The entryway to Vaylen Hall was brightly lit with torches on either side, the faint scent of oil perceptible beneath the rich, sweet smell of animal skins that filled the place. I slowly closed the massive oaken door behind me and moved a few steps toward the entrance to the main hall. The parchment, tightly clasped in my sweaty fist, was irreparably open; I had fervently tried to meld the wax seal back together with the feeble flame from my tinderbox outside on the lawns, but I had only managed to melt what remained of the seal and stain the margins of the parchment in the process."Mayhap I can plead the duckfoot," I thought frantically, "S'Haim knows well my plodding, rolling gait; I near enough toppled his best beekeep three springs gone. And along," I reasoned, "such yammers at the base have the bell-tone of truth in the echoing."
But inwardly, I knew that no such apologetics would repair the heinous act I had comitted in reading the message's opening lines. And no amount of whipping or blinding could erase that knowledge from my foolish, addled brain. What is more, I knew that Haim Vaylen would know this fact even better than I, and I shuddered to think what he might plan for me when he learned the truth.
The hall stood virtually empty when I leaned through the archway; only one of S'Haim's househands remained after the evening feast, tidying up the table and sweeping up the scraps from the dusty floor. I recognized him as Biernon Janusen, the High Butler, and I nearly ran from the house as if it had been S'Haim himself standing before me with his thorned riding crop in hand. Janusen was well known amongst Haim Vaylen's servants as a vengeful snitch and an insufferably cruel master to those unfortunate enough to work directly beneath his station.
Frozen like a sweaty pillar of stone near the archway, I noted Janusen's hoary head tilt slightly to the left, as though he had just discerned the subtlest of noises from my corner of the vast room. And before I could make up my mind to drop the parchment on the threshold and flee the place, the High Butler had whirled around and spotted my terrified countenance, whereupon he abruptly shouted, "Yon churl! Dost thou hide in shadows in the presence of thy elders? Come forth, and speak thy errand or know the wages of serpentine stealth!"
"Many 't-tritions, Your H-H-Height," I stammered, "My errand is this message, but in flying nigh I've trespassed the seal . . . of no intent, Ellest's Word . . . but I know not how to --"
"How dare thy sullied tongue trace the name of the Most Holy!" boomed Janusen, his blue-tinted veins throbbing alongside the wild, glossy balls of his bulging eyes. He hurled his broom to the floor and strode over to me with a speed that defied his many years and his bent frame. "Have a thought for the due reverence of the Host of Skies or speak nary a word more before me!"
Having lowered my head at this latest rebuke, I merely continued to stare at the slated stones around my feet until Janusen's rough hand clutched my chin and raised my face on a level with his own. At this proximity, I could smell the unpleasant odor of unwashed linen and stale perspiration that surrounded the old codger like a putrescent bubble. Janusen snatched the parchment from my hand and gaped at the condition of the document.
"O, the lowest dungeon is reserved for thee this ev'n, without question," he said with an ill-disguised sadism, "S'Haim shall not let this pass in peaceful reprobation."
My already horrified imagination began to paint vivid pictures of my half-naked body chained to a wall of wet stone, rats and other unspeakable creatures skittering around my feet, and the presence of something evil in the darkness, something beastlike and yet calculating, that slapped the cold floor with its loathsome fin-like hands. I had never seen the hall's bottommost dungeon, but there were tales enough to make it a place more fearful than Dis itself. My eldest brother's employer had been placed there for his fault in losing 50 of Haim Vaylen's best cattle. His stay had only been three nights, but he had reputedly lost the ability to speak afterwards.
"I beg of your Height, sir, I sketched no ill-works on my duties here; I only stumbled on the verge, sir, and the heft of my fool trunk having landed fully on the seal, I did snap it 'neath my cursed belly." I did not, as any fool would be wise enough to emulate in a similar situation, inform the High Butler of my subsequent reading of the parchment's contents. I fully expected Janusen to sneer at my feeble excuse and escort me immediately to the Bailiff's Hutch for my nightmarish incarceration, but the grizzled old cur seemed preoccupied with something more important than my obsequious drivel.
Though he did not note my observation, quick as it was and concealed to a certain degree by my ramblings, I followed his watery gaze to where it rested on the opening lines of Haim Vaylen's letter. No sooner had it landed there but it was full again in my face, searching, scrutinizing every inch of my features to detect even the slightest trace of a knowing look or embarrassed twitch. I stopped in my bootless narration and simply concentrated on maintaining the inviolate placidity of my expression, lest the anxious old fool should see anything there he might construe to be guilt or consternation.
After several tense moments, Janusen stepped back, releasing my chin but almost imperceptibly tightening his fist around the confiscated parchment. The paper crinkled and popped with an echo in the high-vaulted ceilings. "Well, now, lad-o-luck," he said in a voice markedly less venomous than that previously employed to lambast me, "The night's gone on ahead and left us behind now, wouldn't you agree? Let us say enough's enough for this one time and not trouble S'Haim out of bed, shall we? After all, no harm's really done now that thou hast perfected thy duty and delivered up the scroll. Run along back to the dens now, and we'll just keep this little exchange betwixt chumleys for a sport."
Dumbfounded and amazed by my fortunes, I nodded a hasty oblige and retreated hurriedly toward my humble domicile, little thinking what import my conversation with Janusen might have for the future. If I had only known what would come around by my knavery that night, I would have walked much slower . . . and with my cursed head hung low.
Futurus Persevero
