Pandemonium- Chapter 04

Pandemonium-
"  Some natural tears they drop'd, but wiped them soon;
The World was al before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way. "

* *   * *   * *
Chapter 4: Pestis



"Are you in much pain?"

"Only from your cooking."  It was a lie, from the strained look on Isaac's colorless face. He'd eaten half a pheasant already, and didn't seem to be tiring of it except for momentary lapses of soreness.

"We won't travel today. You're still healing. We will break camp in the morning."

Isaac nodded absently, picking his teeth with a wing-bone.

Trevor hoped the supply of game would not wane any further than it had. The Curse had driven away most of the creatures in the wood that were only now returning. With winter coming, it would only be a matter of time before they disappeared again. This would make things complicated, especially once they reached the mountains.

"At the rate we are going, we will not make it over the pass before the first snows." Trevor mused. "We may need to seek shelter until spring… perhaps one of the villages will accommodate us."
Even in times of peace, one's reputation as a hunter could sometimes buy a room. Word of the castle's fall may have spread by now, but by experience Trevor knew that this would not dispel fear from people's hearts entirely.
Where there was fear there was need for protection, and where there was need of protection, he was usually welcome, provided he did not stay too long.

The question now lay with how to incorporate the forgemaster into this method. Peeking furtively at Isaac, he took in the man's appearance with renewed despair.
No…not with the reputation of Blessed St. Dominic could a man win so much as a barn to sleep in traveling with a companion like Isaac.
Trevor gnawed at his pheasant. He'd make a point to mention it in the future.

"A village to accommodate us…" Isaac snickered wickedly. "Not Cordova Town?" he asked. "I'm sure they're just dying for visitors."

"No, not Cordova." Trevor shivered. Even if they're the only ones who would disregard the way you dress… he added silently.  

Setting the remains of his meal in the coals and licking his fingers, Isaac looked thoughtful. "Where is it we are going, Belmont?" he asked. "Since you mention mountains, I assume your family doesn't simply sleep at the foot of the Castle waiting to bark if it moves."

Trevor glared, but nodded. "My family sleeps nowhere in particular." He uncrossed his legs and threw more kindling on the fire. "We travel. My mother's great-great-great grandfather Léon, our clan's ancestor, was a Frenchman who traveled East in the Crusades. Since then we have not had a distinct home."

"That does not answer my question, dear." Isaac stretched, making himself comfortable.

"West…" Trevor answered succinctly. "-My home is in the West, a week's journey from the sea."  

The forgemaster arched an eyebrow lazily. "A nice plot of land somewhere, with a small farm, virtuous lady-wife sighing away for you and three pint-sized Belmonts running around the yard…"

Trevor snorted and smiled, thinking of the most infinitely wise and resourceful woman in the world sighing away for anyone.

"I had a cousin, Ralph, who married one of my companions from the last war… most recently I heard they were living happily. But no, not I. No farm. Certainly no children." He corrected. "Only myself and the Lady Issaly, and she is no man's wife."

"Oouh… a strumpet then?" smirked the forgemaster.

"She'd have your ears for saying that. And no- the Lady Issaly is the most infinitely wise and resourceful woman in the world. She's old enough to be my mother, and she's far too busy being our village's guardian angel to marry."  He tapped the ashes down with a stick.

Trevor did not like to think about marriage.
This had nothing to do with a fear of commitment or some jaded misconception about love. It was the idea of consummation that bothered him- it had always bothered him.

He could still remember the kinds of things people had told his mother, when she had been alone and traveling with her son. He knew what people suspected of a woman traveling alone with a child and no husband, sometimes what they expected of her.

It had given him a very oddly balanced view of marriage and of the expected.

Trevor liked women. Trevor respected women. This made it difficult for him to imagine wanting to sleep with them. It caused… so many problems.
He was afraid he would hurt them. The act itself seemed so needlessly brutal- not at all something you'd do to someone you loved. He had avoided the act altogether for most of his adult life.
This had been commented on with some concern by his erstwhile friends and acquaintances. They assured him that consummation of love and marriage was a proud thing, and that it was only appropriate for a man to perform and enjoy it. Some suggested that women expected it of him, and it was unseemly for him to turn them away. They told him that any girl would fancy him, and would not be averse to sharing his bed if that was what troubled him. If he hurt them in the process, then it was no great matter. Women were women, and it was their duty to accept it.

This thought disgusted him beyond words. It became so that whenever the flames of passion stirred, he recoiled in horror at himself and smothered them instantly, as if they were a brand of evil burning within him.  
Thankfully it was not something that he had to contend with often. He lived a life of near solitude, after all.

Trevor got the uneasy feeling that Isaac could see into his skull and was reading his thoughts as easily as he could apparently read a page of illuminated vellum.

"She sounds like a formidable woman." The forgemaster said coyly, looking at the now-darkening sky. It was turning from ice-blue to pink. The clouds were orange and gold wisps of spun sugar in the crystalline air.

Isaac gazed quizzically upwards for a long moment. "I have always thought…" he said slowly, "That God must be a woman."

Trevor looked at him, surprised. "You hold some rather unconventional beliefs, my friend!" He laughed, glad on some level that he was at least not alone in eccentricity.
There was a swirl of red hair as the forgemaster swiveled away from the fire and turned to warm the other half of his body.

"…Such fickle reactions to those who worship, the demand for unconditional love or else banishment to eternal agony, the birthing of worlds, dismay at betrayal, forgiveness granted to those who apologize and beg… " Isaac shrugged. "It strikes me as rather… matronly behavior. I was beaten once for suggesting it to Father Julius, actually…" he mused.

Trevor's ears perked. "…Father Julius? A priest?"

Isaac turned sharply, opening his mouth and then closing it again just as quickly.
"Y-es…" He fidgeted, plucking at the delicate chains attached to his body and looking annoyed with himself for speaking.

Trevor edged himself closer to Isaac, curious.

"You were going to tell me of yourself… yes?" he said, smiling crookedly, trying not to make the proposition an uncomfortable one.

The forgemaster closed his eyes, looking pained, almost grieved. The expression did not suit him at all. Trevor felt suddenly guilty for asking.

"No… never mind." He amended. "Do not speak if you do not wish to. Sometimes it's best not to remember the past."

Isaac winced. "I promised you my story, Belmont, and I will deliver. I am simply… simply finding a place to begin."  He cleared his throat, and fixed his gaze on an imaginary space. Trevor balanced his chin on his arms, and waited.

Isaac shifted. "Speaking of which…" he muttered. "I can't just keep calling you 'Belmont', can I? What is your name?"

The hunter blinked, startled. "Trevor. It is Trevor Belmont." He laughed. "I thought you knew?"

"We can't be bothered to keep track of ALL of you, can we? One fancy tart with a whip is as good as the next. They all sort of run together after a few centuries, you know..."
Isaac returned the laugh, not intending to be cruel. "Are you choking?"

"No…" replied Trevor eventually. "You shouldn't say such things when I have a mouth full of pheasant." He coughed, trying to stifle further traitorous giggling.

"In-deed! I don't know who'd feed me if you were to meet an untimely end." The forgemaster flashed a devious grin.
"Well then…Trevor," he intoned more soberly. "You've given me your name, and that is a sign of trust. So without further ado…"

The hunter crossed his legs again and sat at attention, reminding himself of a child who'd been promised fairies and dragons before bed.

"Once upon a time…" Isaac began. "…There were too little children who lived on the top of a hill where everyone had died."

*  *  *  *


"On the Wreckage of Mar------ and the Admittance and Baptism of its Orphans Upon Rescuing them from the Pestilence.  Year of our Lord 1449.

To the Rev. Father Luciano of the Holy Church of F------, his brother and servant Cornelius, Abbot of Put-----, wisheth him prosperous health in this life and blissful eternity in the next.

I send you an account of a matter that occurred most recently, which I beg you submit to your enlightened judgment. Heeding your account of the Plague in Alexandria, we residing in Put----- have diligently followed your advice, shunning all those who have come in contact with the dead, or who showed symptoms of swelling, discoloration of the skin, unnatural bleeding, or those who had been visited by demons or spirits. Those of us who travel publicly wear garlands and perfume. All those who die of unexpected maladies are buried immediately, covered in lime and their possessions burned. Thus far we have been spared the ravages of Death, though it has brushed provinces near to us. The villages of Suc------, Vor------, and Gur---- were annihilated utterly by He who wrought the Plague. Mar------ was visited upon also by His wrath, but miraculously two of the fairest children were left alive. Their parents being unchristian, we thought it dutiful to receive them into the Lord's holy service, blameless of any sin in the eyes of God as they were. I have left them in the care of my dearest friend the parish priest Father Julius. There has been some discontent amongst the villagers concerning the orphans. It is being said that they were not spared the divine anger, but were in fact the very cause of the Pestilence itself. This is of course, blasphemous and cruel, indeed, typical of the recently converted regions to fall back on Pagan tendencies and blame the survivors of a catastrophe for their plight. Our village fears that these simple creatures will bring the devastation of Mar--with them into Put-----. Advise me how may I put my poor flock at ease and at once keep these innocents from harm? The commoners' fear is as pitiable as it is damaging, and I humble myself before your wisdom, which has served our little community so well in the past. I thank you for your time and your patience, and await your reply. Farewell in the Lord.
~Abbot Cornelius "

A letter. Four years old, dusty, long tucked away in some archive in Italy to where it had been sent. It was the only record of the children's parents besides their infant memories.
The pair of survivors had been discovered, weak with hunger in what was presumed to be their home by two doctors, the only such men who felt they were safe from the long arms of Death.
Julius could remember when the two siblings had arrived at his doorstep, barely able to walk and squalling between the arms of the masked and black-clad men, smelling of spices and rot.

"The Lord works in mysterious ways," they'd said through their beaks. "And of late His ways are vengeful. Be wary, father."

The boy had been better fed, and was stronger. They had tried to separate the two, and he had fought like a cornered beast; they'd had to pry his small hands off of his sister's arm. Such an awkward, long-limbed, hook-nosed child he'd been!
And the girl… the girl had shone like an emaciated angel against the dark.

It would have been unthinkable for her to stay in the upstairs quarters amongst the men. After recovering, the boy had stayed while his sister had been delivered to the village's old physician and his wife, who being childless themselves, immediately took to her as if she had been their own daughter. They'd christened her Julia, for her youthful beauty and to remember the saint. The boy, having been spared from death by what could only have been a miracle, was popularly dubbed Isaac, though as he grew his manners and energy more closely resembled the ram's.

"Just see if I let you cut my hair!" he'd screamed when confronted with the bowl and razor. "I'd rather die than be as hideous as you!"

Father Julius despaired of him.

"You are quite old enough to take vows and join your brothers at the Abbey! We don't have room for another growing boy. You must realize that it is only by the mercy of the Lord that you stand here today, and yet you persist in this wickedness!" He shook the razor at the recalcitrant boy threateningly.

"Why shouldn't I? I like my hair the way it is! I'll grow it as long as Samson's if I please! It's pretty this way."

"Vanity! Pride!" Julius cautioned.

In truth, the child's hair was his ONLY vanity, one that obscured his overlarge features and fell in soft curves that made women envious. It was easy to see why he was so anxious about parting with it.

"If you cut it, my ears will stick out and I'll look just like a gargoyle and my head will get cold and I'll start to grow hair everywhere else and I'll turn into a monkey and screech all day and do whatever I want!" Isaac made a face and danced around the way he imagined an ape might.

"Too much! You are too much, child! What that we had delivered you into the lap of Petru Aron that you could drive HIM to madness!" the priest threw up his arms helplessly. "I pray you'll see the error of your mischief before I am forced to discipline you!"

Isaac balked, mentally going over the list of things that Father Julius could take away from him if he disobeyed.

"You do want to spend your free hour with the parishioners and your sister, don't you?" Julius reasoned coolly.

This was not entirely orthodox, but at the doctor's behest Isaac had been allowed to see his sibling for an hour after chores, four days out of the week.

The boy stuck out his tongue. "I'll see her at Mass and prayer times, you old fool."

"You will remain at my side all day, not speaking to anyone at all if necessary." Julius countered. "And since you obviously have such little respect for your peers, mayhap I should assign you extra chores as well?"  

In the end, the child had no choice in the matter, and kicking, screaming, and biting, his locks were submitted to the razor and chopped short around a bowl, the top of his scalp shaved clean as a newborn's.

The result was every bit as dreadful as the boy had predicted, though any one who said as much to his face was promptly treated to a violent pummeling. The only one who escaped the heat of his wrath was his sister.

"'Tis not so very abhorrent…" she would remark sweetly when her brother came to her in a rage. "Fain you should accept this transformation with humility and grace!"
The doctor and his wife had been schooling her in the classical literature and holy works, and the girl enjoyed parroting their antique mannerisms, to the fond amusement of the adults.

"Well, I think it's a PERFECTLY 'horent ransfortration…" muttered Isaac. "And I wish you wouldn't use so many ridiculous words!"

Julia sniffed with an air of erudite superiority. "They are NOT ridiculous! If you'd only read more and stay awake in school...! They'd make more sense if you nourished your mental faculties."  

"The headmaster is a goat and I hate learning! It's all just rubbish and grammar!" Isaac rolled his eyes. "Why should I learn how to conjugate a thousand different verbs I'm never even going to use? No one actually speaks German or Greek!" he spread his arms emphatically, pointing out this obvious flaw in the universe.

"Of course they do, silly! The barbarians speak German in the North, and Greek in the South. Everyone knows that."

Isaac blushed. "Really? Everyone?"

"Yes," Julia chided, arms folded in imitation of her foster mother. "Everyone. And you'd know it too if you studied a little. These things are important!" Then, smiling, she added slyly, "I wager that if you read more books, you'd even be smarter than Father Julius…"

The boy's ears perked. "…Books could do that?" he whispered, awed.

His sister beamed. "You'll run circles around that vociferous boor in no time!"

And with that irresistible temptation, Isaac became the most studious novice amongst his peers. At first he limited himself to his lessons, plowing through from cover to cover with grim determination, until at last he found his way to more exciting accounts of the world: its histories and dreams, large and small; its myths and heroes, its saints, its possibilities.
With the encouragement of his sister and to his headmaster's enchantment, he soon surpassed the other boys in both reading and writing.
The boy's hand was steady, and it was soon discovered that he had a fair gift for craftsmanship as well. Isaac enjoyed delighting his sister by making her little charms or toys from the scrap leather left over from bookbinding.  

Days passed slowly for both children, the long hours whittled away by study and work and prayer. Julia helped her foster parents with their profession; her quick eyes lost nothing, and she quickly mastered much of the art of healing on her own. She had true talent, they said, almost uncanny genius for bringing the sick and injured to health again. Her specialty at that age was animals and livestock, and because of this the girl became an invaluable asset to the many farmers living in the area. The mere sound of her voice seemed to ease the passage of a calf into the world, or calm a wild mount, or coax a sickly foal to walk. A felled bird would be flying again within days under her gentle care. No one was quite sure what it was she did differently from her parents in this regard, but her touch was something close miraculous and her help was never frowned upon.

Isaac's reputation did not fare nearly as well. His passion for literature only made him restless, especially when the supply of Greek adventures in the small archive, mostly on loan from Cornelius's larger library, dwindled and only religious texts remained.
As a rule, anything that didn't tantalize his imagination with horrendous monsters or flamboyant gods and heroes was not worth much time in reading. The occasional saint endeared him, but only if there was a dragon involved.

He enjoyed poetry on occasion if it was set to music, and to his credit Isaac's young voice was as sweet as an angel's. Despite his usually energetic and fiendish temperament he was much beloved by the choirmaster.
The day his voice broke, Isaac was inconsolable. He refused to sing for the rest of the service, hiding in the belfry alone and shamed, and no threat of chores or damnation would bring him down.

"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with my voice?" He had demanded, tears dripping off his long nose. "Am I sick?"

"No child! No…" Julius said, slightly less irritated than usual while trying his best to comfort the boy. "You've just grown past boyhood. It is something with which we all must contend. It's part of life. No need for tears now, hush."

"Will it get better?" sniffed Isaac hopefully.

"No, of course not." Snapped Julius a little too quickly. "You're not a boy any longer. You'll just…" he stopped and sighed, seeing the boy's lip quiver.

"You'll be a man soon, child. You'll have different responsibilities, and lead a very different sort of life. All things on Earth change. It's not something to mourn over, for goodness' sake." He paused, placing his hand on Isaac's mop of hair awkwardly. "Now, now. Sshhh. It's not suitable for a man to cry," he finished more gently. The boy took a modicum of comfort from his tone if not from his words, leaning up against the father's leg and whimpering into his robe.

The following year, Isaac was dedicated to Cornelius's Abbey, and his scholarly habits and ungainly haircut were the only things to follow him. Indeed, despite his newfound fervor for education, it had not occurred to him that leaving the parish church would mean separation from his sister forever.

*  *  *  *
"You grew up in an abbey?" Trevor shook his head. "You? A cloistered monk?" The Belmont almost laughed. It was nigh on inconceivable.

Isaac's fingers were laced together under his chin, his expression unreadable and dark.
"I did not grow up in an Abbey. I lived in an Abbey and got older. I grew up when I left."  

Embers glowed brightly against the now-black sky, illuminating the pale man's curved face with flickering orange intensity.
Trevor opened his mouth to make reply, but found himself yawing so deeply his jaw popped instead.  

"I apologize… you will not be offended if we continue tomorrow night?" he asked guiltily. "I fear I cannot stay awake another minute."
"Only if you will not be offended if I do not join you immediately. I'll keep watch on the fire for a while…"

"I have no objection whatsoever." Trevor tucked himself under his rough blanket with sleepy eagerness. "I look forward to hearing how the monastic life suited you…you're not half-bad at telling stories, sir."

A small grin flickered on Isaac's face. "Good night, hunter."

Fading comfortably into sleep, the last thing Trevor remembered seeing was the forgemaster, still and silent as a statue bathed in gold, staring into the velvet night.