Running Errands

Writers: Jane
Date Posted: 16th August 2009

Characters: Teene, Zandreu
Description: Teene is caught out by the Tavern Master - and by her inability to lie.
Location: Vintner Hall
Date: month 4, day 10 of Turn 5

"Good afternoon, Teene," the Tavern Master said, thinking as he greeted
the young woman that everybody knew Teene. She was that sort of woman;
friendly, outgoing, always ready with a smile and an interest in other
people's lives. Not a gossip, just a genuine interest in others. It
was no surprise that the Hallmaster and his wife had chosen to bring
Teene from their previous posting if she was as good with their children
as she was with others. "Are you meeting somebody?"

"Not this time," she admitted with a smile, attempting to tuck some of
the curls escaping from the her braid back where they belonged. "It's
my afternoon off - now I've run this last errand for someone at the Hall."

Was there a touch of evasion in her explanation? "What errand?" he
asked. "And can we get you something to drink? A late midday meal,
perhaps?"

"Oh no, Master Zandreu. I ate at the main building and a very nice meal
it was -"

"Teene?" Zandreu said, holding up his hand to stop the flow of chatter
he was convinced was a deliberate distraction. "What was the errand?"

"The errand?" Teene struggled for a convincing lie and then sighed,
giving up the attempt at dissembling and admitting: "It was for one of
the apprentices. He's a sweet boy ... Well, he just wanted a message
brought to his sister. She works here."

A fact which identified the apprentice and the tavern staff member
because there just weren't that many pairs like that. Zandreu didn't
think the girl would be a party to anything underhand but it was his
responsibility to keep an eye on the staff, and especially the young
women working in the tavern environment.

"Was the message a secret?"

Teene considered that. "Well, I don't suppose it was, because it was
just very ordinary, but then I don't suppose he wanted me to tell all of
Pern his business."

It was very frustrating to Teene that though she could make up quite
outrageous stories for the entertainment of the children she seemed to
be unable to even skirt around the truth with the Tavern Master. She
would tell more lies, she resolved, to get in practice.

It sounded ridiculous and exceedingly unlikely even as she finished
making such a plan.

"Hmm. Well, you've always seemed like a sensible young woman, so I'll
trust your judgement on this," he said, thinking even as he spoke that
he sounded regrettably pompous, "But perhaps it would be better if you
said to others that you couldn't carry messages for them."

Teene nodded and sighed. "Except, perhaps, when Master Causton asks."

"Except when the Hallmaster asks," Zandreu agreed, seeing a betraying
twinkle in the young woman's eye and responding to it. "And perhaps the
other masters. And probably the journeymen would be all right."

By which time Teene was laughing and he was smiling along with her. He
waggled an admonitory finger at her.

"But not the apprentices."

"No, Master Zandreu. Not the apprentices again. I promise."

"So, were you going to stay for a drink? We serve juices and klah if
you prefer something non-alcoholic in the middle of the day."

"I know. Perhaps a klah - if you're having one yourself."

Of course she knew. He called an order for a pitcher of klah and two
mugs to one of the staff and indicating Teene should take a seat at the
table he used for his hidework more often than he used his office. "I
haven't seen you in here much. Have you run out of young men to bring
you to dinner?"

He liked seeing Teene and her young admirers at the Tavern in the
evening. It was a reminder of who things had been before the last great
plague and the resultant Craft Ban which had seemed to serve only to
diminish women's roles in the world. Long ago men and women did dine
out at the Taverns; they did socialise together in the Craft Halls and
the Holds, but that had faded as women stopped being a visible part of
craft life and became more and more the possessions of their male relatives.

He suspected Teene herself was from a more open, pre-plague sort of
family, not in the least by the fact that she was far from home and
unmarried thought she must be in her twenties. And her life in the Hall
as a nurse for the Hallmaster's children gave her the status and
protection she needed to be taken out for dinner by many of the Hall's
eligible young men without coming to any harm in fact or in reputation.

"Oh, no. Not run out of them. They just don't _listen_," she confided
in the older man, leaning forward and lowering her voice. "I tell them
I'm not looking for a husband - and wouldn't get married anyway unless I
was in love with the man - but they still think ..." She shrugged.
"Well, you know. Some of them still think I'll want to marry _them_ on
the strength of a couple of meals and some conversation over dinner. I
don't know why."

As the klah was served to the table the Tavern Master smiled at the
pretty young woman, with her enquiring, intelligent mind, and suspected
he he knew perfectly well _why_ these things always seemed to happen to
Teene.

Last updated on the August 29th 2009

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Running Errands