“You want to know what happened?” he asked me as we sat in the tavern. He waved a hand, encompassing the room. “Everyone here wants to know what happened.”
I couldn’t tell if Luther Blademaster was drunk or not, having known him only for two nights, and the rest of the time only by reputation. He had found me stumbling out of the Millinocket, after, maybe, I got pushed into it over the Kingsroad Bridge. Or was forced to jump. I didn’t remember much of that day, to tell you the truth.
It was my first trip to Millinocket, to the Ren Faire that they held every year for a month. Modern conveniences met with the pleasantries of Medieval England. North Hampshire opened its doors for that one month from the middle of September to the middle of October, and then closed itself off from the rest of the world.
I was a Flatlander, someone from the outside, and the story of how I got into this tavern is a long one, and not what I want to tell here. What I do want you to attend to is Luther, a big, strapping, red-haired man, who was blind.
Supposedly he was the Swordking, though it was never spoken aloud and it wasn’t known. The Swords were like the arms of the Queen’s justice; they went to different towns and taverns, and took arbitrated disputes, sometimes by sword point. They were judges and executioners. The Swordking was the final word.
But now the Swordking was blind, and I was chosen as his newest protégé, again, for reasons I’m not going into here.
I did want to know how he was blind. “So why don’t you tell them?”
“Half the people here wouldn’t understand. All the Flatlanders…”
“It would be better than that drunk guy they got now.” The whole situation in the tavern reminded me of some poetry slam or open mic, when people would get up and tell stories or sing songs, and most of them were, by now, drunk enough to do it.
Luther got up, walked over to the front of the room, and stared at the drunk guy until he got the hint and he vacated the space. Luther grabbed a chair from nearest the hearth, straddled it, and said, “I am Swordsknight Luther Blademaster, called that for obvious reasons. I am in the service of the Queen, long may she reign.”
“Long may she reign,” came the murmured response.
“Some of you may have heard of me. Most of you have not. I am the Queen’s and King’s champion for many years, and a champion of my patron lord many times over. I am a swordsman, an archer, a blade master. I am a Sword, which means I dispense justice as I see fit. Some call me the Swordking.
“With all that, how can a blind man sit in front of you? I was not always blind. I had lost my sight over the Yule holiday, and this is how.”
He was not the best storyteller, but the Hampshirites were on the edge of their seats.
“I had gone to my patron for the Yule holiday, and was invited to their castle at Mars Hill. My patron lord had three daughters, and his handsome wife.” He paused. “I was asked to lay with them all. I refused.”
The room was quiet. Not a peep. Luther really was a bad storyteller. But then, this was his life; he probably didn’t want to go there.
“With my refusal, they brought me to their chambers, and plucked out my eyes, then threw me out into the snow.”
He looked around the room. Everyone was focused on him. “Then I saw the most lovely creature,” he said, “An angel before my eyes. A goddess, she was, the goddess of North Hampshire, who told me that yet I shall see, even with sightless eyes. Her eagle brought to me my eyes, and placed them in the holes left by my patron lord, and so I could see as the eagle flies.”
Luther got up, and unerringly put the chair back against the hearth, all without looking at what he was doing. “Does anyone dare me to prove that I belong among the Swords?”
People shook their heads. He waded between the tables, again, without looking where he was going, and ended up back to me.
I knew his secret.