Chapter 3 Forest Folk and a Sob Story #3
Morfran perked up. “Yes. I was just passing through, got lost in the woods, and then met your lovely children. Question me as you must, but then please release me and my goats and let us be on our way.”
The man shook his head. “You know we can’t release you.”
I swear to all the holy gods, I’ve known this family for only an hour, and every one of them is trying my patience.
He could just wait until tonight to break his bindings and sneak out.
But he was tired of people always looking at him with suspicion, even when they didn’t know he was their murdering Dark Lord who’d ruled their kingdom with a strong fist for twenty long years now.
He was Bernard the Goat Farmer, damn it. How could he be at all suspicious?
The bearish man raised Morfran’s sword, which he’d kept hidden at his side until now, and asked, “Where did you get this?”
Okay. That was a smidge suspicious.
Morfran told him what he’d told Bronwen and Hugh, added in a sob story about losing his wife in the tussle with Morfran’s men, and threw in a detail about her carrying his firstborn child for extra piteous measure.
He didn’t cry, though—this burly fellow would never buy tears from a man who looked like Morfran—and when he was done, the stranger observed him, just like how his daughter had studied him: with a flat, unreadable stare that seemed more intelligent than Morfran was used to attributing to peasants, and then said,
“That must’ve been hard.” His jaw flexed.
“Especially because you’re about to tell me you also had just put down your dog because he had rabies, and your mother contracted the plague and went blind, and your farm ground burned down and you lost every acre.
” He then smiled, his eyes sparkling. “Is there anything else I’m leaving out? ”
After that Morfran wouldn’t speak, and he wanted to write to his lawyer, but of course he didn’t tell the man that.
Eventually the man, who introduced himself as Jon Brimble but everyone called him Brim, except Morfran because he needed to earn that honor, laughed at his pouting anger and left, shutting him in the dark.
Morfran woke to a bag being tossed at his feet. He leapt as far back as his awkward position allowed—he could no longer feel his hands or his wrists—and eyed the bag like it was a wild animal.
How had he fallen asleep? He was Morfran the Beheader, Dark Lord of Ruthven?, and here he was in some shabby hut, tied to a post like some pathetic peasant who’d stolen a crust of bread. He’d planned to get out of here the moment he was alone, and instead he’d passed out from exhaustion.
Eight straight days of little sleep will do that to you, he imagined Benjamin saying to him.
You’re not even here. Shut up.
The bag was his pack; the contents had been rifled through, and jars of his jams had rolled out onto the dirt.
Dread filled his gut, but he said nothing as he raised his eyes to meet Bronwen’s.
She’d lowered herself onto the crate, eyes hard, mouth a tight line.
She looked like a wildcat—intimidating, dangerous, and ready to pounce.
He frowned. Usually, peasants didn’t get into glare matches with him, and if they did, their heads were swiftly removed from their shoulders.
Finally, he began to squirm—his butt was sore—and said, “Well? Have you come to boast about the incriminating evidence you’ve found against me, or are you planning to skewer me without the interrogation?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Then reopened it. “So you make jam.”
Out of all he expected her to accuse him of, this wasn’t the worst of it.
Sweat slid down his back, but this was another interrogation, and he’d do better now that he was rested up.
And if she believed him to be an idiot who named pregnant goats Benjamin, then he’d happily help her believe it.
He crossed his boots at his ankles and said casually, “Yes. Raspberry jam is my favored recipe, but I do make a mean blackberry jam as well. I have also tried my hand at wild plum, and rhubarb with orange and ginger. And golly, believe it or not, my pomegranate cranberry jam just won a blue ribbon at the county fair—”
“I don’t care,” she said, so abruptly that he couldn’t help but feel a little hurt. It was his fantasy. Did she have to be so dismissive towards it? “So you make jam, and that explains all the jars you’re packing. Explain the lute.”
Morfran was ready for this one. “I bought it from a penniless bard who sang about burbling streams. Said he couldn’t find work and he was going to jump off a bridge the next day.
He sold it to me for quarter-price. Quite a good bargain, if you ask me.
I was going to ask for lessons from him the next day, but I don’t know where he went. ”
She hesitated at that answer, but continued.
“And then there are these?” She held up his black leather pants with a triumphant look.
Panic threatened to well within him. No one in the kingdom owned a pair of black seductive leather pants like those except their Dark Lord.
It was kingdom-wide knowledge. He chuckled, turning his head to the side so she wouldn’t see the sweat trickling from his temple.