Little Keldoran shivered, it was not so cold on this night but he had fallen into a frigid irrigation ditch in his haste to report what he had seen to the good folk of the Glastongrimmine Manor. The offending channel ran beneath a rickety old corral fence that divided the yard proper from the cart path and enclosures and he had slipped right in on his way over, he was streaked with mud and a little of his own blood seeped from a nasty scrape on his left arm.
“There now, have some hot cidermull and explain yourself” cooed mistress Orrin as she brushed Keldoran’s sodden hair from his face and daubed at the grime around his newest wound. This was nothing new, a bruised up peasant boy in her kitchen. Bathtilde Orrin cared for most of the farm boys who came from the near by village of Scyldis to work her masters fields for the growing seasons, boys always had cuts and contusions to be cleaned and bandaged, and she kept a good store of healing salves and various oppilatives, along with Lordia and Levenseep at a modest cost to Master Glassman who owned the summer-manse and the fields and forest around it.
Chief Parminster Aldwin Grump stood near, hunched over a wicked looking pitch fork. The device was decidedly made for more than tossing hay and grain around. The elaborate set of proofing he wore about his stout frame suggested that he was used to more than just cuffing farm boys and shepherds. A steep of bloodmarks trailing a thin line down his thick neck bore testament to more than one victory over nicker-kind. He was eying Keldoran now with a keen look of anticipation. A sighting of boggles in the woods was often reported first by the simple field hands who toiled next to the terribly threwdish Matsch-mire. The hour was late, just after sun down and it was known that the more malicious of nicker folk took advantage of darkness, using it as cover for their heinous acts of trippery.
Keldoran began his tale drawing himself up to appear brave before Farm Chief Aldwin. “Well we was late herding the livestock into their night-pens.” Keldoran’s brown eyes were wide, and he trembled slightly as he spoke. “A goose sir, tried to take wing, it hopped about something fierce and made for the open pasture headed for the
Brundle-stream. I chased it all the way to the Matsch-mire. Then I saw something, something big, on the edge of the deep wood creeping through the shadows of the ancient oaks.” Here Keldoran shifted in his chair and pulled away as Bathtilde ran her wicken cloth over his now stinging abrasion.
Chieftain Grump interjected with a sharp intake of breath. “It was that Stoopback Horned Widderlichen they’ve been seeing down by Scyldis. Were’nt it boy? I’ll give my best triquarter if it was’nt! Young Murlow was saying how Master Glassman’s pigs shied from the forest this morn, when normally they is wote to go charging in after acorns straightaway!” He started for the solid oak door leading to the yard, clearly meaning to deal with the nattering beast as quick as he could. “No time to wait for a Writ of Singular.” He exclaimed. “We know where it is. Bathtilde, send to the far meadow house for Mr. Fricke, and his gang of scollops.”
“Wait!” cried Keldoran in an excited tone. “The blighter is done in! I saw ‘im put down sir.”
Grump halted dead, and slowly turned, peering at the sun browned farm boy. Keldoran hurried on, his eyes growing wider and his voice more lilting at his next statement, truly a boy in wonder.
“It was Sir Eschelon Flowers sir!” Now he hopped from his stool and began to illustrate his tale with wild gesticulations, a bright grin on his now clean mug. ”It was The Once and Again Aster Star of The Empire!”
Lady Bathtilde Orrin shushed him in the way mothers and wet-maids have. “Don’t use that title Keldoran!” She exclaimed, abashed.
“Aye lad” Aldwin said in his gentle tone. “I don’t give a wits bald arse, but it’s not something to be said around your average everyman. Keep up with what ye eye-balled son.”
“Yes’m Grump, sir. The boggle spied me sir and leapt straight for me, springing from the woods. I reckoned’ it was the Horned Widderlichen, for I that’s almost all I reckd’ a wolf’s face with four wicked horns like a goat’s and a grinning sneer, with enough teeth to smatter a whole brace of conies. I thought it was knickers-end for me sir, but it snatched up the goose and paused to shake it down its gullet. Then came lighting sir, and I thought I was done in twice!” Keldoran’s exuberant simulation of what came next almost upset the pot of cidermull steeping on the kitchen’s permanent laborium.
“The Duke of Flowers did it! He sizzled the nucker and leapt in with his heater and bastard. He knocked away two blows of vicious claws and broke a horn.” Keldoran fumbled in sack cloth trews and produced a piece of black ivory. “Then the thing lit the ground, backed up and ran at The Lord Aster. Aster sir, he just stepped aside and slid his bastard into the beastie’s shoulder, there was burst of sparks like a Midtide reporter and an awful stink settled onto the turf.”
“Go on Keld”, urged Parminster Grump enthralled with the story now as if he were watching one of Pendrift’s panto-play’s in far off Boschenburg.
“Well that was it sir. His grace stood for a moment with his head bowed as if he were sad to have smitten the dastard, his long mustachio drooping.
Then he turned and looked to me, he had a fabulous harness, the like of what you never saw!” Keldoran’s oration took on a tone of admiration, and Bathtilde smiled a knowing smile. Many a young boy in these parts exchanged stories of the Duke of Flowers the famous Haacobian knight, who hailed from this very region all be it a little farther to the west in Braumschtick. And all of them knew full well that he had been put to the pillet for sedition and forced to flee the capitol and now roamed about the Half Continent lending his fulgarities where they needed to monster and every man alike.
Grump helped himself to a pot of steaming cider mull and dug about for a cold beef clumsy as Keldoran carried on. “His habiliment sir, it was brilliant! A thick sable and claret brocade, it must have been made by the finest cloth-smiths sir, no cloth or leather glimmers like that. And it had wondrous small flowers in silver filigree all about it, of many colors sir, so many that rainbows danced across its surface when ever he moved about and when he would arc, those filigree flowers would light up like burning star coms. ” Keldoran’s eyes could not get any wider the brown orbs fairly bulging from his sun dark dial. “Then he said to me. ‘Wretchin’s will be wretchin’s lad, and it’s not every every-man as deserves to be wretched.’ He turned into the halt-mire woods then sir, and I thought I caught a glimpse of Esquires Autumn, and The Bittern of The Mark his factotum’s sir, in the deeper gloom beneath an hoary old oak tree’s branches. And then they were gone, melted into the night-scrub and shadows, with only a small jingle of Master Eschelon’s spurs.”
“By the Glassmasters arse” exclaimed Grump “I don’t know why lad but I believe ye don’t be telling me a fantastico. We’ll be out to skrive the area tomorrow Fricke and me, we’ll find if the blighter had any shard-born gibbert-jacks lurking around with him.” He put fond hand on the boys shoulder. “Well a night to ye lad, get decent rest-over. I’ll roust ye come morn to show us where the Widderlichen was vascerated.”
Lady Orrin slyly tried to slip an obtorpe into another pot of cidermull for Keldoran, but not sly enough. The perceptive lad tossed it back but held the draught in his mouth until he was out the door where he promptly spat it to the dirt. Then it was off across the enclosures toward the far meadows.
Day light awoke to find Chief Parmister of Glastongrimmine Manor-House Aldwin Grump stalking across the yard, casting dirty looks at any early rising faraday that caught his eye. “Bathtilde!” He was hollering as loud as his pipes would blow. “Have ye seen that nearly wretched lad? He is naught to be found, and Mister Fricke’s scads’ is missing a fowling piece and a flammagon.” Behind him stumped the rotund Mister Fricke, his almost elephantine corpulence oozing around his lacquered harness, cold eyes small and hard in his puffy face.
Bathtilde emerged, swishing through the divided door of the manor kitchen and across the threshold into the yard; a well used broom poised in her hands her cheeks rosy in the crisp morning air. She had her famous knowing smile writ upon her face, and Aldwin could almost guess what had transpired. “He left a note sir, and eighteen scruples.”
Aldwin sputtered. ”Bu but where?”
Bathtilde’s eyes sparkled. ”He’s run off with The Duke of Flowers, of course.”
