Drizzling rain fell upon the city of Forum, beating upon heaps of snow and driving the people, foreign and local alike, within homes and steaming taverns. Every room in the city had been filled and people were piled atop one another in every stables. Soldiers camped outside the city, bitter beside meager fires. The groundwork had been laid for boarding houses and fresh dormitories, with new land trenched to extend the city wall, but those would not complete for many months more. Dozens of young nobles had been ordered to the city along with their retinues and hundreds of the merchant class had come chasing after their open purses.
It couldn’t be said that times were good for the people of Forum. Even as they scratched numbers off their boards and doubled their prices there was still a daily scramble to find even the most basic of necessities. Peddlers rushed to the city to bring carts of fuel, food, and fabric, falling over one another to thrust their goods before the governesses of the newly enrolled students. It was the producers of the city that most profited. The bakers and the brewers extorted the new arrivals for all they were worth, in turn handing over their profits to give thanks to the town guard whom lingered on their streets and in their establishments to shove off the two-legged vermin expecting to always have their way at the expense of the people who had built the city.
Many a night, taverns would be brimming with such armed men, bristling against one another. Conflict was not limited to merely the new and the old, but also among the different fiefs of Vassermark and most dangerously between those in support of the new king and those who believed the time of nobility had come to an end.
On this most auspicious night, blades trembled to be ripped from their sheathes. The mere presence of Lucius von Solhart was like a vortex, pulling in the ire of all but those who had marched at his behest. Men of Rackvidd had been sent to Forum to ensure the safety of Felicia vi Raymi, but all of them had served Lucius and it was their preferred brewery which nearly overflowed with blood.
Sir Pierre Champerouge had an empty belly and blood brimming with beer as he loomed over a displaced porter from the capital. The shorter man was just as burly and just as hungry and no coaxing from his coworkers could convince him to make an exception for Lucius when he said all of the nobility were parasites unfit to carry the names of their forebearers. Three men would be dead in that bar before the night was over, none of which were Pierre and none died by Lucius’ blade.
Though he had been there at the start, he left with neither defending his honor nor calming the situation. He was just as drunk as the men he had fought with across the central kingdoms, letting each in turn pour him a drink and jest with the soon-to-be father. Many a tale had been told of wives and children and the younger soldiers spoke about lovers just as beautiful as Aisha but never more so. It was win one squire spoke admiringly of the new students of the academy that the hackles of the workers were raised.
The catalyst of the night vanished almost without a trace. A handful eavesdropped the news that the time had come just before he went running out the back. It was when the porter called him a coward that the fists flew and the man who should have kept in check also left the bar. Sir Lyam of Jarnmark was the only member of the Warden Blades to accompany Lucius that night, out of deference to the importance of the night, but the Steel Blade lost sight of the boy not three blocks from the bar and could only follow his tracks back to Temple Cross East Manor. He found the gate flung open. Leomund had words for him when the knight tried to force himself into the building and no entry was permitted to him that night.
Before Lyam could assert royal authority, the manor was filled with a cry and the Steel Blade relented. He abandoned his duty, expecting to be punished for it on the morrow. The door slammed behind him as he began forming a speech about how he couldn’t be expected to fight Leomund Tolzi, the man who had subjugated an entire riot by himself.
Such thoughts couldn’t have been further from Lucius’ mind that night as he found Aisha in their bed, exhausted. Cradled half in her arms and half in Lupa’s, the two of them were working with Dr Samuel to clean off the newborn. Aisha laughed as he stood in the doorway. “Hey Lu, meet Alexander,” she said, turning the babe’s face to him.
“A son?” he asked, struck dumb by the ocean blue eyes taking him in. “Is he…?”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Unmarked,” Sammy said, brushing clean the little tuft of blonde hair from the babe’s head. “I didn’t find so much as a freckle on his body. He has no traces of a stigmata. There were no complications. Don’t worry about the mess.”
“Good,” Lucius said as he strode over, eyes never straying from his son’s until after he had the babe in his hands. When Alexander reached out and grabbed his father’s wet tunic, Lucius sank into the bed beside Aisha and smiled. “Good,” he said again.
Lupa cocked her head. “Why do you keep saying good? Wouldn’t you want your son to be gifted?”
“Not at all,” he said as Aisha rested against him. “He’ll be free this way. How many people in this world have their lives warped by the arbitrary gift they’re given? Men with no heart to fight are expected to if their stigmata is good at it. Craftsmen are shunned if their gift is wrong. You don’t even want to know how many are killed if their gifts are dangerous. It’s better this way. He won’t be forced to do anything.”
“He’s still your son, Lu,” Aisha said, letting the babe grab onto her finger.
“And I have a lot of work to do for him,” he said as Sammy peered out the window. Miss Lynnfield came trudging up the stairs with a fresh bucket of steaming water and congratulations were given as the cleaning began. Lupa vanished from the room as Lucius was ordered out of the bed and they did what they could to change the linens. She returned with bowls of soup and found him standing exactly where she had left him, still enraptured by the newborn.
“This is much better,” she said, handing the warm broth to Aisha, who drank it down like a sailor who had just made it to port. Life began returning to her as Lupa set the other bowls aside. “In the desert, the father was rarely known, let alone present. This is how it should be.”
“It won’t always happen,” Lucius said, returning to the bed, his smile growing forlorn. “There will be times when I’ll have to be away. The fact that I could be here was a blessing.”
Lupa laughed. “Already thinking about the next one?”
Aisha snickered and waved the empty bowl at her. “Honestly, we’re all surprised you’re still bleeding.”
She snatched the bowl away, cheeks flushed. “Shouldn’t you be acting jealous or something?”
“What would I have to be jealous over? I’m the first wife,” she said, snaking her hand into Lucius’ embrace.
“Don’t ever say that outside these walls,” he said, passing Alexander back to her.
“I know, I know, but I’m in a mood to tease,” she said as her gaze fell upon the babe once more.
Sammy stood from the wash basin and beckoned Sera over. “I think I’ll exchange duties now,” he said and moments later, Leomund was in the room.
“There’s the little prince!” the northman said as soon as he saw Alexander. He kept a respectable distance until Aisha sat up and let him reach out to the newborn. Getting his finger squeezed made him fill the room with laughter and he soon began making declarations of a feast in the skaldish style. No one could imagine how he would get a pig given the circumstances in Forum, but nobody tried to dissuade him from the task.
Soon enough, the new mother was on her feet. Cleaning the manor fell upon the lot of them because the boy’s stipend barely kept their needs fulfilled let alone left budget for staff. It was an indignity Aria vocally despised but she knew as well as anyone else the other danger. Rumors swirled through the city that students of the academy were being targeted by their own staff. Every occurrence of food poisoning was a conspiracy and few dared walk the streets without armed accompaniment. Thus, she lived in the manor with them, but was the only one to not bother visiting the newborn. In time she would have to familiarize herself with the child because, officially, it was her bastard nephew, even if she knew she had no relation at all to Lucius.
For that night, they had privacy in the manor and Aisha whispered to Lucius alone the boy’s true name. She had learned a proper appreciation for a true name, even if her time studying in Tavina had not scratched past the warnings. There was nothing she could do with someone’s true name, but she knew what theoretically could be done. To prevent a mere moniker from settling upon her son, she shared it with Lucius, adding a second name to the boy in the tradition of her people and named his second name after her father. Those syllables only once passed Lucius’ lips, forming akin to a shield in the old manner of folk wisdom against curses and ill luck.
It was hours later when Lucius laid awake in the bed, Aisha and their child asleep against him, that he brooded on the problems facing him. The new king had not truly pardoned him of his suspected role in the failed coup. Peace for him would only last so long as his strength was needed by the new king and his compliance was ensured by the blades pointed at Aisha and Alexander. Seven knights had been assigned to watch over him, with the knowledge that if Lucius could not be subdued, everything precious to him would be taken away.