Well, *huh*
Jul. 29th, 2002 03:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaBeats me why I wrote this anyway, but two consecutive legible pages in a first draft by moi makes for a red-letter week. Not to mention two pages I actually enjoy re-reading. ^^; It would seem that I don't often feel free to let out all the stops prose-wise; the stylistic constraints dictated by the story take precedence... This *is* near the beginning of the fic. It has a weird structure.
I have officially ripped off Anne Golon as well as Frances Hodgson Burnett. And you have no *idea* how long I've waited to use this line as a fic title. XD
***
In most ways he seemed an ordinary child. Tow-blond, pale-skinned, grey-eyed. Small for his age, with (the women said) the same bones as his mother. Ironically, then, he had the look of a Bardoba where his father did not. Whatever ancient latency in the blood had surfaced to touch the locks of a younger son with ebony and his eyes with dark fire lay dormant again, its work done. One could almost have believed the curse lifted. If one were a fool.
Such a one Bardoba was not.
Mireille had - as far as he could tell - retained no conscious memories of the birth. Once she was well enough to speak, however, she refused the child as if it were not hers. The matter rated barely a whisper with the servants. It was common enough with first births among noblewomen, too-young married and knowing nothing of pain. Bardoba was informed but thought no more of it; nor for that matter of her. A wet nurse was found, and the child (being delicate of constitution from the outset) was sent to live with her in a tenant village. In Bardoba's mind, the bulk of Mireille's travails as a mother was over. Remained the duties of her public position, and in that capacity at least he found her survival convenient.
They removed to Valnain, only returning to the Greylands between parliamentary sessions. The boy grew from visit to infrequent visit, but remained as affectionate as a commoner child, at least with his father.
Even the first shadows that fell seemed most cursory.
"It's only an old trinket, m'lord," the nurse said in answer. "A cheap agate that used to belong to my own granddam. He wears it every day, no matter how fine his clothes. It's as much as I'm worth to pry it out of his hands for prayers. He'd not do it before his nurse, of course, but I've heard him speak to it, for all as if he was whispering secrets to his mother. He's a good boy and quiet, m'lord, but a child will have fancies."
They watched from a distance as the boy sprinted after the loosed hounds, romping in a rare show of high spirits. It was summer, and the afternoon sun filtered down through the arching branches of the willows, dusting the blond of the child's hair with gold. Bardoba frowned, gazing after his son.
"Do you think he misses his mother?"
"What child wouldn't?" The nurse lowered her eyes hastily, and bobbed a curtsey. "Begging your pardon, m'lord. But if only m'lady could-"
"Say no more," said Bardoba, "I understand." He raised his voice, then, gesturing with his walking stick: "Sydney!" The boy raised his head and halted, the dogs returning to his side and circling about him. He leant against a shaggy grey flank as tall as he was, waiting from them to approach, the posture infinitely and unconsciously graceful. His hair was tousled, his cheeks flushed rosy from the exercise. He looked like a painting, Bardoba thought, a work of art executed by a master hand. And for the first time since that desperate night, something stirred in him: a dangerous movement of the heart.
No trace of this image remained, however, in the portrait he eventually commissioned.
Mireille gave him no trouble. Perhaps she had erased the child from her memory, down to the fact that she had not wanted him; at any rate she seemed pleased enough to rediscover his existence. Contrary to what Bardoba had expected, it was Sydney who kept his distance. He was not shy, but he stood stiff and grave before her, and did not respond to her awkward touch. In the end they sat together long enough only for the fashionable society painter to sketch in their relative positions. It took two hours, and Sydney did not speak a word in that time.
He wore the agate pin at his collar, and refused to let them remove it.
"It is not even properly carved," Bardoba said to him during a later session, this one ungraced by the Duchess's presence. "It looks nothing like your mother. And while I applaud your reluctance faced with the apron string, I would have credited you with enough courage to speak up to her face."
"She is not my mother," Sydney said.
In this way he was never ordinary, even as a child: his voice was singularly beautiful in timbre. It was low for his age, a mellifluous alto that startled the interlocutor and gave a fey adult ring to his words - Bardoba could not remember him ever lisping, or stumbling over unfamiliar terms as children do. Hardly the pure treble so prized by the choirmasters of Valnain, but had he been a beggar and not a ducal heir, the Church would have sent him to the knife rather than risk a loss to the vagaries of change. As it was, he spoke little, and no one had heard him sing.
"You are pert, sirrah," said Bardoba, annoyed. Sydney merely shook his head - minutely, from side to side.
"She is not my mother," he repeated. "My mother always speaks to me." Bardoba, watching the tall glass on the opposite wall, saw him reach to touch his collar, and smile. It was an odd smile for a child, lashes lowered and lips curved with secrets; he had witnessed it once on a more fitting, more ancient face.
The painter clacked his tongue in automatic reproof. The stroke of his brush never halted, never faltered.
And Bardoba's blood ran cold.
***
I have officially ripped off Anne Golon as well as Frances Hodgson Burnett. And you have no *idea* how long I've waited to use this line as a fic title. XD
***
In most ways he seemed an ordinary child. Tow-blond, pale-skinned, grey-eyed. Small for his age, with (the women said) the same bones as his mother. Ironically, then, he had the look of a Bardoba where his father did not. Whatever ancient latency in the blood had surfaced to touch the locks of a younger son with ebony and his eyes with dark fire lay dormant again, its work done. One could almost have believed the curse lifted. If one were a fool.
Such a one Bardoba was not.
Mireille had - as far as he could tell - retained no conscious memories of the birth. Once she was well enough to speak, however, she refused the child as if it were not hers. The matter rated barely a whisper with the servants. It was common enough with first births among noblewomen, too-young married and knowing nothing of pain. Bardoba was informed but thought no more of it; nor for that matter of her. A wet nurse was found, and the child (being delicate of constitution from the outset) was sent to live with her in a tenant village. In Bardoba's mind, the bulk of Mireille's travails as a mother was over. Remained the duties of her public position, and in that capacity at least he found her survival convenient.
They removed to Valnain, only returning to the Greylands between parliamentary sessions. The boy grew from visit to infrequent visit, but remained as affectionate as a commoner child, at least with his father.
Even the first shadows that fell seemed most cursory.
"It's only an old trinket, m'lord," the nurse said in answer. "A cheap agate that used to belong to my own granddam. He wears it every day, no matter how fine his clothes. It's as much as I'm worth to pry it out of his hands for prayers. He'd not do it before his nurse, of course, but I've heard him speak to it, for all as if he was whispering secrets to his mother. He's a good boy and quiet, m'lord, but a child will have fancies."
They watched from a distance as the boy sprinted after the loosed hounds, romping in a rare show of high spirits. It was summer, and the afternoon sun filtered down through the arching branches of the willows, dusting the blond of the child's hair with gold. Bardoba frowned, gazing after his son.
"Do you think he misses his mother?"
"What child wouldn't?" The nurse lowered her eyes hastily, and bobbed a curtsey. "Begging your pardon, m'lord. But if only m'lady could-"
"Say no more," said Bardoba, "I understand." He raised his voice, then, gesturing with his walking stick: "Sydney!" The boy raised his head and halted, the dogs returning to his side and circling about him. He leant against a shaggy grey flank as tall as he was, waiting from them to approach, the posture infinitely and unconsciously graceful. His hair was tousled, his cheeks flushed rosy from the exercise. He looked like a painting, Bardoba thought, a work of art executed by a master hand. And for the first time since that desperate night, something stirred in him: a dangerous movement of the heart.
No trace of this image remained, however, in the portrait he eventually commissioned.
Mireille gave him no trouble. Perhaps she had erased the child from her memory, down to the fact that she had not wanted him; at any rate she seemed pleased enough to rediscover his existence. Contrary to what Bardoba had expected, it was Sydney who kept his distance. He was not shy, but he stood stiff and grave before her, and did not respond to her awkward touch. In the end they sat together long enough only for the fashionable society painter to sketch in their relative positions. It took two hours, and Sydney did not speak a word in that time.
He wore the agate pin at his collar, and refused to let them remove it.
"It is not even properly carved," Bardoba said to him during a later session, this one ungraced by the Duchess's presence. "It looks nothing like your mother. And while I applaud your reluctance faced with the apron string, I would have credited you with enough courage to speak up to her face."
"She is not my mother," Sydney said.
In this way he was never ordinary, even as a child: his voice was singularly beautiful in timbre. It was low for his age, a mellifluous alto that startled the interlocutor and gave a fey adult ring to his words - Bardoba could not remember him ever lisping, or stumbling over unfamiliar terms as children do. Hardly the pure treble so prized by the choirmasters of Valnain, but had he been a beggar and not a ducal heir, the Church would have sent him to the knife rather than risk a loss to the vagaries of change. As it was, he spoke little, and no one had heard him sing.
"You are pert, sirrah," said Bardoba, annoyed. Sydney merely shook his head - minutely, from side to side.
"She is not my mother," he repeated. "My mother always speaks to me." Bardoba, watching the tall glass on the opposite wall, saw him reach to touch his collar, and smile. It was an odd smile for a child, lashes lowered and lips curved with secrets; he had witnessed it once on a more fitting, more ancient face.
The painter clacked his tongue in automatic reproof. The stroke of his brush never halted, never faltered.
And Bardoba's blood ran cold.
***
