Chapter Text
‘Sorry, lad,’ the innkeeper said. ‘I haven't heard about any jobs available in the village. And with the harvesting season having come to an end several weeks ago, nobody’s looking for farmhands any more.’
‘But I’m a smith by trade, ma'am,’ Tony Stark replied hopefully. After spending the night in some barn, he had wandered around Glaðsheim, a prosperous and promising looking village only a tad too close to the Jotun border for comfort, asking for work all morning in vain and by now, the inn was his last resort. ‘I could help with repairs and fixing things for winter. A lot of equipment must be in need of maintenance at this time of year.’
‘Again, I’m sorry. The local smith has a large family and all his sons are in the business. They wouldn’t take kindly to a stranger taking work from them.’
Tony nodded. ‘No, of course not.’ Damn, he thought. To him, the inn had looked like a promising place to find employment. Tony looked around and saw a large, clean tab room teeming with well-dressed clients. The furniture was polished and in good repair, a fact that told the smith that the ladies in charge knew how to take care of their property and ran their flourishing business smartly. If there’s a place to learn about available jobs in the area, this would be it. At least that was what his experience had taught him during his long years of travelling. People met, gossiped, and exchanged information and news in the inns or ale-houses along the road, and Tony had been able more often than not to find work by word of mouth in such places. Not for the first time he regretted his decision to move north in the middle of summer without a job, without a place to stay or at least a friend waiting for him.
The first weeks had been easy. The weather was fine and Tony took every job he could find. The farmers where kind to Morgan, who was his only child and travelling with him, and let her play with their own children while Tony worked as a day labourer, helping to bring in the harvest, mowing the meadows, and picking apples in the orchards. The hours were long and the palms of his hands went from sore to rough while his back was killing him. Tony didn’t make much money, though. It was enough to get by but never enough to lay some aside. But even as his supply of work offers slowly petered out, the smith still felt optimistic about his situation. He was a skilled worker after all, and he was sure that sooner or later, someone would hire him for the winter.
Or before the snow comes, he thought. This was a phrase he'd heard very often recently while he was meandering north.
‘When the snow comes…,’ northerners would say and nod at each other knowingly. Tony, a southerner from Midgard through and through, had no idea what they were talking about. To him, snow was a picturesque fun phenomenon that sometimes occurred around the Winter Solstice, and that was it. But the emphasis the northerners put on began to strike terror in Tony’s heart.
When the snow comes… I probably should have gathered more information about the north before coming here.
Another thing Tony hadn’t taken into account was the fact that northerners apparently liked to keep to themselves and subsequently, the colder and rainier it got, the more they huddled together, trading provisions for the cold season, filling their larders, and winterproofing their homes.
Tony, a stranger amongst them, felt like he was gradually fading into oblivion like an invisible man who wasn’t their problem any more.
‘You need money?’ a customer suddenly interrupted Tony’s musings. He was a stout, red-faced man who was wolfing down a copious lunch. The smith eyed the large plate of rye bread, condiments, pickles, and cold meats in front of him enviously. Oddly enough, there was a tiny side dish of salad, but it looked as if it were doomed to be forgotten.
‘Yes, sir.’ Tony thought on the single piece of copper left in his pockets. Then he thought about the salad again and wondered if there was any way to salvage it for Morgan.
‘Perhaps you have an interesting disease?’
In the background, people started laughing until the innkeeper’s wife shooed them. ‘Hush!’ she said, looking around. ‘In this house, we respect the Princekin and his whims.’
‘Oh, we all do, Tua,’ the obese man replied and removed some crumbs from his beard with his fingers while a lily white napkin sat forgotten on the table. ‘But a handsome vagrant like him, he’s bound to catch something nasty on his way, isn’t he?’ The man winked at Tony.
‘None of this talk in this inn, Pelle,’ the landlady said with authority. ‘Especially not in front of his child, I'm warning you.' She nodded at Morgan who was currently sitting on the tab room floor and trying to attract the attention of a large, sleepy cat. Tony regarded her tenderly; he had bought a small bowl of gruel (which had come with a few apple slices) and a cup of goat milk to give her some sustenance, but he knew it wasn’t enough. Somehow, nothing he ever did was even remotely enough these days. The girl never complained, though: all she did was regarding him with her intelligent dark eyes that were far to serious for a child of her age and urging him to swallow a spoonful or two of gruel himself.
The man called Pelle clicked his tongue. ‘Don’t be a such a bluenose, Alvi. With a shapely ass like his, the Princekin may even consider giving him more than just a medical examination.’ Then the man winked again, and there was a fresh round of laughter.
Without missing a beat, the landlady opened a drawer and pulled out a handful of papers. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Let’s take a look now and find out whose tab I'm going to call in today. How about you, Snorri? I see it’s six weeks ago since you last settled a bill.’
‘Now look, Alvi,’ a skinny, nervous looking man exclaimed. ‘I would pay gladly if i could, but right now, it’s just like this.’
‘Yeah, it’s always just like this. Can someone please explain to me how Tua and I are supposed to run this establishment? We brew the finest ale in the district and run the best kitchen for miles around, and that takes a lot of work. But we can’t keep this up if you never pay your bills. So if you insist on bothering the first customer who actually handed me some cash today, I think I have a mind to collect all of them before the snow comes. Think about it or stay at home this winter, drink alone, and see how you like it. It’s your choice.’
‘I can pay my tab,’ an elderly man said and stood up. ‘I sold several barrels of mead to the castle today and the Princekin was as generous as usual.’
Alvi smiled at him. ‘Thank you, Gunnar. You make fine mead.’
Tony watched hungrily as the coins changed hands. Just one of those, he thought as he spotted a large silver one, could buy us food, drink, and a bed for the night. Not the best perhaps, but it would do. Somehow, Tony managed to keep his composure, but it was hard to smile while his and his daughter’s stomachs were empty.
‘Please keep the change, Alvi. I’d like to thank you for your patience,’ Gunnar added.
‘You’re always welcome, my friend,’ the landlady answered while other guests flocked to the counter to settle their bills too. More than one of them cast an angry look at Tony as if it was his fault that the landlady had decided to call in their debts.
Tony turned away from them and faced the man who had spoken to him before. ‘What do you mean, disease?’ he asked.
‘No offence meant, my good fellow,’ Pelle replied amiably. He wiped some mustard off his lips before taking a sip from his ale mug. The sight made Tony yearn for a drink too. ‘The Princekin is King Odin’s younger son. He went to university in the south a few years ago and studied to be a medical doctor and surgeon, but after his mother’s death and his brother’s marriage, the king ordered him to return to the castle for good and help with running the country.’
‘That must have been a disappointment.’ Tony wondered why Pelle put such a stress on the word ‘marriage’.
‘No, why? He always knew he was the co-heir to the family estate and now he is only doing his duty. However,’ the man shrugged, ’he has never lost his interest in the study of medicine and collects stories of remarkable illnesses and case histories.’ Then, Pelle winked at Tony. 'People say he is going to write a book.'
Tony considered this. Obviously, Pelle thought that the Princekin's ambitions where kind of funny. 'Good for him,' he replied after a while. ‘But what’s in it for me?’
‘A square meal for you and your daughter, a bed for the night, and a handful of coppers when you leave.’
‘But mind,’ Tua, who had been following the conversation, intervened, ‘the Princekin’s not a soft touch. He is a very learned man and if you try to sell him a lie, he’s sure to notice and you’ll spend a week in the dungeon. You and your toddler daughter.’
Tony looked at Morgan. She was six years old and not a toddler any more, but she was far too small for her age and looked more like three. As always, her skinny frame made him feel sad and guilty, and he made up his mind.
'This might be humiliating,' Tony thought, 'but I'll do it for Morgan’s sake.'
‘My story is true,’ Tony said, ‘and I have the scars to prove it. Please tell me, where do I find this Princekin?’