Chapter One: The Cupbearer
The morning wind crept through the cracks in the wooden walls, whispering across Henri's skin like a thief's fingers. He blinked into the dimness of his cabin — a lean box of stone and timber tucked beneath the inner curtain wall of Baron Kolsh's keep.
A single, narrow slit of a window let in pale light, enough to show dust dancing in the air and the breath misting from his lips.
Henri sat up slowly, bare feet touching the cold flagstone. His joints ached from the hard sleep. He could already hear the clatter of the cookfires from the lower yard and the whistle of steel from the blacksmith's forge echoing off the keep's inner walls.
Today would be like the last….. Unless he made it something else.
He reached for the basin on the stool beside his bed, dipped his fingers into the stale, cold water of the basin and splashed his face.
There were no comforts in Henri's room — no icons of saints, no carved tokens from home. Just a bucket, a stool, and a shelf with a crust of bread growing hard at the edges. His brown servant's tunic lay folded with care, still damp from yesterday's washing.
He dressed quickly. The fabric was rough, dyed with whatever roots the laundress could scrape together. It marked him plainly — a boy of no standing, just another hand in the service of the Baron. Nothing more than the cupbearer. The one who waited quietly at the side, always watching or pouring drinks.
Henri tied his belt, then caught his reflection in the shard of mirror nailed to the wall. His reflection stared back at him with dark hollow eyes.
He muttered to himself under his breath. "Don't speak unless spoken to. Don't meet the steward's eyes. Don't trip again on the stairs."
Today, Baron Kolsh was hosting three knights from the southern border. That meant wine. That meant pressure. That meant opportunity.
As he stepped outside, the cold air hit him like a slap. The keep loomed overhead — gray stone and iron, built not for beauty but for endurance. Servants were already bustling across the yard: scullery maids with buckets, a boy herding chickens, the steward barking orders, driving them as if herding cattle.
Henri straightened his shoulders and walked toward the keep.
He was a servant. A shadow. A boy of no name.
But his thoughts were sharp as blades. And deep down, beneath the layers of duty and silence, Henri knew:
' One day, they would say his name with respect. Or not at all — because they'd fear to speak it.'
The corridor leading to the morning hall was narrow, its stone walls damp with the breath of winter. Torches guttered low in their sconces along the left wall.Henri's soft steps echoed faintly as he moved, careful not to rush, careful not to draw attention. His palms were cold but slightly damp — the cup would need a steady hand.
As he approached the carved oak doors of the hall, he paused. He could already hear their voices inside. Deep and confident. The kind of voices used to speak commands, not asking questions.
He pulled open one side of the door just enough to slip through. The heat of the hearth washed over him immediately. The morning hall was alive.
At the head of the room sat Baron Kolsh.
A broad man of late middle years, Kolsh had a weathered face like dried leather, a short gray beard, and heavy-lidded eyes that missed nothing. He wore a dark green tunic trimmed in wool and a chain of dull silver at his shoulders. He wore no gold, nor jewels. His clothing spoke plainly, he was a baron of poor land, not a man chasing grandeur.
But the way he sat — back straight, one hand resting casually on the hilt of a dagger — spoke of quiet power. His arms were thick, still muscular, and a long scar ran from his left cheek to his ear, cutting through the coarse stubble like a pale white river.
Kolsh was speaking to the three men seated along his table, knights by the look of them, though none wore their armor now.
The first knight was Sir Aldric of Wolden, a bull of a man with a reddish beard and small, mean eyes. His clothes were fine wool, too fine for a man who rode often . Henri saw him as a knight more comfortable at feasts than in the saddle. He laughed too loudly and chewed on bread like it owed him money.
The second, Sir Roderic, was younger. Handsome, sharp-jawed, but his eyes wandered the hall as though everything bored him. He sipped from his cup with the grace of a cat, fingers ringed in silver, armor left intentionally unclean to show use, or perhaps laziness.
The third knight was quieter, Sir Vaughn, lean and pale, his hair trimmed close and his back never fully relaxed. The soldier among them, no doubt. His boots were scuffed, his sword hand calloused, and he hadn't touched his food.
Henri slipped along the wall behind the benches, past silent retainers who barely noticed him.. He was just the cupbearer.
He stopped beside the long table, head bowed slightly, waiting for the baron's nod.
The baron didn't look at him, but said, "Wine."
Henri stepped forward, uncorking the jug with practiced fingers. He poured cleanly into the baron's iron goblet, then moved silently to Sir Aldric, then Roderic, then Vaughn.
Aldric muttered, "this peasant's hands are steady. Good sign."
Henri didn't flinch. He stepped back behind Baron Kolsh's chair, returning to stillness.
The baron finally turned to look at him. Just for a moment. A flicker of recognition — or something close.
Then back to the knights. "The roads are worse this year. Bandits in the woods, the animals are sick, the king wants taxes raised, but I told him Dunlin bleeds already."
Sir Aldric leaned forward, grease on his lips. "A poor barony's no excuse, Kolsh. The other lords are paying."
Kolsh didn't rise to the bait. He simply said, "I gave the king my sword. I'll give him my silver. But I won't bleed my folk dry to pay for his carpets."
There was a beat of silence. Henri felt the tension, taut as a rope. Then Sir Roderic chuckled softly.
"Still stubborn as the old days," he said. "You've not changed."
Baron Kolsh grunted. "I've changed plenty. Just not for worse men than I used to be."
Henri remained behind the baron, eyes cast down, but ears wide open. Every pause mattered. Power lived here — at tables, not only in banners…
***
After the knights
The hall had quieted. The fire had burned low, the bread reduced to crumbs, and the knights had ridden out with their laughter echoing behind them.
Baron Kolsh stood at the great doors, arms folded, watching the yard with a look Henri couldn't read.
Henri bowed out without a word, as he always did, and slipped back through the side corridor, the stone cool underfoot and the torchlight flickering long shadows down the narrow passage. The castle had grown quieter now, its heartbeat slowed. Servants scuttled in the distance, voices muffled. No one paid him mind.
By the time he reached his room, the light outside had faded into that strange colorless gray that belonged neither to day nor night.
The cabin greeted him with silence. He sat down on the edge of his straw mattress and exhaled slowly, rubbing at the back of his neck.
He should've felt honored. He'd poured wine for knights today, stood beside a man who'd once saved the king's life. He'd watched noble politics unfold not from behind closed doors but from the very edge of the table.
But he didn't feel honored. He felt... wary.
Kolsh. The baron with a blade-scarred face and a soldier's shoulders. A man respected in the north, feared in the south. He could've been a duke, maybe even something greater, if the world had tilted differently.
And yet he stood there today, defying the king's demand for silver, refusing to raise taxes on a land already choking.
A noble gesture, perhaps. But was it a wise one?
Henri leaned back, resting against the wall, arms crossed.
"He does it for the people," he murmured aloud, though no one was there to hear him. "But would the people do it for him?"
They admired Kolsh, yes. They muttered thanks under breath when his patrols drove off bandits or when he lightened the harvest tithe after a bad year. But admiration was not loyalty. And loyalty without security rotted quickly.
The king would not forget a defiant baron. Not for long. And when the reckoning came, who would stand between Kolsh and the crown? Peasants? Miners? Starving farmers with frostbitten fingers?
Henri closed his eyes for a moment.
"A noble heart in a cruel world is a knife with no handle," he whispered to himself.
The room felt heavier for it.
A gust of wind slipped through the narrow window slit. Henri stood and walked over, leaning on the stone ledge to peer out. The sky was bruised with clouds. The inner courtyard lay quiet, the torch posts dim, with just a few guards walking the walls.
Across the keep, high on the tower, hung Baron Kolsh's banner.
A white cloth, plain and weather-worn at the edges.
At its center was a black direfang with mouth wide open, its fangs bared, and eyes hollow.
Henri stared at it for a long time.
It was a beast meant to inspire fear in his enemies — too wild to cage, too defiant to bow… yet, to Henri, it looked already wounded.
Henri turned from the window and sat down again.
He didn't hate Kolsh. In truth, part of him admired the baron more than any man alive.
But admiration and agreement were not the same.
One day, Henri thought, there would be choices to make. Real ones. Not about wine, not about silence, but about who would burn and who would rise.
And when that day came, he would not be the one clutching a noble heart while the crown drew steel.