Of a Count and a People

[Callistus 989]

 

 

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“How do you find the country, Count? Have you acquainted yourself with your new province?”

 

The wind howled ominously among the great Vrakaian keeps. At the highest chamber of a black tower, poising always defiant in the face of fell conflict and strife, stood cousin of the erstwhile prince Vladrick, Cato II, who gandered quietly at the rain drenched hills beyond. Beneath the aging black towers was an old village grown bleak of life and men, its former populace having unscrupulously dispersed after word spread of a nearing war. A war that had already been on course for nigh-on a decade. The home of the Black Reiters has had its share of grievances and bloodshed, and so no one thought to lodge by any longer to weather out the storm. No one thought to wait until fate itself arrived and laid merciless slaughter to the armless kinsmen. The Count was therefore left to his lonesome, consorted by the gloam with which he had already grown a strong acquaintance.

 

“No, your royal highness. I’m afraid not. The place is barren and dark. My people, what was left of them that hadn’t already waned to war, had deserted the land. And with nary a word, at that.”

 

The Royal Prince of Rubern stood from his seat, uncrossed his hands. Stiboricz was a figure of noble eloquence, being a prince in reign, and had risen to such eminence by merit of the education he had attained growing up; the highest at that time. But he was quiet of speech – what folks would relate in an hour’s worth, he surmised in but a short-lived discourse.

 

“If your reign grieves you so, Count, then come. I shall show you to my province - blessed by God and eulogized by men.”

 

And in answering the duty bestowed upon him did Cato return to provincial Rubern, abandoning the waste that had become of the renowned keep.

[Jentos 9425]

The Schoolman stood dim eyed, face a wanton, lifeless mask with whispers in his fir coloured coat.