Gil Stonham

Breakfast in the banquet hall, occupancy one, tables dozens, was the usual: a stonehen egg, sunny-side-up; a piece of toast with butter and jam; and a few tomato slices.

Some clever people here might snidely ask why I would not have blood pudding, but there is good reason for that. Blood pudding, or any cooking with blood, for that matter, instills a sensation in me not unlike burnt toast or well-done steak: I might term it ‘culinary murder’. The first-ever cook I hired made blood pudding one day after about two weeks in my service, and I sacked him on the spot.

Speaking of the cook, much like the maidservant, I’d learned my lesson from past cooks and currently had an older man in my employ. His wife had died long ago, and all his children had flown the nest, which meant he had no family which I would’ve had to lodge here. He was also a bit grumpy and loath to talk to me or anybody else, but that at least set him above the maidservant in my book, at the time.

Regrettably, I never asked for either the maidservant’s or the cook’s name. Actually, I might have when I first hired them, but in time I got used to just calling them ‘you’; and I had very little chance to ask now, as I was soon to sack them, for reasons the reader will discover shortly. I do feel sorry for how cold I was to all of my staff in the past, but I at least know those two went on to work for better masters.

Well, cold to all but one.

As I finished my breakfast and exited the banquet hall, I espied another figure rounding the corner to this corridor, coming presumably from the front doors, and headed my way.

Unlike the bent old maidservant and cook, this was a younger, more upright, and more forceful man in his gait. And, though the chandeliers were still dim and he still a ways away, I could make out those features in him that I could single out anywhere: his tan leather cap, the shaggy dirty-blond mane beneath it, his white doublet and blue coat, and that rapier which he carried with him everywhere he went.

“Gil!” I called out.

Gil took heed of my voice, raised his head, and shouted back to me. “Good morrow, madame!”

I rushed over to meet him, stopping myself on his shoulders. “Gil, what are you doing up so early?” I cried with concern. “It’s still not bright out!”

He smiled down at me — a little smile, sitting on the mantle of a thick jawline. “I could say the same about you, madame. This is hardly ever an hour you’re awake.”

Oh, Gil! Always so compassionate!

If you told me to name someone who was a Luminary in human form, aside from myself, I would inevitably name Gil, and it was by no working of mine that he was this way.

Gilther Stonham had once been an ordinary boy growing up in the town of Giltfort (my domain proper), raised by a mason and his wife, but a tragic accident took his parents from him at the age of nine. As neither of his parents had surviving relatives, and as he was too young to become an apprentice in his father’s trade, the case of where he ought to go was taken up with the magistrate.

I attended the hearings, partly out of curiosity and partly out of an urge to make my goodwill felt upon the people (something I lost shortly thereafter). There was much lawmongering in those days, with the main antagonists being a household who were friends with the Stonhams, and the orphanage of the local kyrk.

This all felt familiar to me. A little too familiar, perhaps. And, seeing the Stonham boy carry himself with such sobriety and humility, even after suffering immense loss, my heart was moved for him.

When my patience finally wore down smooth, I, in the first words I had spoken all day, called the court to order, and declared that I would make Gilther Stonham my page, letting him live at my castle. I had felt I needed an attendant for some time, so this was a perfect opportunity to take one. No complaints were raised.

Now, nine years on, Gil (as I called him, to distinguish him from my late husband) had graduated from being my page to my squire. He had his own wage, and lived in his own house on the castle grounds. Since Thedegard was in peacetime, and since I was a noble of such low status that I was almost never called upon to serve the royal court, Gil took on many other roles around the Castle, from groundskeeper, to warden, to scribe, and even to my envoy in my domain and beyond.

I gave the boy an education, of course, in letters as well as in combat, but hardly ever had I been made to chide or scold him. In all things he was obedient and good-natured.

I loved Gil. Truly, I did — loved him like…well, I knew not what to call it. Certainly not like Lord Gilther; these two were similar only in name. Certainly not like a parent to a child, either, for I had hardly reared him the way even Parson Godshalk had reared me, and I knew there was no chance he saw me as a mother. Friends, perhaps, but I was too old to be his peer. A teacher to a pupil, then? A lord to a subject? But what love exists there?

I knew not what to call this love, and yet, though I knew it could make tragedy my next guest, I could not bear to have him far from me.

“I—I must have heard something outside in my sleep,” I answered. “This is the rutting season for the creatures of the wood, after all.”

“Or perhaps you heard me, madame,” said Gil with a soft laugh. “The town courier came by this morning and dropped this off.”

He reached into his coat and produced what was clearly parchment wrapped in skins. I took it from him and opened it.

The seal of the T.M.C.…

“Forgive me, madame,” interjected Gil, “but I went ahead and opened the letter, just in case it was laced with anything.”

“Oh, Gil, you sweet thing!” said I, turning to him with rose in my cheeks. “But as I’ve told you before, there’s no poison in the world that can kill the Deathless Dame!”

He deferred to my smugness. I continued on.

“Oh, it’s from Wondhelm. Er, Chairman Wondhelm. Let’s see…‘Hope this letter finds you well’…‘Been busy managing the T.M.C.’…‘Must invoke our long-standing friendship once again’… Ahh, I see, I see. He’s asking for more donations to the Academy of Magic. Gil, would you be a dear and go to Thedegard City to—”

Gil cleared his throat. “I—I implore you to read on, madame,” he said.

I hummed inquisitively, but Gil would not clarify, and looked away from me sheepishly.

Well. Right, then—?!

“An…An expedition…to Alfland?!” I muttered, with hushed anxiety. I gulped. The parchment trembled in my hands. I read the words over again, just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. Then I muttered again, even quieter, “You finally got me, Wondhelm…” — before raising my head and declaring — “Gil, get your things ready to set out this evening. And I’ll be coming with you this time.”

Gil exhaled, half-relieved but still half-uneasy; placed his hands on his hips and fidgeted his feet a little.

I could see why: this was the first time in nearly twenty years that I would travel to the capital, and the first time in several years that I’d travel beyond my domain. From the urgency of the letter, a proper letter of summons, he’d known this was likely coming, but he knew not the full story.

Seeing my eyes on him, he straightened up and bowed in accordance. “As you wish, madame,” he said. “But if I might trouble you with one thing: Where is this ‘Alfland’?”

“Ah…” I cast my eyes off to the side. “I never told you about Alfland, did I? Not that you could hear much about it from anyone else, but…”

Footsteps. Walking is always good for stress, I’ve found. And right now I was walking toward the wall opposite the banquet hall doors, where, conveniently, there was a mural depicting the world as we knew it then.

“Gil,” I said, softly, for he had followed not far behind me, “you see Thedegard on this map, yes?”

“Indeed, madame,” answered Gil. “There, in the center. That crown on the hill is Thedegard City, and Giltfort Castle is to the south-west of it.”

“Good. And you see the continent to the north of Thedegard, and the sea between the two?”

“Yes, madame. The continent is Piridatsa, where Man first settled and later Elves. The Elves dwell along the coast. The sea is the Green Sea.”

“Correct.” I nodded solemnly. “Now, look out into the Green Sea, along the same longitude as Giltfort.”

Gilther strained his eyes. “All I see is a rock, and there are many rocks like it in the sea.”

“Yes,” I said, “but notice that this rock is blue. It is an island, and it bears the name Alfland.”

“Alfland…because of the Elves?”

I nodded again. “There is very little we know about Alfland, but what we do know is that it was once inhabited by that same race — and that it is extremely treacherous.”

“I see…” mused Gil. “Hence madame’s apprehension, I suppose?”

I gave off a little, wry grin. “Something like that.”

“Then will you go just to tell this Lord Wondhelm no? I am ever-ready to refuse in your stead, madame.”

“No,” I assured Gil. “I’d like to hear what Wondhelm has to say first, at least. This is…unusual.” I felt like telling him more, but another thought-bubble rose to the top of my mind first, and came tumbling out my mouth. “Oh! Since this is all unexpected, Gil, we’ll have to move that to tonight, and depart tomorrow.”

Gil was caught a little off-guard, and expectedly so. “And by that, you mean?”

“You-know-what,” said I. “Tonight. In my bedchamber. Ta-ta!”