milliways_bar | (no subject)

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"Lady," says the lad of about fourteen, dressed in his red doeskin hunting-suit and sandals, "I think I have almost had done with the task you set me. There are yet twenty pages in the book to commit to memory, but I hve fixed the rest- and what is more, I've understood them, I think. Please, forgive me when I say that I shall not read any more of Sonezu today. I won't have room for anything else in my thoughts if I do."

He bows to the Bar and receives a plate of cheese and bread and greenstuff for his pains; it seems enough to satisfy him, if only because he takes it to one of the nearby tables without complaint, and a rat brings him a cup of what smells like wine after.

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"Does it help?"

There's a boy who looks about Hektor's own age or a year younger, glancing from Hektor to the bar with some interest.

"Hm?" says Hektor, glancing in the other lad's direction. "Does which help?"

"Talking to the bar like that," Jamie explains.

He's been watching for the past few days, as people move around - trying to get the measure of this place. Newcomers seem to stick out like a sore thumb, and the sooner he gets over that phase the better.

"Most people just ask for what it is they want. I can understand trying to get round the 'tender, but why the bar?"

"Oh- well, she has never been short with me, or treated me ill, and she has never given me any less than I have asked for," says Hektor. "One cannot be churlish with a lady of standing; it's no more or less than I would offer in courtesy back home, really."

Jamie blinks.

"She talks to you?"

He's seen a number of odd-shaped creatures in his travels . . . but none that were made out of wood.

"No, not in words," says Hektor, "but neither do horses, or dogs; and yet one can understand a little of what they mean by the way they approach you, or what they are willing to give you."

Jamie gets along great with animals - at least, he does from several feet or, preferably, miles away.

"If you say so," he says, amiably enough. "I figured she only did food."

"Well, she's given me a wooden sword, for practice; and two books also, although I cannot take either home. So there is that," Hektor says. "I bring her offerings, when I go home and come back to here. It seems an even enough trade, I think."

"Offerings you mean like payment?" Jamie says, to clarify - people can be funny about religion - and then tilts his head. "Someone told me they didn't allow violence. But I guess practice is all right?"

"If you think it so," says Hektor, "but since I was told we're brought here by a goddess, who wishes our company while she watches over the ending of all things, I had felt it best to make such offerings as seemed appropriate. Wine, mostly, and sometimes drinking-cups, since we offer to the gods from their own creation. She hasn't yet objected."

He nods. "Practice is fine enough, if you do it outside. I have seen fights of all sorts out there done for practice, whether with or without weapons; and some archery as well, from time to time."

Jamie nods, sagely.

So it is religious for him. Well, he can deal with that - he's even trained as a priest (briefly, and admittedly under extreme duress, but he does know the trick of the language.)

"Makes sense enough to me. Gods can be funny sorts, can't they? I see why you're polite to her now."

Hektor nods. "It's never wise to neglect the gods of a place, wherever one might be." He pauses. "My name is Hektor, by the by; I don't suppose you would know where the city of Troy is, but that is my home."

The city name rings a faint bell, but only a faint one. Jamie never paid much attention in school, either, and his studies were a long time ago.

"I'm Jamie," he says, holding out a hand. "I wander about mostly - but there've been plenty of times I'd've been in trouble up to my earlobes if I'd forgotten to pay my respects to the local shrine."

And plenty more times he has gotten in that trouble up to his earlobes, but.

Hektor's people have yet to think of shaking hands, so he only takes the hand and clasps it a moment with both of his own. "Well met, Jamie," he says. "Where do you wander, if I might ask?"

"Everywhere," Jamie says - a little wryly, and with what he considers to be perfect truth. (And makes mental note of the custom, in case he ever finds himself in a place called Troy.)

"Can't stay in one place too long, ever. It's a sort of curse that's been laid on me."

This explanation always works in places with serious gods.

And it has worked again here; Hektor makes a sympathetic face. "My apologies," he says. "It sounds unpleasant. I trust it is only the need to wander, and not being pursued by something dreadful? You haven't the look of one being hunted by the Daughters of Night."

"Oh, no, not anything like that," Jamie says, and then amends, "well - there was that once."

You'd think someone would have mentioned how touchy those priestesses were about people catching a night's sleep in their sacred grove. It wasn't like there was even a sign.

"Mostly I just hang around, and then the gods give me a nudge when they want me to shove off."

It used to rankle, talking about Them as gods, but he's long past that stage now.

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