Castle Murtohovi
Towers
Towers
The draft was atrocious. The surrounding bare stone was worse. Dank and drab, echoing with misery that was both new and age-old.
Despite how high they were, it smelled of mold, shit and vomit up here, enough to singe the nosehairs off a man used to finer things. A man like Iivo Koskela, who, while not like the lords and ladies in their castles and silks, had never been a villein nor a beggar either. Nay, his family had kept stables, breeding horses for their betters, and his father, like his father before him, had been relieved of taxes by virtue of surrendering his eldest son for the lord’s cavalry. That had been him, before he had done the same when time came to inherit the Koskela house from his late father.
Iivo had never questioned this practice, for himself had fought and served since he’d turned eighteen and survived. His own eldest hadn’t shared those stars, gone the second year of this accursed dispute as he had the first only to never come back. There was no word that he should’ve deserted, no disgrace to their doorstep, so he’d concluded the boy was dead.
A year and a half ago, now. Did someone at least burn his body?
When time had come to conscript another, he couldn’t do it. May have gone himself, if he’d not been old and out of practice enough
to be useless, mere fodder for the spears and the lances. Shroudfire. That’s what he’d told his wife at least, when word was Frej Henriksson was riling up folk somewhere North. Winter last. She got to go into her grave unbothered by one truth, at least, worn down by all the rest. Adjusting the felt hat about his head, he drew but a shallow breath in the putrid air of the tower cell. Worked his dry mouth stiffly for the ache in his jaw, the bruise and the missing tooth he’d gained in his last conversation with the lords Murtohovi and their muscle. Probably the executioner, for how they hardly had a man for every minute position here. Rotten work for the already cursed, black clad.
He’d just begun wondering the sight of that large man when the lock to his lonesome suddenly clattered and he may have jumped if he’d had the strength. Resulted to just staring from beneath the hat brim as the door opened, a rusty shriek and a groan from the hinges. And a rapid movement as someone was shoved through the frame and into the small room, a stranger’s shape revealing the broader one of the tower warden that remained standing in the gloom. A grim silhouette against the firelight come from somewhere down the hall.
Warmth. The thought must’ve gleamed in his eyes, for the door instantly banged shut therein. Lock clattered, again. The defeated figure of Iivo Koskela made an attempt to appear less so, pushing on his hat brim with his thumb so it sat more to the back of his head, shadowing less of his swarthy face. Expressionless, he cast his look on the stranger, despite the sinking feeling that he knew this man.
Felt like he’d probably offered him a smoke, not long ago. The man had refused — name escapes yet, though.
“ Say— “ He started, slowly for how rough he sounded in the throat, hands busy with digging in the breastpocket of his fine overcoat for what remained of his tobacco.
“ Still don’t smoke, or— ? “