The Shield And The Sword

PROLOGUE

Isla Lilianna Rogherton
11 November 2022
Hope Town, Kimberley
South Africa.

Present Day
The Year Of Our Lord 1111
12th Century
Maria Ouahe, Arthenia- (Mythical lost city, Mediterranean Sea.)
Sunday 12:30- (the third bell.)
Day 365...
10 November 1111

Dear Diary
Hi darling. It has been two days since my last entry. Ollie and I stayed overnight at Friarstone for the annual purchase of the livestock. I wish I could say that I loved every minute of my time there, but that would be a lie. It was a chore. A mucky, stinky chore.
Imagine selecting and then carting fifty smelly chickens, four giant pigs, thirty sheep, and five cows around a town bustling with consumers and farmers, and cutthroats alike.
The first night, Ollie and I and the ten hands we hired had to sleep in the woods to guard our stock. We started before dawn the next day but because Stoneridge is two hours away from Friarstone, we only arrived there by noon. The girls at Rogherton swear the cloth they make there for commoners is inexpensive and the quality almost good enough for the gentry to wear. I need new dresses and undies for some of the girls and myself. I tried once to wear a corset and those long undies but my bottom still felt bare and my chest felt too restricted, I struggled to eat a meal with that thing on.

Another reason I traveled to Stoneridge was one of uncle Sebastian's farmer friends stored a barrel or two of hickory ashes to make potassium hydroxide, better known as lye.
I waited too long though, and now I'm short on shampoo and soap. I had to wait for summer, for the lavender and chamomile flowers to fully bloom because I refuse to wash or smell like dish soap and water.

If you are wondering about this, there is an abundance of water reserves to use here, unlike at home. There is a stream that runs down Carrion Mountain. It swells into a river near the foot and courses through the village. You can catch some rainwater in barrels if you want to make a more delicate soap for your skin and hair.
Anyway, we stayed overnight on the farm in Stone Ridge and traveled home the next day. It was the most tiresome venture of my life.
No, wait. It was the second most tiresome venture of my life, reminding me of why I am here in the first place.

The day has finally come. Uncle Baz left an hour ago and is on his way home today, leaving me all alone in this foreign world.
I can't believe the time has passed this quickly. I thought I would have more time to get to know him and learn from him, and once I know everything I ought to know, he would help me settle in and then leave.
He has done all of that, instructed me on how to manage the estate and farmsteads, on how to oversee the Rogherton Inn in the village. He gave me ownership of that little b&b, because, in the end, he had nothing else to offer me.
Strange as it is, he takes much after Da. Both the brothers are not easy to get close to, keeping their distance from people like their lives depended on it. Aunt Vera and Uncle Charlie are nothing like them. Thank God.

I bet Uncle Baz can't wait to get home and scold Da for breaking tradition by sending a short, brown-skinned girl to do a man's job. At least I don't have to worry about being the guardian anymore. Uncle Baz said that one of Aunt Vera's boys will have to do it.
I did not mean to sound eager or throw someone else in the deep end like this, but Uncle Baz looked so troubled when I arrived, that I was certain he would have locked me up in one of the many vacant rooms at the Manor and thrown away the key if I had not told him that one of my male cousins, Arnold, is the same age as me.
He has Rogherton blood as thick as mine coursing through his veins after all.

The only reason why Arnie is not here today is that his mother, Aunt Vera, although she is a Rogherton and their sister, she were not allowed to become a guardian like Da and uncle Baz because she is a woman. And according to our strange and fantastical family history, women cannot generate the right amount of power to open the legendary Book of Seals when the time comes or, defeat the Prince of Darkness on the day of his resurrection.

Uncle Baz bellowed that they should have prepared Arnie anyway instead of sending me.
Well, I have prepared for twenty years, and I still think that being a guardian of a three-thousand-year-old tomb is just crazy and a waste of one's life.
Of course, I did not say that out loud to Da or Uncle Baz. They would start anew with my training and the history of our ancestors and the Manor. Everything, our whole lives begins and ends with what lives in the depths of the Manor.
Luckily, Uncle Baz has demoted me to being a steward now, watching guard over the Manor until the next heir arrives.
Hopefully, Arnie will agree and come in the next few weeks.
Unfortunately, I won't be traveling home any time soon. I will have to teach him everything I know, but that is beside the point. I can't leave.
I am sentenced to remain here with Arnie for the next twenty years until our time is up.

I feel more than a little anxious at the moment. Uncertain and afraid.
What if I can't do this?
Although Da and Uncle Charlie, Aunt Vera, and Uncle Baz have prepared me as best they could, now that he is almost gone from this world I suddenly feel ill-prepared to step into his shoes, unfit to lead and guide anyone.
I'm too young for this. I don't even believe half of the things I'm sacrificing the next twenty years of my life for, that's if I get to live that long and get the chance to journey back home.
This life is almost primitive comparing my life in the twentieth century. Each day is back-breaking, hard work, and exhaustion make you grateful for the rations you are allowed, the lumpy bed you can afford, and the scratchy clothes you sleep in. What's worse, I will have to uproot again.
I will have to leave the Inn and go live at the Manor again. It is something I have been putting off for days but, I reckon my time has come...

(After sundown)

The last bell rang two hours ago. The night air is chilly, so I reckon it's past ten in the evening now. I'm finally going to bed and looking forward to it. I am dead asleep on my feet but nothing, not achy muscles and sore feet can make me forget that uncle Baz is gone. I don't know why I feel so sad. I miss Daddy. I miss aunt Vera and uncle Charlie. I miss the twentieth century...
I'm turning twenty years old tomorrow. Uncle Baz could have waited, at least until tomorrow. Do you think I'm whining again? Do you think I'm acting like a baby, unfit for the task ahead?
Perhaps, but this is not an easy thing to do, adapting to an alien world. It is not easy to process and come to terms with the reality that once my time comes to leave, my dad might be long dead, and everyone that I once loved might be gone from that world and I would have to continue without them.
I have never been without family before, admitting, that it was not the most perfect and loving family in the world, to begin with. All that mattered to Daddy was the continuation of the guardianship. He was my first teacher in almost everything I know, from starting a fire from nothing, how to catch small wild animals, and how to cook or dry meat. He tutored me at home in various subjects, like history, geography, science, math, and several languages.
He taught me self-defense and how to use a knife and a sword, teaching me that everything the hand can reach and wield can become a tool, a possible weapon.
I have never felt anything but like a weapon, a tool in his hands.
It was hard to accept that he did not love me and see me as a person. If I was at home today, he would come up to my room at the end of the day, stuff a few rands in my hand, and tell me to go and buy something I like for my birthday.
Not that he was a cold-hearted man. Not all together.
He would invite aunty Vera and uncle Charlie for supper. Dad would invite my childhood friend, Ronald, his mum and dad, and his sisters Karen and Sandy.
Only on my birthday were I allowed time off from my studies and preparations for my journey here. I was allowed a few sips of alcoholic cider and we would have cake and dance until ten clocks.
Dad did not talk much, so uncle Charlie and aunty Vera will have to entertain the other adult guests with conversation. He was polite and friendly, just enough not to make people uncomfortable.
Despite all of that, I love him and resent him in equal measure and I miss him because it is going to be my birthday tomorrow. No child should be without their parent or guardian on their birthday, right.?
That's right and that will be the reason I will never force this task on any of you. You will have a different life. I'll make sure of it...