“Fucking imbeciles,” Gennady muttered as he shoved the last of his roll in his mouth and launched to his feet. The next thing he said came out garbled.
“Who?” Jesstin searched his memories for why he was there, in that moment. That he didn’t recall the day meant nothing on its own, for he and Gennady had spent many identical afternoons at the same table, sharing the same conversations. But the especular had chosen this day, and he was about to find out why.
“You know who. Talking shite again,” Gennady answered, half under his breath. He stepped out from the bench. “Hey, you imbeciles. Wanna say it again with blood in your mouth?”
“What are you...” Jesstin trailed off. In the distance was a group of boys they’d once been friends with, close friends even. There were five—Armand, Fox, John, Mason, and Lars—and they were always together. Jesstin dreaded running into them.
The rift had started when the details of his scandalous paternity had spread throughout the village. Mathias had weathered the role of cuckold with minimal fallout, and though Sestinn had gone into exile, he was protected by his deep financial ties to everything that mattered. So Jesstin had endured the worst of it. The child with two fathers but really had none. The boy no one wanted, except Rhiain, the girl who’d developed her own questionable reputation for shirking the customs of what society expected from highborn women.
The whispers never stopped, even years later. Some folks turned him away from businesses. He’d dropped out of his academy because the relentless bullying had turned him into a brutal fighter, and his strength would’ve gotten someone killed. He’d gone through six private scholars before Asterin identified one they could trust, but by then, Jesstin had already decided the answer to his shame existed beyond his little world.
“Ignore them,” Jesstin muttered. It’s what he’d always said, too soul-sick to have his business aired in public again. It would have been easier to knock the piss out of them, but then they’d know just how far they’d gotten under his skin.
Gennady pulled his shoulders back, making himself taller. “What’s that, Armand? I can’t hear you over the sound of you sucking your mother’s teat!” he hollered.
They cupped their hands over their faces, sniggering. Everyone enjoying their lunches watched, sharing whispers.
“And you, Lars, your mates know your father spends his evenings in the riverside brothels?”
“Gen. Stop.” Heat traveled down his neck. He didn’t remember this day, but there’d been so many days exactly like it. “Sit down.”
But Gennady couldn’t be stopped, then or ever. Sometimes he acted more like a protective older brother than a best mate. Jesstin couldn’t go anywhere without wondering who he’d challenge on his behalf. He couldn’t risk killing someone with his strength and size. Gennady was short and scrappy and didn’t care.
“My father fancies whores? So do both of his fathers.” Lars scoffed at Jesstin, his nose wrinkling in repugnance. “What I have always wanted to know...” He glanced around at his friends, a grin taking hold of his sharp face. “Is whether Mathias and Sestinn fucked his mother separately or passed her between them?” He turned his gaze up in mock ponder.
It wasn’t anything Jesstin hadn’t heard a dozen times, in markets, in taverns, and anywhere people liked to run their mouths.
“Nah, don’t you remember? It was rape, Lars,” Fox said mockingly. “Isn’t that what all women say when they step out on their misters? ‘Oh, he grabbed me!’ ‘Oh, I couldn’t stop him!’” He made faces as the group cackled.
Jesstin decided to kill them after all. They weren’t real anyway. The past couldn’t be changed.
Gennady quietly uncuffed his blouse and rolled both of his sleeves to his elbows. “A man who jokes about rape...” His neck popped as he rolled it. “Is one who probably takes it up as a pastime himself. And I reckon it’s the only way a cockwipe like you could get a woman into a bed with you that didn’t involve a chest full of coin.”
“Nara Skylark wasn’t raped. She was a whore,” Fox spat. He narrowed his eyes at Jesstin. “He just sits there because he knows the truth. And now Mathias Skylark is an absentee steward who raises our taxes with nothing in return. All because his wife couldn’t keep her cunt?—”
Gennady’s closed fist caught Fox’s left jaw. He then swung it backward, hitting Lars. Both boys had been caught off guard, and they stuttered back, gripping their faces, with the audacity to look stunned. They’d always looked stunned when Gennady struck, like they couldn’t fathom what they’d done to deserve it.
Jesstin separated from the memory, becoming an observer. When he stood, his form remained at the table, slumped in defeat and pleading with Gennady to let it go. In his face was every terrible moment he’d lived from the day the truth had rocked all of Riverchapel and Oldcastle.
He watched Gennady try to fight all five, taking half as many punches as he threw. The whole courtyard had stopped to watch, but none stirred from their meals or conversations. They’d seen it before, and besides, no one willingly involved themselves in the Skylark-Edevane scandal if they could help it.
Jesstin walked around the scene, viewing it from other perspectives. Time stretched the seconds. Gennady’s punches became comically slow, inching through the air. Lars’s cheek undulated when struck, contorting his entire face. The other boys had joined in, and soon, the proprietor would finally come break it up, as she always did once blood was spilled. Rows attracted patrons. Blood was bad for business.
Gennady wouldn’t stop until stopped. Jesstin had never seen him express that kind of anger over anything else, and knowing all he knew now, after everything, it didn’t make sense. Taking on an entire group of bullies for joking about rape, when he was guilty of even worse, was astonishing. How could Jesstin have spent so many days with this person and not have known his other side?
Armand broke away to stand against a row of bushes. Lars was next, sharing a cautious look with John, who grabbed Mason in a rush. Fox was the last, his head still caught in Gennady’s chokehold. But the sudden silence that hushed the courtyard was enough to pause their tussle.
Someone had arrived, and it wasn’t the proprietor.
The setting darkened from the outside, closing in on him. Everyone else became a motionless observer. The light above spotlighted Jesstin and his blood father, who stood five feet in front of him, wearing his full Oldcastle regalia like he’d just returned from official business.
He wasn’t in a memory anymore. The trial had begun.
It’s him now, is it, Mother? I need to forgive yet another letch for fucking up our lives?
Nara was silent though. He hadn’t felt her at all since the garden memory.
“You look so much like her.” Sestinn had an officer’s stance, formal and cold. His dark eyes glowed like candles in an icy window. “She really was a beauty, Adynara. I never understood how she could choose a dog like Mathias.”
