Oleg frowned. It was too generous. He shook his head and tried to clear his thoughts. They'd been far too clouded of late. Oleg stood from the wood armchair and writing desk, his knees crackling in protest. The old man sighed. He'd sworn when he came out here to the frontier he would never get entangled in the bureaucracy of Restov and civilization ever again. Looking down at the contract he saw all that he had wished for in this life turn to ash and blown away like dust on the open road.
Oleg leaned hard against the desk. Not one but three letters he had sent to the young lords in Stagfell and all had gone unanswered. Even Svetlana's letter to the Lord Baron asking for the two months of winter leave was met with silence. She agreed with him that they both should have gone to meet with the Lord Baron personally but it was just too difficult for him at the time. Oleg never did have the heart to tell Svetlana of the discussion he had with the Lord Baron and his shadowy advisor.
By ash and stone he should have known better! If he hadn't liked that young knight so much maybe things would never have gone so far. Now the young lords would see Svetlana taken away from him just as they had taken away his frontier, bringing civilization this far out...just as Svetlana had taken away an old man's solitude. For a time.
Perhaps it was just as well. A pair of sad old eyes stared back through his mottled reflection in the gray tint of the muscovite window. She would have a proper life in Stagfell and he wanted that for her so much. But damned if his old heart could make himself do it. To let her go.
Oleg made his way to the small bar that the Wizard Mahr tended, grabbed a bottle of apple brandy, and shuffled slowly to his backroom to get thoroughly drunk.
