[Fire Emblem 7] Etrurian Gold
Etrurian Gold
Artist: myaru
Recipient: raphien
Present: fan fiction
Characters: Lucius, Raven, kids from the orphanage
Gauntlet Theme: 11 - throwing knives in your pain
Genre: ... I don't know. Seems pretty gen to me. I'm the Queen of Gen, so.
A/N: It grew a plot. This resolves itself as a oneshot, but there is further plot that will happen in a second part, and maybe even a third. There's no way I could've finished all of that in time for Christmas, so this should be able to stand more or less on its own.
This is my first time writing Lucius. My interpretation might not be what you expect. We'll see?
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Most persistent of the memories Lucius kept locked away, tapped down, pushed as far into the shadows as he could manage, was the rhythmic shring-shring shring-shring of silver spring scissors and the feathery, tingling feeling of his own hair sliding down to tickle his ears, and then his neck, the lightness of his head afterward. He was seven, perhaps, possessed of fine, long, Etrurian blond hair his abbot cultivated for just this purpose. They braided it, tied it, cut it off. Don't be vain, that man said; you are too fond of your own beauty. It is enough to drive me mad.
He had not cut his hair since, except to trim damaged ends and, once, to even the length when he was careless and lit a stream of his own hair by a candle in Raymond's room. As a child he'd run about with the white blond Etrurians prized for their wigs; now it had a reddish hue, what they called strawberry, to which Lycians were partial.
Don't be vain. Lucius parted his hair with a wooden comb, divided it into three, braided it. Somewhere, by means he chose not to question, Chad had obtained an old oval mirror made of bronze and polished the surface while Lucius let out the hem of his trousers again and mended a rip over the knee. It's ten gold per hand-length, the child said to him while the twins washed the dishes and the little ones slept. They sat by the fire in the common area, having run out of candles two days before. They'll try to cheat you by sending one of their big lugs to pick up the package and measure it. There would also be trouble if the ends were ragged, if the cut was crooked, and they always checked the thick braids for padding. Don't worry, he added then, giving the mirror a final swipe and propping it up on his knees for Lucius to see. Chad met his eyes. He was too young to meet a man's eyes so directly-- like that. Don't worry, I'll swipe whatever they try to steal from us.
That made his gut twist. Perhaps it was the lot of orphans to age beyond their years, but to learn the untrusthworthy nature of the world so soon? Was that not why Lucius began this orphanage project to begin with-- to protect his children from that? His children. His.
His children were hungry and they'd run out of candles, while the fuel ran low. Early frost crept across Araphen while he stood at this mirror and thought about his own misgivings.
Lucius wiped his palms over the front of his robe. His mirror was propped on a shelf in the kitchen, where all the windows had been thrown open and the curtains tied back. Shrieks and laughter echoed in the yard. Someone tripped and fell, let out a deep oof. He watched a red leaf drift in through the window and flutter to the floor before making himself reach for the scissors and fit the base of his braid between the blades. He had to turn around crane his neck to be as sure of the angle as he could without a second mirror and held the end firmly, pulled it straight, so the blades could do their work.
Don't be vain. He started cutting.
*
A chorus of aw, Father, why'd you do that? and but it was so pretty met Lucius at the door later when he called everyone in for supper. Chad looked at him, nodded, and picked up their youngest - a little girl named Sharon - to take to the head of the long kitchen table and sit her on the bench where they'd placed a box to give her height. Lucius smiled, told them his hair was in the way - that's all, it was just time for a cut. It curled around his shoulders now and prickled his neck where his cowl had stretched over time and gotten loose. He ladled out rice porridge, portioned out day-old bread and bits of apple into their bowls, the first harvest from their very own tree. Then he sat and pretended to eat his own food while the fire heated his back and Ray complained that he hated rice porridge, couldn't they have the yellow kind? Some of it dribbled on Sharon's chin when she slurped from her wooden spoon. Chad said he'd take Ray's share if he didn't want it, and Lugh protested that if it belonged to is brother, that made it his, and he should get it instead.
Lucius sighed. Boys. Sharon was so much quieter now that she'd learned to use her own spoon.
"Can I get my hair cut?" Lugh asked around a mouthful of bread and porridge.
"It's already short," Lucius said. "You'll need it to grow out and keep your ears warm."
They snorted and snickered, making fun of the hats they'd seen on the street, the kind with ear flaps, and how awful it would be to get stuck with one of those. Especially in pink, ugh. Did they even make things like that in pink? Sharon frowned and looked down at her pink frock.
"Don't listen to a word they say," Lucius said softly, picking a grain of rice from her sleeve and scraping her chin clean with her spoon. She reflected his smile and asked if she could have his slice of apple.
Of course she could. Lucius gave the rest of his porridge to Chad before rising to clean up.
The orphanage went quiet with the fading of their light, everyone first gathering around the fire in the common room to warm up their blankets, and then trooping upstairs to their beds. Lucius had made cushions out of their old clothes, the ones that couldn't be handed down or re-purposed for anything else; he sat on one that had been bright green in its time, when it was a blanket wrapped around the infant Ray. The fire had burned down to bricks of hay and crumbled charcoal, smoky and slightly grassy, a slow-burning red.
He must have fallen asleep there, leaning on the stool he often read to them from, because he opened his eyes when he felt Chad shaking his shoulder and blinked his sticky lashes when the boy asked where he'd hidden the braid-- in the chest? In that cupboard under his bed? The common room was still dark, but dim gray lit the planes of the kitchen and glowed where it caught in the muslin curtains. Go back to sleep, he breathed, knuckling the gunk from his eyes. I told you-- no child was going to take this risk for him, no matter how street savvy or skilled with a knife. And he did see those knives, yes - just a glint, hidden beneath the mattress he shared with Norrel before the other boy was adopted. Like so many details that caught his eye, Lucius decided not to ask. Elimine knew they needed help sometimes, even if it meant filching cupcakes.
I know these people, Father. Another thing he would never ask about. Chad's frown was deep in the early morning light. Let me go, I'll get whatever they promised--
No. And that was final.
Lucius went upstairs to get his own braid, coiled it in a pouch that he put on his belt, told Chad to watch the others and make sure they ate before going out to do their chores-- and the chores had better be done before he got back, or he'd send them to volunteer at the nearest inn stable. Woodsmoke flavored the air outside, where the shadows were still long and gray, and ice crackled under his boots when he crossed the small yard, locked the gate behind him, and walked quickly down the dirt street to warm himself, hugging his wool cloak tightly around himself. The ragseller greeted him from her doorstep, the tailor while he was hanging his sign outside. The baker's wife stopped him to say she had a bit extra left over from the day before, and she wanted to donate. She fingered the ends of his hair and said it was such a shame-- but she promised two loaves to the orphanage for that morning, and he couldn't take exception to her presumption.
Lucius had thought his hair the most recognizable quality about himself; perhaps it was his robe, his cloak? The tome he carried? But they always reached for the hair. Such beautiful, pale silk, he recalled hearing once, a dim memory of someone's hand turning his head this way, then that way, and lifting his chin with a fingernail that bit the skin with its glossy red shine. She never came back to adopt him. Hands, there were always hands reaching to stroke the top of his head, pull on his locks; fingers clenching and tangling at the base of his neck to hold his head still.
His fault, perhaps, for wearing it loose. For showing it off here in Araphen, in Caelin, at Cornwell. Vanity was a sin - a lesson he'd learned over and over again. The backstreets of the regional capitol were no place for Etrurian Gold of any kind.
His fault, but he couldn't wear it up like a woman, and braiding only hid so much.
Trade in hair was conducted from the milliner's shop two streets off of the main. The dirt roads turned to stone, the puddles from ice to dirty mirrors reflecting the brightening sky. A tiny silver bell jingled when he opened the front door and called for the proprietor, scraping mud from his boots on the top step. One glass lamp lit the store from the back counter, casting an orange tint and large, lumpy shadows behind the displays: bonnets, hats of red, green, purple, sewn with dried flowers and ribbons, hats with wide brims meant for working, scholarly caps, headdresses for Elimine's order in glowing white. The floorboards creaked and the door jangled shut. Footsteps thumped down from the upper level, and Madame Sarah's lacy skirts flashed into sight before the rest of her, frothing like seafoam.
"Father!" she said breathlessly, rosy cheeks dimpling with her smile. Lamplight glinted on the plaits of her dark hair. "What brings you here so early? Not that bonnet I hope, it was one of my best--"
"No, Sharon is quite fond of it. It's holding up to her play nicely." He pulled his hood down and loosened the pouch from his belt. "I'm here on other business."
Sarah's gaze went to his hair, then the pouch. "Oh-- no, that boy was one of yours?" Her thick brows crinkled together, the cast of the light making obvious the bite into her lip, the clenching of her fists on the counter. "No, this is unfortunate. Father, you should have told us. Araphen is not so bad off that we cannot afford to sponsor a child or two."
"But there are four," Lucius said, laying his pouch on the counter. He smiled. "Now, if you would be so kind as to bring your agent out? I should not leave them unattended longer than necessary."
A full heartbeat passed before she nodded and left him there to enter a door adjacent to the stairs. He caught a glimpse of boxes and bolts of cloth stacked on the shelves before it clicked closed again with a rush of lavender-scented air and left him in silence. Unfortunate, was it? Lucius wondered if trade in hair was one of her own ideas, or if she was simply cooperating with someone else who wanted to use her storefront. She'd never seemed unscrupulous. Her prices were high, but her work was skilled. There were no rumors of unsavory characters near her place of business-- yet if Chad was to be believed...
The door opened again while he was contemplating the grain of the oak counter. Sarah exited first, followed by a figure in leathers who--
Red hair. Tall, that scar on the cheek that he knew so well.
That face.
"Raymond?" Lucius swallowed to loosen his constricting throat. His fingers twisted the flap of his pouch, but they might have belonged to someone else, like the drumbeat of his own heart in his ears.
It was the wrong thing to say. He recognized the tightening around Raymond's eyes, the emphasis of the lines etched there. "No."
So he was the agent. That made sense, the way anything else did in this world - Raymond had said there wasn't much left to him besides a mercenary life. Everyone had heard of the fate of Cornwall, and his features, his coloring, it all betrayed him under the scrutiny of potential Lycian employers, and even some Etrurians. Where else was he supposed to go for employment-- snow-bound Ilia, Bern and its xenophobic elite? Etruria, so he could die on the frontier of the Western Isles?
Silly to think they wouldn't meet again. Silly to believe Raymond would find work of the moral variety, when any lord looking to hire mercenaries was up to no good.
His chest burned. Perhaps Lucius needed to breathe. He pulled in a deep breath, picked up the pouch - threw it at Raymond's chest. "Five hand-lengths, and the rate agreed upon was ten gold per unit." He caught it, said nothing. Lucius folded his hands on the counter. "It is already trimmed."
Madame Sarah's head jerked in Raymond's direction, then back to Lucius. "I--" She rushed to the counter and knelt behind it. "The store pays up front, Father. I have the funds, but you will have to take some of it in silver, if-- if you don't mind."
"That should be fine." How his voice remained level, when Lucius was sure his entire body was shaking, he didn't know. He wanted to ask why they didn't open the pouch to measure it-- why not? Surely they didn't trust him. This was business. One did not carry quantities of gold like that without risk, one did not let it spill from one's fingers on the word of a pretty little priest.
From the way Madame Sarah rummaged, they did not have a quantity of gold at all. She asked Raymond to go into the back and retrieve the safebox, and while he was gone she told Lucius that it was rare to trade for hair of such quality and length-- and no of course she didn't have to check the quality, she'd seen it herself dozens of times, the way it fell to there, so straight and thick, so bright and gold. Please forgive her, she was not prepared to see him or his beautiful hair this morning. Her hands twitched up, as if to touch the curls above his shoulder, then lowered again. A shame indeed.
Raymond kicked the back door open with his foot and brought the safebox to the counter in both arms. It came down heavy on the table and shook the lamp flame. He didn't look at Lucius. The pouch he returned was empty.
She gave him thirty in gold, and the rest in silver, tied tightly in a drawstring bag that she wrapped around itself, so it wouldn't jingle on the way home. Raymond looked up when it changed hands, said his name when Lucius bundled it in his own pouch and replaced it at his hip. "I apologize," Lucius said, turning his back. "I mistook you for someone else."
Sarah's doorbell clanged in his ears on the way out.
*
He couldn't stop touching his hair - pushing it behind his ears, running his fingers through it to the nape of his neck, where the ends made him itch. It was in the way more often now, Ray helpfully noted while they were bent over a wooden tub to do laundry; the wind swept it into his eyes, made it tickle his nose. Lucius scrubbed a mud stain, handfuls of blanket between his hands, rubbing, rubbing. The fibers bled red dye into the water. It never seemed to run out; a hundred washes after it had been donated, it still bled, clouding in the water like tea and ruining his robe with a dark pink tint around the cuffs. He had to pick it from beneath his nails - red dirt, like mud made of blood and clay. I hate red, he thought, worrying his lower lip in his teeth. I hate it.
Elimine did not teach hatred. Lucius was inured to blood. Where did that come from?
Offerings, he decided when a packet came from Sarah and parted to reveal the rich vermilion hue of a cowl, caplet, sash, a cloak. The offering pans were lined in red at the chapel. The pontifex wore red gowns purchased with the offerings of entire townships, and a visiting dignitary claiming to be his servant appeared at the orphanage where Lucius grew up, once, claiming the golden ropes decorating his costume were made of hair snipped from the heads of poor damsels. Red, gold, white: wealth. He examined the robe she sent, the fine white wool. It might sell for a nice handful of coins, but they had all they needed. He sat on the side of his bed, holding it by the shoulders to examine the weave by afternoon's light. His room had the largest window, yet it was also often cold enough to chill his extremities and make his feet cramp even in the middle of the day.
She thought she could make it up to him, Mistress Sarah; he remembered the lines creasing her face of a sudden when she realized why Lucius was there, and the way her hands shook when she fumbled to find the proper amount for his braid. In his mind's eye, that place was red: a red lamp flame, red hats on the walls, Raymond's red hair glaring from the doorway, haloed by golden light.
The floorboards creaked in the hallway. His door inched open, and Lugh's eyes went big when they lit on the robe crumpled in Lucius's hands. "Who is that from?" Lugh sidestepped inside, hid halfway behind the door. He flashed a gap-toothed grin. "A secret admirer, I bet."
"Hardly." Lucius stared at his hands and willed them to relax. A beat stretched before he remembered to smile at Lugh, take the sting out of his stern tone. "It's a donation. I was trying to decide if there is enough fabric to make shirts for all of you."
"Don't do that." His thin green brows drew together. "We have shirts. You've been wearing that same robe since-- as long as I can remember. Why don't you get new things too?"
Green was such a gentle color. Lugh's hair glinted with the same sheen he remembered of Nino's hair, fine and translucent, like it was spun of jewels. Lucius sighed, looked at the robe again, folded it and left it sitting on the crinkled wrapping paper. "We'll see." He rolled the red sash again and remembered the old adage of his childhood: beggars can't be choosers.
Indeed.
Within the week their apricot tree had shed its leaves and buried its roots in a moldering brown carpet. Red winked from everything, everywhere: the windows of the cafe Eglantine, the shawls of the women who lifted their skirts to glide up the steps to enter. Apples newly harvested - and he was grateful their own were pale and grassy-hued - and roses, the last of the season. Lucius took the children to the market on a cloudy Candlelight Eve and parted with two gold coins to buy each a taper of real wax to burn on the way home and place on the windowsills. Roland's candle was lit first - and claimed by Chad - because he founded the country in which he stood, then Hanon's candle, because the shape of her bow hung in the sky during the close of the year and pointed the way for the heroes while they journeyed; Ray insisted on Bramimond, and Lugh on Athos, while Lucius tried to keep his lips from twitching up. Elimine he lit last, for himself, because she said her companions were her light and she could not shine alone.
Cold, fat raindrops splashed on his hands on the way home. Whoa, look at the clouds! Lugh said, and Lucius saw them sweeping low, seemingly low enough to cover the tops of the tallest buildings, though of course they didn't. Is there gonna be a storm? There's gonna be a storm! and lightning flashed as if summoned by his shout. They paused in the street to stare up and listen to a long rumble of thunder - three boys, one girl, their candles clutched too closely to their chests until Lucius reminded everyone to hold them out. The sound echoed and faded to the east.
"Aw," Lugh said when nothing else happened. Ray rolled his eyes.
"Let's go," Lucius said, his hand on Sharon's head to lead her onward. He couldn't smell the signs as one could on the plains, but the charge in the sky made his skin tingle and rise in goosebumps. "We still have to pick up the cakes. Whose turn is it for bucket duty?"
Ray groaned. Lugh said "Chad!"" and got a cuff to the back of the head.
They went to Cornerstone Bakery on the other side of town, where the proprietor was distributing star-shaped holiday cakes for free, and trooped back to the orphanage through a misty drizzle that settled on their cloaks like a dusting of silver and ice. Lightning lit the sky far off, but not over the city. Wind made the sprinkling of rain swirl and blew their candles out. The holiday was always cold, sometimes even snowy, but the temperature seemed to plummet even lower than usual that year, and when the rain started to fall in earnest, it slapped upon the glass windows, the shutters, pounded on the roof. Lucius made supper while the children studied and their candle wicks dried: Lugh and Ray bent over a magic primer, Sharon over a page with her letters. Chad sat beside her to help. He never seemed to do his work, yet he always had the answers when Lucius tested him.
"Father, have you ever studied elder magic?"
Lucius looked up from his cutting, first at the cracked plaster wall, then over his shoulder at Ray. "No. Why do you ask?"
Ray scooted back on the bench, his legs only just long enough that his feet could touch the floor. A flash lit the window and cast the shadow of its frame on the far wall, thunder rolled and groaned outside. His brother marked his place in their book with a finger and straightened up to watch, frowning. "I read they have the same source," Ray said. "That it isn't unholy, it's just harder--"
"No." Lucius looked back down at cutting board and carrot to orient himself, hearing the shuffle when the other two looked at him. Small triangle shapes, he reminded himself. It stained the wood orange where the surface was scored and rough. The tap-tap of his knife sounded louder than the rain on the glass. "It may not be unholy, but it claims more lives than it saves. I once met a man whose brothers and even his parents had fallen to its dangers, and I cannot understand why he continued to follow their path in spite of it."
"Power," Ray said immediately.
"And what use is power if you are not alive to use it?" Lucius gathered his carrots and dumped them into a chipped ceramic bowl. "Even holy light eats up the spirit."
Holy light was often likened to gold.
They lit their candles again after a meal of stewed chicken and, afterward, the star cakes with their sugary cream center. The boys lined their candles up on a table in front of their small window, and Sharon pouted when she surrendered her own to Lucius, though he promised to keep it burning as long as he could in his own window. Her room didn't have one. He left the door open a crack and walked down the hall, holding her candle where her fingers had left sticky marks. Walking into his own room set the candle flickering - that draft he'd forgotten to fix - and a deep breath took in the scent of beeswax and a chill more suited to the porch outside. One of his books was sitting open on the desk, a page twitching when the air stirred, but Lucius did not think he'd left it there.
Elimine's candle already sat on the sill. Hanon's joined hers, two points of light becoming four by the glass and lighting his own reflection. From the foot of his bed Lucius could read the title of the essay Ray had left open, as it was penned bold in the top right corner: dissonant threads of light and anima. Lucius sighed hard and made the candle flames jump again. It was a lightning tome, so he couldn't fault the boy for looking at it, and it just happened to be the only one in his small collection that speculated on the nature of dark magic. The other five wore their gold and white bindings rather too pridefully. Both twins had lost interest in them soon after reading the first chapter. Anima was easier, Lugh said. Ray rolled his eyes, his favorite expression, and said he couldn't stand all of the 'center yourself with the divine' nonsense.
It was nonsense, Lucius had often thought of late. A metaphor. To align with the divine demanded a harmonious nature, and he couldn't think of one human being, not even himself, that he would believe capable of such a thing. Perhaps it was just another way of teaching initiates like himself that the task was impossible. But-- Elimine did it.
Elimine touched the divine.
Lucius looked out the window. Rain made a sheet of water between the orphanage and the windows in the buildings across the alley, but he saw something there, a dim spot of light - a sign in the darkness, just as the story said, a sign proving the companions were not alone. The storm lit the buildings for a flickering instant and ruined the illusion.
Can you imagine us fighting a dragon? Raymond said once. It would have been a long time ago - almost twenty years, because Lucius remembered a flute in the background that could only belong to Nils. Just eight of us? Hector would be the first in line to be burned crispy.
Your fondest wish, Lucius could remember sighing. It was funny in retrospect; there were so many other things he could have said. Better things. Admonitions. Don't say such things, don't cling to your hate like that, don't... don't.
Thunder groaned, but it was the sound accompanying it that pulled Lucius from his memories and drew his gaze outside. Squealing hinges, the gate - but it wasn't the storm that opened them, or the sound would have screamed and gone immediately silent. They would have banged, made noise. He blew the candles out and leaned on the sill to look down at the courtyard. Darkness was all he saw, of course; the rain pounded on the roof, dripped from the eaves with a constant beat. Past the door he heard the twins stomp up the stairs with buckets that rattled against each other; one was set down in the corner of the hall, the others taken into the boys' dormitory. He saw only himself in the glass, the ends of his hair curling under his chin in a way he couldn't stop looking at. Then-- finally, a wink of lightning, enough to see a shape paused before the steps to their kitchen door. It disappeared again into darkness.
His stomach felt suddenly empty, though he'd eaten with everyone else. His fingers were cold, the joints ached when he tried to clench them. He slid off the bed, put his straw sandals on, tried and failed to open his door quietly. One of the twins poked his head out of the dorm, and Lucius told him not to worry - to stay there and listen just in case Sharon had another nightmare.
Downstairs, he felt his way from the landing to the kitchen where he kept their lamps, their bell shapes clanging together when he picked one and lit the wick. Boots stomped on the steps outside, and whoever it was finally knocked, perhaps reassured by his light, and he hoped she or he was not here with another child-- not in the rain, the cold. He'd lost children to exposure before. Sharon came to him sick; he would never forget how she burned when he took her in his arms, how she cried. He would always remember the boy he came upon in the hills while gathering chamomile, his legs caked with mud and blood, his parents dead - apparently - and his own death written in the lines spidering under his skin from his wound.
Lucius opened the door, lamp held high, and found Raymond on the stoop, hand raised to knock again. No child in his arms, nothing behind him. Just the glint of lamplight on his dark red hair, slicked down to his skull by rain. He didn't even have a hood.
"What..." Lucius's light shook slightly, the brass casing rattling, until he stiffened his arm and clenched his fingers around the handle more tightly. "What are you doing here?" he said, and felt his chest twist and knot when the other snorted and rubbed his hair back, made it stand in spikes. "What are you thinking, walking in the rain without cover?"
The demand came out before he could think better of it. Raymond looked away to scrape his boots on the stair. "First you call me Raymond, and now you subject me to a lecture. Ten years just flies right by, doesn't it? Like it was only yesterday--" Dripping water tamped his hair down, trickled over his temple. "I came to make a donation."
Fifty gold was more than enough, Lucius wanted to say, but he stepped backward to let Raymond in and latched the door behind him - even dropped the bar across, in case the wind started to gust. Leave your boots by the door, Lucius instructed, and no, hang that up over the bucket, it's dripping, and leave your sword, and yet again, what were you thinking, you'll catch your death-- to which Raymond snapped and what are you thinking, wearing linen in the wintertime?
It wasn't linen, it was wool - worn thin, washed until it was gray, but still wool. Lucius watched his eyes narrow when he opened his mouth to explain, and snapped his own teeth closed. He shouldn't have to explain. "You'll have tea at least," he said, backing away and turning. "I won't send you back out with a chill." But he would send Raymond out after this-- he would. Beneath that wet wool cloak he was still armed as Lucius remembered - his sword, the same one, the one with the crest scratched off the pommel, knives. Leather gloves with the fingers cut off, vambraces - those were new - steel-reinforced boots. He walked heavily, as if he carried more, but it didn't appear he was wearing anything else.
He would scare the children like this. Lucius filled the kettle and set it on a hook over the coals, stirring them with sharp strikes of the poker and laying more wood on. The task didn't take long enough. He found himself sitting opposite Raymond at the table, folding his arms on the surface, and looking for splinters while his ears froze and his hands ached from digging into his sleeves. Lucius missed his hair for its weight against his back, the way it warmed his neck - the way it might have draped over his shoulders to hide the evidence of his nerves. The last decade had not flown by, not at all. It crawled. It slithered by, inch by inch, like the rolling of lava.
Not that he knew anything of lava, except how it burned under the skin in place of blood.
"I know you have better, Lucius."
Somehow it was about him. He didn't remember changing the subject. "That gift was your doing, I take it."
"No." Time had deepened Raymond's voice, roughened it. "She felt guilty."
"Well she should, trying to cheat the needy." The kettle top would rattle when the water boiled, but Lucius strained his ears anyway to hear it bubble. What he listened to instead was the rain. The rain, and the sound of another breathing - deep, even, the rhythm familiar, even though he'd yet to find anyone with a truly unique way of breathing.
The bench creaked and scraped when Raymond adjusted his seat. "The marquess has several agents in the city, and they are given funds according to their previous year's business. This almost always means paying below market value."
Lucius rubbed his forehead, rolling his lips together, pressing them shut. What did he know about market value? Nothing, nor had he ever wanted to understand. The finances were never his job; when they traveled together, it was his task to buy supplies, to set up camp, to cook-- no wonder Raymond teased him for being feminine. Even then, he thought: the tea had to be spooned out, steeped until it smelled just right, they didn't have any honey, but his lord always preferred it-- and he would resist the temptation to upend it over his guest's head, even though it would warm him just the same.
"You're angry at me."
"I'm not angry," Lucius said.
"You're glaring at the table."
He scraped his bench back and went to the cutting board, where he kept ceramic pots of dried herbs - remnants of the early days of the orphanage, when his patrons had numbered more than at present. He chose chamomile for his own peace of mind and retrieved the heavy earthenware teapot from underneath, where it hung on a hook screwed into the bottom of the work surface.
"I'm sorry, Lucius."
He shook his head, scooped a handful of dried flowers into the pot. "You didn't do anything."
Raymond cracked his knuckles. He had a way of doing it, of jerking his fingers back into hooks one at a time, that always made Lucius want to reach over and grab his hand to make it stop. "I work for Araphen," Raymond said, "which is bad enough, judging by your frown. He tries to tax church property and cheat commoners, and now he has tried to steal money right from your hands. I understand what sort of man I'm working for. But his name came up when I was investigating something for Ostia."
Lucius couldn't help looking over his shoulder. "You-- in Ostia?"
Raymond had turned on the bench while they talked, leaning on his knees and running his hands over his hair, making a mess of it. He gave a non-committal reply and stood up, came over to the work counter to take the pot from Lucius's hands and shove it back into place against the wall. "Look, I'm going to be here for a while. Come to me if you need help." Raymond fingered the ends of Lucius's hair, yanked on curled lock over his ear. "Never do this again."
The knot in his chest twisted and burned. "And how I was I supposed to know--" He swallowed hard, refusing to look at Raymond, and tried again. "Who are you to tell me--" The words caught in his throat.
"You hate cutting your hair." He withdrew, taking the teapot with him, and set it on the table. "And I said I would take care of you, so--"
"You said that, and then disappeared for ten years."
Raymond paused, went still. Perhaps his shoulders hunched, but it was hard to tell in such dim light. "And you're angry at me."
Lucius fingered the corner of the work table, peeled a splinter off when it pricked his finger. "Yes."
The kettle top rattled into the silence. "I'll make it up to you." Soft, Raymond's voice almost sounded like it used to.
Ten years ago Lucius would have told him such was unnecessary. The words leapt to the tip of his tongue with the smile that always accompanied them, but his face had been frozen by the cold air in his corner by the window. Only his eyes felt hot, and the place on his chin where Raymond's finger brushed him. Lucius was as much a terrible person as the others, he thought, for contemplating only on their evil deeds, for being ungrateful, for refusing to offer forgiveness. He couldn't bring himself to say anything.
He crossed the room, sandals flapping against his heels, pressed Raymond to sit down again, and went to the fire to serve their tea in silence.
..........................................................................................................
So there's this whole plot with Araphen, and then with Bern attacking. Overall the story does not end happily. It's also kind of epic in scope, and there just isn't time. Having never written Lucius (or Raven, or Ray), just this part of it took me two weeks.
Anyway, if you like it enough, I can try to continue. If not, well, this resolves itself in kind of a neutral fashion.
.
Artist: myaru
Recipient: raphien
Present: fan fiction
Characters: Lucius, Raven, kids from the orphanage
Gauntlet Theme: 11 - throwing knives in your pain
Genre: ... I don't know. Seems pretty gen to me. I'm the Queen of Gen, so.
A/N: It grew a plot. This resolves itself as a oneshot, but there is further plot that will happen in a second part, and maybe even a third. There's no way I could've finished all of that in time for Christmas, so this should be able to stand more or less on its own.
This is my first time writing Lucius. My interpretation might not be what you expect. We'll see?
.............................................................................................................
Most persistent of the memories Lucius kept locked away, tapped down, pushed as far into the shadows as he could manage, was the rhythmic shring-shring shring-shring of silver spring scissors and the feathery, tingling feeling of his own hair sliding down to tickle his ears, and then his neck, the lightness of his head afterward. He was seven, perhaps, possessed of fine, long, Etrurian blond hair his abbot cultivated for just this purpose. They braided it, tied it, cut it off. Don't be vain, that man said; you are too fond of your own beauty. It is enough to drive me mad.
He had not cut his hair since, except to trim damaged ends and, once, to even the length when he was careless and lit a stream of his own hair by a candle in Raymond's room. As a child he'd run about with the white blond Etrurians prized for their wigs; now it had a reddish hue, what they called strawberry, to which Lycians were partial.
Don't be vain. Lucius parted his hair with a wooden comb, divided it into three, braided it. Somewhere, by means he chose not to question, Chad had obtained an old oval mirror made of bronze and polished the surface while Lucius let out the hem of his trousers again and mended a rip over the knee. It's ten gold per hand-length, the child said to him while the twins washed the dishes and the little ones slept. They sat by the fire in the common area, having run out of candles two days before. They'll try to cheat you by sending one of their big lugs to pick up the package and measure it. There would also be trouble if the ends were ragged, if the cut was crooked, and they always checked the thick braids for padding. Don't worry, he added then, giving the mirror a final swipe and propping it up on his knees for Lucius to see. Chad met his eyes. He was too young to meet a man's eyes so directly-- like that. Don't worry, I'll swipe whatever they try to steal from us.
That made his gut twist. Perhaps it was the lot of orphans to age beyond their years, but to learn the untrusthworthy nature of the world so soon? Was that not why Lucius began this orphanage project to begin with-- to protect his children from that? His children. His.
His children were hungry and they'd run out of candles, while the fuel ran low. Early frost crept across Araphen while he stood at this mirror and thought about his own misgivings.
Lucius wiped his palms over the front of his robe. His mirror was propped on a shelf in the kitchen, where all the windows had been thrown open and the curtains tied back. Shrieks and laughter echoed in the yard. Someone tripped and fell, let out a deep oof. He watched a red leaf drift in through the window and flutter to the floor before making himself reach for the scissors and fit the base of his braid between the blades. He had to turn around crane his neck to be as sure of the angle as he could without a second mirror and held the end firmly, pulled it straight, so the blades could do their work.
Don't be vain. He started cutting.
*
A chorus of aw, Father, why'd you do that? and but it was so pretty met Lucius at the door later when he called everyone in for supper. Chad looked at him, nodded, and picked up their youngest - a little girl named Sharon - to take to the head of the long kitchen table and sit her on the bench where they'd placed a box to give her height. Lucius smiled, told them his hair was in the way - that's all, it was just time for a cut. It curled around his shoulders now and prickled his neck where his cowl had stretched over time and gotten loose. He ladled out rice porridge, portioned out day-old bread and bits of apple into their bowls, the first harvest from their very own tree. Then he sat and pretended to eat his own food while the fire heated his back and Ray complained that he hated rice porridge, couldn't they have the yellow kind? Some of it dribbled on Sharon's chin when she slurped from her wooden spoon. Chad said he'd take Ray's share if he didn't want it, and Lugh protested that if it belonged to is brother, that made it his, and he should get it instead.
Lucius sighed. Boys. Sharon was so much quieter now that she'd learned to use her own spoon.
"Can I get my hair cut?" Lugh asked around a mouthful of bread and porridge.
"It's already short," Lucius said. "You'll need it to grow out and keep your ears warm."
They snorted and snickered, making fun of the hats they'd seen on the street, the kind with ear flaps, and how awful it would be to get stuck with one of those. Especially in pink, ugh. Did they even make things like that in pink? Sharon frowned and looked down at her pink frock.
"Don't listen to a word they say," Lucius said softly, picking a grain of rice from her sleeve and scraping her chin clean with her spoon. She reflected his smile and asked if she could have his slice of apple.
Of course she could. Lucius gave the rest of his porridge to Chad before rising to clean up.
The orphanage went quiet with the fading of their light, everyone first gathering around the fire in the common room to warm up their blankets, and then trooping upstairs to their beds. Lucius had made cushions out of their old clothes, the ones that couldn't be handed down or re-purposed for anything else; he sat on one that had been bright green in its time, when it was a blanket wrapped around the infant Ray. The fire had burned down to bricks of hay and crumbled charcoal, smoky and slightly grassy, a slow-burning red.
He must have fallen asleep there, leaning on the stool he often read to them from, because he opened his eyes when he felt Chad shaking his shoulder and blinked his sticky lashes when the boy asked where he'd hidden the braid-- in the chest? In that cupboard under his bed? The common room was still dark, but dim gray lit the planes of the kitchen and glowed where it caught in the muslin curtains. Go back to sleep, he breathed, knuckling the gunk from his eyes. I told you-- no child was going to take this risk for him, no matter how street savvy or skilled with a knife. And he did see those knives, yes - just a glint, hidden beneath the mattress he shared with Norrel before the other boy was adopted. Like so many details that caught his eye, Lucius decided not to ask. Elimine knew they needed help sometimes, even if it meant filching cupcakes.
I know these people, Father. Another thing he would never ask about. Chad's frown was deep in the early morning light. Let me go, I'll get whatever they promised--
No. And that was final.
Lucius went upstairs to get his own braid, coiled it in a pouch that he put on his belt, told Chad to watch the others and make sure they ate before going out to do their chores-- and the chores had better be done before he got back, or he'd send them to volunteer at the nearest inn stable. Woodsmoke flavored the air outside, where the shadows were still long and gray, and ice crackled under his boots when he crossed the small yard, locked the gate behind him, and walked quickly down the dirt street to warm himself, hugging his wool cloak tightly around himself. The ragseller greeted him from her doorstep, the tailor while he was hanging his sign outside. The baker's wife stopped him to say she had a bit extra left over from the day before, and she wanted to donate. She fingered the ends of his hair and said it was such a shame-- but she promised two loaves to the orphanage for that morning, and he couldn't take exception to her presumption.
Lucius had thought his hair the most recognizable quality about himself; perhaps it was his robe, his cloak? The tome he carried? But they always reached for the hair. Such beautiful, pale silk, he recalled hearing once, a dim memory of someone's hand turning his head this way, then that way, and lifting his chin with a fingernail that bit the skin with its glossy red shine. She never came back to adopt him. Hands, there were always hands reaching to stroke the top of his head, pull on his locks; fingers clenching and tangling at the base of his neck to hold his head still.
His fault, perhaps, for wearing it loose. For showing it off here in Araphen, in Caelin, at Cornwell. Vanity was a sin - a lesson he'd learned over and over again. The backstreets of the regional capitol were no place for Etrurian Gold of any kind.
His fault, but he couldn't wear it up like a woman, and braiding only hid so much.
Trade in hair was conducted from the milliner's shop two streets off of the main. The dirt roads turned to stone, the puddles from ice to dirty mirrors reflecting the brightening sky. A tiny silver bell jingled when he opened the front door and called for the proprietor, scraping mud from his boots on the top step. One glass lamp lit the store from the back counter, casting an orange tint and large, lumpy shadows behind the displays: bonnets, hats of red, green, purple, sewn with dried flowers and ribbons, hats with wide brims meant for working, scholarly caps, headdresses for Elimine's order in glowing white. The floorboards creaked and the door jangled shut. Footsteps thumped down from the upper level, and Madame Sarah's lacy skirts flashed into sight before the rest of her, frothing like seafoam.
"Father!" she said breathlessly, rosy cheeks dimpling with her smile. Lamplight glinted on the plaits of her dark hair. "What brings you here so early? Not that bonnet I hope, it was one of my best--"
"No, Sharon is quite fond of it. It's holding up to her play nicely." He pulled his hood down and loosened the pouch from his belt. "I'm here on other business."
Sarah's gaze went to his hair, then the pouch. "Oh-- no, that boy was one of yours?" Her thick brows crinkled together, the cast of the light making obvious the bite into her lip, the clenching of her fists on the counter. "No, this is unfortunate. Father, you should have told us. Araphen is not so bad off that we cannot afford to sponsor a child or two."
"But there are four," Lucius said, laying his pouch on the counter. He smiled. "Now, if you would be so kind as to bring your agent out? I should not leave them unattended longer than necessary."
A full heartbeat passed before she nodded and left him there to enter a door adjacent to the stairs. He caught a glimpse of boxes and bolts of cloth stacked on the shelves before it clicked closed again with a rush of lavender-scented air and left him in silence. Unfortunate, was it? Lucius wondered if trade in hair was one of her own ideas, or if she was simply cooperating with someone else who wanted to use her storefront. She'd never seemed unscrupulous. Her prices were high, but her work was skilled. There were no rumors of unsavory characters near her place of business-- yet if Chad was to be believed...
The door opened again while he was contemplating the grain of the oak counter. Sarah exited first, followed by a figure in leathers who--
Red hair. Tall, that scar on the cheek that he knew so well.
That face.
"Raymond?" Lucius swallowed to loosen his constricting throat. His fingers twisted the flap of his pouch, but they might have belonged to someone else, like the drumbeat of his own heart in his ears.
It was the wrong thing to say. He recognized the tightening around Raymond's eyes, the emphasis of the lines etched there. "No."
So he was the agent. That made sense, the way anything else did in this world - Raymond had said there wasn't much left to him besides a mercenary life. Everyone had heard of the fate of Cornwall, and his features, his coloring, it all betrayed him under the scrutiny of potential Lycian employers, and even some Etrurians. Where else was he supposed to go for employment-- snow-bound Ilia, Bern and its xenophobic elite? Etruria, so he could die on the frontier of the Western Isles?
Silly to think they wouldn't meet again. Silly to believe Raymond would find work of the moral variety, when any lord looking to hire mercenaries was up to no good.
His chest burned. Perhaps Lucius needed to breathe. He pulled in a deep breath, picked up the pouch - threw it at Raymond's chest. "Five hand-lengths, and the rate agreed upon was ten gold per unit." He caught it, said nothing. Lucius folded his hands on the counter. "It is already trimmed."
Madame Sarah's head jerked in Raymond's direction, then back to Lucius. "I--" She rushed to the counter and knelt behind it. "The store pays up front, Father. I have the funds, but you will have to take some of it in silver, if-- if you don't mind."
"That should be fine." How his voice remained level, when Lucius was sure his entire body was shaking, he didn't know. He wanted to ask why they didn't open the pouch to measure it-- why not? Surely they didn't trust him. This was business. One did not carry quantities of gold like that without risk, one did not let it spill from one's fingers on the word of a pretty little priest.
From the way Madame Sarah rummaged, they did not have a quantity of gold at all. She asked Raymond to go into the back and retrieve the safebox, and while he was gone she told Lucius that it was rare to trade for hair of such quality and length-- and no of course she didn't have to check the quality, she'd seen it herself dozens of times, the way it fell to there, so straight and thick, so bright and gold. Please forgive her, she was not prepared to see him or his beautiful hair this morning. Her hands twitched up, as if to touch the curls above his shoulder, then lowered again. A shame indeed.
Raymond kicked the back door open with his foot and brought the safebox to the counter in both arms. It came down heavy on the table and shook the lamp flame. He didn't look at Lucius. The pouch he returned was empty.
She gave him thirty in gold, and the rest in silver, tied tightly in a drawstring bag that she wrapped around itself, so it wouldn't jingle on the way home. Raymond looked up when it changed hands, said his name when Lucius bundled it in his own pouch and replaced it at his hip. "I apologize," Lucius said, turning his back. "I mistook you for someone else."
Sarah's doorbell clanged in his ears on the way out.
*
He couldn't stop touching his hair - pushing it behind his ears, running his fingers through it to the nape of his neck, where the ends made him itch. It was in the way more often now, Ray helpfully noted while they were bent over a wooden tub to do laundry; the wind swept it into his eyes, made it tickle his nose. Lucius scrubbed a mud stain, handfuls of blanket between his hands, rubbing, rubbing. The fibers bled red dye into the water. It never seemed to run out; a hundred washes after it had been donated, it still bled, clouding in the water like tea and ruining his robe with a dark pink tint around the cuffs. He had to pick it from beneath his nails - red dirt, like mud made of blood and clay. I hate red, he thought, worrying his lower lip in his teeth. I hate it.
Elimine did not teach hatred. Lucius was inured to blood. Where did that come from?
Offerings, he decided when a packet came from Sarah and parted to reveal the rich vermilion hue of a cowl, caplet, sash, a cloak. The offering pans were lined in red at the chapel. The pontifex wore red gowns purchased with the offerings of entire townships, and a visiting dignitary claiming to be his servant appeared at the orphanage where Lucius grew up, once, claiming the golden ropes decorating his costume were made of hair snipped from the heads of poor damsels. Red, gold, white: wealth. He examined the robe she sent, the fine white wool. It might sell for a nice handful of coins, but they had all they needed. He sat on the side of his bed, holding it by the shoulders to examine the weave by afternoon's light. His room had the largest window, yet it was also often cold enough to chill his extremities and make his feet cramp even in the middle of the day.
She thought she could make it up to him, Mistress Sarah; he remembered the lines creasing her face of a sudden when she realized why Lucius was there, and the way her hands shook when she fumbled to find the proper amount for his braid. In his mind's eye, that place was red: a red lamp flame, red hats on the walls, Raymond's red hair glaring from the doorway, haloed by golden light.
The floorboards creaked in the hallway. His door inched open, and Lugh's eyes went big when they lit on the robe crumpled in Lucius's hands. "Who is that from?" Lugh sidestepped inside, hid halfway behind the door. He flashed a gap-toothed grin. "A secret admirer, I bet."
"Hardly." Lucius stared at his hands and willed them to relax. A beat stretched before he remembered to smile at Lugh, take the sting out of his stern tone. "It's a donation. I was trying to decide if there is enough fabric to make shirts for all of you."
"Don't do that." His thin green brows drew together. "We have shirts. You've been wearing that same robe since-- as long as I can remember. Why don't you get new things too?"
Green was such a gentle color. Lugh's hair glinted with the same sheen he remembered of Nino's hair, fine and translucent, like it was spun of jewels. Lucius sighed, looked at the robe again, folded it and left it sitting on the crinkled wrapping paper. "We'll see." He rolled the red sash again and remembered the old adage of his childhood: beggars can't be choosers.
Indeed.
Within the week their apricot tree had shed its leaves and buried its roots in a moldering brown carpet. Red winked from everything, everywhere: the windows of the cafe Eglantine, the shawls of the women who lifted their skirts to glide up the steps to enter. Apples newly harvested - and he was grateful their own were pale and grassy-hued - and roses, the last of the season. Lucius took the children to the market on a cloudy Candlelight Eve and parted with two gold coins to buy each a taper of real wax to burn on the way home and place on the windowsills. Roland's candle was lit first - and claimed by Chad - because he founded the country in which he stood, then Hanon's candle, because the shape of her bow hung in the sky during the close of the year and pointed the way for the heroes while they journeyed; Ray insisted on Bramimond, and Lugh on Athos, while Lucius tried to keep his lips from twitching up. Elimine he lit last, for himself, because she said her companions were her light and she could not shine alone.
Cold, fat raindrops splashed on his hands on the way home. Whoa, look at the clouds! Lugh said, and Lucius saw them sweeping low, seemingly low enough to cover the tops of the tallest buildings, though of course they didn't. Is there gonna be a storm? There's gonna be a storm! and lightning flashed as if summoned by his shout. They paused in the street to stare up and listen to a long rumble of thunder - three boys, one girl, their candles clutched too closely to their chests until Lucius reminded everyone to hold them out. The sound echoed and faded to the east.
"Aw," Lugh said when nothing else happened. Ray rolled his eyes.
"Let's go," Lucius said, his hand on Sharon's head to lead her onward. He couldn't smell the signs as one could on the plains, but the charge in the sky made his skin tingle and rise in goosebumps. "We still have to pick up the cakes. Whose turn is it for bucket duty?"
Ray groaned. Lugh said "Chad!"" and got a cuff to the back of the head.
They went to Cornerstone Bakery on the other side of town, where the proprietor was distributing star-shaped holiday cakes for free, and trooped back to the orphanage through a misty drizzle that settled on their cloaks like a dusting of silver and ice. Lightning lit the sky far off, but not over the city. Wind made the sprinkling of rain swirl and blew their candles out. The holiday was always cold, sometimes even snowy, but the temperature seemed to plummet even lower than usual that year, and when the rain started to fall in earnest, it slapped upon the glass windows, the shutters, pounded on the roof. Lucius made supper while the children studied and their candle wicks dried: Lugh and Ray bent over a magic primer, Sharon over a page with her letters. Chad sat beside her to help. He never seemed to do his work, yet he always had the answers when Lucius tested him.
"Father, have you ever studied elder magic?"
Lucius looked up from his cutting, first at the cracked plaster wall, then over his shoulder at Ray. "No. Why do you ask?"
Ray scooted back on the bench, his legs only just long enough that his feet could touch the floor. A flash lit the window and cast the shadow of its frame on the far wall, thunder rolled and groaned outside. His brother marked his place in their book with a finger and straightened up to watch, frowning. "I read they have the same source," Ray said. "That it isn't unholy, it's just harder--"
"No." Lucius looked back down at cutting board and carrot to orient himself, hearing the shuffle when the other two looked at him. Small triangle shapes, he reminded himself. It stained the wood orange where the surface was scored and rough. The tap-tap of his knife sounded louder than the rain on the glass. "It may not be unholy, but it claims more lives than it saves. I once met a man whose brothers and even his parents had fallen to its dangers, and I cannot understand why he continued to follow their path in spite of it."
"Power," Ray said immediately.
"And what use is power if you are not alive to use it?" Lucius gathered his carrots and dumped them into a chipped ceramic bowl. "Even holy light eats up the spirit."
Holy light was often likened to gold.
They lit their candles again after a meal of stewed chicken and, afterward, the star cakes with their sugary cream center. The boys lined their candles up on a table in front of their small window, and Sharon pouted when she surrendered her own to Lucius, though he promised to keep it burning as long as he could in his own window. Her room didn't have one. He left the door open a crack and walked down the hall, holding her candle where her fingers had left sticky marks. Walking into his own room set the candle flickering - that draft he'd forgotten to fix - and a deep breath took in the scent of beeswax and a chill more suited to the porch outside. One of his books was sitting open on the desk, a page twitching when the air stirred, but Lucius did not think he'd left it there.
Elimine's candle already sat on the sill. Hanon's joined hers, two points of light becoming four by the glass and lighting his own reflection. From the foot of his bed Lucius could read the title of the essay Ray had left open, as it was penned bold in the top right corner: dissonant threads of light and anima. Lucius sighed hard and made the candle flames jump again. It was a lightning tome, so he couldn't fault the boy for looking at it, and it just happened to be the only one in his small collection that speculated on the nature of dark magic. The other five wore their gold and white bindings rather too pridefully. Both twins had lost interest in them soon after reading the first chapter. Anima was easier, Lugh said. Ray rolled his eyes, his favorite expression, and said he couldn't stand all of the 'center yourself with the divine' nonsense.
It was nonsense, Lucius had often thought of late. A metaphor. To align with the divine demanded a harmonious nature, and he couldn't think of one human being, not even himself, that he would believe capable of such a thing. Perhaps it was just another way of teaching initiates like himself that the task was impossible. But-- Elimine did it.
Elimine touched the divine.
Lucius looked out the window. Rain made a sheet of water between the orphanage and the windows in the buildings across the alley, but he saw something there, a dim spot of light - a sign in the darkness, just as the story said, a sign proving the companions were not alone. The storm lit the buildings for a flickering instant and ruined the illusion.
Can you imagine us fighting a dragon? Raymond said once. It would have been a long time ago - almost twenty years, because Lucius remembered a flute in the background that could only belong to Nils. Just eight of us? Hector would be the first in line to be burned crispy.
Your fondest wish, Lucius could remember sighing. It was funny in retrospect; there were so many other things he could have said. Better things. Admonitions. Don't say such things, don't cling to your hate like that, don't... don't.
Thunder groaned, but it was the sound accompanying it that pulled Lucius from his memories and drew his gaze outside. Squealing hinges, the gate - but it wasn't the storm that opened them, or the sound would have screamed and gone immediately silent. They would have banged, made noise. He blew the candles out and leaned on the sill to look down at the courtyard. Darkness was all he saw, of course; the rain pounded on the roof, dripped from the eaves with a constant beat. Past the door he heard the twins stomp up the stairs with buckets that rattled against each other; one was set down in the corner of the hall, the others taken into the boys' dormitory. He saw only himself in the glass, the ends of his hair curling under his chin in a way he couldn't stop looking at. Then-- finally, a wink of lightning, enough to see a shape paused before the steps to their kitchen door. It disappeared again into darkness.
His stomach felt suddenly empty, though he'd eaten with everyone else. His fingers were cold, the joints ached when he tried to clench them. He slid off the bed, put his straw sandals on, tried and failed to open his door quietly. One of the twins poked his head out of the dorm, and Lucius told him not to worry - to stay there and listen just in case Sharon had another nightmare.
Downstairs, he felt his way from the landing to the kitchen where he kept their lamps, their bell shapes clanging together when he picked one and lit the wick. Boots stomped on the steps outside, and whoever it was finally knocked, perhaps reassured by his light, and he hoped she or he was not here with another child-- not in the rain, the cold. He'd lost children to exposure before. Sharon came to him sick; he would never forget how she burned when he took her in his arms, how she cried. He would always remember the boy he came upon in the hills while gathering chamomile, his legs caked with mud and blood, his parents dead - apparently - and his own death written in the lines spidering under his skin from his wound.
Lucius opened the door, lamp held high, and found Raymond on the stoop, hand raised to knock again. No child in his arms, nothing behind him. Just the glint of lamplight on his dark red hair, slicked down to his skull by rain. He didn't even have a hood.
"What..." Lucius's light shook slightly, the brass casing rattling, until he stiffened his arm and clenched his fingers around the handle more tightly. "What are you doing here?" he said, and felt his chest twist and knot when the other snorted and rubbed his hair back, made it stand in spikes. "What are you thinking, walking in the rain without cover?"
The demand came out before he could think better of it. Raymond looked away to scrape his boots on the stair. "First you call me Raymond, and now you subject me to a lecture. Ten years just flies right by, doesn't it? Like it was only yesterday--" Dripping water tamped his hair down, trickled over his temple. "I came to make a donation."
Fifty gold was more than enough, Lucius wanted to say, but he stepped backward to let Raymond in and latched the door behind him - even dropped the bar across, in case the wind started to gust. Leave your boots by the door, Lucius instructed, and no, hang that up over the bucket, it's dripping, and leave your sword, and yet again, what were you thinking, you'll catch your death-- to which Raymond snapped and what are you thinking, wearing linen in the wintertime?
It wasn't linen, it was wool - worn thin, washed until it was gray, but still wool. Lucius watched his eyes narrow when he opened his mouth to explain, and snapped his own teeth closed. He shouldn't have to explain. "You'll have tea at least," he said, backing away and turning. "I won't send you back out with a chill." But he would send Raymond out after this-- he would. Beneath that wet wool cloak he was still armed as Lucius remembered - his sword, the same one, the one with the crest scratched off the pommel, knives. Leather gloves with the fingers cut off, vambraces - those were new - steel-reinforced boots. He walked heavily, as if he carried more, but it didn't appear he was wearing anything else.
He would scare the children like this. Lucius filled the kettle and set it on a hook over the coals, stirring them with sharp strikes of the poker and laying more wood on. The task didn't take long enough. He found himself sitting opposite Raymond at the table, folding his arms on the surface, and looking for splinters while his ears froze and his hands ached from digging into his sleeves. Lucius missed his hair for its weight against his back, the way it warmed his neck - the way it might have draped over his shoulders to hide the evidence of his nerves. The last decade had not flown by, not at all. It crawled. It slithered by, inch by inch, like the rolling of lava.
Not that he knew anything of lava, except how it burned under the skin in place of blood.
"I know you have better, Lucius."
Somehow it was about him. He didn't remember changing the subject. "That gift was your doing, I take it."
"No." Time had deepened Raymond's voice, roughened it. "She felt guilty."
"Well she should, trying to cheat the needy." The kettle top would rattle when the water boiled, but Lucius strained his ears anyway to hear it bubble. What he listened to instead was the rain. The rain, and the sound of another breathing - deep, even, the rhythm familiar, even though he'd yet to find anyone with a truly unique way of breathing.
The bench creaked and scraped when Raymond adjusted his seat. "The marquess has several agents in the city, and they are given funds according to their previous year's business. This almost always means paying below market value."
Lucius rubbed his forehead, rolling his lips together, pressing them shut. What did he know about market value? Nothing, nor had he ever wanted to understand. The finances were never his job; when they traveled together, it was his task to buy supplies, to set up camp, to cook-- no wonder Raymond teased him for being feminine. Even then, he thought: the tea had to be spooned out, steeped until it smelled just right, they didn't have any honey, but his lord always preferred it-- and he would resist the temptation to upend it over his guest's head, even though it would warm him just the same.
"You're angry at me."
"I'm not angry," Lucius said.
"You're glaring at the table."
He scraped his bench back and went to the cutting board, where he kept ceramic pots of dried herbs - remnants of the early days of the orphanage, when his patrons had numbered more than at present. He chose chamomile for his own peace of mind and retrieved the heavy earthenware teapot from underneath, where it hung on a hook screwed into the bottom of the work surface.
"I'm sorry, Lucius."
He shook his head, scooped a handful of dried flowers into the pot. "You didn't do anything."
Raymond cracked his knuckles. He had a way of doing it, of jerking his fingers back into hooks one at a time, that always made Lucius want to reach over and grab his hand to make it stop. "I work for Araphen," Raymond said, "which is bad enough, judging by your frown. He tries to tax church property and cheat commoners, and now he has tried to steal money right from your hands. I understand what sort of man I'm working for. But his name came up when I was investigating something for Ostia."
Lucius couldn't help looking over his shoulder. "You-- in Ostia?"
Raymond had turned on the bench while they talked, leaning on his knees and running his hands over his hair, making a mess of it. He gave a non-committal reply and stood up, came over to the work counter to take the pot from Lucius's hands and shove it back into place against the wall. "Look, I'm going to be here for a while. Come to me if you need help." Raymond fingered the ends of Lucius's hair, yanked on curled lock over his ear. "Never do this again."
The knot in his chest twisted and burned. "And how I was I supposed to know--" He swallowed hard, refusing to look at Raymond, and tried again. "Who are you to tell me--" The words caught in his throat.
"You hate cutting your hair." He withdrew, taking the teapot with him, and set it on the table. "And I said I would take care of you, so--"
"You said that, and then disappeared for ten years."
Raymond paused, went still. Perhaps his shoulders hunched, but it was hard to tell in such dim light. "And you're angry at me."
Lucius fingered the corner of the work table, peeled a splinter off when it pricked his finger. "Yes."
The kettle top rattled into the silence. "I'll make it up to you." Soft, Raymond's voice almost sounded like it used to.
Ten years ago Lucius would have told him such was unnecessary. The words leapt to the tip of his tongue with the smile that always accompanied them, but his face had been frozen by the cold air in his corner by the window. Only his eyes felt hot, and the place on his chin where Raymond's finger brushed him. Lucius was as much a terrible person as the others, he thought, for contemplating only on their evil deeds, for being ungrateful, for refusing to offer forgiveness. He couldn't bring himself to say anything.
He crossed the room, sandals flapping against his heels, pressed Raymond to sit down again, and went to the fire to serve their tea in silence.
..........................................................................................................
So there's this whole plot with Araphen, and then with Bern attacking. Overall the story does not end happily. It's also kind of epic in scope, and there just isn't time. Having never written Lucius (or Raven, or Ray), just this part of it took me two weeks.
Anyway, if you like it enough, I can try to continue. If not, well, this resolves itself in kind of a neutral fashion.
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