Guillot sat at his usual spot at the end of the small bar in the only tavern in Villerauvais. It was quiet, as usual at that time of day—everyone else from the village and the surrounds still toiled, either in the fields or in the village’s few, small businesses.
His spot afforded him the succour of the back wall of the pokey little room when he became too drunk to sit upright any longer, which occurred at some point most evenings. Usually the tavern keeper, Jeanne—former wife of the long-deceased previous owner—let him be, only interacting with Guillot to refill his glass. Today, however, she had remained absent from the bar since his arrival.
He cleared his throat and rapped a knuckle on the bar. He was without doubt her best customer—often her only customer—and seeing as he always paid his way, he expected more attention. That was not even taking into account that he was seigneur of the village and the lands surrounding. Surely that had to count for something too.
He heard approaching footsteps, then the creak of the door behind the bar.
“What do you want?” Jeanne said.
Guillot shrugged. Was the answer not obvious? Nonetheless, her tone bothered him.
She looked at his empty glass. “We’re out of wine.”
Guillot chuckled, but when the stern expression on her face didn’t change, he stopped.
“How can you be out of wine?” he said. “We make it in the village.”
“Tax, Gill. Tax.”
He wondered if he would ever be referred to as “my Lord.” He supposed his father had been the last “Lord Villerauvais.” He had always been “Gill,” and it seemed he always would be. “Tax?” he said. “I don’t collect taxes.”
“You don’t.”
Jeanne continued to glare at him as though he had done something bad to her. Had he? He searched through the cloud of booze and hangovers that shrouded his memory and came up with nothing.
“Lord Montpareil,” she said.
“What of him?”
“He’s collecting taxes here now.”
Guillot’s mind was too dulled by the hangover from the previous night’s drinking to rouse much anger. Insulting though it was, to have a neighbouring lord exert authority in his demesne, he felt greater concern over how to get his glass filled. He shrugged again.
“It all ends up with the king,” Guillot said. “It’s as well Montpareil collects it as I do. Which I don’t.”
The look of contempt on Jeanne’s face was likewise of less concern to him than getting his glass filled. He gave her his most charming smile but she was unmoved.
“Five years, Gill. We were all happy to have you home, but you’ve been rotting here for five years. The village and all the lands are rotting with you. You’d break your poor mother’s heart if she still lived, gods bless her soul. Don’t think for a second that Lord Montpareil has authority to collect taxes here, or that a single penny of it’s getting to the king. Anyhow, some of that tax money should have been spent here in the village. In case you haven’t noticed, we need it. It’s your job. Him collecting them is an insult to you and an injury to us.”
Gill spread his hands in a beseeching gesture. He’d never expected to hear a complaint about not collecting taxes.
“Something needs to change, Gill. You’re dragging us all down with you.”
There were demesnes in Mirabaya where a vassal could be flogged and hanged for speaking to their nobleman like that. He was glad she felt free enough to say what she thought, but what she said wasn’t to his liking at all. Who was she to say how he lived his life? He knew of plenty of others who were far more decadent than he, taxing their vassals to the bone, then pissing it up against a wall. He only pissed away his own family money.
Jeanne sighed and shrugged. “Maybe we’d be better off with Lord Montpareil. Anyhow, there’s no wine today. No reason for you to stay.” She turned, and with a creak of the door, left Gill alone. He swore, then stood and shambled out.
Gill sat on his porch the following morning, after a fitful night’s sleep, and watched the lone horseman ride toward the village. His once fine, but now ramshackle, townhouse on the edge of the cluster of buildings that formed Villerauvais afforded him a clear view of anyone approaching, which was a rare occurrence. He drew on his pipe, hoping this person had not come to see him. He hadn’t been able to find any wine in the house and his mood had soured as a result—not that he was ever particularly welcoming to visitors. Their only saving grace was that they were rare in Villerauvais. It was a village at the end of the road. There was nowhere to pass through to.
This person was either lost, or going to make a bad day worse. Gill hadn’t had a drink since Jeanne had cut him off the previous day, hadn’t slept well, and was now approaching his longest period of sobriety in memory. He was in no mood to receive a guest.
The horseman was well dressed in what Gill felt confident in assuming was the latest fashion in Mirabay, and had a colourful feather in his wide-brimmed hat. He didn’t look like a dandy, though. His clothes, fitted and cut to allow movement, were the type worn by men who made their living with a sword. It was hard to imagine what a man like that wanted here—there wasn’t much call for professional swordsmen.
The rider drew up by Gill’s porch and doffed his hat. He looked at Gill as though they knew one another, but Gill couldn’t place him. That wasn’t to say they hadn’t met, however. There were plenty of blank spaces in his memory of life in Mirabay. Even more since then.
“It’s been a long time, Lord Villerauvais,” the newcomer said. “You look … well.”
Gill remained lounging on his rocking chair, his feet resting on the low railing surrounding the porch. His dusty, scruffy boots—including the hole in the left sole—were displayed to anyone who cared to look.
“I look ill and hungover,” Gill said, “which is true on both counts. But I’m afraid you have the advantage of me.”
“Of course.” The rider slipped down from his saddle. “Banneret of the White Nicholas dal Sason at your service.”
Gill shrugged.
“There’s no reason for you to remember me,” dal Sason said. “I was a boy when we met at court. Before I started at the Academy.”
Not knowing how to respond, Gill shrugged again.
“To business, then. The king requests that you return to Mirabay.”
“Ah,” Gill said, stroking his moustache. He had a response to that, but kept it to himself. If the shrug had seemed unfriendly to dal Sason, this answer would scandalise him. “I must admit that comes as something of a surprise,” Gill said. “I rather thought that old Boudain had forgotten about me.”
“He had. He’s dead. I bring his son’s command. King Boudain the Tenth.”
“I hadn’t heard. It can take news some time to reach us out here. When?”
“About six months now.”
Gill nodded. He wondered if the news had truly not reached Villerauvais, or if he was the only one that it had passed by. The latter struck him as far more likely. First Montpareil encroaching on his rights, now this. Jeanne was right, loath though he was to admit it.
“I can’t imagine you were thrilled by the prospect of coming all the way out here.”
Dal Sason shrugged now. “It’s the king’s command, and it’s my duty to obey. As it is yours.”
“The king’s word?”
“The new king is his own man,” dal Sason said. “He’s cut from very different cloth than his father.”
“So he’s forced the Prince Bishop to retire to his estates?” Gill said, his voice pregnant with irony. Prince Bishop Amaury’s cold corpse would have to be prised from his throne when the happy day of his death finally arrived.