3

All That is Gold Is Mine

“A cruel lord?” some whispered.

“Must’ve been a foreigner,” some responded. “You know them northerly moorish types, always throwing their weight around, the fat bastards,” they snorted.

“Maybe he was from the mountains, you know, one of the short-folk. Whatchamacallem…” one wondered. “Dovalay?” he grasped for the word. “I hear they’re mighty rude to us ‘sunsuckers’,” he gave up on finding the word.

“Or maybe he was from the west! Those are strange lands, I tell you!” an older man, older perhaps even than Geoffrey, chirped up.

“The West Riding? Them’s normal folk!” countered another.

“No, you fool! From beyond the Morburgs! The westmen are highminded and cruel to a one!” the original theorist responded. The Morburgs, or as Shayar knew them, the Eazims, formed the north western border of Dunwenn and beyond them lay endless pine forests and open fields that broke only at the Gold Coast. The westmen were kind, but there was no accounting for the tales of rural folks!

“Silence now!” Shayar shouted without scolding. “Do you want to hear my story or make your own? I am quite happy to listen to your weavings too, Valeford!” his mock-scowl was replaced with his usual smile.

The crowd fell silent and listened again, as Shayar plucked his tune and sung his notes.

ⱡ

“A pity,” Lord Kademos Jadd stood with crossed arms in the empty rooms of his daughter. “A real pity,” the man, short but well built, turned to his wife. “I suppose she has run off to the wizard,” he sighed. “She thinks we still do not know.”

“She is a fool, Kademos,” his wife, Lady Ikal Jadd, rolled her eyes. Her hair was as blonde as their daughter’s, and she was as slender as her too.

“She knows,” Kademos folded his arms. Beads of sweat, for the castle was warmer than the spring day outside, formed on his scalp, in his short hair, and dripped slowly down his face. “She knows, I am certain. She saw that I wore not my ring,” he thumbed the forefinger on his right hand which was bereft its golden ring.

Lady Ikal, irritated, said “how can she know? What does the foolish girl know of the ring? Nothing!”

“Leave it, you cat,” at this Lady Ikal was calmed for it was a term of endearment to her, though to others it may have been insult or offense, and Kademos smiled as he spoke. “I should first take care of the gate guards.” So saying, he turned and left the room, making for the barracks, his crimson cape billowing in his wake.

When he came to the barracks, the Captain of the Wall approached him. “They are inside, your Lordship.” Without acknowledging the man, Kademos went inside and, in the centre of the barracks, found the two gate guards held prisoner.

“You failed in your duty. My daughter has escaped, and she can cause great harm to me.” The gate guards were young, both younger than 20, and they trembled in fear for their comrades looked upon them with disgust and disdain. “What a pity, truly,” Kademos gave a tired sigh. “Throw them from the ramparts, make sure the village sees.”

The gate guards gave a scream of terror and they did not stop screaming as they were dragged away by their brothers in arms. The Captain of the Wall spoke, then, to Kademos. “Shall I send a party after her? I believe she rode north. Accompanying her was a free knight, or so it seemed.”

Kademos looked upon the Captain with a suspicion that nearly sealed the soldier’s fate. “How do you know this?”

“I have scouts, Sir, rangers that is – on the peripheries of the old forest. They saw a young woman and knight ride into the older parts. Who else would take that road?”

“Careful, Captain,” Kademos spoke with venom, “for I have no use for traitors in my midst.” After a moment had passed, Kademos left the barracks and made for the ramparts where he caught the last moments of the gate guards’ final seconds of life as they, pleading and begging their unmoved friends, were hurled from the walls. Six horns were sounded, three for each execution.

“You,” Kademos grabbed a watchman by his collar. “You are now a sergeant at arms,” the watchman, surprised, babbled in thanks but Kademos didn’t care. “The tax collector is going down at noon today – go with him. There is a threat to his life from some foreign cutthroat that’s hanging about in Ash Square. I want to hear three more horns by lunch time, understood?”

The sergeant at arms feebly nodded and slinked away upon being released. Kademos stood there a while, surveying the village underneath him, and his thoughts turned to the Knights of the Keep. He had known them all his life, and perhaps he ought to have been loyal to them – but there were things more valuable in life than the outmoded ideas of loyalty and duty, and the Knights were too stuck-in-the-mud to see that. Still, he had cried in silence the night he sent them off. Then he had slept, and had dreamt of a dragon’s hoard.

*

As Kademos ate, there came nine horns.

“The new sergeant-at-arms seems eager,” he noted as he chased down roast duck with red wine. “I sent him only to string up one bugger, he’s given me three.”

“Foreign, again?” Lady Ikal grinned.

“Of course – it’s the best way to get them to turn on each other. That’s what he’d said, remember? They shall turn and burn, as wails rise in red skies.” Kademos swallowed yet more roast duck. “The augur.”

“Oh, I do wish you’d give that augury nonsense up! All this dragon nonsense will be the end of you, I swear it. What use have we of a dragon when entire companies would throw themselves at you for a year’s stipend?”

Kademos nodded in half-agreement. Sitting on and taxing the Iron Road had made him rich beyond compare, certainly in South Frain, and the quality of his men-at-arms and militiamen was beyond reproach.

“But no, my darling husband must turn to some crackpot mystic’s smoked-up ramblings. I swear to Banc, why did you give up your mother’s ring for that nonsense?” she downed sweet wine and spoke again. “And even if dragons were real, why would one heed your call?”

“Because!” Kademos erupted suddenly. “I command a dragon’s hoard already, and what dragon will not want to call it its own?”

“Then surely the dragon will attack us!” Lady Ikal held her own.

“It can try,” Kademos gave a dark smile.

“What did you do?”

“That madman in his forest tower is not the only wizard in these parts, my darling wife,” he rose without finishing his meal, and the shadows in the dining room grew dark as night.

“What did you do?” Lady Ikal got to her feet, face a mix of anger and fear.

“Come now,” Kademos sat back down, his smile ordinary. “Trust me, my cat, for I have made certain our long lives shall be rich and plentiful.”

“No,” Lady Ikal turned to leave. “If you do not tell me this instant what you have done, then I shall leave. And do not think I will not, for I will make south to the Wisen City and I shall tell the Arch-Mages there of your foolishness!”

“I’m afraid I cannot tell you more,” he spoke slowly. His mind had been made in that instant, and already tears began to well in his eyes. “Know that this breaks my heart, my cat, and I shall never be whole again.”

He sprang up and leapt onto his wife, weeping as he did so. Silently and swiftly, with the quiet thrust of a single dagger, he killed her and wept atop her corpse.

ⱡ

Shayar looked at the village before him, for now the whole village had gathered indeed, and awaited their response. People, he had found, responded oddly to gruesome villains and acts – sometimes they booed the villain, other times they were silent, rarer still they were enraged, but most often they simply shook their heads in disgust as if to make it known that they disagreed with the villain.

Valeford, however, did none of these. Some sang a lament under their breath, an old lament known as Banc’s Farewell, while others rolled their eyes. Everyone was a-whisper, however, for there was nothing Valeford liked more than a good story!

“What a pointless act of cruelty, honestly,” one of the eye-rollers muttered. “It wasn’t as if she would have actually gone down to those madmen and blabbed!”

“I say!” another responded. “But, as folk say, there’s nowt among thieves but dishonour.”

“Well, I hope he gets it!” shouted an enthusiastic young man, though he was trying to whisper. “I could not imagine harmin’ my wife, leave alone guttin’ her like a fish!”

Someone snorted, “he just stabbed her!”

That was booed quite a bit.

Then Shayar spoke. “Old Kademos was an evil man, alright, but does anyone here know what his name means?” This question had the chattering crowd at once silenced and stumped for an answer.

Then, in the back, beside Geoffrey, a hand shot up.

“Young Alfie!” Shayar called on the boy. “Go on, give me your best guess,” he grinned.

“Does it mean evil spirit in Hesic?” asked the boy. Shayar glanced at Geoffrey, who beamed with pride.

“Why, Alfie, yes it does! You see, Kademos wasn’t his real name – his real name was far too boring for me to remember. Doesn’t Kademos fit him better?”

The crowd shouted in unison; “YES!”

“Now, let us turn back to the forest, far to the north, hmm?” the crowd murmured and settled down as Shayar began to strum a tune on his sitar.