The wanderer, p.1
The Wanderer, page 1
part #1 of The Nogud Legacy Series
Contents
Title Page
Preface to Book One
Chapter 1 The Wanderer
Chapter 2 The Nogud
Chapter 3 The Market
Chapter 4 Viola
Chapter 5 A Plan For A Home
Chapter 6 The Truth of The Nogud Revealed
Chapter 7 At the Inn, Unleashing a Beast
Chapter 8 Walking Home With Paul and Susan
Chapter 9 Dinner With Paul and His Household
Chapter 10 Yuki Tells About the Merchant of Women
Chapter 11 Yuki Hears the Plans
Chapter 12 Back at the Inn
Chapter 13 The Wizard
Chapter 14 The Wizard's Oath
Chapter 15 First Baptisms
Chapter 16 Second Baptisms
Chapter 17 Bawdy Discussions
Chapter 18 The New Blessing
Chapter 19 Let's Go Swimming
Chapter 20 After Lunch
Chapter 21 The Jeweler
Chapter 22 Lounging Before Dinner
Chapter 23 We Are All Wizards
Chapter 24 Business with Grayson
Chapter 25 After Dinner Conversation
Chapter 26 The Jensen Family Crest
Chapter 27 Using a Weapon
Chapter 28 The Sign of Joshua
Chapter 29 Walking With Yuki
Afterword
About The Author
Other Series by The Author
The Wanderer
The Nogud Legacy Book 1
Marilyn Foxworthy
Revised and Corrected 3rd Edition
Copyright © 2018 Marilyn Foxworthy
All rights reserved.
My name is Marilyn. I’ve written before about some of the remarkable men of the Jensen Family. This time, we are hearing the story of Joshua, a man with no memory. This is the first book of his story.
I call it “The Nogud Legacy, Book 1: The Wanderer”. That’s how it starts. It starts with Joshua wandering down a road in the early morning. He doesn’t know where he’s from or where he’s going. But he knows that he needs help. He needs a friend.
Well, ready? Our story starts on a road, early in the morning…
But first, before you turn the page, beware of several things that you’ll find on the other side of this door. I warn you now. Here’s what you should know before you decide to read the story of our hero and his wonderful life:
The story is, at times, highly sexual. At times graphically so. If that isn’t what you want to read, you better stop right now. Take the book back to the store and get your money back. There’s a lot of sex.
The story is long. It isn’t a quick read for a single afternoon. In fact, the tale is several volumes long. This is probably just one book of an epic saga. The entire series is long. If you want a short little diversion, stop now. If you get hooked on the story and spend more time than you wanted to reading, and possibly rereading, the entire adventure, maybe that’s my fault, but I make no apologies for it.
Spoiler alert: And this refers back to point 1, our hero is remarkable in many ways, but one of those is how several women may fall in love with him at the same time. And because he’s so remarkable, they generally have no jealousy between them. I’ll leave it to you to read how that plays out, but if the implications disturb you, I recommend a more traditional ‘Bodice-Ripper’ romance. OK, let’s just spell it out: there’s probably going to be some harem elements to the story. Heroes know how to satisfy. But, pay attention to the next point…about the allegory aspects of that.
Allegory alert: If you read the story correctly, many of the people, especially the women related to the primary hero in the story, will actually represent different aspects of the same person. As people, we are complex beings. You will find explanations of the ‘oneness’ of the characters, so keep in mind that what may sound polygamous, may actually be an allegory of one monogamous relationship. Or don’t. You can read it however you want to, but it was written in many respects as an allegory. That doesn’t make it any less fun. It does make it more like eroticism for philosophers though.
The story was written by me, but in the same style as my other books, as if our hero had kept journals of his adventures, and I just edited and published them. That may have been more the case in some books than others, but it’s the style I enjoy right now. I was a fan of the great pulp writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs, and I think it influenced the language and style to some extent.
I’ve tried to write the story in a way that’s easy for text-to-speech reader software to make sense of. I love listening to the stories myself, and I use a text-to-speech program on my phone or computer, and while I’m exercising or driving. I find that the rereading isn’t perfect, but it’s adequate. Some of the words will be mispronounced consistently, but you can probably tell what’s being said. For example, “I wound up being wounded” won’t pronounce the two different renderings of “wound” correctly, but you’ll be able to follow the story well enough. Also, to make it clear who’s speaking, a lot of the dialog starts with “He said, …” and “She asked, …” to try to make it more listener friendly. Otherwise, it might have been written differently.
You may notice frequent references to quoted movie lines, song lyrics, and passages from other books. They may seem obscure. If you find something that one of the characters says to be a bit weird, it’s probably a movie line. You can look it up on the Internet or something if you want to. If you get it, that’s fun. If not, I hope you don’t feel like you’re missing the joke
Refer to point 1, above. Really. I’m not kidding. It gets graphic. And pay attention to points 3 and 4 as well. You have been warned. And, just so you know what to expect, there’s no sexual humiliation, violence, bondage, or anything like that presented in any erotic way. If that’s what you’re looking for, something darker, this isn’t for you. There’s a lot of sex, but it is portrayed as respectful, consensual, and loving.
Happy trolls.
Chapter 1 The Wanderer
I was walking down a dirt road with trees on each side. One foot in front of the other. The road was more or less straight, but it curved this way and that slightly. My eyes kept me on the path, but any details of what was around me went unnoticed. I walked, one foot in front of the other, down the road. I had no thought of where I was going. I was walking.
After a time, I had no idea how long, I felt myself. What I mean is that until now, I had no remembrance of any feeling. Now, I started to feel things. I felt the sun on my face. I felt my foot hit the ground. I felt the weight of my clothing. I seemed to be carrying something on my back. It didn’t surprise me; I’d always felt myself and my feet and if there was a weight on my shoulders. Everyone does that and we don’t pay any attention to it. We carry our weight and we walk down the road.
Farther on, I noticed that the sun was on my face and rising as I walked. It was higher now than it had been. I think it was, anyway. That was normal. As you walk down a road, the sun either rises or sets. Unless you have somewhere to be, you pay no attention. You keep walking, one step at a time. It seemed that the day was lighter now; the sun was higher. It had been darker before. I stepped to the side of the road to move out of the way of a man with an ox and a cart traveling the opposite direction. He passed me and I continued walking. The sun had been on my face, so I must be walking toward the east. The man with the cart must have been going west. I wondered where he was going and why he’d chosen the opposite direction from the direction that I was headed.
It struck me slowly that it was an odd question and something was wrong. What was wrong? There was something wrong about the way that I was thinking about all of this. I felt myself frown as I tried to question myself about…something that I couldn’t quite grasp.
I was walking east. The man traveled west. He had every right to travel west, if that was where he was going. Why would I pay any attention to it? He traveled west. I walked east. Why did that feel strange? I kept walking, and I kept thinking. Thinking seemed hard right now. I seemed to still be partially asleep. Perhaps I was asleep. Or maybe I was walking and sleeping at the same time.
The man was traveling west. He had an ox and a cart. The place he was going was behind me. The place I was going was in front of me.
I stopped. I hung my head and closed my eyes. I stayed that way, with my eyes closed and my head low, for about 100 beats of my heart. After that, I opened my eyes and raised my head and looked down the dirt road. Toward the east.
There was my answer. Well, one answer. There were a lot of questions that I hadn’t asked yet, but I was about to.
Why did the man travel west? Because his destination was to the west.
Why did I walk to the east? I had no idea. Where was I going? I had no idea about that either. How long had I been walking? I didn’t know.
That seemed odd, but it didn’t frighten or disturb me. Not yet, anyway. I started walking again. But now, I had something to occupy me. Why was I walking east? It must be either because I was going somewhere and it was to the east, or because I had nowhere to go and I was walking at random. Either way, I was headed in the right direction. Should I turn around and follow the man with the cart? He knew where he was going. At least I assumed so. He was going somewhere. If I followed him, then I’d be going somewhere. But I might already be going somewhere. If I turned around, I’d be going to where the man was going. If I kept walking east, I’d be going to the place that the man had come from. Either way, there must be somewhere to go, both in fron t of me and behind me. I would keep going east. Eventually I’d come to the place that the man had come from.
My head seemed a little clearer now. I had reasoned something out. I knew where I was going. I had understood the separation between myself and the man with the ox. I was me and I was headed east. He was a different person and he was headed west. That might seem like an obvious thing, but I had walked for no one knows how long without even feeling myself as a person. This seemed to be a step forward.
Now I had another question. I wasn’t frightened of it either. I didn’t know enough about anything yet to recognize what should be frightening and what shouldn’t.
There had been a man with an ox and a cart. He had passed me going the opposite direction. Who was he? It didn’t matter. What might matter, though it didn’t matter much right now was, who was I?
Who was I and how did I get here? Where had I come from? I already knew that I didn’t know where I was going, but where was I coming from? How long had I been traveling? Where was I now? Some of these questions had easy answers; immediate answers. I was me. I had walked here. I had come from the west and I was going to the east. They weren’t very helpful answers, but they were something. As for how long or where or why, there weren’t any answers right now.
That struck me as funny. I smiled as I tried to puzzle it out. First, who am I? Let’s see. I’m a man. I remember that. There are men and women, and I’m a man. There was the man and his ox and his cart. I know what an ox and a cart are. This is a dirt road. I know what dirt and a road and trees are. I said these things out loud and thought, “Good, I know how to speak.”
Again, who am I? I must have a name. I remember that people have names. Do I know any names of people? My name is…what? My name is Jensen. My last name is Jensen. What about a first name? What do people call me? Joshua. Joshua Jensen. My name is Joshua Jensen and I’m walking down a road headed east to a place that a man with an ox had come from earlier. I’m carrying something on my back. I’m wearing shoes and blue jeans and a long sleeved cotton shirt. I wish that I had a hat. It’s before noon. I feel like I’ve been walking a long time. My legs feel tired. I think that I’m hungry. I hope that I come to a place to rest and eat soon.
I walked, one foot in front of the other, but I felt happy to know my name and as much as I did.
In my current state, it was difficult to estimate time, but after a while, I turned a slight bend in the road and saw what looked like an old country village up ahead. This was good. I’d found the place that I was going. Well, as far as I knew, anyway. A few hundred yards more walking and I entered the place.
There were people. Men and women and children and horses and oxen and carts. No one paid much attention to me as I walked up the street of the village. A few people looked askance at me for some reason, but no one engaged me or even spoke to me. I could overhear some of their communication, and the accent was very strange, but for the most part I did understand them. If I had spoken, my own speech would certainly have identified me as an outsider.
I approached what seemed to be the village square, with a market and various shops and stalls, and a crowd of men that were gathered around some kind of event. As I drew closer, I could see a raised platform with several people standing on it, and one man addressing the crowd of onlookers. I moved carefully closer to the front of the gathering, making every effort not to jostle or bump anyone; I didn’t want to offend any strangers if I could help it.
Wait, I remembered something else. Yes, if you’re in a strange place, try not to offend strangers. And if at all possible, it was probably a good idea to try to make a friend. I didn’t know much, but I’d seen enough television and movies to know that when you find yourself in a strange village with no idea about the customs or laws, that you should make a friend of a local who’ll help you learn the ropes. Hey! I knew what television and movies were! That was something, too. Find another person who maybe was a bit outside the main of the society that you find yourself lost in and make a friend to help you navigate.
But be careful. Don’t trust taxi drivers or people who want money from you. How did I know that? What was a taxi driver? Did I have any money? Anyway, look for a friend. Someone as much in need of a friend as yourself. That was probably a good goal for right now. Did any of these people need a friend right now? Probably not. What was I looking for? Not a taxi driver.
I listened to the man on the platform, and figured out more of the local dialect, and I was surprised to learn that this was more or less a slave auction. Sort of. Not exactly a slave auction though. It seemed to have to do with women who had no homes. I didn’t quite follow it. Everyone, even the women seemed happy about what was going on. For now I could think of it as an auction, but it seemed like there was a difference.
The man called out, “Well done!” to a man in the crowd who had just made an agreement for the previous sale…or agreement…or whatever was going on. Not a sale. He’d said, ‘Arrangement’.
He continued, “Now, next we have a good woman, recently widowed. She cooks and cleans and knows how to raise livestock. She was with her previous mate for twenty years and served him well. Any man would be lucky to have her in his house. We start at 100.”
Well, I thought, this is an auction. For wives or mates? But this woman was married and is a widow, not a slave. I think it’s a job application. They’re seeing who wants to hire a housekeeper. Or are they?
A man next to me murmured, “A hundred is too much. Well, too much for me.”
I turned to him and smiled and he nodded his head toward the platform and said, “She is sturdy and she looks healthy. She may even be able to keep a man warm in his bed,” and he nudged me with his elbow, “but a hundred is too much for me.”
I looked at the woman in question up on the platform. She wore a white, course, cloth dress and no shoes. She smiled and tried to make herself look attractive to the men gathered around me. Her hair was combed and pulled back in a long pony tail. As she waited on the platform, she swayed from side to side in what appeared to be an effort to look warm and womanly. As the minutes went by and no bids were offered, she reached down and took hold of her dress and pulled it upward to show off her calves, and finally her thighs, as high as half way above her knees.
The man beside me said, “Oh, what the hell,” and he shouted, “Fifty!”
The man running the sale said, “I have fifty. She’s a very good woman. Do I hear more? Gentlemen, you see how pleasant she is. How eager to please you and to be productive in your homes both day and night? How firm and sturdy she is? And, I assure you, she is, as I’ve said, very skillful.”
Another shouted, “Sixty!”
The one next to me whispered, “I’m a fool, but I could use a woman who knows livestock. I may not take her as a mate, but who knows,” and he shouted “Seventy!”
The seller worked a few minutes more, trying to increase the bid, but finally said, “Done. For seventy. Sir, you’ve made a good arrangement. You’ll see.”
I thought that was interesting in some way. They call it an arrangement. The man paid 70 something to secure an arrangement with the auctioneer and a woman who was good with livestock.
The woman seemed very happy and she walked quickly to the table where the auctioneer’s assistant took care of the paperwork and payments.
The man beside me said, “I hope you find someone. You came late and there isn’t much left. The good ones were gone some time ago, but this one will be fine. I hope that I didn’t overpay,” and he made his way to the payment table.
I wondered if the man was the friend that I needed, but it seemed not. I stayed and watched.
The bidding process was repeated two more times. The auctioneer talked up the merits of the woman on display, I mean, on the platform, and suggested a starting bid, but got only half that to start. The second sale, or arrangement, was for 50 and the third for just 45.
At that point, the crowd began to disburse.
I heard some of the men say, “That’s it for today. All he has left are the Nogud. I have no interest in those.”
The seller tried to get his customers to stay saying, “Gentlemen, wait. This one is still useful. Please. Stay for a moment. You have tasks in your houses that even one of these can do. I’m very reasonable. Please!” but the crowd continued to disburse.
