Chapter 25: Epilogue

Tybalt sat on the porch of his house. Over the last year, he had built this building from the raw materials of the land. He learned how to use his strength in order to tame the land around him. He cut down trees and hewed them into planks, he broke the soil and sowed seeds, he melted down scrap metal and made simple bowls, cups, and buckets that would allow him to fetch water from the nearby stream.

Over the last three years, he had transformed himself, his life. He had not taken a gun against a human, although he still practiced his shooting with a few clay targets in his backyard. Likewise, he plied his marksmanship when he hunting, bringing back the occasional stag and small game. His hunting always provided him with fresh meat and a constant source of labour. He learned to skin, gut, and butcher animals. He learned how to tan the hide and process the meat into steaks, sausages, and jerky. His skillset widened. His view of life became even more robust. His thoughts moved inward, discovering a wealth of wisdom that merely needed reflection.

“Father?” a small voice called to him. The voice had matured over the three years, but it still held traces of his youth.

Tybalt looked from the comfortable wooden chair that he himself had crafted. Gerwin, the small street child, stood under the doorframe of their house.

“Dinner is ready.”

Tybalt rose from his chair and walked to Gerwin. He tussled the boy’s hair as moved into the dining room. There, Ludolf, the street child’s brother, had already taken a seat at the long table. A linen table cloth stretched over the wooden table. Upon it, plates, cups, and cutlery waited patiently for every guest to arrive and sit by it. Tybalt took the seat at the head of the table, with Gerwin to his left and Ludolf further down.

Since his near execution, Tybalt felt the need to adopt the two children. He could not bear the thought of the two boys growing up as he had grown up. Struggling from city to city, finding any manner of life that allowed them get a morsel of food. It was precisely this sort of living that turned him and his own brother to crime. He became the killer he was, the theif he was, from those earlier wicked days. The anger of his father scarred Tybalt. It left him a broken man, but, in these three years in the country, having made his own home and learned essential skills, in the need of providing and caring for these two boys, he began to heal. Still, his wounds ran deep and the deeper they ran the more time was needed for the healing, but he could feel the cut trenches in his soul close and suture with a life bound by labour and a struggle for love.

Tybalt admired the dining room. This room had been the largest in his construction. This house, after all, had been the second one that he had constructed for himself, the first being too small for his ambitions and his company. He still desire more, but this desire for more was rightly ordered to the world around him. He looked to the wooden walls that solidly rose around him. He looked through the simple window hollowed out of the wall, its slats opened to the sunshine that poured from the outdoors. On the wall, there hung decorative tapestries. Against one said, a chest of drawers and cabinet that he had help fashion contained the various implements of daily living. It was from there that the two brothers conjured these plates, glasses, and cutlery.

Of everything in the room, that which please Tybalt the most had been the little painting that he had commissioned someone to paint of his brother Bassian. It took a while to get the features right, seeing as his brother had long been dead and his buried properly buried in the graveyard he had erected on his property. The painting looked over the dining room, constantly reminding Tybalt the reason why he had built this life, why he had turned away from his years as a mercenary. If he had discovered these simple truths sooner, his brother would have still been alive.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Desdemona entered the room with a pitcher of water. She filled each of the cups that were arranged on the table. Since her escape in the prison, her figure filled out. Instead of her emaciated figure, her body strengthened with constant nutrition and daily work. Her wiry limbs grew strong. Her shrivelled figure straightened. Her wrinkled skin brightened. For her, she too, had been redeemed by a sudden action of mercy. Having accepted this wonder and followed the path it had taken her, her body had been restored to a glimmer of its beauty. While her hair had turned from its dusky grey to a more stark white, she seemed to have grown younger rather than older.

She placed her hand on Tybalt’s shoulder, filling his cup. He thanked her. In return, she kissed his head with the affection of an elderly mother. Saying nothing, she filled the cups before Gerwin and Ludolf, and, rather than kissing them, demanded kisses from them upon her cheeks. Like sweet grandchildren, they kissed her cheeks and thanked her.

Desdemona left the dining room, only to return with another pitcher. She set it aside and took her seat beside Ludolf.

“You guys ready?” Stanimir came into the dining room with a large roast. With mitted hands, he carried the hot ceramic pot into the middle of the table. Gerwin stood on his chair and adjusted the mats that awaited the fire-baked roast. Stanimir brought it as close as he could, letting the ceramic pot drop for its last inch.

“It smells so good,” Ludolf said. His voice contained the rumbles of hunger. He wanted nothing more than to cut into the roast and start digging in.

“You’re going to have to wait a little more,” Stanimir said with a laugh. He left the dining room, returning with a pot of potatoes and another one with vegetables. The smells of cooked food filled the room. Their scents made this wooden structure feel more like home. It grew with the familial love that is bound during meals.

“Oh, the gravy!” Desdemona rose from her spot and a shuffled out of the dining room to return with the sauce. She placed it in front of Ludolf, in a somewhat teasing manner.

Stanimir returned and sat across from Desdemona.

If it were not for his help, Tybalt would have had no chance of building such a great home by himself. It was Stanimir who help chop down the trees for its timber, helped saw those trunks into planks, helped hammer and lift and chisel everything to its perfection. It was Stanimir who helped him take care of the house when he was out hunting, and him who joined him on adventures for bigger game, helping haul dear and other game back home for processing. Stanimir took frequent trips to Carrion Hill, using his old connections to trade for goods, to sell the tanned hide of their hunting, to barter their surplus food grown on their homestead.

A homestead that grew beside the settlement of Corvus. The settlement had continued to grow over the years. Erik and his wife, Brenna, have since had two children. Mewling infants that seemed to possess limitless energy. Meanwhile, Njal had found a nice woman, one nearly his height. While he was still courting her, the signs seemed promising. Indeed, a general sense of joviality filled their corner of the world. Sten had built himself a roadside restaurant and inn, welcoming weary travellers into their neck of the woods. Many of these wanders, having spent a pleasant day or two in Sten’s place, tried their hands at living a more settled life. Over the years, more and more stayed and contributed to health of the whole community. With this influx of new blood, so did the numbers of Erik’s gang increase. Motorcycles filled the garages by the road. Mechanics and other skilled machinists took up residence with these motorheads, finicking with an assortment of parts, inventing new techniques to create and restore these aging machines. Indeed, the settlement even got their own resident distiller, who made barrels of alcohol for local consumption and ethanol to fuel their machines.

Finally, the last person entered into the dining room. The woman with a headscarf, Roseline, his wife, came to her spot beside Tybalt. In her hand, she held their new born daughter. Tybalt kissed his wife as she sat down beside him.

Tybalt looked at the great house around him, the warm meal before him, and the kinds faces beside him, and felt calm.