Chapter 3
Chapter Three
The dank, dark cell smelt of stale wine.
With my head buried in my hands, I tried to process what had happened to Ricardo. My mind scrambled to comprehend it. Roelle had confirmed my worst fear – my brother had died in the bullring.
Lack of light made it impossible to determine the passing of time. The unrelenting cold chilled my bones, the pain burrowing in as I wrapped discarded hessian sacks around my body to prevent myself from freezing.
My arrival at Roelle’s estate had gone unnoticed. I’d been locked up in the cellars before any of the staff had gotten a look at me. Perhaps no one else knew where to find me.
In the silence, my chaotic thoughts took control.
On the stone walls, I made out patterns, and distorted faces emerged. I counted the exposed bricks until I had them memorized, then changed positions to alter the view.
Recalling the way my bedroom looked, I closed my eyes and pretended I was back there.
Imagined the chair I sat in at breakfast, the way the pot in the hearth swung back and forth after my mother had stirred the broth – and my mother’s face, the way her top lip curled when she smiled. She’d forgive me, come back for me.
Save me.
Forty bricks across and thirty-eight down. Paint still covered the last few I counted. I used my hands to judge how many there were before they reached the ground. After counting the bricks, I kicked them, twisting my ankle and sending brown dust into the air. I didn’t try it again.
I developed a love-hate relationship with the bucket in the corner, grateful that I had it, but feeling hateful when its stench overwhelmed me.
Despite protesting that I didn’t know anything about his friend Aaron, who’d mysteriously disappeared at the mausoleum after nearly ending my life, Roelle had used his fists to force my recollection.
His knuckles had struck my flesh, punched my old bruises and made new ones.
Curled up, I’d tucked my knees beneath me, using my hands to protect my face.
With each strike came his worsening frustration.
“If I knew, I’d tell you,” I cried.
He had stormed out.
My sobs had caused a rift in the stillness.
Guilt for my brother’s death eased during the long days when a visit from Roelle distracted me. Physical and mental torture became frequent. Fretful to learn the fate of his best friend, Aaron, he had interrogated me. I tried to convince him that I knew nothing.
Sleep was my only refuge. My mind turned to thoughts of the senorita as I tried to recall her face, haunted by her. “Sunaria” was the name she’d told me.
Sunaria. In my mind, I called out to her, my phantom savior.
I yearned for home, for my mother’s love, her forgiveness. I surrendered to despair and embraced the void. With such pain, there’s no hope, and with that no chance of disappointment. When engulfed in darkness, there’s no fear of losing one’s way.
One is already lost.
The news that my actions had brought about the bullfight that had killed my brother caused me terrible anguish.
My thoughts spiraled over and over again, never finding their way out of the rut of self-condemnation.
I had no choice but to relinquish all memories of him in order to suppress the twisted agony that wrenched at my small, weak frame.
Start anew.
To survive this, I had to win Roelle’s approval. Though his visits had become less frequent, when he did invade my dark prison, I presented the air of a boy humbled, yet strong, respectful, and resilient.
During his latest visit, his brow furrowed as he considered me with an oddly conflicted gaze.
I chose my words carefully. “Sir, I can fix that.”
About to head out the door, he glared back.
“Your jacket pocket,” I said, pointing. “My grandfather’s a tailor. He taught me—”
He left, slamming the door shut.
Within two hours, I’d been provided with a needle and fine thread, and given the opportunity to mend Roelle’s jacket. Kneeling in the corner next to my all too precious, melting candle, I sewed the finest stitches.
When Roelle returned, he brought bread and cheese, and I gulped the cup of milk he offered. He examined his neatly sewn jacket with a thoughtful expression.
Time waned, dissolving like a distant memory.
After several weeks, Roelle freed me from the cellar.
But he warned me that if I attempted to run away, he’d personally deliver me to jail. To prove his point, the day before my release, he made a noose out of coarse rope and hung it around my neck.
Understanding came quickly.
With decisive steps, afraid to speak, I followed Roelle up and out of the dark, the daylight blinding me temporarily.
Within the interior of the mansion, ostentatious decor hindered homeyness. The house seemed more like a statement of power than a family residence, with enough opulence to make any visitor feel unwelcome.
I couldn’t fathom why a part of me missed my small, dark cell.
Roelle appointed me as his personal manservant, his way to keep me close. He provided a chilly, bare room close to his, though I rarely slept there due to Roelle’s insistence that I sleep in the corner of his bedroom, perhaps to allay his loneliness.
As master of the Bastillion empire, Roelle ruled the household with fierce intimidation, and no one challenged him.
His abuse of the small boy who cleaned his matador apparel and carried out other menial tasks, went unnoticed.
If anything, the staff admired his courage in taking on the unruly son of the Velde family.
I clung to Roelle and gradually found an eerie comfort in his presence, striving to perform my errands well.
That cell still threatened to eat me up again.
Within his office, I set to work sorting out his desk, without disrupting his already disorganized filing. My thoughts drifted back to that beautiful senorita in the mausoleum, and then they dared to wander back farther.
I’d shamed my family.
My father, the ultimate hero, had fought in England’s Battle of Blore Heath.
I’d overheard him telling Ricardo that many Lancastrians had perished during the battle they had eventually lost. The defeated leaders had fled the country and my father, too, had found wisdom in placing distance between himself and the land he’d never called home.
Those scars went deeper than his war-torn limbs.
A few days before my sixth birthday, he’d died.
As the eldest, Ricardo had been tasked with supporting our family.
Ricardo stood in the kitchen doorway, his expression strange as he glanced down at the object he held in his right hand.
Alicia, our seven-year-old sister, a year older than me, clapped her hands with excitement as Ricardo spread his red Muleta cape onto the table.
My sister went quiet, and I knew that this moment was for me - this precious gift that represented a matador’s bravery, bestowed by the bullfighter himself, and I felt unworthy to touch it.
Sensing my reticence, Ricardo winked at me.
Our mother regarded the material with a glint of pride, though the quiver of her lips exposed her fear, and she yelled that it would leave a stain.
And it did.
Roelle and I had never spoken about the events that had led to my brother’s death, though on several occasions I’d felt compelled to open up to him to try to find the truth. But doubt kept me silent.
Somewhere far off in the house, Roelle could be heard shouting at a servant. Trying to retrieve even more from my shaky memory, I stole into the well-stocked library. I seized what time I could to read – devouring stories – while kindly staff would, on occasion, lend a hand in my learning.
Eventually, I slept in the servants’ quarters. The firm, musty bed felt like a luxury.
Once a week, Roelle arranged for one of the city’s finest teachers to visit.
Senor Machon provided much of my early education and under his strict tutelage, I studied hard.
Such an indulgence was unusual for a lowly servant, though the gossiping staff soon became accustomed to my schooling.
Roelle reassured them that he had every intention of putting my education to use as his office boy.
He hated dealing with the boring details of running the estate and thought it a fantastic idea that he could educate me to do it.
I looked forward to my lessons. Eager to present my teacher with numerous questions, I hauled large books borrowed from the library down the corridor.
Machon patiently answered. He shared his belief that the world, previously considered to be flat, had been proven to be round.
He presented ancient Greek texts that supported this theory.
Swearing me to secrecy, he warned that such thinking would bring accusations of heresy.
Wide-eyed, I’d nodded and although I’d hesitated to question the meaning of heresy, I fully understood that I’d been entrusted with something very special. Senor Machon reported to Roelle that he considered me his most gifted student.
Shortly afterwards, I found the courage to request a visit home. Cook had told me my village could be reached in half a day.
“Maybe,” Roelle said.
I looked past the confines of the estate wondering if my mother would ever visit. Jealousy seeped in when I thought of my sister nestling in my mother’s arms, receiving the love I craved, and I wondered if they’d forgotten me.
Living this new life absorbed my time, the passing of which blurred the faces of my past.
I remained here, not by choice, but because fear had claimed me – and the ceaseless threats bound me within the walls of my own mind.