There are so many reasons I chose this place. Firstly, it was outside the city gates. This was a major factor to me. I would have moved away to the ends of the earth, but I knew my fate was tied to those who lived within the city walls, so this was the best I could do. Secondly, the canals in town were disgusting, and despite fishing in the surf not being the most languid of tasks, at least the catches were clean. Thirdly, and most importantly, the sea never asked me for favors.
There were many times in my life in which I have wondered if I would have been better off telling King Soren ‘no’. If maybe, perhaps just once, I’d been selfish enough to let a royal brat die in a sorcerer’s lair, and let them get a taste of real life without the safety net of heroes. Every evening I slept with this thought and every morning I woke with optimism again. It was a cycle of bitterness that died in the dawn and was reborn every sunset, when I am left alone with only my thoughts and the sound of waves breaking down the shore.
At first I had tried to live in town, so that no one could say I hadn’t tried. What a gas that was. I thought I could be the “hero of the crown and people”. It failed miserably. Citizens would knock on my door every night asking for some favor, “just this once”, like I hadn’t already paid my dues.
“Will you tell my kid to listen to me, otherwise you’ll be disappointed in them?”
“Will you tell Homeless Ned he can’t sleep on my doorstep?”
“There’s an abandoned satchel outside the baker’s, I’m convinced it’s full of dark magic waiting to be sprung on some unsuspecting person, could you move it?”
“Can you tell my neighbors to stop their chanting after dusk! I can’t sleep!”
“I need you to make my daughter marry the jeweler!”
“Please, start the search for my wagon! I swear it’s been stolen, not like last week when I forgot I loaned it to my father’s best friend’s aunt’s brother!”
I could only take their idiotic requests for a week, not even long enough to put up a sign that said “THE ROYAL HERO LIVES HERE, PLEASE BOTHER HIM WITH YOUR INANE BULLSHIT”. Anyone who thinks a hero can live a normal life after their deeds become public must be living in fairytale land, or they’re a narcissist.
Living in a hut had its drawbacks, sure, but what it lacked in running water it made up for in solitude. Digging holes to squat over wasn’t so bad anyway, after you get used to it, and citizens don’t pop in to ask ‘hi, may I use your facilities?” like they did in town. This was compounded by the fact I’d made precautions to build in an area that bordered the Foggy Forest. Unless someone was really looking for me, all they’d find is endless mist, trees, and the sound of distant waves.
Perhaps I should have been more specific when I’d set my foggy barrier charms. Maybe I should have wrote into the incantation “none shall pass” instead of “some shall pass”. These thoughts should have crossed my mind earlier than this current moment, as without warning I found myself watching Royal Brat #2 trouncing down my dock towards me.
“You must be Stuart Brightheart”. I cringed at the name. Gods, is that what they’re calling me now? Brightheart? All I did was rescue some kids and interrupt some spellcasting old bat. I mean, there was more to it than that, but that name? My stomach turned.
I squinted up at the brat, and set down my pole.
“I’m Stu.”
“Sir Stuart Brightheart, you are in the presence of Prince Haeyedeign, son of King Soren and Queen Maevelyn”. The kid shoved his jeweled hand in my face expectantly, presumably for me to kiss it.
I didn’t move from my seat on the dock and the hand went unkissed. “Uhhuh,” I said. I hadn’t seen him since that spell bust about nine years ago, when I’d been too reckless for my own good and nearly got myself killed rescuing the second son of a king who could hardly remember his own kid’s name. Maybe if they just spelled it like a normal person it’d be easier to remember.
He looked nothing like his mother, or his father, in fact, though at the time when I’d retrieved him, I couldn’t say I would have known the difference between a sack of onions and a newborn child, anyway. They’re both lumpy, uncomfortably pale, and just as boring. I was all too happy to hand him back to the queen.
The sound of more footsteps on the dock made me peer past Hey-whatever-his-name-was. Ah, crap. More royal bratlings. What was the point of having a private dock with a secluded hut hidden in fog if these people could apparently find it? Granted, I knew my fate was tied to them, but it didn’t mean I wanted them over for tours.
“My hero!” Brat #3 gushed as she ran towards me. “My, how utterly old you look!”
Brat #4 followed. “Sir Brightheart, may I use your facilities?”
That is how the visit started.The entire royal family had crowded onto my private dock without so much as an invitation, after letting me live in peace for nearly eight years. The king and queen made it a point to voice their disapproval of my home, and as far as I was concerned, child #3 hung his rear off my dock to relieve himself. Aside from their obvious disdain for my little slice of paradise, I knew they could only be here for one thing.
“So Stuart, you see, we must call upon your services again. For the good of the realm.” My arse.
“Your majesty, I appreciate you thinking of me, however, I must decline”. The words I’d fantasized saying forever came easily to me, this time.
The king sputtered, “but, but… you musn’t! This is heroes business!”
The queen protested “how dare you refuse your king!”
Their eldest stayed silent but locked eyes with me.. #2, 3, and 4 were in various states of petulance. “But it’s your job!” “I knew you were all washed up!” “We’ll find someone who can do it instead!”
Firstborn Loren had brown eyes, wholly unremarkable, but as he smiled at me he seemed to know what I was thinking and I saw a flash of understanding pass over his face. The boy was probably about 16 now, with dark olive skin and even darker hair. He was a spitting image of his mother.
I remember his rescue like it was yesterday. The thick smoke of the volcano’s crater came immediately to my mind, and the memory was so pervasive I could have almost choked on the salt and ash of the sorcerer’s den. I’d barely escaped with my life the first time, but it’d gotten easier after the learning curve of the first. Sorcerers have always had a fascination with the blood of kings, and of course when Loren, son of Soren had been born, he’d been no different. Sorcerers have been trying to bring the downfall of the kingdom for ages with the birth of every new royal offspring. It was a tiring never ending cycle and I’d been tempted to let them succeed just to save anyone else from having to rescue this posh family from itself. That would be self defeating, since the Hero of the Royal Generations is tied by some kind of fate to ungrateful royal offspring, and should the hero fail to do their duty, the kingdom would fall. I don’t know who came up with this rule but if I did, that person would have never made it past their first binding incantation. It was probably some ego-maniacal dynasty brat who couldn’t stand the thought of anyone else’s kids sitting in cushy chairs but their own.
Each one of my visitors aside from Loren had launched into a self-entitled rant about how ungrateful the Royal Hero was for telling them ‘no’. Loren was smiling a bit, and I found myself grinning back at him for no reason in particular.
“Do you like perch, Loren?” I asked him over the voices of his family.
“I do, Sir Brightheart.” I winked at him and thumbed towards the door. He followed me back outside to the dock while his mother was in the midst of exclaiming that I had no running water.
Once out of earshot down the dock, I settled back down at my fishing spot and motioned for Loren to take a seat.
“Sir, there is something I’d like to know.” Loren lowered himself to sit on the pier next to me and swung his legs to dangle freely over the water below.
“Uhhuh.” I hoped I hadn’t just invited a talker to fish with me.
“Sir, did you know all the others were adopted?”
Pt 2
The thought of the royal offspring being adopted was not one I had entertained. Truth is, I’d never given any deep thought to the noblest family in the land, being their hero was a responsibility I’d accepted without question. I considered the possibility of what he’d said without replying.
Were the other children trueborn of Soren and his queen? What reason would Loren son of Soren have to tell me this? Would there be any reason to think it was not true? What reason would Soren have to lie about the status of the other children’s birth?
“That lying little–” The realization was coming to me slowly.
“Sir, if you mean my father–” Loren began. I raised my hand to silence him. The scheme was still unfolding in my head.
Royal adoptions were uncommon. If a royal couple wanted more children they’d be more likely to gamble on a potion than outright look outside the family. Potions must have failed them. Barring a curse, potions typically did not fail, but maybe there was a curse. Curses are difficult to break, and not just because the people casting them usually meant them. It took a good deal of wheeling and dealing to get a curse caster to reverse their work. Sometimes it wasn’t worth it, depending on the price. Admittedly, it could be a pretty good gig to extort a king with a curse if they decided to comply with all the demands needed to reverse it.
Ah. So that was it. All the times I’d put my life on the line for this family other than for the firstborn had been some sadistic show put on to just legitimize some peasant’s kids. Soren probably had been too cheap to buy off some miserable warlock and thought he could just trick the Royal Hero into playing along. I wondered how deep in debt the crown would have to be in order to think adoption was cheaper than paying off extortionists. Deep enough for a coverup to try legitimizing a whole gaggle of orphans, afterall, power lies in the strength of the dynasty.
Gods, I nearly died saving those brats, too! The feeling of utter idiocy of my actions for the sake of the heroics was setting in quickly. I’d fallen for it. And now they wanted me to fall for it again. I couldn’t imagine how tired of children the royal wetnurse or nanny must be. There is such thing as too many kids.
“Okay,” I sighed. “So can we skip the part where I risk my life to save a new kid and I can just show up at the castle gate with your baby adopted sibling?”
Loren chuckled. “I’m sure that could be arranged”.