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17 years earlier

They had just left the imposing dark walls of Blackfort when he fell asleep thanks to the narcotic effect of the dunes against the carriage wheels. He did not even have time to look at the immense drop of emerald green water, surrounded by milk-white sand, that was the White Lake.

When he woke up, he felt only cold and pain. His worst nightmare had also arisen: darkness. It was dark, everywhere.

“Mother? Mother where are you? Father? I don’t see anything. I can’t find you. Help me, mother! Mother!” he screamed and screamed and kept screaming. In vain. “Mother, please! Father! It’s all dark. Please help me!”

Nothing, no answer.

“Oh! Have you seen? That basket there moves. What’s wrong with it? Isn’t that a haunted basket? Or maybe we can find some half-battered carrion inside? Maybe if it’s from today or yesterday we can also eat it instead of putting only those four crumbs of hard bread to our teeth” said a female voice before being blocked by the loud crack of a well-aimed slap.

“Shaddap, woman! Did you understand? Always there to complain, always there to gossip and then who’s the one under the sun cooking his back and breaking his bones in the fields, huh? Can you tell me who he is? You fuckin’ cow” a hoarse voice, accompanied by a second blow. “I’ll take care of it. I don’t want to hear you say anything.”

Suddenly light for his amber eyes. Little light, but still light.

“You see it? He’s a brat. What’s a brat doing like that in a basket? He also looks pretty well dressed! Him, at least…” The woman said again boldly.

“You just don’t understand. I told you shaddap. Shut the fuck up, I warn you! Let me look. Huh? He looks like a noble brat. Look what he’s wearing and that girlish hair. Are we sure he’s a boy? Well, who gives a fuck, with that doublet there we’ve a good dinner tonight! Maybe that way you start saying thank you, instead of just complaining, you stupid woman” said the man whose features the boy could now see, squinting. He was far too massive, certainly a farmer accustomed to hard work. His skin was red and sore in places, probably due to countless hours spent under the sun’s rays.

A hand came quickly to him and grabbed him by the leg. It was easy for the farmer to lift him with his arms as big as oak branches. The child felt like an empty sack of potatoes. The man tore off his black silver-embroidered doublet with the other hand and as he did, so he ripped off part of the linen shirt.

The little one, frightened, began to sob. He did not understand where he was, what had happened. The sky was filling with large black clouds laden with rain. It was terribly cold.

“What are you doing now, are you crying? Huh, ugly rat!” thundered the farmer, lifting him even higher and bringing their faces dangerously close.

The child noticed a large scar that took up part of the man’s forehead, a slashed eye, completely white and watery, and reached halfway up the neck. A deep horrifying scar that disfigured him in a monstrous way making him look, in the eyes of the child, a miniature orcolat, straight out of a bestiary still too difficult to understand for his tender mind. However, the child had heard about it at Blackfort about orcolats, terrifying bearded giants who caused earthquakes just by walking.

The farmer’s breath stank of wine. “Stop it now, you lousy! You annoy me, rat, you must stop whining!” In an instant he threw the child against the ground. In the impact the little one opened a wound on the right eyebrow from which blood began to gush that ended up obscuring his vision.

The sobs turned into tears.

“I hate this brat! Let’s go to the market to sell this nobleman’s doublet and buy fish for dinner, Enya. Let’s leave this mangy rat to its fate.”

“Wait”, the woman said in one breath. “Sorry, Brodh, wait. Can I have a word?” she asked with good, frightened eyes.

The man with a wave of his hand agreed.

“What if... What if...”

While little by little Enya was weighing the right words to pronounce in her mind, a few drops of rain began to fall slowly, heralding the arrival of a huge storm.

“Speak woman, for the Plagues! It’s getting dark!” Brodh bellowed impatiently.

“Forgive me. What I meant is…” She took a moment longer before she found the courage. “What if we take him to the hut with us? You know how long I have wanted a little one of mine to grow up. The doctor they sent from Morven told you can’t. Not even with those bewitched concoctions and I would love to…” She began to cry. “I wish I could...”

The man tried to interrupt the conversation in the bud. “Are you stupid by any chance, Enya? Huh? Are you always complaining that you have nothing to eat but the crumbs of old bread and want to bring another mouth under the roof? Do me the favor! Just shut up and don’t start whining too! Fuckin Plagues!”

“Please, Brodh! I will not complain anymore, I swear it on the Divine Mother! And if there is no food, I give him my part to eat. I implore you, Brodh, I implore you!” She could not hold back the tears, collected in large droplets that streamed down her face, which was flushed because of the slaps.

The child witnessed several minutes of standstill. The woman wriggled in her yellow tunic, stamped her feet in pigskin slippers, and wept praying to him and mumbling incomprehensible words in the midst of tears and sobs. The man, in response, nervously took a few steps back and forth puffing, cursing and scratching the scar on his forehead, kicking the dirt of the path and the wild fennel that grew on the sides, threatening her from time to time to hit her if she spoke again.

“Enya… if he tries to talk, I beat him, do you understand? I don’t want to hear anything from you or him. Grab that brat and wipe off that fucking cow face you have! I warn you, Enya, a word and I punch him to death, am I clear?” finally concluded, the evidently angry and annoyed Brodh.

“Thanks, Brodh! Thank you, husband, thank you!” Although the woman was still in tears, a huge smile crept across her face. She went to meet the child who could see how she was a rather thin woman, her face was thin and her dry cheeks glued to small pronounced cheekbones. He had large freckles here and there on his face, a small thin nose, eyebrows as red as the hair he wore gathered in a braid thrown down one shoulder. Her emerald green eyes were speckled with blue. Beautiful, even though they were flushed with tears.

Until then the child had been whimpering. He sniffed and tried to hold back the crying as best he could. “What are you doing? Where are mother and father? What have you done to them?” he asked with what little voice he had left.

A thunder. The first drops of rain began to wet their faces.

“Be quiet, kid! Or Brodh will start beating you. Be quiet, trust me”, muttered the woman who was about to take him in her arms.

“What have you done to my parents?” continued the little undeterred trying to be as brave as possible.

“Did you hear, Enya?” Brodh began to grin. “Did you hear the rat? So funny! He didn’t realize he was left like a fucking beaten dog on the side of the road. Your parents? Your parents left you to get eaten by the wolves, the racnids and all those damned disgusting beasts that run at night, you stupid idiot rat! You must be thankful Enya has a heart of gold, since if it was for me you were already served as dinner to those freaks of nature” Brodh yelled at him contemptuously.

“You are a liar! Tell me what you did, liar!” said the little one again.

Another thunder, this time violent and close. The few drops of rain that had fallen until then became, in the blink of an eye, as if under the influence of a powerful spell, a real storm. After a few moments, all three were completely soaked but the child seemed the only one to feel the unbearable cold that had come at the same speed as the rain.

Brodh no longer laughed. “Enough now, rat. Stay mute or I’ll make you mute.”

“You are a liar! A dog!” was the last sentence of the child.

In an instant Brodh was in front of him. He threw a punch straight in the face that sent him tumbling to the ground with Enya.

“I’ll take care of it, kid. Enya will take care of you” he heard softly as he fainted.

-

He felt hot now. Yes, he could feel the warmth and softness of lambskin. When he was fully awake, he almost burst into tears again. A tremendous pain gripped part of his face concentrating on the right eye which remained half closed against his will. It was swollen from Brodh’s fist that landed right on his eyebrow wound creating a concert of pain. They were in a modest hut. A small fireplace lit up the hut and warmed the environment to the best of its capacity.

“Kid! Kid, how are you feeling? Are you cold? Do you want another blanket? Or are you hungry? I’ve made cabbage soup and there’s also a little fish.” It was Enya’s voice that brought him back to the sad reality.

Was I kidnapped by the brigands? Mother and father… he thought. Mother and father wouldn’t leave me on the street.

Without even waiting for his answer, Enya started filling an old wooden bowl with cabbage soup and handed it to him. A beautiful maternal smile was drawn on her freckled face which, despite her livid cheeks from Brodh’s blows, surrounded her with a peaceful, warm, and sweet aura. It was at that moment that the child began to understand that she was nothing more than a succubus of her evil husband.

“Th-Thank you, my lady” he said uncertainly. He was still scared because he still didn’t understand where he was and who, exactly, was standing in front of him. Without thinking twice, however, he began to eat the watered-down soup in large spoonfuls even though he had never liked soups, even if he had never liked cabbages. He was starving.

“Listened, Brodh? He said thank you! And did you hear how he called me? He’s really precious!” Enya said with one of the widest smiles the child had ever seen before.

“Yes, yes, yes. As you wish. Let me eat in peace” Brodh said, keeping his revulsion. Not even a richer meal than usual was able to sweeten him.

“Where am I, my lady? Who are you?” he said softly, as soon as he swallowed a mouthful that almost went sideways, so as not to be heard by the man a few steps further on. He was afraid Brodh would hit him for even one word too many.

“Kid, you’re now safe here. Don’t call me that. My name is Enya and the one sitting there is my husband Brodh. We found you on a country lane near where he works, inland from the South Trust. You were crouched in a closed basket and you were alone. Here we are now in the lands of the capital of the Kingdom. Kid, don’t you remember? I’m pretty sure those petty sons of a bitch in heat of your parents left you to die on the side of the road. What if we hadn’t passed by there… Ah! If we hadn’t passed by there, maybe they would have succeeded in their intent! Bastards! Dogs! But now you can be calm, here we are safe. It’s not the King’s estate in Morven, but it’s anyway a roof and you’re in the warm.” Enya said in her mother’s sweet manner.

Although inside his heart the little one continued to hope that it was not true, that it could not be possible that his parents had abandoned him there like a dying beast, he began to believe in Enya’s words. What reason would two poor peasants have to take on another mouth? Do they want to sell me? No, it can’t be, otherwise the woman wouldn’t have treated me like that. Maybe they just want to adopt me... Maybe...

“Lady Enya... what will you do with me?” the child then asked, still frightened.

“Kid, don’t call me lady. And I’ll raise you, you have to be calm. I give you food and a safe, warm place to rest your bones. But you don’t have to think that you can stand there doing nothing, understood?” she said trying to remain serious, perhaps to please Brodh. Despite this, her aura of kindness could still be felt very strongly. “Tomorrow you go to the fields with my husband and start to take manual skills with the hoe.”

He didn’t answer. There was nothing to say or add. He felt like he was trapped, kidnapped by a sweet jailer and an evil torturer. There was nothing left for him but to comply with their requests to remain in the world.

“Kid, do you have a name?” Enya continued.

Yes. Yes, I have it. Those who abandoned me to the peasants on the street gave it to me. What do I say? They abandoned me on the street and that’s it, the peasants passed by there just by chance. Yes. I have a name. They... They... I won’t see you again, will I? “I don't remember ever having one” he hesitated, still unsure.

“Of course. Didn't they do that either, those bastards? Did they keep you like a little nobody?”

The child did not answer.

“Good, then. How about Ethan? You know, kid, Ethan was my granddad’s name. He was a knight of the King, Sir Ethan the Brave. I didn’t get to know him, but my mother told me a lot about him. He was an officer of the realm, a strong man who died while leading a Southern squad to independence during the Great Trust Schism, many years ago now, forty minus four, I think. In war, he rode under the banner of the Flaming Ram of Metiwood. Do you like Ethan?” Enya asked, traveling with her eyes and mind back over the years. She went so far back to remember and tell the child about the times she had lived in An Triad, on the east bank of Hotriver, in the large family house built by her great grandfather, inherited from her grandfather, then from her mother and now among the state possessions requisitioned by a certain Akkron Lus-Ayenne, wealthy manager of the Kingdom’s agricultural assets, after the war.

The child thought that Ethan must have been a great man to be nicknamed Sir Brave, even if in the small tomes of history he had begun to leaf through in the huge octagonal library of Blackfort he had never seen his name. Grandfather was brave, however, and then the little one promised himself that he would be brave like him, that even if he had never known him, he would honour him by bearing his name proudly, now that all remnants of the hope of returning to his past life seemed to have disappeared. He would have carry it until he could escape from Enya and Brodh or until his parents could find him, if they ever looked for him.

“Yes, I like it” Ethan said with the utmost, almost ridiculous seriousness that a six-year-old with a swollen, bruised eye that holds back tears can aspire to.

Brodh, who had been silent until that moment, got up and walked towards them. He bent his knees and, staring at him with his single pitch-black pupil, said indifferently: “Go to sleep, rat. Tomorrow I want you awake before dawn. You’re man and so it’s up to you to break your back under the sun.”

Ethan obeyed.