The Timeline of Tauber - A Gnome Refusal - 863

Bob Blindly didn’t know the name of the village. It looked much the same as any other he had visited on his rounds. Dilapidated. Sparse. A cluster of buildings at a crossroads that merely featured as a waypoint to travellers despite how precious it might be to those who dwelled there.

There were minor differences to the norm. This was a gnomish village, after all. The structures tended to be squat and quaint. Bob could picture a time when the upkeep had been more fastidious and the village had been picturesque. These were lean times, however, and paint was not a priority for anyone.

Bob sat in the carriage as the village approached, trying to find a rhythm as the wheels bumped along the rutted track and failing. Behind him, the caged area of the conveyance was mercifully vacant. People might be reluctant to pay when threats were distant, but when Bob and his guards turned up in person, people invariably managed to locate what was owed.

Bob was not his given name but he found Rob Blindly to be too on the nose a moniker for a tax collector. His full name, Robin, was even worse. Bob, he felt, avoided such aspersions, to a degree. Bob was friendly. Bob was unthreatening. Bob was on your side.

Except that he couldn’t be, not really. He did what he could to be nice. To persuade. To reason without resorting to force. Reasoning with force was what his guards were for. So far, Harris and Farrier had been given little enough to do other than be a menacing threat that Bob hadn’t had to resort to. He fervently hoped they remained that way.

The carriage came to a halt in what had to be called the village square, though never had a quadrilateral ever been so poorly described. Surly faces stared from windows, activity in their vicinity ceased, and Bob felt an unsettling weight of hostility settle upon him as he alighted the carriage and stepped down onto the rough ground.

Harris, tall and lithe, and Farrier, stout and stocky, were already waiting for him, staring about them menacingly as if to dissuade any onlookers from doing anything more than glower disapprovingly at their presence.

“All in order, sir,” said Harris.

Sir, Bob thought bitterly, as if the man really respected him. He’d thought being King Chernitt’s tax collector would be a respectable job when he’d taken on the role. A job ensuring that the figures added up, that all was right with the world. That financial order was maintained. The reality had not lined up to his expectations.

He looked about for some clue as to the village’s name but found none. “Where are we?”

Farrier shrugged. “Who knows?”

“Who cares?” said Harris.

Bob cared, though he didn’t feel he could express as much. It used to be that his need for attendance anywhere was unusual, which made such an occasion an event. He’d been to so many villages recently that they all blurred into one.

“Who are we here to see?” he asked.

“The cobbler,” said Harris.

Bob raised his eyebrows. “We don’t even know his name?”

Farrier laughed. “You think this place has more than one of them?”

The cobbler was not hard to find. The hovel had a sign hanging above the doorway that optimistically depicted a shoe, as if such an obvious representation of his trade would prompt passers-by to suddenly remember an item of footwear they had been meaning to get repaired. As far as Bob was concerned, if someone needed a cobbler, they would ask for the cobbler. Still, he supposed the sign might serve some purpose.

He ducked through the low doorway and was greeted by the dull jingle of a bell that was in desperate need of maintenance. The interior was dim. What little light made it through the dingy windows picked up the dust motes that danced on unseen disturbances in the air. Shelves about the wall were bare. A counter separated the space from the room’s only other doorway.

Bob shivered, partly from the chill of the room and partly from the sense of abandonment the place evoked. It should have been full of merchandise, clean and inviting, with the craftsman visibly going about his work, demonstrating his skills. Maybe that was the reason for the sign above the door; without it, this place could have been anything.

“Hello?” Bob said. His voice held a note of uncertainty, unsure why no-one had responded to the jingle of the bell. “Hello?”

“I’m coming!” The voice sounded irritable, not at all what Bob would have expected from anyone desiring to sell their wares or services and especially not a gnomish one.

The door beyond the counter was flung open and a gnome bustled through. He was old and balding and walked with a stoop, no doubt a symptom of long hours hunched whilst he plied his trade. He could have been described as kindly, like the grandfather everyone cannot help but love, if only he would smile. The grumpy grimace he wore did not make Bob optimistic as to that eventuality.

“Greetings,” said Bob, trying to keep his voice cheerful despite his business there. It always paid to at least try and get off on the right foot. “Are you the cobbler?”

The gnome frowned. “So the sign says. Can’t say I’ve had much business of late.”

Bob looked about the sparse surfaces. “So I see.”

The gnome shrugged. “Can’t say I blame them. People don’t have as much as they used to. An empty stomach is more persuasive than cold feet.”

Bob shivered again. “They’re not the only thing that’s cold.”

The gnome laughed. “We have a fire going in the back but there’s not much call for one in here. We had this hearth boarded up,” and here Bob followed his gesture to where a section of wall was covered over with mismatched boards. “It’s the stove tax, you see. If you get charged per fire and there’s not a lot of call for one of them, it has to go.”

Bob had intended to shift the conversation towards taxation, but not in this way.

“It was bad enough when that tax came in,” the cobbler continued, “but the cost of it just keeps going up and up. Same with a lot of the taxes. It’s why we are where we are. Anyway, what can I do for you? New or repairs?”

Bob was thrown by the question, so absorbed had he been in considering how to take control of the situation. “Excuse me?”

“New or repairs?” the cobbler repeated. “I work with shoes. Are you in the market for new ones or looking to have some repaired?”

Bob swallowed. “Neither.”

“Oh?” The cobbler frowned. “What can I do for you, then?”

Before Bob could reply, the door to the back rooms opened once more and another gnome bustled through. This one was female, clad in a floral dress that had seen better days and with her curly hair piled atop her head in a manner that suggested it could topple at any moment. With a fearful glance at Bob, the newcomer brought her mouth to the cobbler’s ear and began to whisper. It didn’t take long for the cobbler’s eyes to shift to Bob as she spoke. The gnome’s expression hardened. Then frowned. Then his jaw clenched.

“I see,” he said at last. “Thank you, dear. Go wait in the back with the children.”

A wife and children, Bob thought. Just what he needed to make his job that much harder.

“So,” said the cobbler, “my wife tells me you showed up in a carriage adorned with the crest of King Chernitt and with a couple of soldiers in company. Is the King really so desperate as to send his servants to my little village to seek out my services?”

“The King does not have a need for your services,” said Bob. He steeled himself. “I’m here about your overdue taxes.”

The cobbler didn’t seem surprised by the news. “I see,” he said. “And I suppose your friends are here in case I refuse to pay?”

“I haven’t had to resort to them yet.”

“Good for you,” said the cobbler, “Today may have to be your first.”

“There’s no need to be like that,” said Bob. “I haven’t had to use them before because I’ve always managed to work something out with those who owe the crown. Listen, Mister…errr…what should I call you?”

The gnome laughed. “You don’t even know my name? Do we really mean so little to you?”

“It’s not like that,” said Bob.

“Of course it is!” The gnome cocked his head, regarding Bob shrewdly before he spoke again. “Look around you, Mister Tax Collector. You always manage to work something out with people? What sort of deal are you expecting me to make? The only way I could lay my hands on more money at the moment would be to sell my tools, but where would that leave me when taxes are next due without the means to make a living?

“I’m no idiot. I budgeted for what I owed. Cut my margins narrow. Left me and my family with just enough to survive. Then His Highness,” and here the gnome put such venom into the epithet that Bob was taken aback, “decided we weren’t paying enough and raised the taxes. The stove tax increase was the final straw. I went from just about making ends meet to poverty with the stroke of a quill.”

Bob was at a loss for what to say. The gnome had boarded over his hearth to try and cut back on the taxes he would owe. He was a cobbler with no merchandise, relying solely on repairs or advances for bespoke creations to get by. The gnome was dishevelled. His wife was in threadbare attire. He could only imagine what state the rest of the house would be in.

“I’m sure there’s something we could do,” Bob said, though even he could detect the futile desperation in his voice.

“Were you not listening to me?” said the cobbler. “I have already cut back everything I can. If your king wants future taxes from me, he’s going to have to make concessions now.”

Bob’s mouth gaped and closed several times, like a fish out of water, as his mind floundered for words. “My king? You mean our king!”

“So,” said the cobbler, shuffling out from behind his counter and holding one hand towards Bob’s back and the other towards the exit, “if you’d like to take that message back to your king and I’ll concentrate on getting my business back on track so I have something to contribute in the future.”

Bob actually took a step towards the door before his brain intervened.

“No!” He stepped back from the gnome’s corralling arm. “I don’t think you quite understand the situation you are in. If you don’t pay, I will have no choice but to imprison you!”

The door to the back burst open once more and the cobbler’s wife stormed through. She was round the counter in an instant, inserting herself protectively between Bob and her husband.

“No!” she said. “No! You can’t take him!”

She pushed Bob towards the exit with surprising strength and gestured for her husband to move back. Bob tried to get around the gnome to resume close quarters with the cobbler but she stepped with him and he found himself remarkably reticent to use any kind of force to move her out of the way.

“Harris! Farrier!”

The two soldiers burst through the door at Bob’s call. Harris took hold of the cobbler’s wife and Farrier moved past them towards the cobbler himself, who responded by moving forward in defence of his wife, despite all of the factors that were against him.

The back door swung wide again. At first, Bob didn’t see what had caused it. Then two tiny gnomes, one boy and one girl, were rounding the counter.

“Mum!”

“Dad!”

“Mind the children!” said Bob. He tried to get around Farrier to intercept the little ones. In doing so, he barged into the soldier, who stumbled. Farrier responded by swinging towards Bob, who hoped the man had simply not realised that it was he who had collided with him. Not that it mattered. The blow took him by surprise and knocked him to the floor.

The children were past him in an instant. There was a cry from the cobbler and Bob craned his neck from his prone position to see the gnome pinned against the wall by Farrier, who himself was being attacked by the children, one on each leg. The solider made to kick the girl off and Bob scrambled forwards, managing to grasp the child’s tunic and pull her out of range of the flailing foot. His other hand succeeded in taking hold off the boy’s swinging arm. He dragged them both backwards, attracting the attention of their blows in the process.

“Get him out of here!” he said, raising his voice above the chaos.

Farrier nodded his head to indicate that he had heard and manhandled his charge towards the door. Only when they were out did Bob release the children. They immediately ran towards their mother, who herself was crying and wailing and beating ineffectively at Harris’ chest.

Bob pushed himself to his feet. “Let her go.”

Harris did so and the cobbler’s wife dropped to her knees and held her children close. They, too, had devolved into tears and Bob felt helpless in the face of their sorrow, a sorrow that he was partially responsible for.

“Where will you take him?” the cobbler’s wife asked between sobs.

“To Moonreach,” said Bob. “He’ll be held at the King’s pleasure.”

“For how long? We need him!”

“For as long as the King decides his sentence should be. There has to be consequences when people don’t pay their taxes or else no-one will.”

The gnome had no further comment to make on this. Bob caught Harris’ eye and inclined his head towards the door. The two men made their way from the building to a frosty reception. By the carriage, Farrier was hoisting the cobbler into the caged section at the rear. All about the village, in every direction he looked, gnomes watched proceedings intently. Things had been hostile when they’d arrived; it looked to be bordering on a revolt now.

“We need to get out of here,” Bob said.

“Couldn’t agree more,” said Harris. He lowered his voice. “Just one thing, though. You told the prisoner’s wife that he’d be coming back after some time in Moonreach’s cells?”

“Yes?”

“King Chernitt decreed that he’ll be making an example of the next one we bring in. There’s too much rebellion brewing. He needs to put people off that sort of thing.”

Bob felt a sudden sense of anxiety tug at his gut. He suspected he knew the answer to his next question. “What will happen to him?”

Harris lowered his voice still further to confirm Bob’s fears. “Public hanging.”

Bob’s mouth went dry. There was a ringing in his ears. He felt as if he could vomit. His reaction was party due to the role he had played in taking a husband from his wife and children, leaving them no means of survival beyond the unthinkable, and partly terror at the thought of what would happen should the village decide to take matters into their own hands.

This was going to be bad. He could feel it. You couldn’t undo something like a hanging. Once that had been set as the punishment for tax evasion, that had to always be so. And where did that leave other crimes? Capital punishment for theft of a loaf of bread?

Bob spent the majority of his time these days traversing Tauber collecting outstanding taxes. He had first hand exposure to the realities of life for many. Most people would accept the consequences of breaking the law, no matter how severe those laws were. But when that consequence was death, even for minor transgressions, it put people in a position where acquiescence was no longer an option.

Bob could still hear the wailing coming from the cobbler’s abode. He glanced around at the staring villagers. They represented a microcosm of the realm; a powder keg just waiting for something to ignite it.

“Whatever you do,” Bob said, keeping his voice low, “if you want to get out of here alive, do not tell any of these gnomes what is going to happen to that cobbler.”