Romayne was surprised (but then amused) to return to his chambers to find a servant boy bending down over his trunk. He took one look at him and he knew that the greatest crime being committed here might was likely only curiosity. There was an innocence and honesty about him: if he truly was stealing from him: Romayne would have half expected him to confess to it right there and then. And his motives for such an act would have only be dire necessity.
Still Romayne couldn’t resist scaring him a little: it had been a long, uneventful day (in a long series of uneventful days). When he first arrived, there was enough to occupy his days from weddings to murders to funerals – but things had leveled out since then and his time as a glorified prisoner was starting to grate on him.
“Do you know what we do to men who try to steal from princes in the Southern Isles?” He asked, striding into the room with an authority he hadn’t exserted since he arrived here. He bent down to the servant’s level, “I would have your skin peeled from your bones.”
He straightened, then, and managed a laugh to lighten the mood. “But we are a far way from the Isles,” And I have no power here, he thought. “Tell me, what was it that so caught your eye?”
Ed felt the air go out of him, his mouth falling open into a gape. All the same, his imagination took off as he pictured those Southern Islanders being held in arid dungeons, lips parched for water, chapped and bleeding, being led to some grisly site for horrific punishment...Nervously, he laughed. “I can’t imagine many attempt it, in that case.” Ed cleared his throat and glanced away. He was acting guilty. He knew he was acting guilty. But he was not. “Funny, that’s just what Old Tom told me the Queen would do to me for pilfering, the first day I started work here.” He was still clutching the cloth. “Good job I’m not a thief, then, eh?” He laughed. “I’ve only so much skin to go around,” he added with a bright laugh. Realized it wasn’t funny. Shook his head.
Ed broke out into genuine (relieved) laughter at the sound of Romayne’s own chuckle. “Oh, gods, you, you really had me going there,” he added, pointing at him. He’d been perfectly serious about Old Tom’s threat. He wondered, now, if either threat were true. He decided not to test the theory, regardless.
Realizing he was still clutching the cloth, he held it out to Romayne. “I, uh, I did only mean to fold it, I swear,” he began. “But it’s very beautiful and...the symbols...Is it true you worship the wind and the, uh, the earth, and such?” he added, gesturing first skyward and then earthward. “I mean, that’s not really so different from Aragothi tradition, if you think about it. We believe, you know, that the Creator formed dragons and what are dragons if not flame made flesh?” Realizing he was prattling, he scrunched up his face and shook his head at himself. “Not that...that would be any business of mine, Your Grace.”
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