Vermilion

Chapter 1

Reaching for the door handle of the carriage, he glanced over at the widow holding on the crook of his arm. He feigned a cheerful smile then opened the door, climbed inside, and promptly close the cold night away.

Arriving at the world he decided to preserve from the perils of the coming threat, he had not seen what has become of him.

In his period of living, he had seen so much --- he understood why they coveted this --- that no creature would refuse an opportunity to set foot on it. He lived days of nature's colors and warmth of cheerful, some spiteful, mortals and spent the nights of unbridled merriment of animating lights. It appeased the burden he carried on his back.

But as he lingered, he learned the laws of being a peasant and the rules of nobility.

As a land tiller, they --- and he ---spend all their day tending the land, sow, care for the plants --- as well as guarding them ---, reap, and pay taxes in form of goods, the harvest, or money. Taking care of animals is a must, especially sheep and horses. The lost or death of any of them costs much on the tenant and a subject of reproach of his lord.

He had experienced these, mingled with the others in his vicinity, and saw the hard-pressed life. But he never understood why on such daily ordeal, they managed to find time for crisp laughter. It never mattered where or how harsh the weather might be --- they were genuinely happy.

Even after several years followed by three more decades, he never had imitated the good spirits, boastful laughter, and garrulity of those people though he had seen them from sturdy farmers to crippling raconteurs. He tried. Many times. But the warmth of the stomach, tightening of the chest, bubbling in the throat, and loosening of the jaws --- as the raconteurs told him when he asked how to --- did not happen.

He-Who-Can't-Laugh, a gap-toothed horse breeder put in as epithet.

A baronet saw him in work. After few days of scrutiny, he has taken him in as valet.

Sir Stephen James Woodlam introduced him to living within doors of grand house and to the Town. Mentored by Michael Heathe, an aged butler, he mastered everything about waistcoats, suits, evening coats, occasions for every attire, and immediate response to a bell pull. He had ironed, arranged, and picked out everything in the huge armoire and never missed a wrinkle.

In that baron's mansion, nothing less than perfection would do. His fellow servants had been cleaning and polishing almost every day to ensure that everything looked fine and neat as a pin before Sir Woodlam's meticulous eyes --- lest they want a thorough sermon about cleanliness and idleness.

He had done his part and heard the repetitive yells, he had been questioned a number of times why he stood abreast with the cleaning servants as the baronet's sermon went, and had nodded a number of times on them.

Making himself as scarce as possible, he watched Sir Stephen, Heathe, and the servants turned gray. He had counted the deaths in the household due to age, the replacements due to incapacity, and those who left without a word.

One night, as he fixed the cravat with measured starch, in which the man was comfortable, on the neck of the burly silver-streaked baronet, he received a handful of praise for his "unfaltered excellence in service." He nodded indifferently for all he had to do was to dress the baronet and follow his whim. It was not harder than harvesting wheat.

"How old are you Janning?" he had asked after he was done with the attire.

Moses Janning was his name, given by the late affable Heathe.