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thomas dorsch

Recent Projects

"Where Angels Dare" trilogy including... Book I, "The Sacrist" (375 words) Book II "Race For The Lance" (405 pages) Book III "The Lance Bearers" (520 pages)

Projects or Proposals Offered

Published by "Ediciones B" in Bogota, Colombia 2006.

Searchable Keywords

Historical fiction supernatural drama

Specialties or Categories of Interest

Historical fiction writing

Experience, Credits, and/or Awards

Wrote numerous security-related courses for the U.S. State Department 1986 -present. Offered financial compensation for screenplay "Bad Medicine" in Los Angeles CA in 1998.

From The Book

“No man, young or old, shall pass before his destiny is fulfilled.”

- Father Malachy, 1130AD

Sixteen year-old Jean Calvert swung hard at an imaginary foe as the long, twisted beechwood staff whooshed to the left and right through the cool morning air. In this year, 1118 A.D., young men throughout France, noble or impoverished, dreamed of glory in the service of the Lord as tales of battlefield heroics found their way back to Europe capturing the vivid imagination of many a young, devout heart and impressionable mind. Jean was no different.

“Is that your b-best parry s-sir?!” He followed with an overhead chop that thudded into the moist earth as dew drops from the Spring grass sprayed onto Jean’s deerhide leggings.

“I defy thee to advance y-your g-ground knave!” Another mighty swing cut a swath through the moist valley air with all the force needed to throw the speech afflicted, yet imaginative lad, off balance and into the wet green grass. His head, full of curly brown hair, fell backward violently upon a black rock and knocked the clumsy adolescent into brief unconsciousness. In his surreal dreamscape that followed, dozens of ghostly figures hovered above Jean as they stood silhouetted by a bright sun. Jean felt no fear in this dreamcape as the figures appeared to smile down upon him as he lay on his back. Slowly they faded and he woke to see the blue skies of southern France. Jean’s woolen cloak was tangled around his stout young body as he quickly scanned the countryside to ensure his folly was not noted by any living soul albeit a crow on the wing or scampering squirrel in the meadow’s treeline. Confident his awkward tumble had gone unseen, Jean slowly took to his feet, continued where he had left off, and faced another invisible enemy.

“Think, n-now, Sir . . . n-next t-time one should not be so hasty to d-d-dishonor such a beautiful m-maiden.” Jean rubbed his head while pretending that nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Shadowed by the oaks, with their spring adornment of fresh green leaves, stood a hard figure with an intent gaze observing Jean from afar. The figure shook his head while continuing his intense observation with keen judgment of the gawky and uncoordinated young man.

For the last sixteen years, those same eyes had witnessed Jean’s birth, childhood, and growth into a mutated form of near manhood. As Jean erratically meandered across the meadow talking softly to himself while brandishing the branch that he wielded as if it was Excalibur itself. The strong, hooded figure regained his composure as his fury dissipated into a softer look then into a gentle gaze.

Jean continued rubbing his head while swinging his “blade” as he whispered admonitions to numerous “highwaymen” that he had laid to waste in a most knightly manner. Looking up from the ground he turned quickly and locked eyes with the figure now standing in full view outside the treeline.

“Father!”

Straightening his demeanor, as often ordered to do so, Jean sensed his father’s anger toward his irresponsible, mock heroics.

“If you put as much time into pursuing game as you do pursuing phantasms, perhaps we would have some meat in our broth for supper.”

“I - I have been remiss, S - Sir.” Jean answered to the ground.

Marcus Calvert, trying very hard to maintain a harsh disposition in accordance with father to son lesson-training, waylaid the hunting lecture as he attempted to correct Jean’s speech.

“Speak slowly, boy!”

Jean regained himself as he restated his words.

“I . . . have been . . . remiss . . . Father.”

“That you have, boy. Now, where is your bow?”

Jean ran toward a wide oak tree where he had been on stand from dawn until the sun crested the Pyrenees foothills.

“What animals have passed before your boredom overtook you?”

“Only one r-red f-fox across the m-meadow,” he said, as if a lack of game lent way to a fine rational for indulging in heroic fantasies.

“Next time, stand where I have directed. The wind flows from the rising sun…it was at your back for the entire morning – or should I say, for the mere two hours that you fidgeted by the oak. Now, let me see your head, boy,” Marcus examined his son’s skull for blood then walked in the meadow to find the black rock. He first only glanced, then looked more closely at the shining round stone.

“Tis from the heavens,” Marcus whispered as he stroked the rock’s smooth surface.

“W-what, f-father?”

“The stone is not of this world . . . but is the strongest of irons from a falling star…very auspicious. I’ll deal with this later, but for now, my concern is a fruitless hunt.” Jean looked down in shame at his lack of attention to his predatory abilities as his father placed the heavy rock upon his sturdy left shoulder.

“Come now, we have both wasted the better part of the morning! I need you to go on a village errand.”

The father and son walked in silence far down the “Old Roman Road,” First leveled and used by the armies of Julius Ceasar during his campaigns within Gaul. Words went unsaid between father and son. Marcus had stated his peace and Jean feared that his stuttering questions might provoke more of his father’s harsh rebukes. Far down the road hobbled a stooped figure in their direction. Upon closer examination, Jean’s eyes widened as he gently tugged on his father’s cloak and whispered.

“Father, ‘tis the witch of the Briar Hills,” said Jean in a superstitious, childlike tone that provoked an immediate glare from his father.

“Stop that now, lad!” Marcus commanded. “Rumors as such can lead a poor soul to the hangman’s rope!”

Jean looked surprised that his father did not share the thoughts of the majority of village folk.

“Wisdom of the good Lord’s natural gifts does not constitute witchcraft, Jean,” Marcus seethed through clenched teeth as they closed their distance to the old woman until they were upon her.

“Good day to you Althea Charbonne,” Marcus said with a giant smile, “Business in the village have you?”

The woman’s eyes sparkled as her brown wrinkled face cracked a smile that seemed to remove fifty years from her age.

“Aye, Sir. No rest for a simple midwife,” she said as she turned her eyes to the young man. “Would this be Master Jean?”

“Aye, Althea, ‘tis he.”

The woman came close to the bewildered teen and stroked his cheek. Jean had expected the rough texture of old hands but instead felt a gentle feminine touch. The hairs on the back of his neck rose as if she was casting a spell over him. The woman spied the bowed head of the young man and empty gamesack in his left hand.

“I sense another fine creature has escaped the stew pot today?”

“Y-Yes, Ma’am,” stammered Jean.

The woman looked to Marcus Calvert upon hearing the boy speak. “His confidence is still very much disturbed. . . his kidneys are lacking sufficient life force. . . Have him visit me.” The old woman smiled and nodded to both and patted Jean’s shoulder as she continued on her way.

Marcus Calvert watched the old woman hobble away.

“Thank you, Althea. . .”

Astonished by the encounter with this “witch”, Jean pleaded with his father, “I w-will not g-go, Father. . . I f-fear a spell w-will be cast over m-me!”

Marcus Calvert breathed heavily and looked down upon his son with weary eyes, tightly drawn. “It sorrows me to hear you speak as an ingrate and a superstitious fool.”

“B-but, father. . .”

“Silence! . . . You have much to learn about life. . . and much to learn about the treatment of others…especially those who brought you into this world and saved your mother’s life in the process!”

Marcus Calvert turned away and proceeded to walk again leaving a stunned boy standing in his wake.

*******

“Jean! Jean!” Madeleine Calvert’s tiny bare legs propelled her five year-old frame through the tall grass up to the road where her older brother skulked behind her ‘giant’ of a father. Marcus looked to the tiny child then to his wife standing in the doorway of their humble stone cottage. Vera Calvert ran her hand through her disheveled brown hair motioning with her eyes for Marcus to witness their daughter’s excitement.

“Not n-now, M-Maddy. Father has an errand for m-me,” Jean explained.

Her little hand unfolded to expose a tiny cross that she had spent her morning making for her brother.

“I made this for you today. . . this very morning while you were away.”

Jean took the memento – two tiny sticks loosely lashed together forming the symbol of the family’s core religious beliefs. As the parents watched on, Maddy’s big brown eyes portrayed her sibling worship as her brother took her hand. Jean picked up the squealing child, tossing her into the air thrice amid her screams and giggles.

“No game again I can see,” Vera said as Marcus grunted and passed through the threshold into the one-room thatched dwelling.

“Did you bring us a rabbit or maybe a deer?” Maddy asked with much excitement while holding her brothers hand.

“No child. M-Maybe c-come the m-morrow,” Jean solemnly stated. “B-But, I think that . . . y-your gift will bring m-me luck I do believe.”

Vera Calvert observed the brother and sister bond with her soft, hazel eyes. The locks of her golden brown hair persisted to block her dirt-smudged, yet gentle features as she rolled flat cakes and placed them on the cooking stone centered in the coals of the outdoor fire ring.

“Jean, Maddy, come wash, now. . . your meal shall be ready within a few minutes.”

“Hold fast, woman, the boy will need to earn his next meal.” With rope in hand, Marcus burst from the house first pointing, then crooking his thick finger at Jean. He strode to his humble Smithy shop, covered overhead by a wooden plank lean-to, as hens leapt away from his path.

“Come here, boy.”

Vera looked on with the understanding that Jean must have earlier on filled Marcus with a rage. Wrapping the heavy, black stone in an uncured stretch of cowhide, he proceeded to lash an extensive knotting around the heavy weight. When stoutly wrapped and tied, Marcus Calvert heaved the weight off its oaken stump. It landed with a hollow “thump!” and created a large dent in the soft spring earth. Jean, his Mother, and little sister looked upon the great weight, waiting for some type of explanation then back at the now imposing figure of Marcus Calvert standing with arms folded and penetrating dark eyes ringed by a full head of wild black hair and beard.

“Listen to me, boy. . . You will go to the village and purchase a twenty count of Burdock rootstock for our stewpot.” Marcus then took from his rabbit skin savings bag, a couple of livre coins, grabbed Jean’s hand and clenched the boy’s fist around the money.

“No meal until your return.”

Jean, in disbelief, looked into his father’s emotionless eyes, then looked to his mother as if his father were possessed by demons.

“Marcus!” gasped Vera.

The big man held out his calloused palm to the reply as a stifling gesture then picked up the bull rope connected to the weight and draped it over the boy’s shoulder. Jean’s head drooped on his shoulders.

“Look at me, boy,” Marcus said as he lifted the boy’s chin up. Forcefully, yet without anger, he spoke, “The burden of responsibility is great… and never slackens… only with a strong body, mind, and spirit will you become accustomed to it. Now go, and return before the moon is high.” Marcus then turned and walked back to his Smithy bellows and began to collect tinder and kindling as if his punishment decree was a routine order. He then tended his fire-making as sparks quickly flew from the leaping flames emitted from the chiseled stone fire pit that soon would be filled with red hot coals.

With a sense of injustice welling inside him, Jean pulled the rope hard as he began to drag the awesome weight. He pulled again and the bundle followed only a couple of feet with each tug. As he pulled the leather wrapped stone down the path leading away to the road, Vera Calvert shook her head at a seemingly oblivious husband who lined up his hardy swages and fullers. She removed the now baked flatbread from the campfire slab and approached her struggling son.

“Think bad thoughts not…the good Lord fills your father’s heart only with love.” She placed the bread in Jean’s cloak pocket, looked into his somber bluish-green eyes, then brushed his cheek and returned to her duties.

Jean, along with his leviathan, was still in view down the road as Maddy looked on in confusion and sobbed. “But why, father?”

“Yes, ‘But why?’” added his concerned wife, now standing with arms folded and still a purposeful distance from the hard, laboring figure of her husband.

His strong arms worked the leather bellows feeding bursts of air into the ever-brightening coals without looking up. “Lessons must be learned as a simple walk becomes many enduring hours.”

Through the many years of marriage, Marcus could feel the uncompromising stare of Vera’s eyes penetrating his core. At last, he ceased the pumping of the bellows and leaned forward on the work table bracing himself on his well-muscled, sweat-streaked arms.

“We have not the time to suffer idle flights of imagination when there is a pot to be filled and mouths to be fed. The boy is old enough to know his duties…instead of game playing The Nobleman.”

“Aye, it is true…but where is a father’s compassion?” Vera asked while Maddy clung behind her mother.

“Compassion?...Will compassion feed this household? Will compassion work a Smithy shop when we are dottering and frail?...I think not woman. The boy must realize his place to take this hammer when it falls from my hand…and provide not for us alone but for his!”

Vera stood her ground silently awaiting her man’s rage to turn.

“Bah!” Marcus wiped his sooted hands and went to his wife taking her by the arms. His words now came with soft demeanor.

“Vera, the boy is a scrawny misfit… The Lord has provided thus far. . .but challenges too great to triumph over await him if he does not grow to manhood soon.”

“He is what he is, husband. . . And love from me will come no less.”

“. . . And there is no question from me also, woman,” Marcus returned, “But he should have been full apprentice two years past…alas, he continues to show no interest and still challenges my direction.”

Marcus looked off to the hills as Vera Calvert read his frustration. Lost in her own little world again, Maddy walked in the grass humming to herself as she picked new season dandelions. Marcus Calvert returned to the bellows now assuming a softer countenance and letting go of his rage. His wife continued their discussion now that the small tempest that had surrounded her husband’s thoughts had passed.

“Agreed, Marcus, the boy is at times whimsical…but I see it as perhaps another path his young mind seeks.”

“Granted, we all have had our young dreams but he is born of this simple household and nobility he is not.”

Marcus laid a slab of iron in the fire then continued to work the coals into a bright orange.

“Have you forgotten your own words, husband?...‘True nobility is won through the merits of a man’s spirit, not through birth-right’.”

Marcus glanced up at this wife for a moment while his hands worked without thought. “Alas, your memory serves you well. ‘Tis a shame this world allows not for his dreams fulfilled. . . But at most, grants him a place behind this forge.”

*******

His cloak long discarded around his waist, Jean was covered with sweat in the morning sun. Only shade from the oaks along the Roman road granted him quarter. Pull by pull, the great weight was slowly dragged behind him. He pulled first with his arms then tried walking forward with the bull rope lashed around his waist. He then continued with his arms and tried to wrap the coilage over his shoulder as a traveler swath. However the attempt, the burden remained the same.

The long, drag mark was evident down the middle of the dirt road, all the way back to the last bend. Thoughts raged in his head from anger toward his father’s cruel sentence and the desire of actually someday working his own land far away from his demanding parent.

The Manor Lord, Blanchfort, owned all of the surrounding foothills and much of the mountains including the nearby village of Albi. For many years, Jean’s father held claim to the title of finest Smithy in the manor and was allowed to construct their home outside the village during a great pestilence that descended upon the region. Luckily for Marcus Calvert, Lord Blanchfort chose not to lose another gifted Smithy to the sickness that once rampaged through the manor. However, boundaries were always strictly enforced thus limiting the wanderings of young Jean and his family from the heart of the Nobleman’s prize hunting reserve bountiful with game.

Rabbits, squirrel, and rodents were numerous, and fair game for the many country serfs within the confines of the manor. Deer, on the other hand, were fiercely accounted for by the four mounted caretakers of the fiefdom. Only two deer a year, one for Christmas and one for Easter, was the limit for his family and even then, a succulent roast may be plucked from the spit when the roaming caretakers chanced to be near.

In the absence of the Blanchfort’s scrutiny, the caretakers often enforced their own arbitrary rules and none too few villagers or countrymen faced the rope without the slightest infraction of the Lord’s written proclamations. The mounted caretakers, fearfully named the “Black Riders,” were the scourge of the manor-folk as they descended upon one or another unwary hamlet feasting on the meager trappings of the inhabitants. At times, with belly full of grog or mead, a Black Rider would help himself to a choice maiden for his evening revelry.

Jean pulled harder than ever as frightful thoughts abounded. In addition to his father’s fury, he now feared what the Riders would say about the long drag mark that he had left in his Lord’s road. Even with the long and winding track in the road, he feared more his father’s wrath if he failed to complete his ordeal – which would most certainly be inspected in some way by Marcus Calvert.

‘Around another turn in the road lays the village of Albi, one furlong more.’ Jean thought, as muscles and tendons ached from his burdensome travel. Sweat bathed his skin completely, thoroughly soaking his wool trousers. He thought about hiding the great stone in the treeline while he walked the remainder of the route. He then thought again about an incomplete and disobeyed penance. He only wanted to rest and complete his father’s grueling direction at least for the halfway mark to town while he tended to business with the purchase of rootstocks.

‘The rootstocks!’ He had forgotten about them in his dizzying exhaustion. His load, he figured, would soon consist of even more weight then the first half of his journey. Tears were forced back as the last of his energy quickly left him. He heaved and heaved again to rid himself of this terrible companion before the village would see him and make merriment over his agony and shame. As he neared the village, he could see a crowd gathered with their backs toward him. Something other than a boy and a stone was at the center of their attention.

Thirty strides away from the captivated villagers, Jean dragged the tremendous weight into the roadside bushes. He carefully covered the hateful object with grasses and leaves before collapsing onto the lush ground as his chest heaved and his heart raced.

After his breathing steadied and circling stars dissipated, he slowly returned to stand upon his hide-covered feet. He tried to adjust his hearing to pick up on the commotion of the village but to no avail. He began to walk upright, re-learning common motor skills once again without a twenty stone weight in his pocket. The sun shone brightly in the afternoon as he looked back down the accursed, serpentine road that he had fondly remembered before his ordeal. Jean breathed deep then approached the gathering to see what could be the center of attention.

*******

“Where does thou wish to go now, Woman?” The horseman parried his steed forcing Althea Charbonne closer to the village well as another horseman blocked her other escape route. “Picking the Lord’s fields in pursuit of sorcery is punishable by death! . . . Now drop the weeds old woman!”

Althea looked up in defiance at the mounted young man and persecutor. The village stood in silence with mouths agape as the four riders encircled the woman.

“Remove your gaze from my countenance and cast no spell on me, Woman!”

The lead rider, a pale, long-haired stiletto of a man called, Pieter Malveaux, who adorned himself in black cured leather as the other riders, unleashed a long bullwhip that ripped through the air and snapped at the feet of steadfast woman. Their horses shuddered at the sound as the villagers cringed.

“Drop the weeds, woman,” Malveaux repeated with an increasingly threatening tone.

“Pieter, let us cast her down the well. . . If she drowns, we will prove that she is free of witchcraft,” the second rider, a blond behemoth by the name of Rutguer, laughed as the others joined in.

Jean found himself a view of the public bullying of the woman that he and his father had met earlier. He looked among the villagers whose ranks had grown due to the village market day. All men strong of body stood their ground in fear of the riders, often holding their women back as they began to protest the inhumanity toward another of their gender. For these tormentors were Blanchfort’s men, not simply town hooligans. No common man in the village or manor could ever afford such fine steeds.

The crack of the whip resounded again as the lash opened a cut on the woman’s right hand. She gripped the St. John’s wort herbal bundle even tighter to spite the dark man. The villagers groaned but did nothing except look on as no one desired the same fate. The woman took from her pocket a good handful of yarrow, Achilles Milleform, and applied it to the wound as a natural dressing while looking to the heavens for divine intervention.

“More witchery,eh?” Malveaux shouted to the crowd. “She is what you all fear, is she not!?”

“Not only a witch, but a witch who fails to obey the rule of the Lord!” Malveaux and his riders circled closer around the woman. The spectacle was not only devised to taunt Althea but to intimidate the entire village as the news of this event would be sure to spread for all souls to pay heed to the riders. The crowd swelled as more villagers and travelers came into the square from their households.

Marcus Calvert, who had finally come upon oxecart to check on Jean, could not pass on the road blocked by the multitudes just outside of the village. He was not about to allow his boy to drag the block again. He knew that the lesson of the weight had been learned by Jean after a good ten minutes of dragging. Without Vera’s chiding, Marcus already had it planned beforehand to collect their unique boy. Hours earlier, Jean’s mother, who could no longer envision the struggling boy, finally ran outside of the cottage, away from her mending, to demand that Marcus see to Jean. Running toward the bellows, she stopped in her tracks as her angry face softened into a smile. Marcus was already down the road, en route toward the village without being prodded by her concerned, motherly pleas.

“Crack!” The whip echoed again as the crowd jumped back from the hideous sound. “Drop the Lord’s property!” Malveaux, now red with the woman’s insolence, opened a gash on the woman’s leg as she fell to the ground.

Jean, exhausted as he was while looking on, wanted to do something… something chivalrous… but the cold reality of the situation was all too powerful. He knew that his intervention would bring down the Black Riders’ wrath onto himself and certainly onto his family.

His other voice, his idealized noble voice, commanded him differently. How can he think of himself ever as a knight if he embraced the same cowardice of the villagers. He can either die now, or work the Smithy shop in quiet desperation for the rest of his years. At that defining moment, he knew that the horrible memory of his fear on this day forever would haunt his waking and nighttime thoughts as a curse…a curse of a coward.

His blood now raced, his breathing accelerated, and his fists clenched tight. The kind words of his father toward the old woman now rang clear in Jean’s chivalric mind. The Riders would kill him absolutely, but a woman’s honor had been insulted. Perhaps not the fair maiden of his fancies, but a woman, alas! More so, his honor was at stake… or lack of honor for holding fast. Jean now stood fearful for living a life deemed worthless by the nobles or those who embrace what is just. As Malveaux’s whip slithered high in the air once again. Jean knew that his own dear mother could just as easily be ravaged by these same brutish men.

“Nay!...Nay!...sh-shall this p-proceed any longer!” Jean exclaimed to himself as he prepared himself for some action that he did not yet know. Propelled by rage, with eyes of savage fury, Jean could stand for the torment no longer and burst forth from the crowd sprinting pell mell toward the Riders. An audible gasp emitted among the crowd as the whip came down again, not upon the old woman’s back, but into the arms of a now furious, Jean Calvert. The crowd now roared in unison toward the exciting change of events.

“Release thee!...you little…” Jean pulled hard and cut off Malveaux’s order as the horse spooked and rose up upon its back legs throwing Malveaux to the dusty ground. Jean, now in possession of the whip, pounced upon Malveaux who was much stronger and ten years older. Now in disbelief, Malveaux was off balance as he tried to stand. He was instantly knocked to the dirt again by the screaming boy who was like a wild monkey on his back. As Malveaux stumbled, Jean quickly wrapped the whip around the tormenter’s neck and pulled hard, trying to choke the stunned Black Rider.

The crowd now gasped at the other three angry riders trying to dismount their horses and draw steel at the same time. Marcus Calvert, at the rear of the gathering, pushed his way through the crowd to get a view of the dusty fray.He pushed to the front and stood in shock at the sight of his own boy trying to strangle an infamous Blanchfort caretaker.

“Jean!” Marcus immediately ran to his son as the other Riders dismounted and drew swords. Jean, charged with raw adrenalin, choked out the now gasping Malveaux. The second rider, Rutgeur, pulled his blade behind Jean and prepared to thrust hard into the frothing young man's neck until a crushing leap from Marcus smashed into the rider throwing him to the ground and knocking him senseless as his sword skid across the dirt. A third rider, with sword drawn, came all too quick to the right side of Marcus who now climbed to his feet. The enraged rider stood poised to deliver his thrust through the heart of Marcus Calvert.

“HOLD FAST!” another voice bellowed from the crowd. “Hold fast your sword!” The nobleman’s words resounded throughout the square and halted all fighting as the stranger dismounted his white Destrier warhorse and walked toward the confused combatants. All stopped as if the voice of God Himself had commanded them.

“Witch, midwife or old woman . . . matters not . . . you and you, good women… her wounds need care.” The nobleman, in fine red woolen cloak, ordered the services of two village women who quickly carried off the battered Althea to the shade of the tall village elm. The stranger’s weathered face and confident demeanor silenced the lot as the riders stood confounded. Although he was unknown, all could sense his air of authority. Malveaux, now on his feet, began to draw steel for Jean who had released his hold upon the stranger’s voice. The nobleman brought his right palm to his sword pommel first with great conviction.

“I said hold fast,” The man grimaced, “or die quick.”

Malveaux slowly complied, his dark, snake eyes glaring between Jean and the stranger as silence filled the village square.

“And what is your business here, Sir?” Malveaux growled, still breathing heavily.

“Tis my very question of you,” The man said as he closed the distance between him and the riders. “I take it that you four belong to Blanchfort’s manor…that only figures…” The stranger shook his head. “Now go to your lord and tell him that he will soon have an unimpressed visitor.”

The riders looked to one another as Malveaux rubbed his throat. Marcus stood behind Jean near the well, breathing hard as they watched the dialogue unfolding between the riders and the man who valiantly acted as their savior.

“…And who may I tell Lord Blanchfort seeks his company, sir?” The stranger stood still as a fortress while firmly stating his answer. “Oh, he knows me well… now be gone already, fools!” The men finally mounted their steeds as the villagers looked on, still afraid to cheer for fear of reprisal soon after the nobleman’s parting.

“I will remember thee, whelp,” seethed Malveaux pointing toward Jean as he and the other riders turned and galloped out of the village.

Once the riders were beyond the village limits, the nobleman approached Jean. “And what were you thinking, Lad?” The man directed his question toward Jean while throwing his cloak to his right shoulder displaying fine silk garments and a gold cross hanging from a heavy gold chain. His grey beard made him appear robust in girth and Jean saw that he was not as tall as his father, but the authority that he projected made him seem like a giant.

“Th-The honor of the w-woman,” Jean stuttered.

“Your boy?” The man nodded, smiled, and looked to Marcus who placed his arm around Jean’s shoulder as a father’s instinct.

“Aye, my Lord.”

“You raised a remarkable son to challenge the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” the nobleman smiled then became more serious in tone. “But let me advise your boy to tread lightly, Sir. The countryside is full of those who make the law on a whim… and, as you can see,” the man looked about the crowd, “no Shireff or man of the law has come to intervene.”

“Aye, my Lord, tis the trouble in these parts.”

“…As in all parts…now good day to you and to you, my brave lad.”

“Thank you, my Lord,” Marcus said as the stranger turned, mounted his massive steed and parted the sea of gawking villagers still blocking the produce-lined street. As Jean still shook uncontrollably due to a strange mixture of pride and fear, he noticed the soft eyes of a young girl gazing upon him from the dispersing crowd. She stood still and maintained her gaze that silently spoke to him in passages. He remembered this pretty girl as the “vegetable” girl that he had seen for years but never had enough confidence to approach on his many trips to market day. Now he felt that he could read her thoughts through her eyes of blue, framed by long auburn hair blowing free of any constraining whimple scarf.

“You are not a fool…but a brave knight.” Jean interpreted from her eyes as he merely cracked a small, embarrassed smile.

“Let’s go home, son,” said Marcus, still with his arm on his son’s shoulder as they turned away and walked back to the cart. Other villagers looked on as if Jean was a carrier of the plague itself. As Jean scanned the scattering crowd looking again for the girl he only knew through others witness as “Jennifer”, he could see the words that formed on the lips of some villagers as they looked upon him.

”Dead man he is…for sure.” No one approached Jean and his father as they all feared accusations of confederacy with the boy who challenged Lord Blanchfort’s men. Marcus led Jean, in silence, to the wagon.

“Father, the rootstocks.”

“Another day, lad… Now where is the stone?”

Jean quickly ran to the hidden weight, removed the covering of grasses, then quickly began the terrible drag back home. Jean continued to drag the weight past his father’s wagon as Marcus watched the boy struggle down the road.

“Boy, halt now.”

Jean looked around as his father dismounted the wagon, lifted the heavy stone, still wrapped in its encasement, and easily placed it in the cart causing it to shake. He then assumed his seat once again.

“Come, sit beside me.”

“Sir, my punishment is not complete as yet,” Jean protested.

Marcus only stared at his son until Jean understood that no anger was left in his father’s eyes. He turned to see villagers still looking on in wonderment, then mounted the wagon and took his seat at his father’s side.

A good half an hour went by before any words were spoken. Jean looked at the long drag mark ahead that he had left in the road that the manor’s communal plow oxe now seemed to follow back home.

“You do realize that your foolish heroics may bring down tyranny on your family’s house.”

“Yes, Father.” Jean now became frightened as a burst of cold sweat came forth. He feared that he now had brought on yet another punishment that now loomed on the horizon of his young life, both in the form of his father’s roar and in the form of the Black Riders with vengeance well seared into their hearts.Marcus spoke again.

“You also realize a Father’s pride in a son who acted on injustice…and acted in accordance with the teachings of God.”

Jean quickly looked back at his father. His words of praise rattled his young mind after so many years of harsh words and constant correction.

“What is done is done, lad,” Marcus began slowly. “I know not today’s implications of the future. But I do know that today, you, Jean, are indeed a noble man.” Marcus could no longer mask his good spirits. He turned to his boy, his young man, and beamed with a warm smile portraying the pride and the love of a father toward his son.

Copyright 2009 - 2010, thomas dorsch (Expires August 26, 2010)

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