by A Werner
“It is not going to rain tonight.”
“No,” Bergus agreed, “there will be no rain tonight.”
Chapter 8 – Farmhouse
At the farmhouse, Bergus and Rugerius crept around back to a neglected shed. Bergus pointed his short seax towards a rolling field where a dozen sheep stood and grazed. “That is Elysium, my friend. Dugaro will wander out there with a bottle of ale in his hand. He will probably sing a stupid little song before passing out.”
The boys sat down near one another with their backs against the shed. The hovel was a short distance away and they could hear a man and woman inside.
Bergus quipped, “He’s here, just like I said he would be.”
Rugerius stirred nervously, his dirty fingers gripping the hilt of his dagger so hard they began to turn red. He dug the blade in the ground and started flicking stones.
“Have you ever been in love?” Bergus shyly peeped.
Irritated, Rugerius stared at him hard. “Who the heck falls in love at twelve?”
“Love may be the wrong word,” Bergus snickered back.
Rugerius shook his head.
“I just meant – well, I was talking about this farmhouse and the woman who lives here.”
Rugerius yawned and gently pounded the back of his head on the boards of the sheep pen hoping this might tell Bergus he wasn’t interested in hearing anymore. It did not.
“It happened a year before you arrived,” Bergus continued. “I was forced to go to a tavern near here by some of the squires. You know Wren, Frederick and Cal?” Rugerius didn’t answer. “Anyway, they made me drink a lot. I was drunk. My head swarmed like bees and I was sick for four days.” Bergus paused. “The woman who lives here, she was there. She is the kind of woman men buy for a night. We all came back to this farmhouse and I watched them.” He tilted his head back around the corner of the pen so as to see the hovel. “I fell in love with her that night. I still sneak back here sometimes to watch her through her windows. I know everything about her.” His expression was dreamy. “One day, when I’m old enough and have gold enough, I will buy her.”
Before Bergus could speak anymore on this subject, the air abruptly changed. A noise of war came from the hut. Dugaro stumbled suddenly out of the open door.
A viperous woman with a freshly swollen black eye poked her head out the same door and screamed, “Get out of here, Dugaro! Don’t ever come back! I hate you!” The irate woman, her hair as black as midnight, slammed the door shut.
Dugaro laughed at her, his fat feet bumbling around the unkempt yard. “Oh woman, as long as I bring you coin, you will see me.” He carried a black liquor jug as he approached the sheep pen. The boys leaned back into the shadows and let him pass.
As prophesied, Dugaro walked into the sheep pasture, singing a song. “Oh Venus, you love, you charming sweet dame, smile and kneel, afford, entertain. Touch not my soul but arouse this old flame, kiss me, inhale me, be not ashamed.” About twenty-five yards out, he swooned down in a tall patch of grass.
Rugerius Fabbro and Bergus of Brindisi stared at one another. This was it. They held up their hallowed knives and smiled with forsaken souls.
“Tonight Bergus,” Rugerius exclaimed, “we become brothers.”
Bergus beamed.
Like flitting ghosts, the boys sped out into the rolling field and descended down upon the tall grass. Rugerius was much quicker. He arrived first and found the babbler still mumbling his tune. He knelt down and punched him in the arm to get his attention.
Dugaro squinted through his stupor. “Ah, Rugerius. What are you doing here? Would you like a drink?” Dugaro held up the black jug.
Bergus plopped down on the opposite side of the drunk man’s body just as Rugerius answered him. “I am thirsty Dugaro but not for wine.”
Rugerius raised his dagger and stabbed Dugaro with it. The man screamed. Bergus stabbed him too. Dugaro couldn’t believe what was happening to him and his screams grew louder. The boys stabbed him again, repeatedly, over and over until he died. The man was drunk and gave them no fight.
Covered in blood, the boys fell back in the tall grass and rested, their eyes searching the stars for new signs and wonders. They had changed their world and thought it might be evident somewhere in heaven.
Rugerius suddenly started singing, “Oh Venus . . .”
Bergus laughed before joining in. Happy, they sang together the dead man’s song, “Oh Venus, you love, you charming sweet dame . . .” They sang and they sang the refrain several times over until the thin frightened voice of a woman grabbed their attention.
In shock and in silence, the boys rolled onto their stomachs and crept a bit forward to the crest of the hill where they lay. They could see the dark-haired woman standing on the porch of her hut, her worried eyes, one of them black, inspecting the field. “Dugaro,” She called out to the night, “Are you all right, honey? You can come back in! I’m not mad anymore.”
Bergus suddenly realized the evil they had done and began to worry about the trouble they would get in. This was far worse than leaving the kitchens. They had killed a man.
Rugerius was not like Bergus. He didn’t care about consequences. And if there was a way to avoid them, he was going to find it.
“We have to silence her,” Rugerius winked. “Are you still in? All the way, brother?”
The alliance was forged. Bergus had no choice now. He had to follow Rugerius everywhere. The boys leapt to their feet and darted for the house, their hands waving bloody knives above their heads like halos of the damned.
Before the sun rose the next morning, the culprits were gone and the woman died. It was a horrendous scene for the law officials in the district to discover a few days later. The investigation was sluggish and incompetent. The victims were not important people and no one really cared that they had died. No one suspected the boys had anything to do with it.
For Rugerius Fabbro and Bergus of Brindisi, everything had gone to plan. They felt like soldiers. They felt like men. They felt like brothers. Mission accomplished.
Chapter 9 - Viridian
Thirty-four-year old Rugerius Fabbro never knocked. The Castellan of Parthenope, infested with as many impolite habits as fleas, stormed through the unlocked door and stomped his filthy boots on a clean white rug. Outside the city gates, his mercenary army stood ready, prepared to march up the old north road under clandestine orders to storm Capua. Rugerius Fabbro, however, did not care about those orders or mercenaries right now. ‘Let them wait,’ he thought. ‘I have an urge that requires sating.’
Rugerius growled, his heavy hand scratching and mussing his mad beard, the dislocated jaw almost always sore and slurring his speech. He was not happy to find the parlor empty. “It is mid-day woman! Where are you?”
Two scantily clad female servants, both of them not yet teens, nervously poked their heads around a distant corner and stared at the noisy Castellan with frightened eyes, neither of them daring to enter the room or speak. Rugerius shooed them away with an open hand and they fled fast as they came.
Impatient, Rugerius spat on the white rug again, ruffled his shoulder-length hair and busted through another unlocked door to his left. His piercing eyes scanned the vaulted chamber with hundreds of blue streamers dangling down from the ceiling creating a maze of imaginary rain. In the corners of the room and set off against the walls were nightstands with candles and aromatic smoking pots pumping sweet incenses in the air. Narrow streams of the afternoon sun filtered into the space through lattice panels shuttering the patio. Soothing music from lute and flute players seated outside on the patio wafted in.
Rugerius ripped through the bedroom like an angry bull, his soiled hands tearing a destructive path through the silk veils, many of which became unfastened from the ceiling and died, their graceful bodies drifting down to the floor unaware that they had been violated.
At the far end of the room stood a four-poster canopy bed with sheer-white curtains closing in on all sides. Rugeriu
s yanked down a whole section of these clear-white curtains creating an awful breaking sound. It seemed that everything Rugerius did was violent.
Lying flat on her stomach, a naked woman with a creamy, chocolate-colored complexion and coal-black hair, moaned noticeably, her backside smiling at him.
Rugerius smiled back through his broken face. “Viridian! Wake up! I am leaving for Capua.” He slapped the woman hard on the smile. “Got things to do. A castle to burn!”
Viridian didn’t flinch. She laid flat and moaned some more.
“Come now, girl. I’ll be having it with your participation or not.” Obnoxiously, he started clapping his hands together making quite a racket. “You might well wake up and enjoy it.”
Viridian’s right arm stirred first. The hand struggled blindly to locate a fistful of purple sheets that were bunched up beside her. Nearly a full minute passed before she was up in a seated position. With a sultry temper and pouty lips befitting her disposition, the young lady drew the purple linens up to her neckline, covering her bareness with feigned modesty. A wee yawn was followed by a brilliant sleepy smile. Her big brown eyes managed to get halfway open, the shimmering silver mascara tinting her eyelids matching the sparkling paint on her fingernails and toes.
Rugerius had no pretensions about himself or his relationship with his nine-teen-year-old cousin, a girl sixteen years his junior. He was a letch and he knew it. He had been visiting her bed since she was thirteen. But she pleased him greatly and finding pleasure in this miserable world was all that mattered.
When Viridian was twelve, her parents were lost at sea. Her mother was Rugerius’ aunt on his mother’s side. His mother, Bertina Fabbro, had suffered a stroke giving birth to Talento and never recovered. Witless Bertina, obese and toothless, her white hair thinning and falling out, spent her days in a cold delusional fever, speaking with disembodied spirits, fairies and sprites, ghosts. The woman was obsessed with glittering talisman, anything shiny. She wore swore these beautiful baubles and metals enhanced her communication with the other world. The old woman was always going on about luck and curses, demons and angels, unseen forces dancing in the light and stalking through the shadows.
From a young age, Rugerius Fabbro took great care to avoid his barmy mother and her creepy ramblings. She tended to look at him funny, calling him ‘darkling’ with a cheeky, woeful smile.
Gherardus Fabbro thought that bringing the orphaned child to the palace as their ward might aid his wife on her road to recovery. They would treat Viridian like the daughter they never had.
That plan went awry quickly. Humble, shy and miserable, Viridian took one look at her older, knightly cousin and lost her mind. Her depression and grief transformed to manic obsession. She wanted Rugerius and thought of precious little else. At thirteen, she went to him and proclaimed her infatuation. They have been together ever since.
Viridian began to dance around the bed for him, her neck and shoulders bending and swaying to match the rhythm of the music drifting in from outside the room. Strange unearthly noises ascended up from deep within her voluptuous body. Her arms and legs began to quiver. Viridian was drifting towards some mystic netherworld to locate her inner beast.
Rugerius was fascinated by the showmanship.
Denuding the bed completely of all obstructions, Viridian shoved the pillows and kicked the sheets away, their gentle delicateness slipping silently off the end.
“What are you waiting for, you dallying fool?” Viridian teased. Settling back easily into a seated position, she propped herself up on her elbows, allowing the great weight of her black hair to pull her head down and away. Her thighs parted.
“Do to me what you intend to do to Capua. Pillage me. Destroy me. Be a god and make love to me. Hate me. Make me curse your name.”
Tired of words, Viridian fell back completely on the bed and waited his coming.
Rugerius finished taking off all his clothes, including a shiny seax with a bone-white grip that was secreted against his left hip. He softly hummed, “Oh Venus, you love, you charming sweet dame …’
Rugerius often experienced flashbacks. He could picture the old farmhouse in Bavaria and his best friend Bergus with the black-haired woman who lived there. He wanted her so bad. His grief elevated to a murderous level. Love drunk, he killed her, stabbing her in the chest with his dagger. “That’s how it feels,” he screamed in her face. “That’s how it feels to have your heart broken!”
Rugerius did not disregard the lessons of that night. He swore then and there he would kill and keep on killing before ever allowing himself to be that wanting. ‘I will never fall in love with anyone,’ he reminded himself repeatedly. ‘I will never put faith in any relationship. People are sheep, subject to the whims of the ruthless. Work them, use them, sheer them and eat them but never love them. And any fool thinking they deserve kindness and mercy from me, will get the dagger, eternal separation, the final reward, the end.’
Viridian did not witness any of Rugerius’ labors. She didn’t need him anymore. She was imagining a room full of gods and demons. She squirmed around the bed, touching herself indecently. She beckoned forth spirits but none came. Finally, she turned to Rugerius. “You! Mortal!” She commanded. “Get on this bed now! I am tired of waiting.”
Rugerius released a great barking laugh that broke the mood completely. Viridian shot up quicker than a heartbeat and beamed her hurt brown eyes at him hoping to make him stop but he continued on.
“You,” Rugerius stammered and pointed. “You cannot wait any longer? What else is a lady-in-waiting good for but to wait?”
Petulant and easily insulted, Viridian cursed Rugerius with a cold, devilish stare. She snapped her legs shut.
“I’m in no mood for your insolence today, Viridian. My men are waiting for me. Let’s do this.”
Viridian defiantly refused. She faced the ceiling, her eyes tightly shut. Rugerius didn’t care. He forced her to open her legs and she did not resist. She knew she didn’t want him to leave before being with her. She had her passions that required sating too.
The lovemaking was quick and to the point and over much quicker than Viridian had hoped. Not ten minutes later, she was watching Rugerius don his heavy armor.
“I won’t be here when you return. I’m going to Capri.”
Rugerius fastened the seax from the nightstand to his left thigh. “That’s fine. I was headed there after this nasty business in Capua anyway.” Securing the last of his clothing to his body, he stormed out of the room without so much as a word of gratitude or goodbye. She heard him spit once more on the thick white rug before slamming the outer apartment door.
Chapter 10 – Bastard Son
On December 20, 1192, Richard, Lionheart king of England, was captured and imprisoned by the Holy Roman Emperor, Henry VI. Richard Lionheart was the Roman Catholic Church’s chief ally. With Richard behind bars, Rome was forced to concede to nearly all the Emperor’s nettlesome demands.
One of those demands was Pero de Alava.
In November 1193, despite Rome’s objections, the Emperor sent Pero de Alava to Italy to command the fortress in Capua. It was the young Spaniards first imperial commission. Pero didn’t know it then but he was a pawn in the heart of an evolving battlefield.
On September 28, 1197, the heart exploded. Emperor Henry VI died and civil war began. Pawns beware.
Anthea Manikos gently stretched out two ells of red sindon before her plain chest, raising it high towards the newly risen sun. She hoped the rays might expose any unperceivable flaws in the delicate fabric. There were none. She was impressed.
A stoic Spaniard with curly black hair neatly flowing down to his shoulders, donning a light green leather tunic stood at Anthea’s side. Without looking at the handsome gentleman, Anthea questioned him. “Pero, what do you make of this red material? Is it not perfect for my wedding dress?”
Pero de Alava did not hear Anthea. His piercing blue eyes were cloudy, wandering aimlessly in the shadows of the
west where daylight had not yet gone.
Anthea drew her eyes away from the sindon to see why her fiancé was not responding. She wasn’t surprised to find him staring into the abyss. The Lord of Capua had been disconnecting from reality without warning for weeks now. There was much cause for concern.
Pero de Alava was the bastard child of Blassilo Velez and Maria Alava.
Blassilo Velez was a battle-hardened warrior who served Penafiel Castle in Spain. Unwed and wealthy, he maintained several haciendas and ranchos south of the castle at Penafiel. And despite his devotion to God and country, he often lived inconsistently to the faith. He was a rogue and he knew it. He relished the fight, be it fist or swords, tourney or war. He appreciated strong drink and loved a bevy of women. Blassilo Velez was nearly always traveling, never sleeping in the same bed twice; carousing here and then there. He managed his affairs from his saddle, somehow getting himself tangled up in nearly every local conflict. Spain was an untamed land spewing violence and revolution and men like Blassilo Velez reveled in it.
Blassilo Velez did have one woman in particular he cherished. Her name was Maria Alava. She was the only daughter of a powerful Mozarabic merchant living in Valladolid. Maria was nothing like the tramps, barmaids and scullery girls Blassilo commonly kept company with. If any woman could have bent his knee and challenged his primitive nature, it was her.
But Maria Alava was too generous to place the marriage yoke upon his shoulders. She knew it would crush his spirit.
A proverbial gentleman in her company, Blassilo Velez always went to great lengths to make Maria Alava feel like a queen. And she, in turn, regarded him as a king. With a snap of her finger, she could have snapped up any of his haciendas, but rustic, rural living was not the kind of life she sought. She wished to remain in the bustling city of her birth, surrounded by art and culture. Blassilo Velez settled her in Valladolid in a costly casa near the heart of the city. After Pero was born, they agreed to split the child’s time between them, offer him the best both of their worlds had to offer.