Moving to the window now, Alwyn caught a glimpse of Sliger on the street below, heading off into the city. Grabbing his bag, he himself set out from the Bull, going in the opposite direction to a livery stable.
When he had first arrived in town, he had considered bringing one of his family’s many horses, but had abandoned the idea when he realized that any student keeping such a costly animal would garner much attention. Today, he selected a fine bay-dun that had taken him to Trippingham and back a number of times. However, he did not do so in order to travel to Everson Cottage.
Perhaps next week,he sighed.For now, duty calls me home.
Three hours of riding later, Alwyn crested a hill, and caught sight of a tower, its crenelated silhouette dark against the fading, late-summer sky.
Castle Farrmore.
As a cold wind bit through his coat, he was thankful for the hearty meal and warm hearth that awaited him there.
‘Castle’ was a disputable descriptor of the edifice, for although remnants of the 700-year-old stone fortress had been preserved, much of it had been torn down and rebuilt over the years according to the whims of whichever nobleman currently lived there. Each lord had updated his seat with whatever were the time’s current conveniences, so that a grand, though reasonably comfortable home now stood on the estate.
Trotting over the familiar grounds, Alwyn arrived at the extensive stable’s door. A groom ran out, shouting over his shoulder, “Mi’lord’s ‘ere – look sharp!”
Alwyn’s heart lurched and he nearly looked around for his father though he knew it washisarrival in the yard that had just been announced. He dismounted and handed over the reins, reminding himself,Papa is no longer here to see to the tenants, thus my journey home.
Feeling not a little foolish, he walked towards a vestige of the curtain wall, then under the oak and iron portcullis. Though its raising and lowering mechanism had been disabled more than two hundred years earlier, it still bore witness to the castle’s formidable past.
Crossing the bailey, Alwyn passed several neatly stacked cords of firewood, a thick carpet of wood chips shifting gently under his boots. He hadn’t told the Felixes the whole of the wood-chopping story, and now, looking up and seeing the window through which he had watched the woodsman all those years ago, his memory sharpened.
It was a mid-autumn day, and a pile of oakwood burned brightly in the hearth while his father was playing billiards with a group of friends. One man, Lord Loughley, was shooting very poorly, for which the others were ribbing him like schoolboys. Alwyn’s father found this especially amusing as he himself had lost the previous game.
Perched in the window seat, young Alwyn had peered out upon the grounds, his eyes steady on Ward the woodsman who was toiling at the chopping block. The man’s exhalations were frosty plumes in the frigid air above his head. Though short of stature and clad in coarse woolen garb, when he arced his axedownward, he cleft the thick rounds in two with remarkable elegance.
“Come here, son,” Viscount Farrmore beckoned as the men’s game had ended. “You’ll need to know how to handle a cue before long. We can’t have you messing about like Loughley here.”
Alwyn noticed, as he made his way over to take the stick, that Loughley did not smile while the other high-borns snickered.
After he attempted a few shots, his father thumped his back, saying, “You’ll do us proud. I just know it.”
There were a few cheerful cries ofhear, hear!as Alwyn drifted back to the window seat to watch Ward divide more branches into pieces that would fit the castle’s countless hearths.
Could any of the men in this room do that?he had wondered.What does a ball rolling across a felted mat matter,when it’s cut wood that will bake our bread and keep us warm throughout the winter?He hunched a little into himself, thinking his thoughts treasonous.
Eventually, the woodsman had put his tool aside and walked towards the kitchen, lured probably by Cook’s renowned hospitality for those who worked the grounds.
As the knock of ivory balls continued, Alwyn slipped out of the room. Creeping down one of the stone spiral staircases, he made his way outside to where the woodsman had propped his axe. With a glance towards the kitchen door, and another at the billiards room window, he grasped the ashwood handle and placed a bit of kindling on the block at his feet. One askew swing later, and he beheld the extraordinary sight of the axe head, deeply embedded in his shoe.
Chuckling now, Alwyn wiggled all five of his toes within his riding boot.
Thank the heavens, you fortunate phalanges!
As he continued towards the house, someone within must have sighted him, for the butler was standing in the hall upon his entrance.
“Welcome home, my lord,” Carrow said with a bow, then strode forth to take his master’s saddlebag.
Callingmethat instead of Papa, must feel as strange to him as it does to me,Alwyn thought, dipping his head in response.I would we did away with all of the ‘my lord’ business.
“Thank you, Carrow. Where is my aunt?”
“Lady Joan is in her parlour.”
“Please send word to Mr Shrove that we’ll ride out first thing in the morning to see the tenants.”
“Very good, my lord.”
Alwyn went to seek out his aunt and found her slouched in an armchair, deep within the throes of an afternoon nap. Crouching beside her elbow, he whispered, “Aunt Joan…”
