Chapter 25: Community
"Put away the letter, and I will see who it is," Koth told Irin. She nodded and tucked the letter into her dress as she watched Koth walk to the door. She tried to listen for angry voices. She didn’t trust Arind; what if he had followed them?
"Please come in and get warm by the fire," she heard Koth say to someone. He didn’t sound like he was in trouble. She walked into the hallway and saw the mayor, his son, and their landlady’s son standing just inside the door while Koth took their cloaks.
"Hello," Irin said, feeling a little confused.
"Mrs Largash, we are sorry for interrupting your afternoon," the mayor said. Irin had to remind herself he was talking to her.
"Not at all. Come in, Koth will pull up more seats by the fire. It’s cold outside. I will get something to warm your insides," she said, reverting to the manner of her early years when her mother had raised her to become a nobleman's wife. She put the water on the fire in the kitchen, and while it heated, she took out a cake she had made and some bread. She sliced generous servings and added butter to the bread. She took the nice china from the cabinet and put it all on a tray. "Koth, could you help me with the tray?" she called. Koth came into the kitchen. "What do they want?" she whispered to him.
"I don’t know. They just asked if they could talk to us," he whispered back as he took the tray. Irin worried that the drama in town meant they wanted them gone. She followed Koth into the living room, where the three men sat by the fire. She and Koth handed out tea and asked the men to help themselves to the bread and cake.
"I remember this set," Mipole, Dara’s son, said as he saw the tea set.
"I hope you don’t mind us using it," Irin said.
"Not at all. It’s nice to see it being used again. The house feels like a home again," he remarked.
"That is kind of you to say. It’s a lovely place," Irin said. There was a brief silence as the men ate, and Irin and Koth drank their tea.
"I’m guessing you are wondering why we are here," the mayor finally said. Both Koth and Irin nodded.
"It didn’t feel right to leave things as they were after what happened this morning," the mayor continued. "We don’t want you to think that what Arind said is how the rest of the town feels."
"It’s not," Karine added.
"No, it’s not," Mipole agreed. Irin smiled at them and relaxed a little. It didn’t seem like they would become homeless today.
"Thank you, we appreciate you telling us," Koth said. The mayor grunted.
"When my mother heard what had happened, she wanted to come here personally to make sure you knew she was more than happy with having you two as tenants and that she has no plans on changing the agreement," Mipole told them.
"I’m happy you talked her out of coming. Please thank her from us and tell her we are very happy here," Irin said. For show, she took Koth’s hand in hers. He barely jumped, and she saw it as a small victory. Mipole was nodding.
"I can’t speak for everyone in Inhasa, but most of us like having you here. You have always been polite, and it’s nice to have a wizard and a cleric close by," Karine told them.
"If you need our help, we will gladly do so," Koth promised. The three men stayed for a while to get warm, and they talked about things that were to happen in the village.
"We usually have a big Yule celebration," the mayor boasted.
"We cut down a big tree and put it in the square. The children get to decorate it. There is warm milk and tea with ginger biscuits. In the afternoon, there is singing and dancing around the tree," his son told Irin and Koth.
"It sounds lovely," Irin said.
"You are more than welcome to come into town. The tavern has a couple of rooms that they offer for free for those who live outside the city," the mayor said.
"That’s kind of you to invite us, but if this snow remains, I think we will stay here," Koth said.
"It’s our first Yule together," Irin added. It was true, but the way she said it made it sound like a lie. All three men smiled.
"We understand," Mipole said.
"But if you change your mind, you are always welcome," the mayor said again. Not long after that, Karine said they needed to leave. They wanted to get back to the town before dark. As they were putting their cloaks on, Irin put some of the warming tea she had blended into a bag and gave it to Mipole.
"For your mother. The tea will warm you from the inside. It’s good for old joints in this weather," she told him. He thanked her, and they set off. Both Koth and Irin watched them from the kitchen window as long as they remained in sight.
"I didn’t detect any hidden agendas," Irin said.
"I agree with you."
"It was nice of them to stop by and make sure we knew how the town views the incident," Irin told Koth. He hummed in agreement.
"We should talk about what to do with the information your father gave us," he said. Irin nodded. She walked over to the cupboard and took out flour. She spread it across the kitchen table in a thin layer while Koth watched. After she had placed the flour back, she stood in front of the table and said a prayer to her goddess. Alesseja answered as she always did. A pattern started tracing in the flour. When it was done, they looked at a map of Eridaron.
"Impressive," Koth told her, and she smiled at him.
"This way, we can just brush it into a bag and reuse it, but no one will know it’s a map," she said.
"Will you have to pray each time?" he asked. Irin had noticed him being curious about how her magic worked.
"No. I asked for a permanent map. Each time we spread this flour over a surface, the map will start to trace," she explained. "I could have asked for a one-time thing, but I figured we would use this more than once in the coming weeks."
"Good thinking," he agreed. They both leaned over the map. The town they were staying at was located almost to the far north in the middle of the map. FeighSho was a port town located in the south-east. They would have to travel across the country to get there.
"The quickest route would be to go to the great lake and cross it, then go across the central parts," Koth said, showing with his finger how he was thinking. "But I guess that would take us right past your home," he added.
"Yes, our estate is here," Irin told him and pointed out a place south of the big lake.
"We don’t want to do this; this whole thing is to avoid bringing bad news back to your family," he said. Irin felt grateful she hadn’t needed to remind him of that. "We could double back and go around the great lake to the east. It’s a shorter route than going west, but it will bring us dangerously close to the areas where people know about the thing," he said. Irin agreed.
"That leaves us with going west. We could still travel to the great lake, just make sure we don’t go south, but west. Then continue south from there until we reach the coast and follow that west," she suggested. Koth nodded.
"It’s the longest route, but the safest and probably the most unexpected. If someone is tracking us, they will have a hard time figuring out our destination until late in the journey," he said.
"We should start preparing so we are ready to leave when the snow goes away," she told him.
"Yes. This time we know where we will go; it will be easier to prepare to bring the right sort of things," he agreed.
"I picked up fabric and fur when we were in town. With this in mind, I think our best option for our cloaks is to make a detachable lining. It will keep us warm now but can be removed, so we don’t need new cloaks when the snow melts and we travel south."
"You know how to do that?" Koth asked.
"I do. I used to do it to my family’s cloaks back home. It saved on costs, as we didn’t need to buy eleven new cloaks for each season," she told him. He nodded.
"We can start making a list of supplies we will need. If we get them a little at a time, it won’t be as obvious that we are planning to leave," Koth suggested. Irin agreed. She didn’t know if they were being paranoid or not, but better safe than sorry. When they were done, Koth brushed the flour into a clean sack, and they placed it on top of a shelf so they could tell it apart from the regular flour.