Burned Ambition

It’s not as if I hadn’t been here before. Life has a funny way of reminding you that sometimes, that no matter how hard you push and climb that you’re always one wrong step away from the first. At first, it’s soul crushing. Then it’s simply irritating, but now… now I somewhat look forward to it.

I stood before the ashes of my most recent endeavor: a small tavern at the crossroads of two less-than-busy trails upon which you would only find thieves, wanderers, and the occasional wayward trader. I chose this place because I knew almost every one of them. Not personally of course, but I hailed from their ranks. As such I knew I couldn’t trust any of my patrons, but because of this I knew exactly what to expect from them. Brawls were somewhat commonplace, as was gambling. There was the occasional pickpocket, and rarely I’d see a conman blind some fool with an impossible bargain. They never failed to make me laugh.

But they never cheated me. I’d never been the subject of a fight, never been burgled, and the gamblers always made sure to pay me for the right to use my tables. That’s why I chose this place; because everybody needs a place to wash away their miseries, and folks like these would sooner die than lose the last place that would take them in in a hundred miles. That’s why I was so perplexed when she burned down last night. With me in it.

Luckily, I had awakened in time to escape the inferno, but not before whomever had started the fire had the chance to make off with my entire lockbox of money. That’s the shame of it, really. I could have built this place a half dozen times with the money I had in there. Less the cost of the work I had put into her myself. Afterall, it was me who felled the trees that had become the walls. I dug the mortar, thatched the roof, and laid the stone floor which of course was still there, albeit a tad charred now. But the furniture, the windows, the adornments, not to mention the food and the drink, that all had cost me years of my life.  

Years of work. A thousand failed ventures. From pockets picked in my youth to quarried stone and other various “acquisitions” in my later years. I knew that all that coin I was saving would someday give me peace of mind, and for the past several years, this had been it.

Who could have done this? I know I had made some enemies in my line of “work” (if you could really call it that,) but I was sure that none of them had known my whereabouts. I had even been working under a false name to cover my tracks. I guess it just goes to show that one can never really be too careful. Maybe I had drunkenly mentioned my real name to one of my patrons, or I had been recognized by an adversary’s associate. As much as I scoured my mind at who could have perpetrated this, I came to no conclusions.

However, as I had originally mentioned, where this would have originally disheartened me, I now felt invigorated. It may be a cliché, but I’ve come to appreciate the process of building something far more than having it.  Hell, I could have burned this place down myself, in fact I had wanted to several times since I had opened her up. I didn’t even know if I was going to rebuild the place. I’m sure my patrons would want me to. I have come to enjoy their company, but they can be a hefty burden from time to time. And ultimately, I really had imagined owning a place like this was going to be a lot easier; I may have been a watering-hole for unsavory types, but I still had to make sure to keep my books and pay my taxes. It’s not all brawls and barmaids when you run the joint.

At least it was just me in here. I make sure not to let my patrons fall asleep at the hearth or in the booths. The only lodging I provide here is my own, but there is plenty of room to camp around the road, although they have been emptied for the past few nights. I am my own employee, although I occasionally hire some of my poorer patrons for a night in exchange for food and drink. I still never let them stay the night. Had I known a single soul had been swallowed by the flames, I may as well have walked into them headfirst myself. I don’t for one second take any of them to be innocent types, but none are so vile that I would see them endure such a terrible fate. On the other hand, if but one person had been in my establishment at the time of it’s burning, maybe they could have run the arsonist off, or at least woken me up, or helped and put the fire out. Oh well. I suppose that’s the problem when you cannot trust.

All this pondering would do nothing but torture me at the end of the day. As day broke the sun began shimmering through the trees and shining its light through the whisps of smoke slipping from the still hot pile of ashes, seemingly reenacting the blaze. Some of my more loyal patrons began arriving down the various roads, their faces frozen in expressions of utter dismay. Funny, it was them who I pitied the most. I wasn’t sure what I would say to them, but I knew I could assure them that I would be okay. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve done this before. I looked down in my hands. I had saved the one thing that I would need now more than ever: My axe. I looked at the road. There was one set of carriage tracks rutted into the mud, going to and from the same direction. I hadn’t ever seen a carriage pass through here. I slung my axe over my shoulder, and a smile cracked across my face. Time to go find my coin. Again.