Chapter 6

Confused I turn to the others, Lou shrugs and the woman I assume to be Ray says, "come on." Following them is my only option really I have nowhere else to go and I'm kinda getting hungry. I follow behind Lou as we walk while I listen to them speak, "Lou I want you to do nothing you would normally do tomorrow, instead I want you to tell Jack to do it and treat him how I treated you."

He smiles while he says, "exactly like it?"

After a quick nod she says, "exactly."

We head out into a black starlit night, the soft grass being the only thing to make noise as we cross a courtyard and head into a stable. Once inside we get on horses, Ray on one while me and Lou go on the other, now I've never ridden a horse before so I am tossed around like a sack of potatoes. The ride is about an hour and quite beautiful, if my thighs were not getting one hell of a beating I would have enjoyed it, it ends at a village, not so much inside it just on a hill outside it.

When we ride through the gate a man is there to take the horses, we enter the large beautiful estate house it is dimly lit with no movement whatsoever. Everyone would be sleeping or at the very least relaxing, either way I doubt we will be having a huge dinner and when we stop by a pantry my suspicions are confirmed. I am handed a small piece of jerky and a nub of bread, not even buttered jeez. I honestly was not even interested in the bread and devoured the meat in moments, from there we head to a bedroom with a queen sized bed and a pile of straw like the one in Samantha's room.

Once everyone is inside Lou lights a candle and explains, "this is where we will sleep you there," when he points to the pile of straw I chuckle a bit until I realize, he is not kidding.

Ray seems tired and she confirms it by saying, "don't bother with a candle tonight I am tired and wish to sleep." Then she does the strangest thing, as Lou puts out the candle she holds her arms out like she intends for her clothes to change themselves, and for a moment I actually expect it.

With a small sigh Lou explains, "Jack she's a noble and noble woman don't to things like change their clothes, they have their closest servants do so, normally I would but tonight that's your problem." My cheeks have got to be a new shade of red, and the heat warm enough to start fires, I just met this woman and this dude wants me to strip her and put her in a nightgown. Ah hell nah.

Before I can vocalize my complaints Lou gives me one nightmare of a look and Ray says, "you don't need to act shy I would remove your hands if anything but that happened, now I'm tired hurry." Straight up my heart is running track, she just said she would remove my hands and the worst part is I don't doubt her. Feeling like I'm going to be murdered I remove her clothing and replace it with a thin fabric dress, now you the first time you imagine seeing a naked woman is, well this in not how I imagined it, and to be completely honest I look away for most of it.

Once Ray slides into bed I turn to Lou who gives me a pat on the shoulders and a small chuckle. He strips to his boxers and slides into the side closest to me, leaving me standing in the middle of the room, now I'm tired but for some reason I don't feel like sleeping I do sit down on the straw though. I sit there and wonder about what I did to those people, and when I am sure they are both asleep I exit the room and head to a balcony at the end of the hall.

I can't tell you how long I stand there for but I know it's a long while, I spend so much time staring out at the stars I fail to see Ray walk up next to me so I can only wonder how high I jumped when she says, "what's on your mind?"

I don't mean to sound mean but I bark out a quick, "Jesus Christ didn't anyone ever warn you about sneaking up on people?" When I realize what I had said I apologize as I know she was not trying to scare me to death, and as to her question I evade answering, "nothing."

After a minute or two she decides against dropping it though, "no one avoids sleep and fails to hear a creaky door because they were thinking of nothing, why hide it, is it that terrible." I do not answer her and instead she talks, "you are not the only one with secrets and yours are not the worst. Take me for example, I ordered the death of an innocent man because he wouldn't tell me who actually committed his crime. I have hurt and tortured and yet I have no regrets because it's been in the defence of someone I love, this village for instance, I command this village and its people I treat them as my own family and have swore to protect them but I have done terrible things. Even Samantha has her secrets, but we don't off ourselves, we work really hard to rectify them, we learn to take control of our lives." She seems to be really tired at this point and even yawns, finally turning towards the door she says, "it is up to you whether or not you make up for what you did."

Leaving me with some heavy words she heads back to bed. My problem is not whether I can make up for it without killing anyone else. Deciding to give it up for tonight I creep back in and fall asleep.

Sleep is dreamless and when I am shaken awake by Lou the first thing I can say is, "dude the sun has not even come up yet." Instead of replying he drags my partially unconscious body out into the hall to shake the hell out of me. I do get up though and am pulled down the hall, we head out to a well with a couple of buckets and a woman who is already washing clothes in one, Lou points to a bin and an old fashioned washboard.

He hands me a basket and says, "Sophia will show you how, I'll be back in a bit." He takes off leaving me with a dropped jaw, turning to the woman in disbelief watching as she pats the ground beside her, who would want to do this every day for eternity I thought they were trying to persuade me into staying. Either way I sit down and wait for instruction. The clothes are difficult to wash but I do catch on in a bit, it is hard to wash some of the cloth as I am male and have never had to touch female thingys.

By the end me and Sophia are having fun telling each other about our homes and family, mind you it becomes very quiet when we get to me. I explain my parents and how they left, she is very kind and let's me finish before extending her condolences. She had lived with her parents till twelve then had come here to make a living and find a life, now she washes all clothes and sweeps and mops the floors, even with an everyday job she is happy, she can't even see her family.

My curiosity gets to me, "but how can you be happy when you have no family, you work your hands to the bone everyday and for what?"

Instead of anger she just smiles, "what are you talking about I have family they are here, every single person who lives here is my family and I would have it no other way, I work every day doing one job for everyone, in return they do things for me like grow the food, repair things, protect me, keep me warm and most of all bring me happiness. If I wanted to leave I could say the word, the only thing is, I don't want to."

Her words hit home for me, I have no family, I have no friends, I couldn't do it because I might hurt someone. We spend the last twenty or so minutes in silence and when Lou comes back Sophia hands me a basket with folded clothes in it and we say our goodbyes. Following Lou I head back inside into the bedroom to give Ray her clothes, the sun is starting to come up as I finish with getting her changed. From there we all head to a big dining room to eat, Ray gets a place at the head of the table while everyone else sits on the sides.

I help with bringing the food to the table and am one of the last to sit down, the food is delicious and the conversation wonderful, there is not a single person upset or even remotely unhappy. They laugh and joke with each other while eating some epic oatmeal, these people grew up with family and ended up making a new one along the way.

Breakfast is an hour long and when it's over I help by cleaning dishes and washing various surfaces, the people are nice and accepting when I do things wrong or not well enough. Once finished I follow Lou out back to a training ground it is empty as there are only about twenty guards in this village, we stop near a weapons rack.

He pulls a sword from the rack, "what would you like to use in a one on one twenty paces apart duel, we have anything from swords to battle axes."

I've never held a sword let alone dueled with one, the only thing on this rack I have used is… a bow. Back at home I learned to use a bow so I could feed myself without hurting Jim's wallet anymore than it already was. Taking it from the rack I reach for some arrows.

"You do realize we will be twenty feet apart right, that bow will not serve you well."

Realizing this I turn to him, "it's the only thing I know how to use. Besides you aren't afraid I'll win are ya." He clearly has more experience than me in fighting and I don't know if I will even be able to hit him, he does have a shield.

He chuckles softly while walking to one of two blue circles, I head to the other while knocking one of the soft wooden arrows, they will not pierce but boy will they hurt. I won my school archery contests for the last four years and have never lost a match, mind you I had never had to fight a human only targets and animals with only the occasional bird. As a way to determine when the fight will start he throws a hide ball into the air, when it hits the ground we fight.

As the ball hits the dirt I watch him lurch forward, he intends to close the gap before I can shoot, it does not prove effective though as I pull and release before he's half way. This bow is much more powerful than my old one and the arrow hits him just below the ankle snapping to pieces on impact, even with the loss of an arrow it pays off and his leg is taken right out from under him allowing me a front row seat to him eating dirt. I know it's childish but I start laughing when his dirt filled toothy grin comes out of the ground.

He heads back to his circle while spitting dirt, I decide to give him some famous last words, "You didn't think I'd make it easy on you did ya." And that's when I see his true skill, when the ball hits the ground he charges again but this time dodging my arrow and delivering a solid blow to my genitalia.

Fighting back tears while collapsing to the dirt I hear some payback, "here I thought you said you weren't going to make this easy on me."

Grabbing his outstretched hand I get back to my feet, "touché."

We spar for a long time so long my fingers start hurting like the rest of me, our matches are fairly even and we end up tying at eighty, "how long are we going to keep doing this for even my fingers are hurting."

He stares at the sky for a moment before nodding and walking to the weapon rack, "we can move on to our next duty." He talks as we walk out of the estate and down to the village, "I guess I haven't been completely clear what your duty's are, as a familiar your number one objective is to protect your witch, with that in check you will clean their clothes, get their food or prepare it in advance, and be well trained enough to complete the number one job. So you wake up early, clean their clothes, get their food, then train. When you are too tired to continue you stop for that day and spend the rest of the day with them. Being a familiar your lives are bound together you will probably spend more hours of the day with them than the people they fall in love with, speaking of which if she gets in a relationship it is not your job to look after them and you need to keep an eye on them."

As we enter the town I notice the people here are happy, not like the people from my town who are sad or grumpy, these people are cheerful and friendly. Many people wave to us and some even offer us bread and vegetables, all of which we kindly refuse. Finally we stop by a two story wooden house with a small yard, Ray stands at the door talking with a man and woman.

Ray says her goodbyes and walks down the path to join us on the road, she does not seem happy, "why can't we have one week without some over dramatic farmers."

Lou smiles and says, "what is it this time, wolves or bears?"

Ray does not return the smile, "neither, they claim to have heard a strange noise coming from the Albert's barn and will not be happy till I check it out, so you guys done training?" With a quick not from Lou they start walking, it does not take long for us to exit the town, we head north for about an hour then stop at the end of a lane way.