Raised By Wolves 1 - Brethren (7 page)

He did not regard me. The silence hung in the room, broken only by the crackle of the flames.

“I apologize. You are not the one I am angry with. You have been…

more of a father to me than he ever was. I do not mean to bring you pain.”

“Oh, Marsy. My Lord, I am honored by that, yet, it is not as it should be.”

“Aye, I know. I will speak to him, and not of the weather or the wine or things of a meaningless nature. And then I may take you up on your offer to go to this Massachusetts.”

He smiled. “You will be welcome if it comes to that; but perhaps it would be best if you stayed and… became accustomed to life here again, or allowed it to become accustomed to you.”

“You feel my father would take more interest in me if I were not a ghost.”

“Correct.” His eyes bored into mine again. “And you cannot kill Shane. As much as you may hate him, for whatever reason you may have. That road will only lead to you hanging from a gibbet or renouncing your title and running for the rest of your days.”

“I understand.” What he said was true. I was known here. If I killed Shane, even in a duel, I would be forced to run. But perhaps it would be worth it. Then at least I would be running from something more tangible, in a fashion, than my own shame. I did not share that thought with him, though, and we discussed pleasanter things until we were weary.

In the morning we went hunting game birds, and had an unremarkable and peaceful time. I knew he had sent word to my family that I was in England, but we did not speak of it. I spent close to a week with him before riding on to find Rucker, whose residence lay in the opposite direction from my father’s lands. Thus I would pass by my uncle’s house on my return, and learn who wished to see me and where.

The sun shone, yet it was cold as I rode east. It matched my mood well. Since the discussion with my uncle, I felt that light had been shed on a great many things. Yet I found myself as numb and frozen as I had felt leaving Florence. I did not know what to think or feel.

Therefore it was easier to do neither; and I had done everything I could to avoid straying into the aegis of either of those twin pillars of human consciousness.

Unfortunately, once on the road, I had little to do but ride and think.

I carefully kept myself on the task of composing my thoughts on my travels into essays of a sort, much as I would do if writing them down, so that when I told Rucker of them, he would not find me completely empty of all the knowledge he had attempted to impart to me.

Ira Rucker had been my tutor from the time I was six until the age of fourteen, when my father dismissed him. I had been his sole pupil –

until Shane came to live with us after his parents died, when I was eight and he was nine.

Even though Shane had been added to our lives, when it came to matters of books and learning, Rucker and I were in a world of our own.

Rucker had given Shane lessons and taught him everything a young gentleman needs to know, but he had paid little attention to Shane beyond that. He had doted on me because I possessed an inquisitive and flexible mind. If anyone else had ignored Shane when we were young, I would have been very vexed. Rucker ignoring Shane was acceptable to me, because I truly did not want to share him, even with Shane.

I had no proof, but I believed Shane was responsible for Rucker’s leaving. Matters were never clearly stated, but someone had intimated that perhaps my relationship with my tutor was a little too much in keeping with that of a teacher and student from the days of ancient Greece. This was complete and utter hog-wallow. My relationship with Rucker had been in all ways chaste, and I had in truth never harbored any thought of that nature concerning the man.

I did recall once discussing the subject of men loving men, in relation to some writings, and learning that Rucker did not favor men in the least. However, he was fond of the idea of men living together away from the distractions of women and children, that they could engage in pure discourse for the sake of intellectual development. To Rucker, sex was an unfortunate byproduct of our basic animal nature, and the need for it was something to be overcome if one wished to engage in the pursuit of knowledge. When this talk occurred, I had been in the bud of my adolescence and had just discovered the interesting things my member could do when aroused. Thus I had thought he was full of manure. My cock has always held a great deal of fascination for me, such that I could never be compelled to ignore it.

Rucker now lived with his sister and brother-in-law, in a modest house in a pleasant little shire. The brother-in-law was a pewtersmith and well respected in the village. They had five children. When last we spoke in person, Rucker had been pleased with his living arrangements, but unhappy with his employment. He was not a man prone to marriage, and despite his vocation, truly abhorred young children. He preferred older students who could engage in discourse and be taught something of use beyond manners, enunciation, letters, and basic arithmetic. Thus he had despised teaching in the local school, where any child reaching adolescence was plucked away and sent into the fields or a trade.

I had visited him often after his dismissal, and seen him a mere month before I left. Still, unlike my uncle’s housekeeper, Rucker’s sister did not recognize me when I arrived; not even my name. Despite the lack of knowledge of my person, she seemed keenly interested in the fact that I was a gentleman coming to call, and immediately asked if my visit was in regard to some form of employment. As I waited for the maid to fetch him, I wondered how long Rucker had been without a position.

At the sight of me, tears filled his eyes; and he embraced me as heartily as my uncle, though he was half the other man’s size. I had forgotten how diminutive he was, and I realized I might have gained a few inches in height after my departure after all. When he pulled away, he looked me up and down again and said quietly, “Lord Marsdale, look at you, you are a man now. Truly. I am overwhelmed. I wondered if…”

A throat was cleared, and we turned to his sister, still standing in the doorway to the parlor. Rucker explained that I, the Viscount of Marsdale, was the Earl of Dorshire’s son. She immediately ordered the maid to bring refreshments. Rucker pointedly chose that we should take our tea in his rooms. The sister seemed dismayed by this; but I was assuredly relieved, as I did not wish to converse with her.

I followed him up the stairs, to a small garret room with a window overlooking the garden – not that one could get close to the window, with the great piles of books on the table before it. Every flat surface that could be used to support paper was overflowing with some form of it. One can forget how books smell until one is surrounded by them in a stuffy space. On the whole, it appeared exactly as his quarters had in my father’s house, only smaller.

He cleared a seat on a chair for me, and I sat.

“I was wondering when and if I would ever see you again,” he said as he perched on the corner of the trunk at the foot of the bed, within an arm’s length of me. The room was so small I thought we would have had more space if we both sat on the bed. Though it was little more than a cot, it took up much of the floor.

“You received my letters?” I asked. “I believe I wrote six.”

“With great delight. I have them still. I am sorry I did not respond with more than two; however, I knew not what to say, really. You were the one seeing things, and it was not as if we corresponded regularly enough to engage in discourse.”

“True. I am the one who should apologize, for both the infrequency of my writing and its relative brevity. Often months would pass, and I would find myself in another season quite to my surprise. And so many things occurred that I did not know where to begin; and I would have had to write books to describe them. And, also, much of what I was engaged in was best not written down in the event my correspondence was apprehended.”

“Do you have time to talk now, or…”

I waved him off. “For the time being, I am at your disposal, good sir.

And I have much I wish to tell you. I have no place I must be. My uncle knows where I am, and will send someone if a matter arises that…” I sighed. “Other than my uncle, I have not seen my family yet, and am not sure of their reception.” I shrugged. “I can take a room at the inn. We are limited only by your own duties.”

He smiled. “Which are none and nothing except for the tasks I choose to set upon myself, which currently involve writing and corresponding with the few friends I have.” He grimaced. “I do not mean to sound maudlin.”

“So you are no longer teaching?”

“I was dismissed, for… filling their minds with unnecessary hog-wallow. That was the mayor’s words to my person, not the nicely worded letter they sent. Apparently I would be allowed to teach them only if I swore not to teach them to think.” We chuckled.

“As you always taught me, men who think have proven to be the most dangerous of all over the course of history,” I said.

“So, have you been a dangerous man?”

I laughed. “I would like to think so.”

“Have you returned here to be dangerous?”

That gave me pause. “Aye, but not in the manner you mean.”

He appeared saddened by this. “Why have you returned?”

We were interrupted by the arrival of our tea; and I used the distraction to consider what I should say. By the time the maid left, I had decided on the truth. So I told him of Florence, and political machinations, and Teresina, and even Alonso and all that had happened in the end, including Vincente’s death and my part in it. I alluded to the intimacy of my relation with Alonso without stating it, and I sensed that he understood. And then I told him of the final discussion I had with Alonso and the decisions I reached that led to my subsequent leave-taking.

When I finished he was sitting with arms crossed, regarding the corner. I knew from times gone by that this posture was contemplative, and not indicative of negativity toward my tale.

He finally looked at me. “May I ask… several questions?”

I nodded.

“When I left your father’s employ, you seemed rather taken with your cousin. I recall being dismayed that you would give so much credence to him, as it always seemed to me that he treated you with great reserve if not coldness. I wished better for you, but I assumed that was the nature of things. A lord’s sons must be discreet and all. So my question is, are, were you intimately involved with him, and what occurred to make you leave?”

“Aye. I loved him. I think once he loved me as well, when we were very young. Later, he deplored his desire for me. He was ashamed. Yet this did not stop him from forcing himself upon me. I stayed at first because I harbored the hope that he would overcome these internal conflicts he seemed obsessed with. Then there was that last straw, and I felt I had no other recourse than to kill him, so I left.”

I was rather proud of myself; I had managed to say all of that without bawling. He fished a bottle from a drawer in his nightstand and handed it to me. I took a long pull and found it to be brandy.

He took a drink after I did. He was contemplative again.

“My Lord, there was nothing you could do, was there? May I ask why you did not kill him? Obviously you would have faced arrest and trial and… Well, obviously you could not. Unless you ran as you did, but then you would never have been able to return. So there, I may have answered it.”

“Nay, I thought none of that at the time. I was confused. On one hand, I still loved him and could not simply take his life unawares; and on the other, I did not think I was capable of winning a duel with him. All of those days I spent reading, he spent practicing more martial pursuits.”

“And now?” he asked: curiously, without censure.

“Now I believe I possess far more experience than he could have gained in actual combat. I have not heard that he has been in the military; and even if he had, officers often make the worst duelists. If he had engaged in the things I have, he would have been forced to leave as many cities as myself.”

“Hmmm, an excellent observation, I think, though I know nothing of combat myself. And now, what will you do?”

“I have oft fantasized about challenging him and running him through. Yet…”

“That would allow him to destroy your life completely.”

I nodded, as he had just put into words the thing my mind had been dancing around for days. “It is a hateful irony. I met eight boys on the road between London and my uncle’s. Orphans and castoffs, they were homeless and unwanted. I could have slaughtered the lot of them, and even if someone by some odd chance ever traced the crime to me, I would not be punished. But in truth, they would never trace the crime to me, as it would not be seen as a crime, but more as clearing vermin.

Yet, my cousin could do what he did and I cannot bring charges against him, because of the nature of the offense and because of our station.

And I will be hounded out of England and hanged, if caught, for taking the matter into my own hands”.

He smiled sadly and handed the bottle to me again. “I am sorry.”

I shook my head. “Thank you. There were those who could have…

interceded, and did not, but that is another matter. You were gone before the situation became… well, before it escalated into a war.

Looking back on it all, it was always intolerable after a fashion. I was just too naïve to know.”

“So what will…” He stopped and thought. “What did you do with those boys you met? Did you toss them a coin and ride on?” His gaze was almost predatory, and I recognized it from the classroom. He was testing me.

“I spent the night with them in an abandoned barn, shared what food I had, and left them with some silver and a pistol. I do not know if I did them any great service by that. It was all I could conceive of at the time to ease their situation.”

He chuckled ruefully. “I feel you have to arm a great number of sheep before they can save themselves.”

“As do I.”

“If… you are not irreconcilably estranged from your family – not Shane, but your father – then you will inherit his title, will you not?”