Interlude 3

Pukam of the Village of Joshlum

In the span of just three months, Pukam had traversed more of the world than he had ever dreamed of seeing in a lifetime. It was a desperate flight for survival. He had fled Nile when the Turabe forces began systematically removing people's heads for blasphemy. The history of his progenitors was full of stories of the Turabe and their treacherous patterns—of how they would promise greater freedoms to conquered peoples, only for the true price to be revealed later: mandatory conversion to their God. 

Walking the dusty roads, Pukam had often wondered over the last three months what his grandfather would say if he knew the Turabe had once again forced their family to abandon everything and flee into the unknown.

They were not alone in their exile. The entire community of Joshlum had made the collective, agonizing choice to flee. Their ancestry stretched back to Copis, south of the Spine—a proud, kingdom that had long since been swallowed whole by the expansion of the Turabe. To escape that initial oppression, their ancestors had migrated to Nile. But peace lasted only a few generations. Not enough time for the children's children to forget. Driven from Nile, their current exodus took them through Yector and up into the Duchy of Githum.

In Githum, the air itself felt heavy with animosity. Pukam could sense the hostility of the locals, and in his heart, he understood it. The people of Githum were loyal subjects of Falmore, and Nile’s political betrayal had left them weary of southerners. To the locals, Pukam's people looked like the enemy.

And so, they kept moving, pressing further north into the Duchy of Kimton. It was there that tragedy truly struck. A merciless disease swept through their ranks, ruthlessly reducing their numbers to a little over six hundred souls. Pukam’s own heart was crushed when the fever claimed his wife and eldest son, leaving him and his three daughters to lay them to rest in foreign soil.

Everywhere the survivors marched, suspicion followed them like a shadow. While a few communities showed a small amount of kindness, offering a place to camp or being willing to trade the possessions of the refugees for food, the underlying message was always the same: Do not stay here. They attempted to negotiate with a few local barons for land, but their slightly darker skin, coupled with the unique shape and deep color of their eyes, instantly betrayed them as foreigners from the south. In the current political climate, no northern noble wanted the burden or the suspicion of associating with southern refugees.

Left with no other choice, they continued their northward trek. As a trader, Pukam had brought all of his accumulated wealth and fine goods with him, intending to use them to start anew. Slowly, however, he was depleting his precious stocks, and his coin was being continuously drained to help support the starving, weary community. Recognizing their desperate straits, the village council—of which Pukam was a member—resolved to push to the absolute limits of the north, clinging to the desperate hope that they might find a stretch of wilderness unclaimed by any lord.

Their battered company finally crawled to the edge of the walled town of Vaspar a week ago, bedraggled, hollow-eyed, and thoroughly exhausted from their endless, punishing march. To their relief, the citizens of Vaspar seemed far more welcoming; as a bustling port city, its docks were already a melting pot of people and cultures. However, the land was entirely unsuitable for a displaced farming community of their size. Too many people already crowded the county. It was during Pukam's desperate search for information among the taverns and markets that he overheard rumors of a grand fair being held in a neighboring county—a place rumored to possess an abundance of fertile land and a booming economy where desperate people were actively migrating.

Clinging to this new lifeline, the council decided to dispatch Pukam and a few other seasoned merchants to the fair. Their mission was twofold: to sell the last of their southern wares and to investigate the possibility of securing vassalage at whatever cost. Pukam harbored no illusions; he knew this fair sat at the very edge of the civilized world, and he fully expected that he would not receive the true value for his goods from isolated provincials. But pride mattered little now. They simply needed enough coin to buy food for the rapidly approaching winter and survive until the next planting season.

The fair, however, caught him completely by surprise.

Instead of the muddy, chaotic harvest festivals he had witnessed throughout his life, this gathering was a marvel—a miniature, highly organized version of what one would expect to see in a major city. Actually better than even those.

The first thing that struck Pukam was the immaculate cleanliness of the town hosting the event. There were wide, paved streets that were diligently kept entirely clear of filth and debris. Outside of the Town of Plimgus, where the fair was being held, designated, orderly plots had been laid out for the stalls, lined up neatly along wide thoroughfares that could comfortably accommodate the heavy flow of passing traffic without bottlenecks.

Furthermore, men wearing crisp, grey uniforms were posted everywhere. They moved through the crowds with a vigilant, professional focus, striving to make sure strict order was kept. At first, Pukam’s stomach tightened with familiar anxiety; in his experience, men in military or official uniforms usually meant that bribes would be extorted if a merchant wanted to keep his stall and goods safe. Especially if you weren't local. Yet, as he watched, that did not seem to be the case here at all. He felt a strange sense of security as he posted his official merchant certificate on his temporary stall, alongside a unique registration card made entirely of paper.

Paper was a luxury Pukam hadn't even been aware existed until his recent arrival in the city of Kimton. There, it was treated as a rare novelty. In Vaspar, a valued commodity, but here in North Cove, it was everywhere. It was as common and casually utilized as papyrus was on the southern continent. Indeed, in this remarkable northern haven, paper was even more abundant, serving as a quiet testament to the strange, advanced world they had stumbled into.

Fortunately, Pukam's deep-seated worries about being forced to liquidate his remaining stock at a catastrophic loss proved entirely unfounded. His inventory consisted primarily of fine bronze implements and works of art. Because bronze was far less expensive to acquire near the Spine—where a vast, natural abundance of tin could be readily mined—he had tentatively marked each partner piece at a premium, blracing himself for harsh resistance. To his utter astonishment, the people of North Cove met him with almost perfectly reasonable offers. What he had anticipated would be a grueling battle of wits to wring the final penny from stingy, isolated provincials who were too poor to pay a decent price turned instead into an incredibly straightforward trade. More often than not, he received the exact fair price he would have expected from a premier market in a major city.

He had also brought ceramics crafted by his Brother-in-Law. They were master works sold mainly in the large cities of the South. They were a far more unique and luxurious commodity, one that usually only the local nobility or a handful of wealthy merchants could ever hope to afford. Pukam was entirely blindsided when his most exquisite, high-priced piece was purchased by a blacksmith’s wife. The smith himself, a man named Jorb, was an intensely intimidating figure. Yet, the hulking artisan completely bent under the pressure applied by his pleading wife. The man attempted a brief haggle, but in the end, he begrudgingly relented, handing over a massive pile of coins without any further grumbling.

Everything about this surreal territory of North Cove defied the natural order of the world. He observed impeccably dressed peasants, encountered ingenious, unprecedented inventions, and bore witness to utterly bizarre community competitions. He had even purchased an entire Newspaper for the mere cost of a single copper crown. It felt ridiculous—three full, crisp sheets of paper completely covered in neat, perfectly aligned words. He had overheard onlookers murmuring that the text was stamped onto the sheets by machines, but the mechanical wizardry required to achieve such a feat remained a complete mystery to him. The raw manufacturing cost of this paper must have been exponentially less expensive than he had previously calculated. Pering over the pages, he learned of current events unfolding across the county, such as a new saw mill being built and the village of Three Rivers becoming an official part of the Barony of Plimgus. He read formal interviews granted by the local nobility, and even found a meticulous schedule of events for the fair itself. An entry for something called a "Bicycle race" immediately caught his eye. For the first time in months, pure curiosity overcame his desperate drive to make money; he closed up his shop for an hour, left his daughters to watch the stall, and hurried off to witness the spectacle.

When Pukam finally laid eyes on a bicycle, his mouth dropped open in sheer disbelief. The contraption featured one massive, iron-spoked wheel in the front, balanced by a small wheel trailing behind it. The riders were somehow able to maintain the perfect balance of an acrobat while perched precariously on top of it when their legs began to pump mechanical pedals, driving the strange vehicle forward at a speed that utterly defied logic. The victor of the race accelerated to a frantic pace he had only ever seen achieved by a galloping horse. Spellbound but mindful of his family, he hurried back to the stall as quickly as possible just so his daughters could take turns watching the subsequent races.

They did not return straight back after the event concluded, however. As the midday hours bled into the early afternoon, Pukam’s anxiety began to mount once more. When he finally spotted them racing through the crowded fairgrounds toward him, a heavy sigh of relief escaped his chest. Their excitement, however, was so overwhelming that he couldn't comprehend a single word they were saying, as all of them were shouting and talking over each other in a frantic blur. After taking a moment to calm them down, he pointedly gave his eldest daughter, Joplee, permission to speak first.

“Father, the bike race was amazing.”

Pukam raised an eyebrow. “Bike?”

“It is what most people are calling the bicycles.”

“I want to come next year,” his youngest said. “I am going to win the spelling bee,” she said in a defiant tone.

“Spelling bee.”

Joplee took over the explanation again. “It is a competition where people stand up and have to spell words. They give a word, the definition, and how it is used in a sentence. The participants keep getting more and more complex words until only one is left. The child who won got a medallion made of copper and a silver crown as a reward.”

“So it is a competition among noble children. An incentive to keep up with their studies.” Pukam nodded to himself, thinking it was a genuinely brilliant educational initiative for ruling families.

“No, father, it wasn’t for noble children; it was for anyone, adults too. One of the people was a fuller. The boy who won had no surname. Just a peasant. Helm of the village of Bicman.”

“Are you saying a peasant boy was spelling better than noble children and adults? How can that be.”

His middle daughter, Ouna, spoke up next. “I was asking that question to people afterward. Nobody wanted to talk to me. Well, there was one girl who did. She said they all have to go to school?”

“What is school?”

“It is a place where anyone can go to learn. Children over the age of six are required to go to school eight days each week. They learn to read, write, do their numbers, and noble etiquette.”

Pukam tried to wrap his head around the staggering concept, but nothing seemed to fit. He simply could not fathom a world where nobility was forced to share the gift of knowledge with peasants.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, a flash of movement drew his focus. A man lunged forward, grabbed a valuable southern ceramic pitcher straight off the display stand, and spun on his heel to sprint into the crowd. Pukam shouted after the thief, a wave of bitter frustration crashing over him. He was furious with himself for letting his guard down; the sheer, overwhelming novelty of this bizarre fair had lulled him into a dangerous lack of vigilance. Watching the escaping figure weave through the thoroughfare, Pukam’s heart sank as he mentally calculated the financial loss. He knew how much food that the piece could buy.

However, his eyes quickly locked onto a large detachment of uniform-clad soldiers stationed further down the path. The thief was sprinting blindly toward them, aggressively shouting for the bustling crowd to get out of his way. Ahead of the runner, a large man dressed in the opulent, commanding style of the northern nobility stepped protectively in front of a petite young lady. The noble's hand moved instantly toward his waist, about to draw his own sword to intercept the criminal, when a soldier in the distinctive uniform of a city guard lunged forward. With ruthless efficiency, the guard ran the thief clean through.

The stolen pitcher slipped from the dying man's grip, clanking hard against a jagged stone on the dirt path before shattering into a dozen useless shards. Pukam let out a heavy, defeated sigh, mourning the lost coin as a dense crowd began to form around the body while more faint-hearted onlookers scattered in a panic. The disciplined soldiers moved swiftly, using commanding voices to restore order to the marketplace, and within moments, the path ahead became too congested with onlookers for Pukam to see anything else. Beside him, his daughters began to frantically stammer out tearful apologies for distracting him, but he gently waved them off with a weary hand. There was nothing to be done about it now; the piece was gone.

Not long after the chaos subsided, a guard detached himself from the crowd and approached Pukam's stall. The man immediately began asking clear, concise questions, meticulously writing down the relevant details of the incident on a crisp sheet of paper clamped firmly to a wooden board. Pukam braced himself, but the man didn't act with the typical, aggressive bullying he expected from law enforcement; he wasn't trying to extort bribes or force a false confession. It felt remarkably professional, as if the guard were genuinely just trying to get to the absolute bottom of the situation.

Suddenly, a suffocating silence washed over the immediate area as the ambient market noise ground to a halt. Both Pukam and the guard snapped their heads up to see who had approached. Standing directly before his humble stall was the very same noble who had stepped in front of the young lady during the theft. Now that the rush of emotions had cleared from Pukam's mind, his eyes locked onto a singular, terrifying detail: a finely woven red scarf. It was the count himself.

Instinct took over. Pukam and his daughters immediately dropped to their knees, pressing themselves toward the earth—a submissive habit that had been brutally beaten into every single r efugee from Copis since early childhood.

“Good man, how am I supposed to do business with you if you're hiding underneath your stall?” The count said in a cheerful voice.

“Lord Amos, that’s mean,” came a young woman's voice. “You can see he is a foreigner and you are a count.”

The count let out one last laugh. “You are right, Emily. My apologies, good man. Please rise. No need to kneel when a bow will do.”

As soon as Pukam unsteadily rose back to his feet, trying to steady his trembling hands, Count Bicman spoke. “May I have your name?”

“Forgive me, my lord. My name is Pukam.”

“Excellent. Now, as Dame Paper said, you are a foreigner. Where are you from?”

Pukam’s blood ran cold. This was, without question, the absolute worst possible outcome. If he spoke the truth—that his displaced family hailed from a southern vassal kingdom that had recently betrayed Falmore—he could be instantly banished into the unforgiving wilderness, or worse, accused of being an enemy spy and executed on the spot. Yet, if he attempted to fabricate a lie and the deception was uncovered, his entire family would undoubtedly pay the ultimate price. Caught in a vise of pure terror, he chose the truth that might grant his children mercy.

“We are refugees from Nile, my lord.”

Pukam physically cringed the moment the words left his mouth. Behind the noble, a few onlookers in the gathering crowd began to mutter darkly, exchanging hostile glances and pointedly taking a step away from the stall. The count, however, merely looked confused.

“I hope you do not find this rude, but do many of the people in Nile look like you?”

The young dame immediately nudged the count sharply in the side. Apparently, she found the blunt inquiry entirely rude, her face tightening with a brief flash of reprimand for her high-born companion.

“No my lord, my ancestors came from the Kingdom of Copis. They fled when the Turabe took the kingdom. We refused to submit to their god.” Pukam said proudly, the ancient resilience of his people flaring up in his chest before he suddenly froze, a terrible realization crashing over him.

A cold dread gripped his throat as his face went pale. In his reflexive burst of pride, his mind had entirely overlooked a critical, dangerous reality: although the Falmorens held a vastly different sect and view of the Endless One, both they and the conquering Turabe ultimately worshiped the exact same deity. By declaring his refusal to submit to the Turabe's god, he had unwittingly risked sounding as though he blasphemed against the very god the count himself served.

But instead of the expected flashes of aristocratic disdain or religious outrage, a look of genuine, academic curiosity crossed the count's face. The ruler seemed fascinated by the distinction, leaning forward slightly. Sensing the shift in focus, a stoic soldier standing immediately next to the count gave a quiet, subtle cough. The pointed reminder clearly did its job; the count's expression shifted, pulling him out of his internal musings.

“I wish we had more time to talk, but they have me on a tight schedule. I am sorry about your lost goods. You have very fine ceramics. The glaze is done extremely well. It looks like a water-based underglaze. If you have not tried an overglaze, we should get together and try to come up with something. That would be interesting.” The lord caught himself mid-sentence, shaking his head with a self-deprecating smile. “I am off track again. Emily, hurry up and pick something. We have a football game to get to.”

This sudden declaration entirely stunned the young lady, her eyes widening in surprise as she gestured toward the array of fine pottery. “You want me to pick something?”

“I owe you a gift, and I fear that if we wait until after the game, the best stuff will be taken.”

Accepting the offer, she turned her full attention back to the display, her eyes methodically scanning the wooden table. After a moment of careful deliberation, her fingers gently brushed against and picked out a green vase, beautifully adorned with an intricate, swirling brown pattern winding around its smooth curves.

“How much for this one?” She asked, turning her gaze toward the trader.

“I…I would like to give it as a gift for your consideration and kindness.” Pukam said quickly, the words tumbling out in a frantic bid to curry favor and guarantee the safety of his family in this strange, unpredictable territory. However, before the young lady could respond, the count firmly interjected.

“That will not do. You have already lost one piece of art, and I will not take food off your table. Please give me a fair price.”

The complete oddity of the statement threw Pukamm off. To hear a powerful lord speak of a peasant’s welfare with such fierce, protective dignity was a concept so alien to his life experience that his trader instincts temporarily misfired. Caught completely off balance, he instinctively blurted out the high, heavily marked-up starting price he would normally use to begin a long, arduous haggle.

Realizing his massive blunder a second too late, Pukam's heart leaped into his throat. He almost began to frantically apologize, opening his mouth to swiftly lower the exorbitant number before the noble could take offense, when the stern soldier standing next to the lord casually tossed a heavy, clinking leather pouch directly onto the table.

“It was a pleasure meeting you, Pukam. I hope you find your visit profitable.” He turned to leave, but then Dame Paper spoke up.

“Good man Pukam. Might I ask a favor of you?”

Pukam's head felt as if it were about to pop from the sheer, staggering ridiculousness of the entire situation. Before today, he had never even stood in the presence of a true nobleman. On their long, grueling march, the petty stewards and low-ranking bureaucrats they encountered wouldn’t even deign to look at his people when they begged for an audience—and now, here he was, actively speaking with a ruling count and a high-born lady. It defied everything he knew about the world. In the south, nobles did not ask for favors; they simply took whatever they wanted by right of blood.

“Of-Of course, what do you desire?” Pukam stammered, his mind spinning as he tried to maintain his composure.

The young woman’s vivid, caramel-colored eyes lit up with genuine delight as she turned her attention toward Joplee. “May I borrow your daughter for the afternoon. We are going to a football game, and Lord Bicman becomes quite a boring conversationalist when a match starts. I would love some company.”

The count's brow furrowed in playful annoyance. “It is not my fault that you have no appreciation for the game. You are the one who refuses to discuss what is happening right in front of you.”

Dame Paper merely snorted at the defense, completely unbothered by the ruler's grumbling. She turned her expectant gaze back toward Pukam, and the sudden weight of her attention snapped him back to reality. Remembering that she had asked him a direct question, he quickly gave his consent. “Yes, that will be fine.”

Then she turned to Joplee, a warm smile gracing her features. “Would you mind accompanying me?”

All the poor girl could manage to do in her state of sheer shock was numbly nod her head. Before Joplee could even process what was happening, Dame Paper had smoothly looped her arm through Joplee’s and whisked her away into the bustling crowd. The count gave Pukam a faintly apologetic shrug, turning on his heel to trail good-naturedly behind the two young women.

The moment the lord's entourage departed, the atmosphere around the stall shifted instantly. Pukam’s modest booth was aggressively swarmed by an absolute sea of eager customers. Within the next few hours, his display tables were completely drained of every single piece of merchandise he possessed. Word had traveled through the market like wildfire that the count himself had highly praised Pukam's southern wares, and suddenly, every wealthy merchant and minor noble in attendance was in desperate, urgent need of his goods. What had started that morning as a fragile, desperate hope that he might collect just enough coin to help his displaced people survive the harsh winter had transformed instead into the most surreal, miraculous day of his life.

When the buying frenzy finally died down and the exhausting day drew to a close, Pukam managed to steal a fleeting moment of quiet behind his empty counter. With trembling fingers, he carefully opened the heavy leather pouch containing the count’s payment. For the second time that afternoon, his mouth dropped open in absolute disbelief.

He stared down at the glittering, polished gold coins resting inside, his mind racing frantically to make sense of the math. Had he truly blurted out a price that high when he lost his footing?

No, he remembered the marked-up haggle price perfectly. The coin resting in this pouch was easily three times the value of what he had requested.

Why would a powerful ruler do something like this? Was Count Bicman simply trying to casually show off his vast aristocratic wealth? Pukam shook his head; from everything he had just observed, the young lord didn’t seem the type to indulge in such petty arrogance. Then, he remembered the intense sincerity of the apology the count had offered for the loss of his shattered item, and the truth suddenly clicked into place.

The count couldn't have simply paid for the stolen, broken pitcher out in the open; doing so would have set a dangerous precedent, inviting desperate men to stage accidental thefts just to seek royal charity. But by covertly overpaying for the green vase, giving Pukam far more than what he had asked for, the clever ruler had found a way to quietly make him whole. A profound sense of relief washed over Pukam as he gripped the pouch tightly. His people would not only survive the winter; they had finally found a land governed by a lord who cared for those around him. He would find a place in this county for his people. Even if he spent every copper he had in order to secure it.

So, funny thing about this. I was trying to wrap up chapter 40 yesterday by writing a short excerpt about a man from Vaspar and his daughter visiting the fair. As I began to write, everything changed. Initially, he had nothing to do with the theft scene, but I guess I was wrong. So my short story turned into an interlude. I spent all day creating this character and his background. It was 3:00 by the time I was done, and I had completely skipped lunch. Needless to say, it didn't receive a full edit.