The mill-boy has always respected Sera Olwak, even admired her. He has experienced her kindness first-hand as she taught figures and letters alongside good manners and courtesy. He has seen how she has patiently guided Myrkentown's children in their struggles with arithmetic and grammar; how she has led them in their faltering pursuit of knowledge with gentle grace, praising them when they succeeded and encouraging them when they stumbled. In his mind she stands alongside the stained-glass saints of the chapel windows,
Our Lady of the Schoolroom, wise and kindly in her elegant gowns, a hand lifted in benediction for rows of little heads bowed over slate and paper.
How strange that a high opinion might be cracked by so small a thing - a word, a gesture, a
look, a fleeting instant that yet allows a glimpse of something unsavoury beneath. Smiles as fixed as porcelain dolls, words sweet and hollow as wind-stirred chimes.
Catch's words have been scandalous, accusations that might have earned him a slap were he anyone else, but he is
not; he is Catch, Milord Ser Catch the Grand, and his words do not necessarily have the same meaning they would from any other lips. He requires patience,
understanding, not smiling rebukes and a question that mockingly denied the man's proclaimed wholeness. Clearly he was not
happy, and thus he could not be
whole.
It was the hand. He'd reached for her hand, the hand he'd
given her, and received only a cold refusal; a fine lady who draws her silk skirts beyond a beggar's filthy grasp, who looks to her servants to see the horrid thing driven away.
Perhaps it is the wine - a glass set down unattended is fair game, to his mind, so he has probably imbibed more than is strictly sensible. It is heady stuff, more potent than the half-mugs of ale he drinks with his stew, and its bubbles tickle distractingly at his thoughts as he steers Catch back towards the food table, a hand for the man's wrist, for his hand, a touch to guide and placate.
The addled man's words are a thunder overhead, and he can only nod in agreement while
was I wrong? was I wrong? dances through his head. Was he wrong to believe Sera Olwak so good, to dismiss the warnings of Elliot Brown, to assume he was merely jealous of Cherny's schooling? Elliot
Gahald now, not Elliot Brown -
- I have pledged myself to Lady Olwak -
- she's mucked with your mind, you know -
- she is my Lady and I am her vassal -
- she's got your mind good, Cherny -
- her vessel -
- she'll fry your brain and make you do what she wants -
- her most loyal knight -- who had called her
mindwitch, had vowed to see her exposed, to tear away the grace and elegance he decried as a lie.
Beside a table laden with delicious dainties and delicacies, amid shimmering swirls of silk and satin, a boy knows
doubt.
It's his friend's question, plaintive, unsure, that draws his thoughts back to the here-and-now. A glance to follow the addled man's gaze to the veiled man and his wolf-bride, to Sera Five-Shillings, to Sera Dulcie the tavern-lady, to Noura in her blood-finery being led away by Elliot Gahald.
He reaches absently for some sweet confection of pastry and glazed strawberry, and can only shake his head. Torn, half-wishing to flee the smothering perfume and brittle laughter in favour of sweeter air, to seek peace in the summer's evening outdoors; but the Governor is to return, Ser Burnie who has taken an
interest in the boy, who has gifted Catch with house and goat and more.
"Maybe w-
we were, were wrong to c-come here, Ser C-catch."