Mickey Reichert - The legend of Nightfall

Edward adjusted his breeks. He pulled on his tunic, belted it, then added the calf-length over-tunic, its neck and hem decorated with threaded patterns in silver and gold. “Sudian, I’m the scholar of war. You’re coming dangerously close to questioning my judgment.”

Finished dressing, Nightfall met Edward’s gaze directly, seized with a sudden urge to grab the naive prince by the throat and shake him until sense jarred loose from the cobwebbed corners of his brain. Instead, he funneled his frustration and belligerence into words. "Master, I would question directly if I thought it would serve your cause and lessen the harm to you. I would rather die for the impropriety than let any hurt befall you." Nightfall kept his hands free and his attention alert, hoping Edward would translate this to the significance of his point. "Even good people, like your father and brother, do not see the Father’s light when the best of all men presents it to them. People like Amadan care only about making their own lives easier. Do you think you can convince him, and others like him, to give up their slaves?”

"There is good in everyone. With the right words, may the Father give them to me, I will convince him."

Nightfall cursed Prince Edward’s boundless innocence and faith.

Then the prince added another point that made Nightfall wonder if experience had not begun to crack the shell of idealistic ignorance. "If I cannot convince him, then I will buy and free his slaves myself."

Nightfall had already found the flaw. Paying Amadan for his slaves would only grant the Hartrinian the money to purchase more. In the name of right, the prince would pay an exorbitant sum, and Amadan would wind up with more slaves to brutalize than before the sale. Nightfall swerved with the argument. "There’s another thing to consider.” He continued to hold Edward’s gaze. "I mentioned the possibility of freedom to one of his slaves last night. She refused it."

Edward’s eyes crunched closed, and his jaw wilted. Though he clearly trusted his squire, he found the incident too impossible not to question. "A misunderstanding, surely."

Nightfall shrugged and returned to sorting. "You’ve heard the story of the Hartrinian twins and the tiger." He knew the honest prince would deny the assumption, having no way of knowing Nightfall had made up the title and the story on the spur of the moment.

"No," Edward admitted. "Which book is it in?"

Having little knowledge of books of any kind, Nightfall covered neatly. "It’s not in any book as far as I know. It’s the story of how Hartrin became slave territory, and people down this way have been telling it to their children since the whole thing happened." He glanced at Edward again. "Would you like me to tell it?”

The prince nodded absently, obviously still puzzling over how he could have missed hearing such an important tale.

Nightfall created an answer to the unspoken query. “It’s not the sort of story I think nobility likes much. It’s about a set of twin princes, the first royal offspring of a king, whose name I never knew, though the boys were called Ursid and Brionfra. A slight woman, narrow in the hips, the queen seemed incapable of birthing her children. She labored longer than a day, until it appeared certain she would die along with her offspring. Then, at last, a Healer came who believed he could take the children another way. He sliced open her womb from above and hauled the babies from their exhausted mother."

Edward listened raptly.

Nightfall had never considered himself much of a storyteller, but he continued, not wholly decided on the course of the tale. "Yet, though he saved all three lives, the Healer had done one thing wrong. In his haste, he had pulled Ursid out first, though Brionfra, with his little head jammed in the birth canal, was nature’s choice for elder prince. Ursid became the heir, Brionfra cheated of his birthright.”

"Not cheated." Edward cut in. "Not really.”

Nightfall shrugged. "It seemed that way to him, and that’s really all that matters here. Brionfra spent most of his life trying to regain the authority he had lost through accident of birth. He surrounded himself with servants, gradually increasing their dependence on and debt to him until they became the slaves we know now."

Prince Edward shuddered, as if the words, by themselves, caused him pain.

"The king and other nobles saw the following Brionfra had gained, the work it saved him, and the authority he possessed. Impressed, they gathered slaves of their own. Most, as Brionfra’s, began as servants. Others, particularly women, came as debts collected. More than one father sold his daughter for money he either could not gather or could not part with. Still more came as war spoils; those who could not be cowed used to fight one another as entertainment.”

Prince Edward’s eyes sparkled with the driving need that had become too familiar to Nightfall. He rose and paced, working off the energy injustice inspired.

Nightfall eased up on the detail, afraid to lose his point by firing up the prince too much. "Ursid hated what his twin had started. Believing slavery evil, he set out one day to free them all. So, while his family slept, he gathered the kept-ones. Those chained were unbound. Those imprisoned were freed. Ursid rallied them all together and spoke of creating a new city of free men and women. He released the most vicious of the fighting slaves last…”

Nightfall paused dramatically. "The wild man’s last act was to kill Ursid, elder prince of Hartrin.”

Edward stopped in mid-pace, whirling to face his squire. "This is a true story?"

Nightfall nodded. "Details become obscured or embellished as tales get passed. But this event is recorded in history." Nightfall hoped Edward’s books contained some tidbit that could be interpreted to substantiate his claim. "Like the animal they named him, the slave enjoyed the slaughter that had been his lot."

"What happened to the others?" Edward asked the obvious question.

"They scattered, of course. Out of fear the fighting slave might kill them, too. Or that they might get in trouble for escaping."

"Or to keep their freedom."

"Of course. But that seemed less likely. Within one moon cycle, three quarters of the slaves returned, begging forgiveness."

Edward continued to stare. "They came back? Why?"

Nightfall plucked at his sleeve, feeling disloyal for the lie. He tried to quell his discomfort with the knowledge that his story might bring some enlightenment to the prince, might save them both from wasted time, ridicule, and violence. "Guaranteed food and reasonable shelter. A place to call home and a daily routine that did not rely on becoming the toughest person on the streets." He met Edward’s soft, blue eyes. "Loyalty. That, I understand.”

A pink tinge further softened Edward’s young features. He mulled the words in silence.

“Master." Nightfall delivered a blow he doubted Edward could fend. "Even if the law came down from Alyndar that all servants who did not go would officially become slaves, I would not leave you." Not without having my soul ripped from my body and tortured through eternity.

The prince’s lips pinched, and he seemed torn between tears and rage. "That could never happen. My father would never make such a decree."

Nightfall said nothing. The unlikelihood of the proclamation did not dilute the sentiment much.

"You’re paid for your work."

"I’ve already told you I’m not.”

"You will be when we return to Alyndar."

I "I will not accept it if you offer."

Prince Edward again took a seat on his pallet, all fire draining from him. "Why are doing this to me?"

Nightfall wished he could take pleasure from the prince’s discomfort, but he could not help thinking of his master as a fellow victim. Now that Edward showed some signs of acting with his head instead of his heart, Nightfall found a new respect. "Because you’re good and noble. Because the Father believes in you, and I can do no less."