CHAPTER TWO
1834
Solomon
It had been two years since the Ashfords had left the manor in the countryside. Two years since he’d seen Egg. As a young man of fourteen, it was expected of Sol to attend the societal functions held by his Lord Father. As was the crest of their family, for generations they had bred the finest purebred hounds and hunting dogs in all of England. And of today, a fine, sunny Tuesday at that, Lord Ashford held the first Greyhound race of the season.
Sol sat beneath the shade of one of the many great oaks bordering the racing track, an assortment of sketch books and charcoal surrounding him like a little paper fort, keeping anyone who might want to share conversation away.
His blonde hair had been slicked back, and his eyes were particular watery sky blue that day. Mabelle, the oldest of his father’s hounds lay in the shade with him. Too old to race old Mabelle had been assigned as one of the guard dogs purely for her big, brutish appearance. To soften her looks and make her look much more like her gentle-giant personality, Sol had laid a wreath of flowers on her head his little cousin Elizabeth had woven. And so Sol passed the hours as best he could by sketching the gentle guard dog a hundred different times.
That a shadow, tall and overbearing blocked the suns warm light.
“Solomon, I’d like you to meet some sons of a friend of mine. They’re the same age as you, you should get along fine,” His lord father said gruffly. He helped his son to his feet roughly, squeezing his arm tightly.
Don’t mess this up, son. That’s all he’s saying. Make friends, make friends. You’ll need them now that you have no future wife.
Anna had kept her word, but the bruises around her throat could not be silenced with friendship.
A man with thick locks of golden hair and green eyes stood as chaperone for these two boys Sol was supposedly meant to befriend. He wore a doublet and woollen breeches of white and a purple coat that drifted by the ankles of his grey laced boots.
A Frenchman?
The two boys next to him looked anything but of French descent, and sounded it even less.
Adopted, maybe?
Both their hair had been slicked back, the same as Sol’s, (except their hair wasn’t started to splay about wildly.) The taller of the two brothers had white hair save the black streak down the centre of his head. His eyes were the same green turquoise as his brother’s, save that he had a pair of broad, black rimmed glasses. His younger brother was the shorter of the two, with a mop of white hair with no hint of black.
“Greetings,young Ashfordling,” The Frenchman said with a thick French lilt, smiling, his green eyes smiling with him.
“Nice to meet you, ser,” Sol said with stiff politeness. The Frenchman pushed his two charges
“Rhydian Wonderlock, my lord,” The older said, bowing his head slightly.
“Jeremiah Wonderlock, my lord,” The younger brother added with an awkward bow of his head as if in afterthought.
“Solomon Ashford,” Sol said with a wary smile in his voice.
“I am Noel Wonderlock, my lord and lordling. As one might tell from my lack of an English tongue, these young lads are not my own blood. Six years ago, these boys were caught stealing from my new found English home. My sister wished them hung but my brother reminded me they were but children. As eldest and new head of the household it fell upon me to decide what to do with the two. Without a wife yet, I decided to take the two boys on as my protégés as they showed much promise with intelligence neither my siblings nor myself have seen in such younglings,” The French lord explained.
“Lord Wonderlock, I’m sure your wards would appreciate a tour of tracks and gardens mayhap, we wouldn’t want to bore them with such talk of our business,” Lord Ashford suggested, nudging Sol along. Begrudgingly, Sol showed the two wards about the grounds.
They were filled with patrons, lords and ladies from all across England, come to celebrate such a highly regarded event. The tree under which he sat had been hidden from the general view of the patrons and the track as to hide the fact that Lord Ashford’s very son, first born and only child could not be moved to mingle and make polite talk as a young gentleman of his age should.
Rhydian was interesting, at least.
"White hair with a black streak, I've never seen such an interesting…er, blend,” Sol said, turning to the brothers as they crossed the gazeebo where fat rich men sat sipping their peppermint tea.
“It's rare, I'll give you that. It also makes for a great talking point when polite strangers have nothing else to say and can't quite help but bring the fact up as if I might forget,” Rhydian said bluntly, so completely sure of each word that he sounded beyond his years. He even led the way, walking in great stride, seeming to be looking for something.
Sol picked up the pace to follow after him, as it appeared his younger brother had simply vanished to fulfil whatever agenda he had planned. Whether it be to steal lemon cakes or his fathers priceless works of art Sol found he didn't really care, as long as he didn't touch any of his works.
"Polite small talk is the first practice of a true gentleman,” Sol pointed out, following him up onto the white marble terrace.
“Suppose so, but would it be a surprise for you to know that I'm not really a true gentleman?” Rhydian scoffed, headed around the building. Sol rounded the building after him, curious as to what the White and black haired boy was doing.
“Hardly, you’re the ward of a foreign lord, a supposed ex-thief,” Sol shrugged, finding Rhydian standing about on the veranda of the main house. He reached beneath the jacket of his white suit and pulled out a pocket watch, looking to as if it held the answers as to whatever he was wondering.
“Looking for something in particular?” Sol asked, folding his arms over his chest.
“Well, it depends whether you know where the dog kennels are located,” Rhydian replied, tucking the pocket watch back underneath his jacket.
He has the tongue of a lord, but none of the temperament for it.
Sol rubbed his nose the way he did whenever he ever worried that his thoughts would bleed through onto his face.
“Follow me,” Sol said plainly, leading the way to the kennels.
Rhydian was a peculiar fourteen-year-old, anyone could tell you that upon first glance. But the more time Sol spent with him the more convinced he was that this boy was much more than a thief elevated to high places out of the sympathy of a foreign lord. In the kennels he somehow managed to befriend Achilles, the fiercest of his father’s hunting dogs.
“My lord doesn’t keep any beasts like these for hunting, he actually has a profound dislike for the sport. My brother and I on the other hand enjoy nothing better than the thrill of the hunt. Nothing like it, really. Well, except for the canines themselves,” Rhydian said, casually prying open Achilles’ massive jaws and inspecting the inside of his sharp-fanged mouth.
Sol sat on a crate and watched them both with immense curiosity.
“May I ask why you have such an…interest in the beasts?” Sol inquired.
Rhydian once again checked his pocket watch, one hand keeping the dog’s jaws open, his thumb running down fang. He spared a quick glance at Sol and sighed.
“When I was small, far before I was any lords ward, my brother and I would go out exploring in the patch of woods and brook at the foot of the hill near the house,” He began. It took every bit of control for Sol to not visibly wince at how much those words reminded him of those yellow eyes.
He swallowed his feelings down and looked away.
“Go on,” Sol said shakily.
“Well…one day Jeremiah and I were just wandering through the field on our way down to the brook when we heard a man screaming. From the way his words barely formed a coherent sentence I guessed he’d been screaming for help long enough to make his throat scratched raw. We crept to the top of the hill overlooking the brook and the field below on the other side and saw something I will never forget. It was the screaming man running for his life, the butcher’s son if memory serves and only a young lad of nineteen years at that. He was being chased by a pack of feral dogs, big, meaner and tougher than any mighty lords hunting hounds. They were going slower than they were capable, which I admit I found terribly interesting that they were in fact toying with their prey. They were making a sport of it. Anyway, as he approached the brook the dogs finally gained on him and latched at his heels, my brother and I were still frozen atop the hill. We watched as those dogs tore flesh from bone and make the water run red, all the while I recalled what I knew of the butcher and his boy. Whenever mother would send us into the village with coin for bread in the early morning hours I’d have to pass the butchers shop. And no matter how early the hour the shouts and curses of the drunken butcher could be heard clear as day, as clear as I heard the pleads and cries of his son as he beat him stupid.
Yet is was only one late afternoon when the orange sunset soaked the village’s dirt roads and carts of burlap sacks that I came across the butcher’s son. I had taken a quicker route around the west side of the village and found myself winding through backyards. He was in the backyard of his house, playing with those same dogs, yet they were tame and bound to stakes pitted in the ground. It looked as if they were his only companions, his only comfort. Yet the next day when I took the same route, the butcher was beating those same dogs.
And when they got loose in the woods they became feral, but still associated the pain of those beatings with the scent of the butcher. So when the butcher’s boy went to find the dogs, they must have caught his father’s scent.
I remember the way he convulsed. The way he still twitched, half-submerged in the brook as the hounds tore an arm off and carried it away back to the woods. The one thing, the one thing I can’t ever forget is the unending amount of blood that poured from him. It was like, - like there was a whole river inside him that had burst its banks, a river of crimson. The red bled into the clear waters and turned them a dark red. Being the curious child that I was I told my brother to stay atop the hill while I looked to see if he was somehow still alive. I slid down the steep hill and somehow ended up ankle-deep in the brook of babbling blood. I made my way through the sludge and crept up to the butcher’s son. He was clearly dead, I’d known that from the beginning, but I couldn’t help my curiosity. I’d never seen a dead body before. I inspected it, applying all the steps I’d take when inspecting a dead cat or bird, the biggest specimen I’d ever inspected being an old German Shepard that’d died of a snake bite just outside town.
Ever since then, I’ve wondered the same thing. It’s a thought like a parasite, something I couldn’t just sake but had to feed with my circling thoughts that just led right back to the question. What does it take to truly tame a beast? Must you win it’s undeniable love, or is fear a better persuasion? I could never decide, because neither had saved the Butcher’s son that day,” Rhydian told his story, stroking Achilles’ muzzle and staring into the beast’s golden eyes.
Despite all his drawings, Sol hadn’t the faintest idea.461Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJT1TGJYqgm
