Of Ink and Inheritance

I could not name what had possessed me to abandon my dignity for so insignificant a remark as I spurred the horse to a canter across the fields, only that when Geoffrey uttered those words, an irrational irritation had risen within me and pressed me forward. A ringing had filled my ears until I could think only of fleeing the discomfort, even as I saw Geoffrey’s mouth tighten as I turned away, felt his restlessness rise in my own mind. His, or mine, I could no longer tell.

Even now, his presence settled in me like a second spirit—the one I had known since I was a mere child. He quieted his own mind and spread it to mine, to soothe the conflagration growing in my chest and threatening to burn its way upwards.

Wiry fingers clenched in my throat as thoughts rose unbidden to wage battle within me. My mind thought of how soon the chair beside my own would stand empty, how the trees we had once climbed together would know only one, the other a ghost of a memory. Soon, the house once filled with the laughter of two would fall silent, hiding thoughts that could not be voiced with no one to hear.

How far could our bond stretch before I would no longer hear his voice? Neither of us knew from whence it came, yet I do not remember a time when his gentle presence did not exist within me.

I shook my head to dislodge the tension in my temples. In truth, I envied Geoffrey his new position. He had no wish to journey north; indeed, he never spoke of any desire to leave the familiarity of the estate, yet I felt a growing restlessness that gnawed at me and drew my spirit from this place. The walls of the house in which we dwelt seemed to me a prison enclosing me within its stones, growing smaller day by day. It seemed strange to me to think of continuing there when Geoffrey had left it. And, I realized with another stab of annoyance, that I would be left behind had not occurred to me as a possibility.

What purpose could I serve by remaining behind on this wretched estate? No, I would return. I would confront Leo, demand to be sent as well.

A sardonic laugh burst from my lips. Reckless I may be, but not foolish. To such an encounter, Leo would not give even the dignity of a response.

My eyes flickered to my thumbs and I noticed suddenly the way they flicked back and forth across the edge of the reins. It was a poor habit I could not rid myself of when in a tumult of temper. Lifting the thick cloth of the gloves covering my hands would reveal thin, curling lines of what appeared to be black ink trailing from the fingertips and snaking up my arms, connecting in a final flourish across my shoulder blades. This then, was my true heritage: a Groth of Lyos. The fabric concealed the only indication of my identity but left me with yet more unanswered questions.

I was but two or three years of age when my mother disappeared, or so I had been told. What little I knew had been seized from the lips of those who only surmised at the truth. None of the household from that time had remained, save a small number of guards loyal to Leo, none of whom dared speak openly to me. All I had been told was that she had been a servant of the household, and when she had gone Leo took me and kept me as companion to his son, then but six or seven years of age. Other unsavory rumors abounded in my early years, always whispered, never spoken, for why else would Leo have condescended to raise a Groth child as his own? On remisceses of the past, however, Leo himself kept a tight seal, one that I too, feared to breach.

My earliest memories were of Geoffrey. Stiff, somber, boring Geoffrey, so he had always been, and so he still was. His own mother had died, along with three other siblings that never lived past infancy. He rarely spoke of her, and always with a deep sorrow he could not veil.

His years were greater than mine by four, yet his frame was smaller, his spirit more timid, so I had thought when first he began to take shape in my memory. Yet I had known no world where he did not occupy it, and could not fathom such a one.

From the moment I could remember noticing the whispers surrounding me and knowing what I was, I realized the awkwardness of my place in the household. Nannies turned up their noses when they saw my hands, shuddered when they had to touch me, and so I gave vent to my feelings by sneaking frogs into their beds and dropping spiders into their blouses. Servants rankled at their required submission to me, though in decent society I should have been of lower rank than they. Others turned away when I approached, pretended not to hear or understand when I spoke. They perhaps thought I was too young to notice or understand, but grown-ups often do not realize that children see much and their feelings run just as deep as any, though they may not know the words to say so.

I was but five when Geoffrey found me beside the river, my arms bleeding and raw from my attempts to scrub the offensive markings from my skin with sand and stone, to no avail.

“What is this?” he had asked.

“I wanted to look like you,” I said.

A sadness rippled behind his green eyes before he locked it away. He had lifted me, carried me back to the house. I remembered the prickling behind my eyes as he bandaged the wounds without saying a word.

When he had finished, he knelt before me as I sat upon the chair. “Remember, Nathaniel. It matters not what lies upon your skin. It is with your heart that you will wear away their prejudices and show them who you are.” He smiled gently and said, “But one can still demand respect as a young master of this house.”

Then he led me down to the servants’ parlor, and in a tone that rang with all the authority a boy of nine could carry, told them that any further ill treatment towards me, intentional or not, would be met with immediate dismissal.

I wondered what Leo would think of this, but Geoffrey did not seem to care when I asked him.

No, Geoffrey was neither timid nor small.

I slowed the horse to a walk as we passed into the woods, the birch and hawthorn trees folding me into their embrace. Like the field that had been permitted to grow into an unruly mass of tall grass and blossoming flower, the trees on the estate did not reveal much handling by human hands. They grew sporadically, some whose branches crowded and tangled into one another, while others kept a respectable distance. A thin, winding path left the only evidence of human ownership.

When we were young, I pulled Geoffrey from our studies on many an occasion to climb my favorite tree. Always he resisted, even as I ran across the threshold of the house, heedless of any watchful eyes from within. Upon the doorstep he would rock upon his toes, casting anxious looks behind him and gnawing at his lower lip, but always he would follow after me. And when the inevitable scolding greeted us upon our return, he would never tell them I had initiated the escape, instead taking the punishment along with me.

The sun had risen by this time, but through the vast canopy of leaves, the early morning light penetrated but little. Where it did, white blossoms carpeting the forest floor seemed to reflect its rays as of a pale moonlight. Under these ancient guardians of the earth, I felt my breath ease.

Often, I have felt as though the trees might speak; at times their leaves rustled of their own accord where no wind blew. I could never be sure whether the stories of my childhood had granted me a more vivid imagination beneath their eaves, but it seemed to me that the forest hummed with a vague alertness, as though it lay just on the threshold between sleeping and waking.

I knew these trees, knew their hues of red and burnt gold against the setting sun in autumn, knew the feel of their smooth white bark against the palm of my hand, knew from a touch when the first leaf would fall to usher in the frost. Here they have stood long before my time, and here they would be long after I have left them.

I came to the other side of the woods; there the first evidence of true habitation revealed itself. A mass of bright green grass, perfectly manicured, spread from a few feet of the last tree to the steps of a large manor house. On either side, the trees loomed, forming a hollow for the house to sit. Stumps of chopped trees littered the lining of the woods, as though someone had told them they should come no further lest they suffer the disgrace of a felling and they had not heeded the warning. A hedge of pink and yellow roses lined the porch of the house ahead, trimmed to perfect rectangles to frame the building.

The house itself was atrocious. Like a giant block of a prison with little windows to give some semblance of elegance. It was painted a dark grey with a roof lined with parapets. But what I really hated were the three triangular cones that protruded from the windows of the top floor. Like the eyes of a deformed monster, I thought.

I slid off my horse as a stable hand came running to greet me and handed the reins and gloves to the boy before walking into the house.

A stillness greeted me as I entered. I knew I ought to make an appearance at the smaller, secondary library where doubtless, Professor Lipit paced, fuming at our tardiness. The crotchety old man had strived to draw me onto the straight path of knowledge for years in vain. I had no head for books as Geoffrey did.

Instead I traversed the quiet halls to the third floor where Geoffrey and I shared a room. Leo had made a valiant effort to move me into a separate room in years past, but I found to my shame that I could not abide the dark on my own. Leo eventually threw up his hands after countless nights I spent stealing into Geoffrey’s bed and gave me up as a lost cause. Yet another stroke against me.

A large, wooden-trimmed window overlooked the back of the house, where the forest began again, then faded into a cluster of hills. In the spring weather, patches of bright yellow flowers spread across the face of the hills. Within the room, two beds stood against the left wall, separated by one desk while another sat in a corner facing the window.

Geoffrey’s belongings lay strewn across the floor and bed, yet even amidst this uncharacteristic mess, he had managed to keep his things contained and separate from mine. It matters not, I thought, when my things magically wind up in unexpected nooks anyway. I plucked an empty ink bottle that had fallen from Geoffrey’s desk and tossed it onto his pile of clothes, watching with smug satisfaction as stray droplets sank into the fabric and spread like blossoming flowers of deepest night.

Just as I began wondering whether I ought to hide the stained clothes, I heard Geoffrey’s light steps approaching from the hallway, and scrambling, turned the entire pile over. This accomplished, I lay on my stomach, attempting an air of nonchalance.

Geoffrey stepped into the room, looked at me, then moving to pick up stray pieces of parchment said, “What have you done now?” A twitch started at the corner of his mouth.

      I let my mouth widen in mock indignation. “It is quite wrong of you to accuse me of wrongdoing when first you see me.” I pulled myself to a sitting position and flashed what I hoped was an innocent, winning smile.

“And yet wrongdoing is rarely far from you, and alas for me, I am most often your victim.”

“If all you have for me are unjust accusations, we perhaps have nothing more to say to one another,” I said.

“Ah, a blessing in disguise.” Geoffrey smiled, mirth dancing in his eyes. I scowled at him in response, and was gratified to hear him break into breathy laughter.

I watched as he proceeded to place books and writing materials into the trunk that lay open beside his desk at the window, marveling at the fluid way in which he moved, every motion like a dance. Even his hands as he reached for each item seemed to flow as through water, seamless and unwavering. Nothing like me. Yes, Geoffrey was bred for nobility.

“I thought you had come to tell me that the good professor awaited our presence,” I said.

“I will,” Geoffrey said simply, continuing his task.

A knot drew its cords about my throat as I watched the shelves empty. “I wish Father would allow me to accompany you.” How I despised the wavering in my voice even as the words spilled from my lips.

Geoffrey’s hands paused midway to setting a book down. His fingers tightened around the book, and I thought I heard a ghost of a sigh. “As do I. But we must all walk our own paths, wherever they may lead us.” His voice, always soft, flowed over me as rippling brook, but now it aggravated rather than soothed.

“Yet mine seem to lead nowhere.”

“Perhaps they shall lead to an elegant lady with sparkling eyes and unnaturally plump, red lips,” he said smiling.

“Heaven’s teeth!” I grimaced. “I wish you would not jest about such disgusting things. You know I shall never marry. And Father would never allow either of us to marry unless it be to an exceedingly rich noblewoman from a powerful family.”

Geoffrey strode over to sit on his bed. He had resumed his customary air of solemnity, but I noticed that he plucked unconsciously at a loose thread on his bed cover and felt a sense of apprehension rising. “I suppose you may as well hear this from me. Father has spoken of arranging a marriage for me.”

My mouth fell open apart from my control. I could not fathom the utter monotony of marriage at my three and twenty years; it sounded to me as the ringing of a death knell of liberty and youth. Always it had seemed an occasion that could not befall us until we reached a ripe, old age, and though I have often told Geoffrey he behaves as an elderly man, the possibility of marriage had not yet entered my mind.

“It is not yet agreed upon,” Geoffrey had continued as I struggled to return my mind to attendance. “I believe Father awaits confirmation of her dowry.”

“Of course he does,” I muttered. “Who is it?”

“Lady Clarissa of Ganium House.” Geoffrey pulled at the threads with increasing vehemence.

“We hardly know her! And she must be at least eight years older than you.”

“She comes from a well-established family. They have lived in the colonies far longer than our family, and have an understanding of the land and its people. Father covets the family’s connections. Moreover..” he hesitated, “the Lord Ambassador I am to report to is a relation of hers.”

I scoffed, shaking my head in disbelief. “Doubtless he also covets their trade connections, as they are the only great house that lies near the sea. Always he seeks to expand his own wealth and influence.”

Geoffrey’s eyes darted to the door, and mine followed.

“I recall she has a mole on her nose,” I said when no looming figure of Leo appeared to strike us for my insolence. Bitterness flowed through my words, unbidden and fierce. “A large nose. And she looks like a scarecrow.”

Geoffrey smiled. “That is no fault of hers, and no detriment to a respectable marriage.”

I could not bring myself to give a response and could only brood over my perceived injustices. It seemed all I had known had begun to crumble, the path before my feet falling into darkness, and I could find no light to guide my steps. An invisible binding crept around my chest, tightening as I waved my hand to slough it off. It lingered relentlessly, while all else I clung to slipped away.

“But what about…” My words stumbled over each other before they trailed off as Geoffrey turned his green eyes on me.

Some things could not be said, even between us.

“Come now, Professor Lipit must be mad with impatience at our long delay. I fear I will have a share in the lecture today.” Geoffrey picked up one last book, and set it upon the desk after a brief glance at it before turning his eyes on me, a twinkle in his eye. “And do bring the clothes you soiled to the washing before we go.”