III
There was a boy called Gaydeno. He was Gaylodho’s nephew, being the son of his sister, Gaydea. Gaydea had joined Gaylodho in opposing the king, but she was forced to lay the fight aside to see her pregnancy through at a town called Errendenn in Syamlavol. In the weeks after Gaydeno was born, the king besieged the town, for Kolveno Seymaronnan, the Earl of Syamlavol, had holed himself up there. This was in the final days of the war, when all seemed most hopeless (because, by and large, it was). Gaydea’s friends urged her to flee with her son before the king trapped them in the town, but she refused to go.
‘I will not abandon my cause,’ she said. ‘I would rather this boy’s mother be among the glorious dead than live long in cowardice.’
This was misguided, but Gaydea was of headstrong stock. She would not be easily parted from her intentions. She thusly said, if her alleged friends were so concerned for Gaydeno, that they should take him themselves, and thereby forsake their own honour, rather than seeking to damage hers. This they did. A handful of her companions fled Errendenn, Gaydeno among them, and survived the attack. That was how many babies were raised in Norlonn at that time. They brought Gaydeno to Bealnew, where he was raised in the household of his grandmother, Gaydola. Gaydea, meanwhile, stood fast at Errendenn and died in the fighting, as did Kolveno the Earl.
Gaydeno spent much of his childhood at Bealnew, and while he was there, Gaylodho came up to make himself the earl. This was after the folk of Norlonn were firmly—if unwillingly—beholden to the king. Gaylodho bought himself a strapping pack of followers and toured the earldom gathering support among the magnates by slandering the kingship and making lofty promises and the like. Then he had an assembly summoned at Bealnew, where he called upon his newfound followers to support him in challenging Yolfredha Rollayvonnan, the incumbent earl. Yolfredha met the challenge, and the pair stood together before their peers to contest the earldom. They each stated their case, and after some discussion and many threats, the magnates chose Gaylodho, and he took the earldom.
During his time in the earldom, Gaylodho married his second wife, Meola Ravonnan, who also happened to be his second cousin. Gaylodho’s first wife was a woman called Balkena Olvelonnan, who was once known in Klagenn as Balkena the Eloquent, for she was an eager and impassioned poet. This is one of her most famous verses:
This blackest cave is dank and dark,
yet even so does this man hark.
He’ll row his boat along the stream,
e’er guided blind by but his dream
into the gloom, to find that chest
where, deep within, his wants all rest.
And then at last, with sated sighs,
he’ll find his prize when waters rise,
and out he rows into the light,
to leave behind the cave’s long night.
Yet never will he turn his face
to see again that plundered place.
Gaylodho had only one child by Balkena, and she died shortly after the birth. He was a son called Gaymono. Gaylodho had his second son, named Kolbeo, some twenty years later with Meola at Bealnew. He would become just as capable as his brother, albeit much more deceitful and violent.
Otherwise, Gaylodho’s time in the earldom was not of particular note. While he was by no means a poor earl, his brash and unmoving manner did little to inspire long-standing confidence. Several potential rivals presented themselves. Foremost among them was a fellow called Enmodo Enswelannan. He was in favour of appeasing the king. With the war now lost, he thought the folk of Eylavol would get more out of his friendship than his wrath, and he quickly accrued rather stauncher backing than Gaylodho would have liked. Then, after having held it for some eight years, Gaylodho feared a challenge for the earldom was imminent. He had seen off three before, but Enmodo posed a far greater threat, and one that required intervention.
So did Gaylodho arrange to settle his rivalry with Enmodo by offering a mutually beneficial resolution. They agreed to meet one evening on a nearby hill called Fnoytovl, where the woodland spirits would bear witness to any agreement they might reach. However, when Gaylodho came to the meeting spot, he did not put up his hand in friendship. Instead, he offered his welcome in the shape of a rock, thrown with deadly intent. The rock struck Enmodo’s head with such force that it knocked him out cold, but it did not kill him, so Gaylodho took it up and finalised their deal by bludgeoning Enmodo’s head until he was well and truly snuffed.
To disguise the killing, Gaylodho flipped Enmodo’s body so that he was lying prone, placed the rock beneath his head and a stick at his feet, and then laughed, so chuffed by his cunning. Yet he soon found he had not considered every eventuality. Gaydeno, his young nephew, happened to have followed him to Fnoytovl and witnessed every detail of the murder. While there were to be no witnesses, Gaylodho was unwilling to murder his little kinsman as well. He marched him straight back to Bealnew and sent him off to Klagenn the same day, before he could say anything to anyone who mattered.
Despite these efforts, Gaylodho was nonetheless accused of the murder as soon as the body was discovered. Enmodo’s relatives tried to bring a lawsuit against him, but this came to nothing. They could not find sufficient evidence to indict the sitting earl, and when they consulted the trees of Fnoytovl for their testimony, the tricky things had nothing much to say. Thus, Gaylodho faced no formal penalty for the killing, even though everyone agreed he had done it.
Things nonetheless went poorly for him after that. The murder of Enmodo garnered far more distrust than he had anticipated, and another of his prominent rivals, a woman named Beyla Bodwalonnan, came forth seeking the earldom in the following year. Beyla loathed the king just as much as Gaylodho, but she was ever more pragmatic about things. When the matter was brought before the magnates, they backed Beyla, and she took the earldom. Many said she would be in every way the better earl, and Gaylodho did not forget it. He stayed at Bealnew for a while longer, trying to reclaim both his honour and the favour of his former friends, but neither was forthcoming.