Please someone suggest a different title, I'm far to lazy...
The Farmer heard the knock on the compounds door but he'd was buggered if he'd leave the warmth of the hearth. He had been daydreaming about his youth in the legions especially his posts in North Africa. At the time he had hated the heat and upon his decommissioning snapped up the opportunity to buy a farm somewhere cool. Now he regretted it. The winter's day was rough outside, he reckoned it was about three in the afternoon and the snow hadn't let up since dawn. He pulled his bear skin cloak tighter around his shoulders and listened as his men shouted at the visitor.
He knew who'd it be. The Stranger had been on his land for weeks observing him and his farmhands, from a distance. The stranger was either rubbish at hiding or brazen enough to want to be seen. A year ago The Farmer may of arrested the vagabond, for trespass, and sold him into slavery. Anyone who traveled without a caravan, tribe or escort was fair game. Now, though, with the trouble less than fifty miles from his door. He was being careful. He didn't want to draw the attention of the rebellious Britons by enslaving someone who might be one of their shaman.
A neighbour had said the official line from Londinium was that the rebellion had been quashed but he knew from first hand accounts that this was a lie. He had played host to a Centurion, on his way home, who had confessed he had lost half his men in the Forests chasing their own tails. The Farmer knew what the army was like and also knew what the fucking politicians were like. He suspected that this would mean the end of this Centurion’s career.
His Housekeeper hobbled into the room and saluted him. ‘As you expected Sir, the vagabond has come knocking. Would you like me to have him beaten. He doesn't speak a word of Latin!’
The Farmer was disgusted by how often his Housekeeper recommended somebody get a beating. Although sometimes he was right and some people deserved a beating he was uncomfortable with how the Housekeeper seem to derived pleasure it. He'd known men like him in his army days and even in combat they made him nervous with how much enjoyment they got from something which made him sick just to recollect. But the Housekeeper value was his respect for order and so personally The Farmer felt safe and ergo the Housekeeper was a useful tool to have at his disposal.
‘No show him in here. Let's see what he wants.’ The housekeeper looked somewhere between disappointed and disgusted so to appease him the Farmer added. ‘If he turns out to be a beggar then you can issue a beating.’ The Housekeeper grunted with satisfaction and returned two minutes with The Stranger .
Up close The Stranger was even more wild looking than the farmer had originally thought and more noticeable than his bedraglement was his smell, he reeked. He wore furs which had been loosely threaded together without much thought to the art. The furs were a mismatch of local animals and the farmer suspected that the pelts hadn't been treated properly and part of the Stranger's smell was rotting meat.
The Farmer rose, as custom dictated, and pointed at a spare chair by the fire. The Stranger nodded and moved to the fire and warmed himself but remained standing. ‘So how can I help you?’ The Farmer used a local dialect of British that his wife had taught him. The stranger ignored him. ‘You know by rights unless you show me a tablet to the contrary, your life is forfeit to me. You have been trespassing on my land.’ The stranger turned and took the seat and looked the Farmer in the eye. He revealed something small he had been holding in his hand, it looked like a folded leaf, the size of a coin and then he tossed it into the fire, still holding his gaze.
Nothing happened. The farmer rose and called for his foreman, who he knew wouldn't be far away. As the Foreman entered the room the fire exploded with a noise like a smith's hammer striking an anvil. Embers flew around the room. The Farmer and Foreman instinctively dropped to the floor. The Stranger, stayed where he was, the embers on his furs fizzing to a damp end. The farmer got up angry and took his knife from his belt but stopped when he saw that the stranger was holding another similar looking package of leaves this time the size of an apple. The Farmer eyed the fire and saw that their was enough of it left to ignite the explosive leaves. The Farmer commanded the foreman to leave and sat back down on his chair, aware that his entire household had gathered in the doorway.
In all his years of military service and all his miles of crossing the empire he had never come across magic as powerful as the Shaman’s explosive leaves. In fact he never come across magic. He had met allot of people who had claimed to practice magic but he had always pegged them as charlatans and fraudsters but this man, the Farmer thought, he has a harness on something powerful like thunder.
The Farmer saw the Shaman read his face and knew that he had shown too much. A negotiation was about to happen and the Farmer had lost the upper hand. ‘Bring wine! And Olives, and figs!’ he called. His servants set about their business and his other men and family lurked, ‘Everyone else fuck off!’
The Farmer and the Shaman sat in silence whilst the wine and food was brought in. The Shaman looked at the wine shook his head and said ‘Aqua'
The Farmer nodded to the serving girl and started picking at his food. Once the Shaman could see that Farmers food was safe he started eating it, the Farmer could see that The Shaman was practising self restraint as for the first time he looked past the furs and saw the man beneath was younger than he'd suspected and gaunt. It was rare for anyone to spend time in the wilderness alone, even outlaws quickly joined bands. There was something in this man's eyes, something other worldly. ‘So what do you want?’ he tried in Latin.
The Shaman continued to stare at the Farmer blankly. The Farmer pointed at the fire, mimed the explosion and pointed at himself. The Shaman nodded with recognition of the Farmer's request.
The Shaman pointed at himself, gestured to the room pointed at the fire, rubbed his hands, pointed at the food, put some in his mouth, pointed at the Farmer and then tugged at his own garb. The Farmer followed his meaning until the Shaman’s last couple ofgestures; he'd held out his hand with his thumb tucked in and then pointed a circle.
The Farmer repeated the first of the gestures back to the Shaman to convey he'd understood. Then he repeated the Shaman’s last gestures and pulled a puzzled face and shrugged his shoulder. The Shaman made a face to convey that he'd have to rethink his gestures then he stood up and walked over to the fire picked up a charred stick.
He strode to a plastered wall and drew a circle and then semi circle and then a crescent and lastly a semi circle. The Farmer was a little pissed at the man ruining his wall, the builders who built his villa had been specialists from gaul but he saw an opportunity as he recognised the Shamans request. He took the stick and drew his own hieroglyphs near to the moons; a stick man, he pointed at the Shaman, a house, some grapes, a fire. Four months food and board. Then the Farmer drew another stick man and pointed at himself, he gave it a beard as emphasis. Then he carefully drew four amphorae, pointed at them and then pointed at the fire.
The Shaman nodded in his understanding. He drew an arrow from the amphorae back to his demands and drew three amphora himself. He then wrote in each one in turn the symbols; alpha, beta, delta.
The symbols shocked the Farmer. He had pegged the Shaman as a Briton or a Picture and now he could be Greek! No wonder he looked alien and didn't know the language. He looked at the last three glyphs and comprehended the meaning. For the Shaman to create the powder The Farmer must provide the ingredients.
The Farmer nodded he did the algebra in his head. What would four amphora of this magic leaf be worth. The Shaman could see the Farmer needed persuasion and so walked to wall where a lamp burned and took it and left. The Farmer followed.
The Shaman left the building and went toward the compounds gate. The Farmer called for it to be open and the sentry obliged. He called for his men to follow. He never left the compound alone.
The Shaman walked for ten minutes until he reached a place the Farmer recognised. In the middle of a clearing lay a tree stump his men had spent a week trying to dig it out without much joy. The Shaman gestured for them to stop and carried on up to the stump he got out his apple sized bundle and then produced another. He pushed them together and then put the new bundle under a cavity The Farmer's men had made beneath the stump. The Shaman after a second sprang to his feet and ran. Behind him thunder roared and lightning disintegrated the tree. The power of the blast pushed the Shaman off his feet and he'd landed face down in the snow.
The Shaman was indeed powerful, the Farmer thought, four amphorae would be worth twice their weight in gold. Maybe even enough to afford a villa in Italy. Where the weather wasn't dog shite and he could grow grapes instead of bloody turnips. The Farmer pulled the Shaman up and shook his hand vigorously. ‘It's a deal.’