The Mist and the Lightning. Part V

“I remember you were very hungry?”

“I do not want it anymore…”

“Get out, Arel! Now go away!”

“I do not want!”

“I said go away!”

Are you ordering me?”

“Yes!”

“Like … like your slave?”

“Yes!”

Arel pulls away desperately, hands down.

“I … I am your slave, and where are the others, where is my Lis, Sguint- Eye?”

“Here, at the same time and check the rest! You can go now! I repeat for a long time! Should I get up?”

“No!”

And Arel trudges to the door:

“Do you love me?”

“Arel!”

“If it stays, I'll bring you some rotten carrots too …” and he, already laughing, jumps out, deftly dodging a bottle that has flown into him.

Arel was obedient, especially since he was actually hungry. Going down to the servants, right into the kitchen, and sitting at a huge and empty cutting table, he ate everything that was brought to him. Then, taking

two girls, he descended even lower into the cellars of the castle, to the hot springs, where there was warm water in the pool. Once so long ago that he himself did not remember this, she was fed directly into the rooms upstairs, once … He who had eaten himself almost fell asleep while the slaves washed, combed it and rubbed the skin with fragrant oil.

It was already light, but, rising to the top, Arel, to his surprise, heard voices. His friends talked loudly and played cards in the small living room upstairs, where he once entertained Nikto as a slave. Apparently, they never went to bed. The shutters on the windows were not removed, and twilight reigned in the room. The fireplace was caustically smoked by a brocade upholstery of a broken armchair, giving more stink than warmth. On the floor are lined up a whole battery of empty wine bottles. There were Lis, Sguint-Eye and Tol with Asa and a few more slaves, including Claire, Nikto’s slave. She also played cards. The whole company was drunk almost to insanity, and their skewed, sunbathing after a sleepless night face seemed sober Arel just wild.

“Fuck, stupid March! How do you distribute ?!”

He heard the voice of the Lis, and froze on the threshold. Listurned to Sguint-Eye, and Arel involuntarily shrank everything inside, he called him what he was called “black” cripples from birth, considering them to be harbingers of the degeneration and death of the “black” race. It was an insulting, derogatory nickname, and Arel never allowed it to be used against Sguint-Eye or Nikto.

The scythe did not hit the Lis, as one would expect, did not give him, as Tol would say, a rally, no. Without even changing his face, he slowly

collected the cards and began to hand them out again, and Arel hated Lis for that now.

Tol, as usual, bluntly barked:

“Who are you?”

“I am a half-breed, you moron! Half-bre-ed

"And what, the half-breed cannot be, well … they …"

“Fuck, you stupid, of course, can! But I am not!"

"And the hair?"

“What is wrong with my hair? I am a "red" half-breed, fucking how much times I need to explain, why I have such hair!"

“Tol, do you want to suck you so that you do not ask stupid questions and do not anger Mr. Atley Alice?” – asked Claire.

“And what's the point, your mouth will be busy with you, and not with him?” – Lis laughed.

Arel stepped away from the door, he didn’t go to them …

I watched them not out of interest, no. They were not interesting to me, I watched them rather from a sense of my own security. No matter how it was there, the instinct of self-preservation still worked. I had something to protect myself in case of need, and in spite of everything I could still stand up for myself! These bastards can't reach me! However, I soon became convinced that they were not going to touch me. They shunned me like a leper. I was lying in a corner on a roughly hulled trestle-bed, on a mattress soaked in my own blood, and it was as if I did not exist.

They did not even look in my direction. Scorned? Afraid? I dontknow. Believed that they are not affected. They did not need extra trouble.

Their problems were enough to even contact me! And I must give them their due, they reasonably thought, really it was not worth contacting me! Probably, it would be their will, they would get rid of me. I was just thrown to their cell after six months of a loner, and they had nothing to do but to accept this.Just to pretend that nothing is happening, that I am not there, that they do not take me for interrogation in the evening and do not bring me unconscious in the morning. No, I just do not exist.

Although, when I was dragged to them at the very beginning, they approached. I collapsed on the floor; I was in such a state that I don’t remember if they said anything. It seems that someone particularly intelligent said in a half-whisper: "This is the king's nephew, the apostate."

In fact, I am not the king's nephew, as everyone thinks. Some kind of family ties between us really exist, but not as close as attributed. Simply, people tend to simplify everything: a relative of the king younger than him by age is a nephew! Moreover, we are similar in appearance, as it is

unfortunate for me! It's just that all purebred blacks look alike. We have common ancient ancestors, whether they are not fine! Then they seemed to take me to this couch, to the farthest corner. At first, I was not up to them, but they, of course, could not help seeing all this. And although from time to time the doctor gave me infusions so that I wouldn’t be completely bent, anyway, I think it was not a very pleasant sight.

Probably, then they got used. They understood that I would not be bent, they would not let me, they would not let me go so easily. And then the toy finally got tired, they stopped dragging me out of the camera so often, I got a break, and I had the opportunity to think. And then I saw them. As I said, I paid attention to them first out of caution, well, and then simply out of interest.

They were from the nobility. Notable criminals who went to jail, what could be more stupid! However, for the most part, they were notable fallen scum. He brought one, already quite old, and I must give him his due, he did it quite competently and even fairly. The rest obediently obeyed him. There were about twenty of them. But not their leader attracted my attention, no. Among them, I soon began to allocate another. Probably just because he saw that he was as young as me.

He was the youngest of them. He never brought the gear and did not call on a date. He was quiet and always kept a little apart from everyone. I never heard his voice. Others didn’t humiliate him, but they didn’t say much either. I felt some kind of estrangement, some kind of boundaries between him and the others. When he took off his shirt, I saw that his back was wonderfully tattered with a whip, the scars were already healed. One of his eyes was always bandaged. At first, I waited that after a while he would take it off, but the days went by, and he still continued to remain in it, without taking off even for the night. And I decided that he was one-eyed. Despite his youth, he also had a lot to experience. And it brought us even closer.

He silently obeyed the established rules, but never participated in anything on his own initiative, preferring to sit, crouching against the wall, knees tucked to his chest and buried in his face. He had long hair the color of a raven's wing, and looking at how they scattered on his knees when he hid his face, how they touched the floor, I suffered because my long hair was once mercilessly and shamefully cut off, and now only barely grown to the shoulders. I was probably jealous of the fact that his hair did not touch, that he was not dishonored like me. My haircut now was a common hairstyle, not a noble warrior. I did not want to look at him and could not take my eyes off. I envied him some stupid childish envy, although I knew with my mind that there was nothing to envy! He had a beautiful pale face, perhaps even a little more childish, but no longer healthy: haggling sunken cheeks, not at all childishly protruding cheekbones and lips compressed into one line. As time passed, I grew stronger, and my curiosity grew stronger. And at some point, I do not know what came over me when he was nearby, I suddenly called him.