Casey used to take his safety for granted in his hometown. That was before he received the letter from the king’s court. Now he glanced at the charming lattice windows of the Cameron family’s inn and doubted he could even show his face here. Would he be a coward in hiding all his life?
“Maybe just one cider,” he said to himself, but his rumbling stomach said otherwise. His stomach guided him, now as ever, towards the greatest epicurean delights he could find. This wouldn’t be the stupidest thing he did for food or drink.
He looked over his shoulders to see if anyone pursued him. Word had reached him that knights prowled the town in search of him. He looked up at the windows of the overhanging second floors of the buildings; no one peered down at him from them. Maybe there was time. Maybe he had a reprieve from the harassment by King Lloyd III’s court.
Inside the inn, a narrow path bifurcated into the directions of the pub on the right and the guest rooms upstairs. The smell of stew teased his nose. He paused, feeling like perhaps he couldn’t—or at least shouldn’t—be here. The temptation to leave crossed his mind, but the smells drew him further inside. He walked past several tables of chatting guests and found his way to a familiar window-side booth. Of course, it remained empty. This booth stayed empty since the incident nearly a year ago. One side of it was his, and the other remained Brendan’s long after Brendan disappeared.
As Casey slipped his young, slender figure into the booth, he noticed several people staring at him. Of course, he sat on his own side. He would never take Brendan’s side. The community made sure it remained open for Brendan in case he returned. Casey stared at the vacant seat on the other side of the table. His sadness must have been obvious; Holly Cameron, Brendan’s wife, arrived at the table with a frown to match.
“Thank you for keeping his seat open,” she said. Several strands of her coppery hair fell in front of her face, evidence of a long shift working here. Her green eyes, full of empathy and loss, mirrored Casey’s.
“Hey, Holly. A cider for now, please, and just two potato cakes. Don’t know if I have time for—”
“You’re darn right, you don’t have time. The knights came looking for you again. Prowled through here just a few hours ago. Must be waiting in the hills for you.” She leaned into the table with one arm and drew closer to him, as close as only a caring friend could.
Casey smelled the aromas of the trade on her. The apples to make the cider, the herbs for the stew, and the potatoes all smelled wonderful. The stew had beef today. Any man whose wife smelled like this would have been pleased; Brendan must have loved her deeply. These idle thoughts slipped out of Casey’s mind as the fear returned. The knights had come here in search of him. Casey couldn’t have long.
“I just wanted a treat before hiding again.”
“Yeah, wherever you’ve been hiding, you better stay there!” Holly warned him. “You’re nut a gutsy man; it’d break my heart to lose you, too. The knights acted like you were really worth their time, like you could slay Cú Ama with one hand. I laughed at them and sent them packing. They didn’t look like they were buying anything.” Holly turned and left to get Casey’s cider.
Brendan, Holly, and Casey had grown up in this town together. They had played in the street together as children. Casey had been to their wedding. Now the loss of Brendan left Holly without a husband and their child without a father.
“Cú Ama,” Casey thought aloud. The name belonged to the mythically proportioned dog that took Brendan. That was the story that spread throughout the town. At the eastern edge of town lay the single bridge that crossed the Rees River. At the end of that bridge—if a person lacked proper courage—stood Cú Ama, lured by the smell of fear. The stories claimed that he stood as tall as two men. For as many men as he captured, he must have been indomitable. Everyone knew someone taken by the beast.
Most predators were happy to eat their meal right away. Cú Ama placed his prey underground to chew on later, like a bone. Cú Ama possessed otherworldly magic, and underground meant a spiritual plane of wasted years and isolation. He suspended his prey in place, robbing them of years of their lives.
Holly arrived with his cider and potato cakes and placed them on the table. Only when the cider reached his stomach did he realize he’d enjoyed it. It had been made with a sparkling spring water, and it fizzed all the way down. His brooding thoughts dissipated for a moment. Holly smiled at him. She must have known how good the cider tasted.
“Thank you, Holly.” Casey couldn’t help that his eyes fell to her belly for a split second. At the time Brendan disappeared, it was enormous with Brendan’s child. Although he could never say it out loud, Casey wondered if Brendan feared fatherhood. Maybe the child drove him to desert this life, and Cú Ama didn’t even exist.
Casey closed his eyes. He needed to enter a meditative state to appreciate the food. Even if he feared being found, he refused to let that interrupt his moment of culinary heaven. He ate the potato cakes with the contentment of a true connoisseur. “Oh, these were cooked in pig lard this time!” He relished that distinction. Maybe it didn’t matter if the knights caught him here after all.
A couple of musicians at the far side of the pub tested their instruments. A few beats on a drum. A few notes on a penny whistle. Casey heard the sound of the musicians and anticipated a talented performance. He couldn’t help fearing the knights catching him here, despite the excellent ambience. After finishing the potato cakes, he drank faster, and the passing of time escalated his anxiety. He’d been still for too long. The musicians started a familiar song, and the music filled the air.
“Hey, Casey!” a beautiful girl called out to him. She approached the table and leaned onto it with both hands. “They’re playing a great set. Dance with me!” She grabbed his arm with one hand. “Come on!”
Casey vaguely recalled her name. Stephanie, Saoirse, something. Just familiar enough to dance with, but strange enough to be exciting. This was not the time for dancing.
“No, sorry. It’s a bad time. I can’t be here long.”
“Oh, come on! What’s made you so dour?” She brushed her black hair back. “I won’t mind if you’re a bad dancer.”
The epicurean side of him wanted to experience a dance with her, but his fears compelled him to decline. “I’m tempted, but I’m afraid I’ll be spotted here.”
“Who would spot you that you’re so worried about?”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Got a letter from King Lloyd III himself.” Casey pulled the letter out of his leather satchel and placed it on the table. It merited reading again; the words hardly seemed real enough the first dozen times he’d read them. His eyes scrolled over the fine calligraphy of the king’s hand.
“Casey Byrne of Abernathair,
My court is intrigued by your heroic exploits. Throngs of beautiful ladies faint at the mention of your legendary name. Lords gather around fireplaces to retell the tales of your feats, especially your conquest of the Three Beasts of Abernathair.
With great pleasure and absolute insistence, I summon you to my court in Cronine at once. Your talent for slaying beasts is in dire need. The kingdom is besieged by a threat I cannot name in this letter; the servants of the evil one—the great enemy of the world—are everywhere and may intercept this letter.
As I understand that a man of your caliber has many feats to attend to, you must understand that as your king, I will accept no refusal.
Your escorts will arrive shortly.
Your king,
King Lloyd Prendergast III”
The girl leaned back from the table as the message struck her. “You’ve never slain anything! You’re kind of a coward.”
“You don’t have to rub my nose in it.”
“You don’t even have the spine to dance with me! The king’s in for a bad time if this letter’s genuine.”
Casey rolled the letter up and returned it to his satchel. He drank the last of his cider and placed a few coins on the table. He stood up, slipping past the pretty girl as though she didn’t exist. “And if anyone should ask, you haven’t seen me in ages.”
“Where are you going?” she asked with an incredulous smile. “There must be some misunderstanding. No one would truly ask you to—”
“Don’t look for me; I’ll be hiding in the fairy realm.”
She laughed and asked, “You’ve kidding, aren’t you?”
Casey took a final look at the empty seat where Brendan used to sit. The memory of his friend lingered heavily in his heart. If Casey had been the kind of man the king believed him to be, he could have done something about Cú Ama. Holly’s child would have a father, and he’d be sitting in that booth eating potato cakes, even if he did prefer them cooked in oil. Casey felt his sense of loss transform into personal guilt. It burdened him, and he wished he could lift it.
Casey departed the pub and returned to the outside world, where two- and three-story buildings cast the alley into heavy shadow. He pulled his cloak hood over his head for cover.
He saw the familiar faces of Abernathair, like the old woman who sold questionable trinkets from her husband’s wagon while he watched with a lazy eye. Younger men, peers of Casey’s, carried produce through the alley for the market. A tall homeless man, large enough to see eye-to-eye with a man on stilts, survived painlessly on the handouts given to him by a kinder community than anyone deserved. The goings-on of the town moved without Casey, its least talented bakers’ apprentice. He’d never offered anything of substance to this community. Even in assisting the bakers—his own parents—he’d been a catastrophe. Memories of his clumsy mistakes in the kitchen pained his psyche.
He moved faster through the alley until he entered a wide, open market with colorful awnings and tents. The dirt road gave way to cobblestone. The wind hissed through the leaves and blossoms of a blooming tree, and Casey paused to admire its beauty.
“Stop right there,” a man’s voice called out over the crowd of shoppers. Casey looked back and saw the knight on horseback. He must have been a knight; he wore mail armor, and his horse’s saddle seemed ornately colorful beyond necessity.
The knights find him! [https://i.imgur.com/IbAcaGF.jpg]
Fear gripped Casey, and he bolted. How many knights did Holly say came to the pub looking for him? Casey knew there had to be more, but he only saw one. Casey ran. His heart pounded. The knight’s horse galloped behind him.
“If my horse hurts his foot on the cobblestones, you’re a dead man!” the knight yelled as he charged.
Casey looked back over his shoulder to see the knight charging at him. He ran faster, but he couldn’t compete with a horse. A second knight emerged from behind a tent. This knight chased Casey on foot, and despite being a chubbier man, he possessed surprising speed. The knights cornered Casey, and the second knight grabbed hold of him. He pulled Casey’s hood back. The bright light of the dinner-time sun warmed his face and blinded his eyes.
The knight on horseback slowed to a halt. He looked down at Casey, and Casey stole a good look at his face. The mounted knight was older, probably middle-aged, and had the unfortunate face of a man made from old leather and melting wax. Handsome in an awful, painful kind of way, he looked down at Casey with anger. “You must be Casey Byrne, the hero our king has sent us in search of. We’re knights in service of King Lloyd III. Where is the heroic steed that you ride into battle?” The mounted knight laughed. “You could have outraced us a thousand times with him. No matter. You must return with us to Cronine; your highness awaits.”
“There’s been some kind of mistake,” Casey said between heavy breaths. He struggled to breathe; he’d never been an athletic man. “I’m not the hero you’re looking for. That isn’t me!” Casey noticed several familiar people emerging from the shoppers to witness the scene.
“What?” the mounted knight asked. “Then you’re not Casey Byrne, the young man-at-arms who slew the Three Beasts of Abernathair with one weapon?”
“Three beasts? No! I’m not the hero who slew any beasts at all. I’m sixteen years old; I’m barely a man!” Casey struggled against the grip of the knight on foot.
“You wear his famed woad tunic and emerald cloak. Did you steal them from him?”
Casey’s face burned red hot as the elder knight identified him. He did, in fact, have a fondness of these colors.
“We’ve worn out our horses for you,” the mounted knight explained. “If you’re not him, we’ll need you to point us in his direction. This is a small town; you must have seen Casey Byrne.” The mounted knight smiled an unfriendly smile and pulled a length of rope from his traveling pack. He leaped down from his horse.
The two knights possessed too much strength for Casey to squirm free, but he resisted anyway. He tried to push the elder knight away with his foot, but it did no good. The elder knight assembled a quick noose out of the rope and tied the rope around Casey’s neck. Casey let out a pitiful yelp, but the rope squeezed the sound out of his voice.
More townspeople made an audience around him. Their footsteps shuffled on the cobblestones as they drew nearer. Did anyone among them have the courage to speak on his behalf? He looked at his peers—people whom he’d known since childhood—and he doubted them. Casey had never provided value to them except for cheap laughs at his expense.
“This is it,” Casey thought to himself. “It was fun, sometimes.”
“Tell us where this Casey Byrne is,” the elder knight demanded. “If you don’t speak up, we’ll have to tie you to my horse and smack his arse. He’ll dash off, and you’ll follow across the cobblestones.” Both knights laughed.
Casey didn’t laugh out loud, only in his head. While he’d accepted his own death, he didn’t expect the extra pleasure of it being funny. “Thank you, my executioners, my entertainers,” Casey thought as the air to his head became scant, “I was bored with baking bread. Squeeze a little tighter.”
No sooner than his thoughts turned morbid, Holly emerged from the crowd of onlookers. “Perhaps the man can tell you where Casey Byrne is if he can speak?” she said, and the knights froze in place. She smiled widely and nodded, knowing the wisdom in her words.
“A novel idea,” the elder knight said. “I suppose we’ll give it a go for a moment.” The knights loosened their grip on Casey, and he collapsed to his knees, gasping for air. He coughed and struggled to breathe.
“Just noose me right back up!” Casey thought. “Why does Holly—who has suffered more than enough—have to see me like this? Tie me to the horse and smack his arse like a drum. I choose sweet death!”
“What?” the elder knight asked, and Casey had the stupefying realization that he spoke some of his thoughts out loud.
“He means that he’s Casey Byrne,” Holly explained.
“I suspected so,” the elder knight said. He scratched at the hair on his chin. “Then why the resistance? The Casey Byrne the king seeks is a man of courage.”
Several people in the audience giggled at the knight’s words.
“What is it that you need Casey Byrne for?” Holly asked. “Forgive me; I’ve forgotten the chivalric manners you’re accustomed to.” Holly gave a yeoman girl’s best imitation of a noble bow, and Casey remembered why Brendan had adored her. She asked, “My lord, how can Casey Byrne be of service to the king’s court?”