Zachariah stumbled, tried to correct his stance and suck some air into his burning lungs, but not before the wooden practice blade thumped into his ribs, hard, sending him sprawling. Sir Morgan Blackthorn, the middle-aged Master of Arms of Castle Harth, grinned at him, lying on the ground, desperately trying to catch his breath.
Morgan’s dark brown eyes shone. He was forty-nine years old, nearly fifty, with long black hair, pale skin, and a wiry, battle-scarred body. Morgan may have more than his fair share of gray hairs, but he was as quick as a man half his age, and could hit like a horse’s kick. What ashamed Zachariah even more was that he knew the expert swordsman was taking it easy on him. Whenever he sparred with Zachariah’s older brother Benedict, he moved like a whirlwind, giving it his all, striking ten times as fast as he did with his younger student.
He’d been Zachariah’s father’s squire during the Conquest, everyone knew that. He’d taken a spear through the arm for his knight, the Duke of the Thronelands, leaving himself with one and a half working arms. While blood still poured from his wound, he had supposedly simply smiled and remarked that he’d have to learn to fight with his left hand.
And so he had. It was said by some that he was one of the greatest swordsmen in the Thronelands despite the loss of much of his dominant arm, and he was certainly far and away the most competent warrior Zachariah had ever laid eyes on.
Zachariah struggled to his feet for the tenth time that day, and held up a hand. “Hold, Sir Morgan. My entire body aches. I would bid you to let me conclude our lessons early today.”
Sir Morgan circled his opponent, his lord’s son, as a wolf might circle its prey. He didn’t understand why Morgan persisted in torturing him so. Everyone knew he was useless with a sword. Benedict was the warrior between the three Lancer children, the heir, father’s golden boy.
“I have been granted leave by His Grace to continue our training until one hour before supper. He insists that every man of the Lancer line must know how to wield a blade.”
Zachariah scoffed. “He’s got some plan for me, I can tell from how he’s been acting lately. He’s been even more standoffish than usual. He’ll ship me off to one of the Scholariums, just you wait and see, or have me married off to some Baron’s daughter in the Westreach, or maybe the niece of the Lord of Karthane.”
“You’ll be told in due time, my lord.” Morgan said, still circling. “Your posture is abysmal. Straighten up.” Zachariah tried to stand up as straight as possible. “You’ll never be Tyrenoth the Returned or Galen the Brave, that’s for sure, but you might just be a competent swordsman, if only you applied yourself to the lessons I give you.”
“I’m twenty years old, Sir Morgan.” Zachariah replied wearily, flinging aside his practice blade. “If I haven’t learned how to wield a blade by now, I never will, and never intend to.”
Sir Morgan’s smile fell. He was almost always smiling, as if the whole great world and everything in it was some great jest that only he understood. Now, though, his face was solemn. “I find it touching that you live in a time when you are able to turn away from the blade, my lord. Would that I had such a luxury at your age.” Zachariah’s face felt hot with embarrassment, looking to his missing arm, and to the wistfulness that moved over his face. “But only some men pursue the art of drawing blood and dealing out death due to their passion for battle. Many more do so out of obligation, or grim necessity. I fear that someday soon, my lord, you will have need of skill with a blade, and being bereft of it, struggle all the more.” His expression returned to its usual bright smile, and he strode over to pick up his student’s blade so quickly that Zachariah jumped.
“You are freed from your lessons for the remainder of the day, my lord. We will meet again tomorrow, and I will endeavor to sculpt my approach more closely to my student.” He departed the practice yard, leaving me alone with a powerful feeling of oncoming doom.
I suppose some time should be taken to explain who Zachariah is. The second of two sons, his mother was Charlotte Merson, the Lilac Lady of Osken, and his father was Haylon Lancer, Duke of the Thronelands, Baron of Harth, Steward of the Kingdom, and highest servant of the Exalted King Ruiden Talos. His father was widely agreed to be the third most influential man in all the realm, after, of course, the King and his son the Prince. He was also a distant, stern figure in Zachariah’s life, always away from the family home of Castle Harth, serving in Throne, the Capital City. He sent messages by crow every month, giving crisp, dry recitations of the work he’d accomplished, and remarks to his general well being and the state of things in the Royal Court. The last message that the Master of the Aerie had received and promptly relayed to Zachariah had been some five ago now, and had contained a handful of unsurprisingly curt sentences.
I will set out for home within a day, and will arrive within two months’ time, if
Foul weather or cravens do not waylay me. Your brother and mother will remain at Court, while I will arrive to set things in order and correct your no doubt disgraceful conduct in my absence.
It would take him at least five weeks to arrive traveling by carriage, which had given Zachariah time to worry, mostly. He had taken to reading in the castle library, a vast room with bookshelves reaching up some fifteen feet into the air, and tomes on every subject, from the history of the Hill-lands to a dictionary of dwarven phrases. The book shelves were carved of fine oak wood, and the room was floored with the pavestones common of the castle, only within the library were many great, heavy rugs of every color, many times longer and taller than a man, that covered the cold cobbles in late autumn with a comforting softness, though now in midsummer they seemed an extravagance. Zachariah would often go barefoot in the library as a child, before Matron Tenya caught him without shoes or socks, scolded him for my lack of manners, and sent him to bed without supper.
He found his way then through the gray stone halls so neatly laid out by the finest northern stonemasons all those years ago, through hallways with windows and without, many of them lit by smoking torches in sconces of bronze. To the great twelve-foot-tall double doors of the Castle Library he went, and no sooner had he arrived at those gates to paradise did he hear a great squawking sound from high above. He craned my neck to look upwards, and spotted in the dim light of the high rafters of the hall, a great black bird was perched, it’s scarlet eyes glowing as twin beacons in the near-darkness. The bird was easily three feet tall, one of the largest winged creatures he had ever seen.
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Seeing nothing better to do, and knowing how easily miffed the creature could become if he thought himself disrespected, he held up a hand and waved at the black-feathered bird. “Hail, Lord of Crows.” He smiled at the corvid.
The overgrown crow squawked again. “Late afternoon to you, lordling. Your father will arrive with the witch’s hour. My valet has been told not to speak of it, but I am no vassal of any Duke.”
Zachariah sighed. Of course Alvan, Master of the Aerie, had been instructed not to inform me of my father’s imminent arrival. His father likely enough had wished to have Zachariah dragged out of bed at midnight and thrown on his knees before him for inspection.
Oh, yes, Lord of Crows. According to old northern tradition, one crow was born every century larger and longer-lived than its brethren, endowed with the power of speech, and the most recent one had taken to calling itself Lord of Crows and had taken Castle Harth as its home twenty-some years ago, when the structure was first built. It was friendly enough to Zachariah, if pompous and prone to gossiping, but so was every noble south of Everwinter. He had even been appointed “Lord of the Aerie” (a farcical title) by Zachariah’s father, in a rare moment of good humor for the man. Lord of Crows had even taken to calling Master Alvan his valet, though Zachariah suspected the crow only vaguely understood the meaning of the term.
Within the great halls of books he was able to untense all the rigid bones and muscles that formed Zachariah Lancer, turning himself into something resembling a man who enjoyed his own life. He understood that, materially, he was quite comfortable -- all the food, clothes, and amenities he could ever desire, but he didn’t desire much. He ate well, but not overly of rich foods, and he dressed in the plainest style he could get away with without the matrons scolding him. He only intensely desired two things: the first, to be allowed to stay with his family at the Capital, having been without them for three years now. The second, to be allowed to read to his heart’s content, which was rarely the case.
Always some member of the household was instructed by Varehans, Keeper of the Castle, in some lesson. By Sarissa the Head Cook he was taught to bake bread, by Zarett of Evram he was taught how to track a beast in the woodlands (though he had never grown very good at it), by Jasiah, resident priest of the Church of the New Gods, he was taught of faith and good works and instructed in how to say grace and pray for the ill and the needy, and of course by Morgan thrice a week he was instructed in the ways of how not to immediately die in a swordfight. Many other lessons besides was he assigned, and still his general tutor Miss Rennary gave his lessons in the afternoons on all manner of subjects of politics, history, and natural philosophy. If he didn’t know any better, he'd have thought my father cared about him. He knew in truth all his father’s fostering of his education via the castle servants was simply a ploy to distract him from the isolation he had forced Zachariah into.
He read the Accounts of the War of the Weeping King, Volume I, written by an elven scholar many centuries ago, its pages yellowed with age. He read of net-games played by children in the Brinelands, of how a dwarven body hardens into stone after death instead of decaying into so much worm food like a human corpse does, and of how the first Merchant Prince of the Myriad revolutionized trade for millennia to come. He read about many subjects, and when the shadows grew long he lit a tall candle and continued to read by its yellow light. The librarians departed to their spartan bedchambers after a time, and still as the dark outside the great library windows deepened and his eyelids sagged from weariness, still he endeavored to devour as much knowledge as he could before he was dragged back into the life he so wearied of.
The belltower in the courtyard tolled twelve times, and he knew the witching hour had arrived, and with it, his father in his horse-drawn carriage. Torches outside the entrance hall were lit, and he stared out across the courtyard from his safe place within the great castle library, seeing in the dim, flickering light of the torches the tall, lean outline of his father descend down the steps of his carriage. His face was cast in shadow, but even from afar Zachariah could sense his presence. His father wore his own utter certainty and self-importance as it was armor, and it roiled before him in great waves, his personality a force all its own. Zachariah had seen servants and Barons alike cowed by but a look from his father’s imperious gaze. Zachariah thanked the Gods it was unlikely he could make his son out in such patchy light, from so far away, and on the other side of glass.
He blew out his candle and crept out of the library, wincing as the great doors slammed behind him. He walked, wishing with all his heart he could go in any other direction. But alas, he made his way towards the Grand Entrance Hall, knowing that the ironclad Laws of Etiquette and Propriety demanded that he at least make an attempt at greeting the Duke of the Thronelands, who also happened to be, tragically, his father by blood.
He met Keeper Varehans in the Hall. The short, rotund, mostly hairless, and perpetually superior-looking man had dressed in his most elaborate cloak, vest, long shirt, and breaches he owned, in no less than the deep blue, black, and gray that were the colors of the noble House of Lancer. The doors slammed open, and a trumpet sounded. Zachariah’s father strode in, his silver hair short and tidily combed, his eyes so dark they may as well have been the black of the void, his face lined by sixty-five years of life that had stacked on swiftly at certain times and slowly at others. His jaw was sharp and bold, like that of a knight out of a story book, and despite his age Zachariah was yet again assured, as he was nearly every time he saw him, that he could have had even a Outlands berserker speared through with his own blade faster than the man could draw breath.
Nothing but cold contempt and ambition radiated from that stern, frowning, always analyzing face. He was accompanied by his many beleaguered looking clerks, assistants, and footmen, who clustered around him like so many tiny parasite fish clinging to a great big whale. Orders were given and carried out with all swiftness, the Duke of the North speaking his directives with the total confidence of a man who had not once in the last thirty years been disobeyed.
“Welcome home, Your Grace.” Varehans said, bowing deeply to Duke Haylon as he approached. “A bath has been drawn for you, if you wish it, and a fine meal of steak and roast potatoes has been cooked for you, if you are hungry, arriving so late after dinnertime. Your usual room is of course outfitted, and reports as to the functioning of the estate in your absence have been placed in your study along with this season’s log books.
“Excellent, Varehans, as ever.” Father stated, scanning the hall until his eyes fell on Zachariah. “And you, boy. We have much to speak of. You will meet me in my study at nine o'clock on the morrow, or rather, later this day. Now, I must attend to that bath you mentioned.” He strode off, his assistants and clerks dispersing to various tasks and routines, leaving Zachariah with his mouth hanging open. The smug Keeper, practically bursting with joy from the offhand compliment the Duke had paid him, stood perhaps six feet away, seemingly oblivious. Boy.Not ‘my son’, not ‘Zachariah’, just ‘boy’. His father hadn’t spoken to him in person three years ago, when he had taken the family to live two hundred leagues away in the Capital, abandoning Zachariah to a life of quiet, albeit comfortable, misery. A faint spark of hope lit within him. Perhaps, just perhaps, he could be part of the family again.
Looking back, it was in all likelihood the most naive and foolish hope he’ve ever had.