Area Fae Accepts Their Fate

The butcher, the baker, and the candlemaker watched the elderly gentleman take a lone seat in the corner of the inn.

"Do you think he's turned around?" asked the candlemaker. He tapped his head. "Some old folk, you know, they forget where they've been."

"Old Martha still thinks she's running the mill some days," the baker said by way of idle agreement.

"Do you let her?"

"I don't dare stop her."

"John says he seems all there," said the butcher, bringing their conversation back to the stranger.

The baker snorted. "John's making a pretty penny off his stay. He'd make an argument for a cow if it paid its coin on time."

They communally watched him order the steak and ale pie, and – again communally – winced. Locally, that option was known as the stank and stale, and was best served up far, far away.

"What do you think he's doing?" the candlemaker asked.

"Making poor dinner choices," the baker replied.

"I thought John used your pastry for the pie," the butcher said.

"He uses your cows."

"I mean, staying here," the candlemaker said.

The baker shrugged. "Sarah's boy says he's hired out every third day to drive the man's carriage down into the woods to the west."

The candlemaker and butcher consider this.

"Last third day was a Sunday," said the butcher.

"To the west?" the candlemaker asked. "You mean, towards the abandoned village?"

"Cursed," chorused the butcher and baker both.

"Sarah's lad says they drive down to the same spot each time and just wait for hours," the baker continued. "Then when the light goes, they ride back to the inn."

"Maybe he lost someone," the butcher said.

"Oakhurst fell 200 year ago."

"He's an old man."

"Not that old."

Regardless, the three stared at the stranger, just to assure themselves.

The man glanced over their way and offered a wrinkled smile.

They decided their drinks were far more interesting.

.

"Do you think he's dangerous?"

It had been a fortnight since, and the stranger – a Lord Morcant Thornvale, or so the rumours went – was still at the King's Arms.

More to the point, he was still ordering the stank and stale.

At the butcher's question, the candlemaker appraised the alleged lord behind the safety of his stein. "I doubt it. I mean, he's just an old man. What could he do?"

"How old was Maurice when they caught him?" the baker asked.

"Who's–" the candlemaker began.

"Maurice, Maurice, he catches the mice and fleas," said the baker in a sing-song tune, "and if you please, he'll take your face and knees."

"Ratcatcher," the butcher supplied sympathetically. "He was 73 when he bludgeoned a neighbour to death over a fence dispute."

The baker added, "Before your time."

"I'm older than you," said the candlemaker.

"You've only lived here 20 years."

"23."

"Point is," said the butcher, "there's no age limit on murder."

They glanced over to the man who was, inexplicably, eating the pie without immediate and sudden bowel regret.

"I can't imagine him bludgeoning a man to death," the candlemaker said after a long, dubious moment. The pie seemed to be shaking that resolve a little. "It'd get all over his nice shoes."

"He could have a second pair."

The butcher snorted. "Sure. Secret murder shoes. Do you hear yourself? Anyway, no one's died."

"Yet," the baker added unhelpfully. "Anyway, you've got to wonder what he's waiting for, going to the outskirts of Oakhurst."

"Or a who," the butcher said.

"It's Oakhurst. It'll be a what."

.

A month passed, and there had been no sudden deaths.

Well, apart from Samual the wheelwright, but if he'd wanted to stay alive, he shouldn't have clambered up a tree in a thunderstorm, even if his best hat had blown up there.

A month gone, and Lord Morcant Thornvale (the locals had accepted the name, if not the veracity of the title) had moved from notable oddity to background curiosity. He was still hiring out Sarah's lad to drive down to the westward boundary, and still eating at the King's Arms without incident, and after a certain point, people ran out of things to say.

Mostly.

"John's Daisy's is getting married next week," said the candlemaker.

"And you know he'll still charge for drinks, the stingy bastard," grumbled the baker.

"When your Kate got married, you charged twice the usual for pastries at the wedding," the butcher said.

"Pastries ain't the same as ale. People need their drink."

"Do you think he should be invited?"

Both butcher and baker paused in their budding argument. They didn't ask who, for there was only really one option in question. "Why?" asked the baker.

"Well... the whole village'll be there."

"He's only been here a couple of months."

"It took two years before you were invited to anything," added the baker to the candlemaker.

"I turned up anyway within a month of moving."

"Yes, but you weren't invited," stressed the baker, not maliciously, but honestly.

"You're only local once you can trace your family back three generations here," the butcher said, grinning, but there was more truth in it than was probably comfortable.

"It just seems rude, if the whole village's going."

"He can show, if he likes," the butcher said. "He won't, though. It's on a third day."

.

"He's waiting for his grandson."

"What?"

The baker slid onto the bench, three steins of the King's Arm's finest hal'penny ale balanced between his hands. Only a little was spilled in the attempt. "Thornvale," he said. "Sarah's boy asked what he thought he'd find, and he said he was waiting for his grandson."

This information was digested with all due gravitas. For good measure, ale was also digested in the proceedings.

"No one's lived in Oakhurst in 200 years," the butcher said eventually.

"Maybe he's living in the woods," the candlemaker suggested.

"Not if he's got any sense." The baker took a long draught of his ale. "Everyone knows the wolves are migrating eastward this time of year."

"Wasn't there that old mansion in the woods?"

"Sure, but that's been abandoned for well over a decade."

The butcher was quiet. Then, "The family had a little boy. What happened to him?"

"They all died, didn't they?"

A silence settled across the table as everyone came to the same deeply uncomfortable conclusion, but didn't want to be the one to voice it.

"Sometimes Old Martha thinks her Gus is still alive," the candlemaker said, after a long pause. He was finding his drink extremely fascinating. "She came down here last week, looking for him."

"It happens, sometimes," the baker said, but even he sounded morose.

"Do you think he knows? That he's been here for months. Or do you think he's still in that first week?"

"Someone should tell John," said the butcher. "It's not right for him to keep taking the old man's coin, even if he does have plenty."

"Where else is the old man meant to go?" the baker asked. "Who knows if he's even still a lord? Lords shouldn't be turning up without the proper entourage."

"What exactly did Thornvale say to Sarah's lad?" the candlemaker asked.

"Only that his grandson would be back any day now."

That failed to put any minds at ease.

"Do we tell him?"

"You can't tell folk like that that kind of news," the butcher said. "It'll be gone by tomorrow, and then what'll you do? Break his heart all over again?"

"We can't just–"

What they couldn't just was rudely interrupted by the inn doors opening, and a young man making an immediate approach at the bar.

The man couldn't have been more than mid-twenties, but he carried enough of a military air that the King's Arms' patrons did their best to look busy. He tapped at the counter. "I'm here to settle up Lord Morcant Thornvale's tab," he said.

John the innkeeper startled, which was just as well, since the rest of the room had fallen silent. "Old Thornvale?" he asked. "Is he leaving?"

"Yeah. Business here's all finished."

John made an admirable attempt at sounding casual. "You must be the grandson, then."

The stranger paused. "Sure." He didn't sound like he was lying, but he did make it sound like there were several caveats and asterisks affixed to the relationship. "Do you have the bill?"

The innkeeper passed a much-scribbled paper. He hadn't expected the old man to stay so long, and his bookkeeping looked accordingly.

"Oh, for goodness–" Thornvale's grandson cut himself off. "Dinner," he said. "Every evening?"

"Finest steak and ale in the village," the innkeeper said, and his patrons worked even harder to stay interested in their drinks. A few chokes rasped from those unlucky enough to have been imbibing at the time.

"He doesn't even–" Again, he cut himself off, and left half the village to forever wonder what Old Thornvale didn’t even. "And breakfast?"

"He complimented our chef on the bacon."

Which was another wonder, because the King's Arm's chef cooked the bacon so briefly, it could probably be put back on the pig.

"Of course he did."

As the man passed over the payment and headed for the door, John paused in his counting. "He's going to be fine, right?" he called. "Old Thornvale? Only, he's been here a while, and the whole village's gotten fond of him."

"Damn," said the butcher. "Guess even John's got a heart."

"He wouldn't have if the bill hadn't been paid," muttered the baker.