“Wear this,” Rhoshira said, flipping an eye patch at him. The sailors wore them when going in and out of the ship's hold, shifting the patches from one eye to the next, so that they would not have to wait to adjust their eyes to the darkness, and so be at a disadvantage.
“I might as well pretend to be part of the crew." Arrowood did not resemble those cutthroats in the slightest. He suspected that she wanted him to cover the cracked-silver iris so she did not have to look at it. ‘Witch’s eyes’, certain primitive people, people like Rhoshira, called them. The man from Rhûn pulled the eye patch on. He was tempted to cover his other eye, the one yellow as the harvest moon, reflecting once again that he lived during a tumultuous time, a bad time, a dangerous time for an educated man who had once worn the flowing round-collar robes of a distinguished scholar, but he did not wish to antagonize his guard. He snuggled it over the offending orbit, and settled back in his berth again.
He was a geometer, a mathematician who specialized in geometry, with a knack for calculating heights and distances. His work was not only theoretical but eminently practical: he studied how water flowed through the little channels like veins in the structure of a leaf, and how a flooding river changed shape, depending on the volume of water and velocity. When a river flooded, there was often difficulty determining boundary lines after the waters receded. His skills were sought out by wealthy landowners interested in settling disputes over property, as well as for their land purchases, and he was paid well for his expertise. Eventually he became astute at predicting which areas would flood, and people spoke of him as a seer. In his spare time, he wrote several mathematical treatises that improved and expanded upon existing simple mechanical devices such as levers and pulleys. He did not pay any mind to the dark looks or whispering behind his back, whenever he ventured to town - something he would come to regret.
It never occurred to him that anyone would be so jealous of his skills that he would spread false rumors about him. He was in league with the Dark One, it was said; he was a magician with unholy powers who controlled the elements. He had not made any trouble; he had kept his hands clean; and this is how the fools treated him!
“Why you keep huffing like unhappy pig?” Rhoshira asked, eyebrows arched, half-amused, half-annoyed. “Be happy.”
‘Happy’ - ? How daft! “These are challenging times,” was all he said. The mercenary would not understand, and he was unwilling to describe his feelings to that imperious desert woman.
“Looking back not help.”
He fixed his non-obscured eye on her and denied that he was doing any such thing. The woman was more perceptive than he had given her credit for. “Perhaps there is more to you, Rhoshira, than meets the eye,” he quipped with a sardonic laugh, and immediately regretted it, because she glared at him and demanded to know what he meant by that.
One annoying characteristic of this thick-thighed woman was that if he did not answer her right away, she would repeat her question, over and over, with more and more emphasis, her voice growing louder and louder, until his head rang at the temples and he thought his skull would split apart.
“What you mean?”
Arrowood leaned forward and put his hands on his knees, groaning out that he was going to be sick again.
“You stupid,” she said, but she brought over the bucket anyway, and left him alone.
