Goodenough (Tales of the Kingless Lands)

Goodenough

A Tale of the Kingless Lands

By Leigh Wilder

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2015 by Leigh Wilder

Cover art by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

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Part 1

The Goodenough family’s problems began the day Serdic Goodenough, who was supposed to marry the king’s daughter, was eaten by the dragon Caerwyn. Only slightly earlier that day his sister, Leticia, took a stroll in the woods. There she encountered a man, and that day she conceived a child.

In the time before ancient times the family had been good enough to be given the control of the last of the historical twelve baronies of the Kingless Lands (back when there had been a king, and a name for the country), though on the very Northern border they were the least of all the counties, and often not taken seriously. Marrying the princess was supposed to change all of that, except for the dragon.

As it turned out, the dragon was to be their downfall, and, five hundred years later, their eventual salvation.

Civil war broke out shortly after (and as a direct result of) Serdic’s death, though the only part it plays in this story is thus: The family of Gault captured the Goodenough’s land and killed all they could lay their swords on.

Leticia, growing heavy with child, escaped with the remnants of her family--an elderly uncle and a young female cousin. They wandered with only the clothes on their back and a small silver plate bearing the family crest, south and west, to the barony of Barrendack. The great lord took pity on them and gave them a stone cottage with a thatched roof and a dirt floor.

There Leticia gave birth to a son, and though he was illegitimate she gave him the name Pitiable Goodenough. The family name deserved to die but Leticia had no other name to give him. She suspected who his father was, but feared the death of her son if she dared to utter his name. While some may have guessed he had dragon blood in him, no one knew for sure and Leticia took the secret of his sire to an early grave.

Pitiable grew up abnormally attractive (the Goodenough family had always been only passably good looking) abnormally tall, and gifted with powers no human being had the right to possess. Despite this he thrived, married, and begot sons and daughters alike.

Five hundred years passed between the birth of Pitiable Goodenough and the birth of our heroine, Nore. In this time the family married and bred. They rose and fell in wealth but never did they gain the power to overthrow the Gaults and return to their homeland. Ultimately, the family began to decline.

By the time Nore was born they were again living in that same little stone cottage (though after five hundred years, they didn’t know it was the same cottage) and the family’s only proof of prior greatness was a battered and tarnished silver plate bearing the family crest.

Nore was the youngest of four sisters and no brothers. She was the last of the Goodenoughs driven again to extinction. Any non-human blood had been forgotten, except for whispers between their own kin, and she was as short and average as any other girl who lived in a stone cottage with a dirt floor. At the age of twenty she had no hope of marriage to any man higher than a tenant farmer and had no time for courting.

She worked as a weaver, a field hand, and finally a maid in the big wooden manor of the Barrendack Lord. Every morning she woke before dawn and helped her mother tend to their chickens and goat before walking the mile to Lord Barrendack’s great house, and every evening after dark she would walk back and fall asleep on the pallet she shared with her mother. She never glanced at the silver plate on the mantle anymore, though she had been fond of her history when she was young. Her family’s previous greatness was an abstract in her simple life.

Nore arrived at the manor on a Monday morning following her half-day off to find the household worked into a tizzy. Mary, a live-in chambermaid, pounced on her as soon as she walked in the kitchen door. You’ll never guess who’s here, she said as Nore took off her wraps and scooped porridge from a pot already bubbling on the stove. She ate quickly while standing with only a few minutes to spare before they had to start work for the day. Mary (fifteen and prone to excitement) seemed capable of eating and talking at the same time, while Janet and Natty, the cook and housekeeper, ate at the table at a more leisurely pace.

Milo, Mary said in an awed whisper. Lord Barrendack’s half-brother.

Nore didn’t need the explanation. The infidelity of Lord Barrendack’s mother was so well known the fact that the resulting son had been sent away at birth was a bit of a joke. All the same, as an adult Milo occasionally appeared to plague his older brother. Nore had never met him.

She felt a thrill of excitement for the unknown. The Barrendacks were known to be a strange family, but Milo, with his unknown father and no claim at all to the name he used (like her own ancestor), was said to be a wizard.

Nore and Mary finished their meal and hurried on to the household duties. Mary went upstairs to quietly stir the fires awake in the bedroom grates, and Nore went to the great hall to set the table for breakfast--with one more place setting than usual.

The house was a large structure made of wood and prone to drafts. The harvest had come and gone; winter had set in. The great dining hall, which doubled as a ball room on the rare occasions the family entertained the social elite, was always the coldest room in the house and a fire burned there most every day, even in the spring months.

Occasionally it crossed Nore’s mind that she likely had a dragon for an ancestor, but the thoughts were rare. In her time only one dragon remained active, Ithel, far away in Paradise. She never really thought about them as a species. Rumor had it most of them were dead. She did know she could do things others couldn’t.

They were little things, like the uncanny knack of finding lost items (as long as the owner didn’t particularly need it at that moment), or the fact that her long, curly black hair never seemed tangle or frizz in humidity.

She could also light a fire without a flint.

The drafty dining room fire usually went out completely during the night, leaving only cold ash in the morning. This morning was no exception and she swept out the ashes before setting tinder and kindling in the grate. She placed her palm over the pile of twigs and closed her eyes.

Nore felt the hot, almost painful tingle in the tips of her fingers. The kindling ignited with crackle and a burst of flame. She didn’t know how she did it—and no one other than her family knew she could (none of her sisters seemed to have this unsettling gift).

She added more wood, the fire soon burning hotter and brighter than a two minute fire ever should. She stood up and jumped back, caught off-guard by the stranger in the room. A small shiver of fear ran through her body, but she always had a piece of flint and steel in hand just in case she was caught in the act.

Apologies, the stranger said, his voice mild, but his green eyes were bright and interested as they looked at her. I didn’t mean to startle you.

My lord, she said with the awkward curtsey of someone who had grown up in a cottage with a dirt floor.

Don’t let me interrupt, he said, and went to stand by the fire. Of course this man was Milo Barrendack. He could be no other. She kept glancing at him as she gathered plates from the cupboard near the kitchen door. Milo was good looking. He was young too—barely than thirty. The scandal of his birth took place before she was born. It seemed like it should have been a millennia ago, but it wasn’t. He would have been ten the year she was born.

Milo looked nothing like his brother but clearly he still shared blood with the line. He was very like Lord Barrendack’s twin sons—his hair was a darker blond, and fell too long down his back, but he had the same aquiline features. His eyes were gold-green. Only a dusting of quite obvious freckles marred his complexion but then, Nore herself suffered from freckles as well (though a lesser case than Milo) and tended to be sympathetic towards others who had them.

Over-all she liked his appearance very much, and this made her a little sad because even the bastard son of a lord’s wife would aim higher than a plain housemaid.

She was surprised as he continued to watch her put the plates at each setting. For a moment she faltered, unsure of where he belonged, and finally put him on the opposite end of his brother. She placed a silver goblet at each seat and wished she could tell him to go away. Breakfast won’t be ready for a few more minutes, she said instead.

That’s okay, he said. Have you worked for my dear brother long?

Only a few months.

"Ah. I thought so. I’m sure I would have noticed you long ago."

Was he flirting with her? If he was it was different than peasant boys, who would simply grab a girl and kiss her whether she wanted it or no. I haven’t seen you before, she answered, unsure of what to say.

Do you know who I am then?

You’re Milo Barrendack. His name felt strange on her tongue, as though it were a magic spell.

Milo seemed to read her thoughts. You know my name. You now have me at a disadvantage for I do not know yours.

Nore, she answered, wondering what was going on.

Are you so lowly you do not have a surname? Almost everyone does, these days. How else are we to tell kin from foe?

You speak very strangely, she said instead. A learned man