Tomebound

When the Bogman climbed up from the depths of the Everswamp, he had forgotten his life before and the land of his birth. He had forgotten his old name. He remembered only what was done to him. The Water was his mother, and the Shadow was his father.

He slew the first Claelish slaver he saw. Then another slaver ran him through with his spear, but the Bogman lived. The slaver said to him, “You have been sentenced to die! I can see the chains around your ankles. You were dead forty days! Why do you now live? Kneel before your master!”

The Bogman said to him, “I have no master but Death, and I have killed him. What master are you of mine? There is no god but the strongest man. There is no truth but strength. The gator and the waterfowl know the way. One takes and the other is taken.” And he beheaded the slaver with his bare hands.

-The Legend of the Bogman

Castle Holcort, Grackenwell

Prince Kimbel Garrotin sat in his father’s chair at the head of the table in the Great Hall, twirling a knife blade-down on its axis against the rough-hewn wood. He glared at his servant Hane when the old man wasn’t looking.

Heavy clouds hung low over Holcort, threatening rain, gray and bloated like forgotten corpses in the Everswamp. The air smelled mossy and damp.

“Tell me what you learned while we were away, Hane,” Kimbel said in a gentle voice.

Hane turned to look at him sidelong out of his crooked eye. “Why, sure, milord. I learned the island people west of the Stone Continent, why, they know how the stars will move. They say in a few short years that the moon will black out the sun, yes they do!”

“I already knew that,” Kimbel replied. “Not bad for a bunch of Tomeless savages.” Hane smiled his simple smile and resumed sweeping the kitchen. “Did you miss me when my father and I were gone to Qarda?”

“Why, sure I did, milord. Nothing to do but sit in the new Holcort library and read my eyes crooked. Well, more crookeder than they are, eh?” He laughed a sparsely-toothed laugh.

“So, you didn’t appreciate the generous vacation you received? You were unhappy to be without your work? Should we have kept you busy even in our absence?”

“Course not, milord. Meant no insult. I only was—”

“Tell me something else you learned while we were gone.”

Hane swept the dust, hair, and other small debris into his flat wooden pan and shook it off out the window. “Well, milord, let me think... Oh! I learned that in Dridon, to the south of us, they worship a god called Triad. They believe it has three heads—”

“I knew that already.” Kimbel heaved a bored sigh through his lungs. “What kind of prince would I be if I didn’t familiarize myself with the faith of our neighbors to the south?”

Hane nodded and put away his broom and pan in a closet by the cellar door. “Of course, milord. I only read a small bit about Trinitism. Tell me, milord, if you would, what’s the names of the three heads of Triad? I didn’t read that far.”

Kimbel scoffed angrily. “Don’t insult me with such idiotic questions! If you mean to outwit me, the Crown Prince of Grackenwell, then give up now. I already know more than you will ever learn.”

Hane smiled. “I’m sure you do, milord. You been reading books since you was a little lad, yes you were. Me, I could barely spell my own name until just a few years ago. Grackenwell forbade a slave to read.”

“Forbade! What a scholarly word! Look at you now, a free man.” Kimbel smiled a thin smile. “You owe it to those superstitious conquerors across the sea in Qarda. They’re obsessed with the number four—did you know that, Hane? They see it as holy. No better than the savages, if you ask me, but they’re just luckier and richer than others. By Qardish decree, you work for us for a mere four days at a time and then you have a whole day to piss away however you please—to spend, I mean. I misspoke. My apologies.”

“Of course, milord.”

“You have an entire free day to spend in the public library, where they give books away to learned men and to clumsy old fools alike. More than that, we can only work you twelve hours in a day. And we must pay you a wage befitting your work. Why, freeing all our slaves, being forced to pay them, and giving them a free day every four days... it’s enough to grind a kingdom’s economy to a standstill. Do you know what befitting means, Hane?”

The old servant scratched his gray-white stubble. “Erm... Like a bit of clothing that fits just right?”

Kimbel couldn’t hold back a snicker. “Almost, old man. Almost. Keep up your reading and maybe one day you’ll understand. You know I mean no offense by that, don’t you? I apologize. I think I’m still used to talking to you like a slave that I forget the new way of things, even after all these years.”

“I free you of blame, milord. And I free you of my company.” Hane hung up his apron on his hook on the wall. “Workin’ day’s done. Now I head home to make myself a supper. Might bake me a potato, I think!”

“Wait!” Kimbel jumped up from his father’s chair. “I know something you don’t know. A secret. Would you like to hear it?”

Hane bristled. “I reckon not, milord. Not if it’s from the Ledger. Even a free man like myself is forbidden to know that.”

“It’s called the Secret Ledger, you uncultured bag of bones. It’s only my family’s most prized possession. No one but the king is permitted to lay a finger on it. That will be true as long as House Garrotin stands, as long as Grackenwell keeps a shred of her pride. I don’t care how many gold-clad mongrels arrive on our shores—sorry, I meant to say Qardish soldiers. There I go misspeaking again.”

Hane winced at the boy’s outburst. “Aye, milord. You and your father do take good care of that Secret Ledger. Doesn’t cost me a wink of sleep that I’ll never read it. Never intended to, even now that I’m free.” He dusted himself off and brushed the sweaty gray hair out of his gaunt face. “Well, a good night to you and yours.”

“Wait! I know something else. Something not in the Secret Ledger.”

“That’s good for you, Kimbel.” Hane waved goodbye and went to step out the door from the Great Hall.

Kimbel snatched his knife from the table and cut the distance between him and Hane in half. “What did you just call me?” The old man’s eyes bugged out, one looking straight at him and the other staring somewhere else. “Even a free man has consequences for talking down to his future king.”

“Thousand pardons, milord. I meant to say Prince Kimbel! The mind gets foggier than the Everswamp in my old age. Afraid I misspoke.” Kimbel rolled the knife in his hand. “Do you mean to stab me, milord? A free man? I reckon even royalty might face a consequence for that.”

Kimbel smiled brightly and sheathed his knife. “By the Bogman, I would never do such a thing, Hane. You’re not done serving my family yet.”

Hane grinned. “Thanks, milord, but I’m done for these four days if nothin’ else. I’ll see you after my free day, eh? And hopefully the King is home by then. I’ll try to learn somethin’ to tell ya when I come back, yes I will.”

Before the old man could turn again to leave, a resounding tone rang out through the cobblestones and the soggy soil of the capital city Holcort. The bell tolled in the citadel.

Kimbel knew what the bell meant—a tingle of excitement crept up his backbone. “Do you hear that, my dear old friend?” he asked his former slave. The old man’s confidence, his swagger of a free man, had evaporated, and his good eye darted around the room like the eye of a pig about to be slaughtered.

The bell had not tolled in Holcort since Kimbel was a little boy.

But then Hane smiled. “Must be a special announcement, I reckon. Is this what you was meanin’ to tell me?”

“That it is, Hane, that it is. You remember what the bell means. All free men must report to the citadel at once. Why don’t you come with me and we can walk there together?” He put a friendly arm around his old servant’s shoulders, ruffled his gray hair forcefully; at sixteen, Kimbel was already a full head taller than the hunched old man.

They followed a small train of servants, noblemen, soldiers, and scampering children to the heart of Holcort, the main citadel where the richest merchants set up shop. Their tributary of townspeople flowed into a raging river that let out into a sea of onlookers gathered in the city square. At the other side, the bell ringer left his post as the clapper swung silently side to side. A military commander bearing a scroll stood at a pulpit before the crowd.

“People of Holcort,” he boomed to the crowd. Everyone simmered down little by little. “I have here a decree from King Brynh Garrotin himself.”

Kimbel escorted his servant to the front of the crowd, the rich and the poor alike parting to make way for his passage. A nobleman offered the prince his seat on one of the benches made of carved driftwood. Kimbel motioned for Hane to take the seat instead, and the old servant obliged with a gracious bow. “Thank you, milord. That’s mighty generous of you.”

“Oh, you’re most welcome.” Kimbel grinned. “I think you’ll want to be sitting when you hear this.”

The crowd had finally quieted down to the commander’s liking. “Now I read from the King’s missive.” He held up the scroll, breaking the King’s official seal and unfurling the parchment. “‘People of Holcort, I write to you now from the westerly region of Grackenwell, past the Everswamp and a day’s ride from the Western Sea. Hierophant Drakhman of Qarda is dead.’” Assorted gasps rose from the crowd.

“‘The whole of Qarda has plunged into chaos,’” the commander read on. “‘In the wake of these developments, Grackenwell is no longer a Land of Accord under Qarda’s boot, and the old ways are to be reinstated. Former slaves that the Eloheed declared free, who did not purchase their freedom, are henceforth slaves again, effective immediately. Slaves are to return to the houses of their previous masters with all their affairs in order by sundown the following day. I, King Brynh of House Garrotin, will restore Grackenwell to her former glory, and I begin with the conquest of the islands across the Western Sea. A third of our military might will be more than sufficient to bring these Tomeless savages to heel. We sail within the half moon.’”

Kimbel leaned down level with Hane’s ear. The old man was shaking. “Are you sitting in a free man’s seat in broad daylight? That’s a lashing when you return to work!”

The prince placed his boot against the slave’s back and kicked him from the bench. Hane fell to a fetal position on the cobblestones. Kimbel vaulted the bench and placed his boot on the old man’s chest triumphantly, like a conquering war hero. Even Hane’s lazy eye seemed frightfully aware of the gravity of this turn of events.

“P-please,” Hane sputtered, “have mercy, Prince Kimbel.”

“Grackenwell has been made great once again, old fool. Now you will address me as you did before. You will call me master.”

Kimbel raised his right hand into the air, fingers splayed and bent to make the Sign of the Bogman. The soldiers returned the age-old salute. Noblemen cheered and applauded him. The poor trembled and backed away, some of the freemen meekly shielding the slaves.