Art: Scottish Highlands, Georg Ireland, 2017
The voice of the page barely carried down the long hall to the bench where the knight sat. A slow, expectant raising of the head was his reply, accompanied by the stare of green eyes unkind.
“The minister will see you now, m’lord,” the boy said, cautiously eyeing the ruffled linen shirt and naked saber strapped to his side.
“That the minister or the junior minister?”
The page stared at him for a bit before answering.
“I’m s’posed to call him minister.”
So it’s the clerk, not the king’s man.
“Bein’ courteous is bein’ smart, most of the time,” the knight said, rising slowly to his feet.
The page took a few steps back down the hall before turning and looking back, curiously.
“Are you sayin’ I’m smart, m’lord?”
“More a question for time than for me,” Thommis said, his voice smooth and slow. “Reckon you’ve a chance.”
The clerk did not seem to notice Thommis at first, perched behind a desk piled high with papers amidst pools of spilt ink. His spectacled eyes moved from one side of the desk to the other and back and then suddenly to the tired green ones that had just come into view.
“Your lordship,” he said, as fast as he could manage. “Please. Have a seat.”
Thommis did, to some discomfort and dismay as cushion beneath gave way to wood. He could feel the frame shifting with the tremble of unsteady legs beneath.
“The ministry has reviewed your claim, Lord Thommis,” the clerk began, with words dry and rehearsed. “It is a claim we recognize and respect. However,”
He paused, waiting to see if the expression on the knight’s face changed.
“Deed and title for these lands have already been given, in Lord Trollbane’s name, to the League of Arathor. It is with our deep regret that we cannot…”
The slight narrowing of the knight’s eyes caused the clerk to halt.
“The regency is prepared to offer you fair, adequate compensation,” the clerk continued, quickly unfurling a scroll and placing it flat on the table, leaning forward to delicately push it in the knight’s direction.
Thommis leaned forward too, reaching out a hand to prevent it from crossing the center seam.
“Something important you need to understand,” Thommis said, waiting for a moment before slowly lifting his palm.
“I’m not here for charity, for ‘fair compensation’. I’m here as a courtesy, and it doesn’t seem that courtesy has been done right by.”
“Lord Thommis, I assure you…”
The knight held up his hand.
“Understand, minister—I’ve the right and the means to take what belongs to me and mine. The only questions left are the when and how.”
“The discourtesy done to me, done by you and your minister…” he continued, with a rising intonation. “That’ll be someone else’s disfortune by consequence. The people who think my father’s bones can be ground into a southerner’s gold, they’ll be put on the road they came from, or they’ll be put to the sword.”
Thommis paused long enough for the weight of his words to settle. The junior minister sat silent, shrinking further into the upholstery’s fraying fabric.
“Now I’ve been called a generous and peaceable man,” Thommis said. “I will let that future wait, for a sunrise. A courtesy. I’ll give you and your minister the time to think about what’s ‘fair’ and ‘adequate’. And we’ll have another conversation about understandings and futures.”
Thommis placed his hands on the armrests and rose to his feet.
“And then I’ll be riding home.”
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