Sinclair Blackburn

"Fine shot, father!" Henry exclaimed sanctimoniously, as Sinclair's shaft buried itself in the fatty gut of the boar, their prey, felling it immediately. The poor thing went down with a squeal and a thump, then lay still in the dewy spring grass, in which the last vestiges of hard, ever-fading snow remained. It always depressed Sinclair to look at snow in this state, the final stages of it's inevitable thaw, naught but a dismal shadow of the thick white blanket that it was mere days before.

"Thank you, boy." Sinclair replied through gritted teeth, slinging his bow back over his shoulder and dismounting from his horse. His feet crunched through the grass as he approached the boar's carcass, and he nodded his approval at his own work. It was a fine animal, this boar, and would doubtless provide ample feed for everyone in Blackforte this week. Let it never be said that he, the lord of Blackforte, let's his people go hungry.

He bent down beside the dead animal, with the sound of birdsong in the trees above, and the smell of wilderness filling his nostrils. It was a glorious sunny day, mild to a fault for the first time in many a month. The kind of day where it truly felt as if nothing could go wrong, as if all was right and beautiful in the world, a world of delight and majesty, free from it's normal vices.

Which made it the right day, the perfect day, for an accident to happen.

It's now or never, he thought to himself, as he slung the boar's carcass over his free shoulder. It has to be today.

He threw the boar over his mount's broad backside and clambered up, watching his eldest son out of the corner of his eye.

"That enough for today, then?" Henry said hopefully, "coz I'd like me a mead, and I'd like me some luncheon. What say we make our tracks back to the forte?"

Sinclair shook his head and smiled, his heart hammering and his hands twitching on the reins. "Not yet!" he exclaimed, trying to keep his voice level, "we've been out just an hour, son! Let's go a little deeper into the woods, see if we can't bag us a deer to go with the boar. There might even be some early spring fruit hidden deep in the forest...doubtful I'll grant you, but not impossible."

"Very well," Henry replied sullenly, "another hour at most, if it please father. Lauryn wishes me back at noon."

Ah yes - Lauryn. His eldest son's peasant wife, who he'd married contrary to all Sinclair's wishes and pleas to the contrary. Henry, at just eighteen, had fallen deeply in lust for the twenty-four year old maiden, the cobbler's daughter, who would provide House Blackburn with a filthy peasant-blooded heir, tainting the noble bloodline that was Sinclair's, and his father's before him, a highborn seed stretching back at least a hundred years. Ruined, by a horny young bull who couldn't be told no, who cared not for his family, and who's drinking and whoring had brought Sinclair's name into disgrace.

It was high time that an accident happened, and today was the day.

"Have you heard the news from Callow's Reach?" he asked his son as they rode side by side into the forest.

"Nome, sir." Henry replied blankly. "What of it?"

"The Lady of Callow's Reach has installed a new council."

"Oh?"

"Yes. Whispers have it that her new warden, some newfangled man from overseas, is her true father! That he came to our shores with two friends in tow, and together the three of them act as Znya Dhara's eyes, ears and hands throughout the region."

"Indeed?" Henry sounded but faintly interested. "And how do they do in this role?"

"Well." Sinclair spat bitterly. "Too well. Callow's Reach was always fairly influential, but just lately, they've been outstripping even us in riches!"

"Never!" Henry exclaimed, "we are the richest house in the land! We! Always have been!"

"So it was, my son, so it was...alas, this new warden seems sharper than we ever could have feared...it seems that Callow's Reach could be in complete control of the county before long."

Henry grinned, revealing his murky brown, cyder-rotten teeth. "Perhaps this new warden should suffer an accident."

Like father like son...almost.

"Oh, an accident is vital," Sinclair agreed, "but I daren't risk any such action against them...if we're going to re-establish the dominance of House Blackburn, we must act with our wits, not just our blades."

"Fully agreed!" Henry exclaimed pompously, "and um...what did you have in mind, sir?"

"Matrimony!" Sinclair beamed, heart thundering, limbs shaking with excitement.

"Matrimony, father?"

"Yes, quite so." Sinclair nodded gravely. "My conjecture is this - we need not destabilize a newly rich house. We do not have to diminish a castle with newfound power. We need only control it."

He slowly, quietly, withdrew a curved dagger from the pouch at his right hip.

"If my eldest son were to marry with Znya Dhara...House Blackburn would become the de-facto ruler of Callow's Reach and it's magnificent warden, whilst also retaining out command of Blackforte. We can use the good fortune of Callow's Reach, if all works to plan, to our own advantage, my boy!"

Henry frowned. "But sir...I'm your eldest son, and I am already married!"

"That you are." Sinclair purred, a single tear spilling from his left eye, and rolling down his stubbled cheek. "And even if you were not, you'd be an unsuitable match for a woman so beautiful. Your teeth are poor, your gut grossly swollen...to send you to Callow's Reach, a prospective suitor, would be taken as an insult, I fear."

Now!

"Lucky, then, that your younger brother is a fine looking man, and unmarried too."

Quick as a flash, Sinclair leaned sideways on his saddle, and brought his curved dagger slicing through the air, tearing deep into the throat of his bewildered firstborn son. Henry gurgled thickly through a mouthful of blood, his hands scrabbling at the wound in his neck, swaying alarmingly on his horse. He was trying to speak, but Sinclair looked pointedly the other way. He couldn't watch this. Couldn't do it.

He didn't dare look until he saw Henry fall backwards out of the corner of his eye, and heard the dead thump as he sprawled onto the ground, dead as mutton and twice as disgraceful.

That was the hard bit over and done with. Taking control of Callow's Reach would be a positive ease compared to this necessary first step.