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Uprooted. Torn from what he knew. A lifetime in servitude had been turned on its head when it was found out that he was the long-lost heir to a small European fiefdom.
His responsibilities had been upped from that of running a large house in Belgravia, to running a whole country. With the help of advisors of course. But those advisors had their own agendas. He was no fool. Bing butler in a large household had taught him well about the power plays of intrigue and power struggles. That old self of his, had also taught him about gossip. Back then, he had had to crush the gossip and rumours that he was selling his Master's goods, in public the houses that he frequented. The rumours were true, but that was beside the point. The point, of course, was to crush and gossip and rumours before they led to him being out on his ear with no job and references to hope to find a new one.
He had been a day or so away from being brought into the Master's study, or so he had calculated and had begun to panic and make stupid mistakes. Making an enemy of his friends, as well as the chief gossip-monger. So when he had indeed been called into the Master's study, he had been ready with excuses and other names to throw into the fire, so that he could save his own neck. But, instead, the Master had stayed silent and another, funny looking, funny sounding gentleman, judging by his attire had spoken. Then another foreign sounding gentleman, an officer in some sort of military, by the looks of his clothing and the sword he wore at his side had spoken. Then he had been whisked away, out of the house, away from Belgravia, away from London, put on a boat, then another and sailed up a river to where his new Kingdom lay. A Kingdom that was a darn sight bigger than one house in Belgravia.
He tried to find a place for himself. His manners allowed him a ladder to the upper classes. But they looked down their noses at his lowly birth. Even if his mother was the exiled daughter of the late King.
The servants there bowed and scraped but there was an undercurrent of non-deference and rebellion there. He had heard the words they spoke: jumped up upstart, no better than one of us. So he stayed out of the kitchens and the downstairs areas that he did not belong in anymore.
Loneliness and boredom were his only companions at night, as he sat in the wing-back chair in his solar, in front of a roaring, crackling, cackling fire and read one of the books from the overstuffed library within his new home. Or he attempted to read, the book ignored and left to fan its pages out, like a puffed up bird in winter.
He had taken to wandering the castle at night. Unable to settle or sleep. A parody of his old routine, as a butler, when he had done a circuit of the house, securing windows and doors for the night. There were too many doors and windows in his new home that wasn't a home yet. But he walked the space anyway. Making a nuisance of himself with the guards and servants there.
In the end, he even gave that up and hid in his rooms. Lying on his bed, staring up at the canopy of the large, mahogany four-poster monstrosity. Attempting to make sense of the tapestry there, as he tried to make sense of his new life. His advisors ran the Kingdom and his Steward ran the castle. A busy mind and body was reduced to doing neither.
One of his advisors had sent him his own, trusted, family doctor and that doctor had a suggestion of a cure for his melancholy. A melancholy that grew strong on his feelings of uselessness and boredom and not being able to settle in this strange new life of his.
Laudanum. At first, it worked to keep his fears far away. But then, he found that he needed more and more of it to control the beast that lived within him and was slowly gnawing away at the man that surrounded it and attempted to leash it.
Laudanum. So easy to come by, in the year of everyone else's Lord Eighteen-eighty-four. A Drug to send the beast to sleep. But it also sent the man to sleep too. And while sleeping, the beast slipped the leash that the man wished to place around him.
Laudanum. It worked and it did not. The drug-induced sleep sent the man and the beast to another realm. But the beast broke free and forced the man to dream such terrible things.
Laudanum. The man woke, more tired than he should after a night of sleep. But at least he did not remember and did not care about the beast of boredom that gnawed at him constantly.
He took to reading books during the day. Books that told him of all of the old myths that surrounded his new Kingdom. Myths that spoke of dead bodies that littered the mountains there, centuries past. Myths that were filled with horrors of a beast that roamed at night. A beast with the face of a man, the body of a lion and the tail of a scorpion that was covered in venomous spines that were longer than the quills of any living species of porcupine. The blood-curdling picture was finished off with the huge, black, leathery wings of a dragon. These venomous spines were launched like arrows at anything or anyone that displeased it. Or at anyone or anything that had the misfortune of crossing its path.
If it was hungry, it ate its victims whole, using its three rows of dagger-sharp teeth. No bones, flesh, gristle or sinew was left behind. Not even any clothing was left behind to tell that a human or an animal had been there and existed, before it was caught and devoured by the beast that roamed the high mountain passes for most of the year, or the lower ones, when the chill of winter forced it lower.
If it was not hungered, that was when the bodies would be left. But not quite untouched. They were not killed by fang or claw, but by the venomous spines, flung from its tail. A rattle, like that of a snake, was the last thing that those victims heard, before one of those spines, the length of a man, were launched with pin-point accuracy, through one of the eye sockets of the unfortunate victim. Delivering the agonising poison directly into the brain. Sending them mad, sending them into a crazed frenzy. Those unfortunates would wish that they had instead been devoured alive, as their deaths were an excruciatingly painful one, proven by the contorted bodies and faces that were found the next spring, when the winter snow thawed.
Then there was the other beast that roamed lower down. In the forests that clothed the lower slopes of the mountains. A beast that was described as being a dark mass of fighting and flapping and squawking blackness. With one bright, mad eye staring out from the mass to judge you, to assess you, to stare at you. Before the eye vanished into the void again and a hand appeared, then that vanished and was replaced not by a part of a body, but by a roar or a scream that came from the roiling ball of dark feathers that made up this beast's outer clothing.
This was a beast that would bring his hapless victims closer, whether to eat them or to toy with them, by staring at them with its mad, red, not quite human eye. It would be the last thing that the victim saw before they disappeared. Once you witness that big, clacking and screeching void, then you know that it's over for you. Neither hiding, nor running is an option, it's futile to even think about defending yourself. You're doomed, as that big screaming, screeching void will devour you within seconds. The only defense against this beast, is to hope that it is too busy with your fellows, to notice you fleeing.
Reports from such escapees, told of how this dark beast was similar in appearance to the true form of an angel. A winged beast with several eyes that does not tell you 'be not afraid!', but instead, tells the unwary 'be afraid, be very afraid!' Assuming that this beast would say anything at all and not just screech and scream and moan incoherently, like a crazy wordless unholy, inhuman poem merging with the gawking and squawking clacking bills and un-oiled hinge noises of the ravens that seemed to make up its outer core. Mayhaps like a King Rat, but one made of Ravens instead.
Then, when dawn broke, dreams of such myths would vanish and a bored King would wake.
The servants whispered as he passed them. Whispering about seeing the rot that had taken hold of their new King. How he was an addict. Just as the previous one was. And would like as much, die in the same way. Dead in a bed full of his own piss and shit, locked in his drug-induced dreams, with his sanity taken away by the mythical, ravaging beast that came in the night and sucked your brains out through your ear. He had huffed at that. At how these peasants still believed in such medieval nonsense and had carried on to the King's council, where he sat and nodded at whatever needed nodded at and signed whatever needed signed. Not wobbling, never showing any weakness, even though he was bleary eyed and over-tired from the lack of restorative sleep. Having to walk close to the walls, so that he could run a hand along them to stave off the dizziness that always besets him when first waking from a night's imaginary wanderings while dreaming that he was the beast that sucked the brains out of foolish idiot's heads.
The King would lead his council with a pale face and bloodshot eyes, as he gripped the arms of his throne with nails that were too sharp for a human and more like claws. But the servants, the Lords, the Knights knew not to ask anything or say anything, or their families might be the next to be devoured or turned mad by the Chimera that had so obviously taken over their King's mind. The man, the King might not remember who had asked him what, but the beast that walked in his sleep, in his mind, would and they would be the ones who would be torn apart in that night's Laudanum-induced sleep, revenge extracted by the ancient menace for speaking ill of their liege.
He laughed at the council's obvious discomfort with him. Allowing his laughter to drown out all of their nervous queries as to his health. His laughter grew louder. Laughter at himself too. At how he was the Chimeric beast here, not the one from that old myth. A beast made up from a devious, underhanded butler, a king who was not a king and a sleep-inducing and sleep-stealing drug. He stood and strode out of the grand council chambers. His laughter echoing along the long corridors and following him all the way to the dusty, fusty library where he made himself comfortable and read some more about the centuries past made-up beast that had ravaged his lands and now ravaged his dreams and his sanity, while he sipped on his Laudanum-laced Malmsey. A beautiful vintage that brought him all the back to Belgravia and the bottles that he had stolen from his old Master there to sell on and line his retirement nest-egg. He laughed out loud at that last thought. Laughing, as he had no need to fear the poverty of old age now. Laughing and causing all of the servants to creep away from him. And for his Steward to send for the doctor.