3. Renzo St.Clair

Renzo St.Clair

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    Character name: 'Renzo St.Clair
    Player Account: Captain_Clam

    “We have lingered long in the chambers of the sea, crowned by sea-nymphs wreathed in sea-weed red and brown… till human voices wake us, and we drown...” Or something like that... I think it is one of Zyphlin’s verses, I am not too sure. And yes, I am Lorenzo St.Clair. Renzo, to my less official friends.

    In any case, you’d never guess I was one of Peltarch’s most envied bachelors during my younger years... Ah yes, exactly. That was before that playwrite, that mongrel of a half-elf Vasseldar Rashan, tried to drive a poniard through my skull on a drunken binge in the Three Legged Mule...

    But I lie, I suppose I was no longer the flavour of the season by then. Too many years stumbling about inns and brothels by then. Most respectable people turn from me if they see me, and politely- ever so politely- look the other way. My career in the city magistrature came to a very abrupt end after several scandals. Finished before it ever started, actually.

    They say I have stained the name of my House and family. Humorous, to say the least, consideing it was them who demanded satisfaction... yes, that was me. Yes, that is me, exactly. You laugh sir, but it is the truth. Sitting next to you in this stinking inn is a son of a noble House.

    No, not anymore. I used to be one of them. I used to taste the finest wines, the finest maids and the finest music. I used to sit in the first chairs of the Theatre. I smelled of fine perfumes and strutted down the Commons with servants milling in my wake. You laugh. I know t’is hard to believe. What was it like? If I tell you the truth, I do not know if I want to remember.

    What happened? No, it was not my drunken brawl with Rashan. And it was not the fact that I was known in every brothel and ale-house in Peltarch. We are all around. Most of the time, nobody knows we are here. Yes, that is exactly what I mean. One of those hooded men you see scuttling accross the Docks could be a high official. A nobleman. Yes indeed.

    No, it was none of that. What did it for me was my cousin. Fool of a boy. Tsk.

    See, memories are something hard to lose. One tries to forget them, yet one cannot. One tries to drown them, yet they seem to swim back. What stays in your eye stays forever, as the Turmish saying goes... and it's true.

    I remember the snow, especially. I remember the grey morning light, and the flash of steel, the sound of blades crossing. I remember blood, deep deep red, eating into the snow as it fell.

    My cousin was a fool, granted. You do not embarrass a man in public, especially not in front of the other noble houses. I could see their sneers behind their fans as they looked on at the scene in the Grand Hall of the D’Arneau Estate. It was all set up for a bard's tale; the handsome young scion, his older and despised cousin, the lady in question whom we both wooed... in our own ways. My cousin could not understand how his liquor-stained, brothel-loving, inn-prancing kinsman got to win the lady's affections. On my end of the tale, I could barely understand how the lady Aurora D’Arneau had even bothered to set her eyes on my boyish cousin, a snot-slurping fop full of noble intentions yet incapable as few to do anything for our House.

    But she did. What stays in your eye stays forever.

    In any case, there we were, my dear cousin looking about him in disbelief after his outburst, I standing right in front, surrounded by the sneering nobles, with only one option open to me after the embarrassing insults he so unexpectedly decided to vent; pimp, thief, scoundrel and peddler of whores, if I remember rightly. And in the house of the Lady Aurora in her birthday ball. Tsk. Could it be worse?

    We duelled. I tried to dissuade him despite my loss of face. I had not much honour left to safeguard, anyway; most of my family considered me a drunkard, a womaniser and a rake, especially after that scandalous brawl at the Mule, where that playwrite almost sliced my skull open with his dagger. I almost lost my eye. They found him next morning floating face-down in the docks. The rest, you can probably imagine.

    In any case, we duelled. It looked more like an execution to me. "Honour must be satisfied," he said, a phrase copied, doubtless, from some book. Well, fair enough, my Lords and Ladies. I had been cavorting in inns and brothels for the past five years; I had had my share of brawling and fencing.

    My cousin, however, did not. We crossed blades. I remember the snow that day, falling like cotton flakes. I remember the steam of our breaths in the air, the ringing of steel against steel. I remember blood on the snow, and my cousin dying. It was not the first time I had killed a man. But it was the first time I cared.

    What stays in your eye stays forever.

    That was about a year ago. Since then, I have gone on to squander the family fortune with a vengeance. I suppose they will cut my allowance soon. As to working for that hag Abigail and uncle Franklin, only time will tell...

    Somehow, I doubt the family will be ready to take me back in anytime soon. But let us not talk of sad things...

    ... Another drink, mayhaps?


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