Connects to: 18.10, 19.31, 27.19 and 47.00.
The people here on the northern fringe of Thring do not approve of young Lord Kadash. This is not because he is from Jahur, many foreigners have married Thringish ladies and ruled in these lands and if the legends are true the fifth Duke of Thring was a bear all covered in hair.
No, it’s not who he is it’s how young Kadash became the lord of Fourth Castle. Here in the swampy north the old ways of Thring (see 27.19 for some of them) are kept far more than in the south. Here a lord’s new life begins when he retrieves the Lady of the Fourth Castle’s wedding band after it is hurled into the river and ends when their neck is ceremonially opened into the same waters. But this time when the ring was thrown into the waters and a hundred men plowed into the water to claim it they found that it was a cunning fake and that the true band had been in Kadash’s pocket all along.
But still, Kadash had the ring and was therefore the lord despite all of the howls and threats. In spite of his unpopularity he has won over his lady, who bore him a large healthy son six months later, and his father in-law (whose death Kadash faked so he could stay hidden in his daughter’s inner chambers rather than be gnawed at by fish in the river).
So far the young thief-lord performed surprisingly-well and has managed to deal with the cantoblepas infestation where many headstrong knights failed by poisoning their watering hole with poisons of the cloud forest (47.00), which has made it much easier to gather the tasty local wild rice. He has even been able to make peace with the Barnibi (18.10) which has kept any more local peasants from becoming were-men.
But despite this many of the knights are weary of serving a thief and discuss how the time when the new lord’s neck should be opened into the river could be hurried along.
Hooks:
- Why is this the fourth castle? What happened to the other three? Did they sink into the swamp?
- Was the fifth Duke really a bear?
- Why does whoever grabs the ring get to be the new lord? When does the lord get killed to make room for the next one?
- What exploits were Kadash involved in before settling down here to become a lord?
- What other lords in Thring have become such due more to guile than force of arms?
