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“Is it so charming to speak of your conquests in front of the girl?”
The hint of spite in Drystan’s tone amused the baron. “At least I have conquests of which to speak. Must be difficult around all those stable boys and small animals.”
Jaw clenched, Drystan lurched toward the baron. “I am no sodomite! Such a thing is a sin! A despicable and repulsive sin!”
Sin. On two occasions, while away at Cavendale, the baron had caught glimpses of men together, enjoying each other’s company in a way he’d deemed romantic. Although the nature of their relationship was foreign to him, given he had never witnessed such a thing before, the sight had not troubled him. The idea that their affections for each other had been scorned by those who would ruthlessly burn women on stakes for heresy was a sickening hypocrisy, and the baron found amusement in Drystan’s revulsion. “Only in the eyes of your beloved church, but do not be afraid. I won’t speak a word of it.”
“Lies! Your words are lies!”
“If they are lies, as you said, why do you blush so,Cousin?” The baron grinned, his goading only stirring more ire in the other boy, made clear in the bright red of his cheeks.
“Enough! The bishop was right--you speak with a forked tongue! Your mother should’ve disposed of you like a bastard child!”
The baron’s muscles snapped with tension, the fury inside of him burning like a hot flame. Had the girl not been present, he may have risked sending a bolt of lightning straight through his cousin’s heart right then. Instead, he lifted a gem clipped to his shirt and held it up, twisting it in front of Drystan and Lustina.
Once, when the baron was young, his father had made the mistake of striking him at a formal dinner held at the manor. His mother had stolen the opportunity to draw attention to it, which prompted one of the noblemen in attendance to inquire if he employed a whipping boy to mete out the baron’s punishments. From that day on, Drystan had been assigned to the task, as he had been the baron’s closest friend at the time. On only a few occasions did the baron subject his cousin to such punishments carried out by Tothyll, one of his father’s guards who also participated in executions. And he’d always felt remorse afterward.
Given the boy’s ruthless comments, the baron hoped that Tothyll was feeling particularly vicious that day.
Drystan gasped and dropped to his knees. “Forgive me, My Lord. Forgive my blasphemous words.”
The moment the words were spoken, bits of dust fell from the baron’s palm that enveloped the gem.
The girl’s eyes widened, and he stared back at her as a warning, that if she spoke a word, he would make her life hell.
“Tothyll will take pleasure in meting out your punishment.”
Head bowed, Drystan’s shoulders sagged as he rose to his feet. “My Lord, your mother asked me to fetch you. Perhaps you should not keep her waiting.”
* * *
Staring out the window of his mother’s chambers, he watched the carriage off in the far distance, the dust from its wheels flying up over the trees.
“What has you so riveted, Son?” His mother spoke in a weak voice, from where she lay in bed.
“I see the bishop has found himself a new pet to replace Drystan.”
“Extend the girl your grace. The world has not been kind to her.”
He snorted at that. “Not been kind to a girl who accompanies the most powerful man in Praecepsia?”
“While I do not know the nature, or purpose, of Bishop Venable’s affections toward her, it was at his orders that her mother was burned as a heretic.”
A stab of shock struck his chest, as he recalled having met her mother in the woods the day he had spied on the girl. How wild and vibrant she was with her red hair and the same flicker of defiance he’d seen in Lustina that afternoon. “Burned?”
“Yes.” She coughed, and the baron shuddered at the wet barky sound of it.
He turned and strode back alongside her bed, taking a seat on the mattress beside his mother. “What are these treatments?”
She groaned and rolled her head against the pillow. “Their ridiculous rituals.”
“It is not rituals which make you this way. Tell me.”
“The bishop feeds me elixirs he swears will heal.”
“And why do you accept?”
“The moment I decline, he will assume that I do not want to be well. That I harbor something inside of me that wishes to remain sick. And oh, what fun he would glean from an exorcism, or worse.”
