From Man to Man Read online

  III.

  'Any coin's a coin.'

  The pouch jingled as Draven shook it. It jingled with the voice of well-earned congratulations, but the voice was a whisper in a large hall. Draven shook the pouch again and this time its jingle sounded more like a rattle. Hollow, more so than an empty promise. He weighed the earnings in one hand. Too much pouch, not enough coin. The purse slumped in defeat.

  'But is it enough coin?'

  Fisting the pouch deep into his trews' pocket – which hardly bulged – Draven bowed from Splitter's Cross, slinking back to Hearth village in the evening haze. Hunched and weary, he rested on the axe-haft with each left step, leaning on it like an old man and his walking stick.

  The other fellers sidled past without so much as a backwards glance. They counted their coins as if it were a king's ransom, boasting proudly of their jingling pouches. Paid by the tree, each and every one of them hard earned their coin, but none had felled as many as Draven. His pouch jingled the loudest, though the sum had him feel a pauper rather the prince.

  Draven reached the village ahead of sunset, though the day wore long in the summer's eve. The last of the children stopped their games in the road, and he felt their eyes upon him as he passed. Mothers pulled close the shutters and fathers called the young inside. When Draven reached the door of his home, he was the last on the dirt track road.

  The purse, though light in his pocket, lay heavy on his shoulders, heavier still on his heart. Settling the axe against the stone of the hut, Draven sank to the steps. Balling his bandana in a fist, he sat in silence, unable to face his home, his wife, his son, his life.

  The coins clattered to the wooden steps between his boots. He did not need to count them to know there was not enough.

  "Any coin's a coin." A familiar voice said from over him.

  Draven had not heard the man approach. "That it is, but this coin…" He trailed off.

  "No, it isn't enough." The man settled down beside him. "Same when I came to the village. I only had a wife then, my son was born after we'd been here two springs. Long enough to get used to village life."

  'Two years?' Draven's fingers toyed with the coins.

  "It'll get easier." The man leaned in and nudged him in the side.

  Draven took a deep breath through his nose, the smell of pine, dirt and wet fur lingering. "I-"

  "Heard the Blacksmith had a word with you, today," the man said, "two years would've gone a lot faster if I'd had the coin he was offering."

  Draven herded his meagre coin with hungry fingers, spending a meagre moment scooping it into the pouch. He wished that he had had more to spend further moments with. "Not interested."

  "Did you hear him out?"

  "Yes…no. Not fully. But, I'm retired. New life at home, new life at trade. Village work for a villager. That's what I am now."

  "But-"

  "No."

  "I'm doing the work…"

  That gave Draven pause. He faced the man between narrowed eyes.

  The man smiled at him with a honeyed smile. "…And I'm a villager."

  "You're the village Huntsman." Draven nodded to the sword at the man's hip and the bow in his hand. "Those are your tools – not weapons."

  "You've got tools yourself."

  "Of my old life." Draven's thoughts strayed to the chest and that which he had locked within.

  "And your new life." The Huntsman handed him his axe. "This is a tool, not a weapon."

  'Might not be a tool of my old trade but it's got a blade all the same.' Draven's earlier words haunted him.

  The Huntsman smiled wider, wide enough to reach his eyes. "It'll earn you more coin than felling too."

  'Any coin's a coin.'

  Draven turned for the door, then turned back. If the Huntsman could have smiled wider, Draven wagered that he would have. He frowned at him.

  "How much?"