Chapter Text
I was now Baron Erondites, head of my family, though too young and ignorant to be of any use to anyone. I continued to serve the king as an attendant, and outside those hours I spent time riding, which had been a pleasure since the stable master had first befriended me. I felt safer and less conspicuous on Snap, almost like a normal person; just one more boy on a pony in the streets of the capital.
The king came and spoke to me. It was nearly dawn, but I was awake, thinking. “Pheris, you are Erondites now,” he said. “You have to learn how to take charge of your family.” I shook my head. My family despised me.
“Sejanus believed your grandmother would welcome you. You promised to write.”
I nodded emphatically. I did write, I insisted, even though there probably wasn’t enough light for him to read my signs. Anyway, there had been no reply so far.
The king nodded. “So. Perhaps she’s still trying to decipher your handwriting. I’ve written to Dite. He may choose to return, or he may send Juridius, or he might do both.”
I stared at him, and shook my head, not wanting to think about all this, especially in the middle of the night.
“Yes. You have a responsibility. You need to learn about your patrimony. You will have to attend the barons’ council, learn to deal with disputes, how to make decisions. You’ll wish you’d paid attention at all those meetings where you dozed in the corner.”
I looked up at him, dismayed, trying to deny reality.
“Well. We’ll keep you for the time being, at least until we hear from Dite. Start thinking about your future, though, Pheris.”
He left as silently as he had arrived, and I lay staring at the dark.
How could I possibly be a baron? It was not just that Erondites had owned far more land than any of the others, which was bound to cause jealousy and anger. Nor simply the challenge of learning what I had to do. There was Suterpe, which I now owned. My father had died during the war, but my mother still lived there, and I dreaded having to deal with her. I certainly never wanted to see my brother again. There was the land which had been marked for Sejanus, and which the king briskly told me would also be mine now. What about Dite? I thought. I didn’t know him at all. What if he was like his father, or his sister? What about Erondites’ widow, who would surely hate me? And what about all those the old baron had led, or had corrupted or blackmailed into giving him gold? No-one seemed to be talking about that any more.
The king’s words echoed in my head and disturbed my dreams. I started being sick again during the night, the first time for many months.
*****
Teleus was brusquely kind, but he wasn’t Relius.
“You can just stay in the palace and have your stewards run the estate. The king won’t expect anything more at your age.”
A child baron Erondites? The old baron owned too much land, and had too much power over others in loans and extortion, all those people he coerced. There would be constant intrigue. If I stay in the palace I think I will need to have guards. If I stayed in the palace I was sure I would not survive for long. A child baron was just too easy to snuff out.
Teleus was taken aback.“The king can’t have meant that.”
I shrugged. The king might have had any number of devious plans in mind, but he hadn’t told me about them.
*****