The Historian’s Novel

Havoc dreamt of drowning. An often-enough occurrence, nightmares that is, though this time he remained lucid enough to tell that something was different.  Perhaps, he reasoned, the distinction lay in how he could actually feel his sleeping body struggle to breathe. This suggested some sort of strangulation in progress…Which made little sense if you considered how fine tuned his senses were in picking out bloodlust.

   Of which he could find none at all in the slightest.

   In bored curiosity Havoc began swimming upwards. Only for the motion to reveal his body happened to be completely covered in armor. Armor heavy enough that no matter how mighty his strokes, the distant distorted light of the surface never got any closer. 

   More nonsense. Havoc chose to let himself sink. Adrift in the once forgotten memory of the last time he had bothered to wear such heavy shielding. It had been Heimdall’s idea. Who reasoned; that even if Havoc’s skin could deter a point-blank flintlock discharge, you could never be too safe for an extra layer of protection. This notion was proven silly later that same day. As while riding towards the fields of battle, a fox masquerading as a dying woman had spooked his horse with its screaming. Plunging Havoc and steed down a cliff: into the blinding rapids awaiting them both.

   They sunk like two rocks.

   Not wanting to get swept away, Havoc had strolled along the riverbed until reaching the far bank. Emerging wet and unhurt, but with a fish in his chest piece and a reason to only bother wearing armor on the rarest of occasions. Like for parades. Or if he ever felt the need to inspire his knights who seemed to quite like how their Baron looked when decked out in armor heavier than any of them could ever manage to lift. 

   Only in Havoc’s dream, wherein it appeared a bottom to the water might not exist, walking to shore didn’t seem like an option. Growing bored with it all, and of the esoteric nature of nightmares in general, Havoc forced himself to awaken. His desire to figure out what was happening to his body in real life enough to pop whatever obscure message his subconscious had been trying to send him.

   “What is this?” Havoc spluttered, ripping away the sopping wet towel affixed to his face. He found the culprit standing just out of reach. Holding a clear jug that remained half filled with water.

   “Ah, the beast wakes,” Heimdall sneered, side-stepping the towel Havoc threw at him.

   “Give me a reason not to take your head,” Havoc growled, after having coughed up what liquid had seeped through the towel and into his lungs. To say he was angry would be an understatement. Had any other man dared do the same, they would be a corpse on the ground. His leeway with his aid, however, was a bond forged during their childhood days and tempered over a lifetime.

    ‘You’re going to make it big,’ spoke a faint voice through the ripples of time, ‘Come on, take me with you. I’ll handle the complicated stuff while you focus on bashing in skulls.’

   Heimdall’s youthful optimism had since mellowed, but the man was a scholar who would always fulfill his duties without a single unfounded complaint. Certainly, Havoc knew well his friend held reservations regarding his own lack of doing… anything lately, but the idea Heimdall would resort to waterboarding felt like a sudden leap into madness.

   Which was odd. Since Heimdall didn’t look mad. Nor did he appear repentant. Instead, the calm, collected man simply shrugged as if Havoc’s threat couldn’t be helped.

   “If you do, then I hope you’ve made peace with being alone for the rest of your life.”

   His nonchalant words hurt Havoc’s sore spot more than any gunshot could. But Heimdall’s follow up felt like an enchanted knife twisting itself deep into his gut.

   “Amelia’s going to give up on you. You’re aware of that, right?”

   “Don’t be stupid,” Havoc said, upset he couldn’t think of a smarter sounding reply. He already knew in terms of being a good father figure, Heimdall had supplanted his position a long, long time ago.

   Heimdall scoffed but said nothing else. Moving aside he gave Havoc space as the Baron began searching for a drink to alleviate his hang-over.

    Havoc eventually found the bottle he wanted to finish, except he found it bone dry. “Get me a drink, will you?” Havoc ordered Heimdall, reasoning he must have finished it without knowing.

   “It’s five o’clock in the evening. If you bothered to ever look at your schedule, then I wouldn’t need explain I already have.”

   Havoc blankly looked at his aid. That wasn’t Heimdall’s usual answer.

   “Try saying that again, but with less words,” he said, stumbling towards the ensuite bathroom where a cold jet of water doused from tap into sink. A quick washing only making the deep bags under his eyes all the clearer. He might have cared once. But now, Havoc could hardly recognize the face that stared back in the mirror. Rather, at what point did the stranger he beheld grow so old to begin with?

   Heimdall entered the ensuite, handing Havoc a dry towel. “What I meant, is if you want a drink, then you’re going to have to join your daughter for dinner.”

   “But we ate together last week?” Havoc protested, wondering why Heimdall would arrange for another silent dining session so soon. That’s how all their meals went. They would arrive, sit down, share a few words, then depart their own ways. It was as good as Havoc could hope for, knowing his daughter despised him.

   “That was four weeks ago. And you cancelled. Because of a headache.”

   “That’s —”

   “And the month before you somehow managed to bumble your way into falling unconscious on-route. Leaving the poor girl to eat all by herself.”

    Havoc grit his teeth. Heimdall spoke truth, even if he knew Amelia might not want much to do with him, as her father he should have at least tried harder to maintain their occasional contact. Still, he firmly believed he had succeeded in his duties as a parent. Was his renown not enough to deter any aggressor? Were the resources he held insufficient in giving the girl a good standard of living?

   Nay to both questions.

   Although, such reasoning should never have become an excuse to avoid his daughter.

   “I get it, I get it,” Havoc said, jabbing his finger into a container of dentifrice to rub the powder over his teeth, “give me a half-hour. I’ll make sure to be there.”

    “You’d better,” Heimdall sniffed with distain, slamming the room’s door as he left.

   Havoc immediately began pulling wooden drawers wide to find something for his headache that would not stop pounding. Only to find no alcohol stashed. Instead, where he knew for a fact that several bottles should be, lay a pair of knives belonging to Heimdall.

   “Busy body, find yourself a wife to take care of already,” Havoc grumbled, growing very annoyed when it became clear that forget the drawers, every single cabinet and wine rack in the room had been emptied. No matter. Heimdall had mentioned there would be drink served with dinner. His stomach growling in agreement, he began the long walk towards where the dining hall waited.

   Havoc found his jaunt to be awfully quiet. Certainly, he could hear the distant noises of work being done, but as he tracked where each servant walked in his mind, it became abundantly clear they were all avoiding his path. He stopped in his tracks. Looking out a window to consider the fact his wish to be forgotten might have finally come.

   He used to dream of being surrounded by laughter. And for a few fleeting years, Havoc had tasted that bliss. Now here he stood, a figurehead without purpose. Content to wait while those he once considered his people slowly but surely began drifting away. Soon, once his last reason for staying set out, he would be able to leave. And not a soul would notice him missing.

     Heimdall was right. It wouldn’t be long before Amelia finished growing up and departed as well. She was his daughter after all, and at her age not a force in the world could have contained Havoc from staying in the same spot. A thought that brought both comfort and sorrow. Havoc would miss her, but he knew wherever she went, his daughter would most certainly be happier for it. Perhaps she would choose to study in the Kingdom’s capital city?  The robes of an intellectual, he believed they would suit her quite well. Or maybe Amelia would follow in her mother’s footsteps, and become the socialite darling of high-society.

   “You think that’ll make her happy?” asked the bird which landed opposite Havoc on the outside windowsill. A small, mottled brown thing with a single, blind, milky white eye.

   Startled, Havoc rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Only to question his own sanity when the bird twittered a tune and flew off. “I’m losing my nerve,” he muttered, ashamed to have been so easily shaken. His daze following him all the way to the dining hall’s entrance door.

   “Dinner will be served shortly Lord Strightsworth,” greeted the woman who appeared to have been waiting there for him.

   Figuring the bird might be a result of not getting enough sleep, Havoc got his fears under control and considered the young woman named Grace who his daughter had found. Heimdall, on Havoc’s request, had already confirmed who she was: An abandoned orphan raised in the small town of Lurington.  In an institute that had not always been so kind to the young.

   No wonder she could match his gaze without fear. If the girl had at one point been a victim of the orphanage’s director, then the choice to submit or harden would have molded her stern. Unfortunately, he couldn’t quite remember how long ago it had been since the ousting of the director. Nor the exact reasons for why the change even needed to happen.

   Heimdall might know. But Havoc couldn’t bring himself to ask. To do so would be to show weakness. As once, he would have been able to remember even the minutest of details.

   Now, if he tried, all Havoc could recall was the way he had snapped the man’s neck.

   Most of his other memories had also faded with time. Leaving Havoc’s mind, a landscape littered with enough corpses to build mountains, and enough blood to flood the rivers upon which bopped a single crystal-clear frozen droplet of a moment in time.

   Of a child whose tear-filled eyes looked upon him with hatred. Whose innocent belief in a protector did break when Havoc had failed to save Amelia’s mother.

   “When did you first meet my daughter,” Havoc asked, knowing there were a hundred other ways he could have gone about greeting the girl if his headache hadn’t been in such a damn hurry.

   “We met when we were children!” Grace answered happily.

   An obvious lie, Havoc thought, having noticed the young woman’s heart rate fluctuate upon speaking. However, there was barely any point in meddling with who his daughter wanted to play with. Nor in finding out how they had actually met. Not when Amelia didn’t trust him to such an extent that she had resorted to using onions to cry while asking for permission in obtaining a handmaiden.

   Or how she’d snuck out during the night to damage his carriage.

   When Heimdall had informed him of Amelia’s request for a handsaw, Havoc had instructed a maid to deliver a piece from his workshop.  Able to sense the location of almost everything he deemed his, Havoc, thanks to this handsaw, learnt of Amelia’s strange midnight wandering.

   And upon noticing the slight difference in how the carriage shook as it travelled the next day, Havoc had decided to give his daughter whatever she wanted. A quick strike with his hand enough to create a shockwave that helped further damage the sabotaged axle.

   Her look of despair when they had almost passed Lurington by.... The sheer relief Amelia had shown when they’d come to a stop… He must truly be a failure in her eyes. For his only daughter to not trust him for such a simple request as wanting a handmaiden.

   Verily, the only comfort Havoc had felt that day, had been in burning down a few outposts near the border he’d happened to find while taking a walk to calm down. Which was weird in itself. Since their Western neighbors should have known better than to build so close to his Barony by now.

   “Good,” Havoc said to Grace, before moving into the dining hall that began tempting his nose with its smells. No doubt, the kitchen staff were getting ready to start serving food.  A pleasant notion, that dropped straight onto the floor behind him, along with his heart, when he laid eyes on the hall that managed to transport him back nearly a decade and a half’s worth of time.

   The tables were spotless. A great amount of care looked to have been put into even the silverware placement. And most of the decorations had been switched out for ones Havoc hadn’t seen in years.  From the tablecloth linen to the carpet, every fabric-based item piece of furniture was now of a more old-fashioned style.

   And Havoc’s anger found itself roaring over one change he could never let slide.

   “Who did this!” he shouted, looking about the room for the culprit. “Who thought it proper to bring that painting in here?!”