6. Dimitri
6
Dimitri rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, closing his eyes for a moment to enjoy the relief of it. It had been a hard morning with the king, relaying just enough information to earn his rewards, but not so much that he lost all leverage over those he had incriminated.
The king had been eager to dismiss him, and Rosella had deserted him entirely that week, too. He was grateful for the respite on both fronts. There were far more important things to do. Rosella had already bored him to a living death with talks of gowns, each more fancy and ridiculous than the last. The king had stretched his patience to within an inch of its tolerance with discussions of grand parades through the city—which, of course, Dimitri was expected to use his accomplices to infiltrate for any sign of trouble. It was a time of celebration, but the king was wise to be cautious. With the city overcrowded and in high spirits for the celebrations, there were bound to be a few dissenters in the midst who would use the charged atmosphere to fuel their warmongering.
Dimitri halted, realising he had wandered into the royal gallery. His gaze flicked to the nearest painting on the wall, and he let out a bark of laughter at the irony. Of all the works he could have stopped before, perhaps it being that one was apt. The outcast views the outcast, he thought dourly as he stepped closer. Dimitri had never thought to look at this particular painting before, but then again, he had never cared to visit the royal galleries to look at paintings of rulers long dead and elaborately grand scenes that told of glories far exaggerated by the victors.
Floor to ceiling it stretched, so big, it seemed he could step through the canvas into the scene before him, though he would not have wanted to. Saradon stood there, tall and powerful, in the moment before he was cast down by the small glimmer of hope at his feet. Dimitri regarded him with morbid curiosity, wondering how exact a likeness it was. Saradon stood taller than average, towering over Dimitri, who was tall enough himself. Saradon wielded a dark blade, the match of his armour, shadows and fire seeming to cling to him. The half-elf’s brows were furrowed with wrath, and his violet eyes pierced Dimitri where he stood. Dimitri shivered. It was incredibly lifelike, whether accurate or not.
“Five hundred years since you were defeated,” Dimitri mused to the painting. He would receive no answer, but how he recalled the legends was curious all the same. “Five hundred years, but no body did they find, no way to mark your death. Were you cast down, I wonder?” He dismissed the notion immediately. “Of course you were. If you had not been, if you had endured, you would have won. The legends say how close you were. Besides which, you would have avenged what they did to your dear mother. And then we would all live in a very different Pelenor.” He scowled. Would that really have been such a bad thing to be free of the stifling class system that ruled the land, filled with prejudice, judgement, and inequality?
Outside, however, the country celebrated. Banners and bunting adorned Pelenor’s capital city, Tournai. It seemed plays and minstrels sprung up on every street corner to sing and act the tale of Saradon—his uprising and his crushing defeat half a millenia before. Music and joy filled the city, celebrating the endurance of the normal order. Money filled it too. The king was most pleased about that. The taxes this celebration would raise had Toroth rubbing his hands together in glee every time he looked out of the windows at the busy city below.
“You just wanted to break the wheel, didn’t you?” Dimitri asked the painting.
Saradon’s eyes stared at him, unblinking—and unforthcoming with answers.
“Who could blame you?” Dimitri sighed. “It’s a damn broken wheel as it is.”
The legends spoke of Saradon. He who had tried to wipe out the monarchy, an evil that grew unchecked. And yet, on the other side of the coin, the tales spoke of a male wronged by society, cast out for his differences, and punished for his quest to right the wrongs of a sinful nation.
“Who could blame you indeed,” Dimitri muttered. Perhaps you wanted a better life for those oppressed like you. Like me. There were some thoughts he did not dare speak out loud, for there were ears everywhere in the palace. Most belonged to him now, but one could never be too careful. No one would know of the struggles he had faced to climb from the depths of that black pit of circumstance he had been born into to his present status. No one was allowed to see behind the armour he wore.
Saradon had half blood and no magic. Dimitri, brimming with magic but illegitimate and half-blood, bore a similarly stinging wound. Both of them had been cast out for faults not of their own making—and Dimitrius would one day seek revenge for the cruelties of his so-called family. This was one of the few remaining portraits of Saradon that Dimitri knew of. So many had been destroyed. This one was permitted for the final victory the history books reflected.
He gazed down the gallery at the sole other and strolled toward it. Saradon sat in a darkened nook just off the main gallery, appearing just like any other member of the royal family. There was nothing to mark him out. Even his gaze was muted. Dimitri frowned at the picture. It was such a bland and uninspiring portrayal. His eyes flicked to the first one. In that one, they painted your true fire. Then back again. Dimitri shook his head. Saradon looked stern and melancholy all in one. Strong and full of hidden depths—or perhaps Dimitri imagined that, desperate to draw something from the art that was not truly there. And yet, he had to wonder. Did Saradon know when they had painted him there what atrocities he would commit? What vile acts would be enacted in his name?
It was so difficult to reconcile the placid male posing here to the one who had wreaked havoc upon Pelenor. Dimitri’s lips pursed as he viewed the first painting once more. The symbolism of the stark contrast of light and dark was not lost on him. The small pinprick of light and hope at Saradon’s feet. The overwhelming darkness that was him filling the rest of the frame, as if it would spill out. Dimitri found it so trite. So rarely was the beholder’s eye untainted. So very rarely was history told by the losers. He wondered if Saradon would have painted himself thusly.
“What are you doing here?” Damir’s sharp voice rang in the empty halls.
Dimitri turned, swallowing his distaste into bland indifference. His usual mask.
“I could ask you the same, Father.”
His father rankled at that, but answered anyway. “I was looking for you.” His eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”
Dimitri shrugged and turned away, for he knew it infuriated his father. “It does not concern you.”
Damir puffed with indignance, and Dimitri allowed a small smirk of satisfaction to show. True to form, his father’s thunderous scowl deepened.
“I came to admire the art, of course.” Dimitri flourished a hand at the walls with a mocking smile.
“Such a criminal misfit you selected to view.” His father’s eyes flicked to Saradon towering over them both.
“Perhaps he was simply misunderstood.” Dimitri cocked his head to one side, meeting Saradon’s gaze once more.
“He was a dangerous, evil thinker who nearly toppled the peace of many nations.” Damir’s tone rang with warning to cease speaking of such matters. Ears lurked everywhere. Much as Dimitri loved to bait his father, there was a careful line to toe regarding his own safety.
“Curious for one with no magic, don’t you think?”
“He had others to act for him. And powerful magics. Why do you think the king, and all those since Saradon, have kept the Dragonhearts and such artefacts under lock and key for centuries?” His father lowered his voice, eyes darting to either side, as if he did indeed fear being overheard. “No one must be allowed to grow that powerful again.”
“If so many chose to follow him, perhaps his message was not so hateful after all,” Dimitri dared to say, not matching his father’s whisper.
“You speak treasons,” his father warned him.
“Curiosity is not treasonous.” Dimitri’s indignance echoed around the chamber.
“Saradon curse your smart tongue, boy!”
I haven’t been a boy for a long time, no thanks to you. “I’d have thought you would appreciate the fact your bastard—” Dimitri took vicious pleasure in Damir’s flinch. His father hated the word, the mere reminder of the indiscretion he had tried so very hard to conceal but could never escape. “—has done so very well for himself, despite your attempts to hamper that. Be thankful I am so clever. If I were not, you would not have gained half the privileges you are honoured with.”
Damir had no answer for that, speechless with indignance.
“Well, you clearly haven’t come for the pleasure of my excellent company, so what do you want?” Dimitri turned away from Damir, ignoring the pointed glare he received in answer, and pretended to admire an ornate antique. His father could not bear to be ignored. Dimitri delighted in tormenting that whenever he could. It was one of the few small victories he could claim in life.
“No indeed. You need to tread more carefully. I won’t have you angering the king.” Damir folded his arms across his chest. He was as cold as usual, but Dimitri was well-schooled in being on the receiving end of such indifference. After all, he had learned from a master, not that he would ever admit it.
“As if you have a say in anything I do, dear father.” Dimitri flicked an imaginary piece of dust off his immaculate, slate cuffs and strolled down the gallery, stepping from light into shadow and back again as he passed each tall window.
“I’m your father and I won’t have you shame our house any more than you already do.” His father strode after him, dogging his footsteps.
Dimitri scoffed. “Frankly, the shame is all yours. Aren’t I nothing more than that to you? I didn’t choose to be born, and yet you have your current fortune to thank me for. I’ve worked hard and succeeded, despite every limitation you enforced upon me.” He stopped and glared at his father. “You’re welcome,” he added pointedly.
Damir pursed his lips. No thanks came—as ever. Old dragons didn’t change their scales. Dimitri’s lip curled as he turned away again.
“Do you hear me?” his father insisted. “I shan’t have you drag our name through the mud. I don’t want the king’s wrath upon me for your misdemeanours.”
“Oh, don’t worry!” Dimitri whirled on his father, his words as scathing as he could possibly make them. “I shan’t endanger your delicate little head, nor that of your latest harlot.”
“She is my wife!”
“Your latest wife.”
“You will show her more respect. I command it! She is the lady of your house, not one of the common slatterns you associate with.”
Dimitri spluttered with laughter, unable to contain it. “You deign to lecture me? I have never fathered a bastard. Please tell me the irony is not lost upon you.” His amusement faded to darkness. “And before you so much as say another word, may I warn you that by association, it would very much appear that you call Her Royal Highness a slattern. I am sure you are very much mistaken and do not need to inform the king you hold such views on his most precious daughter.”
Damir paled and shrank away.
Dimitri scoffed in disgust. Pathetic coward. “I didn’t think so. Are we done?”
Damir looked very much as if he wanted to be, but he shook his head. Dimitri raised an eyebrow in silent invitation for him to continue, pursing his lips. Damir gestured for him to follow and set off to the far end of the gallery, which was shrouded in darkness from the shuttered windows that excluded the day’s light.
“The goblin massing,” Damir muttered. To anyone else, they appeared to be a father and son merely appraising priceless works of art. “I want more news from the borders, more news of the troubles.”
Dimitri heard the reluctance in Damir’s voice. It killed his father to have to ask him for anything. “The king forbade we take any further part.”
Damir scoffed. “I know that will not stop you or your sources. Forewarned is forearmed. The dwarves are not likely to ask for help—not from Toroth—and if the uprising is more severe than we are led to believe, which I fear it is, we may yet have to act. I hope I worry for naught, yet…” Damir trailed off.
Dimitri nodded. He understood his father’s motivations. The family lands of Eyre lay close to the border. Too close for comfort to the troubles—and too far away from Tournai to receive the king’s aid. Should no one stand in the way, they would be the first lands to fall.
“I’ll not promise anything.” And with that, Dimitri strode into the shadows, abandoning his father to the solitude of the gallery without waiting for a response.