Story for the Day: Classic Rautu

While there are many things around the keep that have changed over the years-- the amount of children running about, the number of captains and commanders marching through the barracks, the amount of cake that is eaten in the larder-- there is one thing that always remains the same:

Classic Rautu

Boudicca quitted the tailory, walking

away from the kitchen, where Alasdair was still sat with Searle talking over the day’s business, and toward the courtyard, to avoid being noticed by anyone who might question her about why Pastaddams had asked her into his office. Through the gallery and thence toward the garrison she went, and after nodding a good morning to everyone in the barracks, she marched into the training yard, where Rautu was currently training, standing astride two quintains and attacking both sides with his sword at the same time, the cerns standing a little farther off, watching the giant wield an enormous slab of steel without any apparent effort. Boudicca approached, and Rautu stood back from the quintains, pleased with the damage they had withstood.

                “These are excellent,” said Rautu decidedly. “The blacksmith has made them well. They will last until the end of this season.”

                “We would have them for a year, if you would stop abusing them. If only the cerns were allowed to have their turn.”

                “Hmph.”

                She neared, and there was an arch glint in her eye. “I have a job for the Den Asaan.”

                Rautu was all attention, his scouting powers awake and active.

                “You need to steal something that belongs to a certain king, you are not to be seen, and you are to tell no one you’re doing it. I expect Vyrdin and Teague will know, of course—they know everything that goes on in the keep—but they will let you go about your business. Your thievery is a matter of birthday business.”

                A grin wreathed the giant’s lips, and his grins grew still wider as the prospect of the imminent surprise, one which he knew Alasdair was disposed to hate on principle and love in theory.

                “Scoaliegh comes with the box containing the books early tomorrow morning, at Carrigh’s arrangement. You are to get it, by whatever means—the usual Den Asaan methods should do it. You can even try to slip into the kitchen, past Martje’s great bell system she put around the birthday cake in the larder.”         

                “I have already done this,” said Rautu defiantly.

                “Without Martje knowing? How? And perhaps she knew you would do it and meant to poison you again.”         

                “She cannot poison me,” he sniffed. “She has already tried and failed. Twice.”

                “And one day, she will succeed, Iimon Ghaala, and when you are writhing in intestinal agony, she will be dancing around your sickbed in high glee.” Boudicca eyed the giant’s kansa. “What did you get out of this venture?”

                He produced a large slab of wrapped chocolate from his pocket. “Lucentian dark with orange blossom.”

                “You look shamefully unimpressed,” Boudicca laughed.

                “I am.“

                “It has those brittle rice crisps inside, doesn’t it?”

                “It does.”

                “I am going to be eating most of this, then.”

                “If you wish.”

                “Amazing that you should submit to eat fruit infused chocolate but not rice crisps.”

                “They do not taste like anything, woman,” he asserted. “They have no purpose.”

                “They give added texture, enough to beset you into confectionary starvation.”

                Rautu grunted and returned the chocolate to his ration pocket, and Boudicca could not but laugh.

                 “Dried rice: another horror story in the long litany of offensive things that do not belong in chocolate.”

                 The giant snuffed and took up his sword once more, and Boudicca added, “And do not kill Scoaleigh Norrington, please. We need him to remain alive and useful for as long as possible. A painless retrieval of his goods is all we want,” before walking back to the barracks.

                A retrieval would be done, though Rautu made no promise of its being painless. He attacked the quintain a few moments more, and when his mate was out of sight, he put his sword away and hastened toward the gatehouse, where a survey of the watch succeeded his initial investigation. He might incur some odd looks from Gaumhin for skulking about the front gate when he ought to be beating the cerns, but anyone who saw the giant mounting a hook and rope to the portcullis pretended as though they saw absolutely nothing at all; it was either being done for a training exercise, or Rautu was merely acting like himself, setting traps and making a round of the grounds, and while Vyrdin and Gaumhin and even Bryeison could see him from the arena, they passed it off as Rautu’s way. Giants hardly ever climb walls without meaning to defend them, and the Den Asaan was no different, as ardent to secure what was within the keep as he was to secure what was coming from without.