Chapter 2: Building up Lancaster
Elfwine paced through the streets, nodding and smiling at the many workmen and master craftsmen he had invited/swindled/stolen away to his father’s hold. A servant struggled to keep up despite his relative stature.
“We need more smithies and carpenters before we can think about re-equipping the men. Oh, and more cooks and polishers. If a herald comes back saying he’s found the cheesemakers I asked for, send him right straight to me.”
“Y-yes, my lord,” the servant scribbled away. “Anything else?”
“Did the builders manage to drain and check the wells yet? They might need expanding before too long if this place is anything like…oh, yes, bricklayers and smelters, have their kit set up downwind of everyone else, next to the charcoal makers and leathercrafters. Don’t want to make people ill. How’s our funding?”
“Trade is booming, my lord,” the servant smiled and frowned when Elfwine was no longer there. “And,” he hastened, “y-your father wishes to see you shortly.”
“I’m sure I can find time today. Thank you, Jan. Go check on the newborn, alright?”
“Y-yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord.”
And so the day went, much as it had for the last few weeks. Lancaster was bursting at the seams with all the new bodies rolling around inside of it. Elfwine resisted the urge to giggle like the child he…was? He frowned, then shrugged. Since accepting the madness, he found it far easier to simply go with the flow of it all. For as long as he was here, he saw no reason not to transform Lancaster into what he knew it could be.
It kept him out of the house too.
Elfwine paused after ducking under a plank of wood. Whenever he saw his father, the niggle of doubt that whispered this was all real got to him. Frankly, he found it unacceptable at the moment, and so had elected to ignore it and…him. But he wasn’t lord of this city really. A child, no matter how extraordinary has leeway only so far as a parent grants.
Unfortunately, his father wasn’t even the biggest issue.
“Elfwine!”
She was.
The woman was convinced she was his mother. Certainly, Elfwine took after her. He had inherited her eyes, far bluer than his old metallic grey, and her redder, fairer hair. Elfwine didn’t really want to think about being related to the Karlings, it sounded so inherently silly. Yet apparently, yes, the two brothers remained alive and well, and still trying to kill one another. Subsequently they married out their children to anyone remotely powerful or influential that might grant them an edge in battle. Lancaster apparently followed Elfwine’s own policies of ignoring Europe however, for which he certainly approved.
“My dear,” a gentle but firm hand lifted his chin up. He beheld her face, still fresh and youthful despite four pregnancies. His respect for her for such a feat, especially carrying twins on the last occasion, was high. Elfwine knew well the pain of children himself.
“Forgive me, I was elsewhere,” he shrugged her off and took a step back. He winced as his back impacted the wall behind him.
“Are you alright?” she asked, crouching down before him and touching him again, this time on the shoulder.
“I think so, it wasn’t too hard.” He rubbed his head.
“So, I see,” she said, with a little humour. “Your father was asking for you again. Are you avoiding him?”
“I think we somehow keep managing to miss one another,” Elfwine replied, looking around for an escape.
“My son,” she said, and repeated after catching his face again. “Whatever it is that troubles you, we wish only to help. Why do you hide from us? Your sisters miss you.”
And that, Elfwine thought miserably, was one thing he had no reply for.
He had never truly had a sibling.
His mother died giving life to him. His father dallied around and remarried but with little further fruit, save for a few quiet bastards. It…confused him, to be in such a position as this. It was the aspect of this world that made him feel truly mad, and alone.
“I will redouble my efforts.”
She sighed. “That is not what I was hoping for. Just remember, alright?”
“Alright.”
He needed to find Secret. It was time for this madness to end.
…
“Stop sulking.”
Secret huffed, and did not look around.
“You are sulking. You know we have to visit
Him. Would you rather we meet up after dark?”
The bear shuddered beneath Elfwine’s legs and kept walking.
“I wish it were not so, you know. I wish…I’m not sure what I wish.”
Did he want it to end? Did he want this to be real? What did it mean if it was, for him and for his apparent new family? Was he supposed to live his life again, or differently? How did any of this gain access to Heaven?
There were few beings in the world who could grant such knowledge. Unfortunately, Elfwine knew of only one that had any interest of talking to ‘lesser mortals’. Still, it did not stop him hoping as they rounded another corner on the path and a waterfall came in sight, that they would find no one at home.
“We’re here,” he whispered. “Thank you, old friend, you need come no closer.”
Secret snorted and butted his head against Elfwine’s sore back. They went forward through the water together.
The cave beyond was fairly well lit by the simmering sunlight through the veil of water, and the various growth that glowed blue along the walls. Further in they went, leaving behind the sounds of the outside world, and eventually fellow cave dwellers such as rats and bats.
Suddenly a worn and filthy door appeared in front of them. Upon the frame read:
‘
Do come in,’
Elfwine entered into the pitch blackness beyond. Secret came to rest beside him and endeavoured to keep breathing normally. After a while in darkness, the kind so deep it is solid, the body begins to invent what its senses cannot detect. However, Elfwine knew he was not imagining things when a soft green glow began to appear in the distance.
“WHO DARES DISTURB MY SLUMBER?”
“Oh good,” Elfwine said, “He’s still here.” Patting Secret, he said, “Don’t worry, it’s only Rambunctious the Wizard.”
“I,” screamed the voice grandly, the lights appearing again in a flash of white and green,
“AM RAMBUNCTIOUS THE WIZARD!”
The pair stared at the figure before them. Secret coughed.
“Hi,” Elfwine said. “Nice to meet you…again.”
“Do you know me then?” the wizard said in a scratchy voice. He was a short man, sturdily built with a beard and hair that seemed to explode outwards from his face.
“Potentially,” Elfwine said. “In this situation, you told me to tell you that I should not worry for being a Shepard amongst sheep.”
“And?”
“I replied, did that mean I had to shag a sheep eventually?”
“ANNNNNNNND?”
“You said, ‘Ewe’ve never been to Belgium.’ And laughed. I din’t get it.”
“Neither do I.”
“What is Belgium?”
“Sounds a bit like a tavern. I think it’s a tavern.”
“Oh.” Elfwine filed that away for later. In six months, Lancaster’s largest and most popular public house was born.
The wizard Rambuctious scratched his nose for a bit and then sat down in front of the boy and his bear. They made quite a sight. A large polar bear with the hint of undeath about him, a young boy with eyes of a shark and the smile of an eagle, and a small, strange man in lime green trousers.
“Enough with the foreplay,” Rambuctious said, “I am the Great-”
“Yeah, we know,” Elfwine said. “I’m…I used to be the King of Lancaster, ninety-seven years old and very much not a small child. You’ve been part of my court since that Cup of Life incident fifty years ago.”
“THE CUP OF LIFE! THE MOST SACRED OF-”
“Yeah, that one. Didn’t turn out to exist in the end. Quite disappointing for me. Three weeks in Ireland wasted. Anyway, you told me to come to you if anything weird happened.”
“Has something strange happened?” The man asked earnestly.
“…I’m ninety-seven,” the boy said.
“And
he is a large example of
Ursus Martimus. In common tongue, a gigantic bloody bear. Normal is clearly relative my boy, do keep up.”
This was one of the reasons why Elfwine had a love/hate relationship with Rambunctious.
“Well, this never happened before. I’ve died or been transported here and changed-it does not matter which. What I want to know is what to do about it?”
“What to do about it?”
“Yes.”
“Do you dislike being a young child at ninety-seven? Do you hate your family? Your kingdom? What are you wanting me to say here?”
“But…I can’t just accept this! My
mother is a stranger to me. My father…can’t be alive again? Did I die or…did everyone else?” He finished softly. “Are my children gone? Their children? Their children’s children?”
Rambunctious sighed and took out a pipe from somewhere. “My boy-er, man, you will never know. I certainly do not. How on earth could we ever come to a satisfactory answer without doubting it? If it is true that you are realm-shifted, that you were and then not, and now are again, then apparently space is warped and time is bendable and reality is someone’s plaything.” He threw up his hands. “Not a clue. If you came for advice, mine would be…well, I would probably come here and carry on with whatever I was doing but I suspect that doesn’t apply. In terms of the world…you have to believe that we are real, for your own sake. Everyone around you is a person, just like you, that sort of nonsense.”
He sniffed. “I hate pep talks. I’m going somewhere else to read.” He clattered away, making far too much noise in an apparently empty cave.
Secret relaxed finally, and nudged Elfwine. The boy nodded but sat quietly for a while next to the bear. “I’m not sure I can do this, Secret.”
Secret huffed and looked at Elfwine.
You know that you can, he seemed to say,
but you are not sure whether you want it. Or deserve it.
“People rarely get what they deserve,” Elfwine muttered. That perhaps, was the very problem.
…
“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.”
