Gears of Aspiration

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

    Harri Teutar sat at Duke Trecheon's right at a large wooden table set before a roaring fire in Trecheon's hall. Trecheon had hired a troupe of musicians to entertain Harri and his lieutenants during the feast. The music accompanied a beautiful red headed dancer as she writhed with the rhythm of the music. She rolled her hips bawdily as she made eye contact with Harri. She seized the powerful young nobles eyes the moment she began her seductive dance and held on to them as if her life depended upon his eyes never leaving hers. The Duke, a dark man, had the color of a man that had spent his life under the burning Bethany sun. He took another gulp of the fermented honey mead he supplied for the feast and wiped away the excess as it ran down his matted beard. Trecheon then laughed when he noticed the interest Harri paid to this beautiful woman. It was the same with every man who saw her performance, with one exception. The young ladies eyes never left Harri throughout the performance. And this alone troubled Duke Trecheon, though he'd never let it show.

    "I have a deal I would like to offer you, Trecheon," Harri Teutar said to his host. His eyes still glued to the woman dancing before them.

    "After the feast," Trecheon said laughing. "After, the feast."

    Harri took a long drink from his horn of mead, before setting it down and taking his eyes off of the young dancer for the first time. He looked over at the Duke, a frown forming on his face. It would not do to anger his host before ever offering his deal. He needed Trecheon and his cavalry to strengthen his own. He was not so certain that he would be successful in his invasion of Riverford without the Dukes formidable cavalry. With it, Harri would be unstoppable.

    "As you wish," Harri said as a bevy of trumpets sounded from the balconies above them.

    Three large men, as dark as aged bronze, darker even than Lord Trecheon himself, entered the hall then. Two of the men carried a roasted bull on a spit upon their massive, abnormally strong shoulders. The third man carried a large curved sword upon his hip, the tip of its scabbard dragged the ground behind him as he walked. The man with the blade towered above his hulking companions and made the other two men look almost like children in comparison. The musicians began to beat an enchanted rhythm upon their drums as the young woman moved between the men and the table at which sat Harri and his lieutenants. Her dancing increased in speed and seductiveness as the rhythm of the drums increased in tempo and volume before falling away to nothing. The young woman finished her dance then, knees upon the floor. laying back on her feet, her eyes focused on the roof of the hall above her. The room erupted in applause as the men beat the pommels of their knives on the table before them in appreciation of the red head's performance.

    As she left the hall, all eyes upon her, the large man pulled his curved sword from its scabbard and held the tip high above his head. The man yelled, a blood curdling war cry escaped his lips as he turned and slashed at the roasted beef carcass behind him. He cleaved the bull in two with one swipe of the blade and stepped to one side as a cavalcade of fruits, roasted within the bull, spilled unto the floor before Harri and his men where a large sheet of paper had been set to catch them. Apples and pears, berries of all kinds, and peaches all imbued with the smoke of the hard wood fires and the juices of the roasted bull fell upon the paper. Servants then lifted the thick sheet of paper and spread it upon the table before Harri.

    Lord Trecheon stood then, announcing "More mead for my guests!"

    Servants then entered and began filling every man's horn with a particularly strong concoction of mead, the likes of which no man there, save Lord Trecheon's own, had ever savored.

    "Dig in, my friends," the Duke said before the musicians struck up another bawdy song. Jugglers and jesters performed for the crowd as servants began carefully slicing roasted beef from the bull and began dishing it out to those seated around their lord. Each man began grabbing handfuls of the succulent fruit and piling it high upon their pewter plates beside the mountains of beef the the servants supplied them. Loaves of fresh bread and aged cheeses were brought to the tables. There was food in quantities large enough to feed the hundred or so people in attendance. No one left hungry or sober, a great time was had by all. Even Harri Teutar forgot his troubles for a while. His eyes found the seductive redhead easily enough. The woman approached the main table early on in the feast and sat on the other side of the Duke. He understood then. The woman was Lord Trecheon's wife and lover. Any thought Harri had of asking the Duke about her died at that moment, though it was difficult to keep his eyes off of her. If Harri were to get Lord Trecheon on his side he would have to wait until after the feast, and he would have to ignore this enticing young woman at Trecheon's side.