The Epic of Henry Baber
She steps into the broken sunlight beaming through the roof that had been battered by storms and age. She sneaks up on the kid tending to the stove top who doesn’t hear her stay on her toes. The cloaked assassin slits the boy’s throat and pulls something out of her belt and throws it into the pot. She grabs the body and carries it out back to the stables and stashes it in the hay. Another servant comes out from the dining room and serves another bowl of food for the man of importance in the other room. Without knowledge of the added ingredient in his food, he gulps down the tainted meal. The shadowy ranger takes off on her mangy horse as a commotion stirs inside the summer home of the King of Greigoos. A set of young eyes peered on from the dark mossy woods.

***
Life have has a way of taking its toll on the local peasants in Greigoos, it beats down on you

and reminds you every minute of how it will be for the rest of your life. This lifestyle took its toll on Henry, he often found himself wandering the cobblestone fenced fields of the rolling green paradise he called his prison. He enjoyed taking these walks just to clear his head and think. Lately a thought kept racing through his brain, “What if I give up my life as a field worker and decide to do something with it.” This thought entertained him especially since the rise of the new king. His cold hearted rule had cast nothing but shadows across the country and hit especially hard in his home region of South Tito where growing crops and providing basic yet essential services. The sun was setting and he decided to head home because of the strange creatures that occupied the shadows of the night were know to attack humans as the darkness raced across the freshly plowed fields of Greigoos.

As Henry reached home he noticed his front door slightly cracked open and his fireplace still burning although it had been hours since he has left the rolling embers under the stone mantle built by the generations before him in the Baber lineage. Something in his gut screamed out to him, “Get out while you still can!” He catches a glimpse of an unnatural shade of green shift amongst the swaying branches of the midday breeze, something flashes in his peripheral. Redness flashes...

The Ringing Echos
And
Silence Overpowers Noise

***
Henry wakes up in the back of a cart bouncing down a rutted road that has been washed

away by the frequent rainfalls that visit Tito. His eyes are covered in canvas cloth and his hands bound by simple rope. He keeps quiet as to not alert his kidnapper that he has awoken. The tough material is cinched tight against the soft fleshy skin of his forearm and cuts shallow ribbons all the way from his wrist to elbow causing it to bleed profusely. The warm sticky liquid runs down his arm to his neck and eventually finds its way to the back of his hair and is added to the growing patch of dark brown caked on blood that continues to grow as more is matted on by the minute. He is unsure of what the purpose is behind kidnapping a simple farmer, he has no money to give and no family to fulfill any demands. He feels the wagon slowing and his heartbeat only speeds up. “Let down the drawbridge and let us enter, it is I, Doug” cried out the driver to someone at a distance. The creaking of gears and pulleys turning allowing them into into the only place Baber could think of that had access to the marvels of 16th century engineering, Castle Barton, home of the King of Greigoos.

He could hear the hooves clopping echoing against a massive structure, although the whole area seemed too quiet and on edge for a place that should be bustling with night life and business. The wagon pulled to a stop and a light approaches the edges of the blindfold. He is picked up by and drug into a inner chamber by men with hushed, rough voices. They remove the rope and replace it with their iron relatives, the shackles clamp down and are raised into the air with him hanging by his arms above the ground, but just enough so the very foremost of his toes being stretched out had could still feel the earth under them, a feeling which they missed so much. Time passes, he couldn’t tell if it had been minutes, hours, days or months.

***
Henry’s head shoots up as the door to his cell slams shut, his guest skirts the edge of the cell

before approaching him.
“Who are you?” the guest yells.
“I am nobody,” Baber replies calmly.
“Bullshit!” he declares back. He rips the blindfold off allowing for Henry to see for the first time since the start of his ordeal. His eyes take time to adjust to light before realizing that his guest is not a ‘he’ rather a ‘she’. The eyes staring back at him were the most beautiful brown eyes he had ever seen although if you looked hard enough you could see the pain and intention they had in them. This wasn’t just a guest, this was the princess of Greigoos.

She asked him again “Who are you?”
He desperately replies “I am Henry Baber, I am a nobody who lives in South Tito.”
She bellows in laughter and takes a step away from him, “If you want to play it that way we

can always play it that way” She kicks him in the stomach, he feels the force push the air out of his lungs at along with it the last of his hope of getting out of this all as a misunderstanding. She asks again “Who are you and who sent you? Was it King Stanky from the kingdom of West Jadaniel?”

Henry confused and concerned for the turn of events taking place responded, “No absolutely not, I am a loyal peasant to Greigoos”

She pulls out a large iron plated club and presses it hard against his chest and repeats her question, “One last time, who the f are you and who sent you?”

Henry dropped his head in desperation, “I am who I say I am, I have done nothing to you mam.” Not believing him she hits him over the head with the full force of desperation and frustration boiled up inside her frame. He feels his brain hit the back of his skull and...
The
Room
Spins Uncontrollably Thoughts

End with Death

***
Something is happening. Something is happening. It is hot. Sunshine? No, fire. As soon as

he begins to feel around him again, he begins to feel nothing at all. Someone is trying to burn him at the stake! He creaks his swollen eyes open to look, no it is just sunshine. His skin is still sensitive from the scarring and cuts on his face. He has become a slave to the Greigoos royal family, nothing is his, not even his life now. He was charged with the murder of King Brown, former King of Greigoos. Somehow by the mercy of the king’s daughter he was spared from death and instead punished to a life of enslavement. Today is the day of the royal crowning ceremony of the son of the late king. He is expected to get the princess’s breakfast and clothes ready for the big day.

He knocks on the door of her chambers and is told “just a minute” by the princess. “Wow she is already up?” He thinks.

“Ok come in” she calls. He opens the door in time to see her closing her nightstand with a flustered face. “Is everything alright your majesty?”, he asks.

“Yes, thank you Henry”, she replies. He hands her the breakfast tray and begins to get clothes out to prepare for her dressing. He notices something odd sitting in her dresser, a vial, he
NICK MUNDT WORKSHOP PIECE "5
leaves it be and continues on with his search for her requested outfit. He finds it and sets it out for her. She asks him for privacy and he leaves in suit, still pondering the weird series of events that took place this morning.

Henry continues on with his daily set of chores, milking the cows, buying groceries from the market and cleaning any garments from the previous day. He brings the groceries into the kitchen which is bustling with people making preparations for today’s feast. He notices someone out of place, the princess. She is in the kitchen watching the food being made, watching closely as people stack plates and bring out the finest culinary delights to serve the masses that have been invited from all over to join in the celebration. She slips into the crowd and makes her way over to where the wine is being opened. Not just any wine, but the wine intended for the head table, a 1526 fine merlot. She takes something out of her pocket and dumps it into the keg and leaves the kitchen. Now puzzled he follows her back to her room but doesn’t confront her about it and waits outside the princess’s room until she is ready to go to the coronation.

She exits her chambers draped in a beautiful pink silk dress with layers of flowing material and a train behind her yards long. He face holds a look a grief but preparedness. They walk together down to the great hall where she is escorted to her seat in the front row and Henry sits with the other servants on the edge. The young prince walks in with trumpets blaring and banners waving. He takes his place next to the throne standing in front of the alter and bishop. As he takes his vows of loyalty and kingship, his older sister watches from the pews with a look of pure resentment and jealousy. He feels the same old gut wrenching scream that tells him something is wrong. The congregation separates and they all proceed to the dining hall. The meal is eaten and discussion fills the air with a sense of arrogance that resonates from the upper class. The toasts begin and Henry noticed that princess began to look nervous and was watching each sip that the prince took. Suddenly... the princess collapsed. People rush to catch her but the prince doesn’t move a muscle. A small smirk appears on his face and he calls Henry to join him. The princes announces how his sister planned to kill him to take the throne and preserve the legacy of their corrupt father. He makes a final toast, “To the trusted and the treasonous”