Spare the rod

It was not this boy’s arrival per se which had caused such a flutter of excitable gossip amongst the domestic servantry. New arrivals were frequent,and left frequently, many so fleetingly in their positions that they were and remained as nameless and faceless as their place in society. No, what had caused a stir in this instance, was a rare case of notoriety.

This particular youth had a reputation for delinquency that preceded him. The rumors were fierce. It was said he had, on numerous occasions, bitten the hand that fed. He had stolen, caused injury and damage to property. So far, and quite remarkably it might be added, he had escaped prison walls and the executioner's blade. And now had been delivered to them in a cattle cart, had traveled miles from where his family had toiled diligently for centuries.
His parents and their parents before them were known for their loyalty, their impeccable work ethic and ability to keep their mouths closed when it best suited all concerned.

With all this in mind, it was curious to say the least that he had been sent to the Dubois estate. But it was there he found himself, working as a stable hand to the long serving groom.

Regardless of his reputation, the youth had settled despondently into work and appeared eager to learn. He appeared no stranger to even the hardest forms of physical labour, nor apt to refuse the less appealing aspects of his work such as mucking out the stalls. He did not, at least initially, prove himself to be the foul-tongued and troublesome upstart many were hopeful for.

Instead, he quickly developed a fondness for the animals in his care, and quickly grew to favour their quiet company and soulful eyes over curious scullery maids and jovial footmen.

He could often be found in his place of work, his long-fingered hands affectionate on the velvet nose of some prized stallion. He spoke to the horses in a gentle, coaxing tone which was met with the flutter of an ear and agreeable huff of warm breath.

There was much to learn, and the new boy kept mostly to himself. He appeared to adjust to his new life with a sullen resignation, and many weeks were to pass before he even caught a glimpse of the new family to which he had been assigned.

Then, one dreary afternoon he saw a woman in the ornamental gardens, flanked by her devoted ladies. She moved strangely sometimes, unsteadily, like one drunk. The Lord Dubois he grew to know much more quickly, if only for preparing his horse when the occasion arose. He was an unappealing character, perhaps even more so than the parasitical entity who had sold him away for cheap like a tempestuous goat. The heel of his boot had caught the boy’s knuckles as he had aided him into the stirrup, and the flinch of pain he attempted to mask had clearly caused his lord more amusement than guilt.

Other members of the illustrious family were as elusive as hares. He thought he noticed a slim figure who was impeccably dressed, lurking outside the summer pavilion. They were engrossed in conversation with some young man in military attire, the forward incline of their body almost teasingly flirtatious. He was struck briefly by the gleam of their dark hair, so black it shone blue like a raven’s wing. But the encounter was soon forgotten, lost to him like fragments of a dream upon waking.

That was of course, until they stood before him one heady, summer afternoon.

This late in the day, the stables were empty and quiet. The head groom rarely worked at dusk, and the boy was happy to work during times he was least likely to be disturbed. He was, by his nature, seldom surprised and not easily crept up upon. In truth, he despised being startled like a cat at the sound of their voice.

It was the lazy drawl of bored nobility, underpinned with a frustration so fierce it made the boy’s hands pause. He was out of sight, in a stall tending to a chestnut mare who was soon to foal.

“Oui, je serai juste avec vous, mon seigneur.” He said, with just a touch of irritation as he stepped into view.

The boy’s shirt, almost completely unbuttoned, was soaked through with sweat. It opened to reveal skin pleasantly bronzed from a life spent blistering under the sun. His cheeks and arms were smeared with the dark lacquer he had used to buff the riding tackle. His hair was an autumn gold, though too tangled and dirty to appear pleasing.

When his eyes found the owner of that voice, he was, against his better judgment, immediately overcome. It was certain they noticed it too, how could they not? The way his gaze had passed over them once, paused, then returned with fierce interest. His breath had caught in his throat. The hand that had been holding the leather strip slipped clumsily from his grasp. He knelt to recover it, and no doubt his senses too.

The stable itself was vast, the stalls beautifully ornate and impeccably clean. All marble and bronze, with sunlight falling from slats in the ceiling along the center of the stalls. The beautifully dressed figure was leaning against one such door, caressing the smooth neck of a horse which drew in against their pale throat with affectionate familiarity.

The boy stepped closer and then gestured to the dark coated mare with her elegant, slender profile with the leather strap.

“So, she is yours then?” He said, tapping the golden name plate on the stall door.  “I had wondered when she would be taken out, she has grown quite restless.”

The golden-haired boy hoisted himself over the stall door to inspect the horse. He had of course been taught to whom each thoroughbred belonged, their natures and favourite delicacies all memorized.  

“And you must be the young Lord Émile.” He asked softly as he worked.  

His voice managed to be nauseatingly well-mannered and friendly, despite the perfectly mocking bite. They were clearly a few years older than he was, and he delighted in the scorn that flashed viper-like in their beautiful green eyes. They shot back a remark so scathing it made the boy pause. He hooked an arm over the stall door and leant towards them. It also presented him with the perfect opportunity to get a closer, more lingering look.

“Would you rather saddle her yourself instead?” He asked with a bright smile.

Now he could really get a good look at them, and he did so rather shamelessly. His eyes drank in the curve of their narrow waist, the swell of their thighs beneath their clothes. He had never seen skin so pale, so milk white it almost seemed to glow in the hazy afternoon light. Their hair did indeed gleam blue when the light caught it, and it seemed to somehow make the green of their eyes almost impossibly luminous.
The boy recalled one time he had visited his lord’s kitchens, and there had been cakes and food laid out in preparation so fine his mouth had filled with water. He had been told not to touch, and yet his hands had acted of their own accord, reaching for a sweet pastry as though compelled by their own will. He could feel those thieving hands twitch again at the sight of this beautiful creature.

He continued to prepare and saddle their horse in silence. He led her from the stall to where the scowling aristocrat could mount her, his hands ready to assist. When they struggled to find their footing in a stirrup, he stepped closer to aid them without hesitation.
It did of course mean that his fingers, quite accidentally, brushed along the length of their soft thigh instead of the horse’s flank.

“Pardonne ma maladresse.” He said, with his mocking smile still twitching at the corners of his lips.

He took the leading rein in his hands to steady the beast as he guided them both out into the afternoon light. The sun had begun its descent behind the trees and hills, and the sky in its wake was a spectacular display of crimson, purple and golden edged clouds. The pale ghost of the moon, full and fat, was already perfectly visible and promised to be just as breathtaking. Shadows had begun to stretch long and dark across the courtyard, and the vast house loomed melancholy behind them. The crimson sky mirrored in its windows made the interior almost seem on fire.

“And how long do you plan to ride for, my lord?” The boy asked, wiping at his hands with a piece of cloth as he stepped back into the shadowy stables.

His grey eyes were almond shaped, and quite disconcerting in their calculating intensity, certainly more than any average servants ought to be.

“Trés bon. I will await you here. The weather looks good for it, non?”

When they enquired of his name, a dangerous thing for any servant to be asked, it was given readily.

“It is Fabien, my lord. You can call me Fabien. And oui, I would much prefer it to ‘boy’.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Fabien’s preferences were not catered to. He was instead issued with a surly ‘bonsoir, mon ami’ before with a kick of heels they encouraged the horse to trot away. Fabien watched them disappear along the wooden path. His eyes were locked onto their figure like a cat tracking something which it desperately hungers for.

The shadows lengthened and pooled, and still they did not return. It was not until the moon had risen far above the grasping leaves of the trees, an opaline pearl in the wine-dark sky, that the steady clop of hooves announced the pair’s homecoming.

The young lord swung nimbly from their steed, sliding to touch the sharp heel of their boots to the stable floor. The mare’s sides were sheened with sweat and Émile’s eyes were the iridescent green of glistening water, their windblown hair somehow acutely elegant.

They indicated offhandedly for the boy to untack the horse with nary an apology for making him wait. They affected a languid posture as he did so. Their detached gaze swept languidly across the dim interior of the stable, polished surfaces gleaming dully in the shadows, and convincingly pretended they were not waiting on him to be finished.

When the saddle had been properly stowed and the metal bit cleared of slime, Émile stepped forward as though to leave. However, they paused in the middle of the aisle, blocking the boy’s path. Their shadow was long and black. They did not deign to pretend it was an accident when the well-made riding glove they had peeled from their narrow palms slipped from their grasp. They tossed it carelessly to the ground, their green eyes cool. A black eyebrow arched expectantly. They extended an impatient hand in gesture for him to bend and return the crumpled leather to their open palm.

They watched with feline calculation as he knelt and extended his hand. With surprising speed, they kicked their leg out to step firmly on his outstretched hand, pinning him to the ground.

The edge of their boot’s heel was sharp enough to cut thin skin. The boy had plenty of time to become intimate with the thick heel that lent them a few precious inches of height as they ground his fingers painfully into the sturdy wood of the floor.

“You are the country mouse they brought in with the pigs.” It was not a question, and they did not give him an opportunity to correct the spurious details of this origin story.

They looked down on him with overfamiliar indulgence, a lord inspecting the ears of a hound they intended to buy. There was a faint and glittering malice in the curl of their well-formed mouth, an idle humour in the bow of their lips.

"The servants talk about you. Dans la maison, where those of us who do not smell of pig shit sleep." Émile did not bother disguising the sneer shaping their beautiful mouth - they were enjoying this power play, with him knelt before them.

"They say you are a thief. Only here to take my fine things.” A hot resentment spattered over the words, sizzling away in a fine mist before he could grasp its cause.

They bent at the waist low enough to meet his eyes with their feverish gaze. Their breath was warm and the smell of it conjured, bizarrely, a sweetness like freshly dried hay and green, wet earth. Their skin was the delicate white of the thin throat of flowers

"So I must warn you, mon ami." They spat the word with quivering condescension. There was a flash of something wretched in the brilliant green of their eyes that was swiftly swallowed up by the more familiar haughty disdain. When they continued they spoke deliberately, each word clearly enunciated. “If you were to enter the study on the second floor through the windows above the garden that are not kept locked and found any manner of fine things left unattended… well, surely the consequences of that would be dire indeed. Surely I would find you before you made it back to whatever dirty rathole you crawled out of, certainly you would be dragged to the dogs before you had pawned off enough of those glittering treasures to live as a prince.”

They held his gaze fiercely.  “Or maybe not - qui peut dire? - I am dreadfully busy after all.”

They regarded him silently before asking in the tones reserved for explaining simple concepts to small children, “Comprenez vous?”

They did not wait for his answer but moved the press of their boot a fraction, just enough to allow him to snatch his aching fingers back. Their face was half-blackened with shadow and it lent them a sinister air though here, beside the tall columns of the stalls, they seemed very small.

“Think on it, Fabien, if you are capable of such a thing.” The tone of their voice had returned to its disinterested drawl as they turned to leave.

Fabien could reasonably tolerate many ills wrought against him, but boredom was not one of them. The youth was leaning sullenly against the exterior wall, huffing a plume of cigarette smoke up to greet the night sky. A chill had crept in, and he could already feel it sinking into his bones. The sound of returning hooves was therefore met with a sigh of relief. He straightened, and swiftly crushed the stub beneath his heel.

Émile would find him considerably more irritable than when they had left. His finely shaped eyes were dark as he stepped forward to seize the rein, and bid the exhausted beast to calm. He worked in silence, his displeasure evident in the irritable way he sent items clattering to their designated locations.

The youth's was glad to be rid of them. His day had been long, and his stomach pained from lack of food and his thin limbs eager for an open fire. Unsurprisingly, the dark haired nobel's little game caused the boy's lip to curl away from his teeth.

He stood before them, his spine poker straight as he toyed with ignoring their little display, or worse. But he relented with a weary sigh, and dropped to his knee to retrieve the glove.

When their boot connected with his sensitive fingers, the boy's entire body quivered with surprise. His lips parted, and despite a fierce attempt, he was unable to deny them the satisfaction of his sharp, pained breath. The boy raised his dark eyes, and regarded them hatefully from beneath the sweep of his tangled hair.

"O-oui. People here so ...love to ...talk, non?" He replied, through gritted teeth.

When they ground their heel into his long fingered hand, he swore miserably.

Fabien's eyes remained fixed resolutely on theirs as they spoke. His expression shifted, first surprise, confusion, followed by creeping suspicion. He scrutinized them in silence, unable to find his tongue at first.

"Oui. I understand." He replied curtly.

He rose to his feet, flexing the digits of his aching hand to restore the flow of blood. Their glove was not returned to them.

He carefully brushed hay and dirt from his knee, and continued to thoughtfully examine his hand. Then, before they could begin to think about retreating, he grasped them by their collar and walked them spine first into one of the building's vast supporting beams. The sound of their bodies colliding against old oak causes an anxious whinny and scrapping of hooves amongst the occupied cells.

The boy held them in place with his arm, bent at the elbow like a crowbar across their collarbones.

"You need to learn to keep your voice down. Or is your little tip off an open invitation to half the staff?" He hissed,his open mouth pressed against their ear. "I would not be surprised, given the things I hear about you."

"So what then, you trying to get me in trouble?" There was savagery in his voice, unmistakable anger, but something that thrummed beneath it … interest, excitement.

"I am perfectly content here, servicing you and your delightful family." As he spoke, each exhale of breath grew heavier than the last. "I like my job."

Now that he had them this close, Fabien could feel the warmth of their body beneath their clothes. His eyes began to wander as he spoke, as he breathed in the scent of their hair, their skin. Caught this way, he could not resist brushing his lips across the smooth skin of their cheek. The unimaginable was enough to send an electric shiver of desire down the length of his spine.

The boy met the green of their eyes, and remained there, briefly transfixed. He dared to reach out and brush aside the shining strands of raven hair which obstructed his view. Now that he could see them fully, the youth's thought processes were scrambled. He stroked his thumb across the smooth line of their jaw as though unable to draw his hand aside.

The boy forcibly withdrew, repelled the green eyed aristocrat away from him with a hard shove. His fingers, bruised and swollen from their boot, slipped down the length of their white throat. His breath caught, and he quickly moved aside and busied himself by grabbing a broom. He commenced aggressively sweeping a nearby stall.

"You must think me touched in the head. That, or perhaps you are. Either way … you then have everything you need? Splendid. Merci, my lord Émile." He said over his sharp shoulder, without turning to acknowledge them. "Enjoy your night."

He did not return the glove.

---

Only a singular, torturous night passed before the youth's curiosity could no longer be contained. Then when all was dark, and quiet and still he came.

Fabien did not expect to find the window unbarred, as promised. The shadows were deliciously thick, and in his groom's attire he could merge with them quite easily. The boy ran his hands over the brickwork, testing for places that might accommodate his toes, his fingertips.

I'll just see, just see if I can reach it. Then I'll return.

And with the thought echoing in his mind, he began to climb.

The airy pavilion erected amid the fountains in the garden glowed in the balmy evening air, spilling light, laughter and the giddy heat of wine-flushed cheeks over manicured bushes and the heavy heads of night-blooming flowers.

This side of the sprawling château, however, was blanketed in a quiet shadow that betrayed very little of the boy that slipped through them. And the last thing on the minds of any of the nobles busied in chasing bottles, skirts, or petty scandal were the services of a lowly stablehand. He had no difficulty at all in making himself neither seen nor heard as he approached the object of his interest.

A steel trellis draped with ivy was bolted to the wall below the window and it was almost laughably simple to scale the pitted brickwork beneath and ascend to the window. The leaves were cool where they rustled against his skin.

The room revealed behind the glass was as quiet and calm as the dark ground beneath him. A single dim lamp silhouetted the shapes of furniture, chairs, bookshelves, and a sturdy desk laying still as cows slumbering in a field.

Of more interest, perhaps, was the thoughtless display of ostentatious wealth that gleamed from every available surface. The candlesticks framing the oil painting of fat cherubs frolicking at the Holy Virgin’s feet were surely solid silver. The baubles that could be glimpsed on the bookcase were ivory, amber, jet, and pearl. The horn of some exotic animal was displayed wrapped in bands of what appeared to be thin, malleable gold. Even the hands and the feet of the crucifix in the center of the desk glinted with dark rubies approximating the shed blood of the tortured Lord.

It was a grotesque presentation of abundance, more gaudy than elegant, and more appealingly - it appeared entirely unguarded.

The window, by negligence or design, moved easily aside when pressed. The lush rug that covered the floor muffled the sound of his feet as he pulled himself through.

He was quiet as a mouse as he moved unseen, which made the low voice from the dark all the more alarming.

“Espèce d'animal stupide.”

He might not recognize the voice that broke the silence, familiar though it was. It was strained and unusually reedy, thin hysteria bubbling beneath the surface.

The figure in the large chair in the center of the room had the mien of a wounded animal curled up to die in their lair. They had been easy to miss in the shadowed room, still as they were. Their fine clothes were torn in jagged strips, golden embroidery split and curling at the edges, and darkened in blotched patches. The skin beneath was pale as a swan’s downy throat.

They held a bundle of fabric to the side of their drooping head as though nursing a particularly vicious headache. Its original colour was impossible to determine, soaked through as it was with the burgundy-black of fresh blood. The air was metallic with it. It raised the hairs on the back of one's neck.

“Tonight?” Manic anger crackled in the word. “Pourquoi ce soir? If you had come yesterday, or tomorrow-” Émile’s voice broke and the sentiment shattered and died on their tongue.

When they turned their head away with a wince of stinging pain, he could see even in the dark how the wound slashed from their temple to the ear glistened with matted gore. Blood smeared the side of their head, stained the delicate white of their throat, and blackened their clothes to a grisly two tone. Fabric stiffened as the blood dried.

“Ça ne fait rien.Take it,” they commanded wearily, leaning their head into the back of the chair and closing their eyes.“Take it all. Je m'en fiche.”

One eye opened and regarded him contemptuously. It was rimmed in a raw pink.

“Fetch me a cigarette first,” they said, gesturing to a mother of pearl cigarette case on the desk. The skin of their wrist was waxen and dark handprints in both blood and the purple of fresh bruises stained the bone-pale flesh of their inner arm. The sweep of their arm was meant to be lordly but it wilted limply against the side of the chair, their wrist lolling. “And then get to your looting.”

They settled back in the chair, their outstretched hand waiting.

“You are fortunate I am leaving tonight.” It was idle, as though in half-dozed musing. “I would enjoy making your life hell for touching me as you did.” Their tone did not shift as they added, “There is a chest in the last drawer of the desk, if a dog like you can figure out how to break the lock. I’m sure it has some trivial thing of value for you to slaver over. Be quick, and then get out of my sight.”