. Sensing his frustration, however, the deaf driver got the old man's attention and quietly began to show him a language he spoke very well; sign language. Liam caught on fairly quickly and while he was unable to hold full conversations at first, the use of signing had significantly improved their ability to communicate. It was slow and Liam didn't know many words at first, but this sort of talk at the campfire helped bridge the gap between the two, especially in knowing they had six more days with one another until they arrived at Les. And then, of course, traveling back to the city.

"How long have you traveled these roads?" Liam asked Paul when he managed to get his attention while also signing.

Nodding in understanding, the bearded driver shrugged and tried very hard to control the volume of his voice as he spoke, "Uhh.. about ten or twelve years. Got my start when I first bought Mayla over there when she was just a colt. Many of you folk always want ferried back and forth on the roads, so it wasn't as hard as you'd think to start up."

"And the other horse?" Liam wondered as he attempted to pantomime when he didn't know what to sign.

"Huh?" Paul asked before he realized what the Irishman was doing. "Long face? Ears? .. Horse? Two? Wha..? Oh! Yah. Dalila came about a couple years after I started, purchased her after I paid to have my carriage furnished. Both of the old girls have served me very well. How about you, mister, why am I bringing you all the way out here? Rich folk like you can afford better then me, we both know it."

The old man remained silent for awhile, searching for away to put this into words so that the driver might understand. Digging into one of the pockets inside of his jacket, he fished for what he was looking for and when he could feel the cold, hard metal he pulled it out. Holding it up in the light of the campfire so that they both could see it, Liam showed him a gold crown, the common currency in all of Corone. He was sure that a handful of pieces was all Paul made in a month, so when he watched the driver grow silent and fix his gaze upon the coin, Liam knew the message he was sending was quite clear. Offering the driver the coin from across the campfire, he watched Paul take it and bite it as if to test it. When he was satisfied, the driver put the coin into his pocket and nodded in understanding, "Whatever you say, sir."

With the issue dropped, the two remained silent for quite awhile before Liam struck up a conversation about sport. He found out that Paul was quite the avid fisherman and was quite happy to tell him as many tales about his great catches as Liam could afford to stomach. It made for better conversation, and questions about Liam's purpose or what it was that sat underneath his seat within the carriage seemed to melt away with the frost on the ground near the campfire. Eventually, the two grew tired and decided to bed down for the night. Rolling out their bed rolls and tending to their nightly rituals, the two prepared for the night. Letting Paul fall asleep first, Liam took first watch knowing any sleep he'd miss he could more then make up for during the day when trapped in the carriage.

As the driver's breathing began to slow and the fire started to die, the night grew still and in the silence Liam soon found his mind to begin to wander. Eventually his thoughts turned to Paul's questions and what had brought him out to this desolate countryside in the middle of the winter in the first place.