Chapter 132: Harvest Feast (3 End)

"The lad's going to be fine," Lergen told them, wrapping Mally's head in bandages dipped in some kind of poultice. "Just knocked unconscious. He'll wake up in a few hours. There won't even be bruises after a few days."

Boone exhaled loudly. "And he'd be lucky if he doesn't gain new marks before the old ones disappear. The loud brat can't keep his mouth shut."

The words were more callous than he'd ever heard Boone sound. But Defi could see the concern in the slight furrow of his brow, the anger in the tightness of his jaw. What made Defi troubled was the tinge of resignation in the depths of his eyes.

Despite his unbounded determination, Boone had already accepted that this was something that would happen again.

Defi looked away, frowning.

This clash between 'dockside' and 'hillside' was slightly more bothersome than he thought.

Defi was, suddenly, distantly aware of the difference between the influence he had in Ontrea and what he could do in this connected world of Ascharon.

It would be so easy, before, to alleviate this distress in his heart by simply speaking to an official and solving the cause in less than a day.

He shook his head of the thoughts. That was power that had never belonged to him, and Defi had already experienced how easy it was to take away.

He'd thought it would be simple to live in this land; after all, he'd rarely been treated as the son of the lord of Rimet. He'd thought the lives of the average citizens were similar to his.

He thought justice was easier for those who weren't touched by the games of power played by the nobles. That laws and lawful punishment would ensure people gained fair justice.

How naïve of him, he laughed at himself, to think that those who served the instruments of government justice would be as unmoving and incorrupt as the statues of the great Judges that looked over the grand space that was Ontrea's hall of justice.

How childish of him. He didn't think he'd still be so sheltered.

He should remember: people were not automatons. Even statues crumbled, in time.

Games of power and influence were played by everyone, from the smallest beggar child to the wisest ancient sage. If there was one thing he knew by now, it would be that if a person wanted to choose their path, they must rip the power to do so from the hands of the Fates yourself.

The children he taught knew this better than he did, which was why they practiced with such seriousness, with such determined will. He had wondered why they did so when he, an outsider who was barely older than they were, could be a fraud.

This desperation to make something of themselves, to leave this town to seek something that was just better than they knew; Defi understood it, so he taught them sincerely.

He turned to the children peeking through the doorway. Orphans, all of them, Haral included, with little support. Aire and Lergen tried, but thirteen children were difficult to keep up with. The donations from the last time were enough to repair the orphanage from its near wreckage and add a few more rooms, get the children better clothes, more classes. But that wouldn't last forever.

They needed all the help they could get.

The reason they haven't yet stopped Defi from basically training their older children to be slave soldiers – as tribute soldiers weren't paid for their three-year mandated service – was the skills he was teaching would serve them well for a lifetime even if they didn't make the army a career.

Well, this could be a lesson too, right?

Defi was well-versed in retaliation that people could not say was deliberate, even if they knew it was retaliation.

"Have you all seen the others?" He directed the question to Markar, who was the oldest of the orphanage children present.

"Mureil took my sister and the other kids to find them," the boy answered. "They'll be here within the hour, if they're not busy."

Oh?

Defi smiled at the boy. "Good perception." He looked around at the others. "Earlier, I saw many games set up near the village gates. Are there many that involve displays of physical prowess?"

Boone lifted a brow at him. "Most of the popular ones do. The ones that involve challenges are even more popular."

Defi's smile slanted into a small smirk. "Excellent. We still have most of the day left."

And by great gods, did they use it well.

Lergen twitched when eight hours later, at the falling of dusk, the last of Defi's students dropped a small beribboned pouch of coin on his desk, to join the two dozen or so similar ribbon-fastened pouches that had started piling up before him an hour earlier.

The ribbons on them were very colorful, indicating that they were prizes from the various games in the festival.

It was a greater haul than Defi expected.

The pouches were accompanied by a growing pile of bronze and iron coins. Even those who weren't orphanage children came to increase the pile of loose coinage.

"What have you done?" the orphanage master groaned as Vesen emptied his pockets.

Vesen laughed lightly. "Oh, don't worry. Just a few bets here and there. All good fun and no one's coming after us."

Lergen glowered at him, then at the pouches of coin that were festooned with winner's ribbons. "After you deliberately went after the town guards by defeating them in all the festival games, you think no one's coming after you?"

"Why would they come after us for winning some small games?" Vesen blithely waved the concern away. "That would be petty."

"Not becoming of a town guard," nodded Josel, barely keeping a smile off her face.

"You two aren't even part of my horde of fiends!"

There was a chorus of half-hearted protest from said horde.

"We who are not fiends kept our winnings," Vesen shrugged, then silently avoided an elbow from Renne and footstomps from a couple of the younger ones. "This is half the take from our bets."

"What bets?" Aire came through the doorway. "I hope you're not teaching the kids gambling."

The older orphanage children stiffened up in alarm.

Mally, who had woken up in the middle of the afternoon and demanded to be included in the revenging, smiled his most charming at Aire. "Oh no, rest assured, they didn't learn gambling from us." 

He slanted a teasing look at Defi, who pretended not to see it.

"We just made them carry the coins," Mally ended.

Aire narrowed her eyes at him, then looked around to take in her husband's despairing air, the gleeful manner of everyone else in the room, the coin and pouches. Her expression immediately lit in realization. "Oh, good work."

"Aire," sighed Lergen.

Aire only smiled at all of them sharply. "I wondered why people were all but congratulating me for a prosperous winter."

Defi couldn't help how his lips lifted at the corners as the kids eagerly asked what else she heard.

Boone, who was seated on a footstool beside him, chuckled and leaned close. "If it was done for a virtuous cause, there would be fewer avenues for retaliation against us?"

As if hearing the whispered words, Aire's eyes settled on Defi. 

He quickly straightened, clapped his hands together once. "The feast is probably starting. We should go see what tonight's dinner is like."

The rousing chorus of agreement from a hungry horde drowned out Boone's laughter as Defi quickly made his way outside.

*

The feast was conducted in the town square, large platters of food dominating the long row of tables, enough to feed several thousand.

"Defi, come, come! What are you dawdling for?"

It was the first time he'd been pulled into the center of the crowd during a mass celebration since his mother died. A platter was shoved into his hands, and no sooner had it settled in his grasp then it was already half-filled with the bounty of the Lowpool.

The night was loud, it was confusing, it lifted spirits to the stars twinkling in the night sky. Defi couldn't remember laughing so much before, as the people around him celebrated.

No sooner was his large platter finished, then one or the other of his companions would drag him back to the tables for more.

He had to sneak away after his stomach was overfilled, but then Boone and Vesen dragged him off to the dancing.

"I'm not doing that." Defi pointed to the twirling acrobatic dance a circle of too-energetic people were engaging in, manic percussions of various instruments governing the music.

The thought of dancing to that beat made his full gut want to protest at the secondhand dizziness.

Boone laughed. "This is the harvest feast. You have to dance!"

But he pulled Defi away from the dizzy twirling.

On the other side of the square, the music wasn't as frantic. The singers were almost humming and there were fewer loud instruments and timpanies. That didn't mean the music wasn't just as fervent.

Thankfully, the circle dance there depended on slower swaying and almost meditative movements – tree dances, Vesen called them.

Cuthes joined him, lifting arms to the heavens and turning delicately, humming with the other dancers. "There has been talk."

The former soldier adjutant sounded almost amused, so Defi gave him a small smile. "Of my teaching combat to children?"

"Ah, you have heard."

"Loudly," Defi agreed. "If you call seeing one of my young students attacked and laid out on the street, 'hearing'. A warning, I imagine?"

"That, was not part of the talking I heard." Cuthes wasn't smiling now. They turned slowly, moving a step with the circle of dancers. Then the adjutant sighed. "I suppose I should be happy you didn't challenge them yourself."

"I am outsider." Defi shrugged. "It wouldn't mean anything coming from me."

Cuthes snorted. "I'll reinforce the lesson, don't worry. The brats won't go after children again. They'll hurt for that, and like it. Your friend, they're alright?"

Defi nodded.

"Good," Cuthes started smiling again. "Perhaps in the spring you won't mind a few bouts with an old friend, hm?"

"Of course not." Defi grinned at him. "I'll look forward to it, old man."

Cuthes laughed and spun himself away from Defi to leer at a familiar middle-aged woman in a further part of the circle. The parent of one of Haral's friends, maybe? 

The woman stepped on Cuthes' foot. It would've been seen an accident, if she hadn't viciously twisted her heel on the next movement and caused him to yelp loudly.

Defi snickered and looked away from the area being befouled by venomous and pained cursing.

It was definitely a night to remember.