Soft, insistent music drifted in through an open window. It was too high to get a good look inside. One day, out of boredom, I’d walked to one end of the pleasure garden and stood on my tiptoes, and I could just glimpse a silhouette picking away at a grand piano. There was a marble bench beside me then, and if it weren’t for the sight I’d prove to be if I actually did so, I was affected enough by the music that I was close to climbing on top to get a better look.

The player was no virtuoso, and whenever a mistake was made they stopped completely instead of playing through it. Then they’d play that part they got wrong over and over until they could play it perfectly before starting from the top. Of course, once they got to that problematic part they’d mess it all up again.

It was an impressionist standard, a little overplayed maybe, but I was so taken with the thought of traipsing through a pleasure garden while soft, sweet music played that I found myself stopping when the piano stopped, and starting as it started again. I hoped one day that they’d be good enough to play without interruption, so that I could walk around with this fantasy fulfilled.

That hasn’t happened thus far. Though something about hearing this schmaltzy, cliché number hacked up, the way each part was decontextualized and made to stand on its own, then put back together again only to end with a sour note, the punchline, appealed to me.

I can’t deny that when the piece is learned I’ll be glad, but before then there was plenty to enjoy: looking at the timber wolves they’d caged by a row of comical topiaries, pacing back and forth, why, that’s not an occasion for beautiful music. In that case, the same chord pressed again and again fits much better. Or, take for instance, when the lord’s maine coon caught a songbird, and was digging in at the side of a nature trail, only for the lady of the manor and her attendants to come upon it, and she began to tell the cat off like it was one of her servants. At the same moment I heard in the background this beautiful piano piece punctuated by a blaring, abortive chord. Just perfect.

I asked the lord about it at dinner once, and, just like everything else about him, it was a little strange.

“So who’s the one playing the piano the whole day?”.

“Do you not like it? I can tell her to stop.”

“No, that’s alright. I was just curious as to who it is. It feels like I hear the piano wherever I go”.

“Oh. Well, it’s my daughter.”

“Your daughter?”. I’d been resting at the manor for some time and hadn’t seen nor heard neither hide nor hair of a daughter.

“You must understand, she’s an incorrigible recluse. It’s nothing you’ve done, that I haven’t introduced you”.

“That’s alright. I never see her at the dinner table, or around the grounds, though. Does she spend all her time up there playing the piano?”

“Well, you see, she’s come down with an illness as of late. A nurse takes meals to her room. I hope you don’t feel offended, that I’ve kept this from you”.

And that’s how it went. One question, two different answers. She’s a recluse who’s also ill. I was probably thinking too much of it.

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I made good use of the lord’s faculties. I ate my fill, enjoyed perfumed sheets and running water, walked the length of the grounds, cane in hand, taking in the sights at my leisure. In exchange I regaled him with tales of old over the dinner table, leaving out the messier parts so that I could appear the dashing, smirking cavalier he wished me to be. He almost sent me packing when I flirted with his wife in my listless way, more out of boredom than anything, but I saw in his eyes as he dressed me down that I was doing exactly what he expected of me, and I’m sure that’s why in the end he let me stay.

I rode horses, played chess, shot pheasants, read the greats, smoked cigars, picked my teeth, stretched luxuriously across chaise longues, became more superfluous than I’d ever been in my life. The lord was gone during the day, giving me free reign of the manor. When he got back I was sure to tell him about all the trouble I’d gotten myself into that day, like, what did you expect letting this sellsword and blackguard loose on your property, but of course most of my tales were invented. We had this elaborate symbiosis where, as I became more and more tame, I indulged the wilder parts of this thoroughly housebroken lord who was sure to remain housebroken to the end, I was just fooling him. And I think in a way he knew that like I knew that. I can’t claim to be some kind of master manipulator. But if you’ve got a mansion, a cushy job, a wife and kids, and still have a part of you that’s unsatisfied, I guess you’ve got to depend on strange and elaborate forms of entertainment, the kind I was willing to supply.

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But it couldn’t last forever. That’s why I smuggled one silver fork after another each time we had dinner, why I’d trained a prize horse to heed my call, why I phased out all the lounging with bodyweight exercises. It would all come to a head, I’m sure, in one way or another, and I had to make most of what was given to me; I had to be the rough-and-ready adventurer in a way the lord wouldn’t like.

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One day at dinner when I’m recounting a hair-raising encounter at the haunted Castle Otranto, upon mentioning the appearance of a Phantom, the lord of the manor looked a little red. I continued the story like nothing happened, excited as I was to introduce the punchline (this was a very good story), but when it came, instead of the desired response, resounding laughter, he only forced a nervous chuckle. Wanting to probe deeper into the matter I introduced a couple more stories involving ghosts, trying to make it seem natural, like oh, this reminds me of another time I met a ghost, that sort of thing, and this effected a response: he grew redder and redder, until, red as a cherry, he excused himself in a rush, claiming he had to go into work early the next day.

My head swam that night in bed, I guess mostly because of all the wine I drank, but I laid awake postulating the strangest sort of theories. I tried to blend the business with the daughter with that of his embarrassment at the mention of ghosts. Maybe that’s why he kept his daughter locked up - she was a ghost all along, tethered to his mansion by some feat of forbidden magic! Doomed forever to practice Clair de Lune. But would he look so red, then, I wondered? If I had a secret like that, and someone brushed up against it, I’d sooner look pale. I’m pretty sure you can serve time up here for necromancy. No, he looked so red - like he’d survived some kind of imbroglio involving a ghost. Maybe an affair! But I mean, physically speaking, how would that work? I didn’t get much farther than this before drifting off to sleep. The idea of getting it on with a Phantom derailed my train of thought entirely, and with the impetus of my inquiry deflected in this way, I could rest at last.

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The lord asked to see my writing. I guess my stories weren’t enough to please him - he wanted the unabridged version. I refused for a couple reasons. One, I’d ended up writing a great deal about him, and it wasn't exactly all positive, but actually mean in a way that wasn’t superficial, like it went beyond the kind of enmity he’d expect a poor adventurer to have towards a nobleman. It would shatter his image of me entirely, I thought, to know that I was capable of picking a person apart like that.

That inner flame I’d been so eager to describe earlier was a fundamental misreading of his character; he isn't some sort of fidgety firebrand. On the contrary, though he is of course nervous, no one could be more comfortable with his lot in life. I’d never met someone less curious about the world at large, how it is outside his palace. And despite his deep-rooted ignorance he’s the kind of person who has to have an opinion on just about everything. You ask him about grain imports, medical debt, the two kings, he’d palaver fluently about whatever it is, though if you push him a little, if you don’t nod quietly like a good servant he either backs off in an instant, saying well that’s just my opinion, or he grows angry in his own little way. I can see it in his eyes, the way he rolls the silverware in his fingers, looks everywhere but at me, huffs and puffs, and of course since he doesn’t know anything about anything he can’t fight back. He always runs out of things to say. But I’d never be so bold or stupid to challenge my benefactor openly. He forces me to be as sly as he is, never stating something directly. I play devil’s advocate so often I feel like a Warlock.

The second reason I denied him was that, without meaning to, I found my writing had a little too much of me in it. I hoped to introduce myself then fade into the background, letting my adventures speak for themselves. I wanted them to have more of an edifying character, a good moral at the end, almost like a handbook for new adventurers. Instead I let my personal life bleed into the work, and I feel it’s changed the tenor indelibly.

I don’t mean to publish this thing, but for my own sake, I think it’s for the best if I keep it more professional from now on. So that means no more digressions, no more repeating nice stories I’ve heard, no writing with a bottle in my hand, no more maudlinism.

I mean it!

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I have nothing left. I’ve become a timber wolf in a cage, treading the same path in the sand back and forth, again and again. How long, I wonder, can I keep at this? I realize now that I’m his pet. The lord only keeps me around so he can mock me. This whole thing, it’s a mockery, trying to domesticate me. I thought by keeping me around he’d try and be more like me - it’s the opposite. He won’t rest until I’m pacing in a cage. But what can I do? The debt collectors came by the other day, and to my surprise, he shook them off. He can be really crafty when he puts his mind to it. I wonder if his mediocrity, his nervousness is really an act. He has plans for me, I’m sure. He leaves the door to his study wide open as he studies a map on the wall, just waiting for me to ask about it. He thinks he’s slick, mentioning offhand dungeons found in the north, but I know his game. He brought me here to do some kind of job for him. As long as I’m a good servant he’ll keep the Barber Surgeons off my tail. If I refuse? Why, he’ll probably sell me out. I’ve fallen right into a trap. Typical, so typical.

I try to think, I try to get a handle on the situation. But that piano! Every time I try to work out a plan it starts up again. If she could only play the piece to completion! It always stops at the same place, though, again and again. I try to think, I’ll split during the day with a team of prize horses and hawk all his silverware, buy a ticket to the other end of the world, I’ll - and then the piano starts up again! Pling! Pling! Pling! I’ll make for the Faroff and join a band of nomads, spend the rest of my days stalking through the desert - Pling! Pling! Pling! Or maybe I could start a revolution, round up all the other malcontents and storm the debtor’s prison, haha, that would show them - Pling! Pling! Pling! And on and on like this..

The one upside is that I’ve got the time to write. The lord can do what he likes with me, but my mind is free. I’ll be his pet, I’ll leap his hurdles.. I’ll finish this thing, even if it kills me.