The Council of Ten

Chapter 7 - The Enchantress (Marco D'Este)

Chapter Seven – The Enchantress (Marco D’Este)

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‘A good designer must rely on experience, on precise, logic thinking; and on pedantic exactness. No magic will do.’ ~ Niklaus Wirth

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The old clock on the wall of the study ticked in the background, only reminding me of how long I’d been staring at the same book, the same picture, the same page. I sighed and swung my feet up onto the desk, chewing the end of my pen. My father said my education was important, he said I needed it in life. Don’t get me wrong, any other time I would have agreed but now...

I just didn’t feel it.

Something was wrong but I didn’t know what it was. There was something wrong about going to posh parties, about wearing masks, about learning history that doesn’t even matter anymore. There was something wrong about the whole way I lived...something a little lifeless in my existence. I felt so wrong. So fake. I wasn’t really living, just obeying rules, regulations and...

My father. The perfect gentleman...whatever that means.

“Marco?” Came a voice. Hurriedly, I pulled my feet off the desk, took my pen out of my mouth and stood up to greet my father. He frowned “Marco, what were you doing?”

“Nothing,” I said a little too quickly. My father’s frown deepened so I said “just studying,” I gestured to the open book.

“Of course,” my father wasn’t convinced. I knew him too well and, by the looks of things, he knew me too.“We’re going out, I need a new mask.” His gaze lingered on my face, on my mask. He sniffed “I think perhaps we’d better get you one too. Come.”

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We’d been walking for some time before I became aware of the derelict buildings by my side. Houses worn away with water, with time, bitterly wasting away under the eyes of people. It was horribly quiet, making me feel watched, as if someone had their gaze trained on me. I snapped my head up to look at a balcony, craning my neck. Nobody was there. It was empty.“Padre, what are we doing here?” I hissed, a little angry.

“What do you mean?” He smiled, completely at ease. I stared at him, taken aback, didn’t he understand we were out of territory? We weren’t welcome. The only person I was willing to go to this poorer side of the city was Lena. She knew people, she knew where to go. She wore a white mask.

“Padre, we aren’t welcome here.” I said, angrily. He knew what it was like here.

“Perhaps.” He smirked. I stared incredulously at my father. Was he really so arrogant to think we were safe? Why couldn’t he get it through his thick skull that some people wouldn’t care if we were rich? In fact, some people probably had it in for us because we were.

“Are you mad?” I said, a little too loudly.

“No, Marco, I am not mad and I suggest you don’t speak to your father that way.” I looked at his tight lipped expression, his cold eyes, and fell back a step. He sighed “I made a bargain, not that it’s any of your concern.” It took a lot of my will power to stop myself crying out there and then. He really must have lost his mind. A bargain? I bit my tongue, swallowing my retort, sorry I’d ever come out in the first place. The last thing I wanted was to be mixed up in some sort of deal that would cost more than we hoped. My father smiled approvingly at my silence and said “good, Marco. You’re learning to speak at the right times, and seeing when the time is right to hold your silence.” Again, I only just managed to let the topic go.