"I was a highwayman…"
The half-hearted murmurings on Dismas' lips grew quieter as the vistas grew colder, barren. The verdant heartland of Germany was replaced by yellowed, dying stalks and walls of husking, dried up trees.
The company in the carriage was not much warmer. Fenton leafed over accounts whilst the crusader merely sat there, his gaze unseen for the visored helmet he wore. Dismas hadn't yet seen him take it off.
Can't trust a man who can't look you in the eye.
Dismas' eyes turned from the knight to observe the unfriendly thicket, but his eyes would often flit back to the knight.
"What is it?" The knight finally spoke. Caught off-guard, Dismas' eyebrows lofted as he smiled.
"The crusader speaks! There was me thinking you were just part of the scenery."
"I refuse to speak to a murdering, guttershite thief like you." The knight spat, which in turn got a dark chuckle out of Fenton. Dismas furrowed his brow, rebuffed, his gaze switching to the nobleman.
"Sir Reynauld, shall I illuminate your comrade as to why you're here?
Or will you be able to keep a civil tongue?" Fenton asked, his face turning to regard the crusader – but not before finding a moment to wink Dismas' way. It was a small gesture, but Dismas felt immensely grateful for it.
Reynauld said nothing, but there was an audible clink of chainmail and a creak of leather as his hands balled into armoured fists. Dismas was curious about the crusader's past, however, his mouth opening to pull that thread before he heard a crack, and the world jumped into a rolling, jarring blackness as the wagon left the road.
Dismas dreamt of Sabine as he lay there. That wonderful girl with the pretty face and that pain-relieving nectar. The way she'd fussed and cared for him, swinging between silly little questions about his life and thought-out inquiries about his health.
Then she started to retreat from him. A blossom of red appeared on her chest. He was outside looking in, through the jagged portal at her, the child's head burst open like a flower-
He awoke with a cry, finding the visor of Reynauld staring down at him, his stern and cold armour surrounded by the dead woods and obscuring a blood red sky. Dismas leant back, and then wished he hadn't as the rope burns around his neck flared.
"Lord Fenton suggests we're in danger. Up." Reynauld stated, offering Dismas his gauntlet.
Dismas took it, and with the knight's help, rose to his feet. Reynauld turned and strode after their master, drawing the largest sword Dismas had ever seen in his life.
"Overcompensating?" Dismas suggested.
"Fuck off. Get ready." Reynauld snarled.
Despite the ever-closing danger, Dismas felt a spike of anger. "I'm ready."
"Draw your weapons." Reynauld said.
"They'll answer, when called for." Dismas replied airily as they fell in line with Fenton.
"You think I'm going to be impressed, Uncatchable?" Reynauld asked, going very still as they heard a twig snap, out there, in the woods.
Old blades of grass and foliage whispered as it was moved through as delicately as possible, before going silent. There was no rustle of cloth, no clink of chainmail, no errant sound from Fenton's group. They did not know so much as sense that they were in full view of their assailants. A pregnant, near inviolable stillness settled around them. The hunters and the hunted knew the steps to this dance, but it seemed all hesitated in that moment, almost nervous to trigger the unknowable degrees of violence that both parties could visit upon the other, wanting to prolong this terrible limbo. The sides may just be even, Dismas decided, If they had the numbers, they'd throw themselves upon us.
As if to confirm his musings, their stalker spoke up. "Put down your weapons," a voice called through the dark trees, "It'll make what happens next quicker."
"We have money." Fenton replied.
"Don't care." The voice returned, eliciting a cruel chuckle, off to Dismas' left. Dismas felt something wake up in his breast as he heard their opponent's response. Dismas had robbed and killed for money, to make a living, only killing when it was prudent to. But it seemed like these men killed to satisfy on a darker, fundamental level. A ghost of a smile played on his lips as he recognised the hypocrisy of his feelings.
He felt contempt for them.
"So come, if you're coming." Fenton grated.
To Dismas, the sound was unmistakable. It was the layered, metallic click of a flint-lock weapon, behind the tree on the left. There was no time to think. His weapons leapt into his hands. His pistol's muzzle rose, pointed naturally at a brigand that had swung out of cover, in the process of levelling a monstrous blunderbuss at the three of them.
Gunpowder boomed, steel ripped at flesh, and the dying forest would take what nourishment it could from the dead.
The sun never graced the hamlet with its presence. Not really. Sometimes, there would be good days, like this one, where the rays of sunlight would filter in through the rheumy film that seemed to surround this place, but it didn't brighten anyone's day. It didn't inspire any smiles on the faces of the townsfolk. They could not grow crops in this filthy light, and it provided no warning for the town when it's predators were on the prowl. All it seemed to do was remind Antoine, and all the other villagers, that the world was still going on without them.
Like a dead man's gaze, we see without seeing.
Today, the sun's presence and absence didn't bother Antoine's gaunt features. He never stopped looking down from the abbey's ruined tower into the dead forest, not even when he heard the hard echo of boots on stone behind him. He could tell it was the corpulent priest by the lumbering footfalls, the space between them giving his mind's eye a trundling gait.
"He won't come." Nael said between laboured breaths.
Antoine slowly closed his tired eyes as he heard Deacon Nael's forecast.
"The letter was specific. We must prepare to give benediction."
Antoine could feel his soul chipping away as Nael chuckled at that. "You really suppose Fenton the Younger is coming? For this scrap of land? Or do you fear he won't fall far from the tree?" Nael asked. Antoine could visualise the hungry smile of the priest. Nael had quietly boasted to him about how he had served the Elder so diligently, bringing to him fresh meat after his masses, and how he had been paid with the scraps.
Once upon a time, it had made Antoine's flesh crawl, to know that the man who wore the robe had been in cahoots with the master of this estate, who at the start of it all, was merely interested in excessive orgies and depraved acts dark enough in scope and depth to attract the judgement of even the most lenient inquisitor.
What happened after that 'phase'… well, those atrocities made those carnal pursuits seem so very small.
"I do not wish to invoke the wrath of our new master, should he appear." Antoine said smoothly, carefully neutral in his answer as his eyes scoured the thickets. He had confronted Nael once, after he'd heard the crying. Nael had threatened to take it to the master of the estate, promising Antoine that he would be silenced.
Am I a coward, or a pragmatist? Antoine had often wondered, What good am I to the flock if I am dead? Is it better to die and risk changing nothing? Or to cling to life, impotent, and do what can be done?
"Aha, of course – our previous employer had quite the temper, didn't he?" Nael simpered, "Don't worry, my son, I'll see which way the wind blows, and I'll warn you off."
That poked the embers in the lay-priest's breast. Antoine felt his right eye twitch as he fought to control his temper. You lecherous old bastard! I'm not your friend! I warned you, all of you, long ago, that this was wrong! That he would lead us astray! You could have done right, and not besmirched that collar you wear! You gave him people to toy with in his lust, and gave him people to destroy in his dark ambition! Now we're on the thresh-hold of hell! You hypocrite! You bastard! You bastard, you bastard, you bastard!
He felt Nael's hand clap on his shoulder. "You alright there?" Nael's voice was inquisitive. It was all Antoine could do to not shrug off the pudgy fingers.
"I'm scared, Deacon Nael." He murmured. Scared of what I will do to you. He willed his shaking hand to drift up stroke to the tuft of his beard, as if wistful.
"Oh, don't be! Everything will be alright!" Antoine was pulled in closer into a stiff and awkward embrace. Nael's breath was foetid, reeking of garlic. "As long as we stick together, we'll see this through, no matter what comes through that thicket."
Antoine said nothing. If he fell from this tower, no-one would weep.
"Did you hear me there, old friend?" Nael asked, his voice a little harder now.
Antoine still said nothing, his heart roaring at him to protest, to rail against Nael, to -fight-.
"…Would you look at that?" Nael's voice was amused, now.
Antoine's gaze slipped towards his companion at those spoken words, following his gaze over to the Old Road. Three individuals were walking into the middle of the hamlet, purposefully. A warrior in crusading garb had a long sword rested on his shoulder, an unsavoury individual had a hand on his holstered pistol, and the man in the rich clothing carried a sack in one hand, a dirk in the other.
"I suppose he arrived after all. We'll have to warn Miller and the gypsy woman. We ought to look after our neighbours, aye?" Nael chuckled, turning, descending the broken staircase of the abbey.
"What of Frida?" Antoine asked, recalling the hard-bitten, handsome survivalist in her hood and cloak.
"What of her? She's stupid and stubborn enough to live on the fringe of the village, let her be the last to know. It's her lot," Nael sneered over his shoulder, "Now come downstairs. It's cold as ice-water up here."
Antoine didn't. His eyes were fixed on the noble, who had stopped tens of meters short of the ancestral statue in the centre of the courtyard. He stands apart from its shadow. The noble began to speak, strong and loud.
"I am Stuart Fenton, descendant of Elias Fenton-" The mere mention of Elias made Antoine wince, and for a moment he swore he could hear moaning emanate from the boarded up houses of the hamlet, "-and I have come to reclaim my estate, along with this hamlet!"
"I require strong workmen, and tools! Those who supply me with either will be remembered and rewarded. As for the rest of you? Remove the boards from the windows, open your doors. There is nothing to fear from brigandry and mundane violence." Fenton ordered as he dropped the sword, lifting the sack - and at this point, Antoine noticed, his voice took on a dolorous and practiced quality about it, as though these next spoken words were stolen, commandeered.
"The rightful owner has returned, and their kind is no, longer, welcome." Fenton grated, upending the sack, sending three severed heads tumbling out of the sack and thudding on the hard earth, the faded green hoods and scarves of the Wolf's warband stained with blood. The display coaxed a gasp, a groan, even a keening shriek – but the hamlet was largely silent. Antoine was not afraid – he was utterly desensitised to violence, having seen better men die in a score of different ways. What bothered Antoine was he felt no sympathy, not even grief for the dead bandits. In place of his pity was a triumphant, scornful satisfaction. The wolves that have savaged our flock for so long have run afoul of our new shepherd.
"We will assemble at the Abbey. Bring your shoulder to the wheel, and I will bring you security – perhaps even salvation." Fenton promised before he walked past the now still heads in the courtyard, marching with his two enforcers towards Antoine, and the remains of the abbey's tower that he stood in.
Antoine was not afraid.
Unbelievably, tears wetted his eyes as he looked upon the sun, as if expecting its reluctant demeanour towards this place to change, all because a rich man had brought blood and coin and ridiculous promises.
One way or another, the end was in sight.
There's chapter 2, constructive criticism is always appreciated. Much love, readers.