The Keepers: Homeward IV

by Barb Hendee

  He was still a slave to a feudal prince and the nobles who served that prince.

  If Chancellor Malbek—now first chancellor of Droevinka under Grand Prince Rodêk—had come for a visit, it wasn’t a social call.

  All the guards waited outside as Cadell politely opened the door and ushered the chancellor into the hut, but Malbek appeared surprised when Jan followed.

  “This is my son, Jan,” Cadell said quickly and then motioned across the room. “And my wife, Nadja.”

  A flicker of something crossed Malbek’s features as he looked over both son and wife, but he nodded politely.

  “May I bring you a mug of ale, my lord?” Nadja asked.

  “No, thank you,” Malbek responded; he didn’t bother to sit and instead turned his attention back to Cadell.

  “I’ve come in part to apologize,” Malbek began, though Jan wasn’t certain it sounded apologetic. “I know your villages have been neglected these past years. The prince is aware of the situation, and I promise we are trying to rectify it. For now, he has assigned me to make the rounds and collect back taxes.”

  Jan glanced sidelong at his father. He saw nothing in Cadell’s expression, but he knew his father’s panic must be building.

  Malbek waved one hand in the air. “I understand you’ve had difficulties. If your people don’t have enough coin, we’ll gladly take grain for the military instead.”

  He appeared to think this offer quite generous.

  “Forgive me, my lord,” Cadell began carefully, giving nothing away in his tone, “but the harvest has been poor for two straight years. The people have little enough grain in store to feed themselves, and they spent what few coins they had on seed for this year.”

  Malbek blinked. “Surely you’ve put something aside. You must have known someone would come to collect eventually.”

  “Of course we knew.” Cadell nodded in agreement. “But I had also assumed by that point, the prince would have assigned a new vassal to Chemestúk Keep, and that the vassal would be the one to speak with me first, and to then act as our representative, explaining the extent of the poor harvests and striking a bargain with the house of Äntes.”

  Malbek stared at him.

  “That is our right, is it not?” Cadell asked. “To seek protection and representation through the vassal lord?” He paused but Malbek still said nothing. “Simply give us the name of whoever has been assigned to the keep, and I will apprise him of our situation and do all correctly.”

  Jan stood tense. He’d wondered what approach his father might take. None of the fifes were in a position to pay two years’ worth of back taxes.

  Malbek still watched Cadell, while both Jan and Nadja held their breath.

  “No one has been assigned to the keep,” the chancellor finally replied.

  “Why not?” Cadell asked.

  Malbek appeared taken aback—and then affronted—by the boldness of this question. Before he uttered a retort, Cadell pressed on.

  “We have unresolved land disputes… fathers dying and sons fighting over division of fields. I am not challenging you, my lord, but can you not tell me why no vassal has been assigned to our keep? There must be a reason.”

  The hint of anger on Malbek’s face began to fade, and he sighed. “Because no one will accept the assignment, especially not with what happened to the last…” He trailed off as if surprised at himself.

  “To the last lord you assigned?” Jan asked, unable to stop himself. “What did happen?”

  His father silenced him with a look as Malbek glanced away.

  “We’ll find someone,” the chancellor insisted. “But it will take more time.”

  No one spoke for short while, and then Jan’s father asked, “Could you assign me?”

  “You?” Malbek blinked again.

  “The people trust me,” Cadell rushed on, “and I have the skills for proper accounting. I can manage the fiefdoms attached to the keep… for my prince.”

  Jan thought this offer to be absurd. The Äntes would never make a vassal of a peasant—even a highly placed one who could read and write. But he studied his father, who in turn was watching Malbek, and Jan then realized the chancellor was actually considering the offer!

  Even more, a strange glimmer filled the chancellor’s eyes when his features relaxed, as if he’d been relieved of problem. Cadell must have caught this as well.

  “But you’ll have to forgive the two years of back taxes,” he added quickly.

  “Forgive?” Malbek repeated.

  “I can begin visiting all the villages immediately, preparing everyone to pay this year’s taxes, but only if Prince Rodêk will forgive the past two years and allow me time to get the people prepared and organized. If the prince insists on collecting the overlooked taxes, the people will starve before the harvest, and then there will be no taxes paid in the future. Let the villages keep what little food they have, and with a good harvest this fall, taxes will flow from these fiefs for years.”

  Malbek’s eyes slowly shifted back and forth as he listened until finally, he looked up.

  “I accept your terms for now… with one condition. If you abandon your position as vassal for any reason, the bargain is off. All back taxes of the villages will be due immediately, and soldiers will be sent to collect them.”

  “Agreed,” Cadell said. “I’ve no intention of abandoning the position.”

  Jan glanced at his silent mother in concern. Why would the chancellor be so desperate to keep someone—anyone—at the keep?

  · · · · ·

  Droevinka was a world of dark gray skies. Jan had never known anything else, so as he drove a team of horses down a narrow forest road toward the village of Chemestúk, he barely noticed his surroundings.

  Old trees were dotted with moss that dangled in scant beards from a few branches. The ground was perpetually moist, and beneath the aroma of loam and wild foliage was an ever-present thin scent of decay. The thickened forest nearly blocked the cloud-coated sky above, and except for areas cleared for fields, much of the land was draped in a perpetual dusk.

  Jan’s father led the way, riding a tall chestnut gelding, while Jan and his mother took turns at the reins of a wagon bearing all their worldly possessions. A small contingent of guards sent by Malbek brought up the rear. Jan wondered about their new home and what it would be like to live in an aging fortress.

  He hadn’t known exactly what to expect, but just past dusk, as they neared their destination, he felt a stab of reservation at his first glimpse of Chemestúk. His father visited here at least twice per year, but not Jan.

  Jan reined in the team of horses at the sight of a cluster of dingy huts—smaller and much shabbier than those in his own village of Nizhyn. Lean strands of smoke arose from rough clay chimneys or simple smoke holes. Beneath the scents of the forest were the smells of cow dung, soot, and dank hay. Bleakness itself seemed to linger here like a fungal stench.

  Braids of garlic and henbane hung beside doorways. Strange symbols had been carved into the outer walls and doors of most dwellings, but Jan couldn’t make them out in the rapidly encroaching darkness.

  To the south was another clearing, smaller than the village space, in which stood weathered planks, erect stones, and debarked wood shafts sprouting from the ground. Garlands of wilted flowers hung from the tops of a few. Jan noticed a glitter of light through the tree branches there. A lantern hung from a tall pole near the graveyard’s far right corner.

  “Why waste good oil, especially in hard times, in lighting a graveyard?” Jan asked.

  “Superstition,” his mother answered. “When one of their own dies, they will buy oil before food to keep lanterns burning for as many nights as possible, all from fear of what unseen things the newly dead might attract.”

  “Truly?”

  His mother didn’t answer, but as his father pulled his horse up beside the wagon, his jaw muscles tightened, as if he did not wish to hear such things.

  “Use that lant
ern to light some our torches,” Cadell ordered the guards, pointing toward the graveyard. “We’ll need light at the keep.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The guards had been told to obey Jan’s father as they would any other vassal, and as they complied, eyes began peering out of doorways and burlap curtained windows.

  “Is that to be our home?” Jan asked, lifting his gaze.

  Up the road and out the village’s west side loomed a squat keep upon a rise amid the surrounding forest. Even at a distance, its dark profile looked worn and ill-kept like the village. Its upper rim was uneven, perhaps with broken stones leaving gaps. It sported a single tower rising high from one corner, like a crudely formed black spire in the early night.

  Jan shivered, unable to picture his lovely mother living in such a place. She—and he—preferred small, warm dwellings or rolling, covered wagons that served as homes. What had his father done to them?

  “Hallo?” Cadell called.

  Nothing happened at first, and then a hut door cracked and a voice called out. “Zupan? Is that you?”

  The door widened and a muscular aging man with disheveled gray hair emerged. He squinted at Cadell. “I saw the guards and thought…” Then he called out loudly, “It’s all right! It’s the zupan.”

  “Hello, Yoan,” Cadell said, climbing off his horse. “I didn’t mean to startle you with these guards.”

  One by one, people dressed in faded and ragged clothing inched out of their huts, and Jan shivered again.

  Was this to be their only company, frightened and superstitious peasants who starved their children to keep lanterns burning in a graveyard? He’d often found the villagers in Nizhyn somewhat lacking, but they were veritable “townsfolk” compared to these people.

  “What are you doing with those guards?” Yoan asked bluntly.

  “I’m not with them. They’re with me.” Cadell smiled. “I’ve been appointed as vassal to the keep.”

  Yoan didn’t appear to understand.

  “It’s true,” Cadell said. “We’ve all been forgiven the past two years taxes, and tomorrow I’ll begin to organize all the villages to pay this year’s taxes without starving ourselves. I am now the wall between our people and the Äntes.”

  Jan felt a flash of pride, realizing his father had managed something great, nearly impossible.

  A buzz of voices grew all around them in the village’s open space, but not all of it sounded pleased or excited by the astonishing news that Jan’s father had delivered.

  “You’re not planning to live up there, are you?” Yoan asked, turning his eyes toward the keep.

  “We must,” Cadell answered.

  The skin over Yoan’s cheekbones drew back. “Dark things happened up there… no one can live up there… not for long.”

  “What things?” Jan asked.

  When Yoan didn’t answer, Cadell shook his head. “After two years of the place standing empty, our first battles will likely be against mold and rats.” He nodded to Yoan. “We’ll speak again in the morning.”

  Cadell mounted his horse and started up the road to the keep. Nadja glanced at Jan. With little choice, Jan clucked to the team of horses and followed his father, hearing the guards coming behind them.

  · · · · ·

  Though Jan tried to maintain a sightline to their destination, the old fortress disappeared for a short while as they pressed along the road. When they finally rolled onto the top of the rise, Jan’s apprehension doubled at his first clear sight of the aging keep under the light of the guards’ torches.

  It was simple, barely a huge block of stone with one half tower, or turret, sprouting from a forward corner. It was more than a bit worn with age.

  Moss grew between lichen-spotted stones on its lower half. To one side was an undersized stable while the other held a small abandoned barracks with a clay chimney, and nearly half the boards of that structure looked rotted through. A stone wall, decayed by the years, encircled the grounds. Judging by some of its taller sections, and the fallen stones lying about, it had lost half its height. Its gate doors were completely gone. The surrounding forest had been cleared away from the wall for some thirty paces on all sides.

  With no gate to bar their way, Jan’s family and the guards entered the grounds inside the decaying wall’s remains and went straight up to the keep’s front.

  “See to the horses,” Cadell ordered the highest ranking guard, who Jan believed was called Cherock, but he couldn’t quite remember. Jan rarely paid attention to the names of guards.

  After dismounting, Cadell took a torch from one of the men and strode toward the front doors. Although the doors were closed, they were not locked, and he opened them. Jan helped his mother down from the wagon, and the two of them hurried after. All the guards remained outside.

  Upon following his father in, Jan found the entryway to be dark and dank, and it smelled so musty that he almost backed out.

  “Father…” he began.

  Cadell turned and his jaw was tightly set. “We’ve faced worse than this, boy. This is the only chance our people have for a fair hope, so we cannot fail.”

  Nadja’s eyes were bleak, but she touched Jan’s arm gently. “Your father is right. We must press on.”

  Steeling himself, Jan followed his parents further inside with the only light coming from his father’s torch.

  “I have some thick candles in my bag,” Nadja said, her voice trembling slightly. “We’ll light them in the main hall.”

  The wide passage emptied into a large, dark and damp space that had to be the main hall. Cadell held his torch higher as he stepped to the center of the floor.

  Stairs circled up along the left wall and matching ones went down below to the right. The timbered ceiling was twice a man’s height and less aged than the stone, likely having been expanded well after the structure had been first built. The original fire pit in the hall’s center was filled in with floor stones, and a hearth large enough to stand in had been added to the back wall.

  All three of them turned a full circle, taking in their new “home,” or as much of it as they could see.

  The filthy rushes on the floor and rotting tables and chairs and endless cobwebs caused even Cadell’s expression to waver in concern, but Nadja looked up at him, and she attempted a smile.

  “Do not trouble yourself,” she said. “We will clean this up, and you will win the prince’s trust and favor… and speak for our people.”

  Cadell looked at Nadja, and for an instant, all concerns drained from his face. “I am a fortunate man to have you with me.”

  Jan certainly agreed, and he wished he could be more concerned about their people… about helping his father. But there and then, all he could see ahead was a dreary future in a dreary keep.

  · · · · ·

  The next few days were filled with industry and exploration, and Jan’s mother had no compunction against ordering their guards into cleaning duties. Once the filthy rushes had been swept out, her next order of business was to decide which furniture might be salvaged and which should be burned in the great hearth. Even Jan had to admit that once the main hall had been cleaned up a bit and a fire was burning, it was not quite as unwelcome a place as it had seemed at first.

  He and his mother then took stock of the rest of their new home.

  In addition to the great hall, there were storage rooms and a kitchen on the main floor. The sleeping quarters were upstairs. One such room appeared to have been converted into a study, but the legs on the desk had decayed and half of it rested on the floor at an odd angle.

  Almost right away, they found two large beds that were surprisingly intact, but both needed new straw mattresses and bedding to replace what had rotted away. Thankfully, Nadja had brought almost everything they owned from Nizhyn. So far, the family had been sleeping on blankets piled before main hall’s hearth, but Jan knew his mother would soon make those bedrooms inhabitable. For the first few days, he worked from dawn to dark under her in
struction without a hint of resentment and never touched his beloved fiddle. She was trying to make them a home, and he was determined to be some help.

  To his surprise, the constant labor helped lift his spirits.

  He and his mother only shared one dark moment in those first few days. They were upstairs, taking initial stock of the sleeping quarters, and they decided to go their separate ways in order to cover more ground. After thoroughly looking through two rooms, Jan had wandered back to find her, and he walked into a bedroom that appeared more recently inhabited than the rest. A dusty quilt covered the bed, and a thick braided rug—with only a few holes chewed by mice—covered the floor.

  The open wardrobe across the room was filled with dresses and dainty shoes

  Jan’s mother stood by a completely intact dressing table, complete with an oval mirror. She was fingering an assortment of objects on the table: half full perfume bottles, silver brushes, and a string of pearls.

  “She left everything,” Nadja said quietly. “Whoever lived in this room… she left everything behind.”

  Looking around, Jan couldn’t help feeling a chill.

  · · · · ·

  Cadell stayed at the keep long enough to help make the place at least livable. On the fourth night, at dinner in the main hall, he looked up from a simple meal of cold ham and bread.

  “I’ll be leaving tomorrow. I need to start visiting the villages to tell them what’s happened and what must be done.”

  Jan had been expecting this, but his mother glanced away toward the fire in the hearth.

  “You’ll be all right,” Cadell said, making it sound like a statement. “I’ll take the sergeant, Cherock, with me but leave the other guards.” He took a bite of ham. “While I’m gone, see if you can’t get a girl or two to come help with the cooking and cleaning. Someone must be in need of a wage enough to overcome any silly fears of this place.”