CHAPTER 71: WORRIES

It looked small, quiet, and utterly out of place in the forest, like a relic waiting to be stumbled upon.

After finding nothing wrong with the place, Noctis approached the temple to take a closer look.

Be it the strange silvery hue on the deep black stone material that the temple was made up of or the lifelike carvings, some crude, some extremely polished and clean, everything about the temple has a certain aura.

As he came closer to the temple, he also noticed something that made him stop immediately before reaching the temple’s arm’s-length distance.

The strange languages etched on the pillars were unmistakable. It was the same language that he had encountered in the forest.

Despite the encouraging encounter the previous time he had come across this, he wasn’t willing to take chances with it here.

Not with the 50% chance of him going missing again just weeks after returning from the previous one.

While he was focusing on the rune language, he noticed something else.

Not from his senses but his instinct this time.

He felt a peculiar energy radiating from the floor of the temple. An energy that tugged at his heart in a strangely familiar way, like beckoning a lost traveller back to its home.

Noctis circles around the premises of the temple, taking every nook and corner to analyse.

Soon it was clear to him that his instinct desperately wanted him to step into the premises of the temple, and his reason held onto the caution that he had developed over time.

The two feelings fought hard inside him for a long time. Unable to decide which way to proceed, Noctis thought of the consequences.

Going into the temple, the best case would be finding something about the woman; the worst case would be he’d get himself tangled into yet another series of events that could result in anything from a casual stroll in a park to near-death experiences.

But more than the challenges themselves, he thought of the time it might take.

The situation around him was strange. The village is hostile; the weather is uncanny and unpredictable.

Could he leave for yet another month or more for this?

Noctis thought long and hard over this. He felt like he was standing on the crossroads of two very major paths for his future life.

One moment he felt it was too sudden to leave, too selfish.

On another he felt that he was being cowardly and thought about how his future would change because of it. Would he hesitate at every major thing going on? Had he become this inept?

.

.

.

In the end Noctis turned around despite his instincts and the pleadings of the cursed men.

As long as he remained at the temple, the instinct would keep influencing his decisions. He needed to think about it without its effects.

Besides, he could always come back when he felt the situation around his personal life settling down a little more.

Convincing himself, Noctis left the place.

***

Months passed as the winter gloom only deepened in the atmosphere of the village.

From the silent unease, the bearing of the villagers had turned from fear to despair. Neither nature nor man heeded their wails of hunger and despair as the barren land became more and more unforgiving.

The count of Chagmantine writes to himself his worries.

*** (POV switch, first person, Lord Count)

Winter, Year of the Moon

The ledger before me holds numbers that are not numbers at all, but graves. Every figure is a throat unslaked, a belly hollow. To write them down is a form of cruelty, yet to leave them unmarked is worse, for then the dead slip away without account.

Better they weigh on the page, as they weigh on me.

Food....

The first bureau of concern, always.

What little grain remains in the southern stores is stretched with bark flour, acorns, and chestnuts.

The bakers say the loaves fall apart in the oven. The millers grumble that stones crack when grinding such things. Yet what choice do we have?

Men eat leather boiled in salt water, chew grass, and gnaw bones until their teeth splinter.

Merchants from across the border have begun to arrive again, wagons groaning under sacks of barley. They demand thrice the old price. When silver is laid down, they cut it in their teeth and laugh.

Some bags they sell are half-filled with husks, or worse, stones. I hanged one merchant in the square to make an example, but the rest only raised their prices higher, knowing we cannot refuse them. We are hostages to hunger.

Security...

The reeve of Bellriver was nearly torn apart in a bread riot.

My captain writes of barns broken open in the night, granaries looted by men who once tilled their own fields.

The peasants have taken arms and started pointing them at each other, often at the poor souls at the fringes to levy their anger upon. People burn, but the mirth of cold holds strong.

The roads are worse. Bandits multiply as wolves do, lean and desperate, feeding not on coin but on whatever wagon carries food.

Soldiers patrol, but their bellies growl like the rest, and many slip away to the forests, their spears traded for bread. Law becomes paper when hunger rules.

And yes, those decadent feasts beyond the valley are still going strong even as the kingdom starves.

The Golden Marsh lords send letters sealed with perfumed wax. They speak of the coming of the moon as though it were a poem, not a death sentence on the soul of the poor.

They hold feasts in heated halls, drinking wine while the villagers gnaw bark. They demand that their exemptions remain: no taxes on their marshes, no levies upon their barges, and they send me advice written in verse.

Advice. But no grain. No salted fish. No coal for the stoves.

They think themselves untouchable, living fat behind their waters.

From the capital, the king’s court writes of celebrations. They order more tithe to fund processions of silver and silk, claiming that if the moon brings heaven, it must be welcomed properly.

I am to send coins, while my villagers boil shoes for broth. What does the king know of hunger? His hounds eat better than my people.

The Council, the high and mighty, so sure of their superior vision, says this winter is a trial of faith, a purging fire, as if any of the riches gained would be divided among the people dying at the stakes.

Their sermons command patience; the royal family follows suit. Daring not to say a word against the protectors of their superior lords at the central plains.

The faithful are to pray more, complain less, and offer what little remains at the altar. A cruel order, when mothers clutch dead children like bundles of straw. My words cannot begin to describe the fury that my ink froths against.

Astrologers whisper that the moon’s full white eye will open in three months, and with it, heaven or doom. They stake claim on the unclimbable and expect us to show propriety.

They say this winter is only the herald. The people clutch at any promise, no matter how empty. Pagan rites return, old as the stones.

Villagers slit the throats of goats upon the frozen lakes, pour milk into cracks in the ice, and light fires in the hollows of trees.

They say the old gods hunger too and must be fed before the moon decides. The priests rage, but their churches are as cold as the fields.

They look on with keen interest with the hopes of possessing what has eluded their high noses till eternity. Foolish. Hubristic.

But we cannot defy.

The frontier still needs soldiers, though the men grow thin. Horses die each week, eaten more than buried. Cavalry is gone, reduced to leather straps and brittle bones.

Even the dogs of war starve, their ribs sharp as spears. And yet we still need forces to keep them ready, for if our neighbors hear we cannot guard the border, they will come like crows to a corpse.

The care of the masters of the royal houses is the only sword standing against the hounds off the east.

I care not even if half my levy has vanished—deserters, runaways, or corpses under snow. I cannot tell which.

I write to the king for aid still, for the country is more than its borders. It needs living people that would cultivate the day when the thaw finally sets.

But no reply comes, only another demand for coins.

The people that would work for the sake of this land.

We are failing them every day. The Villages.

Yes, I care for them.

Beyond the altruistic idealism, a count without villages is a lord of nothing.

No fields to till, no hands to raise walls, no levy to march, no tithe to collect. To lose the villages is to lose the realm. Yet care is not bread.

I choose which to feed and which to abandon. Bellriver riots, so Bellriver must be appeased. Black Hollow and dayaras are too far south; they will die before wagons reach them. I cannot save them all. If I try, none survive.

The scribes call this "allocation." I call it murder by ledger. Each mark of ink is a death sentence. I write with a heavy hand, for the blood is theirs, not mine.

But it still haunts me.

Their screams echo simultaneously with the laughter of the marsh lords in my sleep.

I am angry. They feast while the world drowns in snow. They pretend this winter is a tale, not a tomb.

While it is me that gets labeled a murderer.

I DREAM of their barges sinking into the icy reeds, their feasts turning to ash in their MOUTHS!

I YEARN FOR THE NAILS OF GLOOM TO DIG THROUGH THE MARSHES!!

Yet I must bow, for they have what I lack: food, coin, and warmth. And they will not share it freely.

The Moon....

It shines colder each night, brighter, sharper. People stare at it as if waiting for an answer.

Children point to it as if it were a torch held above the dark. Some kiss their hands to it. Some curse it.

I do both.

If heaven comes, let it come quickly. If doom, let it fall swiftly. This endless waiting is the true cruelty.

The astrologers say the moon will judge. I wonder if it already has.

I set down this record so that if I die before the moon chooses, some hand may know the truth: that a count fought not against enemies with swords, but against famine with ink and weight and ration.

That I counted the dead as if they were coins.

I sent wagons to some villages and left others to the snow. That I cursed the Marsh lords, the king, the priests, the prophets, and myself. That I ruled not by decree, but by hunger.

So let this be known. When the moon shines full and the choice is made, I will not be remembered as the noble who saved his land, nor the tyrant who starved it, but as the man who held the balance and watched it break.

So let it be written. Winter has no end.

***