The Duke Makes a Decision

Duke Alred of Nothelm was deep in thought one chilly November evening as he walked home from inspecting the progress at the church. He had been watching the stonemasons at work, and it reminded him that his wife had been asking him for some time when he planned to begin work on his castle. He had had the keep built upon the stone foundations of an old fort, but he hadn’t built in stone, believing that their little adventure in the valley couldn’t last long. 

When he reached his home, he stopped at the foot of the hill and stared up at the rough wooden walls. It had been two years now that they had been living there. For two years he had been playing along, calling himself a Duke because it seemed to please his wife, and waiting for the day when one of King William’s sheriffs would come to chase them out of the valley. 

But he suddenly realized that it had been his idea to restore the old church and call in a priest – even he was beginning to think of their future in the valley. His son would celebrate his second birthday in a few weeks, and he realized that he wanted this future for him, and for the baby that would be born in a few short months. Perhaps a title and a castle were something that one could reach out and take, if one were bold enough and strong enough. 

Alred nodded to himself. He would begin work on a stone tower immediately. He wanted a keep that was defensible. He wanted to stay.

There was something else, though. 

Late that night, he awoke with a sharp pain in his chest. This had been happening more frequently lately. Each breath hurt so badly that he could hardly breathe at all, and each time his body fought for long minutes to find a middle ground between agony and suffocation.

He had said nothing to his wife, nor to anyone else. All he could think about was how his father had died: he had stood up suddenly during a meal, clutching his chest and drawing one sharp breath before falling face-​​first onto the floor. 

Alred remembered finding a piece of his father’s broken tooth there on the flagstones, after they had taken the body away. That had always seemed more horrible to him than the death itself: the falling, the smashed teeth, the broken nose, the loss of dignity.

He would build a castle of stone, he would increase his farmlands, he would work as hard and as quickly as he could so that he could leave something noble to his son, even if he would also leave him the same sort of gruesome memory of his father’s death.