“… so that’s what happened.”

I looked at Trent with innocent eyes. Of course, I fully expected him to blow up at me, but to my surprise he stayed calm. He pinched his forehead with two fingers as if tending a hangover and just looked at me with pity.

“Father…?”

He sighed. “What kind of fool do you take me for, Alster? You cooked up this little lie and didn’t think I’d see right through it?”

“It’s true, I—!”

Let me backtrack a little bit. We’d found Trent talking with the other assistants to an old man who owned a farm named Heydeck. Heydeck was one of the oldest landowners in the village and with one of the largest farms. A good chunk of the village worked for him. Heydeck was a frumpy, fat old man who snapped at others but was always cordial with the upper brass like the chief and Trent. We waited until they were done, as it seemed to be an important meeting.

Now we were getting chewed out.

I think he doesn’t believe us ‘cause he’s starting to lose trust in the chief.

Trent blew a hot breath, his face visibly tensing. “Enough. Tell me what’s really going on. And you, Callum. If that is your real name.”

Did he figure us out? Shit.

I knew Trent was smart, I didn’t account for this.

Elfindor stumbled. “Trent, I—”

“When we were teenagers and you stole my first girl right from under me, what did I do when I found out?”

Elfindor froze. “Uh, you... were furious, and so I—”

Trent shook his head. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Of course he doesn’t!” I blurted out. “I just told you I whacked him with a frying pan, Father! I lashed out when he caught me ogling his wife and he lost a lot of his memories. This was before I turned over a new leaf. I’m sorry, and I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you and him. But you have to at least believe that your friend is still in there, Father! Helping him return to his old duties will jog his memory! It’s common medical knowledge.”

“He’s right, Trent. I don’t intend to punish your son, as I truly believe he’s changed. But I’m angry that I don’t remember much about our youth, and I want to fight for my memories. If there’s a chance, I won’t go down without a fight.”

Suddenly, Trent’s face softened, as if recognizing an old friend. “Callum… you almost sounded like your old self just now. Alright. Alster, I have seen a change in you lately, so we’ll settle your punishment later. The chief’s made you an assistant, and I want to believe you’ll rise to the challenge. Both of you follow me.”

False alarm. We’re in.

* * *

I returned to Trent’s house exhausted. Trent drilled Elfindor and me on the chief’s duties and mine as an assistant. It was hard work. While we workers were physically toiling away, the upper brass were in the same boat mentally. First, the chief had to receive the daily report on the workers. If any were sick, he had to visit each house and get a status on the person’s symptoms for any relatives or the affected person directly. That way, they’d know if there was a possible contagion or candidate for an epidemic that could affect the whole village.

After that, the chief would visit every farm and get a status report on the growth of crops. If anyone needed more fertilizer or a replacement on tools than the standard amount and they made a written order (with a good reason like a swarm of locusts devoured everything), then it was the chief’s responsibility to get them what they needed. Of course, the assistants would handle as much as they could such as getting in contact with merchants for other villages and towns.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

There was also the distribution and sale of what they grew, handling paperwork around it, handling shipment and sales data, and a bunch of other crap that I was about to start doing every day.

Great. Remind me why I signed up for this.

I lay in bed thinking of my and Elfindor’s next move. I told him I’d come up with an excuse to leave the village and go card hunting the next time I saw him. It wasn’t as easy as just saying we needed to run to town for supplies. After all, if we did that, the other assistants would get stuck with the chief’s duties and resentment would quickly build. I guess it wasn’t easy running a village after all.

The next day, though, an emergency halted our immediate plans.

Hundreds of villagers from a far away village poured in. They were starving and weak. People of all ages and colors, most dressed raggedy, with torn cloth, and some, frankly, partly naked and struggling to cover what they could. A lot of them were at a breaking point, and the chief and his assistants including yours truly were informed of others who had collapsed along the harsh journey under the sun.

There were some wagons and carts, but the village lost most of its horses recently, so some healthy men volunteered to pull in their place so some of the women and children could ride.

A humble old man with a wonky smile and missing front teeth introduced himself as the chief of Big Tree village, about thirty miles west from this one. He said their village had been burned down for refusing to give a brigand of bandits an ongoing protection fee of 20% of monthly yield of crops, craft, and other goods.

So thugs come in demanding payment for protection from other thugs. How bold.

Despite the chief’s pleading and back-and-forth communication with Lord Fuoril, there was nothing the lord could do, as he insisted his budget was hard-pressed and did not have room for emergency reparation funds. The margrave was also informed and he redoubled his efforts, sending more Holy Knights to find the perpetrators. But he also refused to pay any reparations.

I bet in his mind, a little village is just a speck of dirt he doesn’t need to be concerned with.

Still, I couldn’t help but wonder how those thugs were getting away. It was only mere minutes before knights found me in the forest, so how was a big group of people going unnoticed?

Whatever. It’s not my job to find out.

“Alster, there you are,” Trent said. “Come help us keep these people in line. We need to inspect them for contraband or weapons and then find them a temporary space to keep them.”

“Got it. See if any of them are sick, too. They might need to be quarantined.”

“Good call,” Trent said, ruffling my hair.

People from our village left the farms, many drawn in by rumors and wild stories of things that were happening at the front gate. Sure enough, many of the rumors were true, and a lot of our villagers did not like what was happening.

“We barely got enough food for ourselves. We can’t share with outsiders,” an old man grumbled.

“Yeah. The chief won’t let ‘em in, right?”

Lots of arm-crossing, dirty looks, and grumbling were directed toward the people just outside the gate.

“I feel for them sure,” a farmer with a straw hat said with pity. “Must be rough losing your home to bandits, but that’s not our problem.”

A fat butcher beside him nodded. “My family’s going to starve if we have to give anything away.”

Elfindor found himself surrounded by angry people talking over him. Trent and I, and the two other assistants, went up to try and calm people down. We made everyone back off while we decided what to do.

Trent narrowed his eyes. “Any thoughts, gentlemen?”

Elfindor spoke up. “Well, if we turn them away, we’ll keep our folks happy. We could accept only the strong and healthy who are willing to work.”

The two other assistants were named Craig and Oswald. They were two middle-aged men with wives and kids. Oswald usually handled accounting, and Craig handled a lot of merchant interactions. He stole a couple of looks at the people. It was clear they had nowhere else to go. Many of them carried what they could in boxes. The wagons were filled to capacity. They had their entire lives’ worth of possessions on their backs and no food.

“I won’t say that’s a bad plan, chief, but if we abandon the rest, it’s certain they won’t make it,” Craig said. “It’s a shame our treasury hasn’t recovered since the drought a few years ago. A lot of our cattle and chickens died. We only produce enough food for our folks.”

Makes sense. Trent and I get to eat meat, but we’re important. The plebeians are probably sticking to oats and wheat.

Oswald clenched his fist. “What’s the margrave doing, anyway? Thought he was supposed to be a decent guy.”

“Normally, he would help during an emergency like this,” Trent added. “He must be handling serious problems of his own if he’d abandon an entire village like this.”

That was music to my ears. So, the head honcho’s busy. That’s good for us. Elfindor and I will be able to look for cards.

We ended up talking for a few more minutes. Taking in individuals who could work was good for the village, but families were a net loss in the short term. And the village didn’t have that kind of wiggle room to play with. We ended up going with the chief’s plan. Trent had reservations that the strong and able wouldn’t want to abandon their families, but it was just a front—a way for us to save face. And frankly that’s all the top brass was willing to do.

We had to abandon them.