David Farland - Brotherhood of the Wolf

“But everyone said you were dead! No. Wait...I remember the story better now: They said you were a common criminal, a killer, executed before your son was born!”

“Not executed,” Roland objected, “though perhaps my son’s mother might have wished it.”

“Ah, I remember the harpy well,” Baron Poll said. “As I recall, she often wished all men to death. Certainly she damned me enough.” Baron Poll suddenly blushed, as if embarrassed to pry any further. “I should have known,” he said. “You look too young. The Borenson I knew has endowments of metabolism himself, and has aged accordingly. In the past eight years, he would have aged more than twenty. If the two of you stood together, I think you would look like father and son now—though he would seem the father, and you the son.”

Roland nodded. “Now you have the way of it.”

Baron Poll’s brows drew together in thought. “You’re riding to see your son?”

“And to put myself into service to my king,” Roland answered.

“You’ve no endowments,” Poll pointed out. “You’re not a soldier. You’ll never make it to Heredon.”

“Probably not,” Roland agreed.

He headed for the door.

“Wait!” Baron Poll bellowed. “Kill yourself if you want, but don’t make it easy for them. At least take a weapon.”

“Thank you,” Roland said, as he took the half-sword. He had no belt to hold the scabbard, so he tucked it under his shirt.

Baron Poll snorted, displeased by his choice of weapons. “You’re welcome. Luck to you.”

Baron Poll got out of bed, shook Roland’s hand at the wrist. The man had a grip like a vise. Roland shook hard, as if he had endowments of brawn of his own. Years of knife work had left him with strong wrists and a fierce grip. Even after decades asleep his muscles were firm, his calluses still thick.

Roland hurried downstairs. The common room was full. Peasants fleeing south clustered at some tables, while squires who were heading north with their lords sat at others. These young men were sharpening blades or rubbing oil into leather or chain mail. A few of the lords, dressed oddly in tunics and hose and quilted undermail, were seated on stools along the bar.

The smells of fresh bread and meat were inviting enough to make Roland repent of his vow to leave here hungry. He took a vacant stool. Two knights were arguing vigorously about how much to feed a warhorse before charging into battle, and one of the men nodded at Roland, as if encouraging him to enter the fray. He wondered if the fellow knew him, or if he believed Roland was a lord because of the fine new bearskin cloak he wore, and his new tunic and pants and boots. Roland knew he was dressed like a noble. Soon he heard a squire whisper the name Borenson.

The innkeeper brought him some honeyed tea in a mustache mug, and he began to eat a loaf of rye bread, dipping it in a trencher of rich gravy thick with floating chunks of pork.

As Roland ate, he began to muse about the events of the past week. This was the second time in a week that he’d wakened to a kiss....

Seven days earlier, he’d felt a touch on his cheek—a gentle, tentative touch, as if a spider crawled over him and bolted awake, heart pounding.

He’d been startled to find himself in a dim room, lying abed at midday. The walls were of heavy stone, his mat of feathers and straw. He knew the place at once by the tang of sea air. Outside, terns and gulls cried as if in solitary lament, while huge ocean swells surged against battlements hewn from ancient rock at the base of the tower. As a Dedicate who gave metabolism, he’d slept fast for twenty years. Somehow, over the many years that he’d slept, Roland had felt those waves lashing during storms, making the whole keep shudder under their impact, endlessly wearing away the rock.

He was in the Blue Tower, a few miles east of the Courts of Tide in the Caroll Sea.

The small chamber he inhabited was surprisingly sparse in its decor, almost like a tomb: no table or chairs, no tapestry or rugs to cover the bare walls or floor. No wardrobe for clothes, or even a peg on the wall where one might hang a robe. It was not a room for a man to live in, only to sleep in for endless ages. Aside from the mattress and Roland, the small chamber held only a young woman who leapt back to the foot of the bed, beside a wash bucket. He saw her by a dim light cast from a salt-encrusted window. She was a sweet thing with an oval-shaped face, eyes of pale blue, and hair the color of straw. She wore a wreath of tiny dried violets in her hair. The touch of her long hair on his face was what had awakened him.

Her face reddened with embarrassment and she crouched back a bit on her haunches. “Pardon me,” she stammered. “Mistress Hetta bade me cleanse you.” She held up a wash rag defensively, as if to prove her good intentions.

Yet the moisture on his lips tasted not of some stale rag but of a girl’s kiss. Perhaps she had meant to cleanse him, but decided to seek more enticing diversion,

“I’ll get you some help,” she said, dropping her rag into the bucket. She half-turned from where she huddled.

Roland grabbed her wrist, quick as a mongoose taking a cobra. Because of his speed, he had been forced to give his, metabolism into the King’s service.

“How long have I slept?” he begged. His mouth felt terribly dry, and the words made his throat itch. “What year is it?”

“Year?” the young woman asked, barely fighting his grasp. He held her lightly. She could have broken away, but chose instead to stay. He caught the scent of her: clean, a hint of lilac water in her hair—or perhaps it was the dried violets. “It is the twenty-second year of the reign of Mendellas Draken Orden.”

The news did not surprise him; yet her words were like a blow. Twenty-one years. It has been twenty-one years since I gave my endowment of metabolism into the service of the King. Twenty-one years of sleeping on this cot while young women occasionally clean me or spoon broth down my throat and make sure that I still breathe

He’d given his metabolism to a young warrior, a sergeant named Drayden. In those twenty-one years, Drayden would have aged more than forty, while Roland slept and aged not a day.

It seemed but moments ago that Roland knelt before Drayden and young King Orden. The facilitators sang in birdlike voices, pressing their forcibles into his chest, calling the endowment from him. He’d felt the unspeakable pain of the forcibles, smelled flesh and the hairs of his chest begin to burn, felt the overwhelming fatigue as the facilitators drew forth his metabolism. He’d cried in pain and terror at the last, and seemingly had fallen forever.

Because Roland was now awake, he knew that Drayden was dead. If a man gave use of an attribute to a lord, then once that lord died, the attribute returned to the Dedicate. Whether Drayden had died in battle or abed, Roland could not know. But now that Roland was one of the Restored, it meant Drayden was certainly dead.

“I’ll go now,” the girl said, struggling just a bit.

Roland felt the soft hairs on her forearm. She had a pair of pimples on her face, but in time he imagined that she would become a beauty.

“My mouth is dry,” Roland said, still holding her.

“I’ll get water,” she promised. She quit struggling—as if by relinquishing she hoped he might let her go.

Roland released her wrist, but stared hard into her face. He was a handsome young man—with his long red hair tied back, a strong chin, piercing blue eyes, and a svelte, muscular body.

He asked, “Just now, when you were kissing me in my sleep, was it me, you wanted, or did you fantasize, about some other man?”

The girl shook with fright, looked to the small wooden door of Roland’s chamber, as if to make sure it was closed. She ducked her head shyly, and whispered, “You.”