down, the Baron turned to the notables of the town waiting to greet him and an audible gasp rang through the crowd. The man who stepped from the coach had once been equal to Erik in size, but now he stooped, as if thirty years older than his forty-five years. Though still broad of shoulder, his naturally slender build was now dramatically gaunt in contrast. His hair, once golden, was lank and grey, and his face was ashen, sunken cheeks white as bleached parchment. The square jaw and proud forehead were bony ridges that emphasized the look of illness. The Baron was helped by his younger son’s firm grip on his left arm. His movements were jerky and he looked as if he might fall.
Someone near Erik said, ‘So then it’s true about the seizure.’
Erik wondered if the Baron’s condition might be aggravated by his mother’s plan, but as if hearing his thoughts, Freida said, ‘I must do this.’
Pushing past those who stood before her, she moved quickly between two mounted guardsmen before they could turn her back. ‘As a free woman of the Kingdom, I claim my right to be heard!’ she cried in a voice loud enough to carry across the square.
No one spoke. All eyes regarded the wiry woman as she pointed an accusing finger at the Baron. ‘Otto von Darkmoor, will you acknowledge Erik von Darkmoor as your son?’
The obviously ill Baron paused and turned to regard the woman who had asked him this question each time he had visited Ravensburg. His eyes searched past her and found her son, standing quietly behind her. Seeing his own image of younger years before him, Otto let his gaze linger upon Erik; then the Baroness came to his side and whispered quickly in his ear. With an expression of sadness on his face, the Baron shook his head slightly as he turned away from Erik’s mother and, without comment, moved into the largest building in the town, the Growers’ and Vintners’ Hall. The Baroness fixed a hard gaze upon Freida and Erik, barely masking her anger, before she turned to follow her husband into the hall.
Roo let out a sigh, and as one the crowd seemed to exhale. ‘Well, that’s that, then.’
Erik said, ‘I don’t think we’ll do this again.’
As Freida moved back toward them, Roo said, ‘Why? Do you think your mother’s going to stop if she gets another chance?’
Erik said, ‘She won’t get another chance. He’s dying.’
‘How do you know?’
Erik shrugged. ‘The way he looked at me. He was saying good-bye.’
Freida walked past her son and Roo, her expression unreadable as she said, ‘We have work to do.’
Roo glanced back to where the two brothers, Manfred and Stefan, watched Erik closely, speaking quietly together. Manfred was restraining Stefan, who seemed eager to cross the square and confront Erik. Roo said, ‘Your half brothers don’t care for you much, do they? Especially that Stefan.’
Erik shrugged, but it was Freida who spoke. ‘He knows that soon he will inherit what is rightfully Erik’s.’ Roo and Erik exchanged glances. Both knew better than to argue with Freida. She had always claimed that the Baron had wed her one spring night, in the woodland chapel, before a monk of Dala, Shield of the Weak. Then later he had requested and received an annulment so he could marry the daughter of the Duke of Ran, the records sealed by royal command for political reasons.
Roo said, ‘Then that is the last of it, for certain.’
Erik gave him a questioning look. ‘What do you mean?’
‘If you’re right, next year Stefan will be Baron. By the look of things, he’s not the sort to hesitate about publicly calling your mother a liar.’
Freida stopped walking. Her face showed a hopelessness Erik had never seen before. ‘He wouldn’t dare,’ she said, more a plea than a challenge. She attempted to look defiant, but her eyes showed she knew Roo was right.
‘Come, Mother,’ said Erik softly. ‘Let’s go home. The forge is banked, but if there’s work, I’ll need to get the fire hot again. Tyndal is certain to be in no condition to do it.’ He gently put his arm upon his mother’s shoulder, astonished at how frail she suddenly felt. She quietly allowed him to guide her along.
The townspeople stepped away, giving the young smith and his mother an open passageway from the square, all sensing that somehow there would soon be an ending to this tradition, begun fifteen years earlier, when first the beautiful and fiery Freida had boldly stepped forward and held out the squalling baby, demanding that Otto von Darkmoor recognize the child as his own. Nearly every soul in the Barony knew the story. She had confronted him five years later, and again he had not rebutted her claim. His silence gave her declaration credence, and for years the tale of the bastard child of the Baron of Darkmoor had been a source of local lore, good for a drink from passing strangers bound between Eastern and Western Realms of the Kingdom.
The mystery was always in the Baron’s silence, for had he denied it but once, from that day forward Freida would have had the burden of proof put squarely upon herself. The itinerant monk was never seen again in that region, and no other witness existed. And Freida had become the drudge of an innkeeper, and the boy a blacksmith’s helper.
Some claimed that the Baron was merely being kind to Freida, refusing to publicly brand her a liar, for while he had obviously fathered her child, the claim of marriage was certainly the ranting of a disturbed woman or the calculated concoction of one seeking some advantage.
Others said the Baron was too much a coward to proclaim a public lie by saying Erik was not his; for anyone had merely to glance at Otto to see that Erik was his very shadow. The Baron carried shame for a badge where a better man would wear honor, for to acknowledge Erik, even as a bastard son, would cast doubt upon his own children’s right to inherit, and bring down the wrath of his wife upon him.
But for whatever reason, by saying nothing, every year, he let the challenge stand unanswered. Erik could claim the name ‘von Darkmoor’ because the Baron had never denied him the right.
Slowly they moved through the street, back toward the inn. Roo, never one to let two minutes pass in silence back to back, said, ‘You going to do anything special tonight, Erik?’
Erik knew what Roo referred to: the Baron’s visit was an excuse for a public holiday, nothing as formal as the traditional festivals, but enough so that men would pack the little Inn of the Pintail and drink and gamble most of the night, and many of the young girls of the town would be down at the fountain, waiting for the young men to drink enough liquid courage to come pay court. There would be plenty of work to keep Erik busy. He said as much.
Roo said, ‘They are their mother’s sons, no doubt of that.’
Erik knew whom Roo meant: his half brothers. Roo glanced over his shoulder, down the street to the square, where the Growers’ and Vintners’ Hall and the Baron’s carriage were still visible, and found that the two noble boys had returned outside, ostensibly to oversee the removal of the Baron’s baggage, but both were in hushed conversation, their eyes fixed upon Erik’s retreating back. Roo felt an impulse to make a rude gesture in their direction, but thought better of it. Even at this distance, he could tell their expression was of open hostility and dark anger. Turning back toward the inn, Roo hurried his step to catch up to Erik.
Darkness brought a lessening of the day’s activities everywhere but at the Inn of the Pintail, where workers and town merchants who were not of sufficient rank to attend the dinner at the Growers’ and Vintners’ Hall gathered to enjoy a mug of wine or ale. A near-celebratory atmosphere gripped the inn as men told stories in loud voices, played cards and dice for copper coins, and tested their skill at a dart board.
Erik had been pressed into kitchen duty, as he often was when things got busy. While his mother was only a serving woman, Milo allowed her the position of kitchen supervisor, simply because Freida was in the habit of telling everyone what they should be doing. That she was almost always right in her estimation of everyone’s duties failed to mitigate the irritation such an attitude generated. Many serving women had come and gone at the inn over the years, more than a few telling Milo the reasons