Dan of Ridh

The tough of Ridh, a village small enough that the post is held by whoever wants it. He is not Dan the jailer of Loshev, and the two have never met.

Mikhail reached the village ahead of the others and found him drinking in the middle of the afternoon in a tavern holding one other drunk, a man who would not speak, and a horse standing behind the bar. Dan does not work a field and does not own the place. He sits there through the day because there is nobody else to talk to, and he said so. Then he made a show of carrying his drink to the furthest table, which had a bad leg, so that his beer slid off it and he had to move again with the chair clattering behind him. When Mikhail took out his lute he came out of himself and clapped along, off the beat and never off it the same way twice, badly enough that Mikhail had to fight to hold his own tempo.

What followed was a routine. His friend played better than the stranger. His friend was busy. Told that the better a man is said to be the busier he seems to get, Dan stood up and said that sounded like being called a liar. He rolled his sleeves. Another of the drinkers came off his stool to put an arm across him and tell him it was not worth it, that he did not want trouble again, and Dan sat down with the last word, which was that the stranger was lucky. He did it twice in one afternoon and again to somebody else that evening, by which point it was clear this is simply the thing he does to outsiders. He was only named when an older man came in, bought Mikhail a drink and called across the room for Dan to pour it. The same man asked whether Dan was the one the song was about. Dan furrowed his brow and asked what song, and most of the bar laughed at him.

The farmer’s daughter Mikhail had spent that night with was the girl Dan was to marry. By the time Koa rode in the next night, exhausted and in a foul temper, there were some thirty villagers massed a few hundred feet from the tavern with torches, spades and pitchforks. The girl’s father picked Koa out, called over his shoulder that this was one of them, and Dan came stomping round the corner with a sickle in his hand and the only line he had: this was the one who ruined his wedding. Koa offered to handle it and said he was looking to work off some aggression anyway. Dan hesitated. Two of his friends said yes they did have a problem, and only then did he commit; the push to actually move in came from the crowd and not from him.

Mikhail broke it from horseback with a sleep spell that took Dan, the father and four or five others down where they stood, and the rest scattered. Koa hauled the nearest sleeper upright and shook him awake, and that man looked around at his neighbors lying in the road and said it was all right, they were forgiven. Koa put him aside and went back for Dan specifically, because the one-on-one had been Dan’s demand. He woke him, stood him up, and headbutted him unconscious.