The Master
Liseth lordes in god entente
And herke a tale of wondirment
Of leve and eek of wer
A reuler taks his bolde asent
To be a croune ifilledment
His name was Cunnor
The Wolf, the Lady, and the Mere: I
***
Beneath the arms of an old elm that provided no respite, Selvo waited—his heavy amber eyes gazing at the pouring rain from underneath a sodden hood.
The nag whinnied behind him, shaking her head in the deluge.
“Don’t you start. If I have to be out here, so do you.”
The horse turned away and pulled against the reins hitched around a low branch that creaked with the motion.
“I swear on Elyit’s ashen bones,” he blasphemed, “if you slip your lead, I will turn you over to the tanner. She’d still find a use for your hide.”
The horse flashed her teeth but stopped pulling. Rivulets of water dripped from her ragged mane as she hung her head. A baleful eye gazed back at him.
“Don’t look for sympathy from me. I have none to give.”
That lonesome eye turned away.
Oh, it’s not all that bad,” he sighed, pulling a clump of wet hair from her long face.
“Does she ever respond?” came a deep voice from the murk.
Selvo whirled, his hand diving under his cloak for the dagger on his belt. A figure stood before him, cloaked and capped against the weather. The man held up both hands with a wry smile.
“Apologies, goodman. I did not intend to alarm you or your fine steed,” the stranger said, “but my question remains. They say if she responds, it’s the first sign of madness.” The man had to nearly yell to be heard above the rain drumming on the overhead leaves.
Selvo frowned.
“Oh come now. A jest! God knows there’s lonely moments on the road when I’m sure my beast has spoken back.” The man’s eyes danced. “But look at you, you’ve become a man since I last saw you.”
Selvo’s frown deepened. He was quite certain he had never met this man, a merchant of some sort by his dress, but then again there was something about his presence that he could not place and a look in his eye that made him uneasy.
“Ah, you were but a young lad. Don’t pay me any mind.” The merchant handed over a sealed letter that Selvo quickly tucked into his purse before the damp could ruin it. “I bid you give your master my greetings.”
The man turned to go. He knew better, but Selvo’s curiosity had always got the best of him.
“How do you know my master?”
The man’s brows raised underneath the brim of his dripping bycocket.
“How do I know him?” He stroked his peppered black beard in thought. “I would have thought he had told you.”
Selvo returned a flat look under the scrutiny.
“Well… I borrowed money from him once. Years ago. To get my mercantile interest started, you see. Now I suppose we’ve become friends of a sort.” The man’s gaze lingered. “You get that letter to him safe,” the man handed over a full penny, “and give old Mercer my regards.”
The merchant pulled his squirrel lined cloak tighter and stomped back out into the rain. Selvo noted his path and saw a boy tending a loaded pack mule and two palfrey’s further down the boggy road.
Selvo unwound the reins and mounted amidst the inevitable protestations. He ignored them and pulled his cloak tighter, lost in thought.
As the nag ambled back home to Raindell, Selvo was left wondering why the stranger had lied.
Of one thing he was certain—his master had no friends.
~
“The devil take you!” snapped Selvo, slipping out of the saddle to the soft earth below. He gave the reins a mean tug and the nag stumbled after him, holding her hoof gingerly in a limp from a twist in the mud.
“I swear you do this on purpose.”
They approached Raindell from the western fields, slogging along the edges of the tilled strips. He hated wet shoes.
“Look, I’m sorry. If you come with me to the stable, I’ll take a look at it.” The nag whinnied as she put weight on her hoof. Selvo clenched his jaw. He should have taken the long way by the southern road, but he was damp and it was miserable and this way ought to been shorter. Now he had more problems.
“Maybe even give you a day or two of rest. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? But right now, it’s pouring, so walk.”
The nag started limping forward again. Bless her.
As they neared, Selvo cursed as he discovered a small lake had formed between him and the rear of his master’s house. He tugged the nag to follow him and they began picking their way slowly around the edges of the flooded pasture.
A violent burst of rain crashed around Selvo.
Redeemer save—
—In a rush he leapt towards the cover of a large oak. He slid on one of its protruding roots. Catching himself from falling, he looked up the length of the knotted trunk.
A grasping chill shuddered down his back.
His mind froze.
In a flash, he understood which tree he stood under. He hardly ever made this mistake anymore but—
—No, he pleaded. Not this time.
It came anyways.
As it always did, it started in the shaking of his hands. Selvo clutched the tree. Hunched over, he squeezed his eyes shut, as if darkness would somehow stop the memories.
The night of the festival. The screams of the village. A demon’s terrible face chuckling—grey and peeling. His death drawing near. The stranger who took the blow meant for him.The horrible surprise when he found himself alive the next morning. Awaking as neighbors pulled him from underneath corpses—he had never found out whose. His frantic sprint back home—head pounding, heart in his throat. The front door splintered on its hinges. The empty home. Empty except for the blood that soaked the rushes. The bed. Even the walls. Far too much of it. And the smell. The graveyard where he found them. All three of them. Already buried. Father Ollo had pointed out the spot.
No.
Laid under this tree.
The panic seized his throat. His breath came fast and shallow. Numbness crept over his hands, his feet, his cheeks. The world pitched. Selvo sunk into the puddles nestled between the roots of the tree, water soaking his clothes to the bone.He was falling and waiting for the ground that never came. With a wrench, Selvo curled over in the muck. He pushed his back against the trunk of the tree. Like a spooked horse that needed to run out the fear, his body shook until it could no more.
Please.
Then, after several moments, his terror subsided enough that the world began to come back into focus. His mind began to take back the reins.The staccato inhales evened out and he tipped his head back to let the rain pour on his upturned face.
Nine years.
Nine years gone from that terrible night and still the darkness lurked. It occurred far less than it used to, but some things seemed to still draw out one of his fits. Selvo felt the shame begin to well up behind the wall of terror and memory that was beginning to sink back into the recesses of his mind.
Early on, the fits had happened here until he realized he could keep them at bay by avoiding the grave altogether. Yet, here he was, back with them, and sure as the sun rising in the east, the fit had struck like a caged beast waiting for the smallest show of weakness to lunge out between the rusted bars of a weathered mind.
Nine years.
Nine years ago when Master Gren Mercer had found him in a similar condition in this very spot.
Eyes closed, Selvo focused on the droplets coursing down his face. The sensation felt good—good because it felt like something and that felt better than nothing. Which of course, Selvo mused, hardly made any sense at all.
A dull ache crept across his chest as his eyes began to water. He could hear his mother’s laughter drift through the ringing in his ears. She always seemed to arrive at moments like this. Moments when he fell short of all that was asked. The memory was a rare kindness, but he wasn’t sure it was a comfort.
***
He relaxed his eyes, drawn to everything—and nothing at all. The interlaced boughs in the canopy above drifted into blurred lines and dark shapes. They danced in the soft summer breeze that tumbled down from the high slopes. The black stripes of limbs shook and quivered against the noon-blue sky and were almost words. Graven runes. He might not know his letters, but he felt this was a pattern meant for him. Some insight he was sure he might understand. Perhaps it spoke of wonder and promise—of how to bend the ear of Lady Fortune to his pleas. Or of snares and traps to beware on the path of life. Or perhaps, it simply spoke of the way of things. He was close, if only he could—
—The shapes snapped back to the mundane. Twigs. Branches. Twisting leaves under crawling clouds.
Selvo sighed and sat up, resting his head against the maple behind him. He had felt close this time. Close to discovering whatever lay behind the veil of this world. Sometimes it felt like unraveling some hidden riddle—like peering into the heart of God—and other times it felt like an easy way to pass the time.
“Dreaming again?”
He looked up and saw his mother standing above him—the light was behind her and glowed like the halos the parson preached about. In her arms was the sleeping bundle of his baby sister.
“Was only thinking, Ma.”
“You do that a lot.”
Selvo shrugged.
“No, no.” Her soft laughter was a babbling brook. “Don’t you ever be shy with those thoughts, Silvius. They’ll do great things one day.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I’ll have to wait and find out.” She held out her free hand. “Your father’s looking for you. The festival is underway.”
Selvo took her hand and stood, brushing his hosen off. Next to his mother, he was nearly eye level.
“And to think you’re only fourteen,” she said, guessing his mind. “To be as tall as you are without hair under your arms!”
“Ma.”
“Oh don’t be ashamed—means you’ll tower over your father yet. An eyeful you’ll be,” she smoothed back his hair, “and with those chestnut locks.”
“Ma.“
“Alright, alright.” His mother turned as if to leave, but then stopped, a wry grin on her face. “You know, I think I saw Klara in the village. Was looking quite pretty.”
“Ma!”
His mother’s laughter bounced amongst the trees. His sister stirred in a cry.
“Shame on you.” His mother’s smirk belied her words. “Made me wake Flehrka.”
He laughed in reply.
His mother soothed the baby back to sleep and waved him on with a smile.
“Go forth, Silvius. A day awaits—don’t waste it dreaming.”
***
He shook himself from the memory.
Forget it all.
In a flurry, Selvo stood up in the muck, muddy water sloshing about his now drenched turnshoes. Splashing directly towards his master’s house, Selvo tugged the nag along behind him.
They walked right past the graves.
He didn’t spare them a glance.
~
His fingers ran through the stacks of tarnished silver, counting and sorting without effort. On his right was the ledger, on his left was last week’s collection. The piles rose as he sifted through his master’s accounts. Money in, money out. The Bryer’s farm is overdue, John cannot pay, Edith Wright must have sold her cow to make up her debt—all went into the ledger in precise letters as his fingers became stained with the nearly black ink. If Selvo could finish before his master returned, perhaps he’d have a few moments to prepare the supper and then—
—The door swung open, the familiar figure backlit in the entrance, pulling off a sodden hood as he limped through the threshold.
“What are you doing, boy?”
Selvo hesitated. “Accounting for last week’s take, Master.”
The door eased shut behind the man.
“Last week’s?”
Selvo’s face flushed.
His master’s head turned with a gentle smile, his pale eyes glowing in the gloom of the shuttered house.
“I must have misheard you,” he chuckled. “Last week’s?”
Selvo’s gaze remained intent upon the ledger as his master walked over to stand beside the trestle table upon which Selvo worked.
“I’d hoped you’d be minding my supper, rather than tending to old tasks. Tasks, you ought have already completed.”
“I thought—”
“—Don’t.”
Selvo’s eyes burned. He blinked and stared down at the coins. Perhaps they knew what to say in moments like this.
“Nothing to say?”
Selvo risked a glance. Pale eyes seemed to slip their way into his soul—prying and scouring until he was adrift within himself.
His master sighed. “I expect a meal within the hour.” Turning, he hitched up the steps to his private chambers and the door slammed behind him.
Selvo was left in the silence, gazing at the door barring him from rooms unknown. A door to another world, a secret world—a world that Selvo was confident he would never see. His master was the only man he really knew anymore. Yet his knowledge of him added up to… nothing.
A poor accounting.
The irony was not lost on him.
~
“Is it prepared?” his master’s voice echoed back to the small kitchen where Selvo prepared the supper. Selvo walked out to address his master.
“It is almost ready, Master.”
A moment later he appeared again bearing a platter that held half of a roasted hen, drizzled in honey and sprinkled with rosemary, a small bowl of peas porridge, a fresh loaf of Jeppen’s rye, and a slab of butter from Edith that he was sure was intended as a bribe in hopes that he’d ‘forget’ collecting her dues next month. It would be in vain.
“Finally,” his master murmured as Selvo ladled the peas onto the wide trencher. “I was beginning to think you were cross with me.” His master washed his hands in the proffered bowl, drying them on the waiting napkin.
Selvo retreated a few steps and returned with the flagon of wine, pouring the dark drink into his master’s cup.
“I worry you see, because whatever our differences may be, we must be of one mind. What would happen if you began to resent me? What would happen to us?” His master took a long drink of his wine. “But I need not worry. What possible merit could a grievance of yours hold?” His gaze flashed up towards Selvo. Expectant.
Selvo knew to hold his tongue.
A sallow smile cracked across his master’s face. “Quite right—none.” His fingers dug into the waiting hen, oil soaking into the trencher. “It seems like but yesterday you were living in little more than a hovel and now that poor boy can read. Write. Can do figures. I gave you the schooling of a man tenfold your better. Your life has purpose. You have a reputation.” He looked up at him. “Wouldn’t you say so?”
Selvo nodded once. He knew what that reputation was. For some reason, the thought turned his stomach.
“Then sit,” his master’s smile widened for a brief moment. “Join me.”
Selvo thought he must have misheard.
“Sit.” His master gestured towards the bench.
Selvo did as he was bid, smoothing the confusion from his face as his master continued to pull apart the chicken.
“There is work forthcoming,” said his master between bites of bread. “Expectations at hand. I need to know you will rise to the occasion.”
Selvo worked his hands, knotted in his lap.
His master sipped wine. “I pray I can trust you now.”
“You can,” Selvo proclaimed. “I won’t let you down.”
“That’s my fervent hope.” His master dabbed his mouth with the long napkin, a red stain left on the pale blue banding.
Selvo nodded.
“Do you enjoy our work together?”
Selvo turned towards the old man. “Master?”
“A simple question.”
Selvo’s worked to find the right words. “Of course,” he coughed. “Verily, I do.”
“You must see how much I care for you,” continued his master. “What has it been? Nine years?”
“It has.”
“You’ve no family, and the world out there,” he gestured towards the village beyond the walls, “offers no companions. They revile you—they envy you. But see, I understand that, boy—I know it well. And that is a special thing. A special thing for us. It means we only have each other. No one must come between us.”
Selvo watched his master lick his fingers. A trail of oil from the hen dripping across his livered lips. He looked up.
“Try some,” said his master, holding out a clump of meat. Selvo hesitated, but reached out and took the wet handful. He chewed it in slow bites. “I may provide, but you do well when you put your mind to a task.”
Selvo cleaned his hands on the napkin.
“Can’t you taste it?” asked his master. “Our partnership.”
Selvo swallowed. Waiting.
“And who else could you provide such fare?”
“No one, Master.”
The hint of another smile crept along his master’s face as he laid his hand on Selvo’s arm. A touch seldom felt before. Selvo dared to hope it meant his words had been the right ones–-that he might end this conversation before it spoiled like it so often did. To return to the quiet movements of the house, where he could finish his work in peace while he dreamt of a respected life. One in which he had a name, regarded and well honored alongside his master. Perhaps, the kind his father had dreamt for him.
Tonight, Selvo knew he’d let himself dream that it might even happen. That despite it all, perhaps this was the beginning of that life. Of course, he’d thought it before, but this time felt different.
Surely.
“Very well. It’s time for peace.”
Selvo pulled himself back to the moment, and turned to retreat to his small room, swallowing down hope that he could almost taste.
“Wait.” His master’s voice was hard again.
Selvo paused. His hand trembled.
“Do you have my letter?”
Selvo had forgotten. He stumbled over himself to retrieve the letter from his purse.
“I do, Master. He gave it to me this morning. Sor—Sorry for not giving it to you earlier, Master. I—”
—Long thin fingers snatched the folded and sealed note from Selvo’s hands. His master examined the seal carefully before cutting the wax and pouring over its contents. His eyes furrowed and a scowl grew as he read. Selvo made to leave, but his master held up a hand, stopping him without turning from the words.
“Right then,” as he folded up the note. “It’s time. You will need to collect all of my outstanding loans.”
Selvo was certain he had misheard. “Pardon, Master?”
“All of my loans. You must collect them.”
Selvo blinked. He could not believe his ears.
“Master—” he began, stumbling over his words once more. “All of them?”
Selvo felt his master’s eyes.
“Some of those loans aren’t due for another year, and the return on others have been collected only this past week—word will get out. Surely someone will protest.”
His master’s regard was cold.
“I—it will be difficult to convince them all to pay.”
“They might not want to give my money back, is that it?” sighed his master. “If it’s too much for you to handle,” his gaze met his own, “then what in God’s green burning tree do I keep you for?”
In that moment, Selvo could have sworn his master’s pale eyes went black—two hooded chasms seeming to yawn and scrabble towards him.
“Master—”
“—Already, you’ve forgotten what we discussed.”
“No—”
“—You will get my money. All of it. Every penny. Do not let me down.”
“I won’t,” Selvo managed. “I’ll set out tomorrow and—”
“—Tomorrow? No. You will be gone by the time I finish my meal. By the time—”
“Master?”
“—I finish my last bite.”
Selvo nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak—fighting against the snake that was worming its way around his neck. Squeezing. Tightening. He hurried out of the room before his master could see.
Inside his room he slammed his back against the wall. He slid to the ground.
One breath in. No.
Two breaths in. Not now.
Three. Four.
On the fifth breath something settled. The beast that waited, the one snapping behind his eyes—retreated. He somehow knew the beast was keeping an accounting of its own.
He rose and packed, grabbing some food for the road, bundling them into linen sacks to stuff in his saddle bags, stabbed with bewildered pangs from his sudden task. Glancing towards the table, Selvo saw his master finishing his last few bites. His threat was not an idle one—they never were. Selvo grabbed his bags and rushed to leave.
“Boy.”
Selvo paused, his hand on the door.
“I meant what I said about us being of one mind to achieve this work. There are to be no grievances between us.”
Selvo half turned. “There are none from me.”
“Then let me hear you say the words.” He rose and slowly crossed the distance between them.
Selvo’s hand shook.
“Let me hear it.”
“I—” Selvo tripped over the words as he always did. “As a hound loves his master, so this servant loves his lord.” Reciting the Fornic verse.
Do I love my master?
He remembered loving his mother, but she was long gone. She had been kind and laughed often and if he closed his eyes he could still hear her soft words of praise and pride. His father’s kindness was of a different sort, with measured words and a gentle touch. Selvo hardly remembered his baby sister—Flehrka—but he remembered wondering if they would grow close as she grew and if she would take after their mother. He always hoped she would.
Yet, he found those memories were distant at times, as if seen through a summer haze. Sometimes he’d press through that haze to see them as they had been, in all their sharp clarity, but that hurt. No. Best left in the fog of time. Shrouded and soft.
But his master? His master was here. Now. His master was someone, his master was respected, and his master provided this house.
But not a home.
Maybe one day.
“You’ll be gone for some time. Do well and the door will be here upon your return. Then we’ll discuss the future of our work together.” His master paused as if to let the words resonate in the space between them.
He supposed he did love him. For some reason that made his stomach churn too.
You Wonder How These Things Begin 