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The keep was still dark when Maeric arose and dressed. The cold, hard stone of the floor under his bare feet shocked the remnants of the night’s sleep from his body. He wrapped his nightclothes about him tightly and walked quickly to the small hearth at the far side of his bedchambers. The coals had long since lost their glow, being untended for the night. Maeric considered at first calling for a servant to tend to his fire, but he knew he would be gone before it began to warm the room. He took his clothes from the chair over which he had hung them the previous night and slowly began pulling his pants over his cold legs.

He could tell by the pale, weak light visible through his closed shutters that morning was dawning. It would no doubt be a cold, wet day like the day before it. After all, Horwald was entrenched in the rain season. There would be few dry days in the next month. After that, it would turn to snow and ice. To someone not of Horwald, it might be a depressing thought, but to Maeric Gendry, it was simply a fact of life. Horwald was mired in the rain season or high winter for 9-10 months of every year. Summer and spring were short and cool. Cold and wet was the way of the North.

Maeric turned his attention back to the job at hand; pulling his boots over his numb feet. He was struck at how worn his boots were. He briefly thought he should tell his father to send for a new pair, but like every other time he had that same thought, it quickly was replaced with more important matters- like breakfast. His stomach growled despite the general queasiness left over from the previous night’s mead.

He looked himself over in the dusty mirror by his bed, and smoothed his hair. Nodding to his reflection in approval, he reached for the door to go seek food in the main hall.

Just before he turned the latch to open the door to the corridor outside, a nock from the other side startled him. He stopped in mid-reach.

"Maeric?" a voice whispered, "Are you awake yet?"

"Stop whispering, Baeren," he replied as he opened the door, "I’m already dressed."

As he opened the door, a draft of even colder air flowed into his room from the corridor outside with a pale light from the lamp Baeren carried. Baeren, as usual, was dressed in his finest hunting clothes. On a day like this, Maeric knew, there would be no hunting for his brother, but Baeren thought the young girls of the keep found him more attractive in such garb. Maeric wasn’t sure he agreed with his younger brother’s tastes, but he also didn’t see the need to argue such trivial points. If dressing as a hunter made him happy, them Maeric would not create a stir by trying to tell him he looked like a fool. Of course, he wasn’t against the occasional joke at his brother’s expense.

"Did you lose your hawk, or are you planning on hunting your own breakfast?" he asked straight-faced.

"Witty." His brother replied, obviously slightly annoyed, "Let’s get downstairs. Father is having his morning meal already."

It was a daily challenge for the two brothers to have breakfast with their father. It seemed that no matter how early they awoke and dressed, he was always finished eating before they got to the main hall to eat. They tried leaving their shutters open in the summer so that the sounds of the guards changing would wake them, and they even got to the hall before it was light, but he had eaten and gone, leaving a message with the cook. "He’s gone to the harbor to speak with the Port Master," the cook had said. They even tried staying up the entire night and getting to the main hall before even the cooks. Unfortunately, they had dozed off at the table and when they awoke, there were used plated and a message from their father waiting with the Servants; "He waited for you to wake up, but you appeared ready to sleep all morning, so he went about his duties." He never failed to chastise them for sleeping too late either. Apparently, according to his brother’s report, they would not be early enough this morning either. Maeric had given up all attempts to beat his father to the morning meal, and now just accepted that he would forever be a "lazy mule" to his father in the mornings. Baeren still held out hope.

"Perhaps we should keep a rooster in your room some night. It will crow with first light!" he offered.

"My room?" replied Maeric, "Why not yours?"

"You room faces east, of course." Baeren stated defensively. "It would see the sunrise earlier from your window."

"Then you can sleep in it with the rooster!" Maeric said with a slight grin as he walked past his brother toward the stairs at the end of the corridor.

The two entered the main hall together in time to see their father push his plate away from him and rise to his feet.

Orren Gendry was a tall man. Now in his early fifties, he had begun to show his age somewhat. For years, he had held on to his youthful face and blond hair. He had been tall and strong for most of his life. Now, as age set in, his hair had turned mostly gray, and his face showed signs of long years on the northern coasts where the wind blew strongly on a daily basis. His face was leathered, and creased with many lines of much responsibility. More noticeable to his sons was the obvious increase in girth about his waist. He could not be called large, but he no longer looked to be ready to fight in the training yards either.

He looked up at the boys as they entered with a disapproving look on his face.

"I waited for you two," he said with a frown, "but I grew tired of waiting after an hour. Planning on sleeping all morning?"

Maeric and Baeren hung their heads in acceptance and mild shame. Neither answered.

"I have business to see to in the south fields, you will join me there later or call on your uncle if you like. I have no time to wait for you since you slept away the whole morning, so you will have to find me when you are finished with your breakfast." Their father replied as he turned and left the room.

Maeric thought he detected a slight smile on his father’s face as he turned away. He thought he saw that same look often in the mornings. Surely the man knew of their attempts to beat him to the table. He no doubt had servants awaken him as soon as they heard any signs of stirring from the brothers’ rooms. He probably considered it to be great fun, thwarting his sons’ efforts each day.

The two brothers ate their meal in silence. Baeren’s face was twisted in thought. He was no doubt planning how to awake before dawn the next day.

Maeric at last broke the silence.

"Should we go to the south fields?" he asked his brother.

"I suppose.," answered Baeren, "What options have we? Father did not seem to be making a request. He was very clear."

"We could find Uncle Baerlan," replied Maeric. "I’m sure he could find some obscure poem in the old tongue for us to study."

"South fields, then?" asked Baeren.

Maeric nodded somewhat reluctantly. Although the prospects of spending the day with their uncle reciting poems in a dead language appealed little to him, the thought of spending the day in the cold rain and mud surveying the final harvests from the south fields with his father held little more appeal.

It was not a bad life, growing up as the son of the Duke of Horwald. It had its advantages, to be sure. For one, he was seldom wanting for anything of importance. He had warm clothes, the servants of the Keep to help with when he needed it, and even a horse. It was not a small, shaggy riding pony as was common in the Duchy, but a large, strong riding horse from the southern plains. He also had been educated from a young age. He could read and write well, and even spoke the old tongue albeit somewhat haltingly.

But then again, the duties of nobility in Iradar were more involved and demanding than a commoner’s. There were constant occasions of formalities and politics. There were various functions that demanded his father’s attention, and therefore his attendance. Then there was the actual work- like today’s harvest. His father required two weeks service a year from each of his sworn lords on his own fields. It was custom for the Thanes to spend each harvest working with their own hands on the fields unless they were too old or infirm to do so personally. In such circumstances, it was expected that their sons would take their place.

It was a holdover, Maeric was told, from the ancient days before the Aridisians came. In those days, nobles were considered to be barely higher in station than the commoners who served them. It was a display of humilty to work in the fields, even the Duke and his Earls. So it was still. Most Earls had sons or servants took their place save for an hour or two each year. But the Duke of Horwald was there as long as he asked his lords to follow suit.

"Should one of them come to dirty their hands, and I was nowhere to be found, what would they think? Would they return again next year, or simply send their servants?" his father had always said.

So it went. Each year, Orren Gendry and his sons worked for two weeks during the last harvest. Usually, they worked along side servants and sons of lords, but occasionally along side the highest nobles in Horwald. As the younger sons of the Duke, Maeric and Baeren could usually be absent without much comment from their father. But with the Duke’s eldest son, Maeric’s older brother, Martaen, away on his wedding retreat this season, Maeric had been obligated to work with his father in the fields for the entire first week.

It seemed somewhat pointless to Maeric. Despite all he had read and been told, he still thought the old traditions were silly. No one was foolish enough to believe that because some stuffy nobleman went out to the fields once a year to make a show of "being one with the people" he truly was one with the common folk.

"Martaen should be doing this, not us." Baeren said somewhat dejectedly.

"I hope you remember that when you are on your wedding retreat." Maeric remarked. "I doubt you will be willing to leave early to come work the harvest."

"I know I will not," said Baeren, "As I am not willingly working the harvest now."

"Perhaps we should be getting to the south fields. Father is probably there already." Said Maeric as he stood and made for the large oaken door at the far end of the great hall. Baeren followed sulking silently.

The south fields were located just southeast of the city across the Sÿghus river that flowed through the heart of the city. The lands to the west of the river were known to be rocky and poor for farming. But the eastern bank was some fifty feet lower in elevation, and covered with lush grass for most of the year. The Sÿghus, it seemed, marked the edge of the Western Highlands of Horwald.

Maeric and Baeren went first to their chambers to fetch their warmer cloaks. They agreed to rendezvous at the stables in the main courtyard. Maeric found a heavier tunic in the old pine wardrobe closet in his room. He had not worn heavy clothing for several months, and if not for the servants’ care, his clothing would have been in poor shape. He cared little about rumpled shirts or appearances. Luckily, he was not the eldest son of the Duke, it was his older brother’s station to deal with appearances. He grabbed his heavy cloak from the peg by his door as he left his room for the corridor and followed it down the staircase at the end to the postern gate at the base.

Maeric stepped into the courtyard. As soon as he had opened the door, a blast of colder air hit him in the face. Now Maeric had spent almost his entire life in the city of Greywater Deep. He had traveled south, so he knew that many regions of Iradar were far warmer than his home. But this near-freeze was far from the worst weather that the North Sea would hurl upon the city. Maeric had seen many strong men shivering in weather that anyone who had lived their lives in Greywater Deep would have laughed at. Still, the intermittent rain would make outdoors work unpleasant, to say the least.

He made his way to the stables and found Baeren already waiting inside. He was chatting casually with Leif, the boy who tended the horses and beasts within.

"…but you’ve fed him well this last month?" he was saying to the boy.

"Ah, yes, M’Lord!" the boy replied, "He’s had a full trough every morning, and plenty of water too! He’s a fine animal, sir, if I might say so."

Leif’s father had been a servant in the keep for Orren Gendry for many years until he died from a bout with Winter Fever. Leif’s mother had died in childbirth, leaving the boy an orphan at only two years old. The other servants of the keep had taken him into their lives as their own son. They called him the "Son of the Keep," since he was raised by nearly everyone in it, including the duke himself. Orren Gendry had taken a special interest in the boy at an early age, having considered his father to be a friend. He made sure the boy was always well cared-for and fed. Leif was only a year younger than Baeren, so it would have seemed natural had he been a friend of the duke’s younger sons. But no matter how much they tried to befriend him, he never opened up to the boys, and grew up a very solitary and reclusive person. He never dispensed with the nervous "M’lords" and "Sirs" when most of the servants had become quite comfortable with the duke and his family. They were told that he was quite bright, however shy or nervous he was. Merris, the head of the keep’s kitchen who took the boy under her wing, so to speak, claimed the boy wanted to serve in the city guard, and maybe become a professional soldier some day. "He’ll be the duke’s right-hand man, he will! He’s bright as can be, that boy. He’ll make me proud someday!" she would say. Merris’ husband died years before, leaving her childless. She treated Leif as if she had given him birth, and doted on him as if he were her own.

"Good," Baeren was saying to him, "You know how he hates the damp feed. He never finishes it."

"Yes, M’Lord." Leif mumbled. "I always take special care of your horse. He’s such a fine animal and all."

Maeric hid a slight smile. He will never be a Duke’s right-hand man until he learns to speak up. Dukes do not like being bowed to and hearing M’Lord every other word. They are not Kings, after all.

"Maeric!" Baeren exclaimed at last, as if he just realized his brother had come into the stable. "So good of you to join me at last!"

"Good morning, Leif," Maeric commented, "How is your mother?"

"Fine, M’Lord," Leif replied nervously, "She’ll be in the kitchens if you’ll be needing her."

"No, we have already had our morning meal." Maeric replied, trying to make friendly chatter. "How are you?"

"Fine, M’Lord." Leif replied, nodding his head. "I won’t be missing any days in the stables because of this weather, you can be sure, M’Lord."

Maeric sighed, and looked to his brother, who simply shrugged his shoulders. It was no use! The boy simply would not relax around the Duke’s family despite spending his whole life with them. Maeric decided it was useless to try. If Leif wanted to spend his entire life in nervous "M’Lords" giving frightened bows and head nods to the Gendry family, who were they to tell him he could not?

"Let’s get to the fields." he finally remarked defeatedly as he mounted Hastred, his horse.

"I suppose." Baeren replied rather unenthusiastically. "I wonder if we should pay a visit to the tavern by the Keep’s gate on the way. Old Horgath should have a nice warm fire going in his dry common room by now."

Maeric paused. The idea had potential. It would be much drier in a tavern than in the south fields. Of course, their father would be furious if they did not show up.

Baeren mounted his prized horse, Gerthen, and looked to Maeric as if awaiting a decesion. "How furious will he be?" he asked as if he knew his brother’s thoughts before he spoke them.

"Do you remember how he reacted when you took his hawk hunting without his permission and it did not come back with you?" Maeric asked him.

Baeren paused as if thinking, or weighing the decision in his mind.

"To the south fields, then." He said in resignation.

The South fields lay some two miles outside the city on the east side of the Sÿghus river. The nearest gates were the great South Gates at the royal highway that ran from Highbridge. But since the gates were on the west side of the river, and the fields were on the east, the boys had to travel through the heart of the city to the great bridge in the center of the town and exit through the east gate, which made the ride take nearly an hour.

The guards at the gate nodded in recognition as they left the keep. The city streets below would be busy with merchants and people going about their daily business, but the road to the keep was largely open, with the exception of a few messengers and guardsmen changing shifts. As soon as their horses set foot on the road to the center of the city, they were engulfed in the busy hustle of life at Greywater Deep. Bakers carried loaves in sacks over their shoulders. Artisans pushed hand-carts to the city square for market. Women walked here and there with their dawdling children in tow. The cold and rain could not shut down the city of Greywater Deep. For people on the North Shores, life went on despite the attacks of Old Man Winter.

Maeric could see Baeren grinning at his side. He loved the city. He reveled in merry-making at the inns and taverns. Despite his father’s distaste, he regularly cavorted and flirted with the young maidens by the docks. Maeric, on the other hand, disliked the large crowds of the market and the city in general. He preferred the privacy and relative quiet of the keep or sailing in the harbor, or "The Deep" as locals called it. He spent most of his free time in the tower facing the sea in Greywater Keep when he was not on the water. Baeren spent his free time either hunting or in the city.

Their progress was slow, as few of the people crowding the streets had ponies, and had to walk. Most would clear out of their way with a polite nod of the head when they noticed who sat atop the fine horses, but many of those who were new to Greywater Deep did not recognize the Duke’s sons and continued slowly on their way, oblivious to Maeric and his brother.

At last, the cramped, narrow road opened before them into the market square. The broad, flat area was covered with tents and tables displaying every good or item that could be bought in Greywater Deep. The noise here was much louder than in the streets behind them. Here and there, ponies stood dejectedly behind their master’s tent awaiting the chance to go back home to whatever stable they were kept at. Most kept their noses to the ground, searching unsuccessfully for any grass that might grow in the packed dirt of the market floor.

The brothers worked their way through the throng of people- there must have been five hundred people this morning- to the east side of the square. There, the road picked up where it had left off, running smoothly to the great bridge over the river.

The bridge was perhaps the wonder of the North Coast. To the south, it would seem little more than a simple stone bridge over a river. But to the men of the north, the bridge was the largest stone structure they had ever seen. And it was nearly two centuries old.

Because of the unique topography of the city of Greywater Deep, the bridge was a difficult undertaking. The banks on the west side of the river here were some fifty to seventy-five feet higher than those of the east banks. The west banks were high, steep inclines of rocky walls falling to the river below. The east side, however, was grassy and sloped gently to the water’s edge. The bridge, therefore, was more a great ramp than an actual bridge. Traveling east, ponies strained not to pull their carts and wagons, but to keep them from tumbling down the ramp out of control. Wagons traveling from the east, however, were forced to pull their carts up an extremely long incline.

The brothers spurred their mounts down the incline. Many travelers who were visiting the city for the first time paused at the highest point to look out over the eastern side of the city and the Deep to the north. The brothers, however, had traveled too many times to be awed by the magnificent view the bridge provided. They continued along at a steady pace.

They crossed the bridge, and finally came upon the eastern gates. The guardhouse here was large, and housed twenty men in the pay of the city. Two rather bedraggled men sat by the east gates as the boys approached.

"Graefen! Paeter!" called Baeren as they rode up to the men. "What luck to have drawn such a cheerful shift!" he joked.

Baeren knew the men on the East watch well. He rode frequently to the woods east of the city to hunt, and spoke with the guardsmen there often.

"Aye, a fine morning for bathing in the sun!" replied the first guard sarcastically.

"And you, Graefen," Baeren asked with a grin, "whose daughter did you offend to get such duty?"

"Ah, it’s hard to say, M’Lord." Replied the guardsman smiling broadly, "There’s been so many these last few weeks."

Graefen was a short man, with thin, matted hair that fell over his eyes. His bedraggled beard was soaked through. His face was normally covered with thin, scraggly hair that Baeren usually joked about. His teeth, exposed with his broad smile, were few and far between.

"Beating them off with a stick?" Baeren asked.

"Now why, I might ask,’ the man paused, "would I want to beat them away?"

Paeter, the other guard, and Baeren roared with laughter. Maeric could hardly contain an audible laugh himself.

"Why indeed, Graefen!" laughed Baeren as the brothers passed through the great gates of the city with a wave to the guardsmen.

"He speaks rather confidently for a man of his appearance." Remarked Maeric when they were out of earshot. "You might call him boastful."

"Not boastful," replied Baeren, "Hopeful."

They followed the road around the city until the broad, ploughed fields came into view at last. There were a great many people in the fields, harvesting the grain that grew there and sewing the land for the next spring. Northern Wheat, or Gjaard, was the main crop in Horwald, and truly the only grain that would grow in its cold soil. It yielded a large, dark seed that was then sent to the mills southeast of the city. The grist was ground into a coarse grain to be made into Skri, a heavy, dark bread common in the North. Skri was the main staple of Greywater Deep as well as nearly every hamlet and town in Horwald during the long winter. Foreigners often called it bitter, or even sour, but the people of Horwald preferred it. It was their bread. No one made it outside of the Horwald. Gjaard was not exported. There was little demand, it seemed, for heavy, sour bread outside of Horwald.

Gjaard needed little time to grow once the ground thawed, which made it the perfect crop for the northern coast, since the spring and summers lasted only a couple short months and the ground was frozen eight months out of each year. But it needed a long time in the soil before it would sprout. It was therefore necessary to harvest it late in the fall, and re-sew the fields immediately. Of course, they had long ago learned to rotate the fields each year to preserve the soil.

This year was no different. The fields were being harvested just before the ground froze completely, and the new fields were being sewn at the same time.

Maeric looked over lands, seeing groups of townsmen and farmers here and there gathering the crop or bundling it together in great heaps to be carried to the great barns for storage. Further south, a smaller group of men who gingerly picked their way over the muddy ground and gathered their cloaks about them to keep them from the puddles was slowly milling about a large patch of crop. It was, no doubt, the nobles.

The brothers rode up quickly. Maeric spied his father far out in the field. He was a large man, a full head above any of the other men present save for Thane Gustaf, a barrel-chested man with a heavy beard from just north of Highbridge. He had been a Carl in his youth, and earned some measure of fame as a soldier. He was given a small town, called Maeden, some ten miles west of the great highway north of Highbridge as reward for his outstanding service as a warrior. He was well loved by the townsfolk of Maeden, and had proved to be a capable nobleman. Brigands avoided Maeden like the plague. His reputation as a harsh, but fair man with no tolerance for thievery preceded him. Though he was gruff and direct in his demeanor, he had proved to be a trusted friend of the boys’ father over the years. He was also the only nobleman beside their father who seemed to care little for the conditions. He was doing the work of two townsmen by himself.

He smiled beneath his heavy beard of wet, brown hair as the brothers approached.

"So! The younger folk finally pull themselves from the warmth of their mother’s blanket!" he laughed in his deep, booming voice.

"You’ve both grown since I’ve seen you!" He added. "You know, Maeric, Mayline is nearly sixteen summers! You’ll be joining the ranks of men soon!"

Mayline was the oldest daughter of Gustaf and his wife, Martel. She had been promised to Maeric as his wife when she was a girl of only five years old. Custom prevented them from carrying out the wedding until she was of sixteen high summers, or they would be wedded already. This left Maeric as a bit of an oddity. He was nearly twenty summers, and one of the few young men of his age who were not married. Baeren, just turned sixteen, had no wife promised to him yet, thought there was no shortage of men who offered their daughter for his wife.

As the second son of a duke, it was not necessary that Maeric be wedded to a girl of overly high birth. The second sons of high nobles were often married to daughters of close friends of lower station in reward for their service, allowing the higher nobles to cement the relationship between lower families whose loyalty they valued while providing the lower family the chance to increase their station. The third sons of such nobles, however, were of less interest to most. Gustaf was a powerful Thane. Though his town was small and his holdings modest, the weight his word carried with the other nobles of Horwald was immeasurable due to his character and closeness with the Duke. Baeren’s wife would most likely be the younger daughter of a wealthy family who hoped to earn a title and lands through such an alliance. There was no pressing need for him to be promised, so they entertained offers from many, but generally heeded his wishes in selecting maidens for him to court.

Maeric had met Mayline on several occasions. He always found it hard to believe that a man as truly ugly as Gustaf could father a girl so small as his daughter. She was attractive, to boot. She was not stunningly gorgeous, to be sure, but attractive in a wholesome, pretty way. Maeric liked her. He did not love her, as he hardly knew her yet, but he liked her.

"We are waiting anxiously for the summer to arrive." Gustaf shouted, "I suppose your father would like to plan for a late-summer wedding?"

"That is not my business!" Maeric returned, "It seems I am just a spectator in the entire affair!"

Baeren roared with laughter next to him as he dismounted.

"I pray, brother" he said quietly under his breath, "that you are much more than a spectator on your wedding night!"

Maeric blushed slightly, but otherwise ignored his brother. He trudged slowly out to the fields to begin working. His feet sank to his ankles in the mud.