by Radclyffe
The wintry storm passed, but then the rivers and lakes dried up. Peasants packed up their mule carts for better terrain. Soldiers deserted the King’s service, and the court bursar absconded with all the gold in the treasury. Rumors spread that raiders were creeping toward Evermore’s borders to plunder whatever was left. Adalbert lay on his bed staring at the desiccated stalk of bluebonnet in his hand. He didn’t stir when his father stammered into his room.
“We’re leaving Evermore,” Heinrich said. “Take what you can carry. There’s a carriage and an ox left. We’ll head to port and sail away.”
Heinrich moved about the room making a hasty appraisal of his son’s decoratives and furnishings. He stopped when he noticed that Adalbert had not budged from his self-pitying position. “It’s a full day’s travel to the coast, and there’s raiders coming,” Heinrich said. “You better get a move on.”
Adalbert let out a trebling sigh.
Heinrich stood over his son. “There’s no time for dallying, Adalbert. Everything’s gone. We’ll start anew overseas. Your mother has relatives in Furthermore to help us get settled. Now let’s go.”
“I don’t want to,” Adalbert said.
“You haven’t any choice. We’ll all be pitted to stakes when the raiders come.”
“I don’t feel like going anywhere.”
A furnace of heat rose to Heinrich’s face. He drew a deep breath. “I’m going to help your mother collect her things. We’ll be leaving in less than an hour’s time.” He clopped out of the room.
Adalbert lay back in his bed. He didn’t want to do anything but stare at his wilted flower. It was all the Troll’s fault. He was too dejected to move. He figured he’d conserve his energy until his father came back to push him along.
There was a lot of commotion carrying into Adalbert’s bedchamber. He turned onto his stomach and pulled a pillow over his head to drown it out. Adalbert heard his father’s voice, hurried footsteps down the stairs, a woman’s scream, and a lot of shouting back and forth. He eyed his bedroom door peculiarly. Then Adalbert stepped out to his balcony.
He saw an army of raggedy men fording the moat and teaming through the palace gates. There was no defense. Adalbert looked to the horizon. Far down the path leading to the coast, he saw his parents’ carriage. His father hung out of the back side of the transport, waving and calling out for him. But it was too late.
*
The few court attendants who had remained in the palace quickly surrendered, and the raiders took over the palace. The foreign men didn’t pit Adalbert to a stake, but they did have the King’s dungeon keeper lock him up in the cellar. They had decided Adalbert might come of some use for ransom should the King decide to return to Evermore.
Adalbert found himself in a dark, windowless cell. Many days passed, and the only light he ever saw was the dungeon keeper’s torch when he stopped by to deliver his daily ration of a cup of water and two bowls of gruel. There were two straw cots and a trench in one corner where the cell’s former residents had relieved themselves. Adalbert spent the long hours hunched over at one cot, trying to make out the silhouette of the flowerless stalk he held in his hand. He thought it would be his only companion for the rest of his life. Until one day.
A muffled cough punctured the silence.
Adalbert shuddered. He searched around the pitch-black room. He thought for a moment he had descended into some kind of delirium and his head had begun to invent sounds. Then the cough came again, strong and near.
“Who is that?” Adalbert said. The source of the noise seemed to be across the room, at the opposite side of his cell. Adalbert strained his eyes. He knew a cot was there, but he could not see it. A gravelly voice spoke.
“It’s the Duke of Lessermore. Seems a terrible mistake has been made. Neither one of us was supposed to be assigned to this room. They’ll be coming to bring us up to the King’s suite any minute.”
Adalbert narrowed his brow at the man’s sarcasm. “How long have you been there?”
“Who can answer such a question? Tell me, sir: how long has it been since you were locked up in this eternal night? Perhaps you’re better than me at counting the number of times our warden’s torch appeared on the other side of the gates. I gave up long ago.”
Adalbert fidgeted at the thought of being watched all this time in the darkness. He tried to recall the sight of the other bed. He’d been certain it was empty. It was just covered over with a bunchy blanket. Adalbert had chosen the other cot because it looked less used.
“What crime did you commit to put you here?” he asked.
The stranger chuckled. “You’ve a knack for asking churlish questions. Better to ask the one who decided to sentence me to this pit of hell. I say my only trespass was love.”
Adalbert clucked. “That sounds like a tall tale. Who’d lock you up on account of love?”
There was a long pause. Adalbert wondered if he’d been too brash. Strange as it was to have a conversation with a disembodied voice, it was his only contact since he’d been locked up in his cell. He stared across the room, willing his companion to say something. At last, the stranger spoke.
“I’ve a tale, yes. Not one of height, but one of length. I’ll tell it unless you’ve a scarcity of leisure.”
“Yes,” Adalbert said. “I’d like to hear it.”
And so the stranger began his story.
I was born a bastard. My mother was poor. She took what work she could get in our woodland hamlet. She darned socks, spun silk, and fancied herself an innkeeper when the King’s servicemen passed through the village. I figure my father was a foot soldier who stayed the night, had his lump of millet in the morning, and went on his way. I saw many men come and go growing up, and I wasn’t the first or the last souvenir from one of my mother’s guests. We were a house full of fatherless boys and girls.
My mother couldn’t afford to keep one child, let alone the seven of us. So she settled on a plan. As soon as one of us could stand up on two feet, she sent him into the forest to collect wild turnips. If he could find his way home, he’d get hot soup for supper. Most of my brothers and sisters, I never saw again. I kept coming back.
When I was old enough to be of some use beyond digging up root vegetables, my mother sold me off to a mage. He was a peevish sprite who lived in a cavern, deep in the woods. He didn’t much like company, but he needed an apprentice. He taught me how to find magical herbs and berries for his potions. I’d become a fine fetcher by then. He only thrashed me once for bringing back the wrong ingredients. He kept me bound by an eternal spell so I could not venture beyond the forest. But it wasn’t bad work. I didn’t know much better than being indentured. Until one morning when he sent me on an errand for nettle sting.
Nettle sting likes the damper parts of the forest, so I headed there. It wasn’t long till I spotted the spiny devil sprouting up on the margins of a creek. I fixed to carefully uproot it and put it in my bag. Then I heard someone coming through the brush. My master wasn’t keen on leading visitors back to his place, so I hid behind a tree. I peeked out and saw a woodsman.
Handsome he was. Broad-shouldered from his work, and he didn’t look much older than me. He was circling around a chestnut tree, eyeing its branches. I watched him get to it with his axe. I noticed he’d set down a satchel a little ways off. I crept toward it and took a look inside.
It was his lunch: bread, cheese, an apple—a pretty good find considering I was heading home to a supper of boiled pokeweed. I decided I’d play a trick. I pocketed the food, scooped some fallen chestnuts into his bag, and snuck away.
I returned to the same spot the next day. Sure enough, the woodsman came back for more of that chestnut wood. I carefully turned over his sack and found another lunch of bread and cheese. There was also some gooseberry jam. I took the stuff, and this time, I’d brought better barter. I left him some mushrooms and leeks, tied up his sack, and headed off.
Over the next few days, we continued our game. Blood sausag
e for porridge. Smoked fish for pheasant eggs. Barley ale for birch tea. Every night after I was done with my master’s chores, I stayed up late planning new exchanges. I got more gutsy by the end of the week and stole out of the sprite’s lair while he slept. I caught a hare in the dawn’s light and cooked it in an open fire in the woods. Later that day, I hid in the spot by the chestnut trees waiting for the woodsman. He came walking through the brush as usual, looked around for timber, and settled on his quarry for the day. He set his satchel down and took up his axe. Then he stopped and twitched his nose.
“I don’t like rabbit,” he said.
I scrunched up behind the tree.
“Where are you, forest spirit?” he said. “I’ve brought you a fine meal of mutton chop and wine. It’s time you showed yourself to me.”
I didn’t budge. I listened to him rustling through the leaves. The damned hare in my bag was my mark. I heard him on the other side of the tree.
“Come out, forest spirit. Or do I have to lop off this trunk to get to you?” he said.
I drew a deep breath, straightened out, and ambled around the tree. My face burnt hot. As many times as I’d imagined one day meeting the woodsman, I was struck dumb and my feet swayed beneath me.
The woodsman stepped toward me with a devilish smile. He put his hand on the nape of my neck and pulled me close, and our lips met.
That kiss unlocked something in me. Desires that had been buried deep in my head were suddenly set free as possible. From as many times as I had imagined being with a man, I knew all of the motions.
We shucked each other’s clothes, and I stooped in front of him. My mouth truckled greedily to coax the seed from between his legs. He halted me gently and he raised me from the ground, and he led me to a spot beside a tree trunk. I hunched and bared my buttocks so he could claim my bowels. It was far more brutal and exquisite than I had ever dreamed. And when he was done, he lay down on a mossy patch beside the creek, and he bid me to do the same to him. We were like rutting stags, discovering for the first time how well two men’s bodies fit together.
Adalbert interrupted. “You did all that and you’d only just met?”
“Where’d you grow up?” the stranger said. “Under a rock?”
Adalbert sneered. “It sounds to me like he forced himself on you.”
“No,” the stranger replied. He paused thoughtfully. “Everything that happened that afternoon was entirely agreed upon.”
Pictures streamed through Adalbert’s head, the kind he had at night thinking about the stable hand dropping by his bedroom unexpectedly. Adalbert blushed. He had a lot of questions about how things worked. Could something like that really fit inside there? Adalbert brushed it off.
“I think you’re very brazen,” he told the stranger.
“Like a goat.”
Adalbert sat up on his bed and tented his knees to cover up the stiffness in his pants.
“May I go on now with the story?” the stranger said.
“Go ahead.”
The next few days passed like a dream. The woodsman and I met each morning. Sometimes we played over that wondrous day when he had caught me hiding. Other times we got straight to business. Afterward, we’d take a swim in the creek, share a meal, and talk.
The woodsman told me he’d been raised by his grandmother after his mother fell ill. He’d recently moved out on his own and was collecting chestnut for a new bridge out by the river. He liked his work but found it lonely. I listened intently to everything he said. When he asked me questions, I veered away from my situation. I told him I had a boss who sent me out for errands, but I didn’t mention that I was bound to him and could never leave the forest. Nestled in the woodsman’s arms, it was easy to pretend that finding each other straightened out life’s complexities. My mage had a commission ridding a wealthy squire of a witch’s curse—a very difficult procedure, so I had my freedom for a time.
The woodsman brought me presents. I knew he wasn’t a rich man, but the things he gave me were more precious than anything gold could buy. He carved figurines from wood—a deer, an eagle, and my favorite of all, a rendering of the two of us, bowed down with our foreheads touching. There wasn’t much I could give him in return, but he told me that my company was enough. I’d never imagined meeting someone like him. I never thought that love and kindness were ever meant for me.
One day, the woodsman asked me to come live with him at his cottage. That was when I knew I had to confess the truth. I told him about the sprite. If he found out about the woodsman, he’d punish me or punish us both, for all I knew. The woodsman and I kept quiet company for a while. I could see thoughts stirring behind my lover’s distracted gaze, but I saved questions for another day.
The stranger’s voice trailed off. Adalbert stared across the black cell expectantly. “And?” he said.
“You’ll have the rest of the story some other time,” the stranger said. His voice had turned hoarse. “I’m not well and tired of telling. You seem not to have noticed but those two bowls of gruel aren’t your breakfast and supper. It’s one bowl each.”
Adalbert huffed. “But you can’t stop the story there. Tell me what happened with the woodsman. You haven’t even gotten to the reason you were put here in the dungeon.”
“Another day,” the stranger said. “I need rest. Now shut up and let me sleep.”
*
When Adalbert next saw the flicker of the dungeon master’s torch, he tried to follow its faint glimmer onto the opposite side of his cell. He could see the cot but nothing more than a murky silhouette covered in a blanket. The dungeon master slid a water cup and two bowls of gruel through the grating at the floor. Adalbert took one bowl to his cot and came back to bring the other to his companion.
The trail of torchlight faded away in the distance. Adalbert took half steps through the darkness.
“Time to eat already, is it?” the stranger said.
“Yes. I’m bringing you your gruel.”
“Leave it on the floor. You’re close enough. I like my privacy.”
Adalbert set the gruel down and shuffled back to his cot. He found his own bowl. Though his stomach growled, he held off from eating. He listened to his companion lift the bowl from the stone floor. With his ears focused very sharply, he heard some slurping sounds and a swallow.
“It’s bad manners to stare,” the stranger said.
“How do you know I’m staring?”
“I’ve a keen set of eyes. That’s what happens when you’re stuck in the dark.”
Adalbert grinned. “I don’t believe you. I could be doing anything right now—looking up at the ceiling, sticking out my tongue, picking my nose…”
“You’re not doing any of that. You’re staring.”
Adalbert clicked with an idea. “What am I doing now?” he asked. He pointed his finger across the cell.
“You’re pointing.”
Adalbert tried again. “What am I doing now?”
“You’re pulling out your ears like a donkey.”
“What about now?”
“You’ve got your hands folded in prayer, and you’re batting your lashes.”
Adalbert laughed.
“Having fun?” the stranger said. “Stick around here long enough and you’ll be able to see every time I scratch my balls.”
Adalbert sat cross-legged on his cot and took a few slurps of his gruel. “Feeling better?” he asked.
The stranger grunted a vague assent.
“Ready to tell me about the woodsman and the mage?”
There was no reply.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” Adalbert said. “Your story kept me up ever since you finished.”
The cell was silent. Adalbert turned worried. Truthfully, he didn’t like being alone. Especially in the dark. He found his mind drifting, his whole self drifting it seemed, and he was constantly fighting back the panicky thought that he had disappeared from the world entirely. “Please sir, I’d like to hear some more,
” he said.
After some moments, the stranger’s voice came again. “All right. I’ll tell you. But this part is not so cheery.”
I kept meeting up with the woodsman for two glorious seasons. Through autumn, we’d wrestle in the fallen leaves after he finished his work. Through winter, we’d warm each other beneath a giant pine while the snow blanketed the forest. But when the creeks thawed and the trees started budding, my master finished his commission. It became more difficult for me to get away. I think he was starting to get suspicious because he didn’t want me leaving his den unless it was to fetch water or catch pigeons for supper. I tried to stretch out my errands as long as I could to steal a few moments with my love. Then the mean sprite sent me out with time spells that brought me back to his lair if I didn’t return promptly.
It was excruciating. I was trapped in the cave, knowing that my love was waiting for me. I fumbled through my chores. Weeks passed without seeing my love. I wondered how long the woodsman would wait for me. At darker times, I imagined him finding another man who didn’t come with such complications.
The sprite made me sleep on some straw by his bed, so it was no easier getting away at night. But I had watched him work, and I had figured out how he made a sleeping potion. I prepared our supper, so one night I slyly drafted a batch in a teacup and mixed it in with his cabbage soup.
The concoction worked. The imp teetered back in his chair and passed out. I didn’t know how long the potion would last, but I hurried out into the forest.
When I found the woodsman by the chestnut trees, I could tell he had been crying. It tore at me how much I had hurt him by my absence. There was no fooling around that time. We just held each other tight. It was almost worse than not seeing each other at all.
The woodsman begged me to run away with him. I told him I couldn’t risk the mage hurting him in revenge. The woodsman told me he would die all the same from our separation.