Читать книгу The Heart of The Beast: A romantic adult fairytale revealing how the power of love can overcome the hardest heart - Susan Kohler - Страница 7

Prologue

Once upon a time…

There was a grand castle built high on a hill overlooking a small, poor village. The peasants living in the village had a rugged life, but overall it was a tolerable life. They worked arduously planting fields and groves, and tending the green pastures for grazing their small herds of cattle, sheep and goats. Small flocks of chickens, geese and ducks wandered near some of the rough cottages.

The surrounding countryside was lush and green, the nearby forest filled with wild game. Although they were rarely allowed to hunt there, and the penalty for poaching the lord’s game was stiff indeed, sometimes a deer or boar would find its way onto a villager’s table.

The villagers were, down to the last man, dirt poor, but most of them were decent and hard working. They had to be, for any man who thought he could gain by taking advantage of others soon faced the wrath of the ruling lord.

The lord of the castle was well liked and respected by everyone. He was a fair ruler. He could be fierce and stern, but oftentimes he would bring the villagers a bit of game for their tables. He would ask after their families, and when doing so he would show a kindly smile.

He had ample reason to smile. He had a beautiful wife, whom he loved deeply. The lord and his lady also had a wondrous family: Two strong, handsome sons: one nearing manhood and one still but a small lad. He also had a daughter, an exceedingly lovely daughter. She showed signs of becoming an extraordinarily beautiful woman, with intelligence and a good heart. Her strong will was already apparent, and the lord secretly feared that she might become too headstrong. Even more secretly, he took pride in her strong will. Everyone should have lived happily ever after, and for a while, they did.

Until one day the invaders came. They came with a large army, heavily armed and well trained. There were dozens of foot soldiers, scores of archers and swordsmen, along with several dozen mounted soldiers, all led by a powerful knight and his retainers.

The old lord went out to meet them with his small army of guards and foot soldiers. The battle was fierce, bloody and very short. When it was over, the old lord was brutally slain and his fighting men were badly defeated; most of them died with their liege. His despondent wife and three children were feared slain, or so most everyone thought. Some claimed that his wife lived. There were faint rumours that although she was filled with grief, she survived, and that fearing for the safety of her children, she had taken them and fled never to be seen again.

Since the knight leading the assault on the castle was himself slain in the invasion, the distant King decided to reward one of his other young knights by granting him the castle and the surrounding lands to live in and to rule.

The knight he chose to reward was young, about twenty-five. He was very special to the King, although few knew the real reason why. The knight, who now was the new lord of the land, was widely known for his fighting skills and bloodthirsty temper. He was a cold and forbidding man, a knight whose very lack of mercy or human compassion gave him a strange and terrifying appellation, one that all knew but few were bold enough to say aloud. That his very brutality worried the King, a King who had shown himself to be harsh and brutal, was a strong testament to how cold and battle hardened the knight truly was.

Secretly, the King hoped that peace and a permanent home, along with the responsibilities that come with ruling, would tame the fierce, grim knight to some degree. Perchance his own land and serfs to rule would teach the fearsome warrior some basic human emotions, would teach him the import of a man’s life and even the value of his own his happiness, without weakening him too much.

The King knew that to be a great man, the knight needed to add some human factors to his cruel disposition: Wisdom, mercy, a degree of patience and especially some compassion. Mayhap, the King reflected, now that the war is over, his knight would learn these things well enough so that he would no longer be called by that terrifying appellation, that he would no longer be known by the simple but dreadful name… The Beast.