Angst

The first entries can be read here:Extracts from Jern's Journal

66 June 262

Oathbreaker?
Summer in Yew and high time for me to leave the Duchy and move. Aunt Agnes was admitted as a citizen of the Village of Silverleaf, already in spring. That leaves just me. And of all three Frettings I am the one most indebted to Silverleaf: mainly to Aegnor for his help and advice in so many ways, to make me a better smith. So soon the wheel comes full circle and we three are back together in Yew where we started from some 25 years ago. And I so long for Yew and to live in our cottage by the sea. Silverleaf is an ancient village founded by elves but is open to humans, dwarves, halflings, and others not of the elven race. So I keep my strange connection to elvendom, strengthen it, as I will continue to be a regular at The Trinsic Rose, thanks to the wonders of magical spells of instant travel.

But I am reluctant to break the oath I swore to the Duke personally, as a freeman of the Duchy, especially after he freed me from my servile oath and manumitted my serf status without penalty or fee.

So I have decided to give His Grace the golden ducats I collected in my rag'n bone trade as a serf, many weeks plodding the streets of Trinsic shouting my trade. I left the princely sum of 50,000 in a bag with a letter and included the orphan fund accounts with them - some interesting names there of folk long since not heard of again. I have asked Gwen Irima to give him the bag when she sees him next.

Whether he accepts or no will depend on whether I become an oathbreaker in Duchy eyes.

I heard also in The Trinsic Rose that several extremely wealthy people have donated huge sums to the orphanage charity, together totalling millions - yes, millions! -of ducats it is rumoured. Perhaps it will be announced in the next issue of Ye Sosarian Morning Poste that is already long overdue. Such generosity puts my humble sum - huge though it is to me, and gained by the sweat of my brow - in perspective. The gap between the rich and the poor - and even between the rich and the ordinary citizen - is indeed a vast chasm.