by J. S. Crews
“And this,” the Duke went on, “is Sir Eadred Meyrick. His father is the Duke of Aggladane, and he is serving his military tour with us here in Newport.”
The imposing figure they now knew as Eadred inclined his head in greeting. Up close, Jonas could see that the winged creature on the Knight’s standard was a serpent with the feet and claws of a freakish rooster, a barbed beak, and the wings of a dragon. It was a cockatrice, a thing of horror from the Age of Legends that was said to turn man and beast alike to stone with a single gaze. Flanking the beast to each side were upturned tusks like one might expect to see on a mammoth, but these were in purple.
Many times the boys had heard the sagas of the early days when their ancestors had founded the Kingdom of Galennor. Yhey both were aware that, in that antiquity, the people of Aggladane had, in good times, been bitter rivals and, in bad times, outright enemies of their own ancestors. In fact, Aggladane was the older city by nearly a century-and-a-half, Callicane having been settled by refugees who departed the former as the result of political upheavals.
Many wars had been fought between Callicane and Aggladane, the two most ancient city-states of the Galenni tribal peoples, and only a function of fate had seen a member of the House of Calleron crowned King of the larger unified realm rather than a member of the House of Meyrick. It was from that ruling house of Aggladane that Eadred was descended, and Jonas’s father had often warned his son of their duplicity. Now, as if to confirm his father’s warnings, were those damnable tusks in purple: the royal color. Over and over they had demurred, swearing that they were simply representative of dignity and longevity, but the thinly-veiled truth stood naked upon the sigil of their House for the world to see. Those tusks were symbols of ambition and patience, as they bided their time until a day came when they might seize power.
The boys returned the gesture and the Knight turned quickly on his heels in a fluid motion to face the Duke. “By your leave, my lord, I will be gone now to check into those reports we received this morning.”
Duke Valdimir nodded and said, “You have my leave. Ride well.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” He glanced at those around him. “I bid you all good day,” he said, bowing slightly at the waist before turning and departing. As he went, he motioned toward a rat-faced soldier wearing the three downward-pointing gold chevrons of a sergeant, who had been waiting discreetly just out of earshot. He fell into step beside the Knight with a wolfish grin as they both disappeared from view.
Turning to the two young visitors, Prince Valdic answered the question they had been graceful enough not to ask. “We received reports this morning that several hamlets in the northern part of the duchy had been attacked by brigands. Farms burned, livestock stolen or slaughtered, that sort of thing.”
Such dangers were common in remote areas. For all the work that had been done to pacify the countryside over the past hundred-and-twenty or so years, it remained a frontier land. Every lord worth his salt sent soldiers out on regular patrols, and groups of one hundred families organized their own policing under the supervision of local constables, but there was still plenty of opportunity for outlaws to find prey or for the wild barbarian Wodonni to sneak across the border to reave and cause havoc. Major trade routes were dotted with stockades owned by innkeepers and other merchants, but garrisoned with small cadres of troops by local lords. Also, isolated rural villages usually featured a communal haven, where the townsfolk could retreat in times of trouble.
Prince Valdic continued, “This time we’re getting reports of several farmers having been murdered defending their homes.”
“So,” began young Alastar, inclining his head toward the way the Knight had gone.
“So,” interrupted the Duke, “with the patent of authority he holds as a member of my court, he will seek out the liable parties.” He paused. “The local reeve will probably be extremely distressed to have his jurisdictional rites overruled, but offenses such as these warrant a strong response on my part.”
“It sends a more powerful message,” added Valdic.
They acknowledged their understanding, and the Duke rubbed his hands together slowly. “Well,” he said, “if you will excuse us, my son and I have governing to do.” With a friendly smile, he continued, “Baron James will show you to your room, so that you can get cleaned up and rest a while before dinner.” The lord of Newport and his son then exited and, after another hug from the Duchess and an admonition not to be late for the welcoming banquet she’d planned for them, the boys were once again following James through the castle.
Arriving outside a room one wing away from the ducal family’s own apartments, James pushed open the door and led them inside. He put taper to fire and lit a small oil lamp beside one of the two beds in the room. “I’ll see that someone wakes you two for dinner. Until then– ” he pointed to a small table in the corner where rested a chamber pot, water, and towels—“feel free to get cleaned up and rest a bit.” He started to leave, then turned in the doorway and said, “Welcome to Newport, friends.”
With that, the door closed and he was gone.
Several moments passed in complete silence. Finding themselves left to their own company seemed somehow odd after the frenzy of the preceding reception. It was Alastar who found his tongue first. “Not very big, is it?”
Looking around the small room, Jonas was forced to agree. In addition to the two single beds—simple stuffed mattresses supported by interlacing ropes stretched over wooden frames and lacking even headboards—and the table holding the chamber pot, the only other furnishings were another small table between the beds that held a lamp and large oak chests at their feet for each boy’s personal belongings. “I’m guessing that’s the point, Al. Father told me before we left that this was to be a kind of learning experience in more than just ducal politics.” Extending his arms outward to symbolically encompass the small quarters they were to share, he continued, “I guess this is what he was talking about.”
Alastar nodded gravely, and nothing more was said, each wondering just what their new lives would be like here in this coastal city called Newport.
Chapter Two
“The Common Man”
Incense and candle smoke swirled about the altar.
It was a small shrine, nothing like the gaudy displays found in the rich temples of some deities, but then the goddess to whom this one was devoted preferred simplicity. It was a sort of faith well-suited to the man kneeling before the private altar in his own home. Ansel Wood was a simple man.
Wood. That was a family name that went back to Ansel’s grandfather, also called Ansel, who had chosen it when made a freeman. Bondsmen, serfs, had only their given name, and most would use the name of their father to differentiate themselves if there were two in the same village, so that Ansel might have been called Ansel Antonson or Ansel son of Anton were he a bondsman. Elsewise, those in service to the nobility sometimes used their vocation, so he might also have been Ansel Farmer or Ansel Hunter.
More like Ansel Poorman, he thought to himself.
He was a franklin, still a commoner but a freeholder with his own lands. Of course, he didn’t really own the land, since it all ultimately belonged to the Crown. Franklins were a step below the gentry with their fine manor estates on the societal ladder. They could own the rights to land, rather than the land itself; but, unlike a serf, they were permitted to sell those rights or bequeath them as they saw fit, and they could even borrow against the land if they were fool enough to risk it. Some franklins owned no land rights at all, but were simply freemen who would often work a lord’s land.
Ansel’s grandfather had been freed from serfdom, where he had grubbed out a living paying his duties to his lord in farm goods, as a reward for saving the life of that lord’s son. He had received the lord’s gratitude and the deed to a shade more than sixty acres of stony farmland. Poor land, in truth, but the real reward had been his status as a franklin, because that was something he could pass down to his descen
dants.
It truly was poor land, though. So poor that it was more difficult every year to make a living from it. Lean times had necessitated Ansel’s forebears selling off more than half of their original reward, so that he now held the unhindered deed to less than a hide of land with which to provide for his family, which was to say not enough. Another large part of what was left to him was held only with a debt of mortgage owed to Lord Wendel Baedon of Eborhum Manor. His father had died owing that money, and it had been an unwelcome surprise, forcing Ansel into an arrangement more fitting for his grandfather in the days before his reward.
The land barely fed his wife and babe, a few pigs, a nanny goat for milking, one horse, and one old spavined cow that plowed his rock-encrusted, thin-soiled fields. There was little room for profit, and the lack of extra coin in his pouch at moonturn’s end meant he must pay the mortgage through a serjeanty agreement with Lord Wendel. He was forced to assume the trade of his grandfather as a woodsman, only the benefits went to the lord’s household instead of his own. Working a farm, even a small one, was a full-time trade, yet Ansel also provided Lord Wendel’s manor with firewood, cut and burned brush along a section of road leading to the estate, and provided wild game for Lord Baedon’s table. There never seemed to be enough hours in the day, and Ansel knew this life had put his father in an early grave.
Worse still, the agreement also included military service if called upon. Ansel was no coward but, like his father before him, he had done his term of service for king and country, and he had thought never again to raise a sword in anger. He had hoped that coming home would mean he could be at peace for the rest of his days, but he had an obligation to take care of his family. If that required him to accept the imposition of unwanted obligations, then so be it. A man did what he must. That was what his father had taught him.
The altar before which he knelt was a simple oaken frame, nailed onto one of the beams that supported the thatched roof of the cottage. Within the frame were shelves upon which rested multiple half-guttered candles, an incense burner, and a simple pottery bowl for burnt offerings of dried grains. All of this was arranged around a crudely carved wooden ephigy of the goddess Iadara, She Who Walks Among The Trees.
At the goddess’s feet sat the offerings bowl, and arrayed around it were small carved wooden figures to represent Ansel, his wife Kaeti, and their baby boy Anders. Those Ansel had carved himself, a tradition fulfilled by the patriarch of families worshipping the nature goddess when becoming the head of their respective household. When each member of the family died, their figurine was placed in their hand and buried with them.
"Anse," Kaeti was speaking softly, trying not to disturb her husband as she approached, placing a hand on his shoulder from behind. "Lord Wendel will be waiting." He had been at his prayers since just after they had broken their fast on oaten porridge, spiced sausage, and yesterday’s leftover bannock bread. Ansel always needed the goddess’s help to center him when he must meet with the lord.
"I know, m’love," he answered, taking her hand in his own over his shoulder. She rested her head against his back, her other arm hugging him around the waist from behind. "Don’t guess I can put it off any longer, can I?"
She laughed with him, but she knew he was only half joking as he blew out the candles and incense, the sweet smell of which provided an odd contrast to the stench of the dung heap behind the cottage, just on the other side of the wattle-and-daub wall. He patted her hand one last time, then rose, put his arm and neck through the strap of his satchel, and donned his worn travel cloak, now faded from its original forest green. A quick kiss for Kaeti and little Anders in his timeworn hand-me-down wooden cradle and he was gone, pulling the plank door shut behind himself to keep the chickens out of the cottage.
The yardbirds squawked angrily, threatening Ansel with a flogging, as he let his moving feet push the riotous bastard fowl out of his way—he had always found chickens to be disagreeable creatures—and passed the small wattle fence keeping their few pigs contained. They came over to the fence and squealed also, taking his appearance to mean it was feeding time, but they quieted as he passed. A left turn from the cottage’s front door had taken him past the pig pen, and beside the cottage was another small wattle-fenced yard where his family’s graves were located, the two most recent of which were his own parents. Further down past the boneyard were the sheds of the larger livestock.
He entered the shed where his horse Basha was housed, finding their aptly-named nanny goat Nan commiserating there. That wasn’t a surprise. The two beasts were often together, and horses were well known to be social animals that enjoyed the company of people as well as other animals. Basha raised her head in greeting as Ansel entered. "Ready t’go, girl?" He had already saddled her before going in to break his fast and pray, so he climbed up and they were on their way.
The midmorning sun was about a fourth of the way to its highest point in the springtime sky, and the day was so bright that the silver moon Uarvoos—the moon of his goddess Iadara—was still partially-visible. He touched the tiny carved wooden amulet that hung about his neck and wondered what kind of omen it represented, deciding it must be a good one. Since Uarvoos was associated with his goddess, its presence above was a comfort.
These lands were part of Eborhum Manor under Lord Wendel of House Baedon, and they were good lands, despite being well north of the Greatwater River where the weather was not the kindest. It was a place of low rolling green hills and slow moving streams. The sun was chasing away the morning mist as a gentle breeze blew. New flowers had just bloomed, and the new lambs were being born in the meadows. Soon would be the time for plowing and sewing. There, at that moment, he was amazed at the beauty of this country, which seemed a land of plenty. Yet, all were not prospering. He was not prospering.
It’s not right fer me t’be ungrateful, he thought to himself. We may not ‘ave much, but She Who Walks Among The Trees allowed Kaeti t’live through childbirth t’give me a son. An’ all’re healthy. We’re not rich. We’ll never be rich, but we get by with jus’ enough, an’ my son’ll be a freeman like ‘is father.
Yet humility could not negate the fact that his land truly was unproductive. The soil was full of stones and clay. Crops were only productive in certain fields, and a man must needs grow not only enough to feed his family but also his livestock. Less than thirty acres remained to him free of mortgage debt, and a portion of that was forested, which was a blessing since having timber to sell to Lord Baedon’s miller had given him the coin to keep his proverbial head above water more than once. But that was not a proper solution; one day that timber would be depleted, and what he would do then only the gods knew.
And then there were the hot springs, a pool of mineral waters that stank of fouled eggs, but bubbled and steamed like a hot bath even in the deepest throes of winter. That was an especially beloved place to Ansel. He had bathed in those pools all his life, but it was even more special now after a traveling hedge priest—one of those wild-haired, half-mad itinerant holy men who roamed the land preaching and performing weddings and blessing newborns in villages too tiny to have their own temples—had prevailed upon the young franklin’s charity as one of the faithful more than a year past.
The priest had spent four days eating from their meager larder and four nights sleeping under their roof and, each day, he had bathed in the hot springs and declared himself a new man. The pool was a holy site of the blessed goddess Iadara, he had exclaimed, and Ansel thought him only ranting. To his surprise, however, a representative of the Prelate of Sarton arrived a few months later to make it official, and now the site was visited by a few pilgrims here and there. Folks urged Ansel to charge a fee, but he did not feel right taking coin for that which The Silver Lady of the Forest had given freely. He did occasionally accept a haunch of rabbit or a worn chip of silver if offered, but only thoughts of his family had kept him from refusing even those small donations.
The springs were a source of consternation al
so, however, because they were situated on that part of the land his father had been forced to mortgage. The hard truth was that if he were to lose those acres then he might as well sell it all, because what would be left would not be sufficient to support his family. That land was also a source of pride, a birthright held by his grandfather and his father before him. What would their shades say t’me if I failed t’hold onto it?, he thought.
It was also his home, where he had played as a boy. He knew every tree and rock as though they were old friends, and when he had been off fighting the wild barbarian Wodi tribes in the north coming home had been all he had thought about. And now it was more than his home—it was a place that was holy to his faith. He could not bear to lose it.
The unmistakable signs of prosperity became even more apparent as he drew closer to Lord Wendel’s seat, and Ansel knew that he was now passing through Lord Wendel’s demesne lands: those farms and orchards where a lord’s own serfs worked the land. Every lord—minor and great alike—would give over farms to men sworn to them, either as soldiers or in return for other services or even just to collect the food-rents, but the lord’s demesne was the land he kept for his own. This was essentially the heartland of Eborhum Manor, centered around the estate’s principle township of Baedonton.
He rode slowly, allowing Basha to stop here and there to nibble from the growth along the roadside as he was lost in thought. There was no great rush as the trip was not far. Unlike most others, he had traveled to the far-off northern border as a soldier, and so he understood that Eborhum was but a tiny corner of the Kingdom of Galennor. Insignificant even by comparison. A man could walk barely three miles and have crossed the entire estate. But, to those who lived on these lands, it was home.