“‘Tear it all asunder,’

Cried the lord upon his land.

‘I deny its wonder,

You can never understand.

It belongs to us, this glory,

That the common cannot hold,

So be gone from here you lowly,

Leave our gorgeous land of gold.’”

— The Ballad of Sir Joe, by “Golden-Voiced” Garbeaux.

Dipping low on the horizon the sun provided us with less and less light. The journey had been much more brutal than we anticipated but with Roderick’s army of bandits behind us and Joe safely tucked away again we finally turned down what I remembered as being the correct road. I remembered it so well from my first adventure with Joe that, laying in shambles, the windmill, half-collapsed, nearly hid the overgrown road. “That’s … different.” I mused. Cobblestones could be seen here and there, some loose but also others butted up against each other in a flat surface; there was no mistaking it, “This is it.” I brought the carriage to a stop.

“This is it, Gab? You sure?” asked McGrue looking back and forth, map and path, not seeing what I could see.

I nodded, “The back way in, directly to the manor house, avoiding the hamlet.” confidence in my voice. It felt nice to be sure of something for once, so much being out of control lately.

McGrue scrutinized the map closely, “Must be that the back road isn’t listed. Clever having a back way into his hidden estate. Mulfingerswick must have been a popular place to visit at one point.” He disembarked the carriage, ax in hand.

I kept control of the carriage, really of Grizzly, as McGrue used his ax to carve a path through the underbrush. The road wasn’t so much overgrown as essentially reclaimed by the forest, its tightly-packed stones were scattered everywhere by time and nature. I doubted anyone other than Joe or myself knew that there was a path here.

McGrue certainly didn’t believe it after the first ten minutes, breathing hard, “There are just more trees!” he spat after felling a pine tree that had grown to adulthood in the road. He shoved the tree aside but, it was true, this path was in bad shape. He walked up to the next tree, a maple too big to logically grow there in only five years, then looked back at me, pointing at it. “The fuck is this!?”

Keeping McGrue motivated was essential as he was the best muscle we had. Perhaps, however, the ax wasn’t the best tool But what was? “Listen, Joe’s estate is this way,” I said, “He sent money here regularly for the upkeep. I’ve been here! I know! There are villagers, thirty, maybe forty counting kids, mostly farmers but there’s a bakery and a smith! They’re his servants, see, but rather than work in the manor they have their own businesses and hovels.” That much was also true, I never knew how much, but certainly Joe sent regular payments to his estate, enough for the people working there to want to remain, certainly.

McGrue was growling, staring at me. He wasn’t averse to manual labor at all but he was quick to frustrate when he felt his effort was wasted. Having to cut down even more trees for a path he couldn’t see ramped that up and he was getting angrier and angrier. Very slowly he stopped leaning on the ax but the way he lifted it emphasized that it was feeling very, very heavy right now.

Aimee suddenly called out, “Wait, look! There’s a path there!”

We turned to see and, yes, there was an opening, but a tiny one. Meeting her there we all looked up the path, clearly, there was a man sized dirt path running towards where Joe’s estate was.

McGrue looked at the forest, then at the narrow path. “It will take hours to drag the cart through this,” he said. “Unless we want to leave it behind.”

“Actually,” I began, inspiration striking, “We might need Joe for this one…”

—

“Three!” I yelled as we used the massive knight as a battering ram, splitting the maple blocking the cobblestone road in twain. We collapsed with the effort, everyone dumping into the clearing just beyond. Indeed, having slain this monster, the rest of the trees in our path were inconsequential; saplings that we could probably just run over. McGrue didn’t want to drag Joe with us through the forest, but now that we were here I was certain I’d made the right call in bringing him. His magical armor had gotten us past the tree and we’d be able to use him to get past the servants, into the Manor House and to claim our prizes. Without him who knew how this might go?

“Okay,” said McGrue, “so there’s a road.” Picking up a cobblestone from beneath his posterior he threw it aside. Who knew a four-hundred-pound Adamant battering ram could split a tree like a bolt of lightning?

“I had an idea!” said Aimee, barely able to speak after her own effort. She actually held up a finger, indicating she had more to say. “I … I think if you chop a few roots I can see, pull half the tree out of the road, and we’re clear the rest of the way.”

The Mulfinger estate. I’d often wondered how those pleasant-looking folk were after all these years. I imagined Joe’s tidy farms supported what now was a well appointed village, the people more prosperous and numerous than they were before. Yes, this was a wonderful place to rest between adventures. Why he’d never brought me back I never understood.

Better still! Aimee was wrong, the tree had shattered so thoroughly that the roots detached. It took little to shove half of it aside and we rolled by. Joe’s corpse with its magic items like so many sparkling tumors was like a vorpal sword when swung but with much more encumbrance. We rolled into town right as the sun finished setting.

I struggled to discern the outlines of buildings. “The baker, I think her name was Helga, you wouldn’t believe her tarts, Aimee. And McGrue, Otto, the smith! Oh, the man has a way with enchantment runes. Why, in this marvelous manor, we can–”

“It’s a shithole,” interrupted McGrue.

“Pardon!?” I exclaimed.

“Your eyes can’t see it, but I see everything here in plain black and white.

“No, oh, please no…” I muttered, horrified. “It can’t be.”

I clutched at my face, horrified at the prospect of an abandoned estate. I heard McGrue speak, “Ah .. Aimee, luv?”

“Hm?” she grunted.

“Let there be…”

“Oh,” She spoke an incantation. Count to three and light was streaming between my fingers. Reluctantly I lowered my hands and was horrified to see that McGrue was correct. In fact truer words had never been spoken! There was a manor house here, no doubt, but the entire eastern wing had collapsed in on itself. Vines, mold, rot and worse told you that the place wasn’t fit for man or beast. Where there had once been a thriving hamlet here of about fifteen houses now stood fifteen abandoned and dilapidated shacks all but reclaimed by nature. “Oh … but why? He’s rich. He’s so … so rich!”

Previously empathetic McGrue abruptly shouted, “You said there would be money here!” raged McGrue, storming over to me, “Equipment! Weapons! I nearly broke my ax getting through those trees, Gabbo!”

I felt near tears, “I’m sorry! I just … I don’t understand! He was sending money this way. I was in charge of his ledger, remember? When there was pay it was me doling it all out.” Recalling the nine months with no pay was a bad move as McGrue was starting to turn purple. “So … so much coin went this way over the last five years I thought for sure that–” I began again when Aimee saved me.

“Garbeaux, McGrue. Look!” she started, “Someone is here. And look here, there’s a path through the overgrowth,” she said, gesturing past the manor house and towards the most intact hovel. Clearly someone walked from here frequently and over to there. From within a light was cast on the window and smoke rolled up from the chimney.

McGrue stood up abruptly, hopping down from the carriage, which would have to stay at the rear of the manor for there was no path to pull it around. Aimee and I hustled to catch up and the three of us made our way to the still lived-in hovel. It was well-maintained, if patchwork, with some obvious repairs having been done on the roof. Up close it was, perhaps, nice enough to be called a cottage! There was actually an intact fence and even a number of chickens in the yard. “A chicken farmer?” I wondered aloud.

The door flew open, striking the wall and a burly man stepped out, his broad shoulders second only to McGrue’s. He was tall, at least taller than me, well proportioned and somehow familiar. He looked at each of us in turn and smiled.

“‘Allo allo, what do we have here? Ah, guests! It’s been so very long, and all of ya walking on two legs; quite an upgrade after the last ones.” In Aimee’s magical light it was easy to see that this was actually a hairless youth, but what beast could have spawned this man-sized boy!? “Don’t mind the gate. It opens right up!”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

McGrue opened the fence gate and stood aside to hold it, “Like … who are you, exactly?” asked Aimee, stepping into his yard. She feigned a smile, clearly nervous. Nothing had been as expected thusfar so this stranger was someone we had to treat with scrutiny.

“Bill. Billiam to me mum but, really, I prefer Bill.” A sadness reflected in his eyes, “been awhile on me own, y’see, since mum passed on.” He looked down momentarily, his smile slipping.

“Oh!” gasped Aimee.

I made my way past the fence, quick to change the subject, “Thank you for your hospitality, Bill, but why are you here in this abandoned village?” I asked.

“Oh, me mum made the arrangements, y’see.” said Bill, finding his smile again in remembrance of his mother’s care, “She said to me, she said, ‘Billiam Billingsly, you are going to go live in a nice, civilized village where you will be safe. Unlike me.’ Then she died.”

“That’s terrible!” I said, still trying to work out the man-boy’s age. It would be rude to guess but, from his manner and his size I could only assume him to be a pubescent ogre! “How long ago did this happen, if I may ask?”

He became oddly chipper, “Oh, I been here some eight years. Sir Joe took me in! He said to me some years ago that I was the mayor of the village! But then everybody else left. Sir Joe got right cross with them, he did.”

“Little Billy,” I gasped, suddenly recalling the small boy that ran about, seemingly alone, the one time I was allowed to see Mulfinger Estate. I thought he belonged to the baker and her farmer husband! But, of course not, their children worked.

Aimee chimed in, “I’m sorry Bill but, if I may ask, how did she go? Your mother, I mean…” It was awkward but I was so glad that she asked.

Again he sank down at thinking of his mother’s passing, “Oh, I don’t know how my mother died…”

“Oh, no? That’s terrible,” I began, “did she disapp–”

“Well, I mean, the doctor did say that it was ‘total organ failure brought about by severe and repeated blunt trauma’, but that could mean anything,” said Bill.

I turned to the team, whispering, “So we all agree that Joe is this boy’s father, right?”

“She was more a sack than a woman when we buried her.” said Bill, his hangdog manner deepening.

“Another one?” asked Aimee.

“No,” went McGrue, “he never owns up to his children. Why this one?”

“Oi.” Bill scowled at us, the fury of a Mulfinger in his eyes. “Me mum always used to say it was rude to speak of someone in their presence. If it can be said about me it can be said to me, she said she said.”

I was disinclined to aggravate any hereditary temper Bill may have gotten from his deadbeat dad’s side of the family, so I was truthful. “Well, Bill, see, the thing is … we were wondering if maybe Joe Mulfinger was maybe your dad?” Ah, the mealy in my mouth tasted awful but I got the words out eventually.

Bill, true to form, shifted moods completely again “Aw! Naw! No… That’d make me a Squire on account of me da’ bein’ nobility. And, y’know, he’d move me in with him. And … give me an allowance…” Bill trailed off, grabbing the slim coinpurse at his belt.

“So … how much was your father sending you?” asked McGrue.

Bill poured the coinpurse into his free hand, “Five coppers a month, which is a good allowance for a boy my age.” said Bill. “Assuming it is an allowance. I thought it was me Mayor’s pay. Bill said to me, “He said, me mum made him promise. Mayor for life I was, coppers enough to live a life, ‘til I’m old, away from danger. Yes, she did.”

“Did your father leave any treasure in his house?” asked McGrue.

“If he was me da’ then me da’ left me every treasure a boy could want!” said Bill. “I can show ya if ya like!”

“Yes, yes we would,” I said, perhaps a little too eager.

Bill stepped out, got to his gate and stopped cold. “Oh, but it is dark. Tell you what; stay with me as me guests, I’ll make ye some eggs and we go in the morn’ after breakfast!”

The three of us fumfered momentarily, but McGrue’s stomach broke that up quickly with a squeal. “I’ll take six eggs, please!”

We went into Bill’s cottage. It was a sad little place, childhood drawings on the walls of his dead mother, a single painting that seemed to show her in the flush of youth and an excessive number of pillows and blankets. “Pull up a pile. Most of me furniture I make from the different pillows. I got goose down, wool-stuffed and some special pillows made from layers of blanket all stitched together in layers! Quilt pillows, they call ‘em.”

The place was basically nothing more than two blanket forts, a pillow fort and a shrine to a dead lady. I couldn’t imagine the son of a nobleman living in such a way. It seemed like it would have been better for him to have grown up on the streets of Fereal than all alone out here. My own greed melted away in this moment as he buttered his frying pan to feed us, “Bill, I’m sorry, you’ve been so hospitable and we haven’t even introduced ourselves. I’m Garbeaux.”

“Oh, I know Mr. Gabbo. You was with Joe the last time he was here. You loved this place so much, was so impressed by what the people built, that it made him mad. So he kicked everybody out, all ‘cept me, on account of I never built nothin’. ‘Sides, even with no people, a town needs its mayor.”

He remained pleasant but I slept fitfully that night. Was it my fault? Those poor people, driven from their homes, all because the narcissist landowner couldn’t stand that I, his servant, was impressed by them...

—

The next morning, full of more eggs, we went walking towards the Mulfinger estate, “Have you seen Joe lately? I done thought about what you said and, if he’s me da’, I’d like to hear it from him.”

Up close in the daylight the manor house was even worse than it seemed the previous night; clearly unsafe to enter. Of course, there was money in there so McGrue followed Bill in without a second thought. Aimee and I shared a moment of hesitation, shrugged, and followed them in.

Though I was further away than McGrue, the half-orc didn’t say anything in reply so, I felt the need to answer, “We … have. We’ll have to set up a … a meeting.” Both McGrue and Aimee cast me shocked looks to which I could only reply with a confused shrug.

Despite his size, Bill moved easily among the rubble and ruins, bounding from pile to pile, cutting through rooms that were at one point resplendently appointed. “I used to come in here all the time when I was little, hang onto Joe while he’d pretend not to notice me. He’d drag me all over, grumblin’ about this and that. His favorite word to whisper was ‘thatbitch’, y’know. I couldn’t hear much of what he’d say but he said that a lot for sure.”

Finally McGrue spoke, eager to change the subject, “Is that a stuffed Tigolf!?” I think he was genuinely excited by the grisly decoration. These half-tiger half wolf creatures were famous for their ferocity and the quality of their fur. They were so fierce that killing one usually involved tearing their body into very small pieces, so an intact one was worth a fortune.

“Oh yeah, Da’, I mean Joe always used to tell me how he choked that thing to death. Actually he said, uh, what was it? ‘I choked that furry whore out and she liked it?’ Something like that.”

“Oi, oh, shit, what?” McGrue got a view of the far side of the creature, turning it around for us to see; it was charred to coal.”

“Oh … I see,” began Aimee, “This was a smoking lounge.” She cast about, looking at the humidores, pipes, cigar-making supplies and other paraphernalia. “He must have thrown ash on it from … this chair here.” The chair, less than a foot away from the Tigolf, was also partially burned.

I examined the scene as well, “Walls were held up by squared timbers when they stood, but the fire burned this runner like a fuse,” I said, indicating a long, narrow carpet “This room acted like a firebreak for the west wing or it would’ve collapsed like the east one.” I said, looking around. I struggled to remember the room as it once was; walls whole, unbroken timbers, beautifully masoned stone. Hopefully some part of the manor was more intact.

Bill sighed, “Yeah… Sir Joe used to come visit every so ofter, but then the fire ruined his smoking room so he stopped.” said Bill. “Well, he came one more time. You remember that, eh, Gabbo? Farmers gone, Baker, Smith, all gone. Me, I didn’t have anyone so I just stayed. Town … town needs its Mayor.” With a sniffle, Bill began to cry.

Did he blame me? These things he said, they all sounded like angry recriminations from a bitter, neglected child. I had to make it right, “Bill, Billy? I … I’m so sorry. Look, it’s not you–urk!” Bill had embraced me and he was so, so strong.

“Thank you for coming back to find me, Gabbo! Thank you for saying I’m a special Squire!” McGrue drew his ax, Aimee, grabbing him by the shoulder and shaking her head, stopped him. “I do believe that Joe is my dad! One day … one day I’ll be just like him!”

“You are,” I struggled to say, “you are a special, giant, boy … Billy.”

“Nobody’s called me Billy since that day! The day they all left!” he ugly cried, squeezinghdt me tighter.

Then, wafting across both of our faces, a pleasant scent, like poppies in springtime. Bill couldn't see but, over his shoulder, I caught a glimpse of Aimee, one of her vials uncorked, a hint of magic light fading in the air.

The young man loosed his grip, grasped my shoulders, and smiled, “Thank you, Gabbo, I feel so much better. Just, sometimes … I’ve been alone so long. I get a little awkward.”

“Hey, all-right, that’s grand, mate,” declared McGrue, loudly, “Now … What about that treasure?”

“Oh! Oh yeah, that's here alright,” said Bill, moving to the only intact door in the west wing. “Okay? You ready! Ta-da!” He swept it open, revealing a large room with a mostly intact ceiling. Perhaps it was even waterproof! “I stopped coming here a few years ago, but I did read lots of books before I stopped.”

“Oh, great, the treasure is garbage,” said McGrue, flailing his arms dramatically.

“Knowledge is the greatest treasure,” said Aimee, picking up a first edition from one of the reading tables in the room.

Stepping in, I looked around at this tremendous wonder of a massive library, “You fools, who cares about knowledge? We can sell the books!” I spun about, arms outstretched to indicate the hundreds of shelves, all filled with the world’s knowledge. “Can you imagine!? Even a single gold piece from a first edition times … how many books!? Even some of these … saucy periodicals … pornographic woodcut print books? What? I mean, even these can net a silver, no doubt!”

Aimee, who hated being corrected, was about to say something back to me when she looked over the vast collection. There were thousands of books here. Untold thousands. The room was larger than most houses and each had fourteen shelves, filled, floor to ceiling!

McGrue sniffed, shook his head and walked over to a shelf. He picked a book out at random, gave it a sniff up close, and then violently shook it one time. The cursed thing broke in two, the half that fell exploding into dust on the floor.

“No!” I screamed, my voice shrill enough to hurt my own ears.

“Knew I smelled something odd when we walked in; Woodroot Fungus,” said the orc. “If it can take down a living tree you can bet paper stands no chance. No doubt it’s the culprit for all the broken timbers in this dump.”

“No!” I yelled a second time, grabbing a dozen books off of a dozen shelves, one after another. Every one shattered into pieces with the slightest pressure. First editions that each would have sold for dozens of gold coins were fused into lumps, flaking away just from the air moving around them. Nobody stopped me, I couldn’t even stop myself if I tried; one of the wooden shelves, itself consumed by fungus, collapsed upon me as I took from it, filling my every orifice with powdered paper and fungal spore. I choked on my own grief and potentially deadly fungus. When, finally, I found the air again I whined piteously, my voice mostly gone. “It's not fair! Everything is ruined. Again!”

“Ah, don’t you worry now Mister Gabbo! True, all the treasure you coveted has turned to ash in your mouth, but it isn’t all bad.” True enough since I was literally choking on something like ash. “It’s like me mum used to say. ‘Billiam, she said, I’ll try to come back for ya and then we can go back home. Provided, of course, me old gang don’t catch me, beat me horrible for a full day, turning me from a woman into a sack of wet gravel.’ Think on that, Mister Gabbo, at least your mother’s still a woman and not a sack of wet gravel, buried under a cherry tree that bears no fruit.”

I really hoped he would say something else after that but Bill stared blankly into my eyes, smiling warmly, not blinking, and, eventually, I decided it was better to just move on with the rest of the day.