S. A. Grove

The full moon shone through the leafy boughs of late-summer trees, illuminating a wood-made home in a rural village. Inside, the hearth was warm, and the pot of stew was nearly empty. Fastened to the mantle above the hearth was the yellow shield of the house—every family in the land had one. Northern Maura, despite the Age of War that was only then drawing to a close, was an honor-bound land, thus most families had family crests—all had fought; all had given someone during the wars. The kingdoms were close, and the people were integrated and reintegrated into each new kingdom as they rose and fell. At times, what was just a year ago a hated enemy became the closest neighbor. Some families had demanded reparations for their kin that had died. The offending families always had to pay a weregild—to repay the family that had lost someone.

Gabriel, a man in his early thirties with rough features and a clean-shaven jaw; his wife, Lucy, a woman with smooth features and chestnut hair that flowed just past her shoulders, and Gabriel’s brother, John, a younger man in his early twenties whose hands and feet were always stained with grape-juice from his work in the winery, all sat in hand-carved wooden stools before the fire. It was tradition for them to get together every full moon and share a meal—otherwise both the brothers were so busy that they would never see each other. On this same night each month, John brought a bottle of wine from the vineyard where he lived and worked, and they shared that as well. Lucy made the stew from her own garden, and Gabriel prepared a new carving for them each time.

He had become fond of carving story-telling panels; like a single-frame painting no more than a square foot, but cut into wood. This night, he had made a panel telling the story of the orange-lemon tree that stood in the open courtyard of the small castle built at the height of the vineyard itself. The tree was the center of all—at one point, it had been two trees grafted together, but now the union was so seamless that it appeared as one tree: one half which gave lemons, the other which gave oranges. Its ancient trunk and massive twisting branches reminded one not of an orange or lemon tree, but of an oak. Around this magnificently strange tree were three people: Lord Isaac, who paid for the tree to be wrought; Councilor Ashguard, the botanist who pieced it together; and Wilhelm, the jeweler who suspended a magnificently cut chunk of citrine at the center of the boughs, just above the spot where the trunk split off into many branches. In the panel, one could not see the citrine, for it was hidden in the boughs and one had to look carefully even when standing before the orange-lemon tree itself.

Gabriel set the panel against the hearth. “So, brother, tell me of this wine you bring.”

“It is from the youngest depths of Lord Isaac’s wine-cellar. Last week, I saved his infant son from crows swarming about the vineyards. Usually, we wave them away, and they flee before us, but the lord’s daughter had forsaken her baby brother and fled from the croaking creatures. The crows flew through the air above the baby like vultures, but I came running, brandishing my arms, so the crows broke their circle and flew away with their wicked caws. I snatched up the child and carried him back to the winery, where I found little Isabelle sobbing, thinking that she had killed her brother. Lord Isaac offered me a wine of my choice from his cellar, but I chose a young wine, for I did not wish to take advantage of him.”

“A fine story!” Gabriel toasted, lifting his half-full wooden goblet of red wine. “Next month, I shall carve a panel to commemorate it!”

The night was cool, and after John had returned to his quarters in the winery attached to the small castle, Gabriel and Lucy strolled along a beaten path—one which they had made themselves after many years of marriage. Beside their road, several young saplings had begun to grow—they took them as a sign of possible children in their future.. The moon still shone through the leaves, making their path glisten like silver waters.

But the full moon was the signal of more than one tradition—it was common for people to celebrate the full moon, for it was the one night that they could see at night. Through the thin-trunked but tall-headed trees stumbled a man, cursing about something. His clothes seemed common enough, but soiled with mud. He wore a short beard and held a crazed look in his eyes—he was young and fit like a field-worker. Gabriel pulled Lucy behind him, and as the man stumbled on, turned and bade her; “Go.”

But the man looked up as Gabriel spoke. “Doyyew havea problem with mee—” Here an explosive burp erupted from him. “—good sirrr?” His mouth twitched in a drunken sort of anger, and his hair fell over his forehead. He swatted it away. “What did you just do!?”

“I have no quarrel with you, reveler,” Gabriel replied, turning back and standing his ground.

“Gabre, come on. Don’t linger there with this drunkard,” Lucy begged him.

“Whaded yew call me?” the man retorted, catching himself against a tree as he came slowly on. Then Gabriel saw something beneath his ragged coat, belted at the side of his brown and stained tunic: the protrusion of a rusted hilt bound with worn leather.

“Yew think I’m a drunk?” the man said, stumbling forward further.

“Lucy, go!” Gabriel ordered. The fear mixed in his voice told her not to fight this one—he was not asserting power, but trying to get her to safety. As she ran, the man came on, tearing the naked sword from its place in his belt and howling. Gabriel dodged the first few strikes, but the drunk was still quick, and when Gabriel came in to knock him out with a punch, the rusted and notched blade sliced Gabriel’s chest wide open. Gabriel fell back, pressing his whole arm against his chest to stay the flow of blood.

“Call me a dru—unk!” The man howled, chopping down, hacking through Gabriel’s upraised arm and into his head.

When Gabriel’s blood was spilt upon the ground, the drunken killer stumbled away, sword still dripping with the life of the fallen.

The next morning, before the sun rose, John returned to the house of his brother to pick up the panel which he had forgotten the night before. Inside, he found Lucy sitting on the hearth, whose fire had burned down the ashes and embers. She burst from her place when he opened the door and cried: “Oh, Gabre! When I heard him screaming at you, I feared I would never see you again!”

“Gabre?” John was taken aback. “What has happened to my brother?”

Lucy pushed herself away from John and blinked away her long tears. “You are not…” And there she burst into sobs, for she knew beyond doubt that her husband had been slain.

“Lucy,” John said gently, laying his hands on her shaking shoulders and looking into her reddened eyes. “What has happened to my brother?”

“He’s—he’s…” She threw herself against John and squeezed him tight. “He’s dead, John! One of the revelers murdered him! I’m sure of it!”

#

John grabbed the closest sharp object he could find: Gabre’s six-inch, hooked, wood-shaping knife and, with it held fast in his hand, stormed from the cabin into the woods along the beaten path which his brother and his sister-in-law had tread. But always they had stood, always they had lasted, he thought, unable to comprehend the thought of his brother dead. He came at last to the sight. Two saplings had been chopped clean like a woodcutter’s work. There, on the path, lay his brother in a pool of dark mud mixed with his life. His head and chest were cloven by the murderer. A trail of blood led away from Gabriel’s corpse.

John wasted no time in springing after the killer, wood-shaping knife still clutched in his hand. The blood-trail wound through the woods, droplets getting farther and farther away, vanishing into the dirt and the grass. At last, John came upon the village, a squalid little place of wood shacks and muddy streets between. Resting beside the door of one of these shacks was a rusted and notched blade, still stained with blood. Instinctually, he knew it was the blood of his brother. Leaving the blade there was a sign of shame in an honor-bound culture, but John did not see that, he only saw the home of his brother’s killer. John moved to the door like a cougar hunching its shoulders and haunting its prey. Other villagers saw him drawing near and kept their eyes glued to the angered man as they worked.

“You cannot take his life for mine,” John heard Gabriel’s voice in the wind. “It will do no good. Go home, bury my body, and take care of my wife.”

With a growl, John sank the wood-shaping knife into the wooden panels of the door. His grip was strong, so when someone tried to pull it open from the other side, the door did not budge.

“Weregild,” John replied to his brother under his breath. “I will demand payment for your death, and it will be settled.”

The wind sighed, but his brother said nothing.

John at last released the knife and stepped away from the door. It swung open, and out from the darkness, John could see a horrified face, shielding his eyes from the dawn’s young sun.

“Weregild,” John growled. “I am the brother of the man who you slew in the darkness last night.” John took up the bloodied blade. “I am the brother of the man who you put to cruel death with this very sword!” He shouted, throwing the blade to the floor before the killer, who reflexively covered his head and face with his arms.

“Wh-what do you desire?” the man cowered into the dark room.

“Your family’s shield. Give me your family’s shield, and I will deem it done.”

The man hesitated. “Is there no other thing that might appease you for his death?  My family’s shield—our honor will be taken and when war descends, I will not be able to afford—”

“That is the point,” John’s voice chilled the air as he explained.

The trembling man vanished deeper into the darkness, stumbling as he went, perhaps still affected from the past nights revelries. He emerged back into the sunspot made by the door and held up a wooden shield girded with iron, painted orange with a family crest in white and gold.

“I have no sons or daughters—I would have happy to serve you as a slave. My kin are distant; let me send the shield to them. That way our honor may remain intact.”

“No, it is done,” John hissed. “May you be brought to battle soon, now that your shield is taken from you.”

Behind him, the killer stood shivering in the sunlight.

#

Lucy packed her things and set out to find the home of her sister, with whom she would live out the rest of her days. Her garden dried up. John moved his few possessions and many wood-carved panels into the home of his deceased brother. He buried the body on the land, setting up a proper gravestone. He stacked the panels of his brother’s art in the corner of the room, and would leaf through them at times, but on most nights, after working long in the vineyards and at the winery, he would sit in his brother’s hand-carved chair, with a cup of wine and eyes of ire, staring up at the round orange shield above the hearth. The iron clasps holding the orange shield together had rusted a little, and the paint had chipped a little over the course of a year. John had taken their own yellow shield and set it down against the wood panels.

“Disappointed that war has not come upon my killer’s house?” Gabriel spoke, his ghost springing from a roaring fire.

John started, nearly crushing his cup. “I…am.” John admitted. “But he killed you in your prime,” John arose, growing angry. “He had no right to take your life!”

“Of course not,” Gabriel’s ghost replied, perched on the stones of the hearth. “And neither do you have a right to claim his.”

“This is just weregild,” John explained away, spreading his arms and taking his seat. “It is common practice. He pays for his crimes.”

“This shield is worth nothing on its own, John. And you know that. The weregild you claimed was not a price to forgive; it was vengeance—even if you didn’t have to get your hands dirty, but stole instead honor and hope from my killer and my killer’s family. What good has it done, brother? Is his debt forgiven?”

John drew on his wine. “Never.”

“Take it from the dead,” Gabriel’s ghost began. “Your grudge is no less a crime than his drunken murder. Why give hell power over both of your souls? Why damn yourself and him?”

“I am drunk,” John made an excuse for himself, standing. “And you are nothing more than a drunken hallucination!” he cried, throwing the dregs in his cup into the fire with a sizzle. “He is forgiven. See,” he thrust a finger at the shield above the hearth. “See, that is your weregild, that is my weregild—the price for your murder.”

The ghost shook his head. “Learn quickly, brother, before you do something that you cannot undo.”

That day, as John crushed grapes with his feet, he released some of the anger stirred in him by his brother’s ghost. Under his breath, he continued the conversation. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Gabriel’s ghost perched upon the rim of the crushing pit. John’s feet did not stop, but his dialogue did.

“See, you are not drunk and hallucinating,” Gabriel’s ghost began. “In fact, last night, you had little more than half a cup of wine and you were raving, ‘I’m drunk, I’m drunk! I don’t have to face my problems.’ ”

“Don’t mock me, ghost,” John replied in disgust.

Gabriel’s ghost joined him on the crushing floor, pounding his feet as if doing the same work. “The fact that I am here, haunting you, is simply to show you that what you have done is wrong. Is this really what I would have wanted? No! I would rather be in Paradise, not needing to be concerned over my brother’s unforgiveness. Return the shield, John, before the man comes back maimed without it.”

“I need not speak to you,” John said in the same tone as before.

Beyond the bin, his co-workers listened as John went mad. At first there were mumblings and silence from him, now they were full-fledged conversations, and for the course of a year, John had hardly acknowledged even one of them. “Hate’ful,” they whispered. “Cur’sed.”

#

Again, sitting before the shield, stirring up and breathing in the hatred infecting his soul, John remembered approaching the door of the killer, burying his knife in it, and leaving it there. He wondered if the knife was still there, sticking from the door like a terrible memory, reminding the killer that his hands were bloodied, and his life was left vulnerable.

The next day, when John finished his work, he walked to the nearby village. The streets were still muddy, but the shacks had been patched and improved: it had been a good season, but amidst the prosperity of the village was the killer’s shack with the rusted, blood-caked blade leaning against the door frame and the hilt of the wood-shaping knife still sticking from the door.

The killer had planted a garden, but even in spring the ground had not given forth its yield. He sat in a creaking chair of sticks, looking from his porch to his dried and dead garden. His body was lean beneath his baggy rags—his skin hung from him like grapes dried on the vine. This was a man ruined by shame and long mourning.

It made John sick with an angry sense of justice that was riddled by guilt.

But Gabriel’s ghost appeared beside him. “That sickness, it isn’t justice. It’s not victory. You’re murdering this man, John. I thought our people were rid of kinslaying, and yet, here you are. Staring down your victim even as you take his life. He will be dead soon. You know that, right? You will kill him before long. I am not given the days of his life—but I can see from his state that you will kill him soon. Will you let him die?”

“Shut up, dead thing.”

“No!” Gabriel’s ghost roared. “I will be silent no longer! You, brother, are the murderer here, and I will not be silent any longer while you put this man to death. Go home and take up the shield! Return this man’s honor! Return his life, John! It is not yours to keep, nor was it ever yours to own! Have you been watching your life? It is no better than his! You have made enemies of everyone you know. I know you’ve heard their whispering. They think you’re crazy, John. They think that you have been possessed by a demon. Just wait. They will burn that demon out of you, and this man will die in his shame. Have you not seen it, John? This false forgiveness is devouring you even more than it is devouring him. He is physically wasting away, but at least he still abides by the standards of our culture. His reward, in death, will be that much greater than yours. Look at you! You are a hateful recluse. One of these days, I’ll let you have more than half a cup of wine, and you will make a murderer out of yourself! You are forfeiting your soul, John. How can you not see that?”

John froze in fear and wonder. His instinct was to fight the ghost’s accusations, but the words fell true. He could not fight back—he had heard the whispers; he had seen that his very soul was withering away. But Gabriel’s ghost had not seen this.

The ghost rose above the ground, towering over John like a fierce giant. “Go!” he ordered, and John stepped back, afraid that his brother’s ghost might kill him somehow, then turned and fled.

He burst through the door of his brother’s home, snatched the shield from the hearth-wall and slung a small sack of bread and dried meat over his shoulder. With these things in tow, John ran from his brother’s home as fast as he could, leaving the door fluttering open.

He collapsed before the man atop a stick-woven throne and, bowing, set the sack of food upon the shield, then raised it to the killer.

“I have harbored my hatred against you for so long. Take back this curse; take back your family’s shield. The weregild I require is nothing but the bloodied blade that killed my brother and his wood-shaping knife,” John nearly sobbed.

The killer slowly plucked up the sack of food and set it beside him, then gingerly lifted the heavy shield into his lap, running his fingers over the familiar crest. John still set his face against the wood of the man’s porch, and Gabriel’s ghost hung suspended behind him. The killer looked to the ghost and with tears in his eyes said, “Thank you.”

Then, looking down to the broken man, said: “You have restored honor to our families and lifted this curse from my household. I feared I would die a condemned man.”

“You need not die,” John said. “See, I have brought you food. You are yet young. Come and live in my brother’s home and work with me at the winery. The least I can ask of you to forgive me for my crimes against you is to let me repay you by this. Your murder is forgiven—it is no more, but my crimes, they still weigh upon my mind, summoning ghosts and ire. I have not ceased hating you since that night. Hate has become all that I am, but break its power over me. Let me take you to my home; let me return to you the life that I took.”

That night, as the full moon illuminated the world around Gabriel’s home and gave new brightness to the white flowers of the tangleweeds that grew around the tombstone, John set the wood-shaping knife atop the rock and leaned a cleaned and shining blade against the face of the headstone. John hoped that Gabriel’s ghost had gone to see his wife and would then rest at last. He saw, as he went inside, that the garden had sprouted—just a few small signs of life, but signs nonetheless.

He moved inside then, where Benjamin, the killer forgiven, was stirring a pot of stew. John sat down beside the blazing hearth and lifted one of the wood panels from the stack along the wall.

“My brother used to make these,” John said, holding up the wood carving. “Every full moon we would get together, and he would share these stories that he had carved.”

“What’s this one?” Benjamin asked, pouring a ladle of soup into a wooden bowl and handing it to John.

“It’s about this tree up in Lord Isaac’s court. I believe he called it The Citrus Tree.”