Eat the Poor

XL

There was nothing to pack. No possessions to take with me, no physical evidence I had ever existed in this place. My ring was gone. The one symbol of my father's name now lay in a dark corner of the slaughterhouse, lost to me forever.

Charles brought Mercy to see me on the day I left. She was all clean and polished, wearing a light blue dress with her hair in plaits. The scab on her temple was nearly healed.

Charles stood back, a slight frown on his lips, while Mercy told me about the kind ladies who had helped her with her hair. I listened with a smile, but my mind drifted. Eventually, after she wandered off to explore, Charles spoke.

"Come, Murray, do not take the coward's way out." He looked ahead instead of facing me, his own show of cowardice. Or was that solely for my benefit? "Go and say goodbye."

"I have always been a coward," I said. "I don't see why that should change now."

He met my gaze. Not doing so before must have been out of gentleness then, or perhaps my words were so frustrating that now he gained the courage. "I have only known you some months, and nothing I have seen you do has been cowardly. Foolish, astoundingly brazen, but never cowardly. You are young, and you may not have seen much of the world, but know there are very few who could ever do the things you have done."

I knew what things he was referring to. And no one, not him or Martin or anyone else, would be able to understand why I was tossing it all away. I was a lowly farmer who could have lived on the upper floor of a castle, his every want and need taken care of, more power at his fingertips than any man of his class.

"I don't expect you to believe me," I murmured. "But I never wanted this. Any of this."

Charles tilted his head. "I am not privy to your motivations enough to believe or disbelieve it."

"What if I am not privy to my motivations myself?"

He chuckled, the way older people often do at the folly of younger people. "Not many of us are. For years, my sole purpose was as a butler, my most challenging feat was to carry tea trays to the royal chamber. But now..." He let his gaze wander to Mercy, who was leaning over the railing of the staircase to look at the floor below. "I cannot repay you for what you have given me, so I offer only my counsel if you so wish it. Go home, Murray, that is what you want and that is what you shall do, but urge you: do not leave with regrets."

Regrets. Did I regret befriending Geoff? If I had not, would I have met Philip? Did I regret meeting Philip? And how could I say goodbye to someone who would never leave my heart, who would be with me in my mind and soul until the day I died, and then whatever came after that?

"Do me one favor," I whispered, which was to say, do what I cannot. Charles' gray eyes waited kindly. "Please tell him that I love him."

I had never said this to anyone, besides Philip himself, but it seemed my words surprised me more than Charles. I wanted suddenly to retract them, rephrase them in some other way, but there was no other word besides love to describe what I felt.

He smiled and squeezed my hand before letting me go. "Of course I will."

🦢•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧.˚ *•̩̩͙ 🦢. •̩̩͙*˚⁺‧.˚ *•̩̩͙ 🦢

My reflection wavered in Brownie-Paulo's dark eyes. Two wide nostrils snuffled my hand, then the carrot I offered him.

My plan was simply to steal him. Technically, while not part of the royal carriage team, Paulo was a King's horse, but it was I alone who rode him. He was the one thing I refused to leave the castle without. They could keep my ring, my sanity, but I was taking my damn horse.