Story : Debt Collection

The simple leather strap was not on the door when they'd left that morning, but it was most definately there when Gruffydd returned from his training session with Rhianwen. Tied to a nail on the door frame, it moved slightly, pushed this way and that by the chilled early spring breeze. A strong gust caused it to twist momentarily, revealing the emblazoned sigil of the Magus Ambrosius ex Verditius.
"What the hell is this shit?" exclaimed Gruffydd when he saw it, his Welsh earthy as usual.
"It looks like it's got a sign on it, Da," Rhianwen pointed out.
"I can see that, girl! I'm not fecking blind, am I? I can see it's got a symbol on it, can't I? I do have eyes, don't I? Which is more than can be said for someone who can't hit a bale of hay more than one time in five, isn't it?"
"Oh Da!" the short girl replied, a tone entering into her voice indicating that she had had quite enough of this kind of thing for one day.
"Oh Da, yourself," grumped her surrogate father. "Anyway, who left it here, that's what I bloody well want to know, and why? There's something arsing well familiar about the damned thing. That, I'm sure of, or I'll be buggered backwards with a Berber's blade."
"Well, maybe if you used your fecking eyes, Da, you'd know!" Rhianwen exclaimed, somewhat exasperated with Gruffydd's carrying on and determined that her patience would not be taking any more wearing. It was quite thin enough as it was. She pointed over towards Ambrosius' 'tower', and the mark worked into it. The one which Gruffydd had probably seen every day since they had taken up residence here on the mountain summit for the winter.
Gruffydd looked at it sharply for a long while, then at the strap, as if daring the two to have some difference. He looked like he wanted to say something explosive for a moment, then he deflated. "You're a smart lass, and I'm an old fool. Now get inside and out of the snow. I'm going to go and see what damned thing the mage wants now." He handed over his bow and practice gear and stomped off across the thick layer of snow - almost higher than his head - to visit Ambrosius. Rhianwen went inside, pleased to find that Merfyn was already back from Gertrude's and had stoked up the fire and hung a kettle to boil.
After a lengthy swim through the snow, Gruffydd arrived at Ambrosius' residence. The going had been markedly easier once he had hit the path which lead from Ambrosius' door to the entry point to this layer of the Mynd. The at least twice daily traffic of food, not to mention Llewys' journeys had created a reasonable path, much like the one to his own lodge. It probably would have a been a better idea to talk the long path, rather than the apparently short route across the unbroken snow. He arrived at Ambrosius door, wet, cold and shivering. He banged on the door and gritted his teeth together to stop them chattering.
The door swung open almost immediately, Ambrosius standing there in his grey robes, belt of twisted steel links around his waist and a similar, smaller one around his neck, each link of a different metal. "Gruffydd!" Ambrosius bellowed. "Come in before you catch cold!" Ambrosius ushered Gruffydd over to a chair, already sized for the little man. "I'd heard you were out teaching one of your youngin's to use a bow, so I put some wine on to mull. Let me get it, it'll warm your bones!" Ambrosius stepped out of the room through the door on the back wall, and emerged a moment later with two thick fired clay mugs filled with a steaming spiced wine. "I'm glad you came so soon - I'm not quite done my research down in the caves with the elemental - very interesting creatures....but you don't want to hear about them!"
Gruffydd had shaken off his outer clothes and taken a seat, rubbing his hands together to stave off the cold. He seemed only too glad to get something warm inside of him and gratefully took the offered drink, taking a quick quaff. Ambrosius took the seat opposite Gruffydd. "The nature of my summons speaks a bit to the reason for it, my friend." The mage took a sip of the wine. "You've been doing very well, but it seems you are lacking in some critical skills that you will need in the future - for many, many things."
Gruffydd grunted non-committedly, wondering where this was going, for it was surely going somewhere. He wondered what sort of critical skills the mage was talking about. Various thoughts ran through his head, but none quite fitted.
"I was hoping that you might be willing to take a few classes, perhaps a year or two, with one of our teachers, perhaps my good friend Alicia, and learn your letters and numbers. It would help quite a bit in finding of books and materials, and will put you well on the road for making some good coin as my venditorus." He paused and looked the fae man straight in the eyes, "What do you think, Gruffydd?"
The diminutive man frowned in thought for a long moment, head tilted to the side. Then he tilted it the other way, as if considering the other side of something. "Hmm... Interesting. I remember you speaking of me being some kind of agent for you before... Out and about in the world and that of thing. Clients and magic items and sales, and all. Obviously you've been thinking about it more."
There was a bit of a pause while Gruffydd thought some more, and further wine was drunk, the heat and alcohol forming a nice warm ball in stomachs. "How important is it to be able to read and the like, to act as a verdigras? And I take it you mean reading proper, in latin and the like?"
"Indeed I do. Latin and English to start. If that is as far as you wish to go, that is fine. I think you will find it a bit like your expeditions. The process of learning to read and write is much like exploring and bargaining. As you grow in the craft, new doors open to you, new destinations that you never knew existed." Ambrosius stared into his mulled wine for a few moments. "Perhaps most importantly, my friend, it is a skill you can pass along to your children; a skill that will equip them for life just as surely as learning the bow or to bargain."
"Hmm... You make a good point about the education of my children," Gruffydd conceded. "I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks though, I think. Also, I can't spend so much time away from other duties - looking after my little ones for one, but the Covenant relies on me for supplies for another. But it strikes me that one or two of my children would benefit more than I, and be better students to boot. The thought had already occurred to me that when the school gets going, one or another of them could take a class or two. Meryl is a bright young thing."
Ambrosius sat sipping his wine and looking off over the little man's shoulder. An uncomfortable length of silence passed before he spoke again, "You know, of course, that I sought you out because of your demonstrably remarkable bargaining on a wide variety of objects and services..." The magus looked into Gruffydd's eyes, "If you are confident that this child has the capacity to both master your bargaining skills as well as her letters, numbers and more than one language, given sufficient training, then I will see that she has that training." Ambrosius leaned forward and put his cup of mulled wine on the table between the men. "This is not what I had intended when I left my summons for you, my friend, and I believe that the, uh...uncertainty of the outcome is even greater still, but the benefits could be ten fold." The magus nodded his head, slowly at first, then with more certainly. "Yes, Gruffydd. I believe this will work. If you are willing, and the child is willing, then you shall have my patronage."
Gruffydd waggled his head back and forth in a vacilitating manner. "Well, I shall have to talk to her and see, but I'm sure she'll be happy enough to do some learning. She's that sort. There are other things for her to be doing too though. I'm guessing it would be best if she could learn some latin and better her english before learning her letters, though I'm not much of an arsing expert on these things. I'm guessing it would help to know what you are reading, else there aint much fecking point, now is there?"
He nodded to himself, his face bearing a serious demeanor. "Yes... English and latin. Maybe she'll be in a position to do some book studying come winter. We'll have to talk more about it later. But you're not suggesting that I be your vertibra any time soon, are you? You said a couple of years, right? I guess we'll just have to see how it goes. Two years is a bloody long time, Master Ambrosius. An arsing lot can happen in a couple of years."
The two concluded their talk with a turn of conversation to other more mundane matters, namely the weather. The wine was consumed and the meeting was concluded. Gruffydd got to his feet and tipped an imaginary hat at Ambrosius, thanking him for his hospitality. "I had best be getting back now though, Rhianwen will be preparing supper and I always like to hear what my boys and girls have been up to through the day. You are welcome to join us for a spot of grub, if you fancy it. I don't know if they've brought you up your dinner or not yet."
Any responses from Ambrosius, either here or add in elsewhere as desired
Gruffydd pulled on his outer gear again and trudged back out into the cold, past Ambrosius' front door. As he did, a bedgraggled raven flew out of the dark sky and landed on the small man's shoulder - the large bird looking quite out of proportion perched on the dwarf. It cocked its head sideways and croaked loudly, in a slightly plaintive way, "Bread?"
"Yes, yes, Muninn," Gruffydd replied grumpily. "We're back off now. You could just bloody fly yourself, you know. There's no cursed reason for me to be giving you a bloody ride."
The black bird peered at Ambrosius and cawed. Then suddenly it spluttered out, "The turning hand returns the turn. The hoary host heeds the hail. Winter's ally is Summer's foe." With this bit of doggerel, the bird hopped sideways off Gruffydd's shoulder in a nervous twitch, which seemed to surprise it more than anyone else, and cawing with indignation flapped away again into the night, bound for 'Munchkin Manor'.
Gruffydd shrugged at Ambrosius wordlessly in apology, as if absolving himself of any responsibility and turned to quickly stump off - this time taking the path. It was too cold to be lingering outside, and supper was awaiting - not to mention a small keg of mead which he had been holding back and would go down a treat just this evening.