Shadow of the Unicorn

Student: Chapter 1

Jace stood upon the battlements, staring, though unseeing, out upon the bleak grey landscape of the failing year ere snow covered and softened the weary land for its winter repose. Leaden clouds lowered ominously on the horizon while a mournful wind moaned pitiably in the half completed towers of the grotesque fortress; the river passed sullenly by without comment, preoccupied with its looming icy imprisonment. Though only partially complete, the grim fortress was already falling to ruin, as were the souls who lingered therein. The place was hardly cheerful, even upon a bright morning of spring, and was at its most dismal ere the first snows of winter, but it was not the weather that brought the boy out to pace the battlements upon such a dreary day, rather he had much to contemplate and none of it good. His patched cloak flapped wildly in the wind but he little noticed, for his thoughts were just as unruly. His grandfather, a nobleman displaced by war, had laid the foundations of this ruin and his father had further built up the fortress after its founder's untimely death, but the family fortune had run out long before the project was finished, so it moldered in half-completed splendor while its occupants dwelt ever in the shadow of poverty and isolation, and now it seemed, madness as well.

Jace's father was but a boy when war forced the family to flee with what they could salvage of their wealth. The patriarch was determined to start anew in a strange land, much to the dismay of the locals, but they were a rather peaceful folk and he began his project without asking their permission, and as they were notorious for their willingness to forgive, the project continued despite their misgivings. But tragedy struck the third winter the family spent in their new home, for both of Jace's grandparents died of pneumonia within a fortnight of one another, leaving their son, still very much a boy, alone in the grim fortress with only a few faithful servants and guards that had accompanied the family in its flight, for they trusted no one in this strange land, least of all those of common descent. But the boy was not crushed by his loss, but rather was as determined, perhaps more so, than his father to finish the project and become a veritable lord in this strange land, the protests of the original inhabitants aside.

Construction continued slowly as the boy grew to manhood and the family fortune dwindled, but surely the son of a nobleman might make a proper match and thereby reinvigorate his fortune as well as perpetuate his line. So it was that Jace's father went a-courting and soon came home with his beautiful and captivating bride, the very picture of a wealthy lady, but only a picture, for though of noble blood, her family was as destitute as that of her new husband, though neither had thought to broach the subject before their marriage, assuming the other was indeed as rich as they portrayed themselves to be. The truth came out very soon after Jace was born; the ensuing fight was the stuff of legend, at least if you believe the tales told in after years by the aging servants, but in the end, the lady fled, leaving her infant son and husband to fend for themselves. The man looked coldly upon the boy, who was so like his mother in form and feature that he could not help but despise him. He turned his back on the child, stared stonily at the open door out which his wife had fled, and then withdrew to his own chambers. Had one of the few remaining servants not taken pity upon the poor creature, he likely would not have survived infancy.

The man seemed indifferent to the fate of his son, pretending that he did not even exist and focusing all his time, thought, and energy on his project instead, but there was no money to pay workmen or buy stone and timber, so the man had to do everything himself. Only two servants remained of the few that had fled with the family, lingering on out of faithfulness and because they had nowhere else to go, for their lord had long since ceased to pay them. The old housekeeper did the cooking, looked after the domestic side of things, and was the only mother the boy ever knew. The other was an aging guardsman who had taken on the duties of butler, valet, and jack-of-all-trades; it was he that taught the boy what little he knew of reading and more importantly, to his mind at least, the sword. The rest of the lad's education was left to what he could glean from the few books that lay forgotten around the fortress and what the housekeeper could impart in the form of old stories as she wandered about the keep seeing to her myriad duties.