Galen stood near the open door to a quaint woodland home, whose roof was made out of tarred wooden slats covered with many-colored lichen and moss to protect against what little rain fell in these parts. He lingered in its entryway, rubbing his chin in thought as he looked up at the traces of smoke curling out of its chimney.

Perhaps his friend didn’t necessarily set out to be rude, but he couldn’t help but feel somewhat slighted. He had been waiting there for quite some time - a touch too long if you asked him - and all the while some heavenly smells coming from the kitchen had kept wafting his way, tantalizing his imagination.

It was suppertime, late afternoon, and he had to admit he was feeling rather peckish after a light lunch earlier in the day. He had been patiently salivating all this time, waiting for his friend to come home.

Galen took a look over his shoulder around the large yard behind him. A forest’s edge, a poorly painted barn, and the hint of a larger garden behind the latter structure. He could hear a couple of hens clucking from the coops by the barn, but no sound of a crowing rooster angry at a trespasser. Maybe he was out in the cornfield again?

Well, either way, his friend likely wouldn’t mind if he went and waited inside, would he? Especially if he explained he’d been waiting on him for such a long time. Besides, didn’t Loulanne teach that an open door was an open invitation for any goodly traveler?

Galen stepped inside, knocking on the wall to signal his entry. No response, obviously, but it never hurt to be polite. He took a moment to take in the idyllic interior, noticing a few finely crafted urns of wine left to age at the back in one of the rooms, and appreciated the fact that even the simplest of folk had the chance to live a life of plenty these days.

Coming to the kitchen at the back Galen stopped to inhale the smell of freshly baked bread sitting on the windowsill, a vegetable stew still gently simmering, and delicious meat left to cool on the table.

Pig, he thought.

I haven’t had pig in ages.

**

“Welcome, friend,” Galen said smiling, a sliver of succulent meat stuck between the gap of his front two teeth. His tongue toyed with the meatstrand trapped there, liking the feel of slight pressure of its presence between them.

His friend had come to stand by his own doorway, a heavy bucket of water hanging from each of his hands.

“Have a seat, will you? The food is freshly cooked and, I have to say, skillfully prepared. And there’s so much of it! It would be a shame to let it go cold.”

Galen took another bite and he couldn't help but close his eyes from the splendid taste. It truly was seasoned to perfection.

“I’m sorry I came in uninvited, but it’s just,” Galen paused, tsked, then shook his head regretfully, “I had been waiting for so long. I was starting to worry all of this might go to waste.”

His friend still lingered by the door, a bit pale in the face, Galen thought. Water began to spill at his friend’s feet.

“Ah,” Galen said musingly as he chewed, noticing the buckets. “You went to fetch water for dinner. And for washing up?”

Galen swallowed loudly, nodding to himself. He hadn’t seen a well, but they were close to the river. “Of course.”

Galen’s face then broke out in a wider grin. “Well, what are you waiting for? There’s what, two, three, four, five chairs for everybody, including you. Come on then,” he exclaimed, beckoning the man towards a seat with his cutlery. He took another bite, the juices dripping down his chin.

“Take a seat. But first, pour me a drink, will you? I’d love a cup to wash this all down with.”

Galen heard his friend shuffle over to a corner to place both buckets down, before filling a wooden pitcher with water from one of them. Moments later, his friend tried to pour him his cup, but Galen noticed that his friend’s hand was shaking for some reason, causing a bit of an unnecessary spill.

Galen’s hand reached out to rest on his friend’s, their eyes finding one another. He was white as a sheet. He wasn’t sick, was he?

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Worry not,” Galen said softly.

“All is calm,” he added encouragingly, patting his friend’s hand twice as he returned back to his meal. The fact that his friend’s hand stilled and turned steady while he filled him the rest of his cup pleased Galen greatly.

“I take it these are from your own garden?” Galen asked as he popped a juicy bean into his mouth, then another, biting down. They had a healthy crunch.

“They have a fine snap to them. If they’re not from market, then I must commend you on your gardening.”

His friend had pulled himself a chair opposite Galen and had chosen to sit on the side. His knees, Galen noticed, were pressed together tightly. His shoulders were shaking.

Maybe he really was sick?

“You know who I am?” Galen asked, tearing off a piece of bread with his teeth.

“Yes,” replied the farmer. His voice cracked. “I know what you are.”

“No, who,” Galen brought another piece of bread to bear and used it to point at the other, correcting his friend in a friendly, chiding tone, “you know who I am.”

The farmer nodded in reply, his shoulders slumping forward. His calloused hands he wrung, he wrung them raw.

“Who am I?” asked Galen.

“A friend,” the farmer croaked..

“A friend.”

“Where is-”

“Your wife?” Galen finished helpfully, before picking up his cup to drink. The water was fresh and chilly, but not too cold that it hurt the throat going down. It was a perfect complement to all the warm food.

“She’s somewhere, out there,” Galen added after he set his cup back down. He picked up his fork again and vaguely motioned with it to indicate somewhere outside the window.

“What’s left of her, in any case.”

The farmer let out a groan and doubled over in his chair. A hand reached for his stomach as if he had just been stabbed.

“And your daughters,” Galen continued, looking down at his plate and pricking the last morsel of his piece of pig, “I gave to my men. Your boy, too. There’s no use in looking. You won’t find them.”

Galen inspected the last piece of meat pricked on his fork. It oozed all the way down the length of his finger even now.

“Not that you’d want to after my men are done with them,” Galen said as he took his final bite.

The farmer let out a gurgled cry as he collapsed to the floor.

“When another call comes to crusade to restore our empire to its rightful glory, I would hope that the next friend I visit heeds the summons and does what his country and his faith expect of him, rather than cower in his cornfield when my men come to his house.”

Still chewing, Galen rose to his feet and used a young girl’s stray kerchief he’d taken earlier to dab his hands, mouth and chin clean from the wet. He threw the soiled cloth at his feet, done with his meal.

“I highly recommend you try the pig. I’ll be honest, it has been some time since I’ve had it, but I do declare with some certainty that it may well have been the best I’ve ever tasted. Your wife truly was a wonderful cook.”

Galen stepped over the shaking farmer crumpled on the ground and walked out the door. Outside he looked up at the colorful roof and its chimney, no longer bleeding smoke, and then judged the stand of the sun to be somewhere early in the summer evening. He had indeed been waiting on his friend a touch too long.

He might not reach the next one before nightfall.

Oh well, he thought to himself as he made his way towards the forest’s edge.

There’s always tomorrow.

**

A few minutes later Galen returned to a small gathering beneath the forest canopy. His men were there waiting for him and one of them handed him the reins to his horse.

“Where are they?” asked Galen.

“We played them some music, but Alen says the youngest didn’t dance proper,” replied one of his men, pointing to a pack of hunting dogs ripping away at a small wet ruin of meat nearby. “The other we’ve kept for later.”

“And the boy?”

“Reine’s just taken him.”

Galen frowned. Reine was known to have a hard hand and there were still wild beasts to think of in these woods, aggressive and hungry. The sounds might attract too much of their attention.

“Tell him to come back,” said Galen.

“The boy?”

“Throw him in the river.”

“Right away, reverend.”

Reverend Galen Castaline took a moment to straighten himself in his saddle, before pulling the reins and directing his horse back towards the direction of the road.

“Well, come along my friends,” proclaimed Galen loudly, “it’s almost time for evening prayer.”

His men quickly followed suit, raising their heads in song as they took to their horses. Somewhere close by there was a young scream, quickly snuffed.

Galen didn’t care too much.

Instead he patted his belly, grateful for the earlier meal, as his tongue played with the last morsel of meat stuck between his two front teeth.