Chapter 19 The Foundation of a Burned Cottage
The Foundation of a Burned Cottage
They burned the magpie and marigold banner that night after a brutal, bloody battle for the city.
The Redmoth guards were among the fiercest and most devoted to Morfran and Ravana’s rule they’d encountered so far.
The fights had waged for hours until Morfran finally led the charge into Magnate Ramsley’s fortress—which was actually a mausoleum as large as a castle, complete with rooms stuffed with coffins and skulls—and, after the magnate refused to yield, killed the man, who put up no fight and seemed a little too into the whole dying thing.
The rebels had complained about the difficulty of this endeavor and the soldiers’ zealousness, but if they thought about it a little more, it’d make sense to them.
This was Morfran’s childhood home.
That night the celebration was muted in the wake of the casualties taken.
The villagers, grateful to be freed from Morfran’s rule, offered them hot meals and dry clothing and spare beds, and most of the rebels slurped the soups, changed into the unbloodied new clothes, and passed out in the beds without much huzzah.
The exhaustion the rebels felt was a deeper exhaustion within Morfran.
It genuinely bothered him to hear about Brim’s wife, just as much as it bothered him that Bronwen’s lover was dead and Rapunzo had been left in a tower for his brain to rot.
These weren’t things he could fix. These weren’t things he could simply lop the heads off, or strike with a bolt of lightning, or sic his hounds on.
He’d always been capable of solving his problems with what resources and smarts he had, but these weren’t easily addressed.
The best you can do is make amends, Beni seemed to say from her perch near his feet. He’d gotten a small inn room that allowed animals, and though the bed was tiny, Benjamin had insisted she take up half with Minny and Jak.
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” he murmured, lying face up, legs bent to accommodate her.
Are you using all in your power to fix things, or are you only doing it halfway?
He didn’t answer, because he didn’t want to.
He hadn’t expected to be fazed by revisiting his childhood home.
He thought he’d come to terms with what had happened here when he’d returned ten years back to bring it under his domain.
But in addition to feeling like an uncool bastard for what he’d done to Brim, and Bronwen, and Rapunzo, and—why, the majority of the lot, to be honest—he also felt unsettled by the familiar streets of his youth.
Finally, after two hours of trying to sleep and being kicked by Beni for tossing and turning, he got up and started making his way towards the taverns and pubs.
Redmoth was huge, and the person he was searching for might not even be here, but he needed to find a certain mercenary if he wanted to help the rebels march on Warshire’s three cities.
Along the way, however, he found his feet carrying him towards a different route, a route that led him out of the city towards a lot overgrown with grass and trees just off the road.
If one were simply passing by, they might not notice the long-charred frame of a small cottage.
They might not know that there had once been a large vegetable garden alongside the cottage, or that the yard had once been carpeted with sweet-smelling forget-me-nots, stalks of lavender, and the pale pink of heather.
“Is that you, Bernard?”
The frail voice came from down the road, and as he squinted into the cold, damp night, he made out the hunched shape of Grandfather Tortoise hobbling towards him. He wasn’t alone. Bronwen was following him, a cloak flung over her nightgown and her boots untied, as if she’d had to rush out in haste.
“See.” Tortoise turned to her, gesturing with his cane. “He has the same idea to go for a stroll.”
“A foolish idea, since it’s outside the walls,” Bronwen replied tartly, her face lined with fatigue. But she seemed to perk up when she saw him. “General Killian and his men could be out here waiting to attack the city.”
Tortoise snorted, dismissing this with a wave of a hand. “That man can’t think on his own. He follows orders down to the word. Now, Morfran, on the other hand, he’s a thinker.”
“And a murderer,” she added. “Honestly, Grandfather Tortoise. If I have to hear you compliment the man one more time, I’ll leave you to wander back to your tent alone.”
“Hush, girl. Don’t be so hasty to dismiss him.
Yes, he’s a despicable human being who is likely to never redeem himself in this lifetime”—Morfran tried not to wilt on the spot at this—“but you could learn a few things about him. You must first understand your enemy if you want to defeat him. Right, Bernard?”
He forced a smile. “Absolutely.”
“You know a thing or two about him, don’t you, being one of his ex-generals? Why don’t you share something with us? Teach Bronwen a thing or two in case she ever does have the opportunity to stab him in the heart.”
That…just makes me not want to. But Morfran relented because he was in a morose, reckless mood, and gestured to the ruins of the cottage. “For starters, he was born here. Lived here until he was twelve.”
Both Tortoise and Bronwen jerked their gazes to him.
“I thought he was a prince?” Bronwen inquired.
“Lies,” Morfran replied. “He lies a lot. His parents were peasants.” He paused. “No, that’s not true, either. His mother is considered a Saint. Though most don’t like to connect the two.”
“Truly?” Tortoise asked.
“There’s a plaque in the city honoring her memory.”
“I read that one.” Tortoise nodded. “It said she died and came back to life twelve times. Remarkable.”
“Twelve?” Bronwen seemed impressed. “The gods must’ve adored her if they brought her back twelve times.”
Morfran snorted, looking up at the sky. The clouds were black wool tugged over the stars, although silver light from the moon bled through.
“The gods had nothing to do with it. As you already noticed, those who put up the plaque cherry-picked only the good parts of her story. Her husband was a necromancer.”
“What?” Her eyes widened in disbelief. “But that would mean—”
“Morfran’s father was a necromancer?” he finished, before adding quietly, “He was indeed.”
“But—if he brought her back each time she died, wouldn’t she stink? Wouldn’t she look and smell…well…like death?”
“Her husband was one of very few necromancers who practiced the art correctly. To properly resurrect someone, it must be done unselfishly and out of love, and you can’t bind them to you like necromancers in this kingdom had the bad habit of doing,” he explained.
“He brought her back in perfect form every time.”
She nodded slowly before asking, “Why was she killed so often? Even my greatest enemy wouldn’t seek my death thirteen times.”
Morfran sighed. Therein lay the Great Reason behind the culmination of his wickedness.
His mother wasn’t anyone special. She wasn’t even blessed by the divine.
She was just a regular person who espoused kindness, the type of person who baked home-cooked meals, wrapped them up lovingly, and gifted them to neighbors down the street.
She was the type of woman who kissed bumped knees and played hide-and-seek in the town square with local children, and whose smile was freely given out even to those who sneered back at her.
There were always those who sneered. Or worse. She’d be out tending to her garden or on her way to a quilting circle, and she’d see someone passing by and wish them a good day. And as people were wont to do, someone would take offense and kill her.
He remembered his father coming home after a long day’s work of resurrecting dead goats from a nearby goat farm, or resurrecting the village idiot for having fallen down the well and cracked his head open again, and huffing whenever he saw his wife’s dead, bloody body or dead, strangled body or dead, poisoned body strewn out in the yard.
Each time he’d plop down beside her, grumbling about the wickedness of bad people. Then he’d bring her back by scattering a few stalks of nightshade over her wound and muttering a few words in the old language and then scold her about being kind to random strangers.
“How are we possibly to know who’s good and who’s bad before we meet them? I’ll say hello to whoever I damn well please, Bernard,” she’d snap, and then plop a gracious kiss on his lips, stand up, and ask them if they’d prefer meatloaf or lamb stew for dinner.
The whole ordeal was ridiculous, he thought as he stared at the cottage ruins. His mother would have been furious to learn she’d been memorialized as a Saint. What type of world do we live in if doing the decent thing is cause for celebration? she’d have said.
Bronwen was still waiting for an answer.
“She was killed by a very bad person on the day her husband was killed by a very good person,” Morfran said.
That day was the worst day of his life. A traveling troop of knights who called themselves the kNighty-kNight Necromancers Club had heard about the many necromancers flourishing in the city and swept through, killing every last one.
This included his father, who had been in the process of resurrecting their neighbor’s daughter’s pet rabbit named Scruffy, and whose selfless efforts to bring the bunny back for its little owner never came to fruition.
Then his mother had been killed by his cranky neighbor Phil, who didn’t like being told “today is a blessed day,” and came at her in a rage.
That day, Morfran was orphaned at the age of twelve.
And that was the day, while cradling his parents’ dead bodies (and subsequently the rabbit’s, because Scruffy had been in his father’s arms when he’d been slain), he’d decided it: if a bad person had killed his mother, and a good person had killed his father, and people were going to kill without scrutiny of who exactly they were making dead, then so would he.
He would just kill everybody. Indiscriminately.
First, he’d gone after Phil. Then he’d gone after all those knight activists who’d killed his father.
After that he declared war on Redmoth necromancers, since they’d given all necromancers a bad name, and as such, had led to the birth of a stupid activist group named the kNighty-kNight Necromancers Club.
Many times over the following years the question had crossed his mind of whether his parents would be proud that he’d become the Dark Lord of Ruthven?.
The answer was always no, but they were dead, so what did they care, and besides, killing lowered his blood pressure, so that was always a benefit to his whole waging-war-on-everybody shtick, and he was sure at least his doctor would approve, and if he didn’t then he could just kill him and hire a new one.
“I suppose those people killed his father because he practiced the necromantic arts, correct?” Tortoise asked, then pointed his cane at the ruins of the cottage. “I suppose they’re also responsible for burning down their home?”
Morfran studied the dilapidated stones that were the last vestiges of his past house. Elm saplings were sprouting out from the foundation. “No,” he said. “No, that was Morfran’s doing. It was the first building he’d ever burned.”
“Why?” Bronwen. There was slight pain in her eyes, her voice. Morfran remembered her telling him that she’d been burned out of her home by his men. But burning your own home willingly?
“So he couldn’t come back to it,” Morfran responded quietly, and then, when a great silence followed his words, he glanced over at their inquisitive stares and amended, “At least, that’s my guess, anyways. Would anyone want to be reminded of the empty house their parents no longer lived in?”
Bronwen hadn’t looked away from him, her gaze trailing his face.
In the moonlight her eyes were a deep green, so similar to his mother’s garden.
He tried not to sweat at the intensity of being appraised, especially by her.
“Are you going to be ready? When the day comes and we have to kill him?” There was something gentle about the way she said it.
“You speak about him with sympathy. Almost as if he is a friend you still care about.”
What in the world was he supposed to say to that? “I’d prefer not to kill him,” he said weakly.
Tortoise’s mouth quivered as if he were quelling laughter.
Bronwen also smiled, pushing his shoulder in a teasing taunt.
“Then maybe I’ll take that burden from you.
” Her hand lingered. “After all, now that we found out about my hex’s loophole, who knows?
Maybe I’ll get the honors of killing Morfran and Ravana, and all you’ll have to do is watch. ”