Good Wine

I have close ties to most people in town, I don’t mean to brag, but I am rather popular. Bearing wine puts people in a good mood. If it weren’t for this fact, Duri Thompson’s cheerful “hey stranger!” Might have given me no pause. Certainly more people know me than I know well in turn. I had not once in the last twenty years, and, come to it, not once in my life that I can remember been greeted as “stranger”. Duri Thompson was not interested in wine, and around these parts, that is mighty suspicious. He went on, “I haven’t been to this side of the Silva border before, how often do you come here?” I was weighing a bunch of grapes in my hand, there was an ideal moment to harvest, and I had to be careful if I didn’t want to miss it. I came here every day this time of year, weighing by hand any grapes that were too close to call by eye. But my guard was up, and I correctly suspected there was more to this question than met the eye. I deflected, “Ah, well then, welcome! I’m Geoffrey Chaucer, it’s real nice to meet you. I imagine we won’t be strangers for long.” Caught up in my useless friendliness, Mr. Thompson made a tellingly cold face that he attempted to pave over with laughter. Too late, I knew he wanted something from me, and I intended to make sure he wouldn’t get it. “I’m sure you’re right. You seem like a real friendly guy. Do you make friends with everyone who comes through here? Anyone comes through especially often?” Ah, of course. He was a Novus goon looking for rogue Praxists. It was suspected that Praxists gathered in the woods, the focus of their worship after all. I knew some Praxists myself, the especially dedicated ones met in the ruins of the old temple, a bit foolish in my opinion, but not a prime suspect for the out-of-touch government enforcement. I moved on to a new bunch of grapes, using the change as an excuse to think through my approach carefully. “Well, I usually focus on the grapes. The other people I see here mean business too. There’s some good herbs and wild edibles in this area. I don’t know anyone well enough to tell you their names or anything, but if you see people in the forests around here, their business is probably simple as mine.” Not entirely false, I knew the regulars in this area much better than I let on, but they mostly picked natural remedies for the apothecary. His awful smile at this let me know that this was the wrong answer. He laughed again, I could tell it was a go-to strategy for hiding his real facial expressions when he was gathering information. “Well, I’m just passing through really, don’t be surprised if you see more of me in the future though, I would love to meet your friends too. Buh bye now.” I watched him go, and left as soon as he was entirely out of sight. I only found one bunch of ripe grapes. Not worth storing, they would be bad by the time enough other grapes were ready to make into wine. I ate them on my way home instead. I didn’t go home though. I couldn’t, not after my encounter. Instead, I headed for the apothecary. The man had beaten me there, I should have headed straight there. The doctor’s wife, manufacturer of the medicines used by the apothecary, told me the man’s name, and his intentions. The remedies found in the forest are considered highly suspect. Since the apothecary sells them, Novus officials planned to keep a close eye on activity here, now that they had confirmation that forest herbs were being picked, their focus was on the apothecary. Natural remedies weren’t illegal, but this far from Novus, illegal was more of another excuse than a distinct reason its own. A business could be shut down either by having its wares confiscated for investigation, or housing a constant military presence and going out of business. If Mr. Thompson found out the medicines were prepared by a woman, it would be over. The government would automatically view the apothecary as witchcraft. This would be disastrous not only for the owners, but the town, as the apothecary was also the town’s main clinic. Fortunately, she had told Mr. Thompson that her husband prepared the medicines. I felt terrible, I should have foreseen Mr. Thompson’s response to learning about the local herb-pickers. Later that night, I sat alone in my cellar. Its humidity and darkness helped wear me out when my insomnia got bad. Tonight it was unusually bad, as I thought about what would happen if the apothecary was shut down. I poured myself some wine to try to get drowsy. A half hour passed, I poured myself some more. I kept doing this until I could hear my thoughts themselves slurring. It was in this state, before finally getting to sleep, that I came up with the first garbled and largely nonsensical elements of a plan. Instead of using picked herbs, I would offer my wine, make the best wine I could, and it would cure people. A sane version of this crystalized in the morning through a crushing headache. Mr. Thompson knew that I spent time by the forest, without believing I picked herbs, and he didn’t think that the doctor’s wife had anything to do with the medicines. I spoke to her the next day, and we set right to work developing drinkable versions of the remedies. The idea was that I would gather the needed materials while checking my grapes, many of them were weeds in my garden anyway, so even if I was caught it would just look like I was tending my grapes. Then, the doctor’s wife would come over and prepare the medicines in secret. Then, I would deliver the “wine” to the apothecary for patients. From then on, I was officialy an enemy of the kingdom, and I haven’t looked back since.