Thomas Gown has become an important part of the Rossem Project and his contribution may be vital to its eventual success. However, he has also become a pawn in a desperate struggle between ancient powers who care nothing for the civilisation Thomas...
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Philip worked Tak hard for the next few days, to reassure himself that he still had full control over the boy. To try to convince himself that he hadn't seen what he thought he'd seen in his eyes that day in the courtyard.
Most of it was just make work. Useless labour that accomplished nothing but to teach the younger apprentice who was in charge. To exhaust him into submission. He made Tak scrub every wall and floor in the castle. He made him go out into the courtyard in the freezing wind to pull the weeds up with his bare hands. He made him carry heavy boxes up the spiral staircases to the tallest towers, then bring them down again. Every soul crushingly arduous task he could think of, until Tak's body cried out with weariness and the very sight of the elder apprentice approaching made him tremble and whimper in fear. Ironically, though, it was Tak's helplessness to do anything but obey that led to Philip eventually growing bored with this sport, and he began looking for other ways to occupy his time, very much to Tak's relief.
One other thing that Tak was very grateful for was that Philip only occasionally ordered him to his bed. The older apprentice had been brought up by Molos Gomm to believe that the sexual use of young boys was natural and acceptable, but his heart was never really in it. He preferred young women, and on the fifth day after his master's departure he went into town to fetch one back to the castle.
She was a timid, dark haired thing whose eyes darted nervously in all directions as he helped her down from the cart and in through the main gate. She wore a dress that looked as though it might once have been stately and elegant but which had been handed down through many generations. Lovingly cared for, cleaned and repaired as needed, but nevertheless looking its age. The colours faded and some of the lacework clearly having been replaced with simpler and poorer quality material. Even so, though, it was probably her best dress. She'd made an attempt to dress up for Philip, which meant she must have come willingly, unlike Tak, who was watching from his window in the tower. But if she was a willing visitor, he thought, why was she clearly so afraid? Because Philip was a wizard, he realised, and sensible people didn't say no to a wizard if they knew what was good for them.
He got a better look at her later that day, in the library. Tak went to find a volume he'd been studying for some days as part of his magical studies and found her sitting in the study chair looking lost and afraid, her hands clutching each other in her lap. She gave a start when she saw him and rose from the chair, staring at him as if he had two heads. Tak actually looked over his shoulder to see what fearsome creature had followed him in before realising it was him she was afraid of, and it occurred to him that he and Philip must look like brothers, both having been chosen for their perfect beauty. Their blonde hair and their strikingly bright eyes. Blue in Tak's case, green in Philip's.
"Please don't be scared," he said soothingly, hanging back in the doorway. "I won't hurt you."
Her wide, frightened eyes remained fixed on his, though, and her hands clutched each other below her low cut bosom. She was no longer wearing the dress she'd come in. Philip had found another for her. A scandalous crimson affair that showed more cleavage than he'd ever seen in a woman who wasn't actually naked.
