The local lord 'let' us live on his land, grow his crops, and raise his animals. And in return, he let us keep two-tenths of the product of his hard work. And old Lord Pettigrew was considered a decent sort. He sponsored a feast every midwinter and midsummer where all us peasants could eat his food and drink his beer for free. And he hardly ever had anyone hanged. In fact, his tax collectors weren't even allowed to laugh maliciously or twirl any part of their facial hair when they came around to collect half of that two-tenths I talked about earlier, that Pettigrew so generously let us keep.

Good old Pettigrew. I learned a lot from him.

* * *

I was twelve years old when my father found out I was a tax liability, and consequently decided to murder me. If you’re looking for the seed, the single incident that ultimately transformed me into the infamous Evil Overlord that I have become, then I suppose that’s where it all started, really. Before that day, my fate would most likely have been grubbing in the dirt for a very poor living until the day I died.

The origins of most Evil Overlords are shrouded in mystery. You just don’t hear much about where they came from, or why they do what they do. They are, for the most part, secretive creatures who seem to spring forth as if from nowhere by the time you hear about them, fully evil and at the height of their malign powers– barring usurping princes and the like.

Oh, sure, perhaps they were locked in some mystic prison for millennia until freed by some hapless dolt or what have you, but their past, what little is known of it, is always chock full of ill-portent and dark omen and light on detail. The heavy, hairy-knuckled, hovering hand of destiny can always be sensed, even if the details are, for lack of a better word, sketchy.

Mostly that's utter rot.

Myself, I was born the son of a poor sharecropper on a dismal little farm at the ass-end of the kingdom. I didn’t come into the world as Gar the Pitiless; that came much later, after a long and bitter road of trials. For the first dozen years of my life I was just Gar son of Gar, Gar Garson, or simply Puny Gar, the youngest of thirteen.

My father raised mostly weeds, and bruises on his children. (Yes, I (still) have siblings. No, they are not in the Evil Overlord business. We exchange the occasional holiday greeting card, when the situation allows. I understand that I am an uncle thirty-seven times over, at last count.)

If fate had gone another way, I would likely still be on the farm, plucking chickens, slopping the pigs, and pulling stones out of the ground to prepare it for the plough. But fate did not go another way. Fate put it into the head of old sir Pettigrew, our landlord, that any family that had more than a dozen children probably had it in them to cough up more in the way of taxes.

The logic was sound enough, I suppose. Any peasant who managed to feed that many mouths must be putting something away where the tax man couldn’t see, and consequently confiscate it. Sir Pettigrew couldn’t have known just how improbably hearty my father and his offspring were. My siblings often ate dirt and bark even when there was actual food, just because they liked the taste.

Myself, I took after my mother. Smaller, less disgustingly hale, and orders of magnitude smarter. There was no truth to the rumor that father’s side of the family had orc blood in it, but I can’t really fault anyone who lent it credence.

It was my misfortune that the taxman arrived to announce the new levy while Mother was at the neighbor’s farm, helping the farmer’s wife to deliver. She was no midwife, but after having thirteen children, she knew her way around, so to speak. And it was in her own best interest to see the village’s population grow, if she was to have any hope of marrying off her own brood.

Without her presence, however, the combined intelligence and common sense on the farm dropped precipitously – which, come to think of it, was probably why she rarely left.

His name was Hemritch, the tax man, and he had quite the long mustache, quite twirlable. Not that I ever saw him twirl it, which honestly I don’t see how he kept himself from doing, considering his profession. Anyway, he rode into the yard while Father was chopping wood. I, being the youngest, smallest, weakest and least useful, had no particular chore to be about, and consequently I was up in the solitary and mostly barkless tree nearest the house. It was always a good idea to stay out of reach of my brothers and sisters, especially when Mother was away.

“Goodman Gar,” said Hemitch.

“Taxman,” grunted father. “’S not tithe time yet.”

“Sir Pettigrew has announced a new levy, goodman. It is called the Overly-Plentiful Family Levy. Any family blessed with more than a dozen children is obliged to show appreciation for their bounty by paying for it.”

Father split another cord and grunted.

“How much is the levy?” he finally asked, putting the next cord on the stump.

“Three guilder.”

When Father brought his ax down this time, the blade went into the stump so deeply that barely any metal was visible.

“Call your children, please, goodman, for the headcount.”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Even I knew that was a formality. Sir Pettigrew was a stickler for the census.

Father sighed. Then he drew a deep breath and let out his bellow.

“ALL YOU SPAWN GET YER ARSES TO ME NOW!”

Leaves shivered off the tree at the brutality of his voice. It echoed off the hills and came back, still violent. His voice would find all of us. Reluctantly, I shimmied down the trunk. The rest came pelting into the yard from all around the farm. Quicker than seemed probable, we were all assembled before the man who had sired us.

Hemritch dismounted, counted, and scratched a note on a scrap of parchment with a charcoal stub.

“That’s thirteen, Goodman Gar. You are blessed with an overabundance of offspring, and no doubt. I’ll need the three guilder in my hand now.”

“I ain’t got it, Hemritch, and you know it.”

“I know no such thing. I do know you’ve got a baker’s dozen of children, and the lord needs his levy.”

Father put his palms to his temples and rubbed furiously. “Why is this happening?” He wasn’t asking Hemritch, but the taxman saw fit to reply anyway.

“Probably because you won’t get off of your wife, goodman. Why did you have so many children? It’s not my fault you had so many children.”

“Well, I’m a farmer,” Father replied, now rubbing at the center of his forehead with a massive, filthy thumb. “‘S what we do, innit? Besides, some of ‘em were s’posed to’ve died by now. ‘S what they do, innit? ‘Cept they din’t.” Father turned and looked back at us, his monobrow low over his beady eyes.

“Oi! One of you lot needs to die. Decide amongst yerselves, and be quick about it.”

My brothers and sisters had me trussed up and at Father’s feet before his bull voice finished echoing from the hills.

“You want us to do it, Da?” asked Rikert, the eldest. He hefted a hoe.

“Nah. It’s me what brung him into the world, it’s me as should take him out.” Father went and pulled his ax from the stump. Shoulders slumping, Rikert threw the hoe to the dust next to my head and stomped off. The rest of my brothers and sisters didn’t move. Entertainment was hard to come by on a dirt farm.

The taxman cleared his throat. “You can’t actually kill one of your children to avoid the tax, Goodman Gar.”

“Why not? Thirteen minus one is twelve, and Bob’s yer uncle. Besides, this one aren’t much use anyhap. Even the chickens bully ‘im.”

This was true, if not something that I thought should be shared with strangers. Our chickens were brutal, fearless, and had beaks of steel. If they’d been larger, they would have made wonderful war beasts, come to think of it.

“I can’t argue with your arithmetic. However, you’d then either be executed for murder, or be forced to pay wergild for your offspring’s life.”

“How much is the werguild?”

“That would be up to sir Pettigrew. But it would definitely be more than the levy.”

Father scratched at his noggin some more.

“What if it were an accident, like?”

“I think we’re beyond that, now.”

“You could just… turn ‘round. I’ll be quick about it.”

“No, goodman.”

Mother finally returned, then, thank all the dead gods.

“Gar,” she said, her voice as flat and sharp as a blade.

“Wife,” my father replied.

“Why is Little Gar tied up and lying in the dirt?”

“…reasons.”

“Speak up.”

“I said there’s good ‘n sufficient reasons, woman.”

“Your husband wishes to avoid the Overly-Plentiful Family Levy by reducing the number of children you have by one,” the tax collector supplied. “Specifically, that one.” He pointed to me.

Father looked at the man, the sting of betrayal evident in his small eyes.

“I thought we were together on this,” he whispered.

“Not even slightly,” replied the tax collector with a frown.

“Gar, go mend the south fence like I’ve asked you these three days running. Brega, untie your little brother. The rest of you find something to do in a place that I can’t see you. Now.” She turned to the tax collector.

“Hemritch, won’t you please come inside for a cup of tea?”

Nobody argued. Nobody dared, not even the tax man. He went inside with mother. Father went off to mend the fence, Brega reluctantly untied me and slouched away without a word, likely to do what she liked best, which was to pitch stones at whatever small animal she could run down. I scuttled back up the tree.

I was not privy to the conversation that passed between Mother and the tax man. But half an hour or so later Hemritch left smiling and my mother called for me.

“Pack your things, dear.”

“I don’t have any things.”

“There’s that, yes. Come along as you are, then.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’re off to become a priest. Isn’t that exciting?”

I frowned up at her. “But I don’t want to be a priest.”

“Would you rather be a farmer? Or a corpse? No? Let’s be off, then, honey.”

While the news could only be called surprising, I knew better than to argue. I also had a strong feeling that if I somehow argued and won, I was not likely to see the next sunrise. So I followed my mother down the mud road to the village proper, which was called Thrudd.

Father Viker was the village priest, Beloved of the Light, Tender of Its Flock in our village. He was also a raging drunk and a massive lecher. He was not best pleased to see me, since I had done… things during his weekly services that the Light was not approving of. He was, however, more than happy to see my mother.

Despite having thirteen children and living a life of rural hardship, even I knew that the woman who had born me was striking in both her appearance and personality. It was one of the great mysteries of the village how my father of all people had gotten her to marry him.

At any rate, when we entered the kirk Father Viker was passed out in the front pew. Mother woke him with a sharp kick to the shin. He fell from the pew to the flagstone floor and made sort of a mewling sound, then looked around blearily. He saw me first and his eyes bulged and his face reddened with rage.

“It was me, father,” Mother said.

Viker tore his deathly gaze from me, and his whole personage underwent an amazing transformation once his eyes found my mother. He went from a shriveled, drunken goblin of hate to a straight-standing messenger of the Light in no more than three heartbeats.

“How can the Light brighten your path this day, my dear?” he asked her.

“No need to bother the Light, father,” she replied. “You can help me without Its intervention.”

“And how can I do that?”

“By taking Little Gar here as an acolyte.”

His eyes cut to me and his lip curled in disgust, just a little, despite himself.

“Oh I’m afraid that’s quite-”

Mother placed a finger on his lips and straightened his wine-stained stole. “Let us discuss it somewhere more private, Father. Little Gar, you wait here.”

Viker led her into his private rooms behind the altar. I sat on the pew and kicked my heels. Time passed. When my mother eventually returned, her hair was a mess and her kirtle was askew. She sat down on the pew next to me and put an arm around me.

“Gar, there is no force in the world as powerful as a mother’s love. Sadly, when a mother has to divide that love thirteen ways, it’s not always apparent, but know that it is real.” Then she kissed me on the top of the head, told me to be an acceptable priest, kissed me once more, and walked out of the kirk. She didn’t cry; Mother never did.

I, however, bawled like a baby, until Father Viker stumbled in and gave me a clout on the ear to shut me up. Then he handed me a mostly empty bottle of wine and told me to drown my sorrow like the rest of humanity.