Timber and Copper

The road narrowed as it ran north into the low hills, and the frost broke under their boots with a sound like snapping glass.

Later Whitefall brought a damp, grey cold that settled into the wool of a coat and stayed there. They walked for three days through it in a silence that was functional rather than angry.

Mira did not complain about the cold or the pace. She carried her own bag, ate her share of the hard bread Cain bought in the market villages, and slept on the frozen ground without a single word.

She had become a fixed point, and Cain treated her the way he treated a sudden change in the weather. He simply adjusted his stride and checked his flanks more often as he accepted the new weight.

On the fourth afternoon of walking north together, the road turned through a steep valley cut and ended at a barricade of felled pine trunks that completely blocked the way.

Six men stood behind the timber wearing mismatched leather armor and carrying heavy iron pikes. Though they did not wear the grey surcoats of the Ministry Wardens, the largest man wore a Warden’s stamped copper badge pinned crookedly to his chest. They were men from a local lord’s levy, wearing a badge so travelers would take them for law.

Cain stopped fifty paces out to read the men and the timber and the choke point. He decided immediately that it was a terrible place to fight, because the slopes on either side were too steep to climb quickly and the men at the barricade held the high ground.

“They are not Wardens,” Mira said, stopping beside him and eyeing the crooked badge with immediate, quiet disdain.

“Well, they have pikes and a wall,” Cain said. “Out here, it amounts to the same thing.”

“A local lord cannot legally toll a Ministry road.”

“He can if nobody stops him,” Cain replied, his voice flat.

He started walking again, keeping his hands loose at his sides and his eyes fixed entirely on the man with the copper badge. The street had taught him exactly how to read an extortion setup. You simply paid the minimum to save face, smiled, and walked away, treating it as nothing more than a transaction.

When they reached the timber, the man with the badge stepped forward and drove the butt of his pike into the frozen mud. He looked lazily at Cain’s worn coat before letting his eyes settle on Mira’s canvas bag.

“This is a road assessment,” the man said, his voice heavy and deliberately bored. “The payment is two silvers a head.”

Cain did not react to the price, even though two silvers was pure extortion. One silver was three or four days of unskilled labour and two was about a week’s gross wage. He simply reached into his pocket and closed his hand over four copper coins.

“We just want to pass through,” Cain said smoothly, dropping effortlessly into the Averdmouth voice and offering a polite smile that stripped all the threat out of his shoulders. “We only have copper. The assessment is heavy for a winter crossing.”

“The assessment is two silvers. That’s final,” the man repeated, and behind him the other five men shifted their pikes. They were not looking at Cain. They were looking at Mira.

Cain saw the look and the transaction broke instantly in his head. The copper in his pocket was useless because they did not want coin. They wanted their belongings, and the toll was just the excuse they needed to detain them when they could not pay.

He let go of the copper and let his hand rest naturally near his belt as he measured the distance over the timber. He calculated that he could clear the wood and take the badge-wearer in the throat before the other five realized the negotiation was over. But it would be incredibly messy, and he would absolutely take a pike thrust in the shoulder doing it.

Mira stepped forward before Cain could move, reaching into her coat and pulling out her brass Ministry token. She held it up so that it caught the grey afternoon light.

“I am a licensed mender,” she said, her voice carrying clearly and sharply over the wind. “Ministry law exempts a travelling mender and one declared guard from local tolls. This man is my guard.”

The man with the badge looked at the brass token, and he did not look impressed at all, only deeply annoyed.

“That doesn’t apply here. The lord of this valley collects the assessment,” the man said, leaning on his pike. “He does not care about a piece of brass. Two silvers, or you sit in the barn until you work it off.”

“I will not pay an illegal toll,” Mira said, and she did not raise her voice, but simply stated it as an immovable fact of the universe. “And I will not work in a barn. So move the timber.”

Cain closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, realizing that her absolute honesty was going to get them killed.

“Take the bag,” the man said to the guards behind him, entirely done with the conversation. “Put them both in the barn.”

Three men vaulted the timber and Cain immediately stepped in front of Mira, but he did not draw the knife. He let his hands hang entirely empty.

“We do not have the silver,” Cain said, his voice dropping into a flat and perfectly calm register. “We will sit in the barn.”

Mira looked at him, her dark eyes flashing with sudden, genuine anger. “We are not sitting in a barn for a false—”

“We are sitting in the barn,” Cain interrupted, and he did not look at her, but looked instead at the men surrounding them, committing their faces and their armor and their footing to memory.

The guards took Mira’s bag but they did not bother to search Cain. They saw a boy who had surrendered immediately, and happily categorized him as a coward. It was a fatal mistake, and Cain relied entirely on it.

They marched them down a side path to a long, low stone barn set against the valley wall, where the heavy wooden doors were barred from the outside. A guard threw the bar and shoved them into the dark, slamming the doors shut so that the iron latch dropped with a heavy, final sound.

The barn smelled of old hay and damp earth. The thin lines of grey light leaked through cracks in the stone, but there were no windows.

Mira turned on him the exact moment the latch dropped.

“I don’t know why you surrendered,” she said, and it was not a question at all, but a sharp, burning accusation.

“We didn’t have a choice. They had weapons,” Cain said, ignoring her tone entirely as he walked to the far wall and ran his hand along the stone to check the mortar.

“They are thieves, and they have no authority.”

“I know, but in this case, authority is a pike,” Cain said, moving to the heavy wooden doors and inspecting the thick iron hinges that were thankfully mounted on the inside. “You provoked a fight you could not win.”

“I just stated the law…”

“They were looking at your bag, Mira. They did not want any silver. They wanted an excuse to get our belongings.”

Mira went perfectly still, understanding exactly what he meant. To her credit she did not flinch from it. She just looked at the heavy doors, and then down at her empty hands.

“You’re right, but they took my stone. It’s inside my bag, and I cannot cast without it.”

“I know.”

Cain walked to the center of the barn and sat down on a pile of dry hay, stretching his legs out to make himself comfortable before he took the plain iron knife from his belt. He laid the dull, scarred metal across his knees.

Mira watched him, her brow furrowing. “What are you doing?”

“I am waiting,” Cain said, his voice offering no comfort.

“For what?”

Cain looked at the thin lines of grey light leaking through the stone walls, watching the light slowly begin to fail as the afternoon finally turned toward dusk.

“For the sun to go down,” he said.