Simon Blackfyre and the Storms of Destiny

by A J Callen

  Simon trailed after Baxley Pumberton and Welton Queazle as they barged their way through the bustling Grimsby townsfolk standing outside of Slatherit’s Fresh Offal and Sundries.

  Speak only when Baxley speaks to you, and all will be well.

  The young master and his closest friend were fuming that they’d missed the town crier’s announcement. Simon was afraid he’d be blamed for that too, when—as always—it was pork-bellied Baxley’s knock-kneed dawdling consistently making them late for their errands.

  If those two lazy laggards just matched my pace, we’d have more than twice the work done in half the time!

  Baxley stopped by the front of Cudderworth’s Tavern to read the King’s Council notice nailed to the royal proclamation post. “Well, it’s about time. A representative from the King’s Council will be arriving from Farrhaven any day now. Isn’t that exciting, Welton?”

  His friend’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his slender throat. “Who would have thought it possible?” Welton brushed back his wispy blond hair with pallid, delicate fingers. “Our little town is going to help choose the next King.”

  Simon had overheard the Pumbertons speaking about something called the Rites of Succession and how the very destiny of their Kingdom was set to be decided by a silly old ritual last used during the Age of Heroes.

  “Why the Council doesn’t just vote like they always have, I don’t know,” Harlick had declared. “Who even cares who sits on the throne? The only good thing is that they will choose only the finest sons and daughters of successful freemen. And in this miserable town, who else might that be except Yours Truly?”

  Simon swallowed his mirth and glanced away to hide his smile. Yes, according to the proud Pumbertons, if ever there was a more deserving, more intelligent, braver young man in this part of the Kingdom than their own little lamb, Baxley, they certainly didn’t know of him—for the simple fact he didn’t exist.

  Baxley toddled around a large puddle in front Lapley’s Sweet Cart and sniffed, inhaling the Honey Cakes, Gynger Brede, and his favorite Frangipane Tart—pears, nuts and whipped cream all encased in a baked pie shell.

  “One day, I’ll be rich enough to buy as many sweet things as I want. But for now, I’ll settle for two.” He paid old man Lapley, a lecherous, pox-ridden groper and the scourge of many slaves. Lapley winked at them and Baxley made a flicking motion with his wrist toward Simon. “And what were you staring at?”

  “I was merely wondering what the notice said, Mister Baxley, sir. Is it important?” Simon asked.

  “Well, if you hadn’t dilly-dallied and kept up, we would have heard the crier.” Baxley smirked, his pudgy lips rising in one corner. “I’ll let you read it if you want, although it doesn’t concern you in the least.”

  Simon looked down at his muddy feet. “I can’t read, sir, except for a few words.”

  “And that’s more than most of your kind. Be thankful for that.”

  “I am, Mister Baxley, sir. I am very thankful.”

  The voice of a young woman cried out from the crowd. Simon looked back toward Slatherit’s and spotted a customer caning her slave in the middle of the street.

  “This isn’t a slave feast, girl. You stole the tripe I was saving for my dogs.” The woman prodded the groveling young woman as she lay cowering in the mud and manure of the street. “I should let you run and have them hunt you down instead.”

  Baxley poked Simon in the ribs with his father’s training cane. “Well? Hurry up then if you don’t want that to happen to you. I don’t want to be late for supper.” He chuckled, his cheeks jiggling like flappy hog jowls.

  Farther down the broken and muddy Tanners Road, past the lines of gloomy thatched rooftops and chipped stone walls, they paused across from the Brackhill Inn near the farmers’ market. Simon watched the drunken revelers outside, hoping to see a celebration dance honoring the Feast of Saint Kaja.

  Many towns had stopped the old celebrations years ago, some said, under the orders of High Priest Worlaw himself, which seemed strange. Yet who was lowly Simon to make sense of the laws that held such mastery over all their lives? What say do I have in any of that? Better to keep your mouth shut and your eyes open lest someone close them for you.

  Baxley licked a spot of sweet filling from his fingertip. “And don’t think you’re getting a special treat today, either,” Baxley said. “I see you looking at it.”

  “No, Mister Baxley, sir. I don’t deserve one, Mister Baxley, sir.”

  Though not a true believer of the faith, Simon did enjoy the dancing and singing, but those festivities were these days mostly confined to the frontier towns and slave camps.

  “Though, perhaps my hardworking young master and his friend would like to raise a toast to Saint Kaja while I wait outside?”

  Baxley snickered. “Do I look like someone who would raise a glass to a dead witch? They should turn all the temples into slave pens and brothels. At least they would serve a purpose then.”

  Welton Queazle giggled. “Both under the same roof? How deliciously convenient.”

  Baxley flicked his fingers at Simon. “Say all the prayers you want but she isn’t going to change your lot in life, Simon Blackfyre of Grimsby. Now get a move on.”

  Simon heaved the large burlap sacks of dirty salt, moldy feed, and day-old pig heads mixed with trotters, higher on his sinewy shoulders. He could bear the weight and more but wasn’t sure he could bear Baxley Pumberton and his shorter, mousy Queazle friend for much longer.

  It had been another long, punishing day of soul-numbing labor and insults under the hand and cane of the young master.

  All Simon wanted now was to eat his meager broth then fall asleep on a fresh straw bed, chained to his post in the barn. The saint willing, he might even yet receive something special this day from her; maybe sleep would bring the dream of a place—any place—that was not Grimsby, a town as dour, merciless, and cruel, as his sallow-faced tormentor.

  Welton licked the tart cream off his lips and touched Baxley’s pudgy arm. “You’re too soft with him, you are. He should fall on his knees and give thanks for having such a fine and considerate master.”

  “You’re right, as always.” Baxley raised his hand. “Stop.”

  Simon looked down on Baxley’s sweaty scalp and lowered his gaze. “Yes, sir, Mister Baxley?”

  Baxley flipped back Simon’s hair with the cane and tapped him on the top of his head. “And what do you think of that, Simon? Are you not the most fortunate slave in all the Kingdom to have me as your master?”

  Simon had learned early in life to say the things every owner wanted to hear, lest he be forced down on his knees or bent double over a lard barrel in gratitude for serving such a fine and considerate master as the likes of Baxley Pumberton. “Yes, sir, Mister Baxley. Saint Kaja herself took pity on my poor, worthless soul the day your kind father saved me from the mines.”

  “Or worse.” He swatted Simon on the rear like a mule. “Now get moving.”

  Simon picked up the pace, weaving his way through the townspeople milling around the merchant stalls and carts. The sooner he could drop these sacks in the rendering shack, the sooner he could eat, finish his chores, and finally close his eyes on another dismal day of his hopeless, weary life.

  Baxley waived the cane like a wand in the air. “And if I’m late, I swear you’ll eat slops with the pigs again or nothing at all.”

  Simon squinted toward the horizon and lengthened his stride toward the old mearstone, the upright slab of rock, said to mark the limits of an ancient village that had been here long before Grimsby. Not even those who could read and write the common tongue had any inkling of what to make of the strange marks and scratches in the limestone.

  Simon’s stomach grumbled louder. He could easily return to the Pumberton house before sunset, but Baxley and Welton were not swift footed in the least.

  Rounding the corner on to Tanners Road—that led out of town and down toward the Elduin Forest—he glimpsed what looked l
ike a crimson-shrouded man, a hooded monk perhaps, standing among the tall pines near the side of the road. What is he doing lurking in the woods? The temple’s on the far side of town.

  “Wait!” Baxley yelled. “If you try to run I’ll skin you alive!”

  As Simon glanced over his shoulder to see how far Baxley and Welton had dropped behind, he stepped into a small puddle. His foot did not find the ground just beneath the surface but dropped down a few inches with a sudden jolt. Thrown off balance, he didn’t have time to drop the sacks but fell face forward into the manure and mud.

  No, no, no! Get up, get up!

  The panting Baxley stumbled up beside him, huffing and puffing so much that his ashen face now resembled a large, overripe tomato. “Get on your feet!” He struck Simon again and again on the back and head with the cane. “Pick everything up at once you weak, useless beast!”

  Simon groaned, unable to heed his own bidding to stand, and rolled over on his side. He wiped the filth from his eyes and spotted the shrouded monk retreating back into the woods. The salt and feed bags were undamaged but all the bloodied pigs’ heads lay scattered, strewn around him in the filth. Fortunately, only his pride felt soiled. He rubbed his throbbing ankle around the permanent shackle scar.

  “Father will be furious if you can’t work, and you know what that means.”

  “Not to worry, Mister Baxley. I can work, Mister Baxley, sir.” Simon grunted and pulled himself to his feet, gingerly testing his weight on the ankle. It sent a shock of pain through his lower leg, but he could stand. “Nothing twisted or broken, sir.”

  My ankle will be as strong and sure as ever in a few days. Just shift more weight to the other leg until then.

  “Your father won’t have to sell me off to the King’s mines yet,” he said.

  “Don’t be so sure. Those pigs’ heads aren’t going to hop back into the sack all by themselves now, are they?”

  Welton snickered and kicked a pig’s head like a ball at Simon, splashing yet more bloodied mud onto the boy’s face. Simon pulled a muddy clump out of his tangle of black hair.

  He scooped up the head and studied it for a few moments.

  “In one of the slave camps, I heard tell that once there was a great race of creatures, like White-Lipped Peccaries that could speak and walk upright as men.” He glared at the two simpering men, wishing the cold he felt inside would show his ice-blue eyes. “Eventually, they died out because the boars were always trying to rut with each other.”

  His tormentors’ shocked expressions and gaping mouths froze on their faces at the same moment. What? What blithering, pointless nonsense was the slave boy gibbering on about now?

  Simon dropped the head into the sack buzzing with flies.

  So much for keeping your fool mouth shut, but this time it’s worth the punishment.

  He knelt and picked up another by the ears. “And these are said to be all that remain of their unfortunate descendants.”

  Baxley squeezed his small brown eyes until they almost disappeared back into his puffy, pink and mottled meat-face. “And I’ve heard it said that the head of a lying, disrespectful slave boils just as easily as swine,” he spat.

  Simon nodded. “Of that, I have no doubt, good Mister Baxley.” He dropped the last head back into his buzzing sack and pulled the drawstring tight. “I’m sure each of us could be rendered to make a fine pastry crust for some race of cannibals lurking just beyond the impenetrable borders of our glorious Kingdom of Miradora.”

  Welton gulped and looked at Baxley.

  “How dare you speak like that!” Baxley stared for a moment at his friend, who stood wide-eyed and incredulous, his mouth opening and closing silently. Baxley turned back to slap Simon across the face.

  “So! You think you can frighten us both like children? Apologize to my friend at once, idiot, impudent slave.”

  Simon bowed. “My apologies, Mister Welton, I did not mean to scare you.”

  Welton lifted his chin and cleared his throat. “I—I wasn’t, and I’m not—scared, that is. There are so many lies being spread these days the air is rank with them, that’s all.” He brushed off the sleeves of his yellow tunic. “I just don’t like to hear unpleasant things from the mouths of those who should know better to keep them closed.”

  Simon grabbed the smaller salt and feed sacks by their strings and heaved them up and over one shoulder. He did the same with the sack of pig heads on the other.

  A sudden flapping of wings overhead made him look up. A large, black sparrowhawk dove rapidly through the air, swooping and darting around Baxley’s head, flapping its wings near his hair. The great bird’s pointy talons were outstretched, threatening to scratch at his pudgy face. It flew around the terrified young men and settled on the road in front of Simon. Cocking its head to one side, it erupted in the loudest, piercing cry he had ever heard from a bird. Only the shrill tone of the Missus Pumberton could possibly outdo it.

  Baxley and Welton covered their ears and screwed their eyes tight shut. “Get rid of it! Make it stop, make it stop!” Baxley squalled.

  As loud as it was, Simon did not feel threatened, being unusually calm and at ease in the hawk’s threatening presence.

  In one of the isolated forest slave-camps, a similar large black hawk had attacked Plotmir Weezgout’s overseer when he’d lashed Simon several times across the back. The man’s face had to be stitched back together like a patchwork quilt and he never struck Simon again. Everyone in the camp had whispered it was because the foolish overseer had ordered them to chop trees right near the hawk’s nest, yet it had never attacked another man before that day.

  Simon lowered the sack of pigs’ heads to the ground again. Reaching into his ragged coat pocket, he fingered one of the discarded trotters he’d hoped to enjoy for his dinner. Without another thought, he tossed one up into the air toward the still shrieking hawk

  The swooping bird shot forward and snatched it in midair with extended talons. It skimmed by Simon’s face so closely, he could feel the passing touch of its wingtips gliding across his cheek. Simon smiled, enjoying the tickling sensation. The hawk circled once more overhead, shrieked again, and flew away over Elduin Forest.

  Simon was stunned. He turned around to see if Baxley and Welton were watching.

  “How did you do that?” Baxley demanded. “You just stood there like… like you were playing with a pet. But it… it was evil, that thing.”

  “I don’t know, Mister Baxley. I think it was just hungry and smelled the blood on the sack.”

  Welton brushed back his hair. “You should have brought your sling, Baxley. You could have struck it dead with one shot.”

  Baxley visibly puffed up at the compliment but didn’t comment; he was still too engrossed in the wonders just witnessed with his own eyes—well, at least, when they hadn’t been fastened shut to keep out the vile bird’s intimidating sight.

  “Perhaps our little Simon is a magic slave, one with hidden talents?” Baxley wondered aloud. “Are you a falconer as well? Are you keeping your light under a bushel, hiding it from us?”

  Simon shook his head. “No, Mister Baxley. I’ve never been trained, sir.” He grabbed the smaller salt and feed sacks by their strings and heaved them up and over one shoulder. “I don’t have any lights under my bushel, Mister Baxley, sir.” He tugged the weighty sack of pigs’ heads back onto his other shoulder, looking thoughtful.

  “Mister Baxley, sir. What is a bushel?” he asked.

  Baxley took a step behind Welton as though his smaller friend was a shield, and rested a shaky hand on his friend’s scrawny shoulder. “Never you mind, slave. Now, you… You don’t go practicing any of that slave sorcery mumbo jumbo, do you?”

  Simon clenched his teeth.

  If I did and it worked, you would not both be standing here now, Mister Baxley, sir. I would be ramming a pig’s head right up your—

  Simon knew he should tell Baxley he was as God-fearing as the next man but the truth was, he didn’t hones
tly care one way or the other. Any god of people like the Pumbertons could not reach down and break his chains. Only his owners could do that and he would have to survive until he was an old man, maybe even an overseer of other slaves, before there was any hope of it.

  “No, Mister Baxley. I hate magic and all who practice it.” He shivered as though an early winter wind had just blown by.

  “And you swear to that on your miserable life?”

  “I do, sir. All this dark talk has people casting suspicions upon their neighbors. Nothing good can ever come from magic, nothing at all. You can hang any sorcerer and magician as far as I’m concerned.”

  Simon looked away from Baxley’s gloating face.

  Sometimes before falling asleep, Simon strained his memory, trying to capture something so elusive he had no name for it, glimpsing only fleeting faces and voices—some human, some not. But what they were, he feared to know, for they seemed to be things from the deepest screaming depths, creatures hidden in the gathering storm of childhood nightmares, lying in wait, as enraged as lightning—lurking there, just seeking a moment to strike him dead.

  Baxley farted loudly and seemed greatly relieved. He plodded up to Simon. “And where did you get that juicy pig’s foot?”

  “It was one of the scraps on the cutting floor, sir. The butcher’s wife gave them to me and the other girl. She’s a kind-hearted woman.”

  Baxley poked him in the ribs with his cane. “You took more than one?

  Simon pulled the soft, graying piece of meat out of his pocket and held it out to Baxley. “She gave them to me and the girl, sir. That woman beating her slave wouldn’t even take them for her dogs. And it costs you nothing.”

  Baxley grumbled his disgust and whacked the trotter out of Simon’s hand into a pile of fresh manure. “I’ll be the judge of what something costs me and what I’m willing to pay. And right now, your insolence is certainly a lot more than I’m willing to pay for—even if its offal not fit for a dog.”

  Simon stared at the shite-covered pig’s foot and swallowed. The churning hollow in his stomach was gnawing its way deeper into the caverns of his body and soul. He needed to eat food fit to sustain his labor or feared he might one day collapse and be left in the mud to die, together with all the other rotting pack animals.