The Sage of Risevar

Cruel birds, ravens, but wise. And creatures should be loved for their wisdom if they cannot be loved for kindness -- Hannah Kent
17 Duskhold 1327 CE -

The sage had been on the road for two moons and a day, and hunger was beginning to take its toll. The warm days of summer had long since faded into the past like so many seasons before. This year though, was different. The sage had struck out from his home of twenty three summers with newfound purpose. After years spent in an idyllic -and unnamed, as is the convention of this tale- if unimportant hamlet nestled in the woods north of Barreste , he had come to the noble conclusion that a comfortable life lived in relative peace and safety was no way for a man to spend his limited days. Especially with the state of things being as they were these days. Eschewing name and title, not that it had meant that much to him anyway, he had traded his modest possessions for a horse, a sturdy quarterstaff and provisions to last him for some time. Astute and considerate preparations for his journey towards enlightenment. Or so he had thought. The horse, which he hadn’t named either -what need had a horse for a name, especially since the sage had forsaken his own?- was long since dead, rotting now on the side of the road under a roughshod cairn. He had stacked the stones with care at first, but as the distance between the makeshift grave for his trusty beast of burden and the nearest rocky outcropping grew more arduous with each recursive trek, the sage had compromised. A bargain struck between his conscience and the dead horse, who surely would have no qualms about it.
He would not realize for some years, but that compromise was the first true step on his path to enlightenment. Thinking back on the horse, with the clarity of hindsight and a rumbling belly, the sage questioned for the first time why he had not butchered the animal, dried the meat in the summer sun and allowed the beast one final act of service. It had seemed wrong at the time, disrespectful, uncouth. Foolishness. The horse was dead either way, and the sage had let convention and propriety steal from him many meals which he would now have quite appreciated. Pulling his frayed woollen cloak tight against his chest to ward off the brisk wind, the sage remembered thinking with repulsion, what he might have thought if he had come across some vagabond butchering his own mount on the side of some dusty trail. As he trudged onward, uphill toward Graybarrow, he chastised himself for his past foolishness. The sage decided that henceforth, he would take a more grounded, objective view of things. A man needed to eat, after all.
The sage made what one might call camp if they were of a generous sort, atop the hill where centuries past, a Sandoreale-Heawick coalition had slain the so-called King of the Moors. Contemplation, the sage had discovered, was a poor substitute for sustenance, though it did distract him from his hunger. As he sat and watched the autumn moon rise over the moors, the sage pondered many things. Convention. Propriety. Fealty. Duty. These abstract concepts were just that. Abstract. Agreed upon by other men, but only important insofar as they were all in agreement, no? What good was a King who could not keep his kingdom in order? What good was fealty or duty for its own sake? Not much, the sage thought contemptuously.
The sage sat atop Graybarrow for three nights, digesting thoughts rather than food. The third night saw a blood-red moon crest the horizon, and hang in the sky as an unblinking solitary eye. The moon gazed down upon the sage as he stared back at it through the cloudless night sky. The next morning, the sage set out on a northerly trail, winding its way through the moors towards the mighty Fossian River, and Risevar beyond. When he arrived gaunt, bedraggled and crusted with dirt and grime, a steward of a minor house -the name is not important, as it has long since been absorbed into House Ildrafn- unknowingly offered timely succour and shelter to the man who would go on to plant the seeds of treachery -or progress or liberation, depending on one’s thoughts on the concept of things such as duty and honor- in the hearts and minds of the peasantry. The sage, who once was called Trygve Ildrafn, had learned many things on his journey, and through the following winter, shared them with any who would listen.
Note: While not directly involved in an official capacity, House Ildrafn histories now muddied through time, now suggest that Trygve set out initially from his home with intent to heroically bring his great wisdom to the people of Risevar, thereby setting in motion the events which preceded The Bloody Harvest (1328 CE). The truth of the story hardly matters, as for their part in the events leading up to Symund’s coronation (1328 CE) House Ildrafn was granted a Barony, at the nexus of roads west of Redehall.

The clarity of hindsight is oft blurred through the lenses of time and prosperity. --‘The Sage of Risevar’

Written by Geoff S.