Sar Torfaer En Gran Deuil: Chapter 1

The desolate withered gardens used to attract me as a child. I’d creep behind the screen created by dead foliage twined round the rusty iron fence. Alone I sat in the shade of the great twisted oak. The oak twisted so badly that its lower branches, which came out at right angles, were but three feet from the ground, the branches on the opposite side thrust high into the air. Beneath that dead tree I would absentmindedly stare at the house for hours on end. It felt to me then that I was there because I chose to be, but as life progressed into my early teens it felt more that I was drawn towards the broken building that lay betwixt the clinging foliage. I found myself staring into its icy windows into the dark evenings of winters. Come my late teens my distraction was very clear to my family. My mother would ask me where I went during the days. I would rarely reply and if I did it would be rather vague. My father himself would never talk to me, he spoke to me through messages passed on by his servant, Mahlu. From these messages I gathered he cared very little about where I went. My father preferred the concept of having a son much more than he revelled the reality of it. To him I was a kind of assurance that there was someone left to maintain the household once his time was up, and of course a necessary ornament for any noble in Gran Deuil. The Torfaer house was situated in the richer, west side of the city. The house had little ground but had four stories and a stable. My own room was of a medium size and rectangular with wooden panelling and a large stained window that overlooked the house cemetery. The stained window was hinged in such a way that it would swing inwards, allowing the viewer to lean fully out of the window. I often would lean out of my window and observe the people moving in the street, one large organic mass of shabbily dressed city folk being assaulted on all sides by the beggars, thieves and other filth. It was in this same position, observing a man selling wooden boxes, that I heard a knock on my door as the manservant Mahlu entered.1

Mahlu had been given instructions by my father to take me to clothes shops in the city in order to find me something to wear for a small gathering of nobles being invited tonight. I was led through the grey rain towards a coach, which Mahlu opened the door of for me. The door was closed and the coach pulled away with the accompanying click of the horses’ iron hooves on stone. The coach carved it’s own path through the pedestrians and street scum, but was unable to gather much speed. The pouring rain battered hard upon the roof of the coach, a few drips falling through the gaps made by the door. My breath became condensation that ran down the window, the barrier between me and the faceless, hunched figures that shuffled around in their urban wilderness. The black masses were so near the sides of the coach it unnerved me slightly and I began to fiddle with a ring on my right hand. My mother had given me this ring, or at least I assumed so, I’d had it as long as I could remember. The ring was silver with a small ruby pressed into it. On the inner side of the ring were engraved the letters “ECE”, I didn’t know what they were meant to represent. The rain grew much heavier as we moved into the upmarket part of the trade district, leaving behind the mass of black for a far more dispersed amount of pedestrians. The coach jolted as it hit a bump, causing a large collection of rainwater to splash down my arm and the side of my face. I smiled to myself thinking of Mahlu, who had foolishly decided to sit on the top in order to converse with the coachman. The streaming rain rendered the windows unusable, aided by the steam condensing on the inside. I wiped the rainwater from my cheek with one red sleeve and pulled the sides of the think jacket closer around myself as the coach slowed to a stop.2

As the door opened the wind caught it and near wrenched it from Mahlu’s grasp. Mahlu looked so uncannily like a drowned puppy I had to stifle a laugh, receiving a piercing glare as he attempted to unfold an umbrella. The spindly creation wasn’t made to withstand such a torrent of wind, so he soon gave up. Instead he merely helped me from the coach and began to lead me down the near deserted street. The wind whipped me in the face like a callous grass, causing my eyes to stream and my blond hair to dance on my forehead. The heavy rain had cleansed the street of its usual array of beggars and thieves that operated here. Most beggars and thieves tended to practice only in the poor sections of the town, but there were the resilient few beggars who insisted that the rich not only had more to offer them, but would actually part with it. The possibility of pickpockets in the rich section was laughable, although it was true that people in the upmarket section of the trade quarter tended to carry a lot of money and valuables, any pickpocket could be spotted a mile off. Because of this reason crime tended to be much lower in the richer parts of town. But as I said before, there are always the resilient few, such a creature crawled out from a doorway to grasp my arm in his filthy clutch.3

“Would yeh spare me sumin’ lad?” he wheezed at me, his liquor breath whisked away in the wind. Mahlu strode forward and pushed the fetid beggar away from me, his anger clear by his deliberate movements. In one swift move he struck the beggar across the face. The beggar stumbled away, his ragged cloak sliding through the wind. Mahlu watched the hunchbacked creature battling the wind as his curses whipped away before we walked on. Eventually we reached a shop, it’s windows too steamed to see inside. The sign swinging wildly above the door proclaimed: “Tailor Scrydan’s Attire For The Discerning” beneath a needle and thread. Mahlu opened the door for me and I stepped inside.4

Stepping into that tailor was like stepping into a white-hot furnace in comparison to the icy chill of the streets. I felt the pores on my forehead begin to sweat. Mahlu closed the door and held my jacket once I took it off. From the back of the shop crept a curiously dressed man with boots that clicked annoyingly on the hard wood floor of the shop.5

“Can I help you gentlemen?” he inquired rubbing his hands forcefully.6

“I am Mahlu of the Torfaer household, and this is master Torfaer. The master is interested in purchasing new 7

evening clothes.” replied Mahlu8

“I can certainly help you there, as you can see from these examples, my work is exquisite. I just got in a supply of fine silk and…” the old man babbled on and on with Mahlu nodding every now and then. Eventually I was led to the back of the shop and measured. After running many ideas past me and Mahlu the design and materials were decided and collected. My arms and legs began to ache from the basic but consistent shape I was forced to adopt as he fitted the new clothes. I was then clothed in the strangest attire I had ever worn, which Mahlu and tailor constantly tried to convince me was very fashionable among young men my age and class. The shirt was a peculiar frilly burgundy silk creation that was, unnecessarily tight. The trousers were neat and of a black, canvas like material, fastened by a black leather belt with a plain silver buckle. The money even stretched so far as to have me tailored another jacket, jet-black and broad shouldered, and it was made of the same canvas like material with large silver buttons in the shapes of flattened pyramids. The tailor was packing the clothes as I managed to convince Mahlu to buy a dark wood swordstick I had been eyeing, a sturdy stick with a removable silver falcon handle that would come off to reveal the blade, which was approximately half a foot in length. With Mahlu carrying the clothes and myself accompanied by the clicking of my newfound companion we braved the route back to the coach through the unforgiving rain.9