Good holiday news! We’re about halfway through the Kinslayer Chronicle! You don’t think I chose Chronicle just by happenstance, did you?

Chapter 10 – The Final Regret

His feet were heavy on the stairs as he came down. The hall was empty once more but sounds rang from the kitchen as if nothing had changed in that small inn. The Chronicler set his satchel upon the table, slipping onto the hard bench and clasping his hands together. He didn’t wait long before she emerged, kerchief tied about her head and face just as red as yesterday.

She sighed and rolled her eyes when she spotted him sitting at the table.

“I told you, I’m no wizard. I can’t know if you’re up if you don’t say nothing!”

She stomped back to the kitchen but the Chronicler was suspecting that this practised indignation was routine at this point. He rolled up his sleeves in preparation. This time he didn’t enquire about the bread or cheese and simply enjoyed it for what it was – a good, simple meal.

However, Lafnis didn’t return to her kitchen. She lingered by the table, looking at the Chronicler’s things.

“So this is it then.”

The Chronicler set down his fork, wiping his mouth on his sleeve as he looked at the woman. She seemed almost regretful despite displaying nothing but contempt earlier. Taking a slow drink from his ale, he motioned to the seat opposite him. She didn’t sit immediately, wiping her hands on her apron for a moment before sighing and easing onto the bench.

“I wanted to extend my gratitude…”

“If it’s about the storm -”

The Chronicler hushed her with an impatient wave of his hand.

“No, not just the storm. Though our time has been brief, you’re presence has been much appreciated. You’re quite the remarkable woman, Lafnis. Though you draw little attention to yourself, I can see your gentle touch all around me.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, for one, generous Koudi wouldn’t have this establishment running without you.”

“I really don’t-”

The Chronicler laughed. “You needn’t make a play at modesty. I can see in your demeanour that you feel the same. He is but a boy, still lost in the streets of his past dragged down by regret and remorse. He would hardly have the mind or patience for keeping such a place like this operating, let alone in isolated Janogradt. I’m sure your food helps bring some locals in to keep the door open… or closed as is customary for this strange land. And it is your service and presence that keeps him moving from day to day else he’d be consumed in the shadows of his own despair.”

She didn’t respond at first, taking a keen interest in the dirt gathered beneath her short nails.

“I think you read too much, Chronicler,” she said. But it was her turn to call his protests to heel. “The innkeeper and I… we do not share a tangled history. For all his shortcomings, this inn is his. I am merely the help for the time, before the seasons change and I leave on the last of the summer breeze.”

“You’ll be departing?”

“My stay was never intended to be long. This is not my home. I, like you, am merely a guest for a time in these halls.”

The Chronicler leaned back on his bench, crossing his arms in thought.

“And where shall you go next? Back home?”

And Lafnis laughed before abruptly catching herself.

“I fear not.”

“And why is that?”

“Truthfully?” She pondered her response for a moment. “I suppose I don’t know if my home is left for me. My memories of it are so scattered and few I may have already passed through without even noticing.”

“So you’re a Traveller?” he asked.

“Hardly. But I do find that my road takes a stranger path than I would have guessed.”

The Chronicler smiled to himself, shaking his head. Lafnis raised a curious brow.

“What is so humorous?”

“Most people I met, most people in these villages hardly ever travel beyond their own hills let alone their borders,” the Chronicler said, “and here I have two souls who can’t seem to keep to a single one.”

Lafnis shrugged as she stood.

“I suppose it takes all kinds.”

She made towards the kitchen but the Chronicler called out to her once more, opening his satchel. She paused, turning at the sound of his ink pot setting upon the table.

“What are you doing?”

He looked up at her as he shuffled his papers apart, finding and separating the clean sheaves from the written.

“I would be much appreciative if I could hear your tale,” he said, fetching his quill.

“No,” Lafnis said, shaking her head. “I told you I’d play no small part in your chronicles.”

“You said so yourself that those on the roads always have their stories to tell. I ache to know the story of yours and what brought such a curious creature as you so far north to Janogradt.”

“I said heroes and bards have their tales,” Lafnis dismissed. “I have nothing near as interesting as courtly intrigue or daring adventure. A mere woman on the path has but beasts and her safety to worry about. Nothing more and nothing less.”

“What is it that you flee, fair maid?”

She shook her head violently, her face flushed with emotion.

“I told you scribe, I have no story!”

“But so often do words mask truth. I can see something agitates you so, even now as you glimpse back to the solitude and safety of the kitchen. And it certainly can’t be I. You know I am unarmed. I pose you no threat.”

She took a deep breath, her face turning to the floor. For but a beat she almost appeared asleep for she hung so still and unmoving. When she finally looked up, her complexion had returned as did her look of impatience. She crossed the hall, her arms folding before her chest as she slumped before the Chronicler once more.

“Very well, scribe, what is it that you would know?”

“Your story.”

“I was born, I live, I’ll die. Is that all?”

“There is more than that.”

“Is there?”

Lafnis looked over the table, taking a piece of the parchment and holding it before her.

“Is there more to this? A common mercenary fleeing a life of poverty and servitude trying to drink his regret and sorrow away in a far corner of the globe? What chronicle shall you file this beneath? The Lavish Tales of Wintery Janogradt and its Fascinating Peoples?”

“Why do you disparage his life so? Though it may not be the Kinslayer, it has worth in of itself.”

“And that is why you leave today, then?”

The Chronicler couldn’t help but feel he’d been outmanoeuvred in a debate he wasn’t aware he’d even begun.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Lafnis shook her head, slapping the paper upon the table.

“As I’ve said, there is little value in your ‘truths.’ You’re just a bard with another story looking to amuse and entertain. The truth is that life does not carry the excitement and thrill of the sagas and songs. Our betrayals and weaknesses are such small, petty matters. Take your precious Kinslayer, what of him do you even know?”

“That is the point of my quest,” the Chronicler said, feeling the old frustration return. “The Kinslayer is such a controversial character, shrouded in conflicting reports of enormous generosity and unbelievable cruelty.”

“And given such conflict, how do you hope to even discover the truth? Is it your goal to stop all that you see, asking them if they are this Scarlet Heather in the hopes that the right one will make such a confession?”

“Just because a task is difficult does not make it unworthy.”

Lafnis leaned upon the table, tapping on the collection of stories spread before her.

“Have you sought all the rumours of the Kinslayer? Have you sifted through them in the hopes to catch some pattern or character that presides in all? At the sun’s set, traveller’s will re-purpose their stories, adding their own personal flair or faulty memory to the telling until nothing left of your hero exists. At this point, your Kinslayer no longer survives.”

“That’s not true,” the Chronicler said. “We know he must have killed his kin.”

Lafnis fell silent as she sat back on her bench. But the Chronicler saw the wisdom in his words and continued his thought.

“We can not sacrifice these people to the exaggerations of the storyteller because it makes for good coin about the fire. There can exist their actual deeds along side the mythical retelling. We needn’t live in a world forged by frightful fantasy and unresolved mystery when so much of it exists right before our eyes to see!”

Lafnis didn’t speak for a time. Her arms remained crossed while she shook her head as if to knock her thoughts free from her skull. At long last she sighed and stood.

“Then I shall wish you luck on your quest, master scribe.”

She moved to the door, fetching his travelling staff. The debate had ended and the Chronicler wasn’t even sure who had won. He gathered his supplies, laying them gently into his satchel before tossing it over his shoulder. Lafnis stood waiting with the staff and he took it while giving her a respectful bow of his head.

But as he stepped to the door, he paused.

“I did mean my words. Every one of them. You are a remarkable woman, and I hope the gods bless the stones beneath your feet for wherever they bear you.”

He stepped from the Stone Swan and looked up and down the street of small Talarheim. He took a long breath of its crisp air, watching the tree tops sway gently in the morning breeze. He gathered his cowl tight about him, pulling the hood over his head.

But as his feet moved down the worn steps, he heard the door creaking loudly behind. He turned, surprised to see Lafnis there, tugging the portal closed. She had her thick cloak wrapped about her shoulders and he gave her a questioning look as she slammed the wood and joined him.

“I thought I would walk with you for a spell,” she said. “See you safely out of Talarheim as it were.”

“Are we expecting much danger?”

“Of course not but I figured you’d appreciate the company.”

She looked at him as if daring an objection. But he merely smiled.

“You’re a hard lady, young Lafnis. I can see why the roads hold no concern for you.”

He fell along her side as they made their way past the smithy and tanner houses. For a while, they didn’t speak, listening only to the sounds of the creaking lantern upon the staff’s chain or the groan of the ancient trees in the forest.

At last, it was her that broke the silence between them.

“So what have you heard of the Kinslayer?”

The Chronicler frowned, considering the question.

“Much. More than there is to tell, really.”

“Very well. What do you believe about the Kinslayer?”

That was more difficult and the Chronicler shook his head uncertain of his response.

“I suppose I never gave it much thought. I had hoped to form an opinion once I met him. Though, as the months pass that proposition seems more and more unlikely. But that doesn’t answer your question, does it?

“I guess I expected to find a conflicted individual. So varied are the stories about him that I thought this would reflect on his very person. I don’t hold to such simple concepts as good and evil. Even the war between our mighty Aenir and Vanir demonstrate that the most villainous amongst us are capable of equal measures of bravery too. I don’t doubt that the Kinslayer has killed but that does not make him unique amongst men. An unfortunate state – the world we live in – where the greatest of his crimes is in raising his sword against his on flesh than it is to the innumerable nameless that fill the passing notes of his stories. He is said to be a butcher and hunter of men but it is the murder of his kin that ruins him.

“No, I suspect the Kinslayer has done some wicked deeds. Some truly monstrous actions. Scarlet Heather speaks too much to pillaging, banditry and kidnapping that the stories of terrorized merchant vessels bear far too much weight. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the high seas robbery are true. By most account, the Kinslayer is an accomplished sailor. They say he commanded five vessels at one time, manned by all sorts of wicked and terrifying individuals. So fearful were his crews that the moment his symbol raised, the merchant vessels would slam shut their cannon holes and hoist the white flag in the hopes of mercy and pity.

“Perhaps they found it too. Though most tell of the terrific butchery enacted on his victims, I was unable to find any truth to those accounts. But identifying merchants and fleets that had complied and were merely robbed were more numerous. All of them spoke of the fearsome Scarlet Heather with hair as if it were on fire and such fearsome weaponry as to be beyond comprehension. They say he could disarm a man from ten paces away with a mere flick of his wrist. A shot from his crossbow could release a terrible gas that would incapacitate even the hardiest mercenary.

“But he did not rely on bizarre tools alone. He must be incredibly clever. And not just because he is impossible to hunt down. I have heard of a story where he held a whole city ransom over the release of his lieutenant. Through wits and deceit he convinced a free port that he had an entire fleet stationed out in the mists prepared to reduce their pitiful homes to dust if his man wasn’t given to him. One popular telling says that by this time he was coinless and without any vessel of his own. Perhaps it is the wide-eyed wonder of my youth that makes me like that version the most. Even a man as obsessed with veracity as myself can find some enjoyment in the more unbelievable tales.”

He looked at her, wondering if that was enough of a response. When she didn’t speak, he posed his own question.

“And what of you? What have you heard about the Kinslayer?”

“Oh, much the same and much more,” Lafnis said. “Truthfully, I was more fond of the personal stories. So often are people excited to hear the Kinslayer’s exploits. But its the relationships that intrigue me. They say more about the person than some second-hand tale.”

The Chronicler nodded.

“I suppose that would get into the kin slaying, would it not? The issue with character over deeds is so many interpret however they want. One’s rescue is another’s kidnapping. And the more into their history, the harder it is to find any sense beyond the bias of the teller.

“But there is one. His lieutenant, Verga, served him on many adventures. Theirs was an unbreakable friendship that saw them past their earlier days of plunder and looting. Whenever one was in need, the other wasn’t far to be found. But old crew weren’t the only to rub shoulders with the terrifying Scarlet Heather. It is said that adventurers and heroes alike came into his sights. But the names of those wanderers paled to the importance of the Kinslayer himself.

“Which really leaves the matter of the most important deed that Scarlet Heather committed: fratricide. For many recoil at the thought of murdering one’s own brother as if it represented the greatest betrayal known to man. It’s a position I find intriguing, especially since so many of our legends and myths hinge on these very acts. The War of the Gods is little more than a heavenly conflict between kin. Nearly every state has histories of battles for thrones between family. It is so common that one would think it was the nature of man to come into conflict with those closest to him. In fact, few even stop to consider such actions unless it is pointed out to them. Would the Kinslayer’s brother be any more important if he wasn’t referred to as such? For a man who is rumoured to have killed so many, I think not.

“But it is the intrigue and everyone thinks, nay expects, the story to be shocking if it was to become an epitaph.”

“I heard he was quite a piece of work,” Lafnis said. “A tyrant and abuser. A monster in man’s flesh. That the kin slaying was not a crime of dark passion but a mercy upon the land. But for such a grace, the shame of the deed would forever be remember. Nothing could wipe its memory from the people who should have been most relieved by its execution.”

The Chronicler looked at Lafnis curiously.

“And where did you hear that?”

Lafnis shrugged.

“As I said, lots of bards and travellers come through taverns. To remember the face or name to the song would be to differentiate the birds in a flock. After awhile they all just blend together into a singular whole.”

“What else did this bard say?”

“Oh the usual. How clever the Kinslayer was. How brave. How beautiful. The usual.”

“On the matter of kin.”

“Let me think,” Lafnis said. She paused, drawing her cloak tightly about her as she looked up at the clouds. “I believed his name was Poul. Or Paol. Something to that affect. But to understand the son, I was told you first had to understand the father. Forgive my clumsiness, for I am no storyteller but I believe it went something like this…”