Assembly #3
“You see,” he begins, the wry twist of his lips hardly contained. “While I was ill, my mother and wife catered to my every need. Stoking the fire in the hearth so that I might stay warm. Spoon-feeding my meals. All manners of care, including medicinal.”
Euphemia inhales deeply, her moment finally arriving.
Dagfinn gestures toward her.
She rises before he can say her name. The movement draws another ripple of whispers from the crowd. Euphemia keeps her chin high as she crosses to his side. Her heart pounds, but she refuses to let it show.
She is the key ingredient to this recipe now.
And she is ready.
“Th-this is rather unorthodox, Lord Varinsson,” Percival huffs. “I must protest. Women are not permitted to—”
“I am aware of the customs, Percival,” Dagfinn says as he takes Euphemia’s hand, helping her onto the platform. “But it is I who outranks you, and I will hear my wife’s words before this assembly.”
“Thank you.” Euphemia bows her head to her husband.
His thumb brushes once across the back of her hand before he releases it.
A tiny gesture. But it steadies her.
He hands her the deed.
Euphemia turns toward the crowd. “I am no healer, but my mother is an alewife. I grew up helping her with the tavern, tending the garden, making people’s stays with us as comfortable as they could be.
As such, I’ve grown quite acquainted with herbs and a few remedies.
While Lord Varinsson was ill, I searched the garden at Thorfell Manor for some herbs that might soothe him. ”
She pauses.
Her fingers tighten around the parchment.
“In my search, I found this.”
She holds it up.
“Read it aloud for him, Euphemia. Tell the people who Thorfell really belongs to.”
Euphemia’s stomach twists.
She cannot read the words on the parchment. But she does not need to.
After hours rehearsing them last night, they are ingrained upon her lips.
Euphemia holds out the parchment and recites the passage that will fix everything.
“Under the laws governing the transfer of these lands, Thorfell Manor and its holdings are hereby granted to the legal possession of Lord Varinsson and his lawful heirs, subject to the obligations herein.”
Euphemia lifts her gaze.
Dagfinn strides beside her. The next part, they all agreed, needed to come from him.
“The surviving heirs of the Walsham family, George Walsham IV and Maryam Walsham, shall be provided a modest stewardship from the estate, sufficient to ensure their continued livelihood and security.”
A murmur sweeps through the crowd.
This time, it is not curiosity. It is doubt.
Euphemia feels it immediately.
Percival feels it too. His confidence falters.
“Give me that,” Percival growls, yanking the deed from Dagfinn’s grip.
“By all means, review it,” Dagfinn says. “While you do, allow me to introduce you all to the remaining Walsham heir.”
She turns toward the benches.
“Our very own Maryam Alley.”
Percival’s face goes utterly blank.
For one heartbeat, no one moves.
Then the hall erupts. They burst into discord—gasps and questions and shouted accusations ricocheting from one side of the hall to the other. For every person who looks delighted to see one of their own rise from obscurity, another wears an expression of outrage.
“Maryam?”
“She’s a Walsham?”
“The girl survived?”
Euphemia watches it all with a strange fascination.
The crowd is changing sides before her eyes.
All it took was one name.
“This is preposterous!” Percival’s voice rumbles among them.
Dagfinn rises like a mountain casting a valley in darkness, the mere height of him snuffing out the roaring of the room in one fell swoop.
He only has eyes for Percival, who he approaches with daunting intent.
Euphemia watches him go, her pulse thrumming with something dangerously close to triumph.
This is it.
They have him.
“Yes, it is quite preposterous,” Dagfinn growls. “Some might even say outright vile for a man of your standing to forge a deed to another man’s land, all in a selfish attempt to blackmail my mother into marrying him.”
The crowd is responsive, as always. No proof necessary for the vultures who’ve come to the slaughter.
Percival’s mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. “I’ve done no such thing. If you hold a different deed, then I was unaware it existed. The one I’ve presented is the one I had knowledge of.”
“Oh?” Dagfinn asks, voice thundering. “Are you claiming Thurstan is the liar here then?”
Timing it perfectly, Dagfinn spins toward the smarmy man whom Euphemia cannot take her eyes from.
She knows Thurstan. Has witnessed him at his most sobered and most disorderly. She has watched him rally a room behind a cause in a matter of moments.
But she has also seen how quick he turns heel when the room has soured.
He is no leader willing to go down with his cause.
He is a cockroach.
And cockroaches survive because they know how to endure and hide.
Thurstan will always do what is in Thurstan’s most immediate interest.
Dagfinn flashes Euphemia a victorious glance.
Then he turns to Thurstan. “Let’s see, shall we? You told this assembly that your father was George Walsham. And that your family changed its name to Carter when they left these lands.”
Thurstan shifts uneasily. “Aye.”
Dagfinn looks toward Maryam.
“Interesting,” he says. “Because the Walsham children who lived at Thorfell when my grandfather came here were named George and Maryam.”
Thurstan’s brow furrows.
“And this woman is Maryam.” He looks back to Thurstan.
“Which makes me wonder, Mr. Carter, if your father was the real George Walsham, why haven’t you mentioned his sister?
Better yet, shall I ask Maryam about what happened to her brother when he was only five, and how it would be impossible for him to have any heirs to Thorfell Manor? ”
A bead of sweat trickles down Thurstan’s throat.
“You don’t have to listen to him, Mr. Carter,” Percival growls. “You’ve already told your story.”
Thurstan’s hands only wring his woolen hat tighter.
Slowly he stands before the crowd.
“Don’t let him get to you, Mr. Carter—” Percival shouts, but he is too late.
“Let him speak!” the crowd jeers.
Thurstan swallows hard before confessing, “It was Percival’s idea.”
Once Thurstan begins, the truth doesn’t so much as leak out of him as it does flood.
It seems Cybele had been right.
Thurstan did come searching for Euphemia after her betrothal. He tells the crowd he felt like his son was owed something for the years he wasted courting a woman who ran off with someone else.
He tells them that he came to Thorfell with the intent of demanding compensation, but he ran into a jilted Percival before he could confront the Varinssons.
The two spent an evening wallowing, and over the course of a few pints, the conversation eventually drifted to the topic of Thurstan’s family legacy. And an idea was formed. Percival had access to the Varinsson deed. All he needed was to apply pressure and it would all be his—well, almost all his.
Thurstan explains the plan was to convince Kelda to accept Percival’s original proposal, that way he would inherit the estate and would then compensate Thurstan accordingly.
When that didn’t work, they resorted to more desperate measures that involved forging a new deed, naming Thurstan as the inheritor, and the two would then publicly announce a sizeable stewardship to Percival for righting Thurstan’s shattered family legacy.
By the time he’s finished, the assembly hall is no longer a quiet gathering of neighbors. It is a living thing.
Voices rise from every corner.
“You forged it?”
“You meant to take the manor?”
“Disgraceful!”
“Will Thorfell know no justice?”
Someone spits on the floor.
Another man calls Percival a thief.
The anger spreads through the hall like fire through dry thatch.
Euphemia watches Percival shrink beneath it.
“Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Carter,” Dagfinn says.
Then, with a flick of his wrist, he summons the constable forward.
Percival’s protests erupt all at once. “This is absurd. You can’t—”
His voice disappears beneath the roar of the assembly. People are on their feet now. Someone cheers. Another tells him he’s going straight to Hell. The same people who arrived ready to set fire to everything Dagfinn owns now crowd around him like a shield.
Percival is hauled from the assembly.
Euphemia watches him disappear through the doors.
For the first time all morning, she finally breathes.
Dagfinn turns to her, a wicked smile tugging at his mouth. “Well, that’s one matter handled.”
He looks nervous beneath his smile thought.
She leans onto the tips of her toes and plants a kiss on his cheek. “You’re doing what’s right. That’s all that matters. That’s what they want.”
Dagfinn gives her a nod before holding out an arm to quiet the crowd. “I’d like to be clear about one thing. Percival was dishonest and he abused his power to claim something that wasn’t his. Not so long ago, my father did the same.”
He gestures to Euphemia, who brings forward the deed.