Chapter 53: A Guard's Life

Blackwood gradually stopped being scenery. It became routine.

Joe learned which lane flooded first during heavy rain and which baker sold yesterday's bread cheaply before sunrise. He learned carriage drivers shouted before corners but rarely slowed enough to make the warning useful. He also learned that wealthy merchants became remarkably polite once a guard uniform appeared during an argument.

Even the rich district produced work.

Lost property. Shop disputes. Drunks. Servants fighting. Carriages blocking entrances. Occasional thieves.

Once, a horse panicked after a brazier overturned in the street. Joe and Daren spent twenty minutes calming the animal and another hour clearing the broken cart.

Another time they chased a thief through three alleys only to discover he had stolen two smoked fish. Simon forced him to return them. The shopkeeper hit him with one. Joe decided that official intervention had reached its natural conclusion. Still, Simon's captaincy benefited him.

Their route was safe. Daren and Cole knew their work.

When patrol traffic was quiet, Simon allowed Joe to practice simple foundation movements or breathing in shaded courtyards behind guard posts.

"Don't disappear," Simon told him.

"I won't."

"If I call?"

"I'll come."

"And nothing that smokes."

Joe looked at him. "That happened once."

"You burned medicine beside a cloth warehouse."

"It was an experiment."

"It smelled like dead cabbage."

The guard resources helped more than Joe expected. The two nourishing meals each week were weaker than Hall's old paid medicinal food, but they were free enough to matter. Discounted recovery herbs stretched his salary.

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The training ground contained heavier posts, sandbags, shields and weighted equipment Green Hollow had never possessed.

Joe used those too.

Repeated Skin Tempering did not directly increase muscular strength, yet stronger skin allowed him to condition more aggressively without surface damage ending sessions early.

His palms no longer blistered easily. His feet tolerated longer running.

Padded staff drills left less swelling along the skin even when the deeper muscle still ached normally. That distinction fascinated him. Different tissues had different bottlenecks.

Autumn has deepened. Leaves from the forest turned red and gold, then blew into streets where wagon wheels crushed them against blackstone. Smoke smelled sharper in the cold air.

Joe wrote home. He described the town carefully because Mary had demanded details.

‘The roads are stone. Real stone, not just around the center. There are enough shops that I still haven't seen all of them. Simon is a captain now, although this is less impressive after watching him argue with a vegetable merchant for ten minutes.’

Simon read over his shoulder.

"Remove that."

"No."

Joe continued.

‘We rented a small house with a courtyard. I have enough room to train. The guard gives us meals and some medicine, so don't send food. It would cost more to transport grain than to buy it here.’

Mike's reply came almost a month later because letters moved only when someone traveled the route. He asked three questions about salary and four about prices.

Lily asked whether Joe was eating meat. Pam wanted to know whether rich people in Blackwood really wore silk every day. Joseph asked whether the blackstone roads became slippery in rain.

Mary wrote the largest characters on the page. SWEETS.

Joe smiled when he saw it. Simon had still not mentioned Mira.

Joe handed him the letter. "Write."

Simon frowned. "Tonight."

"You said that last week."

"I was busy."

"Mira asked."

Simon glared. Joe set paper in front of him.

Simon wrote four drafts. The final version said he had "met a respectable young woman from a merchant family."

Joe read it. "Coward."

"Send it."

Lily's answer arrived during Deepwinter. By then snow had covered Blackwood twice.

It never remained long on the busiest streets. Carriages and feet turned it gray, then wet, then pushed it into piles beside the blackstone.

Joe turned fifteen near the end of the season. The family letter arrived within the same week. Lily had written most of it through a village scribe.

She congratulated Joe. Then she spent nearly half the page questioning Simon.

What family? How long had he known her? Had he behaved properly?

Did her parents know? Was he spending money foolishly?

Pam added a note asking whether Mira was pretty. Then another asking whether she could cook.

Mary again demanded sweets.

Simon stared at the paper. Joe laughed. "I warned you."

"This is your fault."

"You met her."

"You told me to tell them."

"Yes."

"Exactly."

Joe laughed harder.

Winter eventually broke.

Spring rain washed the streets clean, turned side roads to mud and filled the medicine district with new shipments from surrounding villages.

Through all of it, Joe continued Skin Tempering II.

Slowly. Steadily. Region by region.