And now for your reading enjoyment, Chapter 2!

     You may remember a while back I posted chapter one of a book I have been working on since my Junior High years. It's been a while, so you might need to refresh your memory by looking at the older post. If not, don't worry, as this chapter can stand well on its own, being antecedent to the previous posting.

Chapter 2

The story of how I came to be hunted in such a fashion, and by such unusual forces begins several years earlier, in the glory days of youth. I am originally a farm boy, one of those good lads found in so many counties and provinces, who feel they are called to do more than till the earth like their father, and his father before him, ad nauseum. My restlessness manifested itself early each spring, when the blossoming flowers and new animal life began stirring everywhere, echoed by the strange feelings stirring in my soul. I still feel that restlessness come spring, but never so strongly as I did the year I turned fifteen.

I had made some preparations to leave, and was planning to do so after the snows cleared, when my father drew me aside one morning on my way to milk the cows. My father was usually a taciturn man, not given to displays of emotion towards his children or anyone except my mother, whom he lavished devoted attentions on at all times. However, that particular morning the weak March sunlight glistened from a tear caught in the corner of his eye. 

“Cedric, I can see you are nearly a full grown man, and I can see you’re aching to leave.” His voice was rough from years of cleaning chimneys, a profession he had been apprenticed to as a small lad.  “I know these last two winters have been mighty lean, and I won’t deny that having one less mouth to feed would ease the burden considerable, especially a mouth big as yours.” 

He and I both grinned. My big mouth had been the cause of more than a few arguments between us, some of which had resulted in an exchange of blows. Each had ended quickly enough when I landed on my backside. I had to admit that even though I was taller than my father, nearly forty-five years of constant labor had packed his frame with muscles my adolescent body could only dream of, yet.

He continued, “Spring planting’s almost here, and we can’t afford to hire help. I figure we can stretch what food we got left ‘til your ma’s garden gets going, if you can put some game on the table from time to time.” He coughed, spat a glistening glob of phlegm into the snow, and then continued, “What I’m getting at is that I need your help. Since your brother Josiah left two winters ago, it’s been tough. I know I can’t keep you tied here forever, that you want to see more of the world than what you’ll see over a mule’s hind end, but I’m asking you to wait until the fall.” He must have seen some glimmer of defiance in my face, for he quickly added, “I’m not telling, I’m asking.”

I had never before heard my father abase himself this way, not even to the pompous, overbearing land baron who arrived every fall to take a much larger share of my father’s earnings than was rightfully his. This, combined with an unvoiced fear of actually setting out into a future I couldn’t predict, prompted me to agree.

“I’ll wait until the harvest is in, but only if you give me a portion of what we sell at the market.” I closed my mouth down tight, but the words were already out. I feared I had overstepped my bounds in making demands of my father.  

Not so, for he replied, “Agreed, and I’ll throw in my dagger on top of it.”

His last statement clinched the bargain. I had been eyeing his dagger and longing to have it as my own since I was old enough to handle a knife without doing more damage to myself than the object I was using the knife on. It was a Damascus blade, one that had been folded and refolded hundreds of times to give it a unique pattern that I have seen in only two other blades in my lifetime. He had acquired it in battle, when he had left the apprentice’s life he hated and gone to war for a distant clansman, who had battled to set the current king on his throne.

“Sure, Da. I’ll stay, and we’ll have fresh meat at least every other day ‘til I’m gone.” That was a promise I came to rue as the hot days of summer drove game farther into the woodlands away from the clearing containing my father’s farm. I succeeded in keeping that promise, but at the cost of several hours of sleep almost nightly, because that long summer was one of the driest I can ever remember. 

Eventually, that summer wound its way into the early days of fall, and my mood swung wildly between exhilaration and trepidation. The harvest was taken in, less than we had hoped for, but more than we expected. In order to arrive at the market on time, my father and I began harvesting almost a week earlier than we had in years past, as we had to harvest our fields entirely by ourselves. Usually we had the help of a hired hand or two, but with the poor harvest the previous two years, a hired hand was an unaffordable luxury. We managed, but only by rising before dawn and working until after the light had grown too dim to distinguish the details of each other's faces only a couple feet away. 

The annual market usually began on a Monday, with Mass held the day before in the small monastery a few miles from where the market was held. My mother and three younger siblings accompanied my father and me to market, so it was a noisy trip, as well as hot and dusty from the wheat we carried in our two wagons.

The fall market had always been a time of excitement, but that year the colors all seemed muted, the noises muffled. Even when our wheat fetched almost twice as much per bushel than the year before, I was grateful, but more concerned with being able to return my family to the farm so that I could be on my way. Towards the end of the week, the market was winding down. Most of the traders had exchanged their wares for wheat, which they would carry to Darsgood, then across the narrow strip of water to Dar Gishon.

My father gave me my share of our earnings the last day before we began our journey back to the farm, along with the dagger he had promised me. Had I been a thinking man, I would have arranged then to travel with the traders from the market. However, I was a young man and not always given to reason, preferring to follow the plans I had already lain, however rash they turned out to be. Yet, sometimes I believe that I was guided into not making the obvious decision to leave then, that I decided to return home with my family from the market for a reason beyond my control.

We arrived back at our farm just as dusk was falling, all of us tired to the bone. My father and I were especially weary since we had been laboring most hours of the day since the snows had cleared that spring and we had begun tilling the fields around our property. My mother and the oldest of the younger children carried my little brother, Marcus, and the baby inside, while my father and I tended to the animals. We barely managed to put away the kine and carts before sleep overcame us. I didn’t even make it back into the house, but climbed into the hayloft and fell asleep on some of the hay we had put up that June. I wasn’t asleep long before I heard shouts, and then my father’s voice rose in anger.

“Get out of here, you fools. There’s nothing for you here.”

A reply came back, nervous and high pitched, “We know you’re just back from the market, and well off. You took more wheat than any one in the county, and have no help to pay.” The speaker’s words slurred, indicating that the he had imbibed too much ale recently.

I felt something stir beside me, and looked around to see Marcus’ face peering out of the hay, wisps of it stuck in his hair. He had shared my bed often, so I wasn’t surprised to see he had come to the barn when I didn’t come to the bed. “What’s going on, Cedric?” he asked.

I had no desire for him to witness what I knew was occurring, so I told him to go back to sleep.  He rubbed his eyes sleepily, and then burrowed back into the mound of hay he was using for a bed.

“Aye, I’ve earned that money, you evil laggards,” my father’s voice boomed out again. “Now go back home to your families. You’ll come to no good robbing innocent souls of their hard earned livelihood.”

“Innocent souls is it?” came the reply. “There’s word about that you’ve sold your soul to the devil.”

By this point, I had made my way to the door of the barn, where I lurked in the darkness, peering across the yard towards the house. Five or six figures milled about in front of the door. Two of them carried torches, which revealed that all the figures wore hoods made from rough burlap bags. Now I saw the door open and my father stride forth in his nightshirt, his sword clenched in his hand.

The hooded figures advanced on him, and I saw him turn and say something over his shoulder.  The door slammed behind him as the figures rushed to attack. I burst from my hiding place, charging across the hard packed earth between barn and house, my hand upon the dagger my father had given me only the day before. I must have made a noise, for one of them turned and brained me with a cudgel. After that, I knew nothing for many hours.

I woke some days later, lying in a bed not my own, my head pulsing agonizingly. That is an experience I have become most familiar with; waking somewhere I don’t recognize, in pain, but more about that later. I tried to move instantly upon awakening, worried about my family.

A voice I didn’t recognize spoke to me, “Lay back lad, you took quite a knock on your head.”  The voice was kind, and full of compassion.

“My father . . .” I started, but was cut off by that same voice.

“None of your concern now, lad.” I knew then that he was dead, but lost consciousness before the thought fully registered.

The next time I awoke, I maintained consciousness long enough to learn the awful truth. Not only was my father dead, I was the only survivor of my family. My father’s farm was a charred wasteland, set fire by those who had come to steal his money that night. I had been found lying next to an overturned trough in the yard, the hair singed off my head, a cut across my forehead, and my clothes smoldering with the sparks from the fires that had consumed the house, the barn, and even the stubble in our fields. My father was lying not five feet away, dead, as were my mother, brother and baby sister inside what remained of the house I had grown up in. Marcus’ body was never found. It was speculated that the heat of the fire in the barn had been so intense it had entirely destroyed his body.

This information overwhelmed me, and I lapsed back into a sleep, one that was tormented by thoughts of guilt. “Everything is my fault. I could have prevented it. My parents, my brothers and sister were all dead, because I acted like a child.” These thoughts, and the restless sleep continued for months, while my waking hours were spent in a wandering daze.

The family I was staying with tried to reach out to me, to comfort me, each in their own way. The one whose effort I most appreciated was the family’s oldest daughter, Aileen, a buxom lass of fifteen, who tried to draw me out of my silence in the way that only a vibrant young lass can. The rest of the family, each in their own way, attempted to be compassionate and understanding, but my moroseness put them off. Eventually they quit trying to reach out to me, leaving me to wander their home, now also mine, alone with my thoughts.  

At some point, I did realize that I was burdening them with my continued presence, and decided to leave. By then, almost an entire year had passed. I had no place to go, as the baron had claimed my father’s property as his own, saying it was rightfully his, as my father had made no payment on it that last year. I was livid, but could do nothing, as he was the law in my part of the world. I had no one I could appeal to for help, since every one around held their own property only by the baron’s whim, and the taxing amounts they paid him each year.

My scar was healed, and my hair had grown back, at least long enough to allow me to pass in public without frightening the children. I still had the coins I had received from my father’s hands, as well as the dagger he had given me. For some reason, the ruffians who had killed my family and destroyed my home hadn’t bothered to search me.