Chapter 14 #2
Her restlessness got the better of her one day and she went in search of his rooms, hoping that he had just failed to make his presence known.
She had asked the fortress to lead her there, wondering if the Magic would refuse because she did not ask him before she ventured.
However, the Magic showed no loyalty as it obeyed her request.
“Thou art mystress here,” he had said to her on multiple occasions and they had been his parting words after the proclamation of his banishment. His wishes were just that — nothing to be acknowledged or obeyed.
“Baró?” Upon receiving no reply, she pressed the door inward. Although guilt at invading his private spaces gnawed at her, he had proclaimed her as mistress.
Mistress. More like a grubby scullery maid assigned to a housekeeper’s duties.
But even Baró did not command over as much as she assumed.
Gifts that weren’t gifts changed his body.
His magic served others but not himself.
This monster, the Fir’Darl, her Baró had no mastery here.
He may have been massive and physically superior to any person, but something still misused him.
He had been reduced to an instrument of magic that he could wield only for others.
Not a master, but a servant. And if he could not leave and could not object, then a slave.
Although she had fancied herself a prisoner here initially, she was visiting royalty and he was the dog she could kick if he were underfoot.
He granted her requests and, she was beginning to suspect, suffered for them.
If she was mistress, then he was nothing more than a captive resident designed to do her bidding and receive the violent recoil of magic use.
Whatever her thoughts, his rooms were not the rooms of a slave.
They reflected the once palatial luxury evident throughout the livable areas of the fortress.
Old-fashioned furnishings, faded through age and use, outfitted the apartment in the splendor of a bygone age.
The hearth of the anteroom lay dark and cold.
In a place that provided its own fires, the pile of wood beside it startled her.
A poor pallet lay on the floor before the hearth.
Despite the expensive comforts of the anteroom, Baró likely could not use them without either discomfort or damage.
How cruel to have all the appearance of luxury and have it be entirely inaccessible.
She passed through to the bedroom and gaped at the massive carved cabinet bed that occupied the bulk of floor space.
The painting of the bed had chipped and faded into pastels and although she regarded the bed as having once been impressively gaudy, this piece had to have been costly beyond imagining.
A canopy hung from above, draping the carved bed in majestic undulating brocade.
The curtains that hung from the interior had been drawn back and tied to the posts to reveal a mattress in need of restuffing and as disused as the rest of the room.
The backboard, painted with a charming but idealized bucolic scene, bore deep scoring, keeping the shepherd forever separated from the shepherdess in the tableau.
Linens covered other furniture as if the original occupants had just gone away for the season.
She lifted them tentatively to see what they kept safe.
The wardrobe occupied the most space after the bed.
It dwarfed the one in her bedroom and she twisted the handle to open it and determine if this one too possessed magic or not.
She could not tell. The wardrobe contents spilled out with the opening of the door, velvet and satin suits that had once been bright jewel-toned ensembles flapped at her in their faded and somewhat tattered state as if attempting to relate to her how neglected they were as they exploded from the door and hung there eager for inspection.
She almost did not touch them, but her curiosity got the better of her and she extracted an embellished and embroidered dark blue pile and laid it out on the bed.
The robe and doublet looked expensive, hundreds of years out of style, and roughly Baró-sized.
Anyone else attempting to wear them would have appeared like a child in their parent’s clothes.
She tried to imagine Baró attempting to wear such absurd clothing and could not.
She stroked the luxurious fabric. Such stitching and ornamentation must have taken the finest tailors eons.
Yet such flagrant pretenses at humanity would only make Baró appear more out of place.
He was a creature of nature, not of artifice.
Even if his shape developed through malicious intent, he better embodied a feral earthy magic that transcended the mundane and crossed over to mythic.
Maybe for a man, this overwrought melodramatic attire would have made sense, but for him as he was, it would make him look like a mockery.
Her mind went unbidden to those “tamed” bears who had been tortured into “speaking” and “dancing” all while wearing the costume of a clown.
Just like those bears, these beautiful clothes only achieved in setting Baró up as something subhuman and worthy of ridicule.
They lent him all the beauty of their human elegance while restraining his natural power and making the idea of his inhumanity all the more potent for the absurdity of him being allowed to “pretend to be a man.” The idea made her ill.
She gathered the clothing and shoved it back into the wardrobe.
Those clothes most certainly did not belong to her Baró.
She almost curtailed her inspection after that.
Almost. Another covered piece of furniture caught her attention and piqued her curiosity.
She lifted the cover, but it did not show much as it caught on some of the ornamental components of the object.
She finally gave in and removed it completely, surprised to see a gilt gothic trifold with the middle panel made of reflective glass.
She had seen mirrors before. They were not so rare as to be unidentified when faced with one.
This one, however, utilized black glass and spoke of significant age.
She settled upon the small bench in front of it, feeling like she had just trespassed on something significant.
Had Baró used this mirror to see how his body changed?
She could little imagine him perching on such a small bench though.
She skimmed her hands over the top surface of the vanity piece and then inspected the drawers.
She opened several, and though there was little to find, her inspection did at least reveal a small lacquered box.
The box, no bigger than her palm, must have appeared ridiculously small in Baró’s big hands.
The box had been hand-painted, a cream background with a large red rose on the lid.
The glaze had crazed and the finishes had become discolored over the years.
The lacquer along the underside edge had chipped away from handling and the lid did not give.
She feared breaking it, but the lid finally surrendered with the aid of her fingernails.
The contents consisted only of a long thin strand of braided hair coiled inside like a peaceful sleeping cat.
She extracted the coil, put the box down, and stretched the flaxen strand out to its full length.
Rivani ran her fingers over it. She wrapped it around her hand and brought it closer to inspect it.
A braid was more intimate than any stack of love letters.
Baró pronounced himself incapable of tenderness or gentleness or softness. He condemned himself as unfeeling. Perhaps telling her that he never experienced love had been his way of condemning himself further and confirming that he would forever be unloved and unlovable.
He lied. Baró had loved at least once before.
“Did he ever tell you what he did?” She asked the strand of hair. She paused and when nothing happened, she sighed.
Perhaps the person from whom the hair had come had never known Baró’s past. Maybe Baró’s feelings had not been shared, but no one gave hair like that without some degree of affection.
Rivani stroked the braid again before coiling it and returning it to the box.
She did not replace the lid, continuing to stare at the hair, golden and glistening in the light. She put her head in her hands.
“If so, whatever did you do?”