Geza, the captain of his guard, entered. "My lord, you have a visitor from Keonsk."
'Taxes aren't due for a month. Who is it?"
"I don't know him, my lord," the captain answered. "He calls himself Vordana and says he was sent by Baron Buscan. Should I show him in?"
"Vordana? No title?"
"None that he mentioned, sir."
This visitor was unlikely to be of serious importance and perhaps was only a messenger. Until he was certain, Stefan thought it best to receive this Vordana privately.
"Byanka, why don't you take the boy upstairs?"
With a smile for her husband, she whisked their son away. Soon after, Geza escorted the visitor in and left the room. Stefan didn't bother to mask his surprise.
Vordana was of medium height and slight of build. Unarmed, he wore a shin-length umber brown robe that swished when he walked, and it was tied closed by a scarlet cord. There was no mud on his boots. His clothing, unusual for travel, was not the most remarkable thing about him.
Around his young face of twenty or so years hung hair as white as that of an old man in his final days. It lay unbound across his shoulders, reaching to midtorso, and glowed vividly in the firelight of the warm hall. He wouldn't be thought handsome, with his thin-lipped mouth and deep-set eyes, but he was striking.
Stefan didn't know what to say and forgot even a polite greeting as Vordana circled the room, looking at everything but Stefan and nodding in approval.
"Yes," he said in a hissing slur, "this will do nicely."
"You are from Keonsk?" Stefan asked. "Baron Buscan sent you?"
Vordana turned as if seeing Stefan for the first time, or perhaps as one forced to take notice of another's presence. "Yes," he said again.
"You didn't come alone? Do you have men who need barracks for the night?"
Vordana stared at him through black eyes. "I have, two guards outside. I required no others, as those stationed here will serve my needs."
Stefan tensed, disquiet growing inside him. "My people will see to your needs for the night. Perhaps you should state your business."
"Business?" Vordana stopped near the hearth with his arms folded. "I am to assume the stewardship of this fief. Is that not part of Baron Buscan's authority, to award the fiefs of the Antes?"
At first, Stefan suppressed his rising alarm, wondering what he could possibly have done to fall out of favor. All was in order in the fief, and more so, it had improved in his care. He stilled his thoughts and stood his ground.
"I oversee this fief," he said, "and Baron Buscan has sent no word to the contrary. By your own address, you aren't even titled."
Vordana smiled with teeth as white as his hair. He coiled one hand into his robe and pulled out a rolled parchment.
"Here is the order signed by the baron. You have been reassigned to the cavalry under Baron Lonaes, on his way to Stravina concerning border matters. I understand you have a wife and child, so you are welcome to wait until morning to take your leave."
Stefan snatched the parchment from Vordana's hand. It bore the Antes seal.
He tore it open and scanned the contents twice to confirm every poisonous word. It ended with the rough signature of Baron Buscan. Stefan had somehow fallen from favor.
"It has all been arranged," Vordana said. "I am told you are devoted to the grand prince and the Antes house, and that you would respond with good grace and duty."
Stefan remained completely still for a moment. Then he jerked his sword from its sheath. Vordana's smile didn't have time to vanish before he ran him straight through the heart. Stefan's voice was quiet and sharp as he whispered to Vordana.
"Here is my good grace to you."
Vordana's smile faded. He tried once to gulp a mouthful of air and died before his body struck the floor. Dark red blood spread outward through the white shirt beneath his robe. From out of the shirt's collar tumbled a small brass vial, some strange token hanging by a chain, and it dangled over his shoulder upon the floor.
"Geza!" Stefan shouted.
His captain ran into the room, sword drawn, for Stefan never shouted. "My lord?" Geza began before he saw the body.
"Where are his guards?" Stefan demanded.
"Outside, in the courtyard," the captain answered. "Waiting with the horses."
"Find men you trust for discretion, and send them to the stables. Tell those two guards to take their horses there. When they are out of sight, have your men kill them both. Dispose of the bodies and mounts in the forest where they will not be found. If anyone comes to ask, we have had no visitors from Keonsk. Do you understand?"
Geza stared at him, but Stefan knew his captain would obey. Geza's own success in the ranks depended on Stefan's position. With a brief hesitation, the captain hefted Vordana's body over his shoulder and left once more.
Stefan took two long, slow breaths to quell his anxiety, then stood up straight. If Buscan truly wished to replace him, he would know soon enough, but something about the parchment felt wrong. It was unprecedented for a fief steward of title to be replaced with no prior word-and certainly not a lord in good standing. And not by some untitled miscreant. He would wait for further word from Keonsk.
A month passed, and nothing came.
Stefan began to relax. Geza showed some disquiet in his presence, but otherwise life remained ordinary. Until the night Byanka screamed.
Stefan sat in the hall by the fire and heard her horrified wails from the upper floor. He ran up the stairs, following her voice, and found her standing in their son's room, ripping at her hair.
In the bed lay his son, or what had once been his son.
The little face and hands were shriveled husks above the covers, and his eyes were open but dried and sunken. He looked like one abandoned in a wasteland to die of starvation and thirst, transformed into a dwarfish, withered old man. Stefan had kissed his son good night just hours before, and now the boy was dead.
Byanka cried out like a madwoman. "I hear the guards whispering. The visitor who came that night… What have you done to us?"
When Stefan reached out to give her comfort, she shoved him away and began howling again.
In the days that followed, her mood remained unchanged. One evening when Stefan again tried to calm her, he saw lines in her face and the darkening rings about her eyes. Fear filled him at the thought of an unknown plague spreading among them. He closed the manor to outsiders and kept his guards out of the villages as much as possible. Byanka continued to wane over the next three days. No matter how much water or broth she drank, she suffered from a terrible thirst. When she finally died, Stefan wept, crouched by her bedside, where she lay as withered as their son had been.
Within a moon, the peasants and animals of Pudurlatsat began dying.
Crops and trees withered along with them. Geza followed orders without question but wouldn't look his liege lord in the eyes. At the month's end, Stefan rode to an outlying village of the fief and found it thriving. Only the town nearest the manor, on the river to Keonsk, suffered this mysterious blight. He returned home that night at a loss for what could be done.
He feared sending word to Keonsk for assistance. He feared an inquest. Once in the courtyard, he handed his horse to a guard, walked to the manor's main hall, and froze in its archway.
A cloaked and cowled figure stood by the hearth. It took effort for Stefan to breathe evenly as he entered. Someone had come looking for Vordana. When the figure turned his way, Stefan's anxiety turned to horror.