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The capital of Morum continued its daily routine while a king and queen remained safely guarded inside their castle. They remained content while their nobles went about their days with impunity over the commoners. Petty people acting as tyrants over the rabble, who kept the city vibrant and alive. Those who did most of the living and dying had to deal with these oppressors daily. Powerful people ruling the weak because of a name or status meant everything, and it was all a hoax. While I knew this from the history of my world, the lesson became engrained in my heart when I experienced it firsthand.

Some might think that getting older leads a person to become softer, gentler, and more understanding. The truth is like the idea of nobility. It’s a fraud. People don’t forget revenge and payback just because they’re older. Certainly, I could walk away from Ruby’s kidnapping. The realist in me thought that way for a moment. But the honest side of me wanted to see Gilbert and his cronies die painfully and slowly.

So much for being a kindly grandfather, I thought while I waited for the night to fall.

Sitting on a rooftop across the road from Gilbert the Bastard’s mansion, many thoughts ran through my mind. As I recalled the street conversations which followed my beating, I mulled over my steps that evening. During the day, I discovered the noble’s strengths and weaknesses. Yes, I was going into the lion’s den. He’s from a high-ranking noble house and carries the taste for pretty woman who are powerless. A true bastard of the family who already fathered plenty of children, only to throw them back out on the street. He deserved death long before I arrived.

Now, I’m not a superhero. Plus, I’m not an overpowered ex-military who can hold a .30 Cal in one arm and wipe out a platoon by myself. That only happens in the movies and there are no machine guns in this world. So, without an army or a king on my side, I can only do something as a single individual. There are not a lot of options when you think about it.

But I am an old soul, according to Myrddin Wyllt, and he’s correct. I’ve seen many things. Worse for Gilbert, I know how to improvise to get by. But the first thing I realized after my beating that day is I must throw away the morals I grew up with. Coming from a land where the law generally protected the innocent, and the police typically fought on the side of the weak, left me feeble inside. Throwing out such engrained mores is easier said than done, but I went into a rage when I thought about Ruby and others like her. To protect good people like Ruby, something must change. And it started with me.

Coldly analyzing the situation, I came up with an idea that certainly threw any past concepts of good and evil out the window. Naturally, the plan came from fairy tales. One of the many things about nobles in the stories was constant references to poisons. Also, the tales have many people asked by their rulers to become an assassin like the huntsman in several tales. Well, it looks like that’s my only route.

After I found Gilbert’s house, I became familiar with all the entrances and windows. The broad expanse of gardens which held plenty of shadowed areas gave me plenty of ideas for entering and exiting. Going back to the commoner side of town, I used some of the blood money to a better use. A blacksmith forged me half a dozen tiny arrow shapes, which I claimed were for fishing with a small spear.

After sharpening the arrows on his sharpening stone, I made thread from the strands of my rope. Using feathers I found around a butcher stall, I wrapped the feathers to the shaft of the arrows. A desolate alley gave me a place to test my new weapon when I pulled out my wood blowgun that I purchased on a whim.

It took a few hours to get the hang of how to use it again, but I could accurately strike a target about fifteen feet away. As a test, I even shot a rat in the side, which became too nosy around me. It ran off squealing in pain with one of my arrows embedded in the side. Despite my anger at losing the arrow tip, I learned I needed to rework them later.

To test my theory on the lethal nature of my child’s toy, I hurriedly pressed the poison berries I still had into a type of liquid paste. After smearing the blue-black concoction on the remaining arrow tips, I waited for a while. Finally, another rat came waddling by as it headed to the market down the street. Carefully, I aimed, and my shot nailed the rat in the rump. The creature made it about five feet before falling over and quivering. When I got to it, it was already dead.

Perfect!

The rest of the day, I carefully went back to the noble area, blending in with servants as they walked. Some of them looked at my bruised face with suspicion, but I simply turned down an alley, only to reappear behind another couple of servants. After climbing up to a rooftop, I waited while remaining out of sight. I knew I’d just get myself caught and killed if I tried entering during the day. So, I waited and hoped the bastard wasn’t already hurting Ruby. As watched the estate across the road, I paid attention to the guards around the mansion. They acted just like the guards around the city walls, predictable in their patterns. While I waited, I embedded each window and door I saw on the outside into my head. Counting the number of steps a servant took from each door to the main gate or the back gave me information.

As night finally fell over the city, I slid down from the roof. The street lanterns slowly came on as an old man with a lantern torch worked his way down the street. The nobles occasionally wandered by, but I could hear the carriages long before they came into sight. Mimicking the careful, upright walk of a servant, I moved across the street to a nearby alley. After taking twenty-nine steps through the darkness, I turned into a narrow passage between two houses. When I came out of the shadows, I stood in an open area next to the fence that ran around the Gilbert estate.

While I waited there, I made sure my hood was over my head. Earlier, I cut some of my cape into a length of cloth. I wrapped the strip around my face to make it difficult to identify myself. As I waited, my nose picked up the smell of cooked food coming from the building behind me. The smaller structure was a kitchen for the main house next to the road. Inside the main house, I listened to the conversation through the open windows above me. Since the voices told me nothing of interest, I paid no attention as I remained unmoving in the corner’s shadow. My focus was on the side of the large manor house in front of me.

The two-story building was a type of timber and frame construction I remembered seeing in old towns in Europe. The upper floor hung out over a foot or so from the lower story and it had a long-thatched roof with a steep pitch. A narrow balcony was on both sides next to the massive chimneys. While I never saw the inside of this place, I figured the chimneys were for the main rooms. Servants didn’t need heating from a noble’s perspective.  

Climbing over the fence wasn’t difficult since it was mostly decorative. Staying in the shadows of the garden, I followed the path to the back. Stopping occasionally at each unknown sound, finally got close enough to see movement in the windows. Crouching down behind the well-manicured bushes, I observed the area. As I expected, inside I saw servants working at a table, which I assumed was the dining room. Looking around, I quickly spotted the guard following his routine as he strolled down the path. As he passed me, I could see his face from the light coming through the window. It was the man who threw the coins at my feet.

Without a sound, my hand guided the blowgun to my lips as he continued walking. Calmly, I blew a puff of air through the wooden tube. The guard reacted, slapping at the back of his neck, then looking at his hand. He took another couple of steps and shook his head. At first, I thought he might call out. However, when he glanced over at the manor house, he stumbled. The guard fell face first into a row of flowering plants.

While I waited for an alarm, my mind went blank for a moment. Shocked at the victim’s rapid reaction to the poison, along with my first killing, I noticed my heart wanted to explode. Taking several deep breaths, I calmed myself while I looked around. When I got over to the guard, I wasn’t completely sure if he was dead, since his arms and legs trembled. Carefully, I pulled him deeper into the bushes until he was out of sight. Using the dim light coming from the nearby window, I carefully pulled another arrow from the makeshift holder I made. I stuck it in his arm to ensure his death. Soon the convulsions quit. Then, I loaded another poison arrow into my blowgun and slid into a pocket I made in my cape that afternoon.

My grappling hook came back to life during the afternoon as I put the sickles back together. Winding them up, I stepped closer to the manor and let the hook fly up and over the balcony railing. The loud noise above made me drop to my knee. However, the noise inside the house continued unabated. Slowly I rose and noticed the dinner looked to be finishing up. Realizing I needed to move, I climbed the rope as fast as I could. When I nearly got to the top, I realized how weak my arms were since they burned from the exercise. Still, I pushed through and got over the banister.

Pulling up the rope, I left it on the balcony and walked to the door. Fortunately, someone left the door unlocked, and I slowly opened it. There was a dim candle burning on a dresser by a bed. The bed itself had red velvet-looking open curtains around it. Another larger dresser stood on the opposite side of the room. Unfortunately, there was no place to hide. The small antechamber next to the room held two chairs and another dresser. I looked over the door latch and noticed there were no locks, so all I could do was wait outside. Then, an unsettling thought occurred.

What if this isn’t the room?

Ruby sat inside a small room without windows. Women servants already forced her into a copper bathtub in the afternoon and scrubbed her using a scented laurel oil soap. One woman with a large hook nose and missing her front teeth told her what to expect that night.

“Beest thankful for the lord doest not last longeth in the sleep chamber,” she stated with a smirk. “Still, our lord will wanteth thee everynight for a while. Bareth with it until bred.”

“Still, this is wrong. I’m not his servant,” Ruby protested. “I’m a free mistress. Nay a good king wouldst alloweth such things to befall me.”

The two women gave her a blank look.

“King advisor and gentleman Gilbert gets what he wanteth,” the older woman stated flatly. “It keeps that gent hence from other noble family. Doth well, and the gentlemen will pay thee before thee goes back to the street. Heed my warning or perish.”

When they finished, the women took Ruby to the room with no windows and made her put on an elegant linen undergarment about the length of a dress. It fit tightly around her breasts, and they stated Gilbert enjoyed such sights. Afterward, they made her put on two stockings that came up over her knees, held up with a garter.

“Yond’s all thee needeth tonight,” stated the missing teeth woman. She paused, giving Ruby a final warning.

“Maketh sure a manservant doesn’t help breed thee, for Gilbert shall killeth thee for slight.”

They left Ruby to her thoughts. As she sat on the narrow, hard bed, the woman thought about her time as a prostitute. She lost her virginity months ago, so she knew what to expect. Her grandmother taught her the ways of men and their lust, and she experienced it daily before being sold.

Still, the thought of freedom welled inside of her. The few days with Covan brought the idea to a head. She saw his caring attitude, even while trying to hide his strange ways. Ruby recognized he hated injustice. She wanted a world where he could flourish, where she could walk with Covan as one of his servants, even a concubine. The woman knew better than to believe she could equal him, for that was an impossibility. He would marry a noblewoman one day. For a while, Ruby dreamed she could guide him to a good match and help him build a truly noble house.

‘Tis an impossible dream!

Ruby sniffed as she lay there. Emotions she believed long buried surfaced when she thought of Covan. She felt terrible at the beating he took trying to stop her capture. While he broke her heart to see it, the woman felt an underlying warmth at the impossible gesture. The fact that Covan tried to help her still meant more than she could tell him. However, even a noble from another kingdom held no authority over houses under this land’s king. Her only hope was for him to remember her with the dagger she slipped to him that morning. Hopefully, he can escape the city. As her life turned bleak again, Ruby wished for the best for her savior. Then she sighed.

I guesseth I can’t expecteth such valorous fortune in this world!