I think I’ve developed a bad habit of posting every other week instead of every week (last week, I sort of had an excuse. After fourteen hours of work, I was pretty tired and went to bed). And I don’t think next week will be the exception. I’m going to Camp Robbinswold, Washington this summer. I absolutely love camp! That’s why I keep going back. I’ll need about a week to get settled there before I start on another blog post. I don’t think anyone minds. This story is a slow paced kind, I’m not going to rush getting it out either.
Anyway, Ben’s been rescued but Rob isn’t going to let him lounge about. (And just as a note: I hate job searching, that's why I have Ben do it too) To the story!
**********
Ben was wrong about the second door. It didn’t lead to another bedroom, it led to a store room, filled with supplies and dried foods. It even led down to a cellar, though he wasn’t able to go down and see what the cellar held. Rob kept him in the same chair for the rest of the day, rewrapping his ankle twice and constantly replacing the melting snow. Ben accepted his help without compliant. There wasn’t much he could do or go without getting better first.
That night, Rob finished cooking the stew and they ate in silence. Ben was sure that Rob hadn’t had a long conversation with anyone in years and he himself wasn’t sure what to say to the hermit. After he had cleaned up the bowls, a task he only accomplished when Rob gave him a tub of water to do it in, Rob went into his store room to pull out extra blankets and pillows.
“You’ll have to sleep on the couch,” Rob explained, laying the blankets out on it. “I don’t have another bed.”
“You live alone?” Ben asked, surprised.
“Been alone for more than thirty years,” Rob answered. “Oh, people come into my life every now and then, but they never stay long. No use keeping an extra bed if I know that no one will stay long enough to use it.”
Point.
Ben managed to hobble over to the couch and climbed under the blankets. He snuggled under the warm coverings, grateful for the closest thing he had to a bed in weeks.
“Comfortable?” Rob asked, smirking at his own amusements.
“Oh, yes,” Ben said, smiling himself. “Thanks again.”
“I’ve been in your shoes, kid,” Rob said softly. “It’s nice to have some kindness in this world. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Rob disappeared into his room, closing the door behind him. Ben stared at the door for a bit, then glanced at the fire.
“Been in my shoes?” he laughed softly to himself, closing his eyes. “Unlikely.” He fell asleep, too exhausted from the day to even dream.
************
There was something familiar about the kid, but Rob couldn’t put his finger on it. Perhaps it was just because he really had been in that kid’s shoes before, thrust out into a world that he didn’t understand and wasn’t ready to join. That kid really should have known better than to travel in these mountains without a weapon, but his ignorance was plainly obvious.
The same would have been said of me, Rob thought, changing into his bed clothes. Before he went to bed, however, he checked in on the kid again. Ben was ridiculously happy when he got into his makeshift bed that the scene still brought a smirk to Rob.
Peeking from behind the half open door, Rob saw that Ben was already asleep, completely unaware and blissful in his sleep. Rob wished such calm nights came to him.
Sighing, he closed the door again, his feet dragging as he crossed to his bed. Nearly twenty years since he last fought in any battle and he still had nightmares. He wondered if they would ever fade with time.
The thought of the kid’s sleeping face came to his mind’s eye again.
I think I know him, Rob thought, getting under his covers. Something about his face is familiar to me. Perhaps he was the son of one of the many soldiers he had encountered years ago. It was possible. A lot of kids were born at that time and he couldn’t meet everyone.
“Oh, my old friends,” he whispered, closing his eyes. “My past is coming to haunt me.”
“It haunts you because you run from it,” a familiar voice told him.
“It wouldn’t haunt you if you confronted it,” pointed out a second voice.
“Yet you do have reason to run,” a third argued.
“I personally like this quiet,” a forth voice agreed. “No one is trying to kill us.”
“I’m trying to sleep,” Rob grumbled, rolling over though knowing that they wouldn’t stop them. “Keep an eye on the kid, why don’t you? Something tells me that he’s up in these mountains for a reason and that reason might not do me well.”
“Of course, our friend,” the four voices answered in unison. “We will serve you.”
We will serve you, Rob repeated silently in his head. A promise that’s gotten me in more trouble than I would have liked. He fell asleep to the nightmares that were always waiting for him.
***********
Ben woke up to the smell of cooking sausages. Sitting up and rubbing his eyes of sleep, he saw Rob already cooking at the fire, the wonderful aroma filling the cabin quickly.
“You’re up early,” Ben grumbled, glancing at a window and noting that it was just starting to get light.
“I’m a hermit, kid,” Rob said with a huff. “I’m always up at the crack of dawn. What have you done with your life to make it hard for you to get up in the morning?”
Ben already had an explanation for what he was since he couldn’t use his title. “My mother’s father is a merchant,” he lied. “I’m his apprentice.”
“A merchant apprentice?” Rob asked, frowning as he turned to look at him. “What are you doing this far up in the mountains then?”
“Grandfather called it building my character,” Ben pouted, fingering his nose. “See the world, he said. Meet new people, he said. Anything to get me out of the house, really.”
Rob began to chuckle, turning the sausages over. “Let me guess, you’re supposed to get something and you’re not to return until you’ve got it, right?”
Ben flinched. “More or less.”
“And let me further guess,” Rob went on, “it’s a precious fur, the skin of some rare animal we have up here.”
“Yeah,” Ben grumbled. Rob wasn’t too far from the truth. Trenton the Hero was a rare animal indeed.
“You won’t get very far with nothing to barter for it,” Rob pointed out. “Your sorry beast of a horse might have brought a nice price if you hadn’t half starved it to death. And you have no money or valuables to exchange.”
“I’m in a predicament,” Ben agreed sullenly. “And I have less than half a year left to get it.”
“Oh,” Rob then laughed. “You have a deadline! That makes things better, doesn’t it?”
Ben scowled. Rob was taking in too much enjoyment from his troubles. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now,” he groaned. “I have nothing left. I can’t even go back to my grandfather since there’s no way I could pay my way there.”
“There’s a simple answer for that,” Rob snorted. “Get a job and earn some money.”
“Who is hiring up in these mountains?” Ben asked. “Really? They don’t trust strangers and I don’t think they’ll take me in while working.”
“We can go into Thorton once your ankle heals,” Rob offered. “We might find someone. I have a few contacts in the town, to trade and barter with. They might have something.”
Ben thought about it. He had planned on going to Thorton anyway to search for his father, but Rob was right. He needed a job, he needed money so he could return to the capital and tell his grandfather that he had failed.
That won’t be so bad, he reasoned. I didn’t want the throne anyway. And my father is dead. Everyone believes that.
“I want you to find peace with your past.”
I have come to peace with my past, Ben thought. I’ll be a bastard prince for the rest of my life.
***********
It took a week for his ankle to feel better enough to travel to Thorton and even then he had to ride one of Rob’s mules to get there.
“Not used to riding a mule, are you?”
Ben glared at Rob’s grin. The hermit rode another mule, completely at ease on the stubborn animal’s back. “We don’t have a lot of mules in the city,” he grumbled, trying to yank the mule’s head back up from the weeds. “Merchants prefer horses.”
“Horses are all fine and dandy,” Rob said, “but a mule is much better suited for the mountains. Any man would bargain a great price for a good mule.”
I believe it, Ben grudgingly thought. Though he liked his horse, the mule seemed much better at riding through the terrain and eating anything in its path. He would have done better off if he had traded his horse for a mule before coming into the mountains.
“Are you sure I’ll be able to find a job in Thorton?” Ben asked.
“That’s the fifth time you’ve asked me that today,” Rob said, a bit of annoyance coloring his tone. “You say that you don’t have any skills, but you did say you are a merchant’s apprentice. This is a good opportunity to flex those marketing skills you’ve got. Instead of selling a product, you’re trying to sell yourself.”
“Marketing skills only work when you have something worth selling,” Ben pointed out. “I don’t have many skills.”
Rob snorted. “Everyone has some basic skills. Hard labor might not be something you’d like to do, but it’ll get you the money you need.”
Ben scowled. Hard labor was something a prince nearly always avoided. Oh, there had been a time or two that he and his cousins had to do some hard work, but it never lasted long and they were back to their courtly life.
Stop complaining, he told himself. Rob is only trying to help. And you need money. Swallow your pride and just do the work.
It took them nearly a day to ride into Thorton. Rob had known that they would be spending at least a few days in the mountain town, so he brought extra supplies to barter for lodging and food while they were there.
They came to the town nearing evening, the light of the setting sun still bright. Ben’s first glance of Thorton reminded him of the other towns he had encountered on his journey. Muddy streets, shacks and huts in various states of repair, and a clear smell of unwashed bodies and drink.
“There are a lot of miners up here,” Rob explained as they rode into the town. “A lot of trappers too. Few families and even fewer decent civilities. Say a wrong word or do the wrong thing, and you’ll find yourself in a fist fight. My nose has been broken twice because of it.”
And I’m supposed to find work here? Ben wondered. How was he supposed to convince these people that he could work for them?
Their first stop, however, was to rent a room in the local tavern, stable the mules, and then they began searching. Ben tried to walk as if he belong there, like Rob, but he just couldn’t muster the same confident stride as the hermit.
Where did he learn to walk like that? Ben wondered. Though Rob was a self proclaimed hermit, he still walked with confidence, unafraid of the mountain men who kept a close, mistrustful gaze at them. Ben found himself envious of Rob’s self assurance.
If this man had been born a noble, he would have been very powerful indeed. That was something Ben never had going for him.
“We’ll start with the fur trappers,” Rob suggested, walking down one muddy street that seemed the same to Ben. “They aren’t quite as possessive of their furs as the miners are of their gems. And besides, it’s a fur you’re after in the first place.”
The skin of a dead hero, Ben silently corrected, rubbing his nose. I doubt they have it.
Rob went up to one hut that seemed in a less state of disrepair and knocked on the dark wood. “Frank?” he asked. “You in?”
“It’s open, already,” snapped a voice. “By the Great Kings! Just come in.”
Rob said nothing, opened the door, and walked in. Ben took a deep breath and plunged in after the hermit. He nearly walked into Rob’s back. Stumbling back, Ben glanced around the small room they had entered. There wasn’t much space, just enough for the desk, the man who sat at it, and the standing room both he and Rob occupied.
The man at the desk was a shriveled excuse for a human. His wrinkled tan skin reminded Ben of old leather and the coarse black hair that covered his head and chin was peppered with grey. But his beady dark eyes were the same of everyone else in the mountains.
“Rob,” Frank spat. “What brought you down here this time? Some animal tried to eat yours and you killed it?”
“Not really,” Rob said with a shrug. “But I did bring something to help.” Rob reached behind him and grabbed him to pull him forward. “How about some help?”
Frank glared at Ben. The prince stood tall, trying to portray a strong youth ready to work. That only made Frank glare more.
“Let’s see those hands of yours,” Frank demanded. Not sure why the trapper wanted to see his hands, Ben held his hands out, palms up. Frank reached across the desk with a surprising speed and grasped his hands. Ben tried his best not to flinch as the man turned his hands over.
“Pah!” the man spat, shoving his hands away. “A spoiled child. Those hands belong to a noble or a wealthy merchant. Never seen a hard day’s work in his life. Why would I employ such a worthless excuse of a boy?”
Rob didn’t answer, his silence more potent than Frank’s accusation. Ben gritted his teeth. Rob was serious when he said that he would have to sell himself to get a job.
“Yes,” he said, trying to keep his tone level. “I’m a merchant, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t know how to work. I can barter with the best of them, I’m good with numbers, and I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty.”
“And what sort of mercantile where you in?” Frank asked with a scowl.
Ben really wanted to flinch. “Horse flesh.” If he was going to lie about being a merchant, he was going to pick a product he knew very well. Since he had been a kid, horses were a part of his life. He knew horses as well as any merchant there was.
“Horse flesh,” Frank repeated with a sneer. “I have no use for a horse trader. Take the whelp elsewhere, Rob. I don’t want him.”
Rob sighed, placing a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “Come on, kid,” he said, steering him out. “Best do what Frank says and look elsewhere.”
Ben followed Rob out without complaining. Frank was a bit too rude anyway.
And so were the next five trappers they went to.
“I think they’re trying to tell us something,” Ben noted as they left the office of the sixth trapper.
“Perhaps,” Rob grumbled. “Must have had a bad winter trapping. Usually they jump on some extra help to get their furs ready to send south. I suppose we’ll just have to try the miners.” He paused, glancing him up and down. “First though, you should probably dirty up those hands of yours. The miners won’t care for you if you don’t look like the type that will get dirty.”
Knowing the hermit had a point, Ben knelt down and smeared his hands with mud. He didn’t need to worry about his clothes getting dirty. They hadn’t been washed in weeks anyway.
Rob led the way to the opposite side of town, closer to the mountainside and with a lot more taverns. Ben wasn’t surprised at all when Rob went into one of the taverns to find the miners.
“Well, well, well,” sneered one man as they walked in. “Look who it is. Rob the Hermit has come down from his cave. What’d you bring down with you this time? Another fake quartz?”
“Nay,” another laughed, pointing at Ben. “Looks as if he found a lost puppy and it needs a home!”
“A lost puppy?” the first man snorted. “Looks more like an underfed bean pole to me.”
“Well,” Rob said, “this underfed bean pole needs a job.”
“He should look elsewhere then,” huffed a third. “We aren’t interested in hiring another sorry looking boy who has been thrown out.”
Thrown out? Ben wondered.
“We’ve had a rash of them lately,” the first miner said, noticing his confused expression. “Children from the war who have no parents and haven’t been able to fit into society. They come up into our mountains, thinking that they’ll find place with us.”
“No such luck,” the second man spat. “Most of us up here are trying to forget the wars and those memories. Kids that suffered from that time as well…” He shuttered. “They bring those memories with them. We don’t want those kind here.”
“You’ve all fought in the wars?” Ben asked, surprised.
“Every single last one of us,” the bartender said, coming into the room. He was a stringy man with little hair on top. “Thorton is a town of old soldiers trying to forget the past and live outside the world.”
Ben stared at the bartender. Live outside the world? Exactly what my father would have been searching for.
“About half of the towns up here are like that,” Rob pointed out. “Anyone can hide in these mountains and not be found.”
Ben snapped his head to Rob, frowning at him.
“We all want to hide,” Rob explained. “Some have committed crimes under the Tyrant’s rule, others run from the horrors of watching their comrades died. That’s what I’m hiding from. The horrors of that terrible time.”
“And you all would just leave?” Ben asked, looking around the tavern filled with dirty miners and hostile expressions. “Leave everything you know, family and friends left alive, and come to a pit like this?”
“Ha,” a man laughed, scowling. “And face them? My brother was killed in the wars. How could I face my parents? My sisters? I ran away so I wouldn’t have to face them. How could they forgive me?”
“The hard work in the mountains help us forget,” the bartender said. “Kids like you?” He bared his teeth, revealing several missing. “You don’t. You bring back memories, kid. Get out of here. None of us want you here.”
Ben suddenly realized that all the miners were on their feet, fists clenched, a few holding their picks. He took a step back, realizing that he was shaking with fear. This was worse than when bandits tried to kill him. These men just didn’t want him there. They wanted nothing to do with him.
Rob sighed. “Alright, then,” he said, suddenly stepping between the prince and the miners. “Calm down, all of you. The kid was just looking for a job so he could go home.”
One of the front miners spat. “He should have stayed there.”
I agree with you there, Ben silently agreed.
“But he’s here now,” Rob said, his voice strangely calm. “The best way to get rid of him is to give him a job, pay him, and then shove him out of our mountains.”
“I don’t need no help,” the front miner said. “Why else did you think that we’d pick mining to do up here? We don’t want to be around others.” He nodded his head at the quivering prince. “Especially not a post war kid like him.”
“You hire him, hermit,” the bartender said. “You make enough to pay him.”
Ben blinked. Rob made money? How?
“I just sell the furs to the trappers whenever I kill an animal trying to kill mine,” Rob pointed out to him. “I live off the land. I have no use for money.”
“Exactly why you should hire him,” the bartender snapped. “You have no use for the money.”
Rob didn’t say anything for a long moment, staring down all the men in the tavern. Ben started to calm down enough to notice that none of the miners tried to approach the hermit. It was almost as if…
Are they scared of him?
“Come on, Ben,” Rob finally said, turning on his heel and leaving. “We’ll go back.”
Ben didn’t need to be told twice. He hurried after the large hermit, glad to be away from the soon-to-be violent miners.
“I guess I have no choice,” Rob grumbled under his breath. “I’ll hire you, kid.” He glanced back at him, a cold spark in his eyes. “Don’t think I’ll be easy.” He stomped off.
Ben stared at Rob, shivering. What did that mean? And what was with the cold look?
Just be glad you have job, Ben, he told himself. Then you can go back to the capital and tell grandfather that you failed.
**********
A week of working with Rob made Ben wish he had stayed and gotten that beating out of the miners. Rob wasn’t kidding when he said that he wouldn’t be easy on him. The day after they got back from Thorton, Rob got him up at the crack of dawn and had him out working in the barn before he even got breakfast. The animals needed fed and watered, the cow needed to be milked, the chickens needed their eggs harvested, and the donkeys up and tethered for the day’s work. And that was only the beginning of the work day.
After breakfast, a small meal of the harvested eggs and mush, both he and Rob would be out in a field, a short walk from the glen the cabin was. Some might have called it a large garden, but Ben knew better. It was a small field. Since it was just starting to get warm, and the snow melted, the first task was to clean out the field. Ben spent the entire week picking out rocks, pulling weeds, and fertilizing the ground.
There was only a small break for lunch, a meal consisting of bread and other vegetables, then it was back to work until sundown. It was only then that Ben could have a break.
Each night, he collapsed in exhaustion. He was glad that Rob did all the cooking. Rob had him cook one meal, but that turned out to be a disaster. Ben just didn’t know how to cook and Rob rather prepare the meals himself than have to endure his cooking again.
He’d fall asleep on the couch the moment his head was down, but the next thing he knew was Rob waking him up.
And then he started all over.
“Ben!”
Ben grumbled under his breath, turning his face into the pillow to avoid waking up.
“It’s planting day,” Rob said, shaking his shoulder. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“That’s all we ever do,” Ben snorted to himself. However, knowing it was useless to argue, he rolled out from his sheets and dragged his feet over to the table. He sat down with a groan, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes.
How does he do it? he wondered, as Rob put his plate down in front of him. He’s up before me, works all day beside me, and then works long into the night when I’m already fast asleep. How in the world does he have that much energy?
“And what’s with that glare?” Rob asked, sitting across the table from him with his own plate of food.
“I don’t get you,” Ben grumbled, moving the mush with his spoon. “You must like pain or something. I’m exhausted from all this work and you still have energy to run circles around me.”
Rob chuckled. “That’s because I was raised to work hard. You, kid. You lived a very sheltered life.”
Sheltered? Ben repeated silently. He didn’t see his childhood as sheltered. If anything, it was more dangerous and frightening than these mountains. Oh, no one would outright try to kill him, but he was an heir to the throne. There had been countless attacks on his and his cousin’s lives.
And then there was the political back stabbing that came with being a member of the court. Ben was had always been an easy target because of the circumstances of his birth and who his parents were. Many had high hopes for him, thinking that he might have inherited his father’s genius or his mother’s sunny disposition. They were always sadly disappointed when they really got to know him.
“My life wasn’t sheltered,” Ben grumbled, unable to look Rob in the eye. “Perhaps if my parents were alive…” He bit his tongue and started to rub his nose, like he always did when he was upset. Why was it always like this? He knew his parents were dead. He had known it all his life.
Then why did it still hurt?
“Ah,” Rob said, his tone revealing his understanding. “An orphan are you?”
“Pretty much,” he grumbled. “Never knew my parents. My mom was killed shortly after I was born and my dad hasn’t been seen since. We’re all pretty sure that he died.
“So that left me alone,” Ben went on, turning the sorrow into anger. Why did his parents have to die? Why did they have to leave him on his own? “My grandfather couldn’t always raise me, so there were other… substitutes, but they never cared about me. All they cared about was impressing my grandfather, so they put up with me.” He gritted his teeth against the memories, trying to fit back the bitter tears.
“And you wonder,” Rob said softly, “why I became a hermit?”
Ben blinked and looked up. Rob hadn’t touched his food, his hands folded on the table as he listened.
“People are cruel to each other,” Rob said in the same soft tone. “I’ve seen it a hundred times over. In battle, in love, in friendships, even among family. I’ve seen others suffer from indifference while others are praised for their work. I’ve seen men tormented with the acts of others.
“The wars were terrible on everyone.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t stand the pain. So I left everything and everyone behind, trying to forget such pain.” Rob sighed, glancing briefly towards Thorton. “And I’m not the only one. You heard them in the town. They’re trying to forget a painful past. Hard work is the only way we know how to forget.”
Ben stared at the hermit. “You’re serious,” he said, shocked. “All of you are trying to forget and you do that by working so hard, those memories have no place in your busy minds.” He slumped back in his chair. “You’ll all work yourselves to death!”
Rob looked him right in the eye. “That’s the point,” he said softly. “Life offers very little to us. In death, we might actually find peace.”
**********
Why is it that I have to be so mean to my characters? Oh, right. Because that is life.
Well, time for me to go and finish some things in IF before I head out to camp. Enjoy the journey!
