From Londoner To Lord

Lanidas had glared at him for a while but eventually he had walked away, probably to find someone else to harass, allowing Joric a sigh of relief. However he knew it wouldn't be long before the young master was back. All the merchants in the marketplace knew that the guards were employed by Baron Farodas - who was still greedy but fair - quite unlike his unscrupulous son, so Joric knew that he had to do something soon to ensure his family's future remained safe. As long as his family remained in debt, those thugs would never go away, nor would the young master.

After that day, Joric had kept thinking that if he could just somehow find a quick way to pay his debt, the baron's guards would ensure that the thugs remained far away. The young master also wouldn't have any reason to bother his wife too much after that, since in that case someone would surely complain about it to the baron, fearing that it could happen to their own wives or daughters in the future. While the baron would never be able to change the sleazy character of his only son, his guards would still ensure that Lanidas could only harass the women from afar, and wouldn't cross the line, as long as they didn't owe any money to him.

Of course, the baron was getting old now, and in the future it would be the young master who would become the next baron, and only the goddess knew what would happen to the women and people of Kirnos after that. However, he could hardly afford to worry about the future when he couldn't even think of a way to do what he needed to do in the present.

Nonetheless, he was hardly the only one in Kirnos in such a difficult situation. One day he was sitting in his shop wishing he would get a new customer, when he saw a neighbour making a deal to sell his son into slavery. That gave him an idea that he could do something similar, but he would kill himself before he even thought of selling his wife or daughter into slavery. Perhaps that was the result of the good heart that his wife kept claiming he had. Either way, the only way he saw after that was to sell himself into slavery, and to pay the remaining debt with the slave price he would get. Once he had made his decision, he knew he had to do it soon, despite his wife weeping and pleading that he didn't need to do that. It had broken his heart to see her crying like that, but it would kill him if he couldn't pay the debt soon and the thugs did something to her or his daughter, which is why he knew he couldn't change his mind after that.

It hadn't taken long for him to find a contact in the marketplace who assured him that if he agreed to become a slave for the next thirty years to a big clay merchant called Torhan, he would get enough gold in return that he would be able to pay all the remaining debt on his shop, while still having some leftover money. Of course, he had already heard about Torhan, who owned a big clay mine somewhere in the north of Kirnos. He had also heard more than a few whispers that clay mining wasn't everything that Torhan did, but beggars couldn't be choosers, so he had made a deal within a couple of days.

With the money he had gotten from that, Joric had repaid the loan he had taken from the money lender and also paid all the remaining debt on his shop, ensuring that his family would always have a roof over their heads, with a small amount of gold still remaining which would make sure his family was fed until the times got better for them. Even knowing that he might never see his wife for all his remaining life - since a thirty year slave contract was long enough that one of them might very well die before that - his heart had still been satisfied knowing that now she would always be able to live in the safety of their wooden house.

This way, she would still be able to do sewing and mending to keep earning some coin to pay for food for herself and their daughter, without being harassed by the money lender's thugs or the young master. Eventually the market would get better, and she might even be able to start selling some clothes again, which would ensure a good future for her and their daughter, since they wouldn't have to worry about paying any debt anymore.

Joric had remained awake for the whole of his last night with his family, lying in the embrace of his wife and his daughter, knowing that was the last time he was seeing them. His wife had kept crying all night, while his daughter had thankfully believed that he was just going on a very long trip. Nonetheless, he had tried to assure them that a wagon full of clay came to the marketplace nearly every week from Torhan's clay mines, and maybe he would get lucky and be chosen to drive a wagon in one of those trips, which meant he would be able to see them again. He knew in his heart that it was a lie, just as his wife also realized it, since the men driving the wagons were always the thugs working for Torhan and never the slaves - none of whom had been ever heard from again after they had left Kirnos - but sometimes having some false hope was better than having no hope at all.

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The next morning had come sooner than it ever had, and he had found a wagon waiting outside his home after it had delivered clay to some potters in the marketplace the previous day. He never wanted to leave the last embrace with his beautiful wife and adorable daughter while standing in front of his shop, but he knew that it was time to leave.

Before long, he was waving at them with teary eyes from the back of the wagon bed while seeing them sobbing openly, with his heart breaking more and more with each turn of the wheel. As the wagon turned around a bend in the street, he had steeled his heart for what was coming. He had done what he needed to do for his family, like a man was always supposed to do, and now it was time to pay the piper.

The painful journey had taken more than a day, since apart from his broken heart, his back had also started to ache immediately on the bumpy and muddy road, since that was easily the longest he had ever travelled in a wagon, or outside of his home village Kirnos. The next afternoon he had arrived at what was going to be his home for the next three decades, which he very well knew might be extended to even longer based on the whims of his new owner, Torhan. Of course, it would be just to pay for the damages he would supposedly have caused to the owner's property during his long service as a slave. Nothing illegal about that, after all. He sighed. There was nothing he could do about it after he had made his choice.

Now he just had to hope his family remained safe in their newly owned shop-and-home, so that some day in the future, when he was old and wrinkled and finally became a free man again after serving his time as a slave, he might be able to see them just one more time before he keeled over and finally went to meet the Goddess.

Just thinking about his wife and daughter had made him start to feel wistful, which meant tears wouldn't be far behind, but he couldn't let anyone else see him crying in this place, since showing such a weakness here would mean he would be eaten alive by others. There would be time for that of course - he just missed both of them too much not to cry every day - but that would be later in the night when he was sitting alone behind one of the shacks with nobody nearby to see him weeping. He wiped his face surreptitiously, as if clearing it of some mud so nobody would notice his already wet eyes, and exhaled loudly to focus himself on the present.

Forcefully bringing his mind back to the current surroundings, Joric looked around for a moment at the dozens of men, women, as well as some kids working in the mine, all of whom were slaves of Torhan. This far west from the Arakin Mountains - which he had heard to be located somewhere in the east of Kirnos - the snow had already started melting a week ago. By now there were only some small patches of snow gathered here and there, with the remaining snow having already melted, making the ground muddy and difficult to walk on. Not that it had become any warmer though.

It wasn't difficult to see that the clay mine was huge, and yet he had already heard from someone that the area they were mining was only a very small part of the clay deposits, which meant there was no hope of the clay deposits ending anytime soon and the slaves being sent back to Kirnos. He snorted. Like that would ever happen. Torhan would easily have found some new use for the slaves in that case.

Looking further into the distance, Joric saw the forest which had been cleared to a good distance around the mine, so the bandits would have good visibility in case of an attack on them - either to take revenge on Torhan by one of his rivals, or to steal his slaves. However, from what he had heard from some other slaves who were too chatty, it was unlikely that anyone would even dare to risk attacking Torhan's group, which was said to be one of the most powerful bandit groups in the Southern forests of Reslinor. That was probably why the baron of Kirnos had such a good relationship with the bastard, since it wouldn't be easy to destroy this bandit group even by the baron. The profits which Torhan certainly must be sharing with the baron in return for being allowed to sell his clay in the markets of Kirnos, wouldn't hurt their relationship either.

Before long, he saw the bandit who had walked away to chat with another of them returning towards the slaves.