Mark of Betrayal

by A. M. Hudson

  “Sick?”

  “Mm.” I nodded, not really feeling like I was in the room—still standing on the cusp of my last dream. “He showed me memories.”

  Arthur cleared his throat. “Yes, he was sick.”

  “What was wrong with him?”

  “He…Jason was four when his father saw fit to punish him for speaking out of turn by leaving him on the doorstep for the night, like an ill-mannered pup.” The anger from hundreds of years passed remained in his undertone. “The boy was near death by morning. He came down with the fever and was not predicted to last the winter. But he did, and when spring came, he showed promising signs, but was never quite the same again. His lungs were weak—his body, even the poor boy’s soul.”

  “And where were you while he was being neglected and abused?”

  “Running the Set,” he said factually. “I returned that morning to find Jason pale, burning with fever, shaking under a thin blanket a maid had placed over him in the early hours of dawn. I swept him up in my arms and, once he was stable, gave his father a beating parts of his body never recovered from.” He walked away then, taking to the other window. I watched him for a moment, seeing the weight of what his nephew suffered bearing down on him, even so far into the future. “The laws I live by, Amara, prevented I should stay with them, and it haunted me each time I left, for I knew I would return to more stories of horror. But I had no choice.”

  “There’s always a choice.”

  He only looked up from the window and smiled at me, a conceited smile. “I will forgive that, Princess, because you do not know Drake—the promise I made to him in my own blood—nor do you understand fear of cruel punishment.”

  I turned away and looked back out the window. “I’m sorry, Arthur. I don’t mean to imply you didn’t care for them. It just makes me angry to think of what they went through. And I never understood it before, but it makes so much sense now—the way David is—was.” Oops.

  “In what way?”

  “He was so guarded, you know. He never really let me in.”

  I heard Arthur sigh. “His childhood was something he tried to push aside. It wasn’t that he kept it from you, but that he wished to forget.”

  And that just made my heart bleed for him—for both boys, actually. “Why did Jason show me, then?”

  “He dealt with grief by talking about it. He was always a very scientifically-minded young lad—had to find reasoning for most things in life, including the actions others took against him.” Arthur’s presence warmed my side before I saw him slowly appear next to me. “He told me once that he learned more about himself and the reasons he felt the agony of his suffering, by hearing other people talk about their own trials.”

  I nodded. “Maybe that’s why he showed me—because I’d suffered so much. Maybe he was trying to help me deal with my suffering, do you think, by showing me what he’d come through?”

  Arthur’s lips turned down with thought. “Perhaps. Or perhaps he wanted you to understand his brother—to know what you had gotten yourself into.”

  “What do you mean by gotten myself into?”

  “Those close to David knew a different side to him.” Arthur looked down at his clasped hands. “I feared for you when David told me he was in love with a sweet, human girl. I wondered on what twisted version of this planet God would allow such a match, but it seemed you brought out the best in him, not the worst.”

  “Well, what was the worst?”

  “It’s not relevant, my dear. Not now. I’m just thankful you loved the side of David I knew was in there somewhere.”

  “I loved all of him.” I folded my arms. “I did see another side to him, from time to time,” I added, thinking about the day he nearly exploded over Pepper. “But he loved me, Arthur, and he was never harsh or cruel to me. I can’t believe there were two versions of him; this cruel boy who tormented his brother, and this sweet, loving boy who carried my books at school.”

  “Well, there are two sides to anything in life, my dear. One does not have to understand to love, but must love to understand.”

  I turned my head a little, a sarcasm-littered smirk twisting my lips. “Do you make those up on the spot?”

  He frowned at me, growing taller. “Make what up?”

  “Those lines? You could write quotes for the Dalai Lama.” I laughed lightly.

  He gave a kind smile. “I came up with a good one this morning. Would you like to hear it?”

  “Sure,” I said, pulling a pretend pencil from behind my ear to hold over an imaginary notepad. “Let me just jot it down.”

  Arthur cleared his throat. “The branch of hatred is always grown from the seeds of greed and jealousy.”

  I dropped my imaginary note-takers. “Meh, not that good.”

  “Then, how ‘bout, ‘One cannot teach what must be learned—in order to give advice, you must be telling a person something they, deep down, already know.’”

  “Wow.” My eyes lit up. “That’s pretty good. Very true.”

  He nodded.

  “So, is that what you do all day? Just sit around and dream up quotable quotes.”

  His lip lifted on one corner with an easy grin. “No. I’m an Herbalist.”

  “A what now?”

  “See those plants there?” He pointed to his window.

  “Yeah.”

  “I grow them, not to look pretty in the light of the sun, but to use for medicinal purposes, mostly.”

  “Mostly?”

  “Yes, they have other uses, but my main area of focus is vampire medicine.”

  “So, are you a doctor?”

  He shook his head once. “I was. A long time ago.”

  “How long ago?”

  “When I was human. I’ve not practiced human medicine in my vampire existence, though—only herbology for vampire treatment.”

  “Wow. So, does that work—you know, the whole mystical, alternative medicine thing?”

  He chuckled. “Yes. In vampires, it does. I cannot speak for humans, though.”

  “Why? I mean, why don’t you treat humans?”

  “Never had the need.”

  “Not even with Jason—when he was sick?”

  He shook his head. “I would not have presumed to interfere with matters I knew nothing of. It had been many centuries since I was versed in the biology of the human body. To treat him may have been to kill him.”

  “I’m surprised David didn’t ask you to treat him in that case, since he hated him so much.”

  He nodded again, the daylight making shadows around his soft smile. “I sometimes wondered if much of David’s hatred for his brother was merely jealousy.”

  I laughed. “Oh, definitely—as adults, anyway. I mean, I don’t know about when they were kids, but David even admitted he was jealous his brother could read vampire minds.”

  “Did he now?” Arthur bounced on his toes once then sunk back down, seeming lighter. “Then he truly was a changed man.”

  “Changed, huh?” I said to myself. “Was David really that bad? You talk like he was some kind of monster.”

  Arthur looked down, cupping his hands behind his back. “Not a monster. He was good and kind, but had a manner about him that people did not mess with—not even those who loved him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the good, kind man would become…something else.”

  “Did you ever see that side of him?”

  “I did. However, I was not once the target of his infuriation.”

  “Why not?”

  “I am a figure of authority—almost like a father. David’s interactions, his respect for me, differed to those who were peers or subordinates.”

  “So, people were afraid of him?”

  Arthur nodded once.

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “I know, and there are many stories I could tell, my dear, to make you see, but I’ll not speak ill of the dead.”

  “I’m sure if David could go back, he’d d
o things differently—especially with Jason.”

  “I’m sorry.” Arthur reached for my hand, holding it until I looked at him, his bright-blue eyes softening. “He did love his brother—David. For all they fought, I know, deep in his heart, he never felt what his father did.”

  “Why did his father hate Jason so much?”

  Arthur straightened. “He lost his wife. She went into her room to give birth, and when the doctor opened the door, he handed Thomas two boys and a firm hand of apology. That was that. She was breathing one minute, gone the next. And there were few advances in medical science to confirm the cause of her death. He was left to believe myths, wives-tales, uneducated ideas that ruined the heart of this man, because he loved his wife so deeply he could not find reason why God would take her, except that it was the devil’s doing.”

  I nodded. “So, it’s like David told me—Thomas believed Jason was the devil’s incision of David’s soul—all the bad things in one boy?”

  Arthur nodded. “And, sadly, Jason never pitied himself this. He believed he was responsible for killing Elizabeth—never questioned it.”

  I thought of a little boy; green eyes, dark hair, so small, playing quietly by a fire. Perhaps he felt content, perhaps he felt no evil in his soul, and often wondered how he could have done such terrible things before he had even taken his first breath. But this was what they told him. This was what he was. “It’s not true, is it—he wasn’t evil?”

  “My lady, there was no more evil in that child than there was love.” Arthur’s head rolled down a little, a tight breath leaving his nostrils. “Jason, somehow, was perceived the adversary at every turn, but the true monster was that which created his fury.”

  “His father?”

  He looked up at me. “In the beginning, yes, but when David and Jason became men, I often wondered if Thomas’ own soul had taken the heart from David—lived on in him. And in the end…”

  “Jason was the monster.”

  Arthur was taken aback, but softened quickly, nodding. “Then they both were.”

  “No. Not David. I know he regretted everything. I know he was sorry for how he treated Jason.”

  “What do you know of it?”

  “I…” I looked away from Arthur. “Nothing. David never talked with me about it, but I saw it in his eyes once, when I mentioned Jason—I saw the pain of regret.”

  “And you forgive David for the way he treated Jason?”

  “It’s not my place to forgive.”

  “Is it not—when everything you suffered began from the seed of David’s hatred?”

  I swallowed a hard lump in my throat. “Then, yes, I guess I do forgive him. I guess I forgave him a long time ago.”

  “But you have no forgiveness in your heart for Jason?”

  “What does it matter? He’s dead.”

  “As is David, but you feel the need to justify what he did.”

  “I loved him.”

  “And from that, you understand him.”

  I nodded. “He had a good heart, Arthur—despite what he did to his brother.”

  “Yes, we all contain good. But good is beheld only until loneliness manifests itself for too long in the hurt and the broken. Jason started out good, and died doing what was right. You cannot rightly love one beast and deny the other.”

  “One beast killed my husband—the other didn’t.”

  “No, my dear, venom killed your husband. Jason was merely the subject who was ordered to oversee it.”

  “He could have said no. He could’ve let someone else do it.”

  “And you would have had your cheeks sliced open for disobeying when you refused to bite David.”

  My mind flashed back to that room—to David, on his knees, an inch away from death at my hands. I shuddered.

  “The fact remains—sometimes, good people must do bad things. Jason was good; David was good.” Arthur looked away. “And I will never fill the emptiness their absence has left in my heart.”

  I realised then, that the question of my love and forgiveness for these two men was not a question for me at all, but for himself. “You wonder if you should love them—after what they’ve done?”

  “I have asked myself that question.” He nodded. “And the answer is always, that which does not deserve love, perhaps needed it the most.”

  The sparkle of tears in his eyes made me want to tell him, right then, that his nephew was still alive—that he need not grieve him. But, for the sake of a stupid prophecy and the belief of my private council that he was a traitor, I had to let this man suffer. We talked about good versus bad, but I wondered if, by allowing him to grieve someone who was not dead, it made us the monsters.

  “Don’t question yourself, Arthur, for loving them. One thing I’ve learned, through all those I loved and lost, is you don’t get to choose what your heart feels. It runs by a set of its own rules.”

  “That, it does.” He reached out and took my hand. “And you are too young to have this wisdom. It saddens my heart, the things you have suffered to be able to conclude such philosophy.”

  “It’s okay.” I squeezed his hand, thankful for the warmth of friendship I felt with him. “We find new people to love, and make our lives about them, right?”

  He laughed at that. “This is also true. A piece of wisdom, I believe, my David taught you?”

  I smiled widely; it felt nice to know someone who knew him like I did—who loved him, too. “Yes, it was.”

  “He was a boy of many thoughts, himself. Shared very little with others, though. You were the first.”

  “I know.” I took a deep breath and rubbed my temples then, as the day ahead entered my mind.

  “Is something else troubling you, young princess?”

  “Just a headache. It’s only mild, but I have them so often now I feel like a new person when I don’t.”

  He moved suddenly, but I felt him behind me; the length of his body close to mine, as he cupped one hand around my ponytail, gently sliding my hairtie down the silky lengths until it all came loose. “Better?”

  “Yeah. Heaps better.”

  “Good,” he said, and each strand tingled along the base of my neck, my forehead and behind my ears, his deft fingers separating then twisting them into a loose plait. “You need to tie it up for training, or you may end up getting your head pinned to the ground by some knight’s knee. But this should be enough.”

  I turned when he finished, and ran my fingers down the plait, resting it over my shoulder. “Thanks, Arthur.”

  “You are welcome, my dear.” He stood a little taller and his eyes narrowed as he looked into the gardens. “You best be going. Someone is looking for you.”

  He looked small from this high up, that knightly figure charging across the grounds, but his bulk frame and hair shining yellow in the morning light could not be mistaken for any other man. “I’m late for training.”

  “He looks irate.”

  “He probably is. He’s probably gonna make me run laps until I fall over.”

  “Well,” Arthur said, offering the doorway, “we best be moving then. Can’t have you being punished for my keeping you.”

  “It’s not the laps I’m afraid of—” I rolled my eyes. “It’s the lecture.”

  “Lecture?”

  “About…” Being alone with you. “About being late.”

  “I’m sure you can charm your way out of a lecture.”

  “You don’t know Mike very well, then,” I scoffed. “He’s resistant to my charms.”

  As I turned away, Arthur grabbed my wrist gently. “Take care out there today, Princess. I will drop by to watch you train later, but, in the meantime, keep your wits about you—watch closely for anyone who watches you too closely and do not spar with any knight you feel you can’t trust.”

  “Are you worried there’s a mole?” I almost laughed.

  “That, I am.” He released my wrist. “Once I arrive, you needn’t worry too much, but I have a few things to take care of
before I come down. Just be careful, please.”

  I nodded. “Mike will be there. I’ll be fine.”

  Arthur seemed amused by that. “Very well.”

  I closed his door behind me and after four steps, enough to be directly in the middle of the corridor again and not so close to looking like I was alone with Arthur, Mike popped around the corner. “Ara!”

  “Morning, Mike.”

  “Baby, where have you been? I sent my knights up to collect you over an hour ago. Edgar told them you were getting dressed, but now they report back that you’re not even in your room.”

  “I was in the shower.”

  “Ara, they looked in there.” He smiled conceitedly. “Where’ve you been?”

  “I went down to the kitchen.”

  He looked at Arthur’s door then back at me. “Kitchen, huh?”

  “Yes.” I pushed past him. “What is your problem?”

  “You know damn well what my problem is.” He grabbed my arm, stopping me as I reached the stairwell. “I told you not to spend time alone with him.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, Ara. I know you were in his room. I can smell him all over you.”

  I shrunk a little. “Well, I can do what I want.”

  “Yes, you can—except be alone with him.”

  I yanked my arm from his grip. “You can’t stop me from having friends.”

  “Ara, grow up. I’m not trying to stop you from having friends, but you know we can’t trust him. He was Drake’s right hand man for—”

  “He’s not a mole, Mike,” I yelled, loud enough that Arthur probably heard. “He just wants to help.”

  “Yeah.” Mike laughed sarcastically. “Help himself—to you.”

  “Mike? Don’t be such a jerk.”

  He dropped his arms to his sides, huffing loudly. “I’m sorry, Ara. I just—”

  “You just what?”

  “I hate that guy. He waltzes in here like he owns the place—tells me how to do my job, how to look after you, then wanders off with you and keeps you to himself all afternoon. I’m your best friend, and I waited so long to have you here, and now you are, I’m practically barred from seeing you, but those rules don’t apply to him.”