The Lord of the Manor - Prologue
#2 of The Lord of The manor
In an alternate timeline of the middle ages, a spiteful wife and another mother's tragedy bring about events both sinister and unforeseen. With highwaymen roaming free, assassins at his doorstep, and the Lady of his household plotting to overthrow him, perhaps a rekindled fire can bring about the changes the Lord of the Manor needs to secure his foothold on his lands and his true lover's heart.
This is the beginning of an already lengthy piece written in partnership with my wife Shadi Carcer, based on an equally lengthy roleplay between us. With luck, each chapter will be around 10,000 words, and filled with Knights, Adventure, Treason, comic relief and Steamy Romance, in the first piece I can really say I'm not looking forward to seeing finished, because I want it to go on! This will be posted as I go back and edit what is already written until I'm satisfied it is of posting quality. So, with out further delay, Enjoy!
As always, comments and Fav's are appreciated.
The candles all about the house flickered in the still, night air, a loud thudding coming from a locked upstairs room. Everything was deadly silent, the whole house and all of its occupants inside it silent with grief. A maid hung her graying head over the basin she was quietly scrubbing dishes in, the boy at her feet drying them looking up at the older otter woman with wide, grey eyes.
"I don't understand... can you just give someone's baby away-"
"It isn't your place." The young otter's grandmother snapped at him, her eyes flashing towards the door of the kitchen's wash room, her tail brushing against the young male to sooth him. He was as upset as everyone else in the house.
"Miss Shadi had to give her baby away... her family would have... would have been ruined if she'd a kept the little lass... As it stands, they might not be able to marry her off- but raising a bastard child in a house that is already struggling would... it just wouldn't be good, you will understand some day..." The old woman lied to her kin.
She was disgusted with how this seemingly sweet, happy family had treated this situation... She'd never seen something like this happen in this particular family she had been serving, did not think these Amasii lions capable of it... Amerill honestly thought the wealth and power this small family had once held hadn't changed how they treated each other...
But pulling that screaming baby from it's sobbing mother's arms had broken her heart more than she could stand... They had allowed her to nurse her child for very close to a month, then up and decided it wasn't fitting for the young missus to keep her baby... Amerill had decided her and her grandson would need to seek their business elsewhere in the upcoming months...
"...It still makes me sad..." He said softly, another loud thump from upstairs, followed by an angry, mournful roar making the windows rattle.
"Me too, son... now, dry that pot, we have more work to do at the Carcer's manor before the night is done..."
Her face was red with her rage, her fur damp with her anguish. She threw herself against her door again, letting out another angry roar as the lock rattled- but did not yield to her small frame, despite how fierce she tried to sound. Shadi was beyond mad at this point... she felt nigh, insane. With another inhumane shriek, she tore at the wood with her claws, the red firmness giving way under the sharpness of her claws with satisfying cracks and splinters.
"If I have to tell you even once more to be calm, so help me God I will come in there and muzzle you to your bed post!" Her fathers angry, harsh voice sounded as he slammed his fist against her door, the vibration and the shock of the sudden voice sending Shadi careening away, her dress getting caught under her bare feet and sending her sprawling to her floor.
She recovered quickly. "Give me my daughter back, and I will be silent! Not until then!" She screamed at him, beating her fists against the door as she charged at it once more. He was going to beat her for this- and beat her good too.
The lock to her door began to jiggle as her father's furious roar sounded behind the big slab of wood. It would be a long night.
The Vase shattered against the back wall of the grand bedroom, the sounds of their argument echoing throughout the large manor atop the hill overlooking the village. Most of the guards and other servant's had grown used to the arguments of their new lord and his 'lady' since he had gotten back from the Crusades, so no one would bother coming to see what the noise was about...
"I won't do it! Do you want her to ruin my body?!" The female Keynari shouted, her ruddy red fur flashing in the light of the torches, hackles raised aggressively as she searched for something else to throw at the male across the room. "You can find a wet nurse or better yet, feed it yourself! I gave you a son- thats all I was supposed to do! I didn't sign up for a second one!" She yowled as she found a large hard covered book to toss, lobbing it across the room with a deep thud.
"For God's sake woman! Why the hell not?! Are you really so vain you would let your child starve?" Isiat barked back, ducking as he made his way forward and neatly dodging another paperback as she threw it. "Enough!" He towered over her by a full foot, the male standing 6'9", and her at a meek 5'4". He brought his hand over her cheek, his anger and frustration getting the better of the normally cool male, as was the screaming of his starving, newborn daughter.
Victoria yelped and span away from him, her ears flattened, but her eyes flashing with anger and aggression. By god, what was wrong with this woman? "If you are going to be a bitch about this, you can sleep in the kennels with the other dogs tonight. I will find a wet nurse for my daughter, and you, will get out of my sight. Now." He growled, sending the evil woman scurrying from his sight, a high pitched snarl and a swirl of her gown as she vanished out the door from his chambers.
"And do not let see your face again until morrow, else my paw will grace your other cheek as well!" He snarled, before he turned and began collecting up the things she had thrown about, setting them back on the shelves where they had come from.
As soon as he was done and had composed himself once more, the male turned, marching down the large double stairway into the main foyer of the expansive hilltop manor. There, he found just who he was looking for.
Amerill had been his nanny when he was a child, a huge help to his mother and father with such a rambunctious child. Now, she was in his employ as a maid, with quite a pretty pay. He was very fond of the woman who had helped raise him. She had many children, and now, many grandchildren, all of which she still took care of in her old age. She also tended the Styker family across town when she wasn't in his employ, and worked in a bakery a few days a month.
"I am in need of a wet nurse for my daughter, before sunrise. It is a matter of urgency..." He spoke, the command behind the words rather clear.
She sat down the pot she was scouring, and looked at him thoughtfully, the old, graying otter's eyes shining with a familiar sort of mischief. "I think I may know one, my Lord. One of the Stryker girls in town recently gave birth, but her child was taken just on last night... If it pleases my Lord, I can go and fetch her at once." She suggested cautiously. The woman certainly still had an air of dignity about her at least, and knew what she was doing. But she had been right to show caution. The Styker's were Isiat only other real contenders, and the lords of the town...
Or at least they were, before he had returned with the King's deed to the town and keep from the crusades five years age. The elder of their lot did not like him much for that... Would they really allow their daughter to do something as menial as being a wet nurse? No matter.. If he commanded it, they would come.
"Tell Ser Parker to take twenty of the men, and set out under my banner. I will see to it that they cannot simply refuse. Go with them. Bring her here. Speak with my voice and authority on this matter, and hurry about it, please."
The little lioness had passed out sometimes just before the sun set the next day. She had made sure everyone in the house, and in her father's lands knew of her grief... but she'd only been able to keep up the kicking and screaming, and her father was only able to hit her so many times without breaking something... Eventually, they had both had to retire, her father red faced and angry, and Shadi bruised from head to tail...
Yet she felt nothing of her injuries... her anguish was sickening in her belly, and the tenderness of her breasts a reminder of the baby she'd nursed for so many weeks, loving and bonding with, thinking for sure her father wouldn't go through with his threat, not after all that time...
But that had been her punishment for robbing him of another daughter he could sell off, like her two older sisters.
"Ma'am? Milady?" The gentle voice of her kitchen's maids brought her around, the little cat blinking with her odd, bi-colored eyes. The sun had set, how odd that she did not remember...
"Do you want out of this house, Ma'am?" The otter said gently, her wrinkled grey face squinting at her by the light of a single candle. Now that she was coming around, Shadi could hear a great many men outside, horses too, and her father's angry voice from the yard...
"... Yes, but to where? Whats going on Am'a?" Shadi sat up right, wincing, but letting her ears rotate atop her head, taking in all the noises there were to hear... Outside, her father's angry voice was all too easy to pick up. "Father sounds... most displeased..." She tried not to sound too pleased herself at that... She wondered what had happened...
"I wouldn't think he'd be..." Her voice was a low chuckle in the darkness. "Lord Carcer has learned of... your tragedy, but he has great need of you in your time of need... It seems he is in need of a wet nurse- and nanny for his eldest child... it seems none of the other instructors he has hired can... handle his son, as it were..." She wasn't bothering to keep her voice down any longer- the noise from the courtyard was loud enough to cover anything. Her father's voice was point to point with another, much more gravelly voice.
"Your clothes have already been packed; quite hastily from your dressing room... we must hurry. The morning may bring sadness for yet another family if you do not come with me... let us not allow others to feel your pain, sweet girl..." The woman looked at her with understanding in her eyes... but also resolve. She wasn't leaving here without Shadi...
Her eyes burned as she rose, clearing her throat, emotion welling up inside her just as surely as tears were filling her off colored eyes. If this was indeed Isiat Carcer, the boy she'd ran with as a young girl who now basically owned their village... there was no way he would allow any child of his to starve... honestly, she would do this for anybody who would ask it of her... She couldn't stand the thought of allowing a child to die when she could help it.
"Grab my brush, Am'a..."
Minuets later, Shadi and the elder otter woman were rushing down the stairs, Shadi having brushed herself to suitability and changed her gown... her last one was rather torn and disheveled. The one she wore now was a bit tougher, made for traveling.
"You can't just come in here and steal my children-" The male Amasii was interrupted by the pommel of the great-sword clasped in the black dragon's paws, the amethyst gemstone cut into the base of the grip of the silver blade cracking over his muzzle with what sounded like a brick being beat against a pillow.
"His lordship Sir Carcer gave you a command, and you have the gall to question it in front of me?" The dragon snarled, his blade singing as he twirled the sword almost as tall as he was, as if it weighed no more than a dirk. The point of the blade came level with the Lion. He stood two heads taller than anyone else in the room, and Ser Parker, was lord Isiat's Sargent at arms, the man responsible for training his knights. Garbed in the polished, almost obsidian black armor that matched his scales, he cut an imposing figure indeed.
The color in her father's face rose to a red, angry shade, and she knew she had to step in before it came to lethal blows, and she had no doubt her father would meet a quick and bloody end in that fight... She hated the male, but he was still her sire...
"Here I am! I apologize for taking so long dear sir's, but packing for such a long trip takes a bit of time..." She explained, stepping between the male and her father, bowing sweetly to the dragon.
"Father... I will be home as soon as he has no need of me... it won't take too long..." The color drained from his face again, as he realized perhaps that for the first time... he would be in his home alone...
She didn't attempt to comfort him further... Shadi was nowhere near ready to forgive that brute of a male, not now... and likely not ever, not even if she were to get her daughter back... The graying otter followed her up to the males, nodding to both of them. "Let us be off before there is more trouble..."
"Aye, let's. Your lord father has said all he needs to. Lord Isiat will pay you well for your services, a gold dragon an hour, minus food and housing, adding to a total of twenty per day until such time as he no longer requires your aid." The dragon nodded, bowing to Shadi in turn as he sheathed the gleaming silver sword. The steel rang as it slid into its matching sheath. "My Lady Stryker. I am Ryan Parker, the master at arms for Lord Carcer. my knights here will escort you to the castle.. We have a horse saddled and ready for you outside."