A Quiet Life
The border of Valmere was as underwhelming as I’d hoped. No gatehouse, no guards with suspicious eyes, and not a single ledger-wielding official intent on charging for answers. Just a rutted track squandering its way through mournful hills, a half-collapsed stone marker leaning like it regretted ever standing, and a wooden post with a sign whose faded paint seemed embarrassed to be seen. I stepped over a shallow ditch – the grand boundary – and braced for dramatic transformation.
The world, ever uncooperative, stayed stubbornly the same. Damp earth, decaying leaves, and something sour wafted from a nearby field. The sky loitered undecidedly in the grey. A crow, perched atop a fence post, tilted its head, as if wondering whether I’d break into song, soliloquy, or simply just entertain it in some way.
Disappointing both bird and cosmic expectations, I kept walking. My plan, if it could be dignified as such, was straightforward: pass through, take work that demanded neither questions nor commitment, remain forgettable, and leave before usefulness became a curse. Valmere, according to every map I’d found, was spectacularly dull - no ballads of war, no monsters worth a bard’s ink, just market roads and a kingdom that kept its troubles strictly local. Perfect for vanishing.
By mid-morning, I’d accumulated three fields, two stone walls, and one shepherd’s wary appraisal - the sort reserved for unfamiliar dogs. He didn’t wave. I returned the favour. Balance in all things.
The road dipped into a muddy valley, boots growing heavier with every step, and somewhere ahead, water whispered its existence. The map optimistically promised a river; reality, I suspected, would be less grand.
Halfway through debating the merit of stopping for a drink, the road announced its complaint: wood groaning. A cart, displayed at a tragic angle, with one wheel buried to the hub, its axle despairing, blocked the way ahead. Two men stood beside it, arms folded, gazes hollow with the exhaustion of hope. And then… there was the third man. This man had a rope looped around his waist, tugging with the sort of dramatic effort reserved for heroes in bad plays. The rope ran from him to the cart’s beam. He leaned back, boots skidding and teeth bared, as if sheer determination might bully physics into submission.
And to my surprise, as if with some miraculous super human strength, the cart lifted from its muddy grave and rolled back on to the path! Now, if I’d have told this story to anyone else, they would have called me a liar. And they’d be right.
Instead, the cart shuddered, but rather than being released to its freedom, it settled deeper into the mud, unimpressed by the man’s optimism.
Rope-man, as I’ve now decided to call him, was still at it, undeterred by failure. That was however, until he saw me, and you could see the hope that was blooming in his eyes as if the concept of ‘help’ had just struck him. “You! Excellent timing!”
I slowed, regretting every step I’d taken since breakfast. The other two men - one older, with cheeks ruddied by the cold and years of irritation; and the other younger man, with eyes haunted by the ghost of mechanical woes - turned to assess me. Their gaze flicked from my pack to my hands to my face, concluding, apparently, that I wasn’t much use. Which is a shame, because, I didn’t bring anything else with me.
The rope-man approached, wearing his rope like a badge of misplaced honour. “You look capable,” he declared.
A worse accusation had never been made…
I turned my attention to a familiar crow, now perched atop the cart, smugness radiating from its glossy feathers. I glared at it momentarily before turning my attention back to rope-man.
“Just passing through,” I offered, hoping the conversation might die of natural causes.
But alas, fate had other plans. “So are we!” The rope-man’s grin went ear to ear.
The older fellow gave a sigh that echoed with the weight of a thousand wasted mornings. “We’ve been stuck here an hour. The wheel’s sunk, the road’s a bog, and Ryn…” he gestured at the rope-man, “…is convinced he can pull the bloody thing out.”
“I can!” Ryn the rope-man chimed in, undeterred by the supporting evidence.
I glanced at the road ahead before turning back to the group, “Well, I must say, this has been charming, I shall alert the nearest rescue team once I reach civilisation.” I said, beginning my tactical retreat.
“Wait!” Ryn reached his hand out, earnestness leaking from every pore.
And… I’ll admit, for a brief moment I considered skirting the ditch, scaling the fence, and disappearing into the fields. I could almost imagine hearing Ryn’s plaintive calls as I vanished into the distance, whilst ignoring, those said calls. Sadly, my sense of obligation outweighed my imagination.
I let out a sigh, the kind that blamed the universe rather than myself. “What exactly do you need?”
Ryn stared at me blankly, then looked at the cart, the rope, and back to me “well, the cart?” he replied, confused by the whole ordeal.
The older man let out an exasperated groan and placed his head in his hands.
The younger man, who’d clearly spent too long arguing with wheels, piped up. “We need leverage, muscles, or divine intervention. Frankly, we’re not picky.”
I scrutinised the scene: the mud, wheel, cart, and Ryn’s tragic confidence, it was all just an accident waiting to happen. I slowly stepped forward. Ryn’s delight becoming more palpable.
“Smashing!” He immediately said thinking I had agreed to this, and then continued to do precisely what I’d have begged him not to. He tightened the rope around his waist and prepared for another heroic pull.
“Don’t…” The word slipped out before I could stop it, sharp as a snapped branch.
Ryn halted, mid-heroic stance, rope taut in his hands. “What?”
I pointed at the rope, wishing I could point at the whole farce and banish it. “That’s not going to work”.
He bristled, defending his method with a stubbornness only true believers, or the desperately lonely, could muster. “It is working though!”
The cart wheel disagreed, sinking deeper with a sullen glorp. The younger man closed his eyes, lips moving in a silent prayer for patience, or perhaps just the obliteration of this morning from his memory.
I studied Ryn the rope-man. He was muscled, with thick blonde curly hair, bright blue eyes, a perfect smile, and beneath that was something raw: utter stupidity, this man didn’t have a brain cell left. He’s the kind who would listen to every plan, however doomed, and go along with it anyway.
I tried to keep my tone dry. “What’s your name again?” I asked, as if acquiring personal details was a curse best avoided.
He blinked, momentarily startled. “Ryn. Ryn Ta—”
“Ryn,” I cut him off before he could anchor himself to me with more syllables. “Why are you, trying to pull out the cart?”
He gawked, as if the question itself was betrayal. “Because…” He turned his head from the cart back to me, lost for an answer that didn’t sound pitiful. “It’s stuck?”
The other two men looked up, frowning, as if questioning my right to logic.
“Right,” I said, glancing beyond the cart, chewing on the moment. “So, why isn’t the horse pulling it out?”
All three of them shifted their attention from cart, to horse, to me, to horse. Ryn’s brow furrowed with realisation, slow to dawn like a November sunrise.
“Well…” Ryn hesitated, his words heavy with the fear of looking foolish. “I didn’t want to tire it out?”
The horse snorted, a sound far more articulate than anything said so far.
“Take the rope off,” I said. It came out flatter than intended, hollowed by too many similar mornings.
Ryn hesitated, searching for some sort of defiance that might change my mind. “But…”
“Please, for the love of all that’s holy. Take it off.”
He untied the rope with exaggerated caution, as if he suspected I’d tricked him into surrendering his last defence. The group eyed him - one with relief, another with exasperation, the third (the horse) with a flick of apathy. Ryn handed the rope over, grip lingering a moment too long, like a child relinquishing a comfort blanket.
“I could have managed, you know,” he insisted, voice buoyed by bravado.
“I don’t doubt it for a moment, Ryn…”
The next ten minutes unfolded with reluctant cooperation: a large fallen branch for leverage and the horse finally doing what it was bred to do. The cart lurched free with a wet, indignant squelch, the wheel emerging from the mud like a beast reconsidering its choices.
Ryn’s face shone, the pure, open joy of a man who’d rather have a story to tell than a quiet afternoon. “We did it!”
“We,” echoed one of the men, putting in as little heart as possible.
Now that was finally out of the way, I reached for my pack, keen to re-establish the perimeter between me and the business of other people’s lives.
“There,” I said. “You’re free.”
The older man approached me and produced a coin pouch from his coat, his hand halfway outstretched. “At least take...”
“No,” I said, sharp, holding the palm of my hand up. The word tasted bitter, like an old habit I couldn’t shake.
He paused, puzzled. Coin was useful, who would reject coin? Well, it was also a chain. Coin meant conversation, meant names exchanged, meant stories told. And stories, well, they wanted remembering, and I didn’t want to remember this.
Ryn was still smiling, that same desperate hope, maybe not for help, but for someone who wouldn’t walk away.
“Use it to buy better wheels,” I said, already stepping backwards, trying to slip the net of their gratitude.
“Wait!” Ryn called.
I didn’t. The road stretched ahead, familiar in its emptiness. My best companion had always been distance.
“Wait!” Ryn tried again, louder, scrambling over the battered ground. “Where are you going?”
“Anywhere but here..” I mumbled to myself, whilst keeping my eyes forward, in the hope inertia would finally earn its keep.
It didn’t. Ryn stubbornly caught up, his breath short, matching my pace with the dogged optimism of someone for whom being alone was the worst possible ending.
“Where are you heading?” he pressed, as if proximity could conjure friendship.
I considered lying. I considered telling him to leave. I considered, briefly, doubling back the way I’d come, just to prove a point to the universe.
None of these threatened to make me feel less seen.
“At the moment, Briarford,” I allowed, the admission feeling perilously close to an invitation.
“That’s where we’re going too!” Ryn’s grin was a sunrise. “I didn’t catch your name?”
“Sebastian,” I said, the syllables tasting of resignation.
“Guys!” Ryn called, already weaving the day into a story. “Sebby here is coming to Briarford with us!” He slung an arm around my shoulders, as if contact might make it true.
And just like that, my happy party of one became a reluctant party of four. The horse eyed me with something like approval, or perhaps it was commiseration.
It snorted.
I sighed.
It felt like an agreement.
