3. Valentine Valmont

Valentine Valmont


  • Valentine Valmont
    Van Hal

    “What do you mean you want to be a bard? I asked you a serious question, dog, and this is how you reply? I ask you what you intend to do with your workless life, and this dross is what you reply? I want to be a bard. You sicken me. And it was you who sickened your mother. Don’t look at me like that. I know what the priests said, but priests can be wrong. I know. I know it was you Victor.” Snarled the old man, pacing about the room. The house had been home for years. The line of the walls seemed familiar. The chair a comfortable acquaintance, but a chill had sapped the building of its joy. It was a dark patch, wherein his father was king.

    “I’m not Victor. I’m Valentine…”

    “Shut your mouth, dog. You shall speak when spoken to and then only.” Barked Thadius Valmont, gazing into the busy streets of the Civic District, where jaded nobles strode elegantly, soldiers and guardsmen marching by in the livery of the city. It was as if his mother’s spirit had reached from the grave and sucked them all into the rigid sorrow of her coffin. It had been a wasting disease, and the priests had been unable to aid her. It had been said, as losses always are, but her atrophy had spread. It poisoned the candour of the house, stole the fire from painting and laughter, leaving nothing but his father, obstinately sat in his sorrow.

    “I-I am sorry father…” Tried Valentine, but he could not even convince himself. The smile that broke across his lips never reached his eyes.

    “Look at you. You cower as a dog sir, scraping like a girl. Was this how I raised you Vincent? Is it? This… fawning sissy?” Valentine could bare this. He had heard it all before. The ravings of an embittered old man. Use had even made them dull he told himself. It didn’t matter any more. But it did. It always does.

    “Mother-” The fist connected with his jaw, sending him careering to the floor. His vision span, spattered with bursts of frail light as his mind sought reason though the pain. What came was the grating voice of his father. “You will not sully her name, dog. I know what she would have said. She would have said no. No. No! No! And do you know why, Vincent, well do you? Because she was a good and noble and courtly woman!”

    “Father, she was an actress…” Valentine sighed the words, breaking upon his lips even as he spoke them. He loved language. The rhythm and beat of song, but nothing was more sickening than wasted breath. His face’s face contorted and waxed purple again.

    “Lies! All malicious lies! Your brother knows they are lies. But he is a good and honest man. Not dross like you Vincent. Would that I had only had one son.” His brother. As like his father as he was his mother. Cold. Resolute. Brave. Wonderfully brave. He had joined the Defenders very young, testing his sword arm against the foes of Peltarch. And he had lived. Lived through it all as Valentine sat at his desk, dreaming up pretty sonnets and petty rhymes. Pathetic. His father was right in that. Compared to Marcus, he was pathetic and could never compare.

    And he didn’t care.

    He knew that he was worse, less deserving, more useless, and he didn’t give a damn. Because he had always loved his brother, through all of that, as he would have loved his father once. The good man that once stood arrayed before evil. Before the bitterness of loss had crept into his unthinking, slumbering heart. And so Valentine could forgive him his rages. He could even forgive the bruises that formed upon his bright, clean countenance, for they were not meant ill. They couldn’t be meant ill. Could they? His father and brother were good men. He knew it. His mother had known it.

    “If you do this, you will not be welcome back inside this house. If you live this…. This lie… then I will have no part of it.”

    “Father. Whether you would have it so or not, this is what I am. I am a bard.”

    “Then you are nothing to me. Take your gear, and get out of my sight…”

    “Father, please, think about this. You know mother was a bard. She loved to sing. And dance. Please father. You don’t have to do this.”

    The old man smiled, sadly, the fury fading in his careworn eyes. He nodded quietly as he turned his back.

    “Yes Vincent, I do…”


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