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The room is cold. Every room within 200 hundred feet of her tomb makes his breath come out in delicate puffs of pure white steam. Pantalone's arms pebble with gooseflesh beneath his sweater. He glances down at the ring finger of his left hand, absent of a wedding ring, and beneath his glove, absent of a tan line as well.
She was his wife, and now Rosalyne is dead.
Her moths still flit around the castle. One perches now on the window sill and watches them as Pantalone looms over the desk in his private quarters and inspects her last will and testament. All the harbingers have one, just in case, but hers feels purposeful. Some of her assets go to Pierro, more to Tartaglia which will no doubt stun the poor boy, but to Pantalone, full control of their joint account which is empty except for the 3,000 Mora required to keep it open.
“Fucking bitch.” He seethes.
Dottore slides up next to him and runs his hand over the back of Pantalone's belt, pinky finger slipping barely past the hem of his pants, “That's not very nice.”
“Look at this,” Pantalone slams his fist down on the table like there's anything else in the room worth noting.
The moth in the window flutters it's wings and takes flight. Pantalone thinks it looks just about as smug as a moth made of flames can.
“I'm not saying you're wrong,” Dottore assures, “For goodness sake, I knew the woman, but it's not kind to speak of your poor deceased wife like that.”
“It's not fair,” Pantalone turns and leans against his desk, “She was mine. You know how people look at me now that she's dead? Like that,” He points an accusatory finger at Dottore who has moved to sit in the chair next to Pantalone's bed, picking up his mask and sliding it over his non-sympathetic expression. “People don't believe I loved her.”
“You didn't love her,” Dottore points out.
“That's not the point. The point is that she was mine, and when your spouse dies you get their belongings,” He points to her will, “You get their money, and you get sympathy. Where's my sympathy?”
“She was yours?” Dottore laughs. It makes him sound young, “Oh please. If she was anyone's, she was her dear dead fiance's, or maybe Pierro...Maybe. Hell! Even I got along with her better than you did, and she hated my guts.”
“So does everyone else,” Pantalone spits back lightly, “I just want sympathy. Is that too much to ask?”
“Oh you greedy little thing,” Dottore says, delighted.
Pantalone stalks over and grips Dottore by the collar, pulling him straight up in his seat, “Don't call me that.”
“You can't have everything. If you wanted sympathy for your wife's passing, you should've been faithful. You should've loved her.” Dottore lifts his hand and caresses the slip of skin exposed at Pantalone's wrist.
“She was sleeping with Pierro.”
“And isn't that sympathetic, lover boy,” Dottore grips Pantalone's wrist and twists it away, “If you'll excuse me, I have some work to finish up before we take our paltry half day to honor the witch.” He pushes himself up from his chair and walks to the door.
Before he can leave, Pantalone grabs his arm and tugs him back. Using on hand to lift the bottom of his mask and the other to squeeze menacingly at Dottore's waist, thumb digging into the soft flesh of his stomach, he kisses him. “If you died, do you think people would be heart-broken for me?”
“If I died, people would celebrate,” Dottore mumbles back, gripping Pantalone's chin and pressing a kiss just off center from his mouth. He leaves, and as Pantalone licks his lips, he tastes chemicals like he's just kissed a newly dressed corpse.
He moves back over to his desk and pulls over the little mirror he keeps on his desktop and tries a smile. The first one is too genuine, the second too morose. Dottore is right. No one is going to believe he's actually mourning the marriage he had, quite publicly, for the sake of gain. The third smile is just right, too tight around the edges, too cruel in the eyes. It's unsettling.
He wants to go down to La Signora's coffin early to practice how he'll act. Pantalone is considering crying, and that will require some work.
It just gets colder as he gets closer. Fitting, he supposes. His little jab sends him into a bout of quiet giggling that distracts him well enough that he nearly trips over Arlecchino exiting her room.
“Goddamn,” She spits, brushing down the lapels of her coat, “You nearly plowed me down. Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“To mourn my dead wife.”
Arlecchino laughs at him, full raucous laughter that subsides after a good five seconds, “Oh wow. Yeah, mourn. Ok.” Pantalone inspects her face, noting the rings of red underneath her eyes. She looks tired. Pantalone tells her as such.
“That's rude,” She fires back, running a finger under one of her eyes.
“Have you been crying?”
Arlecchino never falters. The closest she comes is pausing, and she pauses now, “What business is that of yours?”
Pantalone shrugs, humming, “I suppose it's none of my business. Oh, but I was looking for Columbina. You wouldn't happen to know where she is.”
“She's with her fiance,” Arlecchino replies, clipped.
“Pierro? Do you think they'll finally move on with the ceremony? It's been years that they've been engaged,” Pantalone huffs, “Well, you know what they say. A man misses his wife especially in the absence of his mistress.”
“Who's they?” Arlecchino smiles bitterly, “Because I don't really think you and Dottore's post-coital gossip really constitutes an idiom.”
Pantalone's smile escapes his face entirely and he frowns at her, “Gossip counts more than love if there's no documents to hold you together. Give Columbina my regards.”
“Will do,” Arlecchino averts her gaze and trudges down the hallway.
It's sad to watch such a smart woman be brought to her knees by the actions of such a sad man because despite his air of power, that's all Pierro really is. A man in constant mourning who can't get anyone to love him. If it takes half the time you were together to get over the loss of love, how long does it take to grieve an entire nation?
If Pantalone had the capacity for empathy, he'd feel sorry for them both.
When he reaches the door at the end of the hall, he pauses, running his fingertips across the ornate door-handle. It almost burns, even through his gloves. None of the harbingers get on particularly well outside of Columbina and Arlecchino, but if Signora wanted to ban any one person from her burial, it would no doubt be him. Pantalone can almost feel her disdain pulse through the door like she's still alive, waiting for the Tsaritsa to release her from her icy tomb.
“Wicked woman,” He mumbles to himself as he pushes the door open.
It becomes apparent quite quickly that he's not alone.
In the middle of the room, a good six paces from the coffin, stands the boy. His shoulders rise and fall, shivering despite his layers. Around his head, one of her moths bounces jovially, brushing delicately at his cheek every once in a while.
He reaches up a hand and snatches it out of the air, crushing it beneath his palm. The dust filters out between his fingers, landing in a meager grey pile at his feet. As a gust of wind blows through the quiet hall, the pile shifts, sending it flying up towards the rafters before it explodes back into a moth. It looks considerably smaller and angrier than before as it departs through one of the castle's high windows.
“Childe,” Pantalone snaps.
Tartaglia spins hand going to his waist to grip his vision.
'Good boy,' Pantalone thinks to himself. He's smart to protect his vision in a place where recognition from the Gods is so important. Especially since his comrades are 'greedy little things,' as Dottore so eloquently puts it.
“Call me Tartaglia. I'm your coworker, not a friend,” Childe huffs, turning back to the tomb and rubbing at his face, but it's too late. It's clear he's been crying. His face is pale against his red nose and redder eyes. God knows why. Pantalone finds it hard to find any reason to mourn Signora's passing, but good for Tartaglia, the emotion ridden child.
Pantalone sighs and walks up to Childe, placing a hand on his shoulder. “It's ok to be sad.” He uses the knuckle of his pointer finger to knock the edge of Childe's chin, “It's normal.”
“You don't seem all that torn up,” Childe grumbles as he pulls away, “I have to go. There's work to be done. Balladeers to be tracked down.”
“She would've been good at that,” Pantalone observes in a rare moment of honesty, placing his palm on the top of her tomb.
“She would've.” Childe agrees.
The quiet of his dearly departed's resting place is suffocating. Even through his glove, he can almost hear the thrumming of his blood as his palm presses to the top of the casket. The sound of a beating heart beneath his hand, or the frantic beating of fists. If he looked up, Pantalone could see the clusters of moths perched on sconces and fixtures around the room, boring into him with their ashen eyes.
They sit there like vermin, watching, waiting for the ice to thaw.