The Ashworth Vow

The key was heavy when Lord Edmund Ashworth took it from the sideboard. Not heavy with iron, but with something older and heavier still—the weight of four hundred years of stone and memory. The key was tarnished, its bow carved with a design that looked at first glance like ivy but upon closer inspection resembled hands clasped in an oath.

He stood in the vaulted entrance hall of Ashworth Hall, and the house exhaled around him. The air was thick with the smell of damp wool and old roses and something beneath those—the faint metallic tang of wet earth, the breath of something buried deep beneath the foundations.

"The wine cellar is this way, my lord," said Miss Thorne. She was sixty-five, thin as a walking stick, and had served the Ashworth family longer than any living soul had known. Her eyes were the colour of old rain. "I would warn you—the floor is uneven in the third corridor. The stones shift at night."

"I do not fear shifting stones," Edmund said. His right arm was a silver prosthetic, a gift from the War Office after theAfghan campaign took everything below his elbow. He did not need the prosthetic—he had been out of the army for twenty years—but he wore it as a reminder of what happened when discipline failed.

The wine cellar had been converted into a training ground. Torches guttered along the stone walls, and beneath them stood twelve figures in dark coats: the Night's Watch, Edmund's private guard. They were a ragged collection—farmers, gamekeepers, the younger sons of neighbouring estates who had heard the master was rebuilding the family's armed force. The estate was surrounded by moorland, and three neighbouring lords coveted Ashworth's land. The Night's Watch was the only thing standing between them and ruin.

"Formation drill," Edmund said. His voice echoed through the vaulted ceiling. "Shield wall, line abreast. Move."

The twelve men shuffled into position. It was less a formation and more a suggestion of order. Two of them—the captains, Lydia Crossman and Thomas Hargrave—were particularly bad at taking things seriously.

Lydia was twenty-eight, the daughter of a squire from Yorkshire. She had joined the Night's Watch because it gave her an excuse to wear dark uniforms and ride horses, not because she believed in the cause. Thomas was thirty-one, a second son of a declining noble family, and had joined the Watch to rebuild his family's reputation. He treated discipline as an inconvenience.

They lagged behind the line. Lydia whispered something to Thomas and they both laughed. Edmund stopped.

"Again," he said.

They tried again. It was worse. Thomas stepped into the wrong position on purpose, bumping into the man next to him. Lydia smiled at the back of the line—a flirtatious tilt of the head directed at a young gamekeeper. Edmund's silver hand clenched and unclenched, but he said nothing.

"Captain Crossman, Captain Hargrave." Edmund's voice was quiet, and that was worse than shouting. "You treat this as a social gathering."

Lydia's smile faltered. "We are volunteers, my lord. Not conscripts. We have lives and friends outside this cellar."

"This cellar is the only thing between your lives and annihilation." Edmund turned away. "Dismissed."