Theft Of Swords: The Riyria Revelations (52 page)

After the service ended, the village shared their midday dinner. The men placed a row of tables, end to end, across the village common, and each family brought a dish. Smoked fish,
black pudding (a sausage made from pig’s blood, milk, animal fat, onions, and oatmeal), and mutton were the most popular.

Hadrian stood back, leaning against a cedar tree, watching the others form lines.

“Help yourself,” Lena told him.

“There doesn’t look like there is a lot here. I have provisions in my bag,” he assured her.

“Nonsense—we’ll have none of that—everyone eats at a wake. Mae would want it that way, and what else is a funeral for if not to pay respects to the dead?”

She glared at him until he nodded and began looking about the tables for a plate.

“So those are your horses I have up in the castle stables?” a voice said, and he turned to see a plump man in a cleric frock. He was the first person who did not look in desperate need of a meal. His cheeks were rosy and large, and when he smiled, his eyes squinted nearly shut. He did not look terribly old, but his hair was pure white, including his short beard.

“If you are Deacon Tomas, then yes,” Hadrian replied.

“I am indeed, and think nothing of it. I get rather lonely up on the hill at night all by myself with all those empty rooms. You hear every sound at night, you know. The wind slapping a shutter, the creak of rafters—it can be quite unnerving. Now at least I can blame the noises I hear on your horses. Being way down in the stables, I doubt I could hear them, but I can pretend, can’t I?” The deacon chuckled to himself. “But honestly, it can be miserable up there. I’m used to being with people, and the isolation of the manor house is such a burden,” he said while heaping his plate full of mutton.

“It must be awful for you. But I’ll bet there is good food. Those nobles really know how to fill a storehouse, don’t they?”

“Well, yes, of course,” the deacon replied. “As a matter of fact, the margrave had put by a remarkable amount of smoked
meats, not to mention ale and wine, but I only take what I need, of course.”

“Of course,” Hadrian agreed. “Just looking at you, I can tell that you’re not the kind of man to take advantage of a situation. Did you supply the ale for the funeral?”

“Oh no,” the deacon replied, aghast. “I wouldn’t dare pillage the manor house like that. Like you just said, I am not the kind of man to take advantage of a situation and it’s not my stores to give, now is it?”

“I see.”

“Oh my, look at the cheese,” said the deacon, scooping up a wedge and shoving it in his mouth. “Have to admit one thing,” he spoke with his mouth full, “Dahlgren can really throw a funeral.”

When they reached the end of the tables, Hadrian looked for a place to sit. The few benches were filled with folks eating off their laps.

“Up, you kids!” the deacon shouted at Tad and Pearl. “You don’t need to be taking up a bench. Go sit on the grass.” They frowned but got up. “You there, Hadrian is it? Come sit here and tell me what brings a man who owns a horse and three swords to Dahlgren. I trust you aren’t noble or you’d have knocked on my door last night.”

“No, I’m not a noble, but that brings up a question. How did you inherit the manor house?”

“Hmm? Inherit? Oh, I didn’t inherit anything. It is merely my station as a public servant to help in a crisis like this. When the margrave and his men died, I knew I had to administer to this troubled flock and watch after the king’s interests. So I endure the hardships and do what I can.”

“Like what?”

“What’s that?” the deacon asked, tearing into a piece of mutton, which left his lips and cheeks shiny with grease.

“What have you done to help?”

“Oh—well, let’s see … I keep the house clean, the yard maintained, and the garden watered. You really have to keep after those weeds, you know, or the whole garden would be swallowed up and not a single vegetable would survive. And oh—the toll it takes on my back. I’ve never had what you would call a good back as it is.”

“I meant about the attacks. What steps have you taken to safeguard the village?”

“Well now,” the deacon said, chuckling, “I’m a cleric, not a knight. I don’t even know how to hold a sword properly and I don’t have an army of knights at my disposal, do I? So aside from diligent prayer, I’m not in a position where I can really
do
anything about that.”

“Have you considered letting the villagers stay in the manor at night? Whatever this creature is, it doesn’t have much trouble with thatched roofs, but the manor has what looks to be a sturdy roof and some thick walls.”

The deacon shook his head, still smiling at Hadrian as an adult might look at a child who just asked why there must be poor people in the world. “No, no, that wouldn’t do at all. I am quite certain the next lord of the house would not appreciate having a whole village taking over his home.”

“But you are aware that the responsibility of a lord is to protect his subjects? That is why his subjects pay him a tax. If the lord isn’t willing to protect them, why should they honor him with money, crops, or even respect?”

“You might not have noticed,” the deacon replied, “but we are between lords at the moment.”

“So then, you don’t intend to continue taxing these people for the time they are without protection?”

“Well, I didn’t mean that—”

“So you do intend to uphold the responsibility of a steward?”

“Well, I—”

“Now, I can understand your hesitation to overstep your authority and open the manor house to the village, so I am certain you’ll want to take the other option.”

“Other option?” The cleric was holding another slice of mutton to his mouth but sat too distracted to bite.

“Yes, as steward and acting lord, it falls on you to protect this village in his stead, and since inviting them into the house at night is out of the question, then I presume you’ll be taking to the field to fight the beast.”

“Fight it?” He dropped the mutton on his lap. “I don’t think—”

Before he could say any more, Hadrian went on. “The good news is that I can help you there. I have an extra sword if you are missing one, and since you have been so kind as to let me board my horse at the stable, I think the least I can do is lend her to you for the fight. Now, I have heard that some people have determined where the lair of the beast is, so it really seems a simple matter of—”

“I—I don’t recall saying that lodging the people in the manor at night was out of the question,” the deacon said loudly to interrupt Hadrian. Several heads turned. He lowered his voice and added, “I was merely stating that it was something I had to consider carefully. You see, the mantle of leadership is a heavy one indeed, and I need to weigh the consequences of every act I make, as they can break as well as mend. No, no, you can’t rush into these things.”

“That is very understandable and very wise, I might add,” Hadrian agreed, keeping his voice loud enough for others to hear him. “But the margrave was killed well over two weeks ago, so I am certain you have come to a decision by now?”

The deacon caught the interested looks of several of the villagers. Those who had finished their meals wandered over.
One was Dillon McDern, who was taller than the rest and stood watching them.

“I—ah.”

“Everyone!” Hadrian shouted. “Gather round, the deacon wants to talk with us about the defense of the village.”

The crowd of mourners, plates in hand, turned and gathered in a circle around the well. All eyes turned to Deacon Tomas, who suddenly looked like a defenseless rabbit caught in a trap.

“I—um—” the deacon started, then slumped his shoulders and said in a loud voice, “In light of the recent attacks on houses, everyone is invited to spend nights in the protection of the castle.”

The crowd murmured to each other and then Russell Bothwick called out, “Will there be enough room for everyone?”

The deacon looked as if he was about to reconsider when Hadrian stood up. “I’m sure there’s plenty of room in the house for all the women and children and most of the married men. Those single men, thirteen or older, can spend the night in the stables, smokehouse, and other outbuildings. Each of them has stronger walls and roofs than any of the village homes.”

The inhabitants of the village began to cluster now in earnest.

“And our livestock? Do we abandon them to the beast?” another farmer asked. Hadrian did not recognize him. “Without the livestock we’ll have no meat, no wool, or field animals for work.”

“I’ve got Amble and Ramble to think of,” McDern said. “Dahlgren would be in a sorry state if’n I let sumpin’ happen to those oxen.”

Hadrian jumped to the rim of the well, where he stood above them with one arm on the windlass. “There’s plenty of
room inside the stockade walls for all the animals where they will be safer than they have been in your homes. Remember there is safety in numbers. If you sit alone in the dark, it is easy for anything to kill you, but the creature will not be so bold as to enter a fenced castle with the entire village watching. We can also build bonfires outside the walls for light.”

This brought gasps. “But light draws the creature!”

“Well, from what I can see, it doesn’t have difficulty finding you in the dark.”

The villagers looked from Hadrian to Deacon Tomas and back again.

“How do you know?” someone asked from the crowd. “How do you know any of this? You’re not from here. How do you know anything?”

“It’s a demon from Uberlin!” someone Hadrian did not recognize shouted.

“You can’t stop it!” a woman on the right yelled. “Grouping together could just make killing us that much easier.”

“It doesn’t want to kill you all at once and it isn’t a demon,” Hadrian assured the villagers.

“How do you know?”

“It kills only one or two, why? If it can tear apart Theron Wood’s house, or rip the roof off Mae Drundel’s home in seconds, it could easily destroy this whole village in one night, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t because it isn’t trying to kill you all. It’s killing for food. The beast isn’t a demon; it’s a predator.” The villagers considered this, and while they paused, Hadrian continued, “What I have heard about this creature is that no one has ever seen it and no victim has survived. Well, that doesn’t surprise me at all. How do you expect to survive when you sit alone in the dark just waiting to be eaten? No one has ever seen it because it doesn’t want to be seen. Like any predator, it conceals itself until it springs, and like a predator, it
hunts the weakest prey; it looks for the stray, the young, the old, or the sick. All of you have been dividing yourselves up into tidy little meals. You’ve made yourselves too convenient to resist. If we group together, it might prefer to hunt a deer or a wolf that night instead of us.”

“What if you’re wrong? What if no one has seen it because it is a demon and can’t be seen? It could be an invisible spirit that feeds on terror. Isn’t that right, Deacon?”

“Ah—well—” the deacon began.

“It could be, but it isn’t,” Hadrian assured them.

“How do you know?”

“Because my partner saw it last night.”

This caught the group by surprise and several conversations broke out at once. Hadrian spotted Pearl sitting on the grass staring at him. Several asked questions at once and Hadrian waved at them to quiet down.

“What did it look like?” a woman with a sunburned face and a white kerchief over her head asked.

“Since I didn’t see it, I would prefer Royce tell you himself. He’ll be back before dark.”

“How could he have seen anything in the dark?” one of the older farmers asked skeptically. “I looked outside when I heard the scream and it was as black as the bottom of that well yer standing on. There’s no way he could have seen anything.”

“He saw the pig!” Tad Bothwick shouted.

“What’s that, boy?” Dillon McDern asked.

“The pig, in our house last night,” Tad said excitedly. “It was all dark and the pig ran, but he saw it and caught him.”

“That’s right,” Russell Bothwick recalled. “We had just put the fire out and I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, but this fellow caught a running pig. Maybe he did see something.”

“The point is,” Hadrian went on, “we’ll all stand a better chance of survival if we stick together. Now, the deacon has
graciously invited all of us to join him behind the protection of walls and a solid roof. I think we should listen to his wisdom and start making plans to resettle and gather wood before the evening arrives. We still have plenty of time to build up strong bonfires.”

They were looking at Hadrian now and nodding. There were still those who looked unconvinced, but even the skeptics appeared hopeful. Small groups were forming, talking, planning.

Hadrian sat back down and ate. He was not a fan of blood pudding and stayed with the smoked fish, which was wonderful.

“I’ll bring the oxen over,” he heard McDern say. “Brent, you go bring yer wagon and fetch yer axe too.”

“We’ll need shovels and Went’s saw,” Vince Griffin said. “He always kept it sharp.”

“I’ll send Tad to fetch it,” Russell announced.

“Is it true?” Hadrian looked up from his plate to see Pearl standing before him. Her face was just as dirty as it had been the day before. “Did yer friend—did he really catch a pig in the dark?”