Chapter 5

Aldrich Covington watched the young woman move up and down on top of him as he laid back against the feather pillows of his bed. She closed her eyes and turned her head away from him, but at least she wasn’t crying anymore. He couldn’t stand all the crying; the first two women had been disposed of because they just couldn’t stop. The first he had pushed off the roof, almost by mistake. The second he had smothered in bed. Her nonstop tears had been keeping him awake. This new one looked like she might stick around for a while though. Until he grew tired of her and found someone new.

There would be no trouble finding a new bed warmer when the time came, unlike home.

He’d grown up as part of a well to do family in England, just outside of Birmingham. When he was in his late teens the coppers had shown up at their country house and slapped the cuffs on his father. It turned out the old man had put huge portions of their money into some disastrous investments. To cover his losses, he’d taken to defrauding members of their social circle. His father had been taken away amid the flashing of TV cameras

After a quick trial that played out on the nightly news, he’d been sentenced to twenty years to life in prison. His mother had had nowhere to turn once his father was in a cell. The rest of the family cut them off. Between the loss of all the money and the embarrassment of the trial, they’d had enough. Doors slammed shut on them all across the country. The old man’s fraud had extended to almost everyone they knew. When the investigators had come to auction off the last house, she had gone to take a bath with a bottle of pills and never come out again.

Aldrich had been on his own then. One parent in prison, the other in the ground. All of his former mates were warned off from being around him. The government had taken everything to try to make restitution to his father’s victims. Before he knew it, he was living on the streets in Birmingham. His own bank accounts were emptied in months, not that there was much in them to begin with.

He had no job skills. His private school had expelled him after his father was arrested. His days were spent more and more in the pub. A group of toughs approached him while he was three pints deep and asked him if he wanted to help them pull a job.

The woman on top of him started moving faster, he put his hands on her hips to slow her down. She wasn’t going to get this over with that quickly.

When the street punks had asked him to join them, he hadn’t even wanted to know what they were up to. It was the first time anyone had shown interest in him since the trial. Aldrich soon found out that their aim was to rob a bank and he was going to be the muscle.

Covington was a big man, even then, when he was only nineteen. He was six over feet tall on a good day and thickly built. In those days he still had a head full of thick black hair. There weren’t any scars on his face yet, and his blue eyes hadn’t become hardened. That first job went well, all he had to do was stand near the door and look intimidating. They made a clean getaway and split the money.

Aldrich went back to the pubs, not expecting to see his accomplices again. A few days went by before he was approached by a different group of men, this time about hijacking a truck. Again, the job went well, only this time the men asked him to meet them again the next day. This was his entry to the world of Birmingham’s organized crime.

He got on well with the different toughs and bosses in the organization. He did the jobs and kept his mouth shut. Before long Aldrich had moved his way up the ranks to where he was no longer the one having to rob the banks or hijack the trucks directly. Year after year he advanced in the organization. He shaved his head when he started to lose his hair, this only served to make him more intimidating to those around him. Scars and tattoos followed one after another until he looked nothing like the rich kid whose father was arrested anymore.

There were some in the underworld who never forgot where he came from, however. Always one person at a meeting who gave him a distrustful look. Always some snide comment about being soft or spoiled. He made everyone around him plenty of money and there were a few that he considered his friends. But he remained isolated, never truly respected, never truly trusted.

He’d been waiting in the pub before a meeting with a member of a rival organization when he felt cold metal against the back of his head. There hadn’t been any time to react. Just a loud noise and then ... nothing.

The woman started moving faster on top of him again and this time he let her. Before long he had reached his finish and pushed her off of him. She rolled over and curled into a ball. Aldrich got up from the bed and walked out onto the balcony of his room. Since arriving, he’d been given one of the nicer rooms in the castle, high up in a tower. The open window overlooked the city wall and the lush valley that surrounded it.

The room he woke up in after being shot looked just like the pub he’d been in. Except there was no one else there. No sad drunks, no shady figures making quiet deals in the booths, no bartender to pour him a drink. Then the voices started. Telling him he’d been chosen for an experiment, asking him to make a list of supplies. Aldrich had torn the bar apart after that, smashing chairs and throwing bottles of alcohol in every direction. He’d even ripped a bench off the floor and tried to use it as a battering ram on the door when it wouldn’t open, no matter what he tried.

In his head the voices continued, experiments and lists over and over. Aldrich stood in the middle of the destroyed bar, breathing heavy, his right eye twitching. This couldn’t be real. Was this a coma? Or was this hell, a punishment for his life of crime. Once again, he was left with nothing.

He’d made his list as requested. Some food and water, some clothes, other odds and ends he wasn’t willing to do without. Of course, he tried to put weapons on the list every way he could think of. Each time he was told they wouldn’t be sent. Except for a couple of knives, he had no way to defend himself. He could feel his hour of time creeping to a close when he came up with a solution. The voices in his head wouldn’t let him have any guns or bullets, but there were other things he could make. He filled the rest of his allotment with little clay pots and powdered sulfur, charcoal, and saltpeter. That was allowed to stay on the list. He congratulated himself on outthinking the voices in his head when he arrived naked in the dirt on the floor of a cave.

Aldrich’s right eye was twitching as he sat up and looked around the cave. This was the worst dream he’d ever had. In minutes he’d gotten dressed and filled a bag with spare clothes along with some food and water. One box was full of row after row of small ceramic pots. Slightly smaller than his closed fist, they were all perfect orbs with an opening the size of a two-pound coin. At the end of the crate was a pile of corks with a length of fuse threaded through the middle of each one.

It took him almost an hour to get the ratios right, mixing the various powders he’d brought. Eventually he got it right and started filling the little pots. Soon he had a baker’s dozen ready to go in a messenger bag. Aldrich slung the strap of the bag over one shoulder, picked up his sack of emergency rations, and on a whim, an umbrella.

The door of his cave opened onto a ledge overlooking a valley in the mountains. A path ran down away from his cave, through the trees and out into the grassy hills of the valley. In the distance he could see a large town, peaked roofs and stone towers looking idyllic against the surrounding mountains. There was a slight drizzle of rain coming down from the low hanging clouds, the sun peeking through occasionally.

He opened the umbrella and set off down the path. Aldrich had to admit, his brain had outdone itself this time. His dreams were never this detailed usually, or this imaginative. Aside from the rain, it was a pleasant little walk down off the ridge where the cave was set into one of the mountains at the end of the valley. Aldrich made it down the slope and through the trees in an hour or so. He didn’t see a soul until he was almost out of the forest.

A thin rangy man was walking up the path into the trees carrying a bow and arrow. He was dressed in greens and tans to blend in with the undergrowth, hood up over his head against the rain. The man stopped to gawk at Aldrich, he’d never seen an umbrella before. Aldrich had stopped in the middle of the path and offered the stranger a polite hello.

It turned out that he was a hunter employed by the rulers of the valley, brothers who would be returning from a trip overseas, some losers named Greddor and Nessor. The Robin Hood impersonator also let him know that he was in the Sinton Valley, which lead down to the shore of the Verdant Sea. They chit-chatted about other news of the valley for a few minutes and then the hunter had to move on with his work.

Aldrich nodded and watched him head into the trees. On a whim he opened the messenger bag and pulled out one of the little pots. He lit the fuse with a match and called out to the helpful stranger. The man turned back to him, thinking he had more questions. Aldrich thanked him for the information, then tossed the lit grenade to the man. He caught it easily and stared at it, confused. Aldrich Covington turned to keep walking down the path with his umbrella up.

He hummed under his breath as he walked and counted down from ten. “I’ve just come down from the Isle of Skye, I’m no very big an’ I’m awfully shy...”

A wave of pressure hit him in the back when the grenade exploded. The hunter disintegrated from the waist up, tiny parts of him and droplets of blood mixing with the rain as it hit his umbrella.

“All the lassies shout as I walk by, Donald where’s your trousers...”

David was eating lunch in the kitchen with Rosha and her daughter. Jaym was with Boland taking care of the horses and the carriage out back. It had been almost a week since his confrontation with Lord Harsk. Liri finished her food and ran out the back door before her mother could stop her. The young maid was getting better at finding excuses to ‘help’ the caretaker.

“You need to start a family. Or host more events so I have some work for that girl.” Rosha said.

He laughed and kept eating, there was little chance of her getting her wish. There had been a meeting of artisans in the library the day before yesterday, though that didn’t require Liri to do much. He’d shown the almost twenty printers and engravers the early readers that Jaym had been studying. They assured him that they could manage to recreate them, including the pictures. David had been swapping out the existing books in the library with ones from the cave, he now had one copy of every book he’d brought with him in his house. The printers would get started with the schoolbooks and then move on to the others.

There had been too many teaching candidates to get them all in one room of his house, so that meeting had taken place at one of the guildhalls. Some of the hopefuls had been eliminated simply because they had no interest in working with children. A few others had walked when he refused to give their guild exclusive rights to what they would learn. In the end he had been left with nearly seventy-five potential teachers. The first meeting had been spent going over the alphabet and basic pronunciation. Soon the printers would have copies of the early readers for each of them, then they could start learning in earnest.

Caelly stopped by to say that planning on the new castle in the forest was progressing, but other than that he had had no contact with the palace. David had been busy getting everything set up to teach people how to read, along with getting his house in order, so this hadn’t bothered him. The Queen knew where he lived, she could send for him if she needed to.

Things were coming together nicely at Ilex House. Addan and Rosha had taken care of the pantry and kitchen, while Boland had filled out the stables with four additional horses. Jaym was progressing to reading full sentences, but he hadn’t found him a fencing instructor yet. The young man was still proud of his new sword and carried it with him everywhere, however.

David finished his lunch and before he could get up Rosha took the dishes to the sink to wash them. It still took some getting used to, being waited on every day.

“You could always just let them go out on a date.” He offered. “Maybe they’ll decide they’re not a good match and get it out of their system.”

Rosha glared at him over her shoulder. “Would you want to put money on that? That girl’s got it bad for this one. I wasn’t any different at her age. I think she just likes that for once, a man might be interested, and he hasn’t groped her or made a lewd comment.”

She turned to face David and leaned against the sink. “I can’t really blame her. I don’t think she’s had a single day in the last couple years where someone hasn’t grabbed her ass. The dangers of going through puberty and working at an inn.”

David felt for her, it wouldn’t be easy balancing her profession and looking out for what was best for her daughter. He was about to tell her that when the bell for the front door rang. Rosha left the kitchen to answer it, while David sat at the table, thinking he should talk to Boland. If the caretaker wasn’t interested in Liri, they might save Rosha a lot of worry over nothing.

“Master David? Could you come to the front hall please?” Rosha had come back and was waiting in the doorway to the kitchen.

He followed her down the long hallway to the front of the house. There was a uniformed man waiting for them in the foyer. David recognized him as one of the guards that had gone with them when he had shown the Queen the cave he had arrived in. The man looked a lot less comfortable down off the back of a horse.

“Hello, I’m sorry I don’t remember your name from before.” David said.

“It’s Corval, sir. I’m sorry too, I’ve been sent to take you before the crown. A complaint was received by her Majesty about you.” The guard stood stiffly at attention, but he sounded like he sympathized with David.

“Really? Who complained about me?” He had been expecting Lord Harsk to go straight to the Queen after he left his house. After not hearing anything for a few days, David figured maybe he had just dropped the issue and hired new people at the Leaping Horse.

“I don’t know that sir, I’m just supposed to bring you to court.” David had to admit, it was the politest arrest he had ever heard of.

He sent Rosha to get Jaym and headed out onto the street with Corval. A carriage was waiting out in front of the house, another guard was standing by the door. Jaym came out, breathing heavy as though he had run all the way.

“What’s going on Master David? Miss Rosha said you were getting arrested!” He gasped between deep breaths.

David did his best to reassure him, “No, I don’t think I’m being arrested exactly. But I do have to go to the palace, and I want you to come with me.”

The two of them climbed into the carriage with Corval, the other guard sat up front with the driver. He was resistant when David attempted to get more information out of him about the complaint. All Corval knew was that he was told to bring him to the Queen.

Soon they were pulling in under the archway at the palace. David and Jaym got out of the carriage while both guards followed behind them in lockstep. Soon they were at the doors of the throne room again, only this time there was no group of hopeful suitors waiting outside. Another set of guards opened the doors to let them through. A similar crowd to the last time David was there filled the room, chattering away while he and his servant were marched down the center aisle.

Mialana was again sitting on her throne, this time in a deep purple dress with silver stitching around the hem. To David she didn’t look happy, but she didn’t necessarily look hostile either. The guards stopped him a few feet from the dais and stepped away to the side of the room. David bowed low to the Queen, followed by Jaym after a slight hesitation.

“Good afternoon your Majesty, your guards said you wanted to see me?” He tried to keep his tone pleasant, if he had really done something wrong, they would have put him in ropes or handcuffs.

The Queen didn’t respond to his greeting, instead she motioned her chamberlain forward to speak.

“The Queen will now hear the complaint against David Winston of Am-err-icka. Lord Kenterus Harsk, as the accuser, please step forward to make your case.” The man’s voice echoed through the room.

The arrogant Count stepped out of the crowd and approached the dais. He had traded his usual silks for a heavily embroidered gold jacket and a ruffled shirt. He too bowed to the Queen, though not as low as David had. Mialana inclined her head a fraction of an inch in acknowledgement.

“Your Highness, this ... this man has robbed me. He came into an establishment that I own and walked out with three of my workers. He is a foreigner to our city, he has no right to just steal my workers, especially without so much as issuing a request to me!” Harsk’s head was slick with perspiration as he ramped up into his argument. He waved his arm at David dismissively, the lacy collar of his sleeve floated around his hand.

“He is nothing, a no-account traveler. How dare he come to this city and take money from my own pocket...”

The Queen cut him off mid-sentence, “Yes, Lord Harsk, you’ve been saying that for six days to anyone who will stand still long enough.”

She sighed and looked at David apologetically, “Have you taken anything that is owned by Lord Harsk?”

“No! I hired one person that used to work at one of his inns to run my household. She filled out her staff with other people she knew, who also used to work at the same inn. None of them had a contract with Lord Harsk. Is he claiming he owns them?” David asked.

All eyes in the throne room turned to the irate nobleman. David waited for his answer along with everyone else. He had found out through questioning Rosha about her employment that slavery was illegal in Wellon and had been for almost five hundred years. As far as he could see, Harsk was stuck. Either he gave up on this theft nonsense, or he admitted to a crime himself if he pursued it.

Lord Harsk was thinking quickly, there had to be a way to get this slippery foreign demon. “No, of course I do not claim to own any of my employees. However, as their lord I...”

The Queen cut him off again. “As their lord you have the right to hire them and pay them whatever wages you agree upon, that is all.”

She turned in her chair to look at David, “I am sorry about this. He has been bringing this complaint to the court for the last five days. I have explained things the same way every time, but he is convinced that you are somehow in the wrong because you did not ask his permission to hire them away from the inn.”

David rolled his eyes, “If it’ll make him shut up, I’d be happy to pay him for any lost wages until he can hire replacements.”

“Done. There is your justice, Lord Harsk. Do not bother the crown with matters like this in the future.” Mialana was glad to be finished with this trivial nonsense.

Kenterus couldn’t believe it. Not only was this interloper not going to be punished, he had also managed to come out of it looking magnanimous, offering him full compensation. It was too much to endure. His face flushed with anger as he spoke, “It is not ‘done’! I do not accept this.”

“Oh, for the love of God...” David groaned.

“In the name of the Mother...” Mialana whispered on her throne.

Even the spectators in the throne room had run out of patience with the discussion. The low-level whispers had risen to the point that the chamberlain had to step forward and shout everyone down.

Harsk continued, undeterred. “This vagabond has no rights here. Ever since he arrived in this palace, he has taken every opportunity to insult me. My family have been part of the nobility of Wellon going back over fourteen generations. This peasant doesn’t deserve to even look me in the eye, let alone think that he has gotten the better of me.”

Mialana clenched and unclenched her hands in her lap to keep from pulling out her own hair. “Then what is it that you want, you pompous buffoon?! I have made my judgement on this matter, and unless you have forgotten, I am the Queen here.”

He knew he was treading on thin ice now, there wasn’t anything he could do if this was the Queen’s final decision. He was too important to the realm for her to strip him of his position, but he could still be banished from the city, or have other privileges revoked. Finally, he hit upon an idea, one that even the Queen couldn’t interfere with.

Lord Harsk straightened to his full height and faced Mialana directly. “I invoke the Right of Honor.”

The room went very quiet at that announcement. David had no idea what that meant and a look down at Jaym told him that he didn’t either. The Queen’s eyes went wide with fury, this was the last thing that she wanted. Only the Lord General didn’t seem fazed by the development.

“Don’t be an idiot Harsk. You’ve already made out better than you could have hoped in this situation, Right of Honor isn’t necessary here. This complaint had no business even coming before the throne and you know it.” Greeg rumbled in his deep voice.

The stubborn nobleman would not be deterred. “I could not care less about money from him. He has insulted me every chance he’s had, and I will have satisfaction. I have the Right of Honor and I will take it.”

Greeg shook his head and stepped back to his place next to the dais. Mialana stood up in front of the throne, the silver stitching on her deep purple dress reflecting the light streaming in through the windows on the courtyard. Her face was set in a deep frown, eyes glittering in anger at Harsk.

“The Right of Honor has been invoked. Once claimed, it cannot be refused. By royal decree, it will be carried out here in the palace courtyard at noon tomorrow. May the Mother watch over the righteous.” She bowed her head and everyone else in the room did the same.

The crowd headed to the exits of the throne room following the Queen’s pronouncement. Harsk left with a wide grin on his face, staring daggers at David as he walked past. Mialana left through one of the doors behind the throne. Caelly followed after her, she sniffed in David’s direction, then lifted her chin in the air and disappeared through the door. After a few moments only David, Jaym, and the Lord General were left in the room. The older man sat down carefully on the edge of the dais, motioning David over to him.

“Well, you really set him off more than I expected when you stood up for your little friend there.” General Greeg smiled at them while he rubbed at his knees. Even though he was sitting, he was still eye level with David. “I didn’t think even he was arrogant enough to claim the Right of Honor over something as trivial as this.”

“All I wanted to do was hire a housekeeper.” David was tired of all the accusations flying his way. Not to mention the confusion over how the legal system worked here. “What even is the Right of Honor?”

Lord General Draedon Greeg gave him a sympathetic look and breathed out slowly before answering.

“It’s a duel of course.” He looked David and Jaym each in the eye, “To the death.”

The armies of the Sinton Valley marched down to the sea with Aldrich amongst them. He was riding on a small wagon with a driver assigned to him by either Greddor or Nessor, he could never remember which one was which. In the bed of the wagon behind him were piled dozens of large sacks. Big promises had been made for this adventure, and he had to be sure to deliver.

After he’d walked away from the naïve hunter it had been easy to find his way into the main city of the valley. He spent a day or two checking out various taverns. The beers there were decent, not quite like home, but better than anything he’d had in America. There was no way for him to pay for anything, whenever the subject came up, he stared down whoever was asking until it went away. People here were a lot smaller than him, and no one wanted to get him angry. They had never seen such markings on a person’s hands and neck before.

On his third day in the city a couple armored men had approached him while he was sitting down to a mug of breakfast. They both had helmets, breastplates, and armored gauntlets on. To Aldrich they looked ridiculous, why would anyone wear nonsense like that? Even the guards at Buckingham Palace didn’t wear that garbage anymore.

“Excuse me sir, are you the man that has been talking about Am-err-icka?” The older one asked.

Aldrich downed the rest of the mug before answering. “Yeah, I said a thing or two about getting a pint in the States. Their beer is shite, and you can’t convince me otherwise, I don’t care what those Yanks in America say.”

The two men exchanged glances and pulled out the swords they were both carrying.

“You’ll need to come with us please, sir. The Lords of Sinton Valley would like a word with you.”

He didn’t take too kindly to having weapons pulled on him, but he was interested to see where this was going so he stood up and left the tavern with the two men.

The two armored men marched him through the city to a heavily fortified castle that backed up to a mountain. Everything in Sinton was made of stone from the valley. The castle loomed over the rest of the city like a dark grey cloud. There was little ornamentation on the building itself, just bare stone and wood. The windows he saw had no glass in them, they were all narrow, positioned to give archers a view all the way around the castle.

Both guards walked ahead of him over an actual drawbridge. Aldrich could see fish swimming in the moat before he passed under the portcullis into the outer courtyard. He had gone on quite a few tours of historical sites when he was a kid, this place was on par with any of the forts he’d been to in Britain, aside from being a little too utilitarian for his taste.

Two large identical men wearing red capes were watching a group of soldiers train in the courtyard. Forty men in chainmail shirts stood in ranks of ten with shields and spears in their hands. A sergeant stood in front of them barking orders.

“Shields together!”

Each rank of men interlocked their shields with their spears poking up over the top of them.

“Advance!”

The courtyard echoed with the sound of marching feet as the group of men moved towards the gate.

“Halt! Reverse!”

Forty spears pointed to the sky as each soldier turned on the spot, locked their shields together again, and marched back to their original spot.

Aldrich’s escorts pushed him up to the caped men overseeing the soldiers, the younger one cleared his throat to get their attention. Both men looked irritated to have their attention taken away from the practice. Aldrich couldn’t tell them apart, they were both almost as big as he was, around six feet tall. The pair had matching brown hair that went past their shoulders, along with thick beards. They were wearing leather pants and boots that were well worn and comfortable looking. Their chests were covered by heavy steel breastplates, shining steel etched with a soaring falcon.

The two guards bowed low to the two men. The older one rose first and addressed the twin on the left, “Lord Nessor, Lord Greddor, this is the man that was heard talking about Am-err-icka in town.”

The irritated looks disappeared after that, each man looking at Aldrich with new interest. The one called Nessor motioned the guards to leave and Aldrich was left by himself in front of the identical twins. The other one, Greddor, was the first to address him directly.

“So, you’re from Am-err-icka too? Odd to have two men from a country no one ever heard of before come across our path in so short a time. Does everything you touch turn to gold too?”

Aldrich had no idea what was going on. Why would his imagination make up a bunch of nonsense about the Yanks? He couldn’t stand those arrogant pricks. “I don’t know who you talked to, but I’m bloody well not from America. I’m from a real country mate, England. Fuckin’ Yanks think they own the whole world, well, they don’t own Aldrich Covington, that’s for sure. And I grew up better than most, but I sure as shite don’t turn things into gold.”

The question about money had touched an old nerve. For a moment he’d heard the snide comments about being posh he’d heard so many times doing jobs in the underworld. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and stared down both men. He’d be damned if he was going to put up with that garbage for one more second.

“England? You’re not from Dal-las too? Why are you in the Sinton Valley? Are you trying to get to Wellon?” Nessor asked his questions in a rapid-fire manner.

Aldrich groaned in frustration, “Yes, England! I have no idea what Wellon is, I’m in the Sinton Valley because that’s where I was dropped. And do I have a bloody cowboy hat on?!”