The Story of the Vampire, L (Completed | Featured )

Ch.14 - Iovita, pt 1- Kidneys Black and Blue

I will take responsibility for him. He was my brother. You have not asked for me, that I know. I understand that it is likely you know me not well enough to ask. But it is possible to ask too much of our masters, and in such an event, they are weak to ask favors of those who have served them in the past. I will serve. I am responsible for this story.

But in order to go forward, we must go back. It does not concern me that you may not care to do so, or that you may feel you know the story. I will not abide by the version of the story you have heard. I am not one to ride upon the backs of others. If you will hear me, you will hear the story as I know it. What you will have, is the beginning because without it how may we know the end? I write it from my place at home, and the story begins at home as well.

I would like to think, because he is dead, that Laurent had an idyllic childhood. Some would like to think that. Certainly, Leechtin would like to think that. The little master, Nataniellus, would like to think that. But there were no fauns or fawning in the time that Escha came to us, and it was a time where children were beaten in order to resemble the shape of men. In our homeplace it was no different, and Escha could be so effeminate, and though we younger boys secretly praised him as the very spirit of love and beauty, we were encouraged to pinch him like scorpions if his lower-lip trembled. But that is drawing a little ahead.

That day he came, I had no idea to expect anything. I had been told to pull weeds in the shady kitchen garden, and pull greens for lunch if there were any looking nice to eat. I had been pulling for some time, the sun travelling across my back, when I heard shouting up the road, and the sound of our mule complaining about the cart.

Perhaps it is not entirely true that I didn't expect anything. I only hadn't expected new slaves that day. There had been a little talk that the master had been seeking younger boys, for what purpose we didn't rightly know, only that they be beautiful, polite, and brave. We knew that they weren't going to be trained in the house because there had been no stipulation passed down that this boy be in any way intelligent, just potentially well-mannered, unafraid, and pleasant to look at. So we didn't feel threatened by the idea of the new boy. He couldn't usurp us, whatever purpose he had. We were the well-chosen few, and we would go on to as well as a slave could hope for. We were perfumed and well-fed, raised up as if by the hand of a god, and since the new one could not lower us, he was of no interest. 

So that is why when I heard the mule and the cart, I did not even turn around. It was my job and my duty to do as told, and I expected nothing if I did not finish in time. At that age I often told myself I chose to do the work, out of no more and no less than arrogance, and so I took pride in pulling weeds. I had not yet learned that pride is not necessary for such things, and yet it fueled me well.Nearly as well as that I secretly wished that I would be allowed to stay in this place that I considered my home. I thought, so deeply, so secretly, that if I worked hard enough, and fought my disobedient nature, I might be allowed to stay and serve in the place where I grown up. So I did not see anything before lunch except weeds and salad greens. I took my bleeding fingers and aching hips inside to lunch, and found myself rebuffed. "Wash yourself and go behind the stable for your lunch today," my teacher, Vasvius, told me. "There is business going on in the house and not to be disturbed."

"What sort of business?" I asked him.

"Those who stick their nose in will have it cut off," he said. "Will you go or will you have a clout and then go?"

"Clout," I said.

"Don't be so obnoxious. Get out of here, worm," he said, but he smiled. Vasvius, for some reason, always liked me.

I was either thirteen or fourteen, near enough fourteen perhaps, and so a streak of pernicious curiosity sometimes coursed through me. I found myself well curious, with Vasvius guarding the door. He was our senior, the highest position in the house besides the master himself, and if it were he in charge of the transaction, it must be special indeed. To not even see the boys? What could they possibly be for? I was under no sweet illusions. My first thought was that the master sought a bedslave, and I'm certain that most would have thought so. Sexuality, even at that age, did not come into my life much. Considering my position, it was often reiterated to me that my body was not my own, and that I should be cognizant of damaging my value. But I was curious all the same, more than curious, sometimes slavishly curious, and lascivious thoughts found ground in me. I could not think of any other reason, now that the thought had occurred, for this to be happening. Doesn't Venus cover her body with veils, and guard her dignity? And so Vasvius covered the door. Not to even see them. For me, the idea of their youth did not appear as flesh in this thought process. The thought of the master's at bed would not abandon me as I washed up by the well. I so rarely even saw the master. Thoughts toward his private life were too too intriguing.