OMG I am alive! No joke.
Author: Aiisling
Title: The Inherent Dangers of Pity and Love: A Plaude fic of 15th century Italy (Entry 10)
Pairing: Peter/Claude
Rating: PG-13
Warnings/Spoilers: Rape/incest is involved in this story.
Summary: By the time the 1400's rolled about, Italy existed primarily as five major city states, one of them being Florence. This is a story about a Prince of that esteemed and powerful city, Pietro Petrelli, Claude Raines, a beggar on the run from powerful enemies, and the ever-impressive Catholic Inquisition.
Installment X: The story so far: Pietro rescued Claude from his brother, Natanaele,'s hitherto unknown dungeon. Claude spends a week or so recovering from his extensive wounds, which Pietro tends. Several days in Pietro returns to the Petrelli family villa to find his brother in his room. Darkness ensues. Eventually Pietro manages to escape and find Claude, who witnessed everything from miles away and has left to try and find Pietro. They are reunited at dawn, alone and dying in the woods. The story recommences from this point.
Author's notes: So college. So far I am utterly in LOVE with it! THough it has kept me from my writing. Sorry, luvs. Can't promise it'll get better, though. Here's the next entry for those who want to read it! I'll post as I can though that might not be very often. Gonna go read my history text now XD
Links to past entries: http://aiisling.livejournal.com/tag/the+inherent+dangers+of+pity+and+love
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The Inherent Dangers of Pity and Love
Installment X
Hana Gittelmen had no concious. It had been burned out of her by the thousand tiny humiliations that came from growing up Jewish in Espana. By the time she was nine she’d lost two uncles to violent drunks and city riots. At the age of eleven her heritage was stripped from her and buried behind the false mask of the converso, a new Christian converted to avoid death at the hands of the jealous and power hungry mob. When she was fifteen her family was killed, slaughtered in a massacre that cleansed Cordoba of its Jews -both suspected and proven- with steaming, innocent blood. Her grandfather, a Christian with a Christian’s name and features, fled deeper into Spain with his young granddaughter, erasing their past with a generous sprinkling of money. Someone guessed, though- perhaps it was her brown hair, the set of her nose- for she woke one morning to grasping hands and stabbing knives. Her grandfather was killed, or so she presumed, stabbed before her eyes and then tossed from a window as they attempted to do the same to her. The killers were stupid, however, and young, and in the end they cared more about stealing the family’s silver than mutilating what they assumed was a dead body. This was a mistake. Much later Hana returned to the town and killed them in turn.
Eventually she came under the care of an elderly widow who tended to her wounds before sending her away. Years past, and Hana Perdurar, as she was now known, drifted across Europe. Where she went along the way is unimportant, as are the people she met and the thoughts she had. What matters is what she learned. In her years of travel Hana became a human shadow, able to find information with unparalleled success.
One day a deal went bad, as they so often do. Hana found herself dying, abandoned in the stinking bowels of a ship with nothing but her emptiness to keep her company. It was here that the Prince of Florence found her, offered her a purpose. In that moment he also gained something she’d not known she still possessed in her dark and twisted soul; loyalty. So when her Prince asked her to keep an eye on his brother she did not ask why- she already knew, after all- but simply did as she was bid. Returned to the shadows, followed in the dark, learned more secrets to hide away in the vast caverns of her mind. Thus she was present at that hushed moment when dawn awoke in the woods.
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It was a miracle.
Claude had not believed in that word for a very, very long time. Old betrayals had burned it out of him, fresh cynicism kept it away. Now, however, as he lay dying in a woodland glade, he found that it had returned to him in the sly form of a wounded boy. The final effort he had expended to reach the lad had removed the healing work of days, reopened lacerations, stolen the will from his limbs. But moments before it had been he who comforted Pietro, gripped him strong in the circle of his arms. Now, however, as his strength failed, he slid to the ground. His vision was the first to go, dancing with ugly spots in front of fading blue eyes. Then the numbness set in, dulling pain and sapping life from the tips of his fingers inwards. Pietro had finally noticed when Claude hit the dirt, his eyes already closing as he fought to stay alive, keep his promise. The boy’s words changed, ragged throat whispering no, pleading with him not to go.
Suddenly white light, not black, filled the space behind his the hoods of his eyes. A new strength flushed into empty veins and vessels. It came not from within but flowed into him from every scrap of skin that touched the boy. As the burning, life giving heat expanded to caress the cells of his body Claude felt his eyesight return. He could look up, sit up, find wonder in the naked terror that rolled from Pietro’s eyes to wet the dry dirt. Everything was more vivid, more real than it had been moments before. The boy hicupped and began to tremble as the blood stopped its slow exodus from Claude’s body.
“Why is this happening to me?” Pietro whispered, his voice low, the gentle cadences of his lyrical tongue stolen from his lips before the break of day. In response Claude lifted a calloused finger and wiped away a trembling teardrop with surprising gentleness.
“Know not,” came the inelegant answer. It was impossible. The lad could turn invisible, like him. A coincidence, of course; but how to explain this? And he’d sworn the boy had flown that morning. Looking into those wounded eyes, Claude wished for a thousand things; that he could answer the boy, that he’d not sent him away -was it just that night? It seemed as though days had passed, years, since that frozen moment in time.
“I’m cold,” Pietro whispered, closing frowning eyes and leaning long hair against a remarkably whole chest. Claude hesitated a moment before wrapping his arms around the younger man’s naked form. It was then that Claude did something he’d sworn never to do again; he prayed. It was silent, clumsy, but somehow clear. He asked for strength, for guidance, and safety for that which he’d sworn to protect. For a moment he thought he heard someone reply. It was soft, and safe, everything that had ever been good.
“Oh!” Claude’s head whipped around to find the source of the very real voice which had broken his reverie. Instinctively he sheltered Pietro with his body, turning quickly to find the speaker. At the edge of the clearing stood a peasant woman. She was pretty, perhaps even beautiful beneath the layers of dirt and grime that covered her skin. She’d swung long brown hair into a sloppy bun and stood peering at them with concern. A basket rested on her arm, overflowing with with herbs and grasses, things for the cook pot and ailments of the body.
“Go!” Claude snarled as he glared at the intruder. His mind, numbed until now with wonder and fear, awoke with the hot fires of worry. A stranger, there, when above all they needed to remain unseen. Were he another man he might have killed the interloper. But Claude, despite the years of loneliness and the hard face he wore, could not bring himself to spill the blood of an innocent. Again he growled his command, hoping that she would run home believing them ghosts or spirits. The woman, however, did not back away from the strange site of two ragged men, one foreign, the other naked and streaked with blood and worse, alone and filthy in the woods. Instead she took a step forward.
“No hear? I say go!” At the third repetition the strange peasant woman did halt, though she made no move to back away. She seemed instead to be studying them, gazing at them with an intensity that filled Claude with unease. He knew the dangers of being noticed.
“Please, signore,” the stranger said, her voice throaty and decidedly uncommon, “but you are injured.” She began to circle around them, fueling Claude’s suspicions. He tried to stand, to shield his duty from her gaze, but she was too fast. “Oh! The boy!” she cried out, hands flying to her mouth as she saw where Pietro was crouched, pressing himself into the tattered rags that were all that remained of Claude’s bloody clothes. Instantly she ran to his side, kneeling in the dirt before Claude could do more than curse. “Mio Dio, what has happened to you?” Concern covered her face as she reached out instinctively to touch him. The response was instantaneous. Pietro flinched back from her fingers, an injured whimper escaping his lips. Claude moved to crouch between them, glaring at the woman and cursing in his rough, native tongue.
“I see,” she said, letting her hand fall gracefully to her side.
“Now you go,” Claude growled. To his surprise the woman shook her head, strange not only for her resilience but because she was a woman defying a man.
“The boy needs the hands of a guaritore, a healer, and something to cover himself with. You will get none of that out in the woods by yourselves.” Correctly reading the scowl in Claude’s eyes, she added, “you cannot protect him here, in the open, by yourself. Veni assieme. My cottage is not far from here. You can have a hot meal, some clothes for you and the boy.”
She pressed on, leaning into his face so that he might read the sincerity and determination that had suddenly appeared upon hers. Her voice was soothing, convincing, its words utterly seductive. Quite frankly Claude was exhausted. His miraculous healing had filled him with energy at the onset, but now that first burst was fading and he found his strength edging away. Though it pained him to admit it, this strange, almost deviant peasant woman was right. He had no hope of defending them from anyone, let alone the men he knew would soon be chasing after the wounded creature at his side.
Looking at Pietro, he saw that the boy needed this. Not the company of strangers, but clothes. Dignity. Claude was not one to trust lightly, or at all, and he knew that this woman was more than she seemed. And yet…and yet they had no choice. Were she a man he’d have turned them invisible and run, despite the consequences. But she was a woman, and weak, smaller than he. It should be safe. If God had ever existed, it would be safe.
“Aye, we go,” he finally said after a long pause and a test of wills. The woman neither smiled nor frowned, merely standing with a hint of grace. Claude soon followed suit, and Pietro, seemingly unwilling to let go of his protector, went as well.
The dawn was cold as they wandered through the woods. Away from the castle, Claude noted with some relief. It was slow going in that gray hour, for Pietro was weak and stumbled often. With each near-tumble Claude would glare at the watching peasant woman, as though it were somehow her fault. Yet she remained impassive, enigmatic to a degree that roused increased suspicion. Were it not for Pietro, he’d never have gone. But the boy was so very weak. As it was Claude was forced to half carry him through the woods.
Eventually they came to a small clearing where the rays of the sun pierced the canopy of trees. In its center was a tiny cottage, poorly thatched and roughly hewn. Somewhere in the back a chicken squawked its dissatisfaction with life. The woman led them inside, pushing open the splintering wooden door with her shoulder and entering before them. Inside was a single room, with used hearth on one side and the battered remains of a bed on the other. She set about creating a fire to give light to the gloom, striking flame from a pair of gray rocks. Claude, ignoring the niceties and the woman’s work on their behalf, walked straight to the bed, the still naked Pietro leaning heavily upon his shoulder.
“In, lad,” he said softly, naming the boy in his own tongue. Frightened brown eyes raised themselves from beneath closed lids to take in the scene before them. Pietro shook his head violently, his body trembling with the force of his fear. A whispered ‘no’ left his lips as he backed away, pulling Claude with him. The Englishman turned to face him, laying calloused hands on either side of his face and lifting it to look into his own.
“Safe, Pietro,” he said firmly in broken Italian. “You safe. But tired. Hurt. Need sleep.” He kept his blue eyes trained on the younger man, putting into the look all the conviction and steadfastness that he could muster. Eventually Pietro nodded, closing his eyes in aquiessence and allowing Claude to lead him to the straw pallet which sat atop the woman’s ancient oak bedframe. Once there he stopped, tightening his grip on Claude’s hand. Again Claude murmured softly, repeating his promise and waiting until Pietro decided he was ready.
“Please, Claude.” Pietro’s voice was soft and almost inaudible even in the silence of the cabin. He turned, begging with the set of his shoulders as well as words. “I’m…I cannot…I am afraid.” He looked away, shivering despite the warm weather and attempting to wrap slender arms around his pale torso. Eventually he brought his gaze back. “Stay with me.”
Claude said nothing, releasing Pietro’s hand to climb into the bed himself. Once beneath the scratchy, coarse blanket he turned back to look at Pietro, holding out his hand and waiting quietly. Slowly Pietro touched the bed, feeling the loose straw pad. Demons flashed before his eyes. It could be seen in the way he flinched, sagged deep into his own body as though his vitality had been stolen with his innocence. It pained Claude more than he’d thought possible to sit there and wait, but he did so.
“Come now, pup,” he murmured quietly, hand still extended into the air. “No leave you. Safe.”
At this Pietro looked him full in the face. “Do you promise me?” He asked more than words could convey. In that sentence was the voice of a boy looking for home again, searching for a port in the hurricane of violence and abuse into which
he’d been thrust.
“Si, Pietro,” Claude murmured. “Si.” This seemed to have been enough, for Pietro climbed slowly into the bed. Once there he froze, his breathing panicked and coming faster with each passing second. Claude simply took his hand, gave him the strength he’d lost. The younger man slid down beneath the blankets and curled his body into a ball, pressing his face into the bare chest of his protector. Eventually his breathing slowed; frantic beats became an even rhythm as the prince’s heart calmed itself. Beside the Italian Claude lay fighting to remain awake, to watch over his charge. But he’d nearly died that day, a feat that would leave its mark upon a man even as strongly willed as he. Exhaustion pulled at his eyelids before he could fight it, and soon had stolen him away.
Far off in the corner, forgotten and still, the peasant woman watched softly upon the bare earth.