*
The tiny abandoned office spun relentlessly around Trente as he held the blood soaked rag to his face. The blood just kept pumping from him, though it slowed steadily as he perched his legs upward on the desk before him, head declined back in Hadrian's expensive chair which he had been nearly bound to.
What a sight it must have been for Trente's son when he stumbled into the room, witnessing the viscus smears of wet crimson upon the door's edge, and the variable shower of blood which his father had been reduced to. It covered his once fair face, and arm, his white shirt nearly entirely saturated. Really it was less blood than it appeared, but to a child? Trente pondered what reaction the boy must have been having within that tiny mind of his. Perhaps he thought that his beloved Hadrian would be cross at the mess?
Then the child stumbled inexpertly and vomited into one of the cleaner portions of flooring near the corner of the modest office, and Trente felt the reaction rather fitting.
He summoned what focus and strength he had left and braced for the pain as he spoke, loose jawed so as to avoid the piercing pain. "Run, bring me my weapons, a bucket of water and a clean pair of clothing."
The child was nothing if no obedient to commands, he arrived with a stack of cloth, topped by weapons lay side by side, still sheathed in their strong leather holsters. Behind him trailed an orphan, tall without much meat to call his own, one of the twelve that survived the plague driven winter, and perhaps the only friend Matilis had made, carrying a deep bucket of boiled water in strained hands. Trente was displeased to see the second child, and wondered if they knew the news of what had happened. The older child's baleful eyes portrayed a certain yes.
Trente was impressed at Wrenmae's timely efforts, though not entirely pleased. He was curious enough to consider asking the child of the show, and it looked like, to confirm his suspicions, but time wouldn't allow for that, not now that news had begun to spread
The orphan glared as Trente's boy stripped away the spoiled cloth and dabbed anew with cleaner ones, then produced a wrap of needles and thread folded within some of Lily's prepared kits.
"Thomas said Lily is out, errands to restock after the festival. So I figured I should-" Matilis spoke in his perpetually childish voice, one that ground at Trente's nerves more so than perhaps it should. He had hoped to take advantage of Lily's sympathies one more time before his departure, but the boy would have to do.
He interrupted Matilis and let out a pained "Do it," accompanied with a stern glare, which to Trente meant determination, and to Matilis meant something akin to a threat.
Matilis swallowed hard and continued cleaning the aging wound, thankful his stomach sat empty, for the gaping wounds upon his father's face churned something visceral and uncontrollable in him.
The needle work was clumsy at best, and more than once Trente fought the urge to send the child careening across the room in a fit of defensive pain, but he knew the child could do better than himself and a mirror, so he allowed his son to work unmolested. Matilis' time with the Konti had paid off, and though his arms were unfit for a proper fight, and legs unfit for a proper escape, his tiny fingers showed promise of dexterity in the future. Trente only wished that future, that skill, would have come then to save him the discomfort.
Divots were left upon Hadrian's soft seat by the time Matilis had finished his knots, and Trente's nails were parted and bleeding. He took a moment of careful breathing, his eyes closed tight, following the suture. It confounded him how much the reprieve from the constant pain seemed almost a sick pleasure, but the throbbing turned to pain again with only short pause. When it did his eye lids slowly lifted and he looked to his child, mirrored mesmerizing eyes peered back.
With a voice betraying the effort necessary to remain steady of speech he commanded, "Gather one pair of clothes for you and I, a set of toiletries. Bring me my quill paper ink, and the entire chest of our allowance. Do not lose a single coin, we are leaving at sunset. Hurry."
Matilis' eyes grew wide in fear. He knew, Trente realized. He had heard or Trente's trespasses, and he wouldn't want to leave. It was not Matilis who spoke first, however, but the orphan boy. "Ya can't take 'im, murderer! Ev'yone knows wat ya' did! They're guna throw ye' in the dungeons to rott, er worse!"
His words did not particularly upset Trente, he studied the boy's face. Were it not for his rotten teeth and over abundance of faded freckles he would have, perhaps, been an attractive child. The orphanage wardens had kept him clean, and his hair well trimmed. Even his clothing had been improved, and his face cusped on that of a young mans. It would be a true shame if he never made it to his coming of age.
Following his nasty words the boy made his true mistake, he took Trente's pain for a sign of weakness, or sluggishness. He lunged forward to grab hold of the sheathes, but grasped at only cloth. Trente has his rapier drawn in a practiced liquid moment, and had its tip levied evenly toward the child's soft unprotected throat.
Matilis yelped something roughly resembling a command to stop, but the older boy wizened up with the feel of cold steel, and remained silent as a mime.
"No," Trente responded without hesitation, "You will go to my dorm and retrieve what I requested, then you shall return here and we, together, shall leave. If this is done before sunset your friend will live. Do you understand, child?" Matilis' eyes filled with the wetness of Laviku's ocean, and Trente for a moment recalled the last moment a man crossed his son. He refused to fear the child, however. Refused.
"I want to stay here," he declared weakly.
Trente retorted again without hesitation, "Do you prefer remain with the corpse of your friend, or leave knowing he is safe. It, no doubt, would be a shame for the cur to die after surviving the blighted winter, would it not, child?"
Matilis responded with nothing, he only turned and moved deliberately for the doorway. Trente's last words lingered after him as he departed, "Tell no soul or your orphaned friend shall be filleted in a moment."
Trente leveled cold heartless eyes upon the orphaned child and placed him coercively under arrest into the bloody chair. He bound the child in the lengths of braided strands he was so glad not to have dawned earlier that morning with simple knots, folding strands in on themselves, as he had witnessed the pirates do time and time again in his own youth, till the child had no chance of wriggling free unnoticed.
He then lay his weapon down and peeled the drying shirt from his chest, leaving it in a wet pile beside the deep bucket.
So quiet it seemed, save the first of the peaceful spring birds singing outside the window. Trente rung clean the excess from a once whitened cloth, and drew it to his neck to begin working away the dried blood upon his body.
The serenity lasted only a chime before the orphan's voice rung again, this time a spiteful low tone. "You're a monster."
Trente winced as he fought the pain of his attempted smile. It was effortless, for what the child spoke was funny. "No, orphan, I am only a person. I am nothing as unique as a monster. No, those lurk in your future, waiting for you. You will see, some day, and if you survive you will know that what I speak is wisdom. If you die, then you shall know nothing, and I suppose we will all know nothing has changed. Words shared with orphans are still wasted, for you are nothing." Trente's cruelty was hardly called for, the child could in fact be mistaken for brave, speaking against Trente as he was, but Trente was hungry and tired, and most of all injured. How much he would have to give up because of Hound and his maniacal plotting.
Red water streamed along smooth flesh to soak into the rim of his pants as he washed the blood from his skin, ringing it lazily into the bucket.
"Matilis doesn't belong wit ye, he belong 'ere wit us." His voice firmer this time, likely not even understanding Trente's former retort.
With a light sigh Trente responded with the tiniest of scoffing laughs, "No, I suppose he doesn't belong with me does he?" He spared a bemused glance to the child, still struggling against his bindings, "but he does belong to me, and let the gods strike me down now if I am going to allow him to live like an orphan."
The orphan grew unexpectedly quiet to this remark, and Trente could tell this meant something more profound than he had intended. Trente could not boast any outstanding care for his son, but it was true, he was unwilling to leave him in the care of some wardens in an ancient orphanage, despite what the child wished for himself. No, Matilis was his son, and he would not endure life away from him. Instead, Trente supposed, he would need to endure life with his father, as treacherous and pitiable a life as that might become at times. He would not be absent, not as the gods had been with him.
It did not change the facts of things, Matilis was his, and he was Matilis'. How cruel fate could be.
Trente finished stripping free his clothing and washing himself clean of the scent of his own blood, awaiting his son's return, sparing enough words to learn of his own crimes.
*
1st of Spring, 513
The tiny abandoned office spun relentlessly around Trente as he held the blood soaked rag to his face. The blood just kept pumping from him, though it slowed steadily as he perched his legs upward on the desk before him, head declined back in Hadrian's expensive chair which he had been nearly bound to.
What a sight it must have been for Trente's son when he stumbled into the room, witnessing the viscus smears of wet crimson upon the door's edge, and the variable shower of blood which his father had been reduced to. It covered his once fair face, and arm, his white shirt nearly entirely saturated. Really it was less blood than it appeared, but to a child? Trente pondered what reaction the boy must have been having within that tiny mind of his. Perhaps he thought that his beloved Hadrian would be cross at the mess?
Then the child stumbled inexpertly and vomited into one of the cleaner portions of flooring near the corner of the modest office, and Trente felt the reaction rather fitting.
He summoned what focus and strength he had left and braced for the pain as he spoke, loose jawed so as to avoid the piercing pain. "Run, bring me my weapons, a bucket of water and a clean pair of clothing."
The child was nothing if no obedient to commands, he arrived with a stack of cloth, topped by weapons lay side by side, still sheathed in their strong leather holsters. Behind him trailed an orphan, tall without much meat to call his own, one of the twelve that survived the plague driven winter, and perhaps the only friend Matilis had made, carrying a deep bucket of boiled water in strained hands. Trente was displeased to see the second child, and wondered if they knew the news of what had happened. The older child's baleful eyes portrayed a certain yes.
Trente was impressed at Wrenmae's timely efforts, though not entirely pleased. He was curious enough to consider asking the child of the show, and it looked like, to confirm his suspicions, but time wouldn't allow for that, not now that news had begun to spread
The orphan glared as Trente's boy stripped away the spoiled cloth and dabbed anew with cleaner ones, then produced a wrap of needles and thread folded within some of Lily's prepared kits.
"Thomas said Lily is out, errands to restock after the festival. So I figured I should-" Matilis spoke in his perpetually childish voice, one that ground at Trente's nerves more so than perhaps it should. He had hoped to take advantage of Lily's sympathies one more time before his departure, but the boy would have to do.
He interrupted Matilis and let out a pained "Do it," accompanied with a stern glare, which to Trente meant determination, and to Matilis meant something akin to a threat.
Matilis swallowed hard and continued cleaning the aging wound, thankful his stomach sat empty, for the gaping wounds upon his father's face churned something visceral and uncontrollable in him.
The needle work was clumsy at best, and more than once Trente fought the urge to send the child careening across the room in a fit of defensive pain, but he knew the child could do better than himself and a mirror, so he allowed his son to work unmolested. Matilis' time with the Konti had paid off, and though his arms were unfit for a proper fight, and legs unfit for a proper escape, his tiny fingers showed promise of dexterity in the future. Trente only wished that future, that skill, would have come then to save him the discomfort.
Divots were left upon Hadrian's soft seat by the time Matilis had finished his knots, and Trente's nails were parted and bleeding. He took a moment of careful breathing, his eyes closed tight, following the suture. It confounded him how much the reprieve from the constant pain seemed almost a sick pleasure, but the throbbing turned to pain again with only short pause. When it did his eye lids slowly lifted and he looked to his child, mirrored mesmerizing eyes peered back.
With a voice betraying the effort necessary to remain steady of speech he commanded, "Gather one pair of clothes for you and I, a set of toiletries. Bring me my quill paper ink, and the entire chest of our allowance. Do not lose a single coin, we are leaving at sunset. Hurry."
Matilis' eyes grew wide in fear. He knew, Trente realized. He had heard or Trente's trespasses, and he wouldn't want to leave. It was not Matilis who spoke first, however, but the orphan boy. "Ya can't take 'im, murderer! Ev'yone knows wat ya' did! They're guna throw ye' in the dungeons to rott, er worse!"
His words did not particularly upset Trente, he studied the boy's face. Were it not for his rotten teeth and over abundance of faded freckles he would have, perhaps, been an attractive child. The orphanage wardens had kept him clean, and his hair well trimmed. Even his clothing had been improved, and his face cusped on that of a young mans. It would be a true shame if he never made it to his coming of age.
Following his nasty words the boy made his true mistake, he took Trente's pain for a sign of weakness, or sluggishness. He lunged forward to grab hold of the sheathes, but grasped at only cloth. Trente has his rapier drawn in a practiced liquid moment, and had its tip levied evenly toward the child's soft unprotected throat.
Matilis yelped something roughly resembling a command to stop, but the older boy wizened up with the feel of cold steel, and remained silent as a mime.
"No," Trente responded without hesitation, "You will go to my dorm and retrieve what I requested, then you shall return here and we, together, shall leave. If this is done before sunset your friend will live. Do you understand, child?" Matilis' eyes filled with the wetness of Laviku's ocean, and Trente for a moment recalled the last moment a man crossed his son. He refused to fear the child, however. Refused.
"I want to stay here," he declared weakly.
Trente retorted again without hesitation, "Do you prefer remain with the corpse of your friend, or leave knowing he is safe. It, no doubt, would be a shame for the cur to die after surviving the blighted winter, would it not, child?"
Matilis responded with nothing, he only turned and moved deliberately for the doorway. Trente's last words lingered after him as he departed, "Tell no soul or your orphaned friend shall be filleted in a moment."
Trente leveled cold heartless eyes upon the orphaned child and placed him coercively under arrest into the bloody chair. He bound the child in the lengths of braided strands he was so glad not to have dawned earlier that morning with simple knots, folding strands in on themselves, as he had witnessed the pirates do time and time again in his own youth, till the child had no chance of wriggling free unnoticed.
He then lay his weapon down and peeled the drying shirt from his chest, leaving it in a wet pile beside the deep bucket.
So quiet it seemed, save the first of the peaceful spring birds singing outside the window. Trente rung clean the excess from a once whitened cloth, and drew it to his neck to begin working away the dried blood upon his body.
The serenity lasted only a chime before the orphan's voice rung again, this time a spiteful low tone. "You're a monster."
Trente winced as he fought the pain of his attempted smile. It was effortless, for what the child spoke was funny. "No, orphan, I am only a person. I am nothing as unique as a monster. No, those lurk in your future, waiting for you. You will see, some day, and if you survive you will know that what I speak is wisdom. If you die, then you shall know nothing, and I suppose we will all know nothing has changed. Words shared with orphans are still wasted, for you are nothing." Trente's cruelty was hardly called for, the child could in fact be mistaken for brave, speaking against Trente as he was, but Trente was hungry and tired, and most of all injured. How much he would have to give up because of Hound and his maniacal plotting.
Red water streamed along smooth flesh to soak into the rim of his pants as he washed the blood from his skin, ringing it lazily into the bucket.
"Matilis doesn't belong wit ye, he belong 'ere wit us." His voice firmer this time, likely not even understanding Trente's former retort.
With a light sigh Trente responded with the tiniest of scoffing laughs, "No, I suppose he doesn't belong with me does he?" He spared a bemused glance to the child, still struggling against his bindings, "but he does belong to me, and let the gods strike me down now if I am going to allow him to live like an orphan."
The orphan grew unexpectedly quiet to this remark, and Trente could tell this meant something more profound than he had intended. Trente could not boast any outstanding care for his son, but it was true, he was unwilling to leave him in the care of some wardens in an ancient orphanage, despite what the child wished for himself. No, Matilis was his son, and he would not endure life away from him. Instead, Trente supposed, he would need to endure life with his father, as treacherous and pitiable a life as that might become at times. He would not be absent, not as the gods had been with him.
It did not change the facts of things, Matilis was his, and he was Matilis'. How cruel fate could be.
Trente finished stripping free his clothing and washing himself clean of the scent of his own blood, awaiting his son's return, sparing enough words to learn of his own crimes.
*
