Servant of Duty

By Jerry B. Sanders

Servant of Duty follows the story that began with book one, Between Heaven and Hell. Troy Kensington is a man endowed with extraordinary abilities and longevity because of demonic possession. Servant of Duty is a continuation of his journey of discovery and towards his goal of freeing himself of his powerful and deadly evil spirits. This new journey follows him as he battles his grief, endures servitude, is forced to spill much blood, defends the helpless, and the discovery of an astounding secret.

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Harbor Press
• Release date: Nov 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215825242

Book preview

PREFACE

Servant of Duty is the second book in the series and follows Between Heaven and Hell. The main character, Troy Kensington, was driven, at the age of seventeen, to leave his Middle Ages peasant life in England in a bold effort to create a new legacy for himself. He was tired of being poor, but primarily, he was tired of feeling ignorant. Not able to read or write or know what life was like in the next village, much less in another country, caused him to leave the known for the unknown. This drive of Troy to live, learn, and prosper has its roots in the author’s real life.

My career as a project engineer for a major US oil company brought me into contact with many brilliant people over the forty-plus years I worked before retirement. Some of those I worked with caused me to try to excel in my goal of becoming more educated. I received my second degree, Business Management, at the age of fifty-five and my third degree, a Master’s Degree in Theology, at the age of sixty-six. They were followed by other university courses simply for the sake of gaining knowledge. After much self-study and numerous professional short-term courses, in addition to my degrees, I achieved a certain level of mediocrity that still paled in comparison to some of my friends at work. I will name two of them because they became instrumental in my personal desire to know more and more. They are Carter Fairless and Mike Brockway. I have never known anyone who were more intelligent than the two of them. They could design a spaceship capable of reaching Mars if they set their minds to it. I claim that they are my friends and I believe they would agree that we are. We still meet several times a year, despite that we are each retired and no longer work together. I am their toady. I knew I could not reach their level of technical abilities, but I hoped to learn more about other areas of knowledge to compensate for my lack of engineering skills in comparison with theirs.

I wanted Troy Kensington to be the most intelligent, the most capable, and the bravest character in this series because he is, except for the demonic possession and adeptness at killing people, the one I would like to be. I am he in a lot of ways and he is me. In all the ramblings Troy did across the world, in his quest in the first book to achieve knowledge, he did so without concern for wisdom. Knowledge, if you didn’t know, can come without wisdom. How well I know that. In this book, the drive for knowledge is supplanted with Troy’s desire to find his purpose, to find wisdom, to hold family and honor foremost. He has achieved more wealth that he can spend, and understands gold and silver is far down the ladder of what makes him happy. If he makes mistakes, and he certainly does, he must be forgiven, because he is human after all, and we are allowed to make them. He finally finds peace with himself and the world around him.

Being an engineer means I can design pumping systems, pipelines, and truck loading racks, but not grasp the mystical understanding of grammar. Even though I took grammar, as required in high school and college, I still couldn’t recognize a participle if I met one on the street. For that, I have employed a former high school classmate, Judy Tolin, now Mott, to do that for me. Her thousands of commas added to this medium-size book makes it more readable. By the way, this preface was written after Judy finished editing the rest of the book so I’m sure I left out a few dozen commas. Or placed some that don’t belong. If you notice a dangling participle in this document, I sincerely apologize.

just as Troy writes his books in the winter, so do I. It is summer now and time I send this to the publisher. Anyone who has written a manuscript before knows they are very time consuming. I am grateful for my wife, Cordelia, for her patience while I wrote and researched instead of fixing this or that in a timely manner. I thank all those people, all dozen of them, who read my first book and told me how they enjoyed the experience. The encouragement was appreciated.

Servant of Duty begins with the result of the Great Pestilence. Not until centuries later did the widespread disease become known as the Black Death. The book ends with a reveal that lends itself to a potential third and final book in the series. This winter will determine if that book becomes reality. I give you a heartfelt thank you for reading my labor of love.

PROLOGUE

And believing it to be the end of the world, no one wept for the dead, for all expected to die.

—Agnolo Di Tura, Chronicler of the Great Pestilence, 1348

It happened when God and his angels slept.

The smell was disgusting and sickening. It would be for any person, but for me who has unusually heightened senses, the odor nearly took my breath away. The smell, though, was not the worst aspect of what I was experiencing. I sat next to the bed of my wife, Anna, whose face and body were covered in bluish-black pustules. Having a tender heart, she had spent the previous weeks caring for our neighbors and two of our own children, who had come down with the same death that then enveloped my dear wife. I told her not to leave the house and subject herself to the ravages of the disease that had spread throughout London. She would not hear of it, though. It was inevitable, I suppose, that she should come down with the horror she tried to defend against. Rachel and Elizabeth, our two youngest children, had died the week before, and Anna’s will to live had died with them.

When we awoke that morning, I saw the first of the visible symptoms of the death that would soon take her. In addition to the blackish spots, she had swollen nodes in her armpits and groin, high fever, and stomach pains. There was no cure. I had gained a vast amount of knowledge about medicine and anatomy in my travels to the Far East, but I did not know, nor did the great physicians of Persia and India, of a cure for the epidemic of death that had spread from the east and had found its way to my London door in 1348. Some said the great reaping of lives was due to God’s punishment of us for our depravity. Some said it was because the convergence of Jupiter and Mars caused my family’s and countless others’ deaths. Some even placed the blame on Jews who were thought to be poisoning wells. I tried everything I knew to cure my Anna, but to no avail. When I first saw the telltale signs of the pestilence on her neck and armpits, I knew she was at death’s door. The cursed disease was soon to take my beloved away.

She looked into my grief-filled eyes and gave me a weak smile and, ever so slightly, she squeezed my hand. She knew the outcome. She had nursed dozens of people over recent weeks. All of those she tended to who had developed the black oozing pustules had died, and she knew her fate. Anna believed in God, the Great Physician, she called him. Maybe God could cure her, but he chose not to. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.

The most damnable question known to man is why. The real whys that mean the most to us, the ones whose answers might offer some consolation or hope, are never answered, but, still, we ask why it happened to us. Why me? I asked that question several times during those hours I watched her slowly make her journey to eternity. Why did it have to happen to my wife? Why? She gave comfort to so many. She gave, knowing the consequences. She gave her life unselfishly to give others some comfort. My Anna gave more than she ever received. I felt cheated and angry. It was my only defense against the grief chilling my heart. When the western horizon turned a lavender shade below orange and yellow clouds as the sun sank beneath the buildings across our quiet street, she breathed her last breath on this earth, leaving me alone in my sorrow. In the time it took God to create heaven and earth, I had lost two children and my wife. I had mental acuity, knowledge, and physical abilities beyond any mortal man, but I could not save my family. Why?

I laid my head on her lifeless lap and cried. There was no one in the house to give me comfort on that cold November evening. No child and no servants were in our large townhome anymore. Only me. Everyone else was dead. I lived on, and that was my curse. I lived while everyone I loved eventually died. What was I to do now? I wondered aloud in the quietness around me. I got the same answer as when I asked why. Silence.

I went downstairs and looked out at the drab evening and saw that snow had started falling. No one with carts calling for the dead to be brought out would be coming by until morning. I went outside to breathe in some sweeter air, but there was none. Foul smells accompanied the chill winds from the northwest. I walked the streets, bundled up against the cold and listened to the wails coming from inside closed doors. I was not alone in my despair, but that did not make me feel any better. It was not that I never had other progeny because, in fact, I had had eighteen children from my wives, though many of them had died from various natural causes. They had given me many grandchildren, but, as anyone knows who has ever had children, each is precious, and the loss of even one is a cause for anguish. As far as I knew, I still had five children living whose mother was Anna, but they had fled the diseased city, and I knew not their condition nor where they were. As I walked the deserted and dark streets of London along the polluted Thames, I did not know the condition of my other family members. My office of international trade had been closed for over a month, and all employees, including members of my immediate and extended family, had left London for what they hoped were safer locales.

My grief-numbed mind drifted to the past. That is where I always went when faced with loss and uncertainty, because that’s where those that I had loved remained in my mind. They were the ones who had created my pleasant memories. I reflected on them as I skirted debris scattered on the road I walked. No one had swept the streets in many weeks, and the clutter tossed about by late autumn winds collected against curbs and places in the lee of the winds. The wind came and went from where and to where no one knows, and no one cares. Except for me. I cared. I looked down at the river, and the only movement I saw was a lean black-and-white cat silently moving near its edge, hoping to find something to eat. The falling snow had stopped, and no sound could be heard but the weeping of the dying and those who mourned the dead. I had considerable wealth but could not buy happiness that night or any other night. I would have given it all for one more night with Anna, or one of my previous long-deceased wives, Veronica, Susan, or Erdene.

I walked past the Tower of London where once my friend and mentor William Marshal worked, past the beautiful bridge that spanned the Thames River and out past the last warehouse and, finally, sat down on an escarpment next to the dirty river. The river smelled of sewage but, still, that was better than the pungent smell of death I had left behind when I began my walk. I sat and wondered what I would do next. I had lost interest in my trading company even before the pestilence came and, now that the Great Plague had stolen my Anna, I knew I could not stay in London, sit at a desk and brood over profits and losses. I looked at the flowing river as it journeyed into the darkness, felt the cold breeze in my face, and wondered where the water and the wind came from and where they were going? The eastern sky became gradually lighter as I sat and pondered my future. It was time to return to my home, now just a house, and see to it my wife and my heart were buried and time to pack a few belongings and travel east. Somewhere out there was my future. As man reckons time, I was 160 years old in 1348 when I saw my wife lowered into the dark and cold hole in the ground. No ordinary man. I had seen much and experienced so much in those decades. I had gained and lost more than any ten men I knew, combined. I had killed dozens of men, saved thousands of children, gave employment to hosts of people, traveled to many foreign lands, spoke with kings, a pope, and a sovereign khan. I had been a pirate, a Knight Templar, a novice monk. I had saved a princess, a Mongol thief, his woman, and a governor of Japan. I had been killed at the hands of a rogue and been brought back to life by a witch. My body was the temple for demons who gave me the fountain of youth, vitality, and knowledge from which I drank greedily.

I stood up from the precipice, looked down at the flowing river, took a deep breath of tainted air, and returned to the house where many of my children were born, and from where my Anna had passed from this life into the next. It was time for me to be born again.

CHAPTER 1

Goodrich Castle

December 1348–January 1349

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark, the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.

—Plato

The Great Mortality, as the newspapers reported it, faded away a year after the angels carried Anna’s spirit home, and 1349 was not near as lethal as the summer and autumn of 1348. I left London two weeks after my wife died. I left a city strewn with the corpses of thousands. The Angel of Death had been busy, having his way with my family and friends, and I wanted no more of his presence. I wanted to flee from the smell of death, the pain of death, and the consequences of death. Death was so ready to take away my family but was reticent to take me. I wondered if I plunged my well-used dagger into my breast, would I even die then? Somehow, I felt I would still survive to be dealt with in life as a plaything. I needed to get away from the city and determine what I would do next. I did not feel like starting life over again. It was too tedious a thing to live.

I left London in December of 1348. It was a cold and gray day, and the weather fit my mood perfectly. My coach traveled over bumpy and muddy roads, and the sky was spitting ice crystals as the horses slogged down the lonely road. I had no plans for my future, other than retire to Goodrich Castle, a place I had purchased from my dear friend William Marshal many decades earlier. I thought I would stay there and decide what to do next. My wives and I had spent many happy and contented days away from the pressure of the great city of London, watching our children play outside our parlor window and, sometimes, we joined them in whatever silly game they were playing.

On the first morning I awoke at Goodrich, I turned over to my right, as I was accustomed, to hug my wife and say good morning to her. She, of course, was not there, so I said hello to the cold stone walls around me. During all the years of my married life, I had always lain on the left side of the bed, so that I could roll over and encompass Veronica, Susan, or Anna with my unblemished left arm. It was a custom and I am a big believer of tradition.

I maintained several servants at Goodrich year-round so that, at any time, me or my family, or all of us, could go and stay either on a whim or for an extended period. The servants at remote Goodrich had not been infected by the plague and were not surprised to see me, though they were surprised I had arrived alone and there was no one on earth more alone than me. Being alone as I was, I spent a great deal of time thinking about the past, rather than the future, despite my immediate need to develop a forward plan. The East Asia Trading Company, in which I was a principal, was still in business on the continent, though affected by the sickness, also. I was still needed in England to represent the company’s interests in trade. That, I felt, would have to be placed on hold while I mourned all those important to me. I had more wealth than I could ever spend, and I had long ago lost interest in making more. I left London not knowing how the boarding schools for poor children were faring. Over one thousand children had depended on my family’s support. Most of them died. Maybe all of them. I did not know. I was too numb to care. I just wanted to leave the city and lick my own wounds before I could address the pain of others.

Outside, on that cold, crisp December morning, to my disappointment, the sun was shining bright and made the ice crystals covering the ground shine like millions of diamonds strewn across the lawn. I caught myself smiling and then remembered why I was there. There was no time or reason to smile. I exhaled and saw my breath form a cloud of vapor and watched as the sun evaporated the mist quickly and silently. The morning was very still and quiet, except for the distant cawing of crows. A small group of starlings hopped and flitted about in the trees lining my back garden. It was just me and the birds to enjoy life that continued, despite circumstances that forced its way upon my life. I had fought many men and had defeated all of them, but I could not defeat death. I wandered about the grounds remembering what happened here or over there, under that tree where one of my sons had fallen and broken his arm. There, at that bench under the huge elm, that same son years later asked his girlfriend to marry him. Next to it stood a large beech tree under which I made love to my wife Veronica one full moon night. So many times, we watched deer come out at dusk and nibble grass while we watched from the back portico. Over there, next to the bust of King Richard, I saw two of my servants kissing. Every nook, every tree, every object around me held memories. Not just memories, but wonderful memories involving those who were now dead. I listened for the sound of laughter and children fussing and the sounds of teasing, but all I heard was a murder of crows jabbering meaninglessly. For a moment, I hated them. I wanted to kill, murder every crow that had ever lived. I turned and walked back toward the house wrapped warmly in my blanket of grief.

The days that followed were identical repeats of the days before. Mornings blossomed and silently winked out as the sun sank behind the cold distant hills. The earth, spinning like a coin, blinked a night into day and then day back into night. A representation of the cycle of life and death. One earth orbit, one day, each providing opportunities for those adventurous enough to capitalize on the cycle. I had done so and, in the process, gained much. Much more than I lost. But life was not over for me. No, not at all. In fact, I had more things to accomplish, more people to help, more people to take their life, and more memories to make. If you can read what I put down on these pages, stop and give thanks for the gift you have. Too many folks I have met have not had the ability to learn how to read or write even their name.

One January morning, I awoke and, when I placed my feet on the rug at the side of the bed, it suddenly occurred to me that I had felt sorry for myself long enough. A grown man needed to stop his pitiful ruminations, pull on his grown-up trousers, and get going with life. It was time to willfully plan for tomorrow. I believed in my heart of hearts that the root cause of my trials and tribulations was because of my demons. For every laugh I laughed, there were tears that followed because of some personal disaster. Short of killing myself, which I knew I could not do, I wanted to die a natural death and join those I had loved and who had loved me.

CHAPTER 2

Southampton, England

January 1349

If you survived a storm, you won’t be bothered by the rain.

—Chinese Proverb

I had long ago traveled to the Far East and had seen many countries; some I would live to see once more, and some I hope never to see again. One country, however, I had long heard about and wanted to experience was Africa. Many of the stories I had heard talked about the hazards of getting there, but the real dangers are encountered on arrival. Those dangers and hazards are what had always intrigued me. I had read books about wild animals, marvelous beasts that did not live outside of the great jungles and savannas found only in Africa. I possessed wealth and I also possessed an almost endless supply of time as well. I felt no obligation to stay in England and nurse my business back together after the plague devastation. If it were to be resurrected, then possibly one of my descendants could do that if any lived. I did not care. I had lived too long in the city, away from dangers and adventures. Also, I had read stories of tribal shamans or witch doctors who had extraordinary powers. I needed such powers if, indeed, they existed.

On a cold, gray morning, the thirteenth day of January 1349, I left Goodrich Castle and, not looking back, I rode towards Southampton, on the southern coast of England, to see for myself if there was a country of beasts, witches, and danger. I wished to experience all such things. I thrive on dangers and challenges. I rode one of my destriers and packed a courser with such belongings I hoped would do me well on a long journey to the unknown. I carried with me swords and knives, drawings I had made of my wives, medicine, and a two of my favorite books. I had no idea how much money I would need to travel and support myself, but that was the least of my concerns. The more I carried, the more danger I would expose myself to and, in that respect, I carried with me a secret weapon wherever I traveled. One I hated to use, but one that I had on too many occasions. I also carried a fresh journal with me to record my experiences. It was unnecessary to bring it because my ability to remember every detail precluded the need for writing down my experiences.

The most notable thing missing as I traveled busy roads south to the coast was a companion. On previous journeys I made before I became a business manager, I traveled with friends or my squire, who had become like my brother. Markus had long since died and left me bereft of his loyal companionship. My campfires at night were lonely, and I had no one to talk to as I ate a quick and meager meal. Thoughts of my departure when I was seventeen came to me often as I rode on day after day. I had lived several lifetimes since that day in 1205, and I was no longer that naïve youth who was guided by an unnatural hope to escape poverty and ignorance.

I rode into Southampton a week after leaving Goodrich Castle. I had last been in that seaport town one hundred and thirty-four years earlier and found the town had changed drastically. The size had grown considerably as buildings attested but, it being a seaport town, the plague had dramatically impacted the population. The relentless death was still swinging its scythe. Just like London, death carts were hauling the dead out of town to be burned. Wails of pitiful outcries and the stench of dead bodies mingled with the smell of dead fish were everywhere. Everyone I saw on the streets had rags covering their mouths and noses in hopes of lessening the intensity of foul smells of death and rot. I considered myself a medicine man of sorts, as I knew far more about medical arts than any man I knew of in England, but I had no desire to try and comfort the dying. I could not save my own wife, so I would not spend time trying to give false hope to the hopeless. I rode on amongst the wailing and dying until I reached the docks. It wasn’t that I was a hard-hearted man by nature. It was just that circumstances penetrated my soul, causing the good in me to cower in the face of overwhelming sadness.

Word had reached England that the spread of the Great Mortality was lessening on the continent, having begun there long before arriving on our island. As a result of that, many ships were leaving Southampton, heading to safer locales. That also meant that passage was more competitive and expensive. Too many paying customers were allowed on board ships that were not seaworthy, and too many ship captains were unscrupulous and inexperienced when it came to piloting ships that time of year when squalls were frequent.

I spent several days at inns close to the wharves observing the escaping people, the crews, and the physical condition of the ships used to usher frightened people to a new beginning. I, too, was searching for a new beginning, but for very different reasons. I was not looking to save my life by heading to a foreign haven but was looking for a way to forget my pain. As I often did in my long-ago life, I spent a great deal of time in pubs, sipping foul-tasting ale, just for the sake of overhearing bits of information. Sailors, local townspeople, and those hoping to escape the ravages of the plague came and went, leaving behind information useful to me in planning my own escape. I watched and listened until I noticed I was being watched.

An important seaport, Southampton had grown large and busy over the past decades, and many pubs and illicit houses of prostitution had surfaced, especially along the street opposite the wharves. The Great Mortality had devastated the town, but the pubs and rowdy houses were still lively with new blood replacing the fast dying out of the old. I was immune to the causes or cause of the plague, so I was not afraid of habiting the quay establishments that were prone to be hit hard by the disease. There were two pubs I daily frequented: The Hungry Boar in the morning and The Siren in the afternoon. After my fourth day of sitting and listening, I noticed one man who I recalled doing the same thing, at the same places, and at the same times each day. I fault myself for being a creature of habit and had left myself open for anyone with nefarious ideas, hoping to seize an opportunity to rob me. The only way to discover the purpose of that shadow was to confront him.

I felt the familiar and comfortable firmness of my dagger at my side. It had been many years since I had slipped its cold blade between the fourth and fifth rib into a man’s heart. I did so without remorse, as I would peeling an apple. If the curious stranger across the room wanted to dance with the death angel, I would play the music. I got up from my table and walked over to his, pulled out a chair and sat across a greasy table from him, and asked if he minded a little company.

It was the usual time for the evening meal and, normally, the pub would probably have been crowded with seamen and dock workers, but this was not ordinary times, and the room held few people, and the noise level allowed me to hear the man’s breathing. True, I had extraordinary senses, but the lack of laughter and raucous talk and his nervousness made it easy to hear him. Maybe he was nervous, because I had stuck my dagger into the tabletop in front of him before I sat down. Maybe it was the look in my cold, expressionless eyes that spoke to him and caused him to wonder what his next move should be.

I doubted he had yet seen thirty years of life, and maybe he would not see another, depending on what he said in the next few moments. I did not much care, but his eyes looked harmless, not having the look of one who had led a hard and dangerous life as I have.

So, it is either a remarkable string of happenstances that you are at the same places and at the same time every day that I happen to be, or you have some reason to be following me. I suggest you explain which of the two possibilities it could be.

The stranger’s breathing grew more pronounced, and it was obvious he was trying to control his breathing and emotions, as if I were not in complete control of the conversation. Pride: it is a terrible weight a man carries around with him and has caused the downfall of many a man and woman.

My name is Nolte. I know who you are.

Well, that is interesting but, since I have never seen you before, tell me how you know of me.

I know you are a very wealthy man, and that is a very dangerous thing to be these days in this town. Some people would do anything to get enough money to escape England, including killing the likes of you.

I took a measure of the young stranger. I thought it wise to listen to what he had to say, but I was not concerned about defending myself.

I said, Plenty of men and one woman has tried to kill me, but none were successful. As you see, I am still here.

Oh no, he said, I’m not wanting to kill you. Not at all. I want to serve you. I have heard many stories about your past, and I suspect most are much exaggerated but, nevertheless, you have what I don’t, and murder is not my desire.

How do you know me, and how do you know I have money?

I searched my memory, which exceeds most, if not all, men’s capacity to remember the past, and I could not recall ever meeting him before. I began to feel uneasy about the man, and believed he was attempting to set up a swindle.

I insist you tell me what is on your mind, or this conversation is over, and will warn you about following me again.

I live in London, or did, until about six weeks ago, so I know you lived there also, because you are well known by your business prowess and by your deeds. Besides that, we are family.

Family? I asked with a laugh. How are you part of my family? I was beginning to become angry.

You have a daughter, right? Her name is Blythe, and she married a fine, honest man by the name of St. John. What you probably did not know was that St. John has a brother. That would be me. You haven’t met me because my father sent me away ten years ago. I was an embarrassment to him, and I have spent much of the past ten years in Paris and returned to London only a year ago after my father died. Arriving back home, I found, to no surprise, I was landless and penniless.

I see, I said. I knew St. John had a brother in Paris, but I did not know the circumstances of why you were there. But the matter remains now, what do you really want from me?

I don’t want any of your money. I was reckless and stubborn in my youth, I admit that, but I do have honor. What I want is to leave London, this stifling island, like you and most of England, but I have no means to do so. Like I said, I am nearly penniless. You, on the other hand, are not. What I want is to travel with you to wherever you are going, I don’t care where. In exchange for paying my travel and living expenses, I will be your servant, and will do absolutely whatever you want of me. Your enemies are my enemies. If there is wealth to be found in the process, that would be lagniappe, as they say in Paris.

We spent the next three hours talking about his history, his character traits, fighting experiences, worldviews, reasons for his father’s expulsion, reasons why I should trust him, and his life goals.

After our discussion and the evening meal, I said, I will give this association a trial. I will require absolute loyalty. If I suspect you of stealing from me or if I hear of you betraying me in any way, I will kill you. Do not make the mistake in believing that is an idle threat. I can be generous, and I can be something your mind cannot fathom. What you see during our association will remain between us. Any violation of our trust will have severe and permanent repercussions. Do you understand what I have said, and do you absolutely agree with my stipulations?

He looked at me for a long time, and silently drummed the fingers of his right hand one at a time on the scarred and greasy tabletop. His green eyes probed mine as if to see if there were hidden dangers. He studied my dagger still protruding from the tabletop. I guessed he might be thinking of the things, the rumors, of what men said about me. He weighed his current plight, a man with no means of support, with following a man who could give him security, but at what cost?

Finally, he said, I’m your man for better or for worse. I trust in your abilities to survive and prosper, and I will earn your trust in due time. My loyalty will be to you and to you alone. I need your help to leave England, not because of the plague, but because I am directionless with hardly a farthing to my name and no prospects in this place which I no longer call home.

Come, I said, "let’s get a good night’s