by Barb Hendee
Tales of Misbelief:
The Forgotten Lord
Barb Hendee
Tales from the world of
the Noble Dead Saga
Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
Copyright
The Forgotten Lord
Other Works The Noble Dead Saga
The Mist-Torn Witches Series
Tales from the world ofthe Noble Dead Saga
The Vampire Memories Series
Barb and J.C. Hendee / Nobledead.org
First Edition, February 2013
Copyright 2012 by Barb and J.C. Hendee
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Design, layout, and cover art by J.C. Hendee
ISBN: 098556167X
ISBN-13: 978-0-9855616-7-3
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior contractual or written permission of the copyright owner of this work.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to persons, living or deceased, businesses establishments, events, or locales is entirely incidental.
The Forgotten Lord
When most people look at me, all they see is a fool with a pretty face. To be fair, one can hardly blame them. I could have had any man in the village of Pudúrlatsat—as an honest husband to cherish me.
To their surprise, I threw away my honor to become mistress to the manor lord: Stefan Korbori. Worse, I did it within several moons of his wife’s death. Who wouldn’t see me as foolish and heartless?
But I am no fool.
And I am not heartless.
He was alone, and he needed me, and I loved him.
Fortunately, life is not as bad as I’ve just made it sound.
Only a few scant years ago, I was shunned by nearly everyone for my perceived transgression, but then I was instrumental in saving our village from an unnatural blight. Now, I can walk through the village among a sea of smiles and nods, and if anyone still judges me, they hide it well. Such was the case on an early evening ten days ago.
I’d left the manor and was making my way toward the open-air market near the river to purchase some fish and vegetables for my lord’s supper before all the market stalls closed.
“Evening, Elena,” old mistress Apicotta said to me as she passed by carrying a bundle of firewood.
“Good evening, Apicotta,” I answered in kind, smiling back.
I was never one to hold grudges, and many of the smiles on the faces of villagers I passed seemed genuine, especially on the faces of men. I wore a soft gown of sunflower yellow, with my wheat-gold hair loose and falling over my shoulders.
Although I’d grown up here, instead of finding it tame and familiar, I’d always thought it to be a fine place… well, almost always; there had been a period when it had come near to facing a dark end. But that time was past us now, and the village of Pudúrlatsat—almost large enough to be considered a town—bustled again with commerce and livestock and an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables.
I continued my walk between the clusters of huts spreading along the river to both sides of a landing where barges stopped every few days. These barges were the life-blood of commerce in northern Droevinka. Each village all along the Vudrask River kept a small shed near the landings, large enough to house at least four mules, and the villages paid for their feed and care. However, no village had the same mules for very long. These animals were necessary for pulling goods up river, so if a vessel came though with exhausted mules, the barge master was welcome to trade out for fresh ones. This system served everyone.
Taller wooden buildings stuck up at the village’s center behind me. Along the road out the west end was a full stable with a smithy, and just shy of the smith was our large common house.
I thought nothing serious would ever again change here. I believed I had gone as far as I could in having helped to save my home and the people who lived there.
I was wrong.
On that evening, I looked toward the river as an eastbound barge docked at the landing. I stopped cold at the sight of three passengers who stepped off to stretch their legs.
The first two were a man and a woman of middle age. I did not look at their faces right away, as I couldn’t take my eyes from their clothing. They both wore gray robes that reached just below their knees, with breeches beneath that were nearly hidden by tall, walking boots.
I had seen such clothing before… only once.
The woman stretched her arms downward, toward her toes. Her cowl was pulled back, and she wore her brown hair in a bun at the base of her neck. She was short and stocky, with a no-nonsense expression on her round face.
The gray-robed man beside her was tall and spindly and slightly bent, but he didn’t appear far beyond forty. He appeared equally glad to be off the barge.
Cooper, the stoic barge master, glanced at me, and I nodded to him. It normally took three people to manage a barge, especially one heading east. One was needed to lead a team of mules on the south side of the river, and the other two remained on the barge, using long poles to keep the vessel from bumping into the bank as it was pulled against the slow current. So, Cooper and one of his hired men were on the barge, while his other hired man began unharnessing their mules. But I did not think on these things long, as that was when I took note of the third member of the trio… and something about him caused my heart to slow.
He was young, in his early twenties like myself, but his hair was white and straight and hung down past his shoulders. His features were narrow, and his lips were thin. He was dressed exactly like his companions, except his robe was midnight blue.
He stepped from the landing to the soft ground.
“How much longer do you think this journey will take?” the woman asked her companions wearily, straightening and putting both hands against her lower back.
“Depends on where you are going,” I answered brightly, walking up and smiling.
“We’re on our way to Kéonsk,” she said.
I didn’t need to wonder why she hadn’t asked Cooper about the travel time. He was not known for conversation with his passengers and tended to view them as a necessary burden.
“Then you don’t have far to go,” I offered. “Kéonsk is only two days up the river.”
“Thank all the deities,” the gray-robed man said, sighing and pressing both hands to his back as well.
“Are you sages, from the Bela Annex?” I asked, and watched the flicker of surprise pass across all their faces.
“Well… yes,” the woman answered. “I am Domin Miderra, and this is Master Favel.” She gestured to the middle-aged man beside her, and then to the white-haired young man in dark blue. “And this is Journeyor Quentin.”
I let my smile widen, but my thoughts were turning. “I am Elena. Welcome to Pudúrlatsat.”
“You know of the sages?” Master Favel asked in some confusion.
“I do. A young woman passed through here several years ago, a journeyor named Wynn Hygeorht.”
The surprise on their faces turned to shock, and for the first time, Journeyor Quentin spoke. “You met Wynn Hygeorht? She came this way?”
“Yes,” I answered, but gave him no more. Wynn Hygeorht had done a good deal more than pass through. Did any of these sages exceed her in knowledge, in power? I was hungry to know. However, I simply maintained my smi
le. “Will you be spending the night here and press on in the morning?”
I already knew the answer. Cooper always spent the night here on his way through to Kéonsk, though he and his men slept on their barge once they’d finished with any cargo exchange.
“I fear so,” Domin Miderra answered, glancing back at the barge with regret.
“Perhaps you should sleep in our common house,” I said, as if it didn’t matter to me one way or another. “You’d be more comfortable, and I could arrange for a hot meal.”
“Oh, that is kind,” she responded in clear relief. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all.”
She turned around. “Quentin, gather our packs.”
I assumed he had a first name, and I thought it odd that she addressed him by his surname when not using his title. Perhaps he preferred his surname? But then Domin Miderra looked back to me.
“I am getting too old for such long journeys,” she said. “Young Quentin here seems no worse for the wear at all.”
This comment gave me an opening for the question I’d been longing to ask. “Why is his robe dark blue? Journeyor Hygeorht’s was gray like yours.”
If they found the question strange, they didn’t show it.
Master Favel reached out for his pack and answered, “There are five orders of study in the guild. The domin and I are in the order of Cathology, preservers of knowledge. We’ve been sent to Kéonsk, as a favor to your prince, to help catalogue newly unearthed state documents… thought lost in a fire some years back.” He gestured to Journeyor Quentin, who was now holding two other packs and staring at me. “He is with the order of Metaology. He’s along to provide protection.”
I had no idea what any of that meant, but Journeyor Quentin was not visibly armed—not even with a dagger that I could see. So what kind of protection did he provide? Even though he was the youngest of the trio, from the moment I’d first looked at him, something about him had pulled at me… an unexplainable instinct that he might be beyond useful.
I simply didn’t know how yet.
“What is Metaology?” I asked.
All three sages shook their heads as if the question were far too complicated to answer—or at least to the likes of me, the pretty fool.
“Did you say something about a hot meal?” Master Favel asked.
I smiled again.
· · · · ·
It was dark by the time I had purchased my short list of items, seen to the comfort of our three visitors, and started back toward the manor. I felt guilty for having been away so long, but I knew that once I’d cooked my lord’s supper, I’d need an excuse to return to the common house.
Quickening my pace, I reached the village’s midway point, illuminated with tripod braziers, and then I turned inland. As I trotted beyond the end of the village’s bounds, the roadside trees thickened, and it grew harder for me to see.
The land rolled slightly, but it wasn’t sharply hilled, and I was accustomed to walking between the village and manor. I sometimes made the trip several times a day. Soon, I reached the wooden bridge with railings that spanned a stream running over a rocky bed. Though the bridge was small, it was sturdy and wide enough for two horses to cross abreast.
At its center, I again wondered how I might slip out of the manor later—unnoticed—and go back to the common house. I wanted to talk in private with that blue-robed sage. There was something about him… something familiar, even though I’d never seen him before. How could I lure him outside, alone, without seeming obvious?
Once across the bridge, I headed away from the river, and my destination appeared after only two more curves in the road.
While the manor wasn’t considered a proper keep, the square building was two stories of fortified stone. This far from the borderlands, there was no need for more. A large barn with a peaked shake roof sat off to one side, with a smaller barracks built up against it. The latter was where our scant number of guards lived and slept. A low stone wall encircled the grounds, and the road curved by a side path leading up to its large iron gate, which was open.
There were never any guards on duty out here. The villagers were certainly no threat, and so long as my lord had the fiefdom’s twice-yearly taxes sent on to Kéonsk, no outsiders ever bothered us. None of the other nobles ever came here willingly.
I made my way to the manor’s doors, but as soon as I slipped inside, I knew something was wrong.
Beatrice, the young scullery maid I’d hired last summer stood in the entryway as if waiting for me, and her face pale was filled with fright. She was the only servant now living in the manor.
“What is it?” I asked instantly. “Is my lord ill?”
We used the word “ill” whenever he fell into one of his black moods.
Beatrice was tall and thin with mouse-brown hair. She nodded once and glanced at the doors behind me as if she longed run for the bridge.
Coward, I thought. “Where are the guards?” My lord still kept a few guards for appearance, but they had almost no duties beyond collecting taxes.
“The guards?” she repeated. “Out in the barracks, I think. I don’t know. My lord just… he started wailing, and it was awful… and I came down to wait for you. He went quiet a little while ago.”
The poor girl was nearly useless.
I held out my purchases. “Take these to the kitchen and store them. Then go down to the cellar and draw a small pitcher of the red wine from the Enêmûsk. Bring it to me.” I was already heading for the stairs, but when I looked back, she hadn’t taken a step.
“I can’t read,” she said, her voice rising in panic. “How do I know which cask is from Enêmûsk…” She trailed off, perhaps on the verge of saying “my lady” and then stopping herself. This had happened with past servants as well, who never knew what to call me. I might be mistress here, but I was certainly not my lord’s wife. At least the villagers had stopped calling me his whore.
“Just draw a pitcher of any red wine and bring it up,” I said, heading onward. “And don’t worry. I’ll be there to take it from you. You needn’t come inside the room.”
I hoped that last part would calm her enough to make her move more quickly.
How long had my lord been in a bad way?
Taking my skirt in both hands, I hurried up to the second floor and down the passage to his room. Putting my ear to the door, I heard nothing—which could be a good sign or a bad one depending on his state of mind. When I reached for the latch handle, however, to my surprise it was locked. He rarely locked his door.
This didn’t matter, as I wore a key around my neck.
Pulling the cord out and leaning down, I unlocked the door and stepped in.
“Stefan?”
At first I didn’t even see him. As always, the fire in his bedroom hearth was blazing, as he never seemed able to get warm. The air inside smelled rank and stale, and I often longed to open the window. Two of the tapestries previously on the walls lay on the floor in tatters. A small table had been knocked over. A porcelain pitcher was shattered, and the bedding from the large four-poster bed had been torn off and left in a pile.
Movement beyond the bed caught my eye, and I hurried around it to find him sitting on the floor.
“Oh, Stefan,” I breathed, kneeling down.
Though in his mid thirties, he looked older. He had once been strikingly handsome, with thick sandy-colored hair and a clean-shaven face to show off his even features. Now, the color of his unwashed hair was difficult to distinguish, and I had been unable to coax him into shaving for weeks. Once, his eyes had been bright blue, but some time ago, they’d gone dull and blood-shot.
Though his black moods had been coming upon him more and more often, I could see this one was especially bad. He held a dagger gripped tightly in his right hand. His left hand was missing, amputated at the wrist several years ago.
“Give me the dagger,” I whispered, reaching out to pry his fingers loose, but he wouldn’t ope
n his hand.
“Leave me.”
I knew for certain, no matter what he said or did, he did not want me to leave. He couldn’t take a step outside the manner, and I was all he had left. He was the forgotten victim of a curse.
At a knock on the door, he jumped slightly.
“It’s all right,” I said, getting up. “It’s only Beatrice with some wine.” I went to the door and cracked it to see the terrified girl standing outside holding a clay pitcher. I never could understand why the servants feared my lord. He behaved like a mad man sometimes with his wailing and destruction of the furniture, but he’d never hurt anyone… well, at least not any of his servants. He was capable of murder, but few people knew this besides me.
“Thank you, Beatrice,” I said, taking the pitcher and closing the door again.
I found a pewter goblet on the floor. After wiping out the inside, I poured some of the wine and went back to kneel beside him.
“Sip this.”
To my relief, he put down the dagger and took the goblet. For the first time since I’d entered the chamber, he looked at me.
“Elena?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
After one swallow, he set the goblet on the floor. “Help me to die.”
I stared into his bloodshot eyes and couldn’t speak. He’d never asked this before. I knew he was in despair, but even at his lowest points, he’d never talked about escaping his fate by death.
I shook my head.
The despair on his face flashed to anger as he grabbed my wrist. “Then what good are you? You say you love me, but you lie! If you loved me, you’d help me.”
His grip hurt, and I couldn’t break away. Should I have told him about the sages? No. I feared giving him false hope—and thereby ultimate disappointment.
Putting my free hand over his grip on my wrist, I said, “Bring your wine and come downstairs. I’ll have a fire built in the main hall, and then I’ll cook your supper. I bought a fat salmon and red potatoes. We can play draughts after you eat.” I tried to draw him up. “Come with me.”
