The only thing extending his patience was the feeling in every limb that his body was growing strong again. He hungered for the moment when he burned the first large town to ash. Only then would the humans understand the pain and suffering their greed had caused. Only then would they learn the price of their arrogance.
There were the mornings, after he’d consumed a particularly bad vintage, when Guillot could think about nothing other than how ill he felt. There were mornings when he woke thinking of nothing at all—those were his favourites. Then there were the mornings when he woke with the past ten years forgotten, and looked to his left, expecting his wife to be there in the bed beside him. Those were the worst.
That morning, his first thought was of the shadow. How it moved silently, blotting out the stars as it went. His dreams had been of fire and destruction. The notion that alcohol was finally driving him to madness was actually welcome. The alternative, that something from children’s myths was wreaking havoc on his demesne, was too difficult to cope with.
One way or the other, Guillot knew he could not sit idle. He had been so careless in his responsibilities that a neighbouring lord was collecting taxes in his demesne. Worse, he could do nothing about it. Now his vassals’ livestock were being killed. If they ran him out of town, he couldn’t blame them. The peasants and villagers of Villerauvais were his responsibility, and he had to take action. Half a dozen villagers regularly trained at arms, his levy should the king ever call upon him to satisfy his feudal obligations. They had not been mustered since his father’s time, and he had no idea if any of the able-bodied men required to answer the call would respond. Nonetheless, that was his next step—he needed eyes and ears on the ground to report what was happening.
When he finally managed to rise from his bed, he headed to the village hall to see the mayor. The building had pride of place next to the church with its tall steeple, overlooking the small galleried square that formed the centre of Villerauvais. As seigneur, he had the right to enter unannounced, but knocked first regardless. The mayor, René, was also the village’s winemaker, and Gill knew he wouldn’t be popular considering Lord Montpareil’s recent tax raid. The sense of shame he felt as he entered took him by surprise, and it occurred to him that the last time he’d been in the village hall was when he was a boy, with his father. Little had changed—a long table sat in the centre of the room, surrounded by chairs on the flagstone floor.
Windows fronting onto the square let in some light, but not enough. In the absence of a village meeting, René had foregone the expense of lighting any candles, so the interior was dim. The Villerauvais coat of arms was carved into the wall at the back of the hall. It loomed over Guillot like a great shaming statement.
“Is this about the slaughtered cattle or the wine?” René said. He looked up from the pile of papers spread before him, delicate wire spectacles perched precariously on the bridge of his nose. “Jeanne said she’d geld me if I give you a bottle from the barrels.”
“The cattle,” Gill said. “Something needs to be done.”
“I agree. Richard’s herd was attacked last night. Three head gone. Things will be tough on him and his family without them. Alain, Philipe, Richard, and I have agreed to patrol the fields around the village from dusk until midnight for the next two evenings. I’ll make a report of our findings and send it on to Trelain. I’m sure the duke will send soldiers.”
“I, well, it’s good to know that everything’s in hand.” Gill stood there a moment longer, a sickening feeling of disappointment in his gut. What had he expected? That they would sit around in the forlorn hope that he would get himself together?
“So, about that bottle?” he asked. “Is there any chance at all?”
Anger replaced disappointment as Guillot walked away from the village square without the bottle he had been hoping for. It seemed the mayor was just as afraid of Jeanne as everyone else. He saw dal Sason lurking outside his townhouse, so executed a quick right turn to avoid being spotted. The lane he found himself on led out of the village and toward his family home, Villerauvais Manor. His father had run the seigneury from there, maintaining a lofty distance from his tenants and only venturing into town if he had good reason. That was the more traditional way of doing things. Guillot knew he was far from the perfect lord, but he liked to think the people felt more comfortable around him than they had with his father.
Guillot rarely called at the manor house. It was overly grand for the demesne it presided over, and from the look of the ruins scattered about its grounds, it had once been grander still. Parts of the building were very old, with more recent extensions here and there. His father had claimed that the oldest parts of the house dated back to Imperial times, but Gill had never believed that. Claiming a direct connection to the very ancient past seemed to be a mark of pride for nobles, as if estates, wealth, and fine houses were not already enough. The place had never been much of a home to him; he’d been sent to school in Mirabay at a young age, and from there directly on to the Academy. He had always thought he and his wife, Auroré, would turn it into a home and start a family. The gods had other plans, however.
The current caretaker was the family steward, an old banneret called Yves, who did his best with it, but with limited resources and an absent lord, he could be forgiven for allowing the upkeep to slide. It was a bit of a walk from the village, but without anything else pressing on his time, it seemed as good a destination as any.
Gill breathed a little harder than he would have liked by the time he arrived, but felt as though the walk had done him good. His head had cleared somewhat and his body felt more like it was his own. The double doors creaked as Guillot pushed them open. The shafts of light that followed him in illuminated a soup of dust floating through the air.
“Hello!” Guillot said. There was no response, so he waited a moment, then called out once more. Perhaps the old house had finally become too much for old Yves.
Yves appeared out of the gloom a moment later, clutching a bundle of papers. “Come to deal with the correspondence, my Lord?” he said.
Being called “my Lord” after his visit to the village hall felt particularly damning. Guillot nodded, trying to give a purpose to his meandering attempt to avoid dal Sason, and took the proffered bundle of papers. Yves had seemed old when Guillot was a boy, but he did not look to have grown any older in all the years since. Tall and wiry—the perfect build for a swordsman—he was meticulous about his appearance, as many old soldiers were.
Guillot followed him into the study, where the caretaker had already laid out a pen and fresh bottle of ink—he must have seen Guillot coming up from the village. The pair enacted this routine a couple of times a year, beginning when Guillot moved back to Villerauvais. For the first few years, Yves had regularly asked when Guillot intended to move back to the manor house, but he no longer did.
There were bills to be paid, accounts to be signed off, and numerous other pieces of less formal correspondence to deal with. Guillot had made a great deal of money during his time in the city, and despite his best efforts, he’d squandered very little of it. Even in this, it appeared he was a failure.