He was found in a field of ripe yellow wheat. Unconscious. Blood everywhere. Some was his, most wasn't. His tunic was tattered and covered in sweat while his pants were dirty to the threads with mud. It was farmers that found him. Some thought he was a bandit, but he had no weapons, armour, or coin anywhere on him. They concluded that he had probably been attacked on the road and ran away, only to fall here from exhaustion or blood loss.

  The farmers took him inside a barn while he was still unconscious. They laid him down on a stack of haybale and took care of him the best way they could. He had flesh wounds all over his body, and they wrapped most of it with bandages and cloths. The good news was that no bones looked broken, the bad news was that he remained unconscious. They tried to wake him up and give him something to drink and eat, but to no avail. His body was fit, which probably helped him stay alive while he stayed unconscious. He looked to be in his mid twenties. His light brown hair was shaggy and rugged, so was his beard, and aside from the fresh wounds, his body was already covered in scars. For the farmers, life in the hamlet was monotonous and uneventful, but this man they had found half-dead in their fields had changed their routine, and they were interested in him; they wanted to know who he was, where he came from, what was his story…

  It took the full day before he awoke late in the night. Paula, one of the farmers daughters, had volunteered to keep watch on him while the others slept. She was a curious young woman, and her life in the hamlet had always seemed boring to her. This mysterious man, seemingly appeared out of nowhere, was one of the most interesting things she had seen in a while. She was surprised when he gasped himself awake, almost like he had woken up from a nightmare. He instinctively reached the side of his hip, looking for something that wasn’t there. Immediately, his gasp turned to groans of pain as he clutched his wounds.

  “You’re awake!” Paula yelled in surprise.

  “Where… where am I?” he asked, his tone weary and his eyes alert while he took in his surroundings, patting the haybale he laid on.

  “We found you in the fields, you were unconscious and pretty beaten up. We took you inside the barn so we could heal you and you could rest. A-Are you okay?” she asked, looking at him wincing and clutching his side.

  “I’ll be fine…” he said. “Thank you” he added quickly, like he had forgotten how to be polite.

  “I’m Paula… What’s your name?” she asked.

  He looked at her, and seemed a bit confused, like he didn’t know what to say.

  “Have you forgotten?” she questioned.

  “I-I don’t…” before he could continue, she followed:

  “It’s normal, don’t worry about it. It’ll come back to you eventually. I remember my brother once fell from a tree and he forgot his name for the full afternoon. It happens sometimes when you get a hard blow to the head.” She giggled slightly, trying to reassure him. “Do you remember what happened to you at least?”

  As soon as she asked, his face had a look of sudden realization. The kind one gets when they remember they forgot to do something very important. He said nothing, but she continued anyways.

  “It was bandits, wasn’t it?”

  He looked at her for a moment, before laying back on the haybale. His expression stayed the same; it showed nothing to confirm that it was indeed bandits, but still Paula followed:

  “Yeah… there’s been a few more of these attacks recently. You’re lucky you got out alive. If it wasn’t for Lambert and Meinard who found you and carried you here, and Rose who healed you, I don’t know if you would’ve made it.”

  He stayed solemn, laying on his back, looking at the wooden beams and cracked ceiling of the barn. “Do you have water?” he asked, his voice hoarse through his parched mouth.

  “Yes of course!” she said, realizing he hadn’t had any all day. She stood up from her seat, on one of the haybales opposite him, and grabbed a carafe of water she had stashed near the entrance of the barn for when he woke up. With it was a plate of dried oat cakes and barley bread. “You should eat too” she said while handing him the food and water. Like a drunken mutt, he chugged the entire carafe and ate the food whole, barely chewing anything. “You must’ve been hungry!” she said slightly amused.

  “Thank you” he said, while wiping his mouth with his bandaged backhand. He stood up from the haybale, but immediately Paula stopped him.

  “No! Don’t get up, you need to rest!”

  “No, it’s okay, I’ll be fine. I just need to go.”

  “If you leave now your wounds will open and it will only get worse.”

  He pushed her to the side and move forward laboriously. He leaned on the doorframe of the barn, bracing himself. He grunted and heaved, the skin on his body felt like it was burning. The bandages, that had turned dry and brown, were now soaked through again with red. He felt a sickness rise in him and a tickle through his spine, and suddenly, the ground came up at him. He had fallen headfirst in the wet mud. Paula tried to wake him up, but he was out cold, she yelled out for help instead.

  The other farmers quickly came in with shovels and pitchforks, thinking the man had woken up and was attacking her. But what they found instead was him laying down in the mud, with Paula kneeling next to him.

  “What happened?” asked Meinard, the head farmer of the hamlet. He was an old man with grey hair and a visage covered with age, but his body was still strong. It was him, and his son, Lambert, who had carried the man from the fields to the barn.

  “He woke up! I gave him food and water but then he got up and tried to leave. I asked him to stay put but… well you see what happened.” said Paula.

  “Lambert, help me carry him.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Dad, he’s not worth it. We’ve already wasted enough with him. If he wants to leave, we should let him.” said Lambert. He was leaning on the pitchfork he had brough with him as soon as he heard Paula asking for help.

  “Lambert!” said Rose, Meinard’s wife and Lambert’s mother. “Enough about this. Whoever he is, it is not for us to judge. We will help him until he is ready to leave on his own.”

  Lambert rolled his eyes in disdain.

  “You heard your mother son. Now shut up and come help me” ordered Meinard.

  When the man woke up again, it was close to noon. Lambert was the one looking over him now, though, looking over was an overstatement. He was working in the barn and kept an eye on him more than anything. With a grunt, and a familiar headache, the man sat up on his makeshift bed. His bandages were new and fresh: recently replaced. Lambert looked over his shoulder and noticed him.

  “You’re finally awake, we’ll just see for how long,” said Lambert.

  “W-Who are you?”

  “Tell me your name, and I’ll tell you mine.”

  “I…”

  “Oh right… you forgot. You know, I don’t believe that for a second.” Lambert walked closer to him. “When we found you, you were covered in blood, way too much blood if it had all been yours. You would’ve bled out. I tried explaining that to everyone, but they just ignored me. I know the truth. You’re not some poor lad who got attacked by bandits are you? You’re the fucking bandit.” He pressed a thumb on the man’s shoulder, pushing on a bandaged wound.

  The man groaned and tried to push Lambert’s hand away.

  “We’ve been attacked by you people before; you don’t deserve our help. We should’ve let you die in that field!” Lambert continued.

  “Lambert!” yelled Paula in surprise. She was standing in the doorway of the barn, looking at his display of rage. “What are you doing?”

  “Paula!” Immediately, he stepped back from the man and walked towards her. “I was just…” Paula sidestepped him and ran to the wounded man instead.

  “What is wrong with you?! Hurting a defenseless man!” she asked.

  “It’s not what you think! I was… he was mocking us!”

  Paula could see through him like glass. He was lying, and he could tell she didn’t buy any of it.

  “I’m sorry Paula it’s just…”

  “Don’t apologize to me!”

  Lambert looked at her, slightly confused, until she nudged her head towards the wounded man.

  “I’m sorry mister” he said, begrudgingly.

  “It’s okay kid. I don’t blame you,” responded the wounded man.

  “You’re lucky he’s nice about it. If your father finds out that you go around poking the wounds of defenseless men…”

  “Paula, right?” the man interrupted “and I made out your name’s Lambert?” They both looked at him and nodded. “It’s fine, really. I appreciate your help, but I need to leave.”

  “Last time you tried, you passed out! You need to rest mister,” said Paula. She looked at his shoulder, where Lambert had pressed on the wound. “We need Rose, the wound has opened up.” Paula looked at Lambert, nudging him to go get his mother.

  When Rose arrived, she asked Paula and Lambert to leave the barn, leaving her alone with the wounded man. “I apologize for my son, he can be… brash.”

  “It’s fine” he said, grunting as she peeled away the bandage on his shoulder.

  “Do you really not remember anything?”

  The man stayed solemn and silent.

  “Well… until you remember your name, we need to call you something besides mister.” Rose said warmly. “Do you know the tale of Old Jacobyn?”

  “Who?”

  “It’s said that he was a wise wizard who travelled all over the world. He would often dress as a beggar and ask others for help. If they would help him, he’d repay their kindness and bless them with good fortune, but if they ignored him, he would smite their homestead and curse them with bad luck for years to come. It’s a folk tale of course, every farmer knows about it. Apparently one-time, Old Jacobyn had come to this farmstead, again dressed as a beggar. He asked the farmers for a warm place to stay for the night, but they refused. They told him to go on his way and that they wouldn’t give him anything. Old Jacobyn then left, but not before spelling an evil curse on the farmstead. In the days that followed, the farmers grain would rot, and the soil of their fields would turn to ashes. The farmers could then not survive the winter, and they all died, cold and starving, all because they wouldn’t help Old Jacobyn.”

  “He sounds a bit… vindictive.”

  “He’s a reminder for us to be kind and generous, even to complete strangers.”

  The man was quiet. He pondered a bit on the story.

  “So, what do you say?” Rose asked him.

  “What?”

  “Until you remember your name.”

  “You wanna call me Old Jacobyn?”

  “No, you’re not old, you’d just be: Jacobyn”

  He pondered a bit, intrigued, not about the name, but about the prospect of being named. “Yeah... You can call me Jacobyn.”

  “Jacobyn it is then, for now at least. It’ll get back to you, don’t worry.”

  He knew that it wouldn’t, for he had not forgotten anything; he was never given a name. Jacobyn was the first thing anyone had ever called him. “Yeah…” he said to Rose, brushing the thought away.

  Rose tied a noose on the bandage around his shoulder. She dressed and treated the wound to the best of her ability. None of the farmers were healers, but she had been a midwife in her early years and remembered a few tricks to treat a tired body. “You’re healing well, but you still need to rest.”

  “I appreciate all your help, but I’ll need to leave soon…”

  “Why? Where do you need to go?”

  “I… I just can’t stay here.”

  “Does it have something to do with the bandits who attacked you?”

  “No…”

  “Listen, Jacobyn, you’re safe here. There’s been a few attacks from bandits recently, but we have nothing here that would interest them. Only rusted tools and dry oats.”

  “I’ve seen people fight for less…” he said, scoffing. “But no, it’s not bandits I’m afraid of.”

  She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Who then? What aren’t you telling us?”

  He stayed quiet and pushed her hand away, “trust me misses…”

  “You can call me Rose”

  “Rose… You, your family, and everyone else here shouldn’t get involved with me; I’m bad luck.”

  She looked at him sympathetically, “I am not that superstitious. If you really are bad luck, I guess we’ll find out soon.”

  “I am feeling better, I could leave right now.”

  “You can leave when you can walk out of here without passing out in the mud” she said with a laugh before leaving the barn.

  He watched her leave and sighed. She was probably right; he wouldn’t go far before falling from exhaustion. For whatever reason he needed to leave, it would have to wait, at least a few days…