The Exiled Heir (Autumn's Fall Saga)

by Jonathan French

  By the time they reached Reaver’s Meadow, Padric’s mind had become entangled with questions. He worried at the knot of his existence, desperately looking for some memory that could answer this sudden, ill-begotten legacy. That he was different had been made callously apparent to him since boyhood. That he was hated and feared by his neighbors and pitied by his family was something he begrudgingly accepted, until he grew old enough to rebel against such perceptions. But his clumsy attempts at denial only manifested as the feeble acts of a troubled young man, further reinforcing the mantle that he was simply no good. Now, it appeared that mantle had a source, flowing into his veins from the unfathomable past, myth made flesh. How that was possible remained as elusive and distant as the individuals who held the answers.

  In the end, his mind was crushed to a numb cloud by the sudden weight of those unsought revelations. He walked down into the coastal settlement with the same detached air he had worn as a cloak these past days, in control of little but his own feet and even their steps were limited. Whatever the truth, Torcan had become convinced of his importance and treated Padric as a royal hostage, seeing to his comfort while simultaneously taking his freedom. He had been moments away from death when Slouch Hat spoke up and now he was being hosted by a thriving camp of fanatics that had been responsible for so much recent pain. Padric wondered if death would not have proven more favorable.

  Torcan had commandeered one of the longhouses for Padric’s use. He entered, leaving the ocean wind, and his guards, outside. The warmth of the longhouse was layered with the smells of garlic, onion, fennel and hyssop, all undercurrents to the savory aromas of roast bream, baked herring and pike steeped in ginger and galingale.

  “Did me bonny prince have hisself a fine turn about the beach?” Heggle asked when he entered.

  Padric answered with a meaningless sound, which Heggle took for a grand answer, smiling broadly with her wet gums and lone, brown tooth before going back to her chopping, stirring and mixing. The goblin crone had been sent to him from Swinehelm to act as his personal servant, and she seemed to take great joy in her placement. Padric removed his cloak, damp from the spray, and hung it to dry before sitting on one of the benches to watch Heggle fuss around the fire. She shuffled about the hearth, head covered by a shapeless kirtle dyed the same awful blood red worn by the soldiers. Her threadbare shawl was likewise dyed, stretched thin over her sizable hunch. Her large, sagging breasts hung past her waist, swinging beneath her filthy smock. Wrinkled and spotted, her grey skin fell loosely, especially at the neck where it dangled freely under a chin ornamented with long, stiff white hairs. She spoke foully and smelled sour, but, for all her loathsomeness, she was a fine cook and had presented Padric with a never-ending torrent of rich meals and delicacies. He did not possess much of an appetite and pushed most of it away untouched. But, although Heggle hung at his elbow eagerly awaiting his reaction, she never became discouraged at his lack of enthusiasm or praise.

  “Heggle’l find what you fancy, sure as shite,” she would say.

  “All me lords had their favorite and we’ll tickle yours ere long.”

  She kept up a steady stream of chatter while she worked, often about the many litters of fine goblins she had borne over her long life and once remarked that Torcan might be one of hers, but she could not clearly recall.

  “I’d still be squattin’ ‘em out, if any o’these gutless wonders had the stones to get on ol’Heggle and grunt. They’s all ‘fraid I eat their pricks off!”

  But her favorite subject was the Goblin Kings. From the legends Padric could remember, it appeared as if she had cooked for all of them, and a wistful glow of pride played across her ugly face whenever she spoke about the long dead tyrants.

  “Capon! That was Hogulent’s choice, with applemoy I remember, and all the Sweyns loved me mortrews…ceptin’ that last one. He was more for umbles. Ebraucus, now! His Grace were always too busy ruttin’ the wenches to eat proper and his son were worse’n he. Whore masters, the both of ‘em! Guess’n you could say they’s favorite was suckin’ clams!” Heggle had told him this at least half a dozen times, but she cackled louder with every telling.

  “Now that slut queen we had for a bit, she ne’er let me serve, slapped Heggle’s face and called us a witch, but the Jerrods…oh they was princes through and true! The first one, he craved whelks all the time and Jerrod Second, he was apt for bacon collops.”

  Padric had ignored her for two days, but today his bitter mood got the best of him. “What about the Gaunt Prince?” he asked, pushing away the dishes she set before him. “What was his dish?”

  “Roast fawn,” Heggle said with a longing smile. “Or kid or lamb. I used to stuff ‘em with coney, under a year old. My lord loved his flesh young.” She fixed him with a calculating eye and her head nodded with matronly approval. “You favor him.”

  Padric glared at her, fighting the impulse to throw the steaming platters in her face. “What was he like?” he managed through clenched teeth, furious at his own morbid curiosity.

  “My Gaunt Lord,” Heggle said, tasting the name and finding it sweet, “he were tall, so tall…and graceful. He fought like a song, nought on above his waist, skin like milk, bejeweled red with the blood o’our enemies. And clever! Like a fox…he was crafty as I ever saw. And hungry. He were forever hungry.”

  She looked so happy as she spoke, lost in memory. Padric felt a cruel urge, wanting nothing but to shatter her joy. “And he is dead,” he spat at her. “Feeding the worms for nine hundred years.”

  Heggle opened her eyes and looked at him, but it was confusion, not pain, that filled her face. “So long?” she asked the serving board. “Aye, I would guess it ‘tis. Makes no matter. Heggle’ll never forget.” She went back to her preparations. “And I beg forgiveness for speakin’ such, but you are wrong, my Lord. Nine hundred years, his eyes been closed for sure, but nothin’ has eaten at him, no. He remains as comely and fine as the day I first see’s him.”

  Padric’s brow wrinkled. “Remains? Heggle, you have seen him?”

  “Oh aye,” a girlish excitement fell over the crone as she leaned in and whispered. “And you’ll too, afore long. Torcan will take you, you’ll see.”

  Padric sat in the longhouse, thoughts more troubled than before. A cold, steady rain fell throughout the day and he remained shut in with Heggle, pondering her disturbing words. Could the Red Caps still possess the body of a man almost a thousand years old? In the stories, the Gaunt Prince knew terrible spells, but what malevolence could preserve a corpse centuries beyond when it should rightfully have turned to dust? It was not within Padric’s understanding. His father was a farmer, a good, hard-working man of the soil, and his mother, a gentle spirit of deep patience eclipsed only by a silent inner strength. Such people could not be connected to all of this madness.

  Torcan sought Kederic’s wife, some long lost heir to the men the goblins had crowned. The thought that Padric’s mother had once been wed to a warlord from Sasana was laughable. That she could also be the inheritor of some dread Magic was unthinkable. She was not Kederic’s wife. Did that mean she was not Padric’s mother?

  No! He refused to believe that. Let Slouch Hat and Torcan and this toothless sow say what they want, but he would not dishonor the only family and love he had known in this merciless world. Whatever his origins, he was not a puppet of the past, and he would prove it if it meant his life.

  That night, his honor guard came knocking and brought him to the mead hall that Torcan had made his personal quarters. Padric paused at the entrance, gazing at the crude cage of lashed wood that hung from a pole not far from the hall. Two Red Caps stood nearby, their torches spitting angrily in the wet wind from the sea, granting flickering glimpses of the cage’s lone occupant.

  Kederic Winetongue huddled against the wet and the cold, his hair and beard drenched and greasy. He hunkered at the bottom of the cage, trying to crawl into himself for warmth, sodden and shivering. Padric heard him issue a series of damp,
choking coughs and stood for a long time watching, but the Thegn never looked up to meet his eyes.

  Inside the hall, the thick smells of wet dogs, unwashed men and strong mead filled Padric’s nostrils, settling in the back of his throat. Around the central fire, men and goblins drank and laughed with one another, throwing dice and knives with equal recklessness, while the serving women made their way around with heavy jugs, refilling horns and trying to avoid the rough attention of both Fae and mortal. Torcan Swinehelm sat in the high seat on a platform at the rear of the hall, surrounded by the brutish captains of the raider ships. Each of these men was broad and burly, wearing cruelty as easily as the many rings on their fingers, laughter bellowing out from behind beards of yellow, red and black.

  At Torcan’s beckoning, Padric was led up to the platform where a seat waited for him on the goblin leader’s right hand. The Middangeard captains stared at him and issued boisterous comments in their strange tongue, clapping each other on the back and laughing heartily before one of them thrust a sloshing horn into his hand. Padric drained it in four long pulls, the mead filling his mouth with sweetness and his head with silk. The men shouted their approval at this display, but Padric was not interested in impressing them. He just wanted to rid himself of his wits, so that he might endure this raucous gathering. The bear of a man on his left dragged a wench over to refill Padric’s horn, beaming broadly and talking to him in the lilting language of the fjordmen.

  “Arnheir says kings grow small in Airlann,” Torcan translated without looking over, his eyes fixed on the crowded room. “But at least you have a royal thirst.”

  Padric took another deep drink from his horn. “Tell Arnheir…that I am no king.”

  “No,” Torcan said with a strange smile. “Not yet. And it makes no matter to these louts. They follow only the promise of wealth.”

  “These salt-blooded whoresons have plundered the Tin Isles for years,” Padric said while smiling at the captains, raising his horn in salute. “Any wealth we had, they stole long ago.”

  “The baubles of man,” Torcan scoffed, “are nothing compared to the treasures of the dwarves.”

  “So that was their price,” Padric tried not to glower too strongly at the men surrounding him.

  Torcan nodded. “For all their boasting, these men have troubles of their own. Their homeland is a frozen and thankless waste, home to giants and trolls. That is why they spend so much of every year raiding these shores. Only the dwarves know how to prosper in Middangeard and these dogs are a jealous bunch.”

  “So they help you conquer Airlann and you return the favor in Middangeard,” Padric scoffed. “They are fools to trust you.”

  Torcan looked over at him, a knowing gleam in his eye. “It is not me they trust, my lord.”

  “I am lord of nothing.”

  “So you were raised to believe,” Torcan said mildly. “They hid you well.”

  “Who?” Padric asked. “Who hid me?”

  “The Seelie Court…in the beginning,” Torcan said with disgust. “Then as the years crawled on and their power dwindled, they passed the burden to lesser beings. It has taken us too long to find the scions of our Lord King and it appears we were ignorant of an entire generation.”

  “And you might have remained ignorant forever,” Padric had to laugh. “Twice you almost killed me, goblin.”

  “Twice?” Torcan seemed more intrigued than surprised.

  Padric nodded. “I stood with the men of Hog’s Wallow alongside Faabar of the Brindlebacks against you and that flame-drunk wizard.” Padric glanced around the hall. “We do not have the pleasure of his company?”

  “He has other duties far from here,” Torcan said with a wry smile. “But you are right my Lord, we were careless. We sought a woman. I gave orders to spare the females, but the men…” He waved his goblet dismissively.

  “Would that I had burned with all the rest,” Padric muttered, “and denied you your prize.”

  “The Magic within your veins may be dormant,” Torcan said, leaning over the arm of his chair and growing more passionate with every word. “Unused. Untrained. But it is no less potent in its protection of you. It was not fortune that spared your life. I was destined to find you, my Lord! The days of searching are over! I will restore your birthright and show you from what greatness you issue. Your sons will know dominion over Airlann and lead the goblins back to their deserved station!”

  Padric watched as the goblin flushed with anticipation, the frustration giving way to lusts for vengeance and glory. “You are wrong,” Padric told him. “Your search has not ended. I am not who you believe me to be.”

  Swinehelm regarded him for a long uncomfortable moment, then looked past him and spoke rapidly to the man called Arnheir in his own language. The captain nodded, responded simply and then returned to his carousing.

  Torcan stood. “Come with me.”

  The goblin led him through the rear door of the hall and they stepped out into cold, open air. Several Red Caps stood just outside complaining about the rain, but they ceased their muttering when Torcan appeared and fell in behind as he continued walking away from the hall towards a small storehouse squatting in the dark. Two more goblins were posted near the storehouse door and with a wave of his hand, Torcan ordered them to open it and then stepped aside, indicating that Padric should enter with a nod. The smell of salted fish hung about the room, but Padric could see nothing until Torcan stepped in with a torch he had taken from one the guards. Harsh orange light filled the cramped space and Padric stared grimly at the back wall.

  The goblins had nailed Slouch Hat up with iron spikes through his elbows, his body hanging limply. The hat which gave the husk his name lay upon the earthen floor and his stuffed sack head lifted slowly when they entered.

  “Tell him,” Torcan commanded.

  Slouch Hat’s laugh was a dry rustle. “Did not believe you, Red Cap?”

  “Tell him,” Torcan repeated.

  “Perhaps,” Padric suggested, “if you left us, the husk would be more agreeable.”

  Torcan chewed on this a moment. “I must attend the captains,” he said at last, handing the torch to Padric. He thrust a finger at Slouch Hat. “Convince him or you burn!”

  When the goblin was gone, Padric tried to pull the spikes from the wall, but they were embedded deep, the broad heads holding the husk’s limbs firmly.

  “What did you tell him?” Padric asked, doubling his efforts. “I am not a Goblin King.”

  “Of course not,” Slouch Hat said.

  Padric stopped, releasing his grip on the nail. “But you told Torcan--”

  “What he wanted to hear,” Slouch Hat said. “Fanatics are easily manipulated.”

  Padric’s knees went weak. Relief bent him double and he sucked in air from between his legs. The odor of salted fish did not help his stomach and he fought the need to vomit. At last, his innards settled back in their proper places and he was able to raise his head.

  “Why?” he managed.

  “Would you rather have a slit throat from one of Acwellen’s curs?” Slouch Hat asked. “For me, pinned to a wall is preferred to being a pile of ash.”

  “You saved our lives,” Padric had not meant to say it aloud.

  “For now,” Slouch Hat responded. “Only as long as the ruse holds.”

  “Best tell me the ruse then.”

  The husk nodded and spoke quickly.

  “Mostly I told Torcan the truth. I was once in the service of a wandering sage, a goodly man whose intelligence was surpassed only by his near obsession for chronicling the history of the Fae Rebellion. For over forty years, I travelled the reaches of Airlann at his side, helping record the events of that war. At last, we came to Hog’s Wallow, so my master might study Bwenyth Tor and the siege that happened there. But he was near seventy and growing feeble. He never reached the top of the Tor. The gnomes had long left the village, but the shepherds and farmers allowed me to bury my master in their barrows. I remained, teaching
the children and offering myself in service to the reeve. More than sixty years past and I now served the reeve’s grandson.”

  “Brogan,” Padric put in.

  “Yes,” the husk replied. “And then Kederic Winetongue came with his warriors and built his fort. That the Thegn was a capable man was obvious, but I felt there was something troubled about him…something linked to his hatred of the Fae. That he had lost a wife before coming to the Wallow was much whispered, but one night, while drinking with Brogan, I overheard the Thegn mention a child. He was well in his cups and near rambling, but it was there. When I realized Torcan sought the Thegn’s wife, I reacted quickly. From my time with my first master, I know much of the Goblin Kings and the Red Caps’ crusade to find their heirs, so I gambled that was who Torcan believed the Thegn’s wife to be. Why else would the Red Caps seek a human woman?”

  “But how did you convince Torcan I was her son?” Padric asked.

  “I did not,” Slouch Hat said. “Kederic did.”

  “Kederic?” Padric was puzzled. “But he--”

  “Is no fool.”

  “But why would he lie to protect me?”

  “Maybe so they would stop torturing him for answers,” Slouch Hat replied. “Or maybe because it is not you he protects.”

  “No.” Padric saw it. “He protects the real heir.”

  Slouch Hat nodded. “As long as they believe you to be their ruler, they need not hunt any longer. Be it his wife or the child she may have borne, Kederic knows they are safer with a pretender in their place.”

  “So that is what I have become.” Padric was both disgusted and grateful. “A pretender?”

  “Until we can find a means of escape…yes.”

  Padric stared at the floor, his thoughts darkening. “Impossible. There are thousands of goblins out there. We will be discovered and then we will die.”

  “Yes,” Slouch Hat said, his tone forcing Padric to look at him. “But the Red Caps are set on conquest and are ready to declare war on Airlann. However they plan to do it, they must be stopped. The longer we remain in their company, the greater chance we have to thwart them. Would you rather die now, uselessly…or wait until you can sell your life dearly at the moment it may matter most?”