“In that case we’ll buy some ink while we’re here. Give me three hundred ruga’s worth.”
“Very well. Here it is.” She placed a rather large inkwell before us.
Three hundred must be worth quite a bit. Makes sense since it’s three pieces of silver.
Rook wrapped up both items in cloth with deft hand movements and then put the remaining two silver pieces in his coin purse.
“That’ll be all,” he said.
“Please come again.”
With that, we left the store.
We didn’t need to buy a quill because our ranch was literally littered with them. I now had myself a full set of stationery.
Nice work.
We visited a cutler, tailor, and a few other places before Rook led us to the edge of the capital.
How are we gonna get home now that we don’t have a kingeagle? I puzzled over the question as Rook brought us to some sort of station at the city’s outskirts. He had no trouble getting us a plainrunner there.
“Did those people really just let us borrow their bird?” I asked.
If we were just borrowing a bird for the sake of a quick day trip somewhere, giving it back wouldn’t have been a problem, but our plan was to head back out into the sticks. Presumably, we’d have to abandon the bird somewhere. This would have to be a very generous country to allow everyone to travel around like that.
“Those were the state-owned stables,” Rook explained. “They only give those birds to people on official state business. In our case, we were delivering to the royal family.”
I remembered now that we’d talked to someone about something or other on our way out of the castle. I’d thought it was a pass needed to leave the castle grounds, but apparently not. They’d actually issued us a sort of warrant that granted us permission to use a stagecoach-like system.
“Really? That’s lucky for us,” I replied.
“Yeah. Normally we’d have to ride a public stagecoach, find a merchant troop, rent a horse for a high price, or walk.”
Those were the options I would have expected. Poor people probably had to walk. I might have actually enjoyed that—this was my first outing, and everything was of great interest—but I’d probably be more comfortable on a plainrunner.
“Oh. So that’s how normal people travel around?”
“Mostly. That said, very few people walk the whole distance because it’s just too far.”
Rook placed his hands under my armpits and lifted me up to put me on the saddle of the crouching plainrunner.
“Here’s your precious book and mom’s souvenir,” he said while tying the cloth holding our luggage around my body. “Don’t drop them now.”
He spun around, leaped onto the plainrunner in one agile movement, then gave the reins a tug.
After we’d traveled for about three hours—stopping to take a break every hour—we reached a large town named Jamna. This was where we got a fresh plainrunner from the stables. Plainrunners were fast, but they tired out easily and took a long time to recover. Pushing them too hard clearly wasn’t an option.
From there, we continued on without entering the town, and after another two hours or so, we entered a small village before sunset. Rook tethered the plainrunner in a stable in front of an inn. He gave it some water that had been drawn from a nearby well, then strolled into the inn like he owned the place. After he’d summoned the owner with a bellowing shout, we arranged to stay the night and left the owner with our luggage.
“We’ll take care of your belongings, sir. Would you like your breakfast served at dawn?”
“Yes, that’ll do fine. Now where can we get dinner?” Rook asked.
“If you turn right after stepping outside, you’ll find a tavern.”
In a small dwelling like this, food and alcohol were bound to be served in the same place. As for the inn, it was little more than a fairly large house with some space for guests. Still, it beat sleeping in a pile of hay on the ground.
“Let’s go take a look.” Rook took my hand and led us outside.
As it turned out, the tavern was right under our noses as soon as we exited and looked right. The sign outside was a picture of some beer.
We found no other patrons inside the tavern. The evening sun was beginning to set, but the sky wasn’t yet dark. Perhaps it was a little early for the daily rush in a village like this. The local drinkers would no doubt begin to gather once it got a little darker.
The proprietor appeared as soon as we entered, and he fetched us a children’s high chair the moment he saw me. The service wasn’t half bad. Travelers like Rook with children in tow might have frequently visited here from the inn.
“That’s thoughtful, thanks,” Rook told him.
The burly proprietor gave him a warm grin. “Ya welcome, sir.”
I bowed my head to thank him too.
“Jus’ give a shout when ya’s ready to order.” He then returned to the kitchen where he was probably still making preparations.
“What’ll you have, Yuri?” Rook asked.
“Hmm. Stew would be nice.”
“Stew? Got it. Now what should I have...”
Stew was great. Unsurprisingly, most food in this world wasn’t on par with what I’d known in Japan, but stewed dishes were the exception—they were roughly the same. Stewing softened the meat and vegetables and drew out their juices; all it took after that was a few herbs to suppress any unpleasant odor from the meat.
Rook called out the proprietor and ordered for us. “I’ll have a beer with a rabbit and cheese pie. For the boy, a sliced baguette with milk stew. Powdered cheese too, if you’ve got it. And also a cup of goat’s milk.”
“As ya wish, sir.”
The proprietor went back to the counter and soon returned to us with the goat’s milk and beer. About thirty minutes later, the tavern began to grow busy. As expected, many of the patrons looked to be hunters or farmers based on their clothing. A young female employee appeared and started taking orders.
Rook and I chatted while we waited for the food.
“The plainrunner we just borrowed wasn’t very good, was it?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t call it bad, but it was nothing special. If it were one of ours, we’d train it a little better.”
“Oh. Are our birds especially well-trained?”
“You could say that. But that one was about average.”
The plainrunners we’d ridden on that day certainly moved up and down more violently than the ones back home, and it’d left my butt feeling chafed and sore. As I drank my milk and discussed it with Rook, I learned that it was down to the birds being poorly trained.
Before long, the female server brought out our food and placed the plates on our table. Now that we had food, we continued to talk while eating.
I sprinkled powdered cheese over the thick milk stew, let my baguette soak in it, and then bit into the softened bread. It was delicious. There was tender rabbit meat in the stew, which had been cooked so that it practically melted in my mouth. It had definitely been worth the wait. This food was a little different from Suzuya’s cooking—the flavors were rich and salty, to suit the tastes of an adult man with a fondness for beer.
“Those vertical movements are the real problem,” Rook explained. “Think about it—if everything from the legs up is bouncing up and down, the bird’s going to waste energy. It’s as if it’s constantly running up and down steps, isn’t it?”
“So it doesn’t just make us less comfortable?”
“It’s definitely uncomfortable, but it’s also extra strain on the bird. One of ours could have run twice as far.”