Maril and Bert walked down the street in what Maril had started to think of as companionable silence. They were headed to the community park where both ends of Canter Court joined the main highway. There were about 30 houses on the loop of the street, all about the same size but of a variety of styles and colors. All the houses were occupied by other minor nobles like Maril’s family.
Owen had promptly retrieved a large umbrella and his normal traveling satchel from one of the hall closets when Maril had said they were going for a walk. He had also offered to carry Bert’s leather satchel which looked quite small slung over Owen’s shoulder with the larger cloth satchel. He was following a little way behind Maril and Bert while they walked down the side of the street.
After walking a few minutes in silence, Bert suddenly pointed at a tree in the front yard of one of the houses they were passing, “That tree is a sweet maple. Its wood has a nice smooth grain and is good for making furniture and the housing for clocks.”
“And that tree,” he continued, “that tall fluffy one back behind the corner of the purple house,” he pointed to a tree on the other side of the street that spread out with a wide canopy shading a large section of the house. “It is a red locust and is good for making things that need to stay out in the weather like benches and shingles.”
He maintained the conversation this way, pointing out different trees as they passed more houses, all surrounded in trees, shrubs, and other decorative and flowering plants. He answered any questions she had and was much more relaxed, even a little excited, compared to his demeanor while in the tea room.
Finally, Maril, who had already started to lose track of the different types of trees, asked, “How do you know all this about trees?”
“It’s my job,” he said, and then paused, “Well, it’s the part of my job that I am good at and my dad actually likes me doing.”
Maril looked over at him questioningly. They had discussed what his family and their employees made earlier. His father had a large workshop at their house and in addition to working there with Bert, he also employed around a dozen other minor nobles. Some had mage permits and added runes to wooden objects. Some were not mages and only assisted with mundane tasks. Together, they made wooden objects ranging from shingles that would never rot to devices that could be used to communicate written words across long distances. Some of their projects were sold to vendors in the shopping district and some projects were specific orders that would be sent straight to the customers who had commissioned them.
Burt shrugged, “I’m not always that much help in the workshop, but I am good at picking out wood in the lumber yard. So, anytime we need to refill our generic wood supplies dad sends me. Since I’m a mage and can see magic, I can often tell which pieces of wood will be good for magic uses. Magic likes smooth grain, rough tangled wood disperses the magic faster. I’ve learned a lot about different types of trees and whatnot.”
Maril waited, expecting him to continue. When he didn’t, she looked over at him. He wasn’t looking at her, but he hadn’t been looking at her for most of the walk. What was different was that he had stopped looking around at the trees and was mostly watching the stone street in front of his leather shoes.
Maril decided that it wasn’t worth pressing for more information, especially since they were approaching the community park and horse boarding barn.
“Here we are,” she said, gesturing to the abundantly blooming park. This is it, Canter Court Community Park. A lot of the communities in this area have shared parks like this one. Do you have something similar near your house?”
Bert looked around at the garden beds, tall shade trees, gravel walking paths with spaced out benches, and the horse barn and shook his head.
Maril, still walking towards the entrance of one of the gravel paths, started telling him about her horse that stayed in the horse barn, “He really isn’t my horse and it’s not even always the same horse. But one of the horse stalls is assigned to my family’s house and that is the horse we use. All the horses are actually owned by a high noble family, the Amberfeld’s I think. They have a company that rotates horses through a lot of the community horse barns.” Maril stepped off the street onto the pea gravel path and turned back towards Bert and Owen.
Bert was glancing between the large horse barn, the houses on the street, and at Owen following behind them. He turned back to Maril, “This community is mostly humans isn’t it?” he asked.
Maril nodded, looking at him, Owen, and the large human-size houses, “Yes, only two of the houses, besides my family’s, are occupied by gnome nobles. I’m pretty sure the rest of the houses are human families.”
Bert nodded and recollected himself before walking the rest of the distance down the road to join her at the entrance to the park. Together they walked down a path covered in round creek pebbles, winding between shade trees and hedges of flowering bushes, farther into the park.
After passing a few well-established trees, Bert continued his lecture about the types of trees they passed. Maril listened politely but was becoming genuinely interested. She had never considered that not all trees were the same. Of course the leaves were a variety of shapes, but she hadn’t realized that they had so many other differences. His enthusiasm was contagious. She found herself fascinated by both the differences between the types of trees and in Bert compared to when he was sheepishly sitting in the tea room.
Suddenly Bert stopped walking and placed his hands on the bark of a tall oak tree. Looking up into the branches of the tree he asked, “Your mage permit is for infrastructure like your father’s, right?”
Maril, who had stopped a step or two past him, turned back and replied, “Yes, why?”
“I have just always been interested in infrastructure and it seems like it would be so much more interesting than sitting in a dusty workshop all day. You get to work outside right? And travel the city to see different places?”
Maril stared at him, “Well yeah, I have to travel to different places. Mostly out to the farming districts and I…”
He interrupted her, “You go to the farming districts? I’ve never even been outside the city.”
She looked at him aghast, “You’ve never been outside the city?”
“Nope,” he replied, staring at a little bush beside the path.
She shrugged and continued walking, “Yeah, I get assignments in the farming districts quite often, Owen drives me there in our carriage. I’m actually in the middle of a job right now. I will be going tomorrow to finish renewing the runes on a section of the East Farming District aqueduct.”
Maril heard him shuffling down the path to catch up with her, “Really? Tomorrow? Could I go with you?” he asked and sounded more excited than she had seen him yet.
“Why would you want to do that?” she asked looking over her shoulder as he caught up, “It will just be a long hot carriage ride.”
He calmed and shrugged as he caught up with her, “Yeah, but it’s not like I have anything better to do tomorrow,” he continued more nonchalantly, “All the master crafters in the workshop are going to a convention in the high noble district. Not only am I not invited, but I’m also not allowed to work while there’s no one there to supervise. So I have the day off.”
Maril’s mind was racing, simultaneously cursing herself for mentioning the trip to the farming district and wondering if it might be nice to have some company besides Owen. Owen was almost too polite to count as company anyway. She also wasn’t sure if it would benefit her or not when her father heard that she had shown preference to Mister Hinkleton’s son. But Bert looked so excited, she didn’t have the heart to tell him no.