Dreven City; another time, another place ...
The manor house was beautiful. Stone-clad and well appointed, it offered views over the city that were almost unparalleled by any other. Guests were made to feel welcomed by the lavish decoration, the luxurious furnishings. Stefan Del Sol, while not a man to be gainsaid by any with some care for their skin, knew well enough how to exert his influence with both subtlety and finesse. His business associates, his friends, were treated to the best the city had to offer, the best that money could buy, and he ensured they all saw only what he wished them to see. A successful man, with fine business sense, a beautiful wife, a growing son, and the means to keep himself and them in only the very best of what the city could give them.
Yet a little deeper into the luxurious home he put on show so often, hidden behind closed doors, was a darker, uglier truth that only his very closest associates were familiar with. For this beautiful manor house was also a prison, a gilded cage, and he made certain that those kept behind locked doors knew their place well enough. The beautiful wife, the woman who had grown from the beautiful girl he had married almost ten years before, the mother to a boy she loved more deeply than her own life ....she was the prisoner. Her rooms were a testament to it; there was no luxury here. Merely bare floors, bare walls, the sparsest of furnishings. Small windows that let in only the dusky light of the earliest dawn, under the pretense of caring for her privacy. Even her clothes, so rich and expertly created, were kept locked away. He chose what she wore, when she wore it, who she saw and who saw her. And the fierce heart hidden deep beneath layers of obedience and polite courtesy put up little resistance. He held something over her more powerful than any overt threat.
The clatter of hooves on stone brought with it a smile to the face of the woman who sat now at her rough-hewn table, recognizing the sound of her son's exuberant laughter as he was swung down from his mount by the hands of the man who was his tutor. Only the best ....and yet this was the third tutor in as many months. And it seemed that he, too, would be dismissed from service for the kindness he had done today. Golden hair glinted in the candlelight as the occupant of the gilded cage looked up, deep green eyes longing, hopeful that just some of that delight she could hear fading away as the child ran into the house would be visited on her before it was taken away once more. She heard the sound of those small footsteps on the grand stairs, thumping with haste, and her smile deepened once again, urging her up from her seat to the door that held her in.
Beyond this door was yet more pretense. A single sitting room, as lavishly decorated as the rest of the house; a place for her to receive her approved of guests in the illusion of privacy, where they would not see the darkness of the bedchamber where she spent most of her days. Brocade and silk rustled as she stepped quickly through, knowing her son was coming to see her, knowing the penalty if he should ever discover the situation his mother was truly kept in. She had just taken a seat beside the largest of the windows, savoring the simple pleasure of the sun's warmth on her pale, pale skin, when the door from the hallway burst open.
A young lad, no more than nine years old, came scurrying inside, his dark curls wild and blue eyes ablaze with delight at his unexpected excursion. So like his father. The thought was a dagger in her heart, but she hid the pain for his sake, holding out her arms with a happy laugh of her own as her son, her joy, threw himself across the room and into her embrace.
"Mama, I saw a play!" Robert declared excitedly, too brimful with happiness at his good fortune to be mindful of his manners with the mother he adored. "Franz took me to see the traveling players, and it was so much fun - all the people who were there were laughing and happy, and oh, I wish you could have come, too! Are you feeling better now?"
Mara laughed at his exuberance, pleased to see him so happy, spilling her fingers through his wayward hair as she looked him over from head to toe. Are you feeling better now" "Yes, I am feeling much better now," she gave her son the kind lie, shifting just a little to let him heave himself up onto the window seat and from there onto the cushion of her skirts and into her lap. Their time together was as proscribed as the rest of her days, limited by the capricious moods of the man who ruled them with an iron fist. He was not to know of the reasons for his mother's only too frequent ill-health, only that she loved him. She hoped he knew that. "Tell me all about it."
As the boy launched into a description of his morning, detailed and cheerful, filled to the brim with the joy he felt for the stage and literature, Mara settled in to listen, to enjoy the tale, forcing her mind away from what would inevitably come when Stefan decided they had been together long enough. She knew her husband was in the house; knew, too, that he would have heard Rob's entrance, the gleeful happiness that would have set his teeth on edge. That he would have already taken his wrath out on the tutor they would likely never see again, and would be preparing to deliver punishment of a different sort upon the two who made up his kingdom of oppressed subjects. But that anticipation was not allowed to mar the sheer enjoyment of her son's presence, the warm affection shared between mother and child as they spoke of the play he had seen, the people he had met, the hopes he held for the lifetime she knew he would not be permitted to lead of his own free will. And she held back her impotent fury as Robert expressed his fragile hope that perhaps, someday, the man he called father might appreciate his talents, his wishes, and support them. As a father should.
Laughter spilled forth from the little facade of luxury, unwittingly drawing their time together to an end sooner than they wished. The door opened slowly to reveal the tall loom of the man who controlled them, the man who presented himself to the world as husband and father. Abruptly, the smile fell from Mara's face as she looked up, seeing the dark anger in Stefan's eyes as he looked at the pair he had taken on for his own reasons. Rob saw none of the anger, smiling with cheerful hope as he saw the man enter, hope that this time, perhaps, Stefan would join in the laughter and encourage him. He slid from Mara's grasping arms and ran over to the man he called father, bright and happy.
"Father, you should have come with us, it was wonderful," he exclaimed, only stilled from throwing his arms around Stefan by the cold fury now leveled directly at him. He quailed, coming to a halt, and looked uncertainly back at his mother. "I ....Did I do something wrong, father?"
"Did I do something wrong, father." Just the slow repetition of the words was enough to ring warning bells in Mara's mind, fear chilling through her veins in a flash of prescience, urging her up and onto her feet. As she came to stand behind her son, her hands reassuringly resting on the boy's shoulders, she lifted her chin and met the cold anger with her own fierce gaze. She might be weak, but for some things, she had a strength that no man could measure.
Stefan took in the scene, the golden-haired whore protecting her bastard son, and a cruel smile twitched at his lips for a moment. But his face, when he looked down at Robert, was blank and cool once again, the telltale curl of his fist at his side enough to warn both woman and boy that his temper was not to be tried. "You left the manor," he pointed out, the satisfaction in his eyes as the child winced at this reminder of his house rules seen only by the woman he had married. The woman who hated him more than she loved her own life. "Without permission, you took not one, but two horses from my private stables. You ran through the house, shouting at the top of your lungs. You burst in on your mother when she has other concerns and took up her time without leave. And against all previous orders, you attended a play and you dare to say that I should have come with you!"
Rob shrank back against Mara's skirts as Stefan's voice rose to a threatening roar, the hope dying in his young eyes as distress overtook it. All he wanted was for the man he called father to love him, to be proud of him, yet whatever he did seemed only to put more distance between them. But Stefan was not finished yet.
"You will go to your rooms and remain there until I send for you," the man of the house informed the boy, ignoring the mother in favor of laying out a punishment he knew would hurt the child more than anything else he could conjure in his mind. "You will gather together every scrap of fairytale nonsense and gibberish you have there - all these so-called plays and novels, everything that does not cater to the learning application of business and real life - and you will burn them. Your tutor has been dismissed. You will take up instruction with one of the guards until such time as we can buy you application into a good military school. No more of this nonsense, boy. You are wasting my time."
He stood and watched as this sank in, as the distress faded to misery in the child's expression, as the realization that all his diversions, all the little joys in their secluded life that his mother had taught him ....they were all being taken away. He was going to be sent to an institution that taught violence and death, things the boy's gentler nature was not happy to even think about. Rob was left knowing that he had failed his father, having to accept the loss of his happier pastimes as punishment for disobeying orders that had been laid down a long time before. The child sniffled softly, comforted by the gentle wrap of his mother's arms as she stepped close behind him, her hands folding with comforting protectiveness over his heart. She glared into the cold eyes that watched her with smug satisfaction. But she didn't speak. She had learned a long time ago that speaking up in defense of her beloved son only made the punishments worse.
Stefan waited until her anger was high, until the color had risen in her cheeks and her chest heaved with the effort of holding the hasty words back, enjoying how impotent, how helpless she truly was. His words, when they came, were for Robert, though his cold eyes never faltered from the flashing fury of Mara's green gaze. "Go, boy. Your mother and I need to discuss your forthcoming education."
The child did not need to be told twice. He paused just long enough to kiss his mother's hand before edging around Stefan and marching from the room, his head held high despite the tears that had begun to stream from his eyes. Not just denied his happiness, but denied the comfort Mara could have given him as it drove home, he left the room with as much dignity as he could muster, unaware of the scene that unfolded as the door closed behind him.
The lock slid over with a final click of sound, shutting out the house beyond. Mara took a step back as Stefan turned back to her, advancing over the luxurious rug with malevolent intent. "And now, my love," he hissed, hands falling to the heavy belt he wore about his waist, "let us see what we can do about that willful defiance. Shall we?"
The manor house was beautiful. Stone-clad and well appointed, it offered views over the city that were almost unparalleled by any other. Guests were made to feel welcomed by the lavish decoration, the luxurious furnishings. Stefan Del Sol, while not a man to be gainsaid by any with some care for their skin, knew well enough how to exert his influence with both subtlety and finesse. His business associates, his friends, were treated to the best the city had to offer, the best that money could buy, and he ensured they all saw only what he wished them to see. A successful man, with fine business sense, a beautiful wife, a growing son, and the means to keep himself and them in only the very best of what the city could give them.
Yet a little deeper into the luxurious home he put on show so often, hidden behind closed doors, was a darker, uglier truth that only his very closest associates were familiar with. For this beautiful manor house was also a prison, a gilded cage, and he made certain that those kept behind locked doors knew their place well enough. The beautiful wife, the woman who had grown from the beautiful girl he had married almost ten years before, the mother to a boy she loved more deeply than her own life ....she was the prisoner. Her rooms were a testament to it; there was no luxury here. Merely bare floors, bare walls, the sparsest of furnishings. Small windows that let in only the dusky light of the earliest dawn, under the pretense of caring for her privacy. Even her clothes, so rich and expertly created, were kept locked away. He chose what she wore, when she wore it, who she saw and who saw her. And the fierce heart hidden deep beneath layers of obedience and polite courtesy put up little resistance. He held something over her more powerful than any overt threat.
The clatter of hooves on stone brought with it a smile to the face of the woman who sat now at her rough-hewn table, recognizing the sound of her son's exuberant laughter as he was swung down from his mount by the hands of the man who was his tutor. Only the best ....and yet this was the third tutor in as many months. And it seemed that he, too, would be dismissed from service for the kindness he had done today. Golden hair glinted in the candlelight as the occupant of the gilded cage looked up, deep green eyes longing, hopeful that just some of that delight she could hear fading away as the child ran into the house would be visited on her before it was taken away once more. She heard the sound of those small footsteps on the grand stairs, thumping with haste, and her smile deepened once again, urging her up from her seat to the door that held her in.
Beyond this door was yet more pretense. A single sitting room, as lavishly decorated as the rest of the house; a place for her to receive her approved of guests in the illusion of privacy, where they would not see the darkness of the bedchamber where she spent most of her days. Brocade and silk rustled as she stepped quickly through, knowing her son was coming to see her, knowing the penalty if he should ever discover the situation his mother was truly kept in. She had just taken a seat beside the largest of the windows, savoring the simple pleasure of the sun's warmth on her pale, pale skin, when the door from the hallway burst open.
A young lad, no more than nine years old, came scurrying inside, his dark curls wild and blue eyes ablaze with delight at his unexpected excursion. So like his father. The thought was a dagger in her heart, but she hid the pain for his sake, holding out her arms with a happy laugh of her own as her son, her joy, threw himself across the room and into her embrace.
"Mama, I saw a play!" Robert declared excitedly, too brimful with happiness at his good fortune to be mindful of his manners with the mother he adored. "Franz took me to see the traveling players, and it was so much fun - all the people who were there were laughing and happy, and oh, I wish you could have come, too! Are you feeling better now?"
Mara laughed at his exuberance, pleased to see him so happy, spilling her fingers through his wayward hair as she looked him over from head to toe. Are you feeling better now" "Yes, I am feeling much better now," she gave her son the kind lie, shifting just a little to let him heave himself up onto the window seat and from there onto the cushion of her skirts and into her lap. Their time together was as proscribed as the rest of her days, limited by the capricious moods of the man who ruled them with an iron fist. He was not to know of the reasons for his mother's only too frequent ill-health, only that she loved him. She hoped he knew that. "Tell me all about it."
As the boy launched into a description of his morning, detailed and cheerful, filled to the brim with the joy he felt for the stage and literature, Mara settled in to listen, to enjoy the tale, forcing her mind away from what would inevitably come when Stefan decided they had been together long enough. She knew her husband was in the house; knew, too, that he would have heard Rob's entrance, the gleeful happiness that would have set his teeth on edge. That he would have already taken his wrath out on the tutor they would likely never see again, and would be preparing to deliver punishment of a different sort upon the two who made up his kingdom of oppressed subjects. But that anticipation was not allowed to mar the sheer enjoyment of her son's presence, the warm affection shared between mother and child as they spoke of the play he had seen, the people he had met, the hopes he held for the lifetime she knew he would not be permitted to lead of his own free will. And she held back her impotent fury as Robert expressed his fragile hope that perhaps, someday, the man he called father might appreciate his talents, his wishes, and support them. As a father should.
Laughter spilled forth from the little facade of luxury, unwittingly drawing their time together to an end sooner than they wished. The door opened slowly to reveal the tall loom of the man who controlled them, the man who presented himself to the world as husband and father. Abruptly, the smile fell from Mara's face as she looked up, seeing the dark anger in Stefan's eyes as he looked at the pair he had taken on for his own reasons. Rob saw none of the anger, smiling with cheerful hope as he saw the man enter, hope that this time, perhaps, Stefan would join in the laughter and encourage him. He slid from Mara's grasping arms and ran over to the man he called father, bright and happy.
"Father, you should have come with us, it was wonderful," he exclaimed, only stilled from throwing his arms around Stefan by the cold fury now leveled directly at him. He quailed, coming to a halt, and looked uncertainly back at his mother. "I ....Did I do something wrong, father?"
"Did I do something wrong, father." Just the slow repetition of the words was enough to ring warning bells in Mara's mind, fear chilling through her veins in a flash of prescience, urging her up and onto her feet. As she came to stand behind her son, her hands reassuringly resting on the boy's shoulders, she lifted her chin and met the cold anger with her own fierce gaze. She might be weak, but for some things, she had a strength that no man could measure.
Stefan took in the scene, the golden-haired whore protecting her bastard son, and a cruel smile twitched at his lips for a moment. But his face, when he looked down at Robert, was blank and cool once again, the telltale curl of his fist at his side enough to warn both woman and boy that his temper was not to be tried. "You left the manor," he pointed out, the satisfaction in his eyes as the child winced at this reminder of his house rules seen only by the woman he had married. The woman who hated him more than she loved her own life. "Without permission, you took not one, but two horses from my private stables. You ran through the house, shouting at the top of your lungs. You burst in on your mother when she has other concerns and took up her time without leave. And against all previous orders, you attended a play and you dare to say that I should have come with you!"
Rob shrank back against Mara's skirts as Stefan's voice rose to a threatening roar, the hope dying in his young eyes as distress overtook it. All he wanted was for the man he called father to love him, to be proud of him, yet whatever he did seemed only to put more distance between them. But Stefan was not finished yet.
"You will go to your rooms and remain there until I send for you," the man of the house informed the boy, ignoring the mother in favor of laying out a punishment he knew would hurt the child more than anything else he could conjure in his mind. "You will gather together every scrap of fairytale nonsense and gibberish you have there - all these so-called plays and novels, everything that does not cater to the learning application of business and real life - and you will burn them. Your tutor has been dismissed. You will take up instruction with one of the guards until such time as we can buy you application into a good military school. No more of this nonsense, boy. You are wasting my time."
He stood and watched as this sank in, as the distress faded to misery in the child's expression, as the realization that all his diversions, all the little joys in their secluded life that his mother had taught him ....they were all being taken away. He was going to be sent to an institution that taught violence and death, things the boy's gentler nature was not happy to even think about. Rob was left knowing that he had failed his father, having to accept the loss of his happier pastimes as punishment for disobeying orders that had been laid down a long time before. The child sniffled softly, comforted by the gentle wrap of his mother's arms as she stepped close behind him, her hands folding with comforting protectiveness over his heart. She glared into the cold eyes that watched her with smug satisfaction. But she didn't speak. She had learned a long time ago that speaking up in defense of her beloved son only made the punishments worse.
Stefan waited until her anger was high, until the color had risen in her cheeks and her chest heaved with the effort of holding the hasty words back, enjoying how impotent, how helpless she truly was. His words, when they came, were for Robert, though his cold eyes never faltered from the flashing fury of Mara's green gaze. "Go, boy. Your mother and I need to discuss your forthcoming education."
The child did not need to be told twice. He paused just long enough to kiss his mother's hand before edging around Stefan and marching from the room, his head held high despite the tears that had begun to stream from his eyes. Not just denied his happiness, but denied the comfort Mara could have given him as it drove home, he left the room with as much dignity as he could muster, unaware of the scene that unfolded as the door closed behind him.
The lock slid over with a final click of sound, shutting out the house beyond. Mara took a step back as Stefan turned back to her, advancing over the luxurious rug with malevolent intent. "And now, my love," he hissed, hands falling to the heavy belt he wore about his waist, "let us see what we can do about that willful defiance. Shall we?"