"The Queen's Burden" Novel Prologue

Prologue: Blueberries and Mutton

 

Plumes of smoke billowed and rose into the air, drifting and spiraling violently toward the clouds like many writhing worms emerging from nooks of dirt. The suffocating stench of death that came with the smoke permeated throughout the very air along with the smell of burning oak and wood as the forest itself was put to the torch. Above, between pillows of rising smoke, trees one by one became enveloped in orange as flames licked away at their coat of leaves, turning them into dead husks with burning twigs, before the flames spread to the adjoining tree and the process repeated itself.

Edric the miller had not seen such a horrid spectacle of flames in his fifty years of life.

The tall, burly miller stood back, watching flames scorch away a large blueberry bush where he’d gathered blueberries for his youngest daughter only the week prior. For just a brief moment, Edric pictured his daughter screaming and burning amid those leaves and berries just as the flames destroyed one of the meager things that had always brought her joy. The orange flames mirrored themselves upon the older man’s glistening grey eyes as he watched the bush die in fire, but the resilient miller willed himself not to let tears be shown.

The man who’d set the blueberry bushes on fire stepped back, pulling away his torch. The gaunt, grinning man with a stormcrow emblem upon his tabard turned to Edric, waving his torch nonchalantly while his other hand rested upon the hilt of the sword at his hip. The man’s grin showed thin, chiseled lips and highlighted his sunken-in, skeleton-like cheeks.

The armed man licked cracked lips. “Smell that, miller?”

Edric smelled only burning. He looked at the soldier with sorrowful grey eyes.

“No, sir,” Edric croaked in reply.

The soldier spat into the ash-caked dirt. “Smells like blueberry pie. Just like ma used to make. How lovely.”

The man with thin-lips continued to smile at Edric with feigned glee. Edric gulped. That thin smile made him sicker than the smell of the burning forest.

“Yes sir. It is.” The way Edric said it made it clear that he’d wanted to tell the man that it had been lovely, but the ignorant man seemed not to pick up on that either way.

The soldier drew a dagger from his belt and sliced off one of the only remaining vines of blueberries on the burning bush. He pulled the blueberry off if it and popped them into his small mouth of yellow teeth, chewing them loudly likely for Edric’s benefit. He then tossed the branch into the burning bush from whence it came just before the remnants of the bush caught fire and were turned crisp.

Thin-lips gripped Edric by the arm and shoved him forward. “Move along, miller.”

As Edric stepped forward, sluggishly shuffling through the burning wood on lethargic legs, he finally did smell the scent of freshly cooked blueberry pie that the vile man had been referring to. That did little to lift his spirits or make him forget that the serene forest that his family once called home was currently being put to the torch.

Edric watched more soldiers similar to his unwanted companion burning bushes and trees on either side of him as he was led through the forest. He shook his head, marveling at how men could defile nature so shamelessly, particular the woods surrounding such a once-tranquil village such as Harrond’s Ford.

To Edric, it had only been yesterday that his father had led him into these very woods to teach him how to hunt. Years later, he himself had brought his eldest daughter, Breana into these woods to feeds the birds. But the game had long since been driven off or slaughtered by the Stormcrow garrison that now inhabited Harrond’s Ford and any birds to speak of were likely burning along with the forest even now.

The thin-lipped soldier stopped Edric before a heavily-armored, mounted man. The man wore finely-crafted silver armor underneath his black Stormcrow tabard and a dark blue cloak billowed behind him. The horse snorted and stamped its hooves due to the smell and sight of the burning forest around it. The rider maintained easy control of his mount despite the animal’s unease and peered through a black helm down at Edric.

“I thought you’d said they’d come to hide out ‘ere, miller?” the man gruffly queried.

Edric felt the man’s eyes on him along with all his other surrounding men. He bit his lip, thinking on his words carefully. One wrong answer meant his daughters’ heads.

“I- I kn- know these woods, milord. There are m- many places for young boys to h- hide; bushes are thick and concealing and there are a great many uprooted trees to burrow under. They’re s- surely hiding here, sir,” Edric replied.

Lord Gerard grimaced at Edric down from his horse. “You’d better be right about that, miller. Your girl Breana is a delicate beauty she is, but I’ll break every bone in her body if you lie to me,” he spat.

Edric merely nodded. The miller knew how easily it was to incur Lord Gerard’s wrath.

After two years since he’d taken up residence in Harrond’s Ford, the highborn lord’s cruelty had become well known in the village and surrounding villages, as Edric knew full well. For a while, the oppressed villagers had referred to Lord Gerard as “Lord Mutton”, due to the man’s picky and particular dietary habits and fondness for that meat. When Lord Mutton had heard the name being spoken aloud, by a peasant boy of sixteen, the boy had been taken into the manorhouse that had been built on the hill overlooking Harrond’s Ford, never to be seen again. It’s said that the peasant boy’s family had been brought into the manor as well and forced to watch as Gerard ate the peasant boy’s cooked leg at his feast table. Afterward, Gerard declared to the entire village that he did in fact have a fondness for meat other than mutton.

Since then, “Lord Mutton” became a moniker spoken only in very hushed whispers by a few very brave villagers. 

Gerard turned toward his armed cohorts, wheeling his horse around. “If the miller speaks true, we should burn out these two traitors eventually. Fire the entire forest,” he ordered.

Edric gulped. He recalled how, two days prior, the village alarm had been sounded and the Stormcrows garrisoned there had armed themselves and went on a hunt into the surrounding forest. The word had been that two young men –sons of the blacksmith who’d been killed for resisting Gerard years before- had killed one of the Stormcrow soldiers and fled into the forest. The troops were gathered along with several of the villagers, Edric included, and the hunt began. Gerard himself wielded a crossbow from horseback, enjoying the hunting of man much more to the hunting of game. 

As Edric and the villagers still knew this land much better than these Stormcrows who’d been sent down from the Capitol, several of them had been taken with the soldiers for this “hunt.” Refusal to cooperate was not an option, lest Edric or the other “collaborators” see their families killed or suffer the same fate as the boy who’d become the evening meal of Lord Mutton.

Edric looked around the burning wood. As more trees went up in flames, he shuddered, feeling revolted that he was currently playing a part in the desecration of this peaceful forest and the eventual capture or murder of those two young sons of the late blacksmith. However, the bone-chilling thought of seeing his own two daughters, beautiful Breana and timid Ellie, executed in the village square by the Stormcrows outweighed the horrors that he was currently witnessing.

Edric the miller would give information to Gerard on any one of his neighbors or villagers if doing so would protect his daughters from death or torture, and he hated himself for it.

Soldiers with pikes and torches began to fan out before Edric, with Gerard riding between them, pointing his crossbow in every direction. Edric trailed behind them, praying that they would not find the boys while he was traveling with the soldiers. If he was lucky, the boys had somehow found another place beyond the woods to hide. He knew that this was unlikely though; the tracks that Gerard had followed indicated that the boys were hiding somewhere in these woods.

When they came upon the first boy, it was after they used a large log to cross the river. The younger boy had been hiding in a ditch along the riverbank. When the first soldier saw him, the boy charged, having fashioned a spear from a sturdy branch. The boy jabbed it into the first soldier’s side, disarming him of his torch. Before the soldier could retaliate or the boy could get another thrust in, Gerard angled his crossbow and fired.

Edric turned his head away as the bolt hit its mark, piercing the boy in the neck. The splash of water was heard as the boy dropped his spear and stumbled, falling into the river. The boy’s body drifted downriver, a pool of his own blood following swiftly behind it.

The soldiers all praised Gerard for his marksmanship, but Edric nearly vomited at the sight of the boy’s meagerly-dressed body drifted underneath the log bridge that he had been standing on.

Gerard turned to Edric, smiling maliciously beneath his helm. “One traitor dead. Well done, miller. We find the other and I won’t have to take your daughters’ maidenhoods, or their lives, or both.” Edric could only look down at the ground in shame.

Gerard nodded to the thin-lipped soldier guarding the miller. “Take the man back to the village. If the fire doesn’t kill this other cutthroat…” he cocked back the string of his crossbow to load another bolt, “then we will.”

Edric turned away as more trees went up in flames. Thin-lips gave him another shove, this time in the direction of the village, and Edric went compliantly. Edric no longer cared that these Stormcrows led him around like a trained dog or what abuses they caused him for their own amusement. So long as his daughters were spared, he would obey the Capitol’s great and noble soldiers.

When he and Thin-lips arrived back in the village, several of the Stormcrows were drinking and fondling women in their laps. With a look above the doorway, Edric took note of the sign displaying a mug of ale. Since the Stromcrows’ arrival in Harrond’s Ford, the inn had become an unofficial brothel for the soldiers. Young women of the village who otherwise may have had brighter futures in the village had instead become whores because the Stromcrows’ arrival left little other option for them. Only Edric’s daughters and a few others had been spared the fate of becoming a pleasure girl to the Stormcrows. All the men of the village, on the other hand, had either been forcefully conscripted into the Stormcrows, killed by Gerard for crimes of treason or dissent, or, like Edric, were left unmolested to tend the fields or provide livelihood to the village as reward for the information they provided to Gerard.

Thin-lips quickly joined his compatriots at the inn, leaving Edric to make his way back to his millhouse. Several passing Stormcrows gave him quick glances, but they did not otherwise seem suspicious of him, knowing that Edric was one of their informants in the village. “A loyal defender of the realm,” Gerard and other soldiers would often call him. Frequently they would tell him that Edric himself would make a good Stormcrow as well, if only he were a bit younger. Gerard insisted that, like them, Edric was doing work for the good of the realm by selling out his treasonous neighbors and providing the Capitol’s soldiers with needed information.

Edric, deep down, wanted to take a sledgehammer to the skull of each and every Stormcrow, each “loyal defender,” that infested his once proud village. But instead, the miller did nothing. For Breana and Ellie’s sakes, he did nothing.

When Edric arrived back at his mill, he found young Ellie skinning carrots. She looked up at him from the kitchen table and gave a soft smile. “Hello father,” she said.

Edric gave a weak smile back. Ellie, though she’d always been shy and timid, was still innocent in the ways of the world. He’d done everything he could to protect her from the cruelty of the Stormcrows in their village and so far had succeeded. And despite all he’d done to help the Stormcrows, he still, somehow, appeared to be a good father in naïve Ellie’s eyes.

He’d had no such luck with his older girl, Breana, however. The intuitive girl of eighteen knew exactly what Edric had done to secure protection from Gerard’s cruelty. While she knew that her father had done this with good intentions in mind, it was clear by the looks that she gave him that she did not think fondly of him for his role as an informant.

In the adjacent granary, Breana was stacking up heavy bags of grain one by one. For how delicate and pretty she was, she was surprisingly strong, being able to heft heavy sacks of grain and work tools and apparatus of the mill quite easily.

When she noticed her father’s presence in the millhouse, she glanced over her shoulder at him, brushing a brown lock of hair from her face and wiping a bead of sweat from her brow. Edric winced, feeling his elder daughter’s eyes on him, judging him, condemning him with her fiery gaze.

Clearly, she knew about how he’d helped Gerard and his men hunt down the blacksmith’s boys in the forest; her gaze made that quite obvious. Worse still, Edric had noticed that the elder of the blacksmith’s boys, Tom, had been quite taken with Breana. Oft times, Edric had seen the two of them sneaking out at night. Other times, he’d pass by the old blacksmith’s workshop and see Tom teaching Breana how to swing a sword or forge a blade with a hammer.

The boy that Gerard had killed with the crossbow was Tom’s younger brother, Will. It was well possible that Tom was still out there, alive and in hiding, assuming Gerard’s fires or blades hadn’t slain him yet. Edric prayed that the boy was still alive, but he knew that the odds were stacked against the poor young traitor. If the boy ended up dead, Breana would never forgive him for the part he played in his execution.

Edric sat down at the table where Ellie was carving vegetables. Both Ellie and Breana looked at him but for a few moments no one said a word. Finally, however, it was Ellie who spoke up first.

“I picked enough vegetables for supper tomorrow, father. Enough extra for the garrison as well, just like you asked,” she said.

Edric nodded, giving her another faint smile. “Very good, child. Thank you.”

Breana snorted, throwing down the sack of grain that she’d been carrying roughly. “Oh yes, fresh vegetables for the Stormcrows, bread for the Stormcrows. What are you going to give the Stormcrows next, father? My maidenhood perhaps?”

Edric grimaced, looking at his elder daughter crossly. “You watch your tone with me, girl. I’m still your father. And everything I’ve done, I’ve done to protect you.”

Breana was not deterred. She marched into the room and put herself within a few inches of her father. “Selling out Tom and Will to Lord Mutton?! That is your way of protecting me?! How about burning down half the forest?!” Breana screamed.

Ellie quivered in fear and huddled back, looking at her older sister with innocent, wide eyes. Edric shook his head, knowing in his heart that all of his daughter’s accusations were true.

Edric cleared his throat. “Do not call Lord Gerard by that name. The man has protected our village and kept us safe from outside threats. He may be a…hard man at times, but he only does what he must to protect us from the war that is brewing over the border and these rebel bands that have been raiding villages as of late.”

Edric knew that all of those words were lies. He didn’t truly believe that the war brewing along the kingdom’s border was the biggest threat to their village; Harrond’s Ford was too far north to be touched by that. Nor did Edric think that rebels would have any reason to touch this small village either, though the frequent news of these growing rebel uprisings was disconcerting. As much as Edric hated to admit it, the Stormcrows –fellow countrymen and soldiers meant to defend the innocent- had proven time and again to be the greatest threat to the people of Harrond’s Ford.

Breana spat on the ground like a boy would do. “How do you live with yourself, father? These Stormcrows are evil, and Lord Mutton is the worst of them.”

Edric nodded. “War turns men into monsters, it’s true. But these Stormcrows are our countrymen, and it would be wise not to make enemies of them. These are king’s men.”

“The king is dead, father! King Evancroft and the Queen and his children were slaughtered years ago. Lord-Regent Malik rules the kingdom now, and he’s put men like Gerard into power to turn us into slaves!”

Edric recalled the fateful day almost ten years ago when word came down from the north that the royal family had been massacred. The word had been that assassins sent by the Perenwalde family –the sovereignty that controlled the kingdom south of Evancroft territory- had infiltrated the palace and butchered the Evancroft royal family. The king and queen were both killed, with the crown heir Prince Timult reportedly having been killed in his bedchamber and the fair Princess Amelia having had her throat slit when she tried to flee the palace. Lord-Regent Gavin Malik, King Reginald Evancroft’s trusted advisor, had ascended to the throne as a caretaker as all Evancrofts were dead. There were still disputes taking place in the Capitol over who would succeed the man.

Afterward, as Edric remembered, there was talk of war and Malik reportedly routing out traitors who had assisted the assassins in killing the royal family. He had then marshalled his armies to invade Perenwalde lands and attack them in retaliation for his monarch’s murder. But little had changed for Edric and the people of Harrond’s Ford until the day that Lord Gerard and his Stormcrows had garrisoned themselves in the town to deal with the reported local rebel uprisings or the event of a Perenwalde incursion this far north.

Since then, Edric had made the safety of his daughters a paramount concern, especially after what he’d been told about the fate of sweet Princess Amelia Evancroft. Edric recalled how he’d once seen the princess fifteen years prior, when the king and his family had come down south from the Capitol to visit the villages. Though the king’s daughter had only been seven years old at the time, he could still recall how fair and pretty the girl had been; her appearance having showed promise of beauty when she was older. Princess Amelia had even played with three year old Breana whilst the royal family had been in the village, picking her up and letting her play with her dolls and exploring the stream with her.

Now the poor girl was dead, along with the rest of her family, Edric lamented. And since then, any joy that his daughters had in their lives had died with the young princess. The “king’s men” that Edric had been referring to, had seemingly been replaced with animals of men like Gerard –men who’d turned vile after years of constant war with the neighboring Perenwalde kingdom.

But Edric’s continued defense of the Stormcrows was making Breana angrier.

“Father, you don’t truly still believe that the Stormcrows are protecting us, do you? Those soldiers have caused the most harm to this place since Harrond Evancroft drove off the Perenwaldes from this land a century ago. These Stromcrows were good soldiers when King Evancroft was still living, but now they are nothing but cutthroats in shiny armor. Old Bathilda, the baker’s wife, still stakes her life on the notion that Lord-Regent Malik arranged the deaths of the Evancrofts to take the throne for himself!”

Edric turned to her. “That is treason.”

Breana shook her head. “That’s the truth. Why else would he have men like Gerard to keep us prisoners in our own villages if not to keep us from rising up against him?”

“You must keep your voice down, Breana! If any of the Stormcrows hear-

The sounds of shouting suddenly emerged from outside. Ellie set down the vegetables that she’d been peeling and scampered over to the window. Edric and Breana swiftly followed. More shouting could be heard and black figures, likely Stormcrows, were seen scrambling about the village.

“What is happening, father?” Ellie asked, frightened.

Edric shook his head, wondering the same thing. His first impulse was that Tom had been found and was being brought to the village square to be executed.

A bell suddenly tolled. The miller and his two daughters jumped as the village alarm was sounded. Screaming, shouting, and the clanging of steel on steel began to erupt throughout the village. Edric knew that this could be only one thing: battle. Had these rebel bands actually come to attack this village after all?

Breana had a different notion. “It’s the Stormcrows! They’re going to kill us all!” She drew up the knife that Ellie had been using to skin vegetables.

Edric shook his head repeatedly. No, he would not lose his daughters like this. He would not see his girls slaughtered like lambs.

“Be calm. They won’t hurt us. They-

A Stormcrow soldier suddenly ran by the millhouse. He was coated in flames and screaming. Edric and his daughters both watch in awe and fear.

A mounted figure suddenly ran by, swinging his sword around and beheading the fleeing, burning man. Beyond them, more Stormcrows were fleeing under the onslaught of more unknown assailants, mounted and on foot. Even from this distance, it was no difficult to tell that the supposed rebels were winning against the Stormcrow garrison.

Edric took both of his daughters by the shoulders and pulled them away. He pushed them toward the granary, urging them to hide behind the piled sacks of grain. Edric closed the door behind them and hid.

When the miller opened his nostrils, he smelled smoke.

Edric and his daughters hid in their granary the entire morning as the sounds of battle continued. Eventually, however, the sounds of clanging steel stopped altogether, though some shouting and talking could be heard.

Ellie had her head resting against Edric’s shoulder as she’d managed to fall asleep sometime in the night. Breana was still wide awake, clutching that skinning knife close to her tattered gown and between her breasts like a babe.

The door was suddenly kicked open and two armed men wearing studded leather armor came walking in with swords in hand. Edric covered Ellie’s mouth to keep her from making a sound and the keep still and silent, hoping the armed men wouldn’t find them.

The two men combed through the piles of grain, however, and came upon the miller and his daughters. Breana jumped forward to thrust the knife as the first man but her wrist was caught in mid thrust and the knife was wrenched from her grasp.

“Easy, girl,” the mustached man said as he tossed the flimsy knife aside, “We are here to liberate your village.”

Edric and his daughters looked at them with equal confusion. “Liberate? From whom?”

The mustached man smiled. “The false ruler, Lord-Regent Malik. We’re taking his kingdom right out from under his slimy little hands.”

Edric’s suspicions were confirmed; these were rebel outlaws. But then why hadn’t they killed him and his daughters yet?

The mustached outlaw turned to Edric. “Bring your girls into the square. We’re gathering your village folk there.”

Edric quickly complied, taking both his daughters by the hands and leading them out the door, with the two outlaws following behind. As they stepped outside, Stormcrow corpses littered the ground, with some outlaws combing through their bodies, taking good steal and any coin that they possessed. Amazingly, Edric noted that many of the village structures and homes, save for Lord Gerard’s manorhouse, were kept intact and unscathed.

Edric and his daughters were led into the middle of the square, where other villagers of Harrond’s Ford were convening. Men, women and children huddled with each other, glancing around at the surrounding outlaws warily. The rebel outlaws made no moves to attack them or steal personal possessions from them as of yet, but they did keep their weapons in hand as they stood around the perimeter of the square or were otherwise looting Stormcrow bodies as Edric had seen earlier.

A procession of mounted riders suddenly came trotting into the square past the outlaws and toward the villagers. Edric’s initial fear was that the riders were going to run them down, but they came to a halt just as they neared the villagers. Edric and the others looked up at the riders cautiously.

At the head of the riders, a slender yet lightly armored figure was mounted atop a black horse. This outlaw, evidently the leader, had its face obscured by a helm and a visor. Leather gloves clutched at the reins as the leader’s horse stamped its hooves. The other hand rested on the hilt of a magnificent gem-encrusted longsword –a weapon which contrasted with the rider’s very simple armor.

For a great while, no words were exchanged between the outlaw leader and the villagers. The leader suddenly nodded and made a motion to the mounted figure nearby. Another rider rode up beside the leader. This time it was a burly yet firm young man with brown, curly hair and a greatsword sheathed on his back. Despite the blood on the young outlaw’s face, he was relatively attractive as far as young men were, Edric reasoned. A glance in Breana’s direction confirmed that she thought that way when she looked at him.

It was then that he and the villagers realized that a very familiar figure was tied to the back of the young outlaw’s horse. The figure’s stocky form was covered in mud and blood, but the facial structure and black Stormcrow tabard left no mystery behind who the slain man was.

The young outlaw reared his horse and unslung the corpse from the back of his horse. The bloodied body of Lord Gerard was thrown into the town square. A woman or two shrieked in instinctual fear, but the rest of the townsfolk merely gaped or were otherwise silent.

Edric observed the body of the man who’d tormented them for the past two years –the man who’d forced him to feed information to keep his daughters safe. Gerard’s once-fine armor was caked with blood and dirt and his cloak was soiled. The man’s full face was smashed in with a mace or some other blunt object, and his gut was split open, with some of his innards draped outward, spilling into the dirt.

Edric heard one of the men of the village, perhaps the innkeep, remark gleefully that Lord Mutton apparently had something other than mutton in his belly.

In that moment, the leader of the outlaws suddenly drew off the helm concealing its face from the watching crowd. The leader’s neck craned and short blond hair could be seen flowing behind.

Some of the older villagers gasped, and Edric, after a few moments, understood why.

Edric the miller, awestruck, was staring at a ghost.

Princess Amelia Evancroft was older, her blond hair was shorter, and the beautiful dresses that she once wore as a child were gone, but this young woman and that long-thought-dead royal girl were one and the same. For Edric, the only thing more alarming than the fact that this young woman bore the armor and weaponry of a man and was covered in Stormcrow blood was the mere realization that this blond girl who’d scampered about this very village, bathed in their streams, and played dolls with his own daughter all those years ago, was alive.

Breana and Ellie looked to their father with questioning gazes. But when Edric turned to his daughters, all he had for them was a smile.

Princess Amelia Evancroft had returned to take back what was hers.