Those times, as
good as they were could not last. In the fall of my sixteenth year I received
word that my father was ill and needed me. I persuaded Lord Stephan that Marcus
must come with me and the two of us set off on what seemed to us at the time as
a grand adventure. I had not been back since I was eight and the large capital
city, not to mention the palace, seemed to me irresistible romantic. Marcus,
though glad to go with me, was, as in everything, more restrained in his
excitement.
The Palace was a
disappointment. It was bigger than Lord Stephan’s home and there were more
servants and it did have a ball room that was often used by many sparkling
people. But I could see no real improvement to Lord Stephan’s tidy keep and the
sparkling people gave me no real pleasure for Lord Stephan had warned me before I left that all of them would want something from me and I found that to be
only too true.
The City on the
other hand did not disappoint. Many days Marcus and I would but on the clothes
of the sons of wealthy merchants and wander the streets. It seemed to me that
every tale I had ever heard came alive there and anything could be bought for
the right price, spices, tea, drink, women. The last Marcus would not touch but
I am ashamed to say I had my share, they were all around and I was curious lad
in my sixteenth year with all the passions of a hot blooded family.
Of course Marcus was not completely free of
dalliance. We had not been there a year when he began to court a young girl of
our age. She was a noble woman from the south and he found her pretty and
lively and I had to admit than she did not lack beauty. Her auburn hair was cut
fairly short and her green eyes held youth and vigor. Her father was not
particularly wealthy or particularly powerful but he was secure in his holdings
and hoped to become more secure by marrying his two daughters above their
station. Her family encouraged Marcus as his father was no minor lord and as
she was a noble woman Marcus felt no apprehension that she would be ill
received by his father.
But I had not come
to court girls or to wander the market place. I had come because my father had
called. He had grown older, had shrunk with a disease that was eating him from
the inside out, but I only vaguely realized this as before I left my father was
essentially a stranger to me. The years had only widened that gap. I had left a
spoiled child, I returned a high spirited youth. He seemed to repent of his
earlier neglect of me but it came too late. I would visit him daily and speak
to him on whatever subject he chose but my mind was all the time looking
forward to the moment when he would dismiss me with a wave of his liver spotted
hand. I regret not knowing him, and though the fault was for the most part his,
I wish that then I had really learned to love him. I missed out on knowing both
my father and my son and that I regret with everything in me.
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