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Velataire was five days past his seventh birthday when he came to understand vengeance. His father and his personal tutor, a slave he knew as Ludri, were taking tea in Vel’s rooms, where the harsh, oil-soaked air of the city wouldn’t aggravate his illness. Servants and his father’s wife whispered about the weakness of mixed blood when the shaking and vomiting became too frequent to hide; it was Ludri who dismissed such notions with a flick of wrinkled fingers and told him of lands where elf-blooded were far more common, and thrived. “It is an illness, such as might affect any child. It will pass,” he’d said, as the sweet scent of the medicinal tea brewed.
A year later, the illness had not passed. Vel huddled in a deep chair, blankets piled to his chin, while his father and tutor discussed literature Vel was still too young to read - although he was reading well beyond his age. Ludri praised this; Vel didn’t see that he had much choice, when he could do nothing but read.
He longed to be like his father. Reddicoro va Oettigen, Count of House Oettigen, had broad shoulders and refined features. His deep voice rarely rose above conversational level, and yet when he spoke, the room silenced to listen. Controlled and elegant, he was famed for both his swordplay and his erudition. Even at the tender age of seven, Vel knew that his father was the model to be aspired to; he craved the man’s closeness and attention, and dreamed of the day he would stand beside him.
But this was the next best thing, listening to the men he loved above all others conversing about art, philosophy, science, and even morality - for all that they could never agree. The perspectives of a nobleman of the Infernal Technocracy and a learned slave from the heretic lands were so far apart as to be irreconcilable. But Reddicoro listened with what appeared to be genuine interest to Ludri’s words, and even went so far as to smuggle in books from the heretic lands that Ludri recommended, directing him to make their teaching a part of Velataire’s studies. Along with the Precepts of Empire, the Laws of Asmodeus, and the Primal Mandates of Power, of course. And if Vel’s young head swam with the contradictions in his teaching, both men assured him that a wide foundation of knowledge would make him strong.
He believed them, for Ludri and his father were the smartest people he knew, and therefore the strongest. Reddicoro’s strength was obvious, written in his body, his carriage, the power he wielded. Ludri was in many ways his opposite; a wizened man who stood with care and was known to bruise extensively just from brushing against a doorway. But his mind was powerful and clever, and Vel rarely - if ever - managed to beat him at debate, or games, or anything at all. Not all could see his value. Reddicoro’s wife had suggested several times, in full hearing of Ludri and Vel, that it was time to sell the old man to the flesh markets, and get a proper tutor for “the bastard”, which Vel knew was as good as his own name in most of the house.
His father had responded to the first demand with a curt refusal, the second with a cold glare until his wife’s gaze had fallen, and the third—well, he’d asked Vel and Ludri to leave the room, so he didn’t know quite what the response had been. He only knew that the woman had never spoken of replacing Ludri again.
Velataire didn’t fool himself that his father’s decision was simply to appease his son, who had no other ally in all of the House. Reddicoro enjoyed the discussions with Ludri and when his advice had helped the House navigate some delicate situation, Reddicoro had brought gifts imported at great cost from Ludri’s homeland; fruits and candies that the old man had wept to taste.
A small box of those fruits sat on the table with the other tea-time treats. They were for Ludri only; when Vel had been offered one, his father said, “Vel eats what he likes every day. Take what is your due. There’s no need to share what you’ve earned.”
And so Ludri had, savoring the treat as the two talked. The discussion was coming around to morality, as it always tended to, with Vel watching as they exchanged point and counterpoint. It was a familiar dance, until Reddicoro broke the pattern. As Ludri savored his second fruit, the Count asked, “You have a concept of the “innocent” in your lands, do you not?”
Ludri put the half-eaten fruit back in its box, carefully wiped his fingertips on the napkin. “Indeed. Those who have committed no crime deserve to be protected from unjust punishment or sacrifice.”
Reddicoro nodded, took a sip of his tea. “But, then, who is truly innocent? We can clearly see that no one would call me so.” An upward quirk of his mouth as Ludri hesitated, then agreed. “But what about yourself? You are older than I but hail from what some would call kinder and more just lands. Have you retained your innocence?”
A longer hesitation, before Ludri said, “No. I have done things in my life I am not proud of. Things which deserve punishment. I would argue that this,” he lifted one skinny arm and the silver cuff there gleamed; it matched the cuff on his other arm, and the circlet around his neck, “is excessive for what I have done. But the purpose of slavery is not punishment, but utility. Punishment is simply a justification.”
Reddicoro’s eyes flicked to Velataire. “And my son? Is he innocent?”
“But of course,” Ludri replied without a moment of hesitation. “He’s but a child.”
“Are children, by their nature, innocent? He’s not perfect.” Velataire shrank a little in his blanket, and his father smiled. “We’re speaking truth here, Vel. Just last week, I heard that you were seen in the kitchen, just as my wife’s favorite pastries went missing.”
Velataire flushed red to the tips of his gently pointed ears, “I didn’t know they were her favorite,” he muttered.
“And now we add lying to his crimes,” Reddicoro stage whispered to Ludri. “So, innocent or guilty?”
“Innocent,” Ludri replied, and smiled at Vel’s grateful look. “High-spirited and perhaps naughty, but innocent.”
Reddicoro considered this, and nodded. Casually, he said, “So I shouldn’t have him executed, then?”
Ludri blinked. It was the kind of statement that might sound like a joke, but the Count said it so solemnly that even Vel’s breath froze in his throat. “O-of course not, my lord. He’s a good boy.”
“I agree,” Reddicoro said, and both Ludri and Vel relaxed. “However,” and now he turned the full weight of his gaze on Ludri, “I wonder why you would take it upon yourself to do what I, as the master of the house, see no reason for. Explain to me why you’ve chosen to kill my innocent son?”
Vel sucked in a breath, then slapped a hand over his mouth to muffle the hacking cough the sudden influx of air caused. He couldn’t speak, but he shook his head as hard as he could, and glared at his father. Reddicoro had never, once, been wrong about anything important in Vel’s young eyes, and that this first mistake was such a brutal one was a deep betrayal.
Ludri, on the other hand, went very still and very quiet. He folded his long hands neatly into his lap. “That is a strong accusation, my lord. Have you proof?”
Reddicoro sighed. “My wife has confessed.”
“She’s lying,” Vel wheezed out. “She hates Ludri. She hates me! She’s just trying to hurt us!”
Reddicoro didn’t look at him. He watched Ludri as he continued, “I’d tracked down the poison she was paying for some time ago. But I admit, I couldn’t figure out how she was delivering to him. I watched the maids, the cooks, even the tailor. It took time to make my way to you. But I had a servant retrieve a sample of your ‘medicinal’ tea while you and Vel were at the library.”
There was a dip of Ludri’s chin, a sag of his shoulders. Vel wanted to interject again; there were a hundred ways that the poison could have gotten into his medicine, even if it wasn’t just planted there to find. If he could think of that many, then Ludri, brilliant Ludri, must know two times as many.
But he said nothing, and Velataire’s eyes welled with shameful tears. “You didn’t.”
Ludri’s mouth was pressed in a thin line. “Don’t say something you wish to be true as if it is. I taught you better than that.”
“B-but, she–she must have forced him.” His eyes pleaded with his father. “He’s a slave. He can’t refuse an order!”
Reddicoro reached over and gently ruffled Vel’s ashen hair. “I had the same thought. Unfortunately, my wife has only been buying the poison for six months. Did you run out of your stockpile?” he asked Ludri, as if it wasn’t murder they were discussing.
“Yes,” Ludri said, simply. “I had calculated for a single, deadly dose for two adults. A slow decline for a single young child does cut the needs drastically, but my attempts to procure more on my own ran into challenges. I decided that, while we did not share the same motives, Lady Corellaine and I could at least agree on the methods.” He sighed. “I should have known not to trust her discretion.”
“Why?” It was cracked and under other circumstances, Vel would have been ashamed of how it sounded like a whine.
For the first time, Ludri looked at him, his eyes feverishly bright. “Because shortly after I became your tutor, my boy, I realized that the only thing that would hurt your father more than his own death was to watch you suffer and be powerless to stop it.”
“But why? He’s been good to you!”
“Because he can be good to me. Or he can be evil to me. He can be any damned thing he pleases to me, young Count-to-be, or any other slave on this property, and none can gainsay him. Do you think he isn’t? Ask him of the mines he runs, where the average slave lives four months. Or the steam tunnels here in the city. You’ve never seen them carried from that dark shadow of the Hells, men and women with blisters the size of shields, screaming with pain when even the air touches their boiled skin. And instead of treatment, they’re tossed into the flesh pits to be food for the imps. To speak nothing of the brothels! Do you think I do not feel their pain? Know their suffering? That I do not know that in ten years, you would be committing the same atrocities, if you but lived so long.”
Reddicoro didn’t deny it. He sipped his tea, and said, “I would have freed you, if you’d asked.”
“I have been a slave for twenty years, and every moment of every day, I have dreamt not of freedom, but of watching everyone of you demon-worshipping bastards dying in agony.”
“E-even me?” Vel asked, barely above a whisper.
Ludri smiled, sharp enough to cut. “Yes. It’s not fair. It’s not just. It doesn’t make me a good man, Vel, and you don’t deserve it. Yet. But watching you wither day by day? Imagining your father’s pain and frustration? It gave me the strength to wake up each morning.” He lifted his chin to Reddicoro. “So. My lord. I am guilty. Execute me.”
Reddicoro sighed. “A public execution would raise too many questions. Possibly give ideas to others.” He gestured towards the fruit. “Eat the rest, Ludri. You’ve earned it.”
Ludri’s gaze slipped from Reddicoro’s face, to the beautiful, lacquered box, and the glistening fruits inside. His eyes widened, to be replaced in the next moment by a bitter resignation. “I thought I was just imagining the extra sweetness.” He picked up the half-eaten fruit, and popped it into his mouth.
“Father?”
His father’s hand came down gently on Vel’s stick-thin shoulder. “It’ll be alright, son. We’re just going to sit and talk while Ludri enjoys his treat.”
And they did. Reddicoro took up the conversation as if the entire interlude had been a dream, asking Ludri what he thought of a recent script that had taken the city by storm. Dully, Ludri responded, with breaks to take bites of the fruit, then pluck another from the box when that one was done. And another. After an hour, his hands began to tremble, and his breath became labored. He looked, just once, at Reddicoro, and saw nothing but polite interest there.
At first, Vel wept. Both men ignored his tears, and gradually they dried up, leaving him hollow and aching inside. When Ludri had his first seizure from the poison, Vel thought, how many times did he watch me do that , and he wished for the first time that he could hate the man. Instead, he remembered how much it hurt, how his guts had twisted inside of him. He scrambled out of his blanket nest and gently pushed Ludri so he could vomit over the side of the chair, and not on himself. Vel hated it when he vomited on himself.
From then, he sat beside Ludri, one hand on the man’s leg; it jerked and spasmed with increasing force as the box emptied. When Ludri’s hand shook so badly that he could not hold on to the last fruit, Reddicoro said, quietly, “Help him, Vel.”
Vel felt the tears threaten, forced them back. “I don’t want to, Father. It’s enough. This is enough, isn’t it?”
“No.” Reddicoro smiled, sad and fond. “Betrayal can never be forgiven, son. And vengeance must be paid in kind. Even a slave understands that. Don’t be less dignified than a dying man. It would shame him and yourself.”
Vel looked up at Ludri; blood vessels had burst in his eyes, and pink tears were trailing down his trembling face. He looked back down at the boy in turn, and his jerking hand clumsily landed atop Vel’s. His mouth made a motion; but it was impossible to tell if it was a word, a smile, or anything but an involuntary twitch of muscles. Vel picked up the fruit and lifted it carefully to the old man’s mouth.
He wanted this to happen to me , he told himself as he pressed the syrup-coated mass between Ludri’s lips. This is vengeance. This is right.
Eventually, Ludri went limp, the final twitches of life fading to silence and a smell that made Vel flee his seat beside the corpse and crawl into his father’s lap. Reddicoro put his arms around him, rested his chin on the top of his head, and they watched the cooling corpse in silence.