BagsNPockets

[joegoda]

The door opened into a large, expansive room, filled with thick wooden furniture, rough hewn from solid logs.

Harv stood at the door, behind Grizelda and Bags, allowing them a bit of privacy of thought to take in what the house contained.

There was a table carved from one half of a tree trunk, at least five feet wide and twelve feet long, which occupied one entire side of the room to the right of the doorway. It had matching high back chairs, created from branches, limbs, planks of wood, all brown and yellow grain, pushed in, waiting for people to take their seat. This must be the dining area.

To the left of the door, there was a long stairway, also carved, it seemed, from a single curving branch, cut in half. The treads were single logs, chopped in half. It curved up and away to the second story, and coming to rest at the smaller third floor.

Under and past the stairway to the left, the single room of the first level moved out and away to dissolve into two hallways. The walls of each hall contained portraits of men, women and pictures of plants and flowers. The hallways went their own way, off into other parts of the house.

The wall directly across from the door, across a span of thirty or forty feet, was a wall of glass, rising up to meet the second story, and if eyes could be trusted, continuing up to the second and the third. Through the glass could be seen large cook stoves, another enormous table with it's own chairs. Shelves were arranged out on this cook area to hold the stuff for preparing breakfasts, lunches and dinners. The entire area was shaded from the sun by a large compliment of awnings, which appeared to be able to be rolled back to let in the sun.

And in the middle of the main room stood the tree. It's trunk was easily nine feet across, which gave either an incredible dimension to the size of the room, or gave the trunk a dwarfed appearance making is seem thinner than it really was.

"Oh my." whispered Grizelda. "This is amazing"

"Yes! Isn't it!" came a voice from the second floor. A man appeared at the stairway, and seemed to be drifting down, gently, like a leaf, over the stair treads.

He was a thin man, about six foot tall, balding, with a large forehead and large brown-gray eyes. His hands were long and thin, as well, and his knuckles were bulbous, like walnuts on strings. He carried on his face a large and friendly smile framed by generous full lips, and which hovered below a nose not small, but regal in aspect and bulged slightly on the end.

He wore a robe of satiny reds and blacks, tied at the waist with a single rope. He carried in his hands a horn of some sort, which curved in a spiral and ended in a large bell up and above his head. It had three valves, obviously to modify the sound, and a mouth piece to blow into. One of his hands was fingering the valves, playing invisible music as he floated down the stairs.

When he reached the bottom, he placed the horn, bell down, on a solid wood stand, obviously carved specifically for this purpose. Once this was done, he crossed to the three at the door, arms spread, robe flowing out to the sides.

"Hullo, hullo, hullo!" He exclaimed. He reached out one of his hands and clasped Bags' hand in his own. "Welcome to my house. You might know, or not, depending on how much Harv told you, that I'm Jorge One, or just Jorge. At one time I probably had a last name, but it's been so long that I've been called Jorge One, that I've pretty much forgotten what ever it was. Come and sit on the patio with me." He turned from the door and flitted across the room towards the glass doors at the other end. He had just passed the forward edge of the tree trunk when he turned and waved expansively. "Well? Come on!"

Harv, smiling like a devil's imp, said "You heard the man. We mustn't keep him waiting." and taking off his helm, he led the other two across the room.

Bags turned to Grizelda and whispered out the side of his mouth. "This should be interesting, to say the least."

"This is an incredible place, Bags. Gods above, do you see the tapestries? Do you see those sculptures? Where do you think he got all of them?"

"I bet if we ask, he'll tell us the whole story." Bags said with a smirk. "He strikes me as a man that isn't going to hold much back, good or bad. Straight shooter, if you ask me. Something we don't run into much."

"You can tell that already?" Grizelda asked.

"Sure." said Bags. "Look how he moves, look how ready he was to welcome us into his house. He knew we were coming and had no fear about him at all. He carried himself as if nothing could stop him, and I suspect he's right. Always believed there was nothing more powerful than an honest man, just never saw one before. Course, there's nothing less trustworthy, either."

"Isn't that two opposing ideas?" asked Grizelda.

"Nope. An honest man will fool you every time. He'll appear to be one thing, and suddenly become something else."

With Harv bringing up the rear, grinning like a mad monk, the three crossed under the canopy of the tree in the house. Looking up, they could see there was no roof, exactly, just the sun pouring down, speckled, through the leaves. They could see parts clouds drifting high above in the blue sky.

"What happens when it rains?" Bags asked.

"We just toss a tarp over the top. Or, that's what we think we'll do. Don't know, really." Harv scratched his head. "We've never had to deal with it, before."

"It's never rained here?" asked Grizelda.

The great glass door to the patio was open and Jorge One replied. "Never is a very long time. For that matter, it's probably so long we might not find the end of it. Let's just say that it hasn't rained in at least thirty years. Come on out, pull up a chair. Let's chat a bit."

Outside was not as grand as the inside, but it was still pretty grand, all in all. The awnings were red and white and green and bits of yellow. The sun rained down on the awnings and spread like water across the patio, coloring all it covered. Jorge sat under a yellow stripe, spread out with his feet propped on a chair, eating a carrot he had plucked from a bowl.

"Sit, sit, sit." he said. "Have a carrot if you'd like. Or a radish. Or some lettuce. I grow it all here, myself."

Bags and Grizelda sat at the table on the edges of two of the massive chairs. Harv stood by the door.

"Pop, is it all right if I dress down a bit." Harv said. "This armor is pretty hot today."

"Sure, son." Jorge said. "Just hurry back down. I'm going to need you to test this youngster. See what he's made of."

Bags and Grizelda's mouth stood open.

"Yes, Harv is my son. Legitimate ruler of Tears, except he doesn't want to be. Aw well.. someone will come along who will want the job, or at least is worthy of it."

"Um. Okay. Doesn't he just sort of inherit the job when you're... uh.. dead?" Bags asked.

"Doesn't work that way, at least not with me. In my head, what good is a job if you don't enjoy doing it? What good is life if you don't enjoy doing it. My motto is 'If it ain't fun, why do it?'. So no, unless Harv really wants this job, he doesn't have to have it. He's qualified, of course. I'm very proud of my son. Got a good head on his shoulders. Can't play a horn worth a shit, but a good kid, all in all."

"Makes sense, I reckon." Bags answered. "But what if nobody comes along?"

"Good question, but one that is totally defeatist in thought. What if nobody comes along? Son, everybody eventually comes along, so that means that somebody will. It's simple arithmetic. Simple statistics." Jorge munched a carrot, letting that thought linger in the air.

"Now then," he said. "You know my name is Jorge, you know I'm the king of this place, and I know you're Bags and Grizelda. I know you're at space 27 in the thoroughfare of vendors. I know that you, Grizelda, are set up as a fortune teller. You were warned that they tend to kill real fortune tellers here, I imagine?"

Grizelda coughed gently and said "Yes, your majesty. I did hear something about that."

"Please.. just call me Jorge." said the King. "That rule is something that was set up by the fortune tellers themselves. I mean, who am I to judge who is telling a real fortune or who is telling a fake one?"

"You're the king, so why wouldn't you judge?", asked Bags.

"Too much work. I don't set here in judgment. Well... rarely, anyway. Only if I have to, but by then the judgment is already in the eye of the guilty... or the innocent. I suppose that Harv told you about the wall?"

"Yeah, I told 'em". Harv was standing at the door, dressed in a simple tunic, suntanned arms crossed over his chest, hair flowing all around his face. "They were duly impressed, I think."

"Harv! About time you showed up. I was starting to bore myself telling stories and such. Bags, Harv is pretty much the best swordsman we have. He doesn't want the job of Weapons Master either, which would mean that he has to be in charge of the other 4 men that guard this place. I suspect that he would rather just run around looking important."

"Pops, it's not that." Harv defended, "I just think I need to spend my youth being young. You know. Having fun, making out, getting drunk. That sort of thing."

Jorge just shook his head, chewing another carrot. "Kids these days. What are you going to do with them? Bags, there's a practice area out back a little further. Why don't you and Harv go back there and play a bit, so Harv can come back and let me know if I ought to hire you or not? I'll entertain Grizelda with stories of my evil youth, my marriages, show her around. I think she liked my tapestries."

Harv crossed the patio and stood where the stones of the patio met the sand of the backyard. "Come on, Bags. She's safe with dad. The worst she'll do is fall asleep, and the most she'll do is laugh till she pees her pants." He disappeared into the sun.

Bags stood, stretched, and looked at Grizelda, who said "Go on. Make me proud. Just don't get beat up to much. I'll be fine, I think."

"Go on, Bags. She'll be okee doke, I promise." said the king, casually snatching a bit of broccoli.

"All right." He bent, kissed Grizelda, then followed the direction Harv went and stopped just before leaving the shade and turned. "You call me if you need me, okay?" Grizelda waved him off by blowing him a kiss.

"You two certainly love each other, don't you?" Jorge said. "He's very protective of you, that's for sure." Grizelda didn't answer, but blushed a bit. "He'll ask, someday. I think he just needs to feel he can give you a life you'll be proud of."

"Ask what?" Grizelda asked, trying to cover her embarrassment.

"Hmph. So coy. I'm too old for games." Jorge got up and crossed to the door. "Well, you want to take the grand tour or not?"

Grizelda got up and said "You don't have to ask me twice, Jorge!"

Jorge linked his arm in hers and said, "I think we're gonna be good friends, Griz. I like you already, and I like Bags already. You're good folks. Now..." he guided her through the glass door. "let's talk about your other friend. Pockets, I think his name is. I think he may be in a bit of trouble."