The Shining Wyrm

3.6

It had to happen eventually.

“Mīn dōhtor is ealdan blōc and þīn wíder sind sceald on ūre hūse!”

Mother had gotten a bit too deep into her cups.

“I č eart þū grēatan! Cōm buðe her þū folc!”

And now she had gone entirely unintelligible and had to be held back by three of the footmen to save the particularly rude wanderer who had set up shop in the fair to sell trinkets and baubles.

“Hē, lato me! Hƿȳ þū hē græpþ hē hē? Þæt pæþ is hund suna and onurlaicsēo!”

Jewel dipped her head to the poor man that had made the unfortunate turn of phrase regarding herself. Mother had laid him out! Just clear knocked him off his feet and into his stall scattering baubles and coin to the ground.

“Many apologies there sir, I’m sure Mother had simply misheard you. It’s been a hot summer day and she is quite deep into the cups.”

Mother had not misheard at all but it was important to be polite to strangers. One never knew who they actually were. Many a book and several a more solid lesson from Father and visiting Knights had drilled that into her.

The unfortunate man however seemed to be stuttering and confused. Face flushing with anger before paling when he realized that Jewel was now right there in front of him instead of across the Courtyard.

Much to the Wyrmling’s consternation.

The drunken rage of her mother demanded her attention and intervention where Jewel would have preferred to have just pretended she didn't hear him describing her like that.

And now she had to be involved and defend the man and his honor from the peasantry and Mother.

Jewel had already glared several grabby fingers off from swiping away with his belongings. Her bearing and the subtle curl of a snarl finally gave the whole debacle proper clearance so that the Footmen could keep the sticky fingers a bit further back.

But they might not be enough if the looks passing over their faces at Mother’s words caught on with the rest of their subjects present.

A few of the more fluent in mother’s drunken rambling were already shifting their posture from bemused to angry and even more were fingering at their belts for knives. The Footmen were going to need reinforcements to keep the strange man from being mobbed and stabbed at this rate.

“lata me ege þære throppin him.”

That would not do.

Jewel coughed.

It was not a proper cough like a Lady should but right now and today she needed to be heard and attended and Jewel was not as skilled as her Mother was when she was sober.

Instead of a dainty, delicate yet somehow piercing sound Jewel used what her voluminous throat had gifted her.

It was buzzing, grating, A crude, blunt thing, almost like a hatchet of sound. It had elements akin to a rooster’s crow or the shout of a disgruntled raven. Yowling of angered cats and a dog’s howl.

All cut abruptly short, yet it was so loud and encompassing as it buzzed out from the entire length of her throat that Jewel could see hairs on the man’s arm trembling from the noise.

In the stillness that followed Jewel fixed everyone circling the infuriating little man with her best commanding glare.

She was sure it was not as good as Father’s, but she would make do.

“This poor sir must surely have misspoke. After all no one would dare to give such an insult to a Lady and Baron’s Daughter surely? It must have been an honest and simple mistake”

Jewel ended her survey glaring down at the man who had progressed from anger to blubbering stuttering terror as the full ramifications of the things he had said about her in ill-tempered jest across the courtyard from where she was lounging.

She hoped the slight frown and raised brow further cemented the point that why yes she had heard him from all the way over there.

Then turning from the trembling man to her fuming mother Jewel dipped her head down low to say calmly but still audibly.

“Isn't that right Mother? Surely just an honest mistake. No insult given.”

That seemed to have finally penetrated mother’s wine-addled mind and the flush to her cheeks reddened before she dipped her head with an unintelligible thanks but at least the tone was clear.

“O þu eart þæt ᵹit dēhtor! Mid feallen, hē mest ġeorðan on þæm beoþþe.”

However it did not last as she started shouting what were probably invectives or insults or something to do with the nasty little stain of a man’s parentage.

“Ne cúðe gietan þa ƿæter lihter, þa stowe on his folc ofsleanne lichtor of a scoltendum!”

However she was only shouting now, and even allowing the poor footmen to lead her inside.

Jewel really needed to do something for them tonight, one of the younger ones had gotten an elbow to the eye when they first intervened.

He was not as well practiced in what happened when Mother got too deep in her cups.

Jewel stood guard over the man who seemed to not be able to compose himself properly.

Which was unfortunate as he had quite a lot of belongings scattered about that he needed to secure or some one was liable to run off with them.

She clicked her tongue to two of the footmen holding back the calmer but still agitated crowd of her Subjects.

“Please help this... man pack up his property and escort him somewhere he can recover from his ordeal? It would be poor for him to have any other Misunderstandings and tarnish Father’s hospitality further.”

Not that it likely mattered. Just by the smell and look of him this man was some errant traveler.

No Title, no Liege, he was almost certainly at best under common law. If not maybe even some outlaw.

But as the stories go you could never be too careful.

They would treat him with the care of any guest to their home.

Even if he had dared to say that about her.

The footmen were gentle with him. Getting the man back to his feet and scraping up the random assortment of coins and random trinkets and oddities the peddler had been hawking.

Watching them pack she noticed something strange.

It was an amulet.

Wrought of a fine copper if she had an eye for these things. But the details along all the edges had been rubbed smooth and rounded where they probably had once been sharp There were hints of a green patina on it in several places that some amount of industrious scrubbing had failed to remove.

It was on a simple bound strap of leather.

All not terribly remarkable. Much the same as the other oddities he had laid out or kept in his case.

But what was inset in the middle was far and above more precious than anything else.

In the midday it shone with a clear blue light. A perfect mirror of the cerulean peeking from between the clouds but Jewel knew it would change to the pitch black and sparkling twinkles of stars come sundown.

She could only recall seeing the like but once when she was maybe a year old.

And that was the collected remains from her very own hatching being packed for transport.

This old bauble was set around a shard of Wyrm Egg.

The inner surface of it turned outward.

Her own fragmented shell had been claimed as rightful tithe by the Countess Bathory and all of it spirited away to her own treasuries.

A year later Jewel had been sitting on Father’s lap when she was still small enough to do so and he was going over the ledgers.

At the time she had not understood the sums written there.

But the memory rushed back to her now.

The shards of her egg were more valuable than their weight in gold at least a dozen times over.

It had cleared his account of obligations to the countess for two full years!

And this Peddler was selling a piece of such to the peasantry?!

Maybe he was more important than she thought?

Jewel was shocked out of her memories as it was scooped up by a footman and she could only barely keep her voice from going to a sibilant hiss in her panic. Her wings twitching with the desire to splay out.

“Wait!”

She turned to fix the still apprehensive and speechless man properly, considering him as more than just a wastrel from the road that had said uncouth things about her person.

He was dressed in dusty clothing but looking closely she could see the faded colors of valuable dyes, tight weaving of fine and well made cloth. Even places where what she suspected might have been metal buttons and filigree once, now removed. Finery stripped with care where it had once embroidered and bedazzled the fabric.

These were not the clothes of a commoner. He was dressed in what she could only surmise was very worn and scavenged finery.

But it was finery.

Her idle apprehensions to always take care with strange guests was turning disturbingly prophetic.

“I’d like to make sure that any insult or concern is cleared up about this, see him settled with a guest chamber and inform Father of the situation and that there may be dealings to settle with our guest merchant.”

That seemed to stun the speechless man to gaping. Mouth opening and closing like a fish caught and just pulled out of the river.

Before he could find his wits and somehow manage to insult her worse then he already had Jewel turned from the situation and strode back into the fair.

After this ordeal she deserved honeyed barley cakes.

And her nose told her there should still be some baking this way.