The Island Lord
Jul. 19th, 2005 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalTags: Tez (and a little Maria), some violence.
He was inordinately fond of his room, Tez knew. The manor house, occupying the highest point of the island, was painted in white stucco and roofed with red tiles, as were all the buildings here in this modest trade port. Tez’s study was at the highest room of the western wing, where the breezes coming from the sea kept it cool even during high summer. As was his nature, the room itself was spare in decoration, with only his bed, a small writing desk, and a large scroll rack within it. It was all he needed really. But he was sybaritic enough to take pride in the room’s view, which encompassed almost all of this small island domain.
There was a soft knock at the door. “Enter,” Tez said, and then rose to his feet, adjusted his tunic and bowed when he saw his young lord come in. Blond, beautiful in his own way, and doing quite well for a young man who had come into his inheritance at the tender age of fourteen, just two years ago. But then, Tez knew, he’d had an excellent advisor for those first few difficult months.
“Tez,” his lord greeted him, his pretty face creased with concern, “please walk with me out on the portico.”
“I serve, Young Lord,” Tez answered, ducking his head. His lord faced a problem, and needed the help of his loyal servitor for aid. This was as it should be. He followed the boy out onto the marble portico, sandals slapping against the floor, which looked over a cliff to the seas below. Apple trees and flowering bushes brought colour to the place, while seagulls sang and cried in the winds above them.
His lord looked out over the water, appearing pensive. “Tez, how long have you served my family?”
“Exactly seven hundred and fifty years, Young Lord,” he answered proudly.
“And you’ve never wished for your freedom, in all that time?”
Tez touched the bejeweled silver chain locked to his throat, which was probably worth more than the copper and gold wristbands that his nominal owner wore. “Service is it’s own reward, Young Lord. Why desire what would not be granted to me?”
“It wouldn’t be granted,” the young man noted, “because this entire island would likely fall into the sea if you left. It wasn’t until… quite recently… that I realized how indispensable you’ve made yourself. Nothing happens upon this sun-blessed isle without your hand in it. No ship enters or leaves without your signature on the cargo master’s forms. No man faces trial without your advice in the judge’s ear. I rule this isle, Tez, but you are truly the one that controls it.”
Not so biddable, as he was when he was younger. A pity that. Still, there were other means of persuasion. “Is that such a horrible thing, Young Lord? Why trouble yourself with the petty details of state, when you receive the rewards whether you attend to them or not?”
The young man turned back upon him, a sad smile upon his face. “Because I would take those rewards from your hands, while we both stand upon the murdered corpses of my beloved father and mother.”
Tez did not stiffen, Tez did not start, and Tez most definitely did not act in the slightest bit surprised. “Murdered, Young Lord? Your mother and father were lost at sea.”
“In a boat that you commissioned,” his lord countered, the smile fading away, replaced by grim determination.
“Are you… accusing me, Young Lord?” He placed his most hurt expression upon his face, while he calculated the possibilities before him, most of which involved the portico railing and the jagged rocks at the cliff bottom some two hundred feet below. None of the potential outcomes were particularly elegant, but they would be used, if need be. “Young Lord, I will admit culpability in the matter, for it was ultimately my responsibility to ensure your family’s safety. I should have supervised the boat’s construction far more closely than I did. But I did not murder them.”
“Don’t cry your crocodile tears in front of me, Tez,” his lord said, force growing hard, brittle. “You were oh so careful to execute the boat builder for his incompetence, but you weren’t careful enough to hide your tracks completely. He had a son.”
“Killed by pirates, in the same raid that took your sister away,” Tez said coldly. “I fail to see how that is relevant.”
His young lord smiled, and Tez felt himself grow irritated at the boy’s presumption. “He lived, Tez. He lives still, and spoke of his father’s joy and terror at the commission he had been given by you. For the boat you had built had secret flaws in the hull. Weakness that would not become apparent until the ship was far at sea, and far, far from help of any kind.”
There was no salvaging the situation now, he knew, not when a person worked themselves into a state such as his young lord was now. “Oh, do shut up, Young Lord,” Tez said.
“I will not! Why, Tez? Why did you have them killed?” his pretty young lord demanded.
Weakling. “If your parents had simply chosen to accept what was before them, they would have enjoyed a long and happy life,” Tez stated contemptuously. “But, your father could not be content with accepting the largess I gave them. The ignorant fool wanted to rule in fact, as well as in name, and that I would not allow.”
“He was this island’s lord!”
“I am this island’s lord,” Tez shouted back. “When I washed up upon the shore three quarters of a millennia ago, there was nothing here but a group of smelly tribesmen, living in mud and thatch huts, and selling badly cured goatskins to passing vessels for food, while their womenfolk sold themselves for coin. Within two generations they were all coming to me, me, for all their answers. Tez the Elf, Tez the Slave, was Tez the King, and you ignorant, blind humans were too stupid to realize it.”
“Guards!” his young lord called out, “Guards, to me!”
“They’re not coming,” Tez said in the silence that followed, his voice mocking. “I was paying their great-grandfather’s stipends before your parents were even born. Their loyalty is to me, and me alone.” He stepped towards the boy, who drew a knife to defend himself.
“I’ll kill you if I must!” the young lord said. “I am armed, and you have nothing!”
“Ah, yes, slaves don’t carry weapons,” Tez said, and took another step. The boy lashed out with his knife, a fair attempt, but too hesitant. He’d never killed, never even had to slaughter an animal to feed himself, and was far too slow. Tez caught his wrist and twisted, and the pretty boy doubled over, clutching his arm to his stomach, his knife falling to the floor with a clatter.
“That was your wrist,” he noted academically. Tez’s foot lashed out, connected, and the boy dropped to the floor, screaming. “That was your kneecap.” He lashed out again. “That was your elbow.” He struck again. “And your other knee.” The boy curled up in a ball of pain, but his good arm was reaching out, trying to retrieve the knife.
“None of that now,” Tez advised, and stepped on the boy’s fingers, hearing them snap one by one. He kneeled down beside the weeping boy, voice low and cheerful. “In case you’re wondering, you’re going to take a nasty fall off the railing in a moment. I tried to stop you, but you were in despair over the loss of your parents and dear sister, and the problems of state that confronted you. A true tragedy.”
“P-p-please, tell me one t-t-thing, before you k-k-kill me” the beautiful boy choked. “W-w-why my sister, w-w-why did you k-k-kill her?”
“Because I could see, even as young as she was, that she had inherited your parent’s will,” Tez answered. “So I arranged for that little pirate raid, that also resulted in the kidnapping of the boat builder’s son, whom I desired leverage over while he completed his assignment. But before you die, I should give you one comfort. When I last talked to the pirates, some three years ago, she was still alive. Though I can’t vouch for whether that’s true today, given how hard pirates play with their toys.”
“Oh, I know she is alive,” the boy said, no longer weeping, but triumphant, as his eyes focused on something behind Tez.
The elf turned, and the crossbow bolt that would have struck him in the back instead hit his shoulder. He went down beside his young lord, another bolt piercing his side, and he screamed in pain. He looked up, as the young woman, some three years the boy’s senior, walked up to him.
“You ignorant cow…” he began, but was choked off as her booted foot struck him in the stomach, so hard it pushed him a body-length away from the boy.
“Beloved brother, I told you to wait,” she said, half-crying, half-laughing. The eye patch she sported nowadays was rather fetching, Tez had to admit, though trading her old dresses for a man’s breeches and shirt wasn’t precisely flattering. Not that he was in much position to offer criticism at the moment.
“I’m… I will be… all right,” the young lord gasped through his pain. “Make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.”
“Right,” she said, re-cocking the double arms of her crossbow, as Tez made a Herculean effort and came to his feet. “Don’t you worry, Tez,” she advised. “We’re going to make certain you’re well and truly healed, before we offer you up as a living sacrifice to Justice’s god. I’ll make sure it takes days for you to finish burning.”
Tez staggered backward, and felt the portico’s railing behind him. “No, I don’t think so,” he said, feeling lifeblood flowing out of his side, over his fingers. He smiled. “You see, I cannot die.”
And then he fell over the railing, towards the rocks below.
* * *
He awoke again, naturally. He knew he would, though he’d hoped he might finally have been wrong.
The world swaying around him, he opened his eyes. He didn’t need the overwhelming smell of fish to realize a boat had picked him up, after drifting for who knew how long. The boat’s master, a grizzled old man with stark white, curling hair, motioned for the young man beside him to take the tiller, and rushed over to where Tez lay.
“You’re alive, young elf?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Tez gasped, throat cracking. The old man brought a skin of water to his lips, and he drank eagerly.
“You’ve got the gods’ own luck then, I’ll tell ye,” the old man said. “When we fished you out last week, I’d thought I was taking a body to be buried, not a live elf. What happened to ye?”
“Attacked… by a pirate,” Tez answered, with perfect truthfulness. He motioned for the man to give him the water skin again, and he sipped it more slowly this time, mindful of all the seawater that had to already be in stomach. “Where… are we headed?”
“Mainland, Sea Haven, my home,” the old man said. He touched Tez’s collar. “That pirate keep you as a slave?”
“No, not the pirate…” Tez risked a little more truth, for Sea Haven was a good three weeks journey by a fast ship. “I was a slave, on the trade island.”
“Oh, that terrible place,” the old man said, sounding disgusted. “I’ll not be taking a bound man back that rock.”
“Thank you,” Tez said sincerely. He touched his bejeweled chain. “This is yours, if you can get it off me, in return for your kindness.”
“Oh, thank you!” the old man exclaimed. As well he should, as Tez was certain his chain could buy a boat as large as this one and a dozen more besides. “But what of yourself, elf? I won’t leave you with just the clothes on your back.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Tez said. “I’ll manage. I always have.”
* * *
Quite some time later, and eras, later, Tez found himself sitting on cushion on the floor, sipping a glass of wine while Maria amused herself by braiding glass beads into his hair.
“Tez,” I was wondering,” she said, knotting off a strand of hair. “When I first brought you here, you said you were patient enough to outlive me. Have you done that often, living from generation to generation, owned by a single family?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, and took another sip, “several times.”
She picked another strand and began to slip a bright sapphire bead along it. “What’s the longest you’ve ever been with one family?”
“Mmm, seven hundred and fifty years, on a particular island on the Great Inland Sea,” Tez told her. “When I got there, washing up after a shipwreck, it was just a bunch of goat herders and their families. I got taken in by the village headman as a sort of prize, I suppose.”
“Bet you were running the place inside of three generations,” she said, laughing.
“Two actually.”
She laughed again. “That must have been fun.”
“Yes, yes it was,” he agreed, and changed the subject.
The End
He was inordinately fond of his room, Tez knew. The manor house, occupying the highest point of the island, was painted in white stucco and roofed with red tiles, as were all the buildings here in this modest trade port. Tez’s study was at the highest room of the western wing, where the breezes coming from the sea kept it cool even during high summer. As was his nature, the room itself was spare in decoration, with only his bed, a small writing desk, and a large scroll rack within it. It was all he needed really. But he was sybaritic enough to take pride in the room’s view, which encompassed almost all of this small island domain.
There was a soft knock at the door. “Enter,” Tez said, and then rose to his feet, adjusted his tunic and bowed when he saw his young lord come in. Blond, beautiful in his own way, and doing quite well for a young man who had come into his inheritance at the tender age of fourteen, just two years ago. But then, Tez knew, he’d had an excellent advisor for those first few difficult months.
“Tez,” his lord greeted him, his pretty face creased with concern, “please walk with me out on the portico.”
“I serve, Young Lord,” Tez answered, ducking his head. His lord faced a problem, and needed the help of his loyal servitor for aid. This was as it should be. He followed the boy out onto the marble portico, sandals slapping against the floor, which looked over a cliff to the seas below. Apple trees and flowering bushes brought colour to the place, while seagulls sang and cried in the winds above them.
His lord looked out over the water, appearing pensive. “Tez, how long have you served my family?”
“Exactly seven hundred and fifty years, Young Lord,” he answered proudly.
“And you’ve never wished for your freedom, in all that time?”
Tez touched the bejeweled silver chain locked to his throat, which was probably worth more than the copper and gold wristbands that his nominal owner wore. “Service is it’s own reward, Young Lord. Why desire what would not be granted to me?”
“It wouldn’t be granted,” the young man noted, “because this entire island would likely fall into the sea if you left. It wasn’t until… quite recently… that I realized how indispensable you’ve made yourself. Nothing happens upon this sun-blessed isle without your hand in it. No ship enters or leaves without your signature on the cargo master’s forms. No man faces trial without your advice in the judge’s ear. I rule this isle, Tez, but you are truly the one that controls it.”
Not so biddable, as he was when he was younger. A pity that. Still, there were other means of persuasion. “Is that such a horrible thing, Young Lord? Why trouble yourself with the petty details of state, when you receive the rewards whether you attend to them or not?”
The young man turned back upon him, a sad smile upon his face. “Because I would take those rewards from your hands, while we both stand upon the murdered corpses of my beloved father and mother.”
Tez did not stiffen, Tez did not start, and Tez most definitely did not act in the slightest bit surprised. “Murdered, Young Lord? Your mother and father were lost at sea.”
“In a boat that you commissioned,” his lord countered, the smile fading away, replaced by grim determination.
“Are you… accusing me, Young Lord?” He placed his most hurt expression upon his face, while he calculated the possibilities before him, most of which involved the portico railing and the jagged rocks at the cliff bottom some two hundred feet below. None of the potential outcomes were particularly elegant, but they would be used, if need be. “Young Lord, I will admit culpability in the matter, for it was ultimately my responsibility to ensure your family’s safety. I should have supervised the boat’s construction far more closely than I did. But I did not murder them.”
“Don’t cry your crocodile tears in front of me, Tez,” his lord said, force growing hard, brittle. “You were oh so careful to execute the boat builder for his incompetence, but you weren’t careful enough to hide your tracks completely. He had a son.”
“Killed by pirates, in the same raid that took your sister away,” Tez said coldly. “I fail to see how that is relevant.”
His young lord smiled, and Tez felt himself grow irritated at the boy’s presumption. “He lived, Tez. He lives still, and spoke of his father’s joy and terror at the commission he had been given by you. For the boat you had built had secret flaws in the hull. Weakness that would not become apparent until the ship was far at sea, and far, far from help of any kind.”
There was no salvaging the situation now, he knew, not when a person worked themselves into a state such as his young lord was now. “Oh, do shut up, Young Lord,” Tez said.
“I will not! Why, Tez? Why did you have them killed?” his pretty young lord demanded.
Weakling. “If your parents had simply chosen to accept what was before them, they would have enjoyed a long and happy life,” Tez stated contemptuously. “But, your father could not be content with accepting the largess I gave them. The ignorant fool wanted to rule in fact, as well as in name, and that I would not allow.”
“He was this island’s lord!”
“I am this island’s lord,” Tez shouted back. “When I washed up upon the shore three quarters of a millennia ago, there was nothing here but a group of smelly tribesmen, living in mud and thatch huts, and selling badly cured goatskins to passing vessels for food, while their womenfolk sold themselves for coin. Within two generations they were all coming to me, me, for all their answers. Tez the Elf, Tez the Slave, was Tez the King, and you ignorant, blind humans were too stupid to realize it.”
“Guards!” his young lord called out, “Guards, to me!”
“They’re not coming,” Tez said in the silence that followed, his voice mocking. “I was paying their great-grandfather’s stipends before your parents were even born. Their loyalty is to me, and me alone.” He stepped towards the boy, who drew a knife to defend himself.
“I’ll kill you if I must!” the young lord said. “I am armed, and you have nothing!”
“Ah, yes, slaves don’t carry weapons,” Tez said, and took another step. The boy lashed out with his knife, a fair attempt, but too hesitant. He’d never killed, never even had to slaughter an animal to feed himself, and was far too slow. Tez caught his wrist and twisted, and the pretty boy doubled over, clutching his arm to his stomach, his knife falling to the floor with a clatter.
“That was your wrist,” he noted academically. Tez’s foot lashed out, connected, and the boy dropped to the floor, screaming. “That was your kneecap.” He lashed out again. “That was your elbow.” He struck again. “And your other knee.” The boy curled up in a ball of pain, but his good arm was reaching out, trying to retrieve the knife.
“None of that now,” Tez advised, and stepped on the boy’s fingers, hearing them snap one by one. He kneeled down beside the weeping boy, voice low and cheerful. “In case you’re wondering, you’re going to take a nasty fall off the railing in a moment. I tried to stop you, but you were in despair over the loss of your parents and dear sister, and the problems of state that confronted you. A true tragedy.”
“P-p-please, tell me one t-t-thing, before you k-k-kill me” the beautiful boy choked. “W-w-why my sister, w-w-why did you k-k-kill her?”
“Because I could see, even as young as she was, that she had inherited your parent’s will,” Tez answered. “So I arranged for that little pirate raid, that also resulted in the kidnapping of the boat builder’s son, whom I desired leverage over while he completed his assignment. But before you die, I should give you one comfort. When I last talked to the pirates, some three years ago, she was still alive. Though I can’t vouch for whether that’s true today, given how hard pirates play with their toys.”
“Oh, I know she is alive,” the boy said, no longer weeping, but triumphant, as his eyes focused on something behind Tez.
The elf turned, and the crossbow bolt that would have struck him in the back instead hit his shoulder. He went down beside his young lord, another bolt piercing his side, and he screamed in pain. He looked up, as the young woman, some three years the boy’s senior, walked up to him.
“You ignorant cow…” he began, but was choked off as her booted foot struck him in the stomach, so hard it pushed him a body-length away from the boy.
“Beloved brother, I told you to wait,” she said, half-crying, half-laughing. The eye patch she sported nowadays was rather fetching, Tez had to admit, though trading her old dresses for a man’s breeches and shirt wasn’t precisely flattering. Not that he was in much position to offer criticism at the moment.
“I’m… I will be… all right,” the young lord gasped through his pain. “Make sure he doesn’t go anywhere.”
“Right,” she said, re-cocking the double arms of her crossbow, as Tez made a Herculean effort and came to his feet. “Don’t you worry, Tez,” she advised. “We’re going to make certain you’re well and truly healed, before we offer you up as a living sacrifice to Justice’s god. I’ll make sure it takes days for you to finish burning.”
Tez staggered backward, and felt the portico’s railing behind him. “No, I don’t think so,” he said, feeling lifeblood flowing out of his side, over his fingers. He smiled. “You see, I cannot die.”
And then he fell over the railing, towards the rocks below.
* * *
He awoke again, naturally. He knew he would, though he’d hoped he might finally have been wrong.
The world swaying around him, he opened his eyes. He didn’t need the overwhelming smell of fish to realize a boat had picked him up, after drifting for who knew how long. The boat’s master, a grizzled old man with stark white, curling hair, motioned for the young man beside him to take the tiller, and rushed over to where Tez lay.
“You’re alive, young elf?” the man asked.
“Yes,” Tez gasped, throat cracking. The old man brought a skin of water to his lips, and he drank eagerly.
“You’ve got the gods’ own luck then, I’ll tell ye,” the old man said. “When we fished you out last week, I’d thought I was taking a body to be buried, not a live elf. What happened to ye?”
“Attacked… by a pirate,” Tez answered, with perfect truthfulness. He motioned for the man to give him the water skin again, and he sipped it more slowly this time, mindful of all the seawater that had to already be in stomach. “Where… are we headed?”
“Mainland, Sea Haven, my home,” the old man said. He touched Tez’s collar. “That pirate keep you as a slave?”
“No, not the pirate…” Tez risked a little more truth, for Sea Haven was a good three weeks journey by a fast ship. “I was a slave, on the trade island.”
“Oh, that terrible place,” the old man said, sounding disgusted. “I’ll not be taking a bound man back that rock.”
“Thank you,” Tez said sincerely. He touched his bejeweled chain. “This is yours, if you can get it off me, in return for your kindness.”
“Oh, thank you!” the old man exclaimed. As well he should, as Tez was certain his chain could buy a boat as large as this one and a dozen more besides. “But what of yourself, elf? I won’t leave you with just the clothes on your back.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Tez said. “I’ll manage. I always have.”
* * *
Quite some time later, and eras, later, Tez found himself sitting on cushion on the floor, sipping a glass of wine while Maria amused herself by braiding glass beads into his hair.
“Tez,” I was wondering,” she said, knotting off a strand of hair. “When I first brought you here, you said you were patient enough to outlive me. Have you done that often, living from generation to generation, owned by a single family?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, and took another sip, “several times.”
She picked another strand and began to slip a bright sapphire bead along it. “What’s the longest you’ve ever been with one family?”
“Mmm, seven hundred and fifty years, on a particular island on the Great Inland Sea,” Tez told her. “When I got there, washing up after a shipwreck, it was just a bunch of goat herders and their families. I got taken in by the village headman as a sort of prize, I suppose.”
“Bet you were running the place inside of three generations,” she said, laughing.
“Two actually.”
She laughed again. “That must have been fun.”
“Yes, yes it was,” he agreed, and changed the subject.
The End
