Ancient Blood by Robert Earl

Author:Robert Earl [Earl, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy
ISBN: 9780857874030
Publisher: BL Publishing
Published: 2011-08-04T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

‘Old Mourkain was a land of honey and milk

The pigs lived in houses, the peasants wore silk

The land was so rich it bore three crops a year

And there was nothing but joy from cradle to bier.

Our lords were as fair as our land was fine

As wise as our petru and as strong as our kine

Their beautiful lives were of such elegant grace

That all clambered out for the joy of their embrace.’

– From The Song of Mourkain

Not a day went by without Seneschal Martmann thanking the good fortune that had brought him to this posting. He was realistic enough to admit that he had done nothing to deserve it, any more than he had done anything to deserve becoming a seneschal in the first place. Being born to one of the old baron’s maidservants had been enough. That, and the striking resemblance Martmann had born to the lecherous nobleman.

Other, more ambitious men, might not have found this small border fortress to their liking. It was little more than a fortified manor: two storeys for the men, a slate roof, and a wood-built corral for their horses.

It had been built to guard the pastures and low hills that lay to the west of the new baron’s demesne, and apart from grass and sheep, and weather, there was nothing much there: no trade routes, thick with fat merchants and bulging purses; and no local town from which to squeeze the gold and the girls. There wasn’t even any decent hunting. The shepherds and cattlemen who inhabited the area had long since killed most of the game.

No, this posting would not have been for everybody, but for a man of Martmann’s temperament, it was ideal. He was seldom one for exerting himself, and never one for facing the kind of dangers that other, more lucrative postings, offered.

Occasionally, he and his men would make a show of chasing goblins back into the forested hills beyond. Not much of a show, though, and none at all if the goblins ever stopped running. Then there had been the recent proclamation from the baron about the Strigany, just in time for Martmann and his men to seize an entire caravan. It had been the most heroic action of his military career. The caravan had been small, but wealthy, and Martmann, deciding that its presence was another sign of fortune’s favour, had stripped it like a vulture before burning it to the ground. After all, he liked to think that he was a far-sighted man, and he especially liked to think that nobody was going to be left alive to start thinking about revenge.

Yes, life was good. It was in celebration of this fact that tonight, as on every night, Martmann was drunk. He sat at the head of the table in the hall of his small fortress, as perfectly at home as a frog on a lily. The reed torches lent a warmth to the cold granite walls, and to the rough-hewn features of the rabble he commanded.

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