Maygest's Tale

The Miscreant, himself

"It was the rain—Oh, god, that bitter rain that made the Hollow's Brog so miserable."

Maygest paused as he gazed out at the sea of glossy eyes. Children hugged their mothers, fathers held their forceful attentions, but all were below him, sitting in the sand under a shoddily erected canvas tent. All below seemed steadily under his spell. Nothing seemed amiss. Though, Maygest did note earlier from many an empty animal pen and the hollowness of most of their cheeks that one of the lords must have passed through already and done their own robbing. This made him almost want to move onto the next town, but, no, he had already begun his spiel.

Then Maygest continued, letting his voice croak and scratch as it steadily dipped down in volume, "If not for that rain, t-then at least we'd have dry holes to sit in before the Welna guard slowly starved us to death—but it wasn't their fault!" He halted again, holding his eyes steady on the silent crowd. "It wasn't. They hadn't got supplies. We sacked their supply line earlier so-we-it-it was our fault. It-It was just—there's no one to blame."

He let his head drop and lowered his voice to barely a mumble, "There's no one to blame . . . but yet—"

Maygest tried his best to will the tears, but for the moment they weren't coming, so he let his lips quiver and his hands shake. Tears come damn you, he thought furiously. He could hear a shuffle in the crowd. Picture it, he ordered himself. Picture the hovels, picture the Red Welna flag fluttering fitfully in the wind, picture the wild dogs roaming the border of their cell—just waiting till one of them died, picture the dust, the hollow eyes, the sickness, the smell, the bodies baking in the sun like dried prunes, the sight of his brother so feeble that he had to carry him . . .

Tears now poured forth, and he gasped as he stared up at the villagers. God, he hated himself.

"B-But yet," he willed his voice further, "the Lord Goedgerik, whom we all faithfully served, did not pay us. H-He called us cowards because we didn't die. Our wives didn't want us back, our dogs didn't even greet us, so now here I am." He then smiled and pointed at the young lad who first approached him. "You asked, sonny, why I was traveling and where I am going. Well," he bent down to stare at the boy's brown eyes, "I am no one going nowhere."

"Oh, god!" gasped out a woman from the crowd.

Maygest rose back up and saw a middle-aged woman who pulled part of her headscarf down to cover her mouth. Tears were pouring down her wrinkled eyes.

"Y-You mister can stay here if you want?" said another woman. She looked between her neighbors and then back to him. "You can stay here. We're not a rich village, but we can set you up right. There's old Norn's farm down in the hollow, and I've got some coin you could use to buy some seeds up in town."

Maygest nodded vigorously, recalling to keep the tears running.

Another man stood and said, "We've got coin too, sir. If anyone ever deserved coin it'd be you!"

"You're most kind, sir."

"May I ask—"

Maygest turned to the voice and felt his heart freeze solid. It was an older man with a cane and no leg. He was wearing an old tattered sash that had Lord Goedgerik's bear seal. Maygest took in a deep breath, letting his brain fill with all the things his brother told him about the Goed-Welna War.

"Yes?" Maygest said, confidently, and even raised his chin a little.

The old man leaned against a timber beam and steadily rose his cane up, his old tan arms shaking, till the wooden thing was pointing right at him. For some reason, this sight, this judging cane, made Maygest feel pale, and his palms began to sweat.