For a whole week, Oswald came to see lady Emilia. She still wanted to work. The first time, they talked about how she managed to survive the attack. The second time, the boy listened to her pain complains. The third was the same, except he gave her a nicely embroidered handkerchief which boosted her morale a lot.
The many time he went to hunt alone allowed him to catch rabbits.
The fourth time, Oswald started to ask questions. "He he! I know, you're such a sociable person Emily. By the way, have you ever seen a wandering soldier around? Someone whom you might've filled the cup recently?"
There was no cross in the whole inn. They were in the second floor, in her room where tea and warm buns were regularly served.
"I've seen many. But none whom I'd fill the cup. I'll gladly do so when the war ends, not before, we can't send them to fight if they're as sober as Simons! Oh never mind. I haven't seen him in days! Is he alright?"
"He is, I work with him actually. I'm asking you this because I've encountered a traveller, short blond hair and cultural marks on his body, like this, here, there, and plenty on his body." He shown the woman how Stan 's marks looked.
"No... That's not ringing a bell little one, I'm sorry. Maybe he was a slave? We mark slaves when we buy them, or to punish them. If the marks he had were permanent, they surely have been painful to earn."
This led Oswald to think. 'Then if he was a slave, it may be normal for him to lie about his marks. But what about the letter? Is he like a deserter? Running away from his fate as a slave? What a man.'
There came the hardest part of his meeting.
"Can you help this old lady to ease her pain? I've got plenty of fish oil, it'll go smoothly!"
The fish oil mixed with her chamber pot's foul smell were an explosive cocktail for Oswald, the boy could hardly breathe, plus he had to endure every of lady Emily's demands to get informations. The old woman wouldn't utter a word if she wasn't pleased. The little information he managed to collect were precious to him.
When he was home, or alone with his herd, he practised his weapon-handling skills. Both with the axe and knives. Alas the lack of living target gave him limited improvement.
The only thing he could improve was the strength to add in each blow.
Someone came to visit him when the moon started to show up anew. It had been more than a week since Oswald chose to mind his own business.
It was Tom, with a backpack and heavy clothing. The teenager noticed how lightly dressed the shepherd was, it was quite abnormal to see someone's shoulders outside.
Oswald saw him coming before he exited the forest. Even though the wind agitated the leaves, the sound of his footsteps had betrayed his presence long ago.
"Hey Oswald! You look great today, how are you?" He asked politely, he remarked how big the muscles on his shoulders were, his arms had plenty of bumps to help discern each of his muscles.
"Doing fine."
"Are you training or something? I'd be glad to have the same cold resistance as you." He said, pointing at Oswald.
"Then don't start in winter, you'll catch a cold." He replied. 'I totally forgot my jacket, I regret not being more careful.'
"What about your tracking skills? Can you teach me?" Oswald threw his knife deep into the his target, it was another good opportunity to enlarge his friendship circle.
"Sure, but why don't you learn how to defend yourself before looking for preys? You were scared in front of the dead wolf... I won't bother keeping you around as long as you don't mess my herd up. They are sensitive to voices."
Tom was thirteen, almost four years younger than Oswald. He had short brown hair growing forward, what grew under his chin was nowhere close to a beard. He was son of merchants, hunting with his friends was a hobby as he participated only for light tasks and spectated the rest of the time.
His corpulence was casual, he never knew famine nor poverty. He had to cover his nose while approaching the herd. His clothes were of good quality, there was no scar on his skin, damaged by the cold.
As he was sort of rich, he had plenty of time to spare, now that his hunting group parted ways, he chose to came toward Oswald, the most promising hunter he knew.
Oswald had no idea where to begin. "To be honest, I never had a master to teach me this kind of thing. So, you better watch carefully. Left one." He said, playing with his knife.
He threw it so hard half its blade entered the wood, the impact pushed the log that rolled few meters farther. Tom was stunned, until the boy pulled out a second knife out of his pocket, and struck the same target again.
"Awesome!" He checked if Oswald had more knives before running to fetch them. It was less boring now that he had someone to bring back his knives. He watched his surroundings, to be sure his animals were safe from time to time.
Tom had to pull hard to get the knives back. He saw how much time the poor wood had been used. Then under his feet, he saw wood chips, so much it created a high-quality potting soil.
"How often do you train here?"
"Every day, when I come to this place. I have some space around my house, on the way back to it, and in two other spots. If you want to give it a try, then bring back the log with you, it's the same as cold-resistance training, you start with the basics."
He wanted to make Tom confident. So he gave plenty of compliments even before his first throw.
"Hold the tip of the blade, you'll have more momentum. Here's the best movement to throw straight." When Oswald moved the boy's arm, his thick sleeve prevented Tom to notice how abnormal was Oswald's temperature.