The Orphan of Saint Olette

Five

The marriage of the seventh King, Charles, had been a political move rather than an act of love, as all monarchical weddings were. He married, at the behest of his father, an unsightly maiden named Gwyneth Palarven, the only daughter of Lord Corlow Palarven, who had secured the Northern border for the monarchy once more. Through various matrimonies, the monarchy had not only owned the country by right but through Lordship and Ladyship too, and the North had always seemed to elude their grasp. Despite the move being an excellent political strategy, Gwyneth was not a slightly young woman, and Charles did not love her.

She, in return, did not love her husband, and for a time the kingdom began to wonder if the two would ever have an heir. The two were often seen out of each other's company, and Charles made no secret of his love for prostitutes and peasant girls. He would have young women brought to the palace at all hours of the night, purely for his own pleasure, and could often be found drinking himself into a stupor, beheading anyone who dared to speak ill of him. People were more than welcome to speak ill of his wife, though. In fact, he encouraged it, publicly ridiculing her on more than one occasion.

Despite all odds, however, three years into their marriage an heir was born. His name was Angelus, and much to Gwyneth's relief the boy had been spared her ugliness. Gwyneth doted upon her son, raising him herself instead of relying on a wet nurse, as so many insisted she do. Charles was simply happy to have a son.

It took another three years for the pair to conceive another child, and by the time it was born, Angelus had already begun his schooling. Gwyneth's second pregnancy was hard. She had been confined to her bed for most of it, and she had been inexplicably weak for its entirety, but at the end of it, she gave birth to two healthy children, each as beautiful as their brother. They came to be known as Alexander and Adrianna.

As the children grew, Charles' reign became ever worse. He spent more time on his throne than anywhere else, convinced his eldest son was plotting to murder him. On more than one occasion he'd been caught trying to smother the boy in his sleep, until Gwyneth had forbidden Charles from seeing him, ensuring Angelus was escorted by his own personal guard everywhere he went. Alexander and Adrianna faced no such threats, and quickly became the apples of their father's eye. Charles had them forgo their schooling for a year so that they could spend their days with him, watching as the kingdom buckled underneath him.

At the tender age of four, his prodigal twins were forced to bear witness to the execution of their own grandmother, who had bravely and somewhat foolishly dared to call her son out on his tyranny and his insanity. After that, the twins were never quite the same again. They withdrew from the company of others, even their dear father, and would wander the palace halls together, the two of them largely inseparable, as they had been in the womb. They would always link hands, and had taken to sharing a bed. While most people assumed their closeness was simply because they were twins, the servants in the castle had begun to suspect otherwise, and it only worsened as they reached their teens.

By then, Angelus was busy being schooled in how to run a kingdom, and as such never had much time for his siblings. He would greet them at supper and make small talk with them, but the pressures of being heir to the throne had kept him away from his brother and sister for most of his life, and at times they felt like little more than strangers to him. Not that Adrianna and her brother minded; the wider berth Angelus gave them, the more time they had for each other.

The two were still adamant about sharing a bed as they reached their teens, and as the servants would discover, their nights were spent more intimately than merely cuddling up to each other. Needless to say, neither twin was interested in marriage, the both of them turning away any suitor Gwyneth would put before them. It was around this time that Charles had begun a barbaric ritual of bedding a virgin each night and casting her from his sight at dawn. If the girl was unlucky enough to fall pregnant, she was slain along with her unborn child, something Alexander had taken great delight in witnessing.