Ralph and the Pixie - Page 411/574

In the minds of many, the Merchant’s refusal to leave was to be wondered at, but the Thane knew only too well the source of their reticence. To be stripped of wealth and pretence, to be forced to throw in their lot with “common folk,” who, in their minds, had until now represented little more than vague, yet often troublesome abstractions; to toil in a physical world with inexpert hands and a soft disposition, to be painfully visible and on an equal footing with people they had smirkingly condescended to, always from a position of illicitly purchased safety; to work alongside these same people that were no longer abstractions but very real; feeling diminished and threatened by the solidity of hard-working people who were many times their number, if not more than their match in physical strength and stamina: such a fate was abhorrent to them, for this was all that the possibility of Liberty and Freedom conveyed to their minds. Once more they meant to ride on the backs of others, hiding behind the soldiers and walls of Mirrindale, forever scheming in guilty secrecy.

Though he had reluctantly agreed to the terms of the planned evacuation, the Thane’s reservations were quite the opposite of Doc’s. It had not been his intention to allow any of the Merchants, nor the King’s or the mercenary soldiers, to leave Mirrindale. To his mind, those who had proven themselves untrustworthy, unscrupulous, duplicitous, and a threat to Elf and Faerie alike, should have been abandoned to their fate. But at that particular juncture of their disagreement, Doc had remarked, in his quietly disarming way, that perfectly decent people often commit perfectly vile acts.