Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Lucan strode into the study after his father. Thomas, their steward, was already waiting for them. He held a few scrolled parchments in his hands and was busy arranging them with the ones on the table beside the map.

Sir Golan walked around the table to his chair but didn’t sit down. He gestured for Lucan to join him and Lucan complied.

The map spread on the table was that of the small piece of land the King had bestowed upon his father. This was what he was expected to inherit someday, though the King could take it away if Lucan wasn’t up to standard as a knight. Unlike a Lord’s fief, theirs came with conditions that must be met. His father’s constant talk of duty and responsibility along with the burden of continuing upon his success had always been a source of anxiety for Lucan.

It didn’t help that he knew things could change when the heir took the throne. It was no secret that the King was aging well beyond an ordinary man’s years. And an heir could decide to invest more effort in the isolated Royal territories in the southeast, part of which was this fief and several others.

Thomas spread open some of the scrolled parchments, which Lucan realized were the deeds to the land and its borders.

Lucan scrutinized the map and tried to match it to what he’d seen since he’d been a child. The stream-cum-river cut from the northwest of the map to the southeast. Lucan knew from his favorite field of reading, history, that this had, in fact, been a canal dug by the old Empire from the Elder Lake to facilitate farming and trade. The latter purpose was no longer viable as sediment precipitated along the body of water, forming mud islands and narrowing the canal by lining its sides. This chapter's initial release occurred on the n0vell--Bjjn site.

Before the canal could get far from the northwest of the map, it split into a fork, one branch of which continued on its merry way down to the southeast, cutting between the motte-and-bailey and the farmland on its southwestern side. It then meandered on its path until it reached the eastern forest which it cradled into a crook before flowing off the map. The other branch spread from the main canal to the east cutting through the sparse northern forest, then rubbing against the northern hills and veering down to the southeast to cut into the eastern forest.

Next was the northeast. His father pointed beyond the northern branch of the canal and said, “In this direction is Sir Ward’s land. As you know, he’s not very welcoming.”

Lucan nodded again. The Ward lands were old, unlike theirs and their other neighboring knights. The current Sir Ward was of the fourth generation to hold the land. They had been landed when the Kingdom in the east had shattered and before the formation of the Union which now ruled over half of its former lands. They took their border duties seriously even in the presence of the much more stable Union, and they considered the newly landed knights lesser in station. The one time Lucan had visited the lands of the main House Zesh, the sitting Lord Zesh had mentioned that the Wards might be elevated to Lords soon.

His father moved on to the north next. “As you know, beyond the forest is the Royal High Road, and a strip of land that belongs to the King.”

Lucan noted the parchment that Thomas spread open as his father spoke. “But this here doesn’t specify whether the forest is off-limits for us, father.”

“Indeed,” his father said. “Though there isn’t much benefit to it. The land is too dangerous for logging, let alone anything else, as you well know.” He stared at him.

Lucan blushed and avoided his father’s eyes. Three years ago, he’d broken his arm on his first and only wild venture into the wild alone. He was, embarrassingly, looking for an adventure, one like those annotated in some dubious historical texts. He’d ended up tumbling down the forested incline of the canal’s offshoot branch. That’s when he’d learned that the forested ground north of them was extremely uneven and terribly dangerous even if there were no abhorrent beasts inhabiting it.

“We must speak of what’s expected of you now,” his father said. “If you are to carry my torch.” He picked one of the larger parchments on the table and spread it open.

Lucan prepared himself for another lecture on duty and responsibility.