A Reunion and a New Business

[Andros]

10th Frost, 4618

It couldn’t be her. It just couldn’t be. Andros was at sitting at the bar in a tavern in Vestria. A dump really, well off his usual route but he’d befriended the proprietor when they were both doing business in Oxentide and promised him a visit. He was two ales deep and having a grand time catching up with his friend and his pretty wife when the woman walked in.

She strode confidently up to the bar, wearing a frumpy cloak with the hood pulled over her head. Andros had long since stopped being surprised to see women stride confidently whenever they pleased. It was how things were done in Radenor, and after so many years here he accepted it as a plain fact. The small woman - and she was a head shorter than the average Norunn female - put a hand up to summon the tavern keeper's wife, who went over to take her order. Something about her struck Andros as familiar, but her face was shrouded in the cloak and the room was lit only by a low fire and some candles. He couldn’t put his finger on it.

Andros watched, trying to puzzle out how he might know the woman, when the tavern keeper's wife gasped and put her hand to her mouth, then pointed directly at him. Suddenly on edge, Andros shifted uncomfortably, ready to get up off of his stool if there was to be trouble.

As he watched, the small woman pulled down her hood and there she was, face momentarily illuminated by a flicker of the fire. It was Dorothea, without any possible doubt. Older, more worn than last time he saw her, but absolutely his third daughter. The first relation he’d seen since coming to Radenor.

In an overwhelming rush of excitement he started to leap to his feat, forgetting he had already shifted forwards. The stool went out from under him and he fell straight to the ground in a tangle of limbs and furniture. By the time he’d recovered enough, there she was, holding out a hand to him, a look of concern on his face.

He allowed her to help him up, then grasped her into a tight hug. Tears started to stream down his cheeks. He was in such a state of shock that he couldn’t talk for a long moment. Eventually when he calmed down he pulled away slightly, keeping his hands firmlu on her shoulders and looking her over.

“Oh, Doro, I can’t tell you how good it is to see your face.”

The obvious questions didn’t even occur to him: why was she here, how had she come to Radenor, how fared the rest of the family, and so many more. He was so overwhelmed with joy at seeing one of his girls after all this time many years that all he could do was grin and cry and look at her.

[Mimi Pidders]

Dorothea had a good feeling about this particular jaunt. Ajax was at home caring for his siblings with the cobbler's wife ensuring the lot of them were fed with cabbage soup and turnip pasties. Not overly delicious food as what she'd cooked for them on Micronisi, when she hadn't had someone else do it, but not bad food, either. Filling, at least. Better than she'd had during a few lean years growing up.

The tavern seemed rather modest, but even after years in Radenor, she was thrilled to be allowed inside without any remarks about her reputation or the men inside thinking that she was necessarily for sale. The baseline level of respect was intoxicating now as it had been when she'd first met Fell back on Micronisi. It wasn't all perfect, and certainly there were more barriers here in the Four Kingdoms than she'd imagined when she'd been in her homeland, but the fact that she owned a business, earned wages, and was traveling on her own would be remarkable to her kin back on the island, and she did not tire of it. Besides, by all reports, there was a Teosan peddler who did business with the proprietor of this establishment, and there simply were not so many of those in Radenor. She had met a fair few already. Maybe this one would be her baba.

She felt triumphant the second she saw the man. He stood like her baba. She was sure it was him. She wasn't sure if the years had been kind to her father or if she was just happy to see him, but in the low light of the tavern he looked quite distinguished.

She did not pull out of the hug for quite some time. She had missed him, and had missed home. She'd taken her kids with her to Oxentide, of course, but it wasn't the same. She was responsible for their wellbeing. Whatever other faults she had as a mother, she did not unburden herself to Ajax or the rest of her brood. She'd already uprooted their lives and forced them to adapt to an entirely new life; the least she could do was keep her own struggles to herself.

"Baba," she said, trying not to sound like a child as she did so. "I'm so glad I've found you, at last! I've been looking for you for quite some time, you know."

[Andros]

Andros couldn’t stop smiling, even after he’d led Dorothea off to a quiet table. Nor did he let her hand go, almost as if he had to reassure himself this was actually happening. It reminded him of gripping her hand tightly as they walked down the cliff steps when she was a girl.

He rambled at first, a mile a minute, unable to collect his thoughts. He went on about his route, his goods, what he was doing out of his way in Vestria. When he was naming his current flock of sheep and starting to discuss the pros and cons of different local breeds, he finally reeled himself back in.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so excited I don’t know what to do with myself.”

He took a deep breath and calmed down, focusing on the woman in front of him. She looked older but as beautiful as he remembered. Healthy, and perhaps less careworn than when he left. Her face relaxed into a smile when it was neutral, like it did when she was a girl. And the stress lines on her face seemed less deep, somehow. Life was agreeing with her in a way it hadn’t at home.

She was no doubt looking him over and making her own deductions. Older, thinner, three day beard, lighter-skinned. And she’d notice his accent, which had become indistinguishable from that of the locals. He certainly noticed hers, with the longer vowels and gentler consonants of Teos. It was odd to speak differently from his own child. Regardless, Radenor was clearly agreeing with her.

And he had a good guess why. Here was Dorothea sitting at the bar, and Fell was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t be here unless he’d cleared his name. And even he had, she’d be free to divorce him on favorable terms under the laws of any of the kingdoms, or she could simply walk away and go about freely. As perhaps she had.

Dorothea, more than any of his daughters, would enjoy that freedom. In another life, Andros would have been horrified to see his daughter in bar, let alone unaccompanied by her husband. But he knew having that freedom would make her happy. And he knew Radenor well enough to know it was both safe and honorable for her to do so. It was a good thing.

Andros wanted to ask where Fell and the children were. It was the obvious question. But it put a pit in his stomach. When he left they hadn’t been speaking because she had attempted to abandon her family. Had she actually done it now? To ask after them was to bring them right back to that fight. He wouldn't ruin this wonderful moment that way. So he went about it delicately.”

“First tell me how the family is doing. Your sisters and all the grandchildren, and Fell of course. I want to know everything I’ve missed. Then tell me what on earth you’re doing here in Radenor.”

It still didn’t sit right with him. Dorothea was too smart not to understand what he was getting at,. She would probably take it as an accusation. So he put his cards on the table.

“You have no idea how good it is to see family again. Now that you’re here, I hope you’re planning to stay. No matter what brought you all this distance, I’m so happy you’ve come.”

[Mimi Pidders]

If there had been any doubt that this was her baba, it was dispelled rather immediately from the sheer volume and enthusiasm of the words that poured out of him like a vase that never emptied. Dorothea remembered being annoyed by it on the island, but perhaps that had been because he was so frequently telling her what she could not do: leave the island, go to school, learn tactics or negotiation or haggling with the boys. Instead, she was told to go out into the fields, assist with supper, and spin, spin, spin. The thought of picking up a distaff to this day made her want to scream.

Now, he was treating her like something other than a peon and a burden. It made her heart feel full, and unexpectedly, she found tears welling up. She didn't let them spill, though, lest their presence make her father think her hysterical and go back to being to trying to govern her instead of talk to her like an equal, or something approaching it.

She stiffened a bit when he mentioned family, wary that this discussion was going to come back to how it had last ended between them before he'd left the island. Still, it was a reasonable question.

"Baba, I came to Northradica with the kids. Ajax, Harald, and Espasia, who you remember, I'm sure, and Erik, who will be new to you. Ajax is caring for them right now. Whenever I get a lead of a peddler from Teos or a tradesman from Teos or a vendor from Teos, I go to track him down. I've been looking for you for almost two years, now, or trying to. When I'm not doing that, I have a food cart in Oxentide. I sell loukoumades with honey from home when I can manage to get my hands on it and local jam, otherwise. It's not a lucrative business, but I make enough to keep the kids warm and fed. Ajax has been apprenticed to a cobbler, and the family is very good to ours. The wife is even cooking for the kids while I'm out here looking for you."

All of this came out in a defensive rush. She knew that her father thought her a negligent, unkind mother, and she wanted him to know that her kids weren't languishing in a gutter somewhere while she gallivanted about.

Her voice thickened when she began speaking about her husband. "Baba, as for Fell... he's dead. He was bathing late at night," and piss drunk, but she didn't need to say that part, both out of respect for the dead and because Andros was likely to infer that anyhow, "and he must have been taken by a current or something. All of his clothes were found by the seaside, but there was no trace of him. He'd even taken his signet ring off, and you know how much he loved that thing. He'd never be willingly parted with it; he put it back on the instant the magistrate that came looking for him left the island."

She made no mention of the rest of the story. The people in this tavern could be sympathetic to the Watch. Mentioning that she had married an iconoclast was not a crime to the best of her knowledge, but she wasn't positive on that front. Inquiring about the laws surrounding such things made smiles turn to frowns and voices fall silent quite quickly, so she'd learned to stop asking and to just not bring it up at all. Some clarity on if she herself was guilty of some crime for marrying an iconoclast and bearing him children would be good to know. Did it matter that she had done so in another country, and not in the Four Kingdoms? Was the crime solely Fell's, or did she share blame? If she did, did their children? It was vexing, but she was no closer to an answer on such issues now than she had been when she arrived.

"So, with him gone, I was a widow," she continued. "And while I had my sisters and my children and so forth, I began to feel quite alone, nonetheless. I'll not pretend that Fell and I had a perfect marriage where we never quarreled, because it's not true and you know otherwise. But life on the island without him, well. It was just unbearable. It did not help that Antipater and my other brothers-in-law were very keen to give me advice on how to spend the money he'd left me," she said, the bitterness creeping in to her voice despite her best efforts to keep it at bay.

It hadn't been advice. They had come to her all but demanding that she hand the money over, and her wits had been the only thing that kept them at bay. If she hadn't left, though, they would have prevailed and likely squandered the fortune Fell had amassed for their family, leaving her right back where she started: poor and stuck at home.

"Thoughts of you and of my children decided my next move, Baba. I wanted my children to know the country of their father, and I wanted to find you. So we traveled to Evrotai, and then set sail for Oxentide. Once we arrived, I found us lodging, found work in a kitchen, and then opened my food cart. It's not a grandiose life, but it's a good one."

She realized she'd been talking rather a lot.

"I apologize for going on. What about you? How's business? And how come you came to this tavern, in particular?" She hoped that by taking the spotlight off of her, her father would continue to ramble on amiably and not ask too many sharp follow-up questions.

[Andros]

Andros read between every line, just as Dorothea had. They’d always been a match for one another there. It might be why they butted heads so much. He and Dorothea never had the warm, easy relationship he enjoyed with Irene, the baby and his obvious favorite (though he would deny it up and down). But they couldn’t get anything past one another either.

She was defending herself from accusations he had carefully avoided making without stating it out loud. Andros had no interest in re-litigating their lifetime of disagreements. He was, in some ways, a new man here. His experiences had made him much more sympathetic to her point of view. He had made female friends - more than one - and learned so much from them. He wasn’t the patriarch he had been, and he understood why she had fought him so hard as a girl. He wanted a fresh start with the woman who was his only family here. He put aside the hinting and spoke to her plainly.

“Doro, my baby,” he said, squeezing her hand, “I’m so sorry about Fell. You know he and I never saw eye to eye, and I know that things weren’t perfect for you two. But he gave you, I think, the best life you could have had on that island. You did well to choose him.”

That provoked a surprised look on Dorothea’s face, and he smiled at her.

“I’m in a new place, Doro. It’s changed me. It’s a shame Fell couldn’t have taken you here years ago. Radenor is a better home for a woman like you than Teos could ever be. I think you made the right decision to come, since the children are here with you.”

He patted her hand, his smile turning more somber. “And I’m touched that you put so much effort into finding me. We used to fight all the time, and then I left and we weren’t even speaking. That’s weighed on me heavily all these years. And now, you take to the road to find your old baba anyway. It’s…well it makes me very happy.”

He’d said what he had to say. Now, ready to end this part of the conversation, he sat back in his chair.

“As for me, business is steady. I travel from Guild Tower to Guild Tower and sell the mages the small luxuries they can afford. I know what Fell always said about the Guild but the mages are friendly and have nowhere else to spend their coin. My closest Norunn friend is a guild mage, incidentally. He and Fell would not have gotten along I think, but he’s a decent sort.”

He laughed to himself, imagining how that conversation would go. Fell might end up with a throwing star embedded in an unpleasant place while Hakon would certainly have been punished with a thorough lecture about freedom.”

“So, yes, I’ve built up some savings but not enough to send home. It’s slower than I’d hoped. As for this particular place, you caught me on a social call. I’m friends with the owner and wanted to meet his family. This is quite outside my usual route, though I’ve made a stop at the local tower to justify the excursion.”

He took a sip of ale, trying to picture the life Dorothea was leading here. He had so many more questions but he didn’t want to interrogate her.

“So, you’re a businesswoman now, too?” He smiled. “It’s in the blood, you can’t help it. Does it leave you time for study? I’m sure you know there’s a great university in Oxentide. I’m told not only does it admit women on equal terms but there are women professors. I thought of you when I learned of it. I think you could run rings around the local intellectuals.” He raised his eyebrows at her, teasing slightly. “If you could tear yourself away from the family tradition of making good deals I mean.”

[Mimi Pidders]

The Four Kingdoms had changed her Baba, and not in the ways she had necessarily expected. She had thought that she would find him a bit older but not fundamentally different, baffled by the attitude of the people here and more certain than ever that the way of life in the old country was the better path. Instead, he'd learned from the locals and he was extending a literal and figurative hand, not just to her here and now but to the woman she'd been back in Teos, to the girl who had given him more sass than any three of her other sisters put together. She held his hand and gave him a big broad smile, the kind he'd rarely seen after she had married Fell and the wedge between them grew bigger by the year.

She didn't blame him for that, not entirely. Fell had certainly played his part in ensuring that she was separated from the rest of the family, and though he'd never forbidden her from going back and dining with her sisters, their relative prosperity made it difficult to justify if there wasn't some reason or occasion for doing so. He also, to his credit, took meals with her and the children a few times per week instead of always eating with the men, something that she now understood was more customary here in Radenor but had at the time been seen as odd and even vaguely blasphemous. He had apparently argued his case to the villagers, one of the few times he'd ever bothered doing so, and challenged the naysayers to some kind of contest which he'd won quite handily to prove his point and get them to stop badmouthing him. Dorothea wasn't sure of the details; she'd heard it all second-hand from the mouths of her sisters who heard it from their husbands, because he'd refused to talk about it with her.

Thoughts of Fell vexed her, even now. He had not been a wholly bad husband but he had been very far from a wholly good one, either. She put him from her mind. She had reunited with her Baba, and that was enough for her for today.

"In truth, Baba, this food cart is just what I've been doing until I found you. I think what we should be doing is something more clever than simply preparing a local delicacy from home for the delight of Northradicans, or the art of buying low and selling high. I think that we should pool our money and go into business together importing fine goods from Teos and selling them to the locals here. I don't know that they would like everything from home, but surely there is no shortage of things like Teosian cloth, cheese, honey, olive oil, and wine that could do well in the market here. Have you ever tried to do such a thing? I'd welcome your thoughts on this."

She didn't talk about the university, though she wanted to. The closest she'd come to signing up for classes there was selling food on the campus. She wanted to do more but she was scared that her education was insufficient, that she wasn't smart enough. Aside from her insecurity, there was the very real challenges with money and time: she did not have enough of either to be pursuing her foolish dreams, not yet. But maybe, if they could get a business like this off the ground and she could handle imports, ordering, and the ledger, the kids could watch the store during the day and she could free herself to take a class or two.

[Andros]

“Wine, yes. I’ve long thought I could get rich selling real wine here if I could get my hands on it.” Andros was caught up in thought, speaking more to himself than to Dorothea. “I’m sure you made the mistake of trying the local swill too. Smells like dog piss and makes the stomach roil, doesn’t it?”

He looked up at her, smiling. “It took me years to hit on that idea so of course it probably occurred to you when you stepped off the boat. But the path is difficult. The overland route is out of the question. It is too mountainous and Daravin isn’t a safe place. We’d have to pay so much for transit that even the nobility would balk at the price. That leaves the sea route, and you know better than I how long that is.”

The business wheels in his head were turning. He had learned a thing or two in his years as a peddler and a wool seller. Dorothea was clever but she could study from the master here.

“So what we’d need is to send enough money back home for the family to purchase a supply and fit out a ship, then bring it back here. We’d need money for the wine and whatever wlsw we import, to pay the crew, then porters, storage space, security, and distribution here in Radenor. It’s a lot. I don’t know what you’ve saved but I have 500 df in the treasury at Oxentide. I’d estimate we’ll need 2000 df for this venture, at a minumum.”

He thought, scratching his stubble, then took a gamble.

“What about Fell’s people? Have you met them? They’re fantastically wealthy - maybe they invest with us”

Finally, concluding his musing, he put out another detail.

“We’ll need an agent, too. Someone to take the money to Evrotai and travel back with the supply. Could Ajax do it? He must be nearly twenty, yes?”

At first he had simply been talking, enjoying puzzling out a hypothetical problem. But the more he spoke the more he liked the idea. Peddling had been an enjoyable occupation, and profitable enough to give him a good life and some savings. But if he had family here he’s want to settle down in one place. If he could grow wealthy he could bring more of his progeny here, or help the Upper Village as he’d always intended. There was really something to this plan.

[Mimi Pidders]

She was surprised once again by the amount of thought her Baba had put into this plan. He had never been a stupid man, but as the Archon of the upper village he had not favored bold plans, and this plan was not short of boldness. It was that slow and steady approach that had gotten him ousted as Archon, actually, though she knew better than to bring that up. Fell hadn't voted against him out of respect for his Father-in-Law, but he had abstained from voting, which was as close as he could come to doing so, and the two had quarreled about that. Dorothea remembered those arguments all too well.

In any case, being on the road had changed him for the better in this way, too, and she found herself pleased by it.

"You have been ruminating on this, Baba!" She said with a wide smile. "I think this plan is well-reasoned. We would need to entrust someone from the family to be our buying agent at home, and we would need to charter a ship. It wouldn't make sense to have it be empty going back to Teos, so we should ship something to Evrotai from Oxentide that the locals would enjoy. Perhaps we could see if people in Teos enjoy mead as much as the Norunners do. I never developed a taste for it, myself, but Fell had quite the affinity for it. Perhaps some of our countrymen would, too. Failing that, we could ship back coke, coal, or lumber. There's no shortage of any of that in Oxentide, and the wood here is of much better quality than what we had in Teos."

"For a representative back home, I do not think we could do better than Antipater and Anthea. I taught her the use of a ledger so she could better record her purchases on market day, and Antipater is a capable negotiator."

"As for Ajax," she trailed off and shook her head in frustration. "The boy has inherited the worst of his father. He's lazy, impetuous, and unreliable. I wouldn't entrust such a big role to him if I were you, Baba. You can meet with him in Oxentide, though, and come to your own conclusion."

She knew she had a tendency to be hard on AJax, but as the eldest he was frankly a bit of a disappointment. Not as smart as she'd hoped her eldest son would be, and not as useful, dutiful, or responsible as an eldest daughter would have been. His predilections she had come to accept, though it had taken some time, but his selfishness reminded him of the worst parts of his father and embittered her to him.

[Andros]

Who could have imagined a son would be like his father? Andros thought, with a little bitterness. Fell had spoiled his children, in addition to passing on his negative qualities. He never made them work, but he did love them, honestly and deeply. That was just about the only thing Andros could find to respect about him.

Fell let his children do as they pleased while Andros often regrets being too hard on his girls, especially Dorothea. He should have nurtured her independence instead of trying to crush it. If she’d been a boy, he’d have moved heaven and earth to get her an education on the mainland. Perhaps if he’d done better by her when she was young, she’d have turned out as a better mother.

Dorothea’s words about Ajax, whom Andros knew as a very good-natured if slightly lazy boy, saddened him. He couldn’t imagine speaking about any of his daughters that way, even about the strong-willed third child who had caused him so much heartache. If the poor boy was now missing his father, Andros’ influence was perhaps needed - someone who could be a balance to his overly-critical mother.

But from experience, Andros knew never to say a word about how any of his girls raised their children unless he was asked. He hadn’t been so he said nothing. Instead, he changed the subject.

“It will be good to see Ajax again, and the others. I’ve missed all the grandchildren.” He laughed. “Erik was such a handful when I left, always keeping you and Fell on your toes. I can’t wait to see how they’re all turning out.”

Turning back to plans, he continued. “I agree that we ought to find something to ship back to Teos. Mead is an excellent idea, at least a small quantity as a test. And fine wood. There must be a big hole in the market for fine glassware and pottery, too, now that Fell is…no longer providing those items. That’s something, too. And if we could get our hands on any imports from Grisc, they would certainly cause a stir and fetch a high price in Evrotai.”

He scratched his stubble, considering.

“But that would mean even more money to get started, even if we only sent the cheapest goods. I could perhaps get us a loan from a bank in Oxentide. My reputation is good here and I’ve been extended credit before. But that’s not ideal, given the risks of losing everything if the ship goes down. Is there any chance the Oxenfrey’s could be persuaded to invest? It’s for the future of their grandchildren, after all.”

[Mimi Pidders]

One thing her Baba was if he was anything was persistent. Dorothea had tried to direct the conversation away from the influential family to which she was technically related by marriage and Ajax, Harald, Aspasia, and Erik were tied to by blood. He had the scent of a lead that could lead to money, though, and he was not about to let it rest until he got what he was after or was certain the door was slammed in his face.

"I tried, Baba. When I first got here, once I'd found a place to live and was able to make myself presentable, I called upon them. Three times, actually. The first time, I waited in the parlor for an afternoon but no one ever came to see me. The second time, I was told they were out of town. The third time I was turned away. I don't think they want to see me, Baba."

She looked around the tavern before leaning in and lowering her voice. "I'm not sure about the legality of all of this, either. You know what Fell was here. I don't know if I'm partially culpable for marrying him, or if the kids are just by being born, so I don't want to push it too far. They don't want to see me, or they don't believe my claim. That much is clear."

She leaned back and took a sip of her drink before returning her voice to its normal volume. "I would like them to meet their relatives, of course, but I can't force them to do anything, Baba. It didn't help that Ajax was supposed to accompany me on that first visit because he has his father's ring, but he didn't show up." She let out a long-suffering sigh. "That boy lives to vex me, I am certain."