The Castle on the Hill, Ch. 4

A Huntsman Clad in Red

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“Who are you?” demanded the stranger.

Katrine’s heart thundered in her chest as she looked up at their would-be savior. His voice was deep and powerful, and his tone laced with suspicion. He loomed over her and Paul both, his face hidden beneath the black shadows of his red hood save for his square and thickly stubbled jaw. Lines of age and hard living were visible even through that dark stubble, their depth accentuated by the heavy shadows cast from his small hip lantern.

It was Paul who answered him. “No one of import,” he said. “We were out for an evening ride and became lost when I dropped my lantern.”

“No one of import, eh?” The stranger took a firm step forward and Paul immediately flinched back. “You’re a poor liar. Your clothes and manner paint your words false, lad,” he said. Then he tapped Paul’s rapier with the end of his bow. “As does your fancy blade.”

The hooded man took another step forward. Katrine saw Paul tense. The fingers on his right hand twitched just a little and he held it low to his side, ready to grab and draw his rapier at a moment’s notice, and she felt she understood why. Momentary savior to them that he was, the stranger had a distinct air of menace about him. To her it was clear that Paul’s poorly planned lie was made in an effort to potentially spare them being robbed, for though they rode into the Blackwood with little and their clothes had become dirtied and torn, the fact remained that each of them still wore some of the finery of their houses. Yet a thought nagged at her - if this man had wished to rob them, could he not simply have put arrows in their backs when he shot down the wolves?

Gently she placed a hand upon his, wincing as she pushed herself up to a lounging seat that kept her wounded leg as outstretched and still as possible. She had to lean against Paul’s side to do this, and part of her realized how that must’ve made her look, as though she were the smitten damsel clinging to her hero. There was some truth to that, too. Paul had shown great valor on this night, both in how he handled himself against the wolves and his behavior towards her own obstinance earlier that evening. Courteous and courageous though he was, though, she hardly considered herself smitten.

The stranger’s deep voice shook her back to the moment at hand. “I ask again,” he said, taking another step forward, “who are you?”

Now that he stood directly over them, the difference in size between the stranger and Paul was apparent. Healthy bodied though he was, Paul was still a young man in his middle teens. The stranger was older, nearly a full head taller, and certainly broader of shoulder, though his cloak surely added to his apparent size. Paul stood tall in spite of this difference in size but as the hooded man looked down at him, his eyes reflecting the dull orange glint of his hip lantern, Katrine could feel the courageous young man start to shake.

“He’s my escort,” she said suddenly, drawing the stranger’s gaze down to her. “We rode out from the estate on the southwest bank.”

The stranger smirked. “Well now, had I known I’d be in the presence of nobility I’d have brought flowers,” he said with a mocking chuckle. “So the good Count Bertoli now counts two of his daughters as runaways, is that it?”

Katrine flushed and Paul stood more upright, tilting his shoulders back until he was near chest to chest with the stranger. “Now see here!” the young man began, but his words and courage were diminished into a quiet, embarrassed anger evident by the reddening of his own cheeks when the stranger openly guffawed at him.

“You’ve quite the bark, lad!” he said. “Do you mean to bite me, too, hmm? The way the wolves did you and your lady fair?”

That comment left Paul fiercely cowed. For the first time in this brief meeting, he broke away from the stranger’s gaze. Katrine could see the way the muscles in his neck and jaw tightened as he clenched his teeth behind closed lips and she once again felt a sharp pang of guilt in her chest. After all, neither of them would be in this situation were it not for her own impetuous behavior. Squeezing Paul’s hand with tender affirmation, she tried to speak up on his behalf, but found that she also couldn’t bring herself to speak or look at the stranger.

A howl in the distance cut his mocking laughter short, though the stranger’s cold joviality remained unhindered. Looking to his right, he lifted up his lantern and smiled grimly. “Seems we’ve tarried long enough,” he said, then he nodded back in the direction of Stelios. “Fetch and calm your steed, lad, we’ll have need of him if you wish to leave this place swiftly.”

Paul hesitated for a moment. He looked down at Katrine with a conflicted expression, unsure of whether he should listen to the stranger or keep by her side. But then the stranger poked him hard in the chest with the end of his yew bow.

“You got rocks in your ears? Fetch your horse! I mean to leave once I’ve seen to the lady’s wound,” the stranger said.

Katrine looked up at Paul and gave him a subtle nod, and he took the message to heart. Glancing back up at the stranger, he let Katrine’s hand fall away then made his way over to Stelios as bidden. The horse was still panicked over what happened, but Paul approached him slowly and patiently, and Katrine could already see the black steed starting to calm. As she watched, the stranger crouched down beside her, his lantern held up so he could inspect her injured leg.

“Sit back,” he said curtly, and she did as instructed. He brushed his hand gently over her shin and she whimpered when his fingers prodded at the tattered and bloody bite marks just above her ankle.

He set the lantern down beside him. “You’re lucky,” he said as he drew back his cloak, revealing the dark tunic, breeches, and thigh high boots he wore, as well as a sturdy leather belt heavily laden with pouches and sacks. He reached for one of his small satchels, turning his head to see as he unwound the hide thong that tied it shut with a brown gloved hand. As he turned, the light of his small lantern pushed the shadows away, finally allowing Katrine to see his face more completely. He was older, as she already surmised, and his skin had a similar olive tone to Father’s, though of them the stranger was the more swarthy. His hair was similarly dark and peppered with flecks of gray, at least if his dense stubble was anything to go by, and he had a sharp aquiline nose with a strong bridge that attached to an equally strong and deeply creased brow. Thick eyebrows were set upon the ridges of that brow above dark and deep set eyes of the most piercing intensity. They were pale blue, those eyes, like winter’s coldest ice, though she could see there was a greenish tinge to them, too. Dark crow lines wrinkled their edges and when he narrowed them to inspect the tiny pouch he’d drawn from the satchel she could see the steel of a seasoned hunter.

Setting the little pouch next to the lantern, he drew a simple knife from a short leather sheath bound at his thigh. It was forged of a single piece of unpolished steel. Its blade was short and sharp and the edge was the only part of it that glinted in the light of the lantern, while its handle was fashioned by twisting the remaining squared length of steel the blade had been hammered from then folding it in half so its end tucked in against the bottom back of the blade.

“This is going to be unpleasant,” he said in warning, but before Katrine could brace he pinched and pulled up at the ripped portion of her legging, then slipped the knife in and started to cut it away.

Katrine grit her teeth and hissed and whimpered, but she offered no complaints even as the pain burned fresh in her torn flesh. For a mercy the stranger worked quickly, shearing away the clingy fabric to fully expose the wound and the bare skin of her ankle and calf. Then he cut a length from the end of her dress, the cleanest bit of it that he could find, and laid it out on the ground in front of the lantern. He removed his gloves next, then unstrung the tiny pouch and cupped it in one hand. With the other he scooped up some chilly water from the nearby creek. Then poured the contents of the pouch into the water he’d taken and slowly rubbed his hands together. The mix gave off an earthy and herbaceous scent, and she could see some of it drip out from between his fingers in thick clumps

“What is that?” she asked. He was spreading the mixture on the strip of cloth he’d cut from her dress now.

“It will help you heal and ease the pain,” he said. “That’s all you need to know.”

“It’s a cataplasm, isn’t it?” she chirped back. “With chamomile and clay?”

The stranger glanced up at her, but he showed his surprise in no other manner than that. He neither stopped applying the healing paste to the length of cloth nor did he change his expression or reply. Only when he lifted her leg and started to wrap the binding did he deign to speak.

“It’s not chamomile,” he said. “It’s coneflower and dandelion. How do you know about this? A lady in a lovely dress galavanting with her young man doesn't seem the type to study herb lore.”

Katrine felt a tingle of rising heat in her cheeks at the stranger’s accusation. “Paul’s not my man, nor am I his woman,” she insisted.

“So his name’s Paul, eh?” The stranger smirked. “The Tarnesians finally wedding off their last son, are they?”

“I fail to see how that’s any of your business, stranger,” Paul cut in as he approached atop Stelios.

“Perhaps not,” the stranger replied, “but your presence in these woods makes each of you my business, and considering I’ve saved your lives and am currently tending the wounds of the young lady, I think you could do with humoring me, lad.”

“How did you know he was Tarnesian?” Katrine asked.

The stranger huffed through his nostrils as he finished applying the binding. “We’ll discuss it once we’re on our way,” he said as he strapped his lantern back to his belt. Then he crouched beside Katrine again and had her sit as upright as she could. Once she did, he hoisted her up in his arms and, together with Paul’s help, situated her into a side-saddle seat on Stelios’ back. Now settled, they readied to make their way, but paused when Katrine raised an objection.

“What of yourself?” she asked the stranger. “Aren’t you riding with us?”

The older man shook his head. “Strong and sturdy though your steed is, fitting all three of us would be a struggle. I’ll keep pace on foot. Even if you were to gallop this fine beast at speed, you wouldn’t get far before the woods grew too dense.”

“And if more wolves come?” Paul asked.

“I’ve got ways of dealing with them other than just my bow, lad,” he replied. “Now come, we’ve a ways to travel tonight.”

Against her better nature, Katrine couldn’t help scoffing. “But you don’t know where we were going,” she said.

“I don’t need to,” the stranger stated flatly. “Following the creek this deep into the woods, there’s only one place you could be headed. Now can we be off, or would you like me to leave you for the wolves to find again?”

The silence of Katrine and Paul following the stranger’s uncomfortably nonchalant suggestion was, as is sometimes said, deafening. They rode upon Stelios’ back without uttering a word for what felt like a good five or ten minutes at least, with the red-cloaked man keeping pace alongside them. Katrine couldn’t say what she would consider normal after the ordeal they’d experienced because she’d never experienced one like it before. But she knew herself well, and given how sequestering herself in her windowed room in the cellar was how she often dealt with the aftermath of arguments with Mother or one of her siblings, she had a feeling that keeping quiet for a while likely would’ve been her go-to reaction here, too. Yet she couldn’t find any comfort in this quiet. It was too deep, too all encompassing, and it didn’t take her long to realize why.

Nudging Paul in the ribs with her elbow, she tilted her head up as he leaned down that she might whisper into his ear. “Have you ever met someone who walks as silently as he does?” she asked him, careful to keep as quiet as possible.

Paul shook his head. “Never,” he breathed into her ear. “It’s as if his footfalls don’t exist. He barely even leaves tracks behind him.”

“The result of many years of practice,” he said, laughing when he made both of them start. “My wife and I have lived out here for a long time, hunting and living off this land by the grace of its liege Lords and Ladies. You don’t track and stalk beasts as long as I have without learning a thing or two about how to keep them from noticing you.”

“You and your wife?” Katrine replied.

The stranger nodded, a slight motion that almost couldn’t be seen behind his hood. “Aye, that’s right. Does my being wed surprise you?”

“Not as much as a huntsman recognizing my lineage by sight of me alone,” Paul retorted, and Katrine nodded in kind.

“Yes, you never did tell us how you knew he’s a Tarnesian. It’s passing strange that someone who lives so isolated would recognize that so quickly,” she said.

“Oh, is it now?” the huntsman quipped. “Funny. The number of assumptions you make of a man you’ve only just met seems equally strange to me.”

Katrine’s eyebrows knotted into a frown. “Then tell us how you know so we won’t have to assume,” she said, but the huntsman shook his head.

“Oh no, sweet lady, not until you answer the question I asked you first.”

“What question?” she demanded. “We’ve been spending this time waiting for you to answer us and haven’t spoken a word beyond that since we left!”

“I think he means his inquiry about the cataplasm,” Paul said, taking care to keep his voice level and calm. Again, the huntsman gave a slight nod.

“Oh! Forgive me, I’d completely forgotten,” Katrine said.

The huntsman blithely dismissed her apology with a limp wave of his hand. “It’s of no consequence, but if you want me to answer your question, then I’m going to insist you answer mine first,” he said.

Katrine sighed heavily, struggling to hide her growing frustration with their rescuer’s blasé demeanor. “Because I’ve been studying,” she said sharply. “My Grandfather was a superb alchemist and herbalist, I’ll have you know, and by the grace of my Father I’ve been studying the theorems and formulae in his notes and journals to learn the craft for myself.” She paused then, and cast her gaze wistfully down to the shimmering stream. It glowed orange beneath the huntsman’s lantern light. “His cataplasms were among the first things I learned to make.”

A low hum, so quiet as to be barely heard, was the Huntsman’s only response. Silence fell after. It didn’t last very long, but those few moments it did were bleak for its completeness. The Blackwood had gone deathly still after the wolves had attacked them. Night birds stopped their flutters. Bats halted their shrill squeaks. Even the insects ceased their buzzing. It was like the forest itself demanded all within it hush themselves, that the trees which formed it could observe and judge the young fools who trod upon their sovereign land.

Paul was the one to break that silence. He cleared his throat, and the sound echoed amongst the trees. Katrine looked between those towering sentinels as the young Tarnesian gentleman addressed their brusque savior.

“Now that Lady Katrine’s answered your query, master huntsman, do you not think it fair you answer ours now?” It was far more a demand than it was a question, one that Paul infused with a firm sense of authority, given his young age. He may have only been sixteen, but Katrine felt he spoke with a kind of grace and strength akin to her eldest brother, Giancarlo III. She had to admit she found that impressive, considering Giancarlo was Paul’s senior by a full decade.

As ever, though, the huntsman made no effort to hide the fact that he didn’t share in her thinking. In a mocking tone he said, “Ha! But of course, anything for the future master of the illustrious Tarnesian house!”

Katrine watched Paul’s expression darken at the huntsman’s jeers. She sympathized. While both recognized that they owed him their lives, he was far from the sort of savior she would’ve hoped for. If he were just dismissive of their questions, that she could forgive, frustrating though it was. But to be rude and mocking on top of that? It was a difficult tonic for a noble lady to swallow, so she could only imagine how difficult it was for Paul to keep his head when being actively targeted like this. Much to his credit, the young man took a deep breath and focused on following the huntsman’s path. Katrine could still see the anger brewing in him just beneath the surface, but at least for now, he held it in check.

Surprisingly, after the silence started to draw on again, the huntsman continued of his own accord. “I have history with your family, lad,” he said. “For now, I’ll say no more than that.”

Paul nodded, even though the huntsman wasn’t looking his way. “Then as a gentleman, I’ll agree to postpone this discussion until a more appropriate time.”

The huntsman scoffed, but made no protest. “If that’s what you want,” he said. “Now follow close. This is where the path grows tight.”

All was not well in the house of Count Bertoli-Dunajoux. The midnight hour had come and gone, and while all within should’ve been sleeping with lanterns put out, the house remained as lit and active as it had that afternoon. None, however, were less at ease than Count Giancarlo himself. He paced slowly about his dimly lit study, absentmindedly swirling the still-full glass of dark red wine he held close to his chest. He was dressed in the same rouge coat and maroon breeches and frilled white shirt he’d donned earlier that morning, though they lacked the same cleanly luster they’d had hours before. Dirt and dust from hours of frantically searching the borders of the Blackwood for Katrine and Paul alongside his guards had discolored his fine clothes, but that was a paltry worry that hadn’t once crossed his mind since returning to the estate.

Katrine. What in the world was she thinking running off like that? That sort of behavior would’ve been expected of Myla, but Katrine? She was more level headed than that! Well, she was supposed to be, at least. Yet, all the same, she still ran…

Murmurs of discussion filtered in through the closed door of the study. Rumors were swift to spread among the servants, many of which involved lurid mutterings of the young Lady running off with her handsome suitor to “consummate things early.” Woe betide any who uttered such slander in the presence of Count Giancarlo. He was positively red-faced when his second son, Eduard, informed him he’d needed to scold two of the younger housemaids when he caught them giggling over that precise claim. Yet for all the irritation that drew up in him, servants and guards alike would need the blessings of the Highfather himself to protect them from Annalise’s wrath if she overheard such things. But it wasn’t the whispers of lascivious gossip which seeped their way through his door at this hour. Nay, it were the worried mutterings shared between his grown sons and daughters who’d been able to return home to provide aid and comfort to their family.

Of his grown children, only one hadn’t returned - his eldest son, Giancarlo III, who journeyed east some weeks ago to finalize matters of trade with a mercantile lord in the free city of Helms. He likely wouldn’t even hear of what transpired for many days yet, though the Count was swift to ensure a messenger pigeon was sent to carry word to him. Carlito, as Katrine liked to call her oldest brother when she was little, had always favored his third sister. Her passion for winemaking was akin to his own, and while it was the Count who ultimately convinced his wife to learn the family trade, it was her brother that originally stoked it in her. Pausing by his window, Count Giancarlo looked into the dark night and let out a long, weary, sobbing sigh.

“Highfather, if anything should happen to her,” he whispered, at last setting his untouched wine glass down on his desk as he leaned against it. He would’ve begun to weep there and then, but the click of his study door’s turning handle drew his attention.

“Ah, my wife,” he said heavily. Holding his arms open for her, his beautiful Annalise delicately shut the door and crossed the room to meet him in the middle. Like himself, she also wore the same clothes she’d donned earlier that day, a long and layered emerald bell dress trimmed with gold and a matching corset studded with gleaming pearls. Her shimmering blonde hair was styled long and flowing and accented with intricate rivulets that had since come loose and hung in a slightly messy tangle about her face. She embraced him wordlessly, burying her face into his shoulder. 

“How are the little ones?” he asked, and she pulled away.

“Asleep, at long last,” she sighed. “Janette and Eduard helped to put Delilah down, but all this commotion left Josef feeling fussy.”

With a regretful shake of his head, Count Giancarlo placed his hands on his wife’s shoulders and squeezed them gently. “I’m sorry, love,” he said. “I should’ve been there to help you with him instead of wallowing in here as I’ve been.”

“You’ve done plenty, husband. Searching the Blackwood for hours is enough for now. I will handle the mothering,” she said in a songbird tone. Annalise had a gorgeous voice, and he hated hearing it tinged with anger or grief, like it was now.

“Speaking of, how’re the children taking all of this?” he asked.

Annalise let out a low groan and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Stepping away from him, she lowered herself onto a plush lounge of wine red satin and moved to rub her temples. “Janette and Eduard manage their composure but Myla is being… difficult,” she said flatly.

Count Giancarlo didn’t need her to clarify. Myla had always been the most outspoken and rebellious of their children, quick to do as she wished and quicker still to lash out when disciplined. This made raising her a struggle for them both, but he wouldn’t pretend as if his own struggles with his second daughter compared to those of his wife. No, Annalise suffered far worse from Myla’s behaviors of unwarranted indignancy and petulance. In truth, that strong willed nature was something that she’d inherited from her mother, but for reasons Count Giancarlo never quite understood his wife and his raucous second daughter were never able to find the common ground he’d always hoped they might, no matter how much effort he or anyone else put into mediating for them. Now that she was a grown woman on the cusp of her twenties, Myla’s rebellious nature had finally lessened. However, that did little to help bridge the gap that existed between her and Annalise.

The Count slid a nearby chair next to his wife. Its red satin cushions and polished dark mahogany frame were an exact match to the lounge upon which she sat. The plush cushions sank comfortably beneath his weight and once seated, he leaned forward, taking both of her hands in his own. Gently, he placed his thumbs over her knuckles, then used his fore and middle fingers to press and massage circles into her palms. First they were small, then they grew until they reached the edges of her hands, and then they shrank back down again. She smiled at him despite the stress and worry he knew ate at her because those same feelings ate at him, too, and then he lifted those hands to his lips and pressed a kiss onto each.

“Even as tired as you are, you still look as young and beautiful as the day we were wed,” he said.

“Stop that, Gianni,” she said. Her face reddened a little as he smirked at her. “I’m an old woman of nearly forty-two years. You can’t honestly say I look like I did when I was sixteen anymore.”

“Pah!” he exclaimed, sitting upright and proud! “Very well then, I take it back!” Then his grin widened, and he leaned in close. “You look even better.”

Scoffing through her own smile, she smacked him hard on his chest. Then, just for good measure, she did it again. “You liar,” she chuckled. “But thank you, my love. The distraction is welcome, even if only for a moment.”

“So what did she say?” Count Giancarlo asked. “You wouldn’t have mentioned anything if she hadn’t said something first.”

Annalise huffed through her nose and turned to stare out the rear window. Her lips drew thin in a painful manner that he recognized. She was holding back tears, and when she first opened her mouth to speak he saw them starting to well in her eyes. Words didn’t come that first time, but the tears did. They flowed down her rosy cheeks, streaking them. If she hadn’t already removed her makeup from earlier, the tracks would’ve been even more visible.

Clicking her tongue, Annalise hung her head and finally spoke. “She said to me, ‘You treated her exactly as you treated me, and now this is what we all get for it.’ Exactly as I thought, she believes the fault to be mine, and she’s right. Highfather damn me for the fool I am, Myla’s right.”

Count Giancarlo was not a man who was quick to anger, especially with his own family. This, however, threatened to be a rare exception to that rule. There was no small part of him that wished to march downstairs and punish Myla just as he would’ve if she were still an impudent child, to throw her over his knee and tan her backside with a switch or the flat of his shoe for saying something so cruel. Alas, it would do no good. The relationship between mother and daughter would still be tattered and the bitterness that existed between them would only deepen. Much better to keep that anger in check and turn it into strength for his wife, to take her into his arms, stroke her hair gently, and press kisses into her brow.

“Do not take such words from Myla to heart,” he whispered. “For what it’s worth, I’m sure Jeanette’s giving her an earful about that even as we speak.”

Annalise’s body shook as her silent tears turned into long and mournful sobbing. “But she’s right, Gianni,” the Countess wept. “I drove our Katrine away.”

“No, my darling Anna,” he hummed as he tried to soothe her. “We both did that. I was too lax where you were too firm, and so we stood divided. Had I been more stern with her… Well, what’s done is done. We can but pray that she and Paul had the foresight to keep safe and seek shelter for the night that we might find them when we resume the search come dawn.”

Annalise kissed her husband first on his cheek, then on his lips, and thanked him for his kind words. The hurt and worry were still there and doubtless they’d remain unless Katrine was found, healthy and hale. But she’d calmed again. For now, that would be enough.

“Come, my love. Let us at least try to rest,” the Count said as he rose from his seat, helping Annalise up from hers. However, as Annalise rose to join him, a frown knotted her brow.

She motioned to the window. “What are those lights, Gianni?”

“Lights?” he murmured, and he turned around.

At this time of night, with the clouds now heavy in the sky,  the window should have been darkened black. Instead, he saw the flicker of torches shining within it. Moving just a bit closer, his heart sank. The torches reflected off the gleaming steel of at least a few dozen men clad in pot helms and chainmail and tabards of blue and gold. At their head rode three men, each dressed in finery of matching colors, with the one at the fore carrying a feather plumed helmet tucked under his arm. This cadre of soldiers was stopped outside their courtyard gate, and Count Giancarlo could see one of his guards already hurrying inside to inform him.

“I must take care of this,” he said urgently, his cloak of rouge fluttering wide open as he rounded on his heels and made swiftly for the door.

“Who are they, husband?” Annalise asked. Impressively, the trembling tenor of her voice was gone, replaced by the stern defiance of a proud Riverran noblewoman who would not see her house intruded upon.

“Tarnesians,” the Count said swiftly, turning to face his wife with a stern look. “I will go and meet them. You must wait inside with the children, my love. I don’t expect the good Lord will attempt anything rash, but just in case, I’d rather you be here with them.”

Annalise nodded and waved him along. No sooner had the Count stepped out of his study than the guard he’d spotted running inside called up to him. “I’m well aware,” he cried back. “Go and inform the good Lord Tarnesian I’ll be out to see him shortly.”

Below, standing in the manor’s foyer, Janette, Myla, and Eduard all looked up to their father with expressions ranging from surprise to discontent with the situation. Eduard, who was the spitting image of his golden haired and fair skinned mother in all respects save for the strong jaw he inherited from the count, asked, “What’s the meaning of this, Father? Why have the Tarnesians gathered at our gate?”

Myla, ever impertinent, scoffed at him. “Isn’t it obvious, little brother?” she asked as she pushed her long, dark brown hair out of her face, revealing blue eyes that also matched their mother’s. “They want to know what happened to their youngest son.”

“Enough,” Count Giancarlo barked, putting a stop to the bickering before it could begin. “Eduard, come with me, and bring your sword. I don’t expect we’ll need it, but I’d rather not risk being without it.” Eduard nodded and retrieved his belt, scabbard, and blade from underneath the chair he’d been sitting in before the Count entered. As he moved, the Count pointed to his daughters. “Janette, go upstairs and mind the children with your mother. Myla, for all the Highfather’s love, keep your blasted mouth shut.”

Janette replied with a nod, where Myla gave a sigh and a, “Yes, Father.” Then, with his own sword belt now clasped about his waist, Count Giancarlo and his son stepped out to join the rapidly growing collection of his house guards in the courtyard.

“At last, the good Count decides to show his face!” came a deep and gravelly voice from across the way.

“Lord Hector Tarnesian,” Count Giancarlo called back as he approached. “A bit late for a social call, don’t you think?”

“Away with your wit and pleasantries, Count,” the old man growled. “You know why we’ve come.”

Now that he was closer, Count Giancarlo could see the deep set wrinkles in his slightly pudgy but still very prideful mien. Those wrinkles appeared all the deeper under the flickering glow of the torchlight. The men who stood to either side of him were both younger. To his right was Alexander, the eldest son of the family, a handsome but hard young man who cut his teeth in the military as opposed to in his family’s trade. To his left, the current patriarch and son of Hector, William Tarnesian, whose face was set with a look of grim consternation.

“Am I to understand the situation has become such that you’ve taken command of your family’s men at arms back for yourself, Lord Hector?” the Count asked sternly.

“I’m only doing what needs to be done to protect my family’s legacy,” Hector said. Count Giancarlo noted both how he wasn’t there for the sake of his family itself, as well as the way Lord William’s expression further darkened the more the Tarnesian Grandsire spoke. “Enough pussyfooting about. Where in the Hells is my grandson, Paul?”