Vladimir

I won the heart of the love of my life with the point of my sword. I was nineteen years old—a young man who, with the help of Solomon and his influence, had a large estate with many horses and servants. Solomon had given me a name when I was still young—Vladimir, after his father, he had told me. Inasmuch, I was Sir Vladimir Fitzpatrick, a Marquis. I was young, rich, and in the opinion of many a Lady in Solomon’s banqueting halls, rather handsome if somewhat lanky because of the poor nutrition of my childhood. However, there was only one woman that I wanted.

Her name was Rebecca. She was the Duke’s daughter, and I loved her more than my own life. This seems cliché, yet it is the only way in which I could express my feelings for this wonderful woman. Even as the Duke’s daughter, this was medieval times and she did work the same as every other person. She usually looked after her family’s horses, and as such, I saw her often on my rides as our estates were adjacent.

On one such ride one evening, I spotted her as I usually did, and tipped my hat in her direction. This is when I noticed two peculiarities about her stance. One was that her horse was facing the direction of my estate instead of her own, and the second was that she was not moving, instead she was very still and gave me a pleading look rather than the nice polite smile that she usually bestowed upon me when we were chance to meet.

Immediately, I dismounted. In the years of my childhood—though I had quite forgotten these years of being miserable as the years since that time had been so fortunate for me—I had learned how to protect myself, and in this instance, as I have already stated, I loved this woman before me more than my own life and so I would protect her until—and after, as the reader will see much later—my dying breath.

The man that was standing behind her horse with a knife to her leg heard my riding boots hit the ground and stepped around the horse. I pulled my sword—a magnificent piece of armory that Solomon had presented me on my eighteenth birthday—and made the motions to duel. He looked quickly at Rebecca and then back to me, drawing his sword as well.

At this point, I must tell the reader that the language of that time was much different than it is now. If I were to write in the language of the time, I am afraid that no person would understand what I was to write. After all, this was two hundred years before Shakespeare and the people of the present age seem to have a hard time understanding his language. As such, I will write the dialogue in a language the reader can understand.

‘Thief, if you were wont to hurt my wife, then I will be wont to hurt you,’ I said, bluffing slightly so that the man would be more hesitant. It was only in dreams that Rebecca was my wife.

Instead, my words seemed to egg him on. ‘Wife? You’re too young to have a wife,’ he said, then seemed to shrug. ‘When I kill you, I will make her my wife instead.’ He smiled evilly through his decaying teeth. ‘And I will use her for my every pleasure.’

I struck at this, as he knew that I would. He blocked my hit and I backed away slightly. ‘I will kill you,’ I said, ‘if you dare speak that way about her again.’

He grinned. ‘After I put my sword through your heart, I will take her down from that high horse of hers, push her down into that dirt where she belongs, rip up her skirts and fuck her like the tart she is.’

This time, I was relentless. I attacked. He was rather good at sword-fighting, however, and I had not had too much training as of yet. In a few minutes, he had thrown my sword out of my hands. I was on my knees in front of the man when Rebecca jumped from the horse, screaming ‘No!’ She grabbed the bag of gold from my hip and threw it at the man. ‘Sir, take the gold you are after and leave my husband to me.’

‘Never,’ he said, spittle coming through his gapped teeth. He lunged towards me, but Rebecca had given me the time I needed and my rapier was out and into his side before his sword fell upon me. He fell to the ground and rolled over onto his back. He grabbed his side and pulled my knife from where it was lodged between his ribs. ‘Bastard!’ he cried.

I picked up his sword and stood over him, my boot on his chest and the point of the sword to his heart. ‘Scum such as yourself does not belong on this earth,’ I sneered. ‘You could have escaped with your gold, but you will now die for saying such things about the only person that I care about more than my own life.’ His own sword cut through his flesh and bone and came to stop in the dirt.

It took over a week of English rain to rinse his blood from the road.