Ruple And Evelyn (Codex Grandomina Volume II)

Chapter Three: Prodigies

~ CHAPTER THREE ~

Prodigies

1610

Perhaps the almighty had stepped in. The triplets survived and Augustine showed no signs of any desire to murder them. She was enamoured with her children, and they with her.

The bargain – if there had ever truly been one - was upheld and, for a time, things were good. Though RR became certain that if it was God who'd intervened, Septus had nothing to do with it.

The King instead took to the suspicion that Septus was plotting against him. He kept assassins on retainer to watch the new Cardinal's every move and imposed heavy sanctions on the church, preventing them from amassing too much wealth.

RR's brief respite from his paranoia at the time of the triplets birth, was precisely that: brief. Before the boys had even grown out of their cradles, he was tentatively revisiting his conspiracies and intrigues once more. Yet even as edged the mire of uncertainty, he worked on tirelessly, pushing his skills, and his workers to their very limits. To all around him he seemed the measure of calm and determination...

But RR's story is a tale for another time. Now we look to the triplets.

And of the three children that Augustine cradled in her arms on that storm ridden, tumultuous eve; this story will follow the crushing trials and dizzying triumphs of Ruple, the child thought to be at the door of death.

But, as his father said he would, he survived.

*

The first year of Ruple's life was ubiquitous with activity. His father, in a momentary spell of freedom from his paranoia, had authored a book "A History of Grand London Volume II", the successor to his grandmother's much admired work, and the palace was growing in size by the day as he added yet more tower and halls to the already mammoth structure.

Whilst RR's mother, Rosette, nursed the triplets, he and Augustine ruled the city in seemingly perfect harmony, leaving Septus to his church, and focusing on creating the best future for the people of Grand London.

Of an evening, the baby Ruple would sit on a little velvet cushion to watch his father sketch. The king composed all manner of buildings on paper so that his queen, Augustine, could follow, her dream to become an architect in her own right. But as they works, neither parent had any idea that the little baby propped up beside them was memorizing everything he saw, storing it in his developing brain. While his brothers threw canvas dice at one another, he was already envisioning his own cities and monuments.

On an icy March morning, Augustine took the triplets to the cathedral of St Eligius to listen to its famed organ deliver the concert of rebirth, in celebration of the onset of spring. Upon entering, carried by a man servant as – unlike his brothers – he'd refused to learn to walk; Ruple gazed up at the roof and was unable to wrench his eyes from its sublime beauty. Whilst Rex and Romero grew restless throughout the three hour performance, Ruple sat, his head cocked up, transfixed by the ornate murals that adorned the ceiling hundreds of feet above.

All but Ruple failed to notice the soft voice that joined the organ that afternoon. A ghostly soprano slipping in and out between the thrums of the piece; a limpet on the organ's musical journey, a voice so gentle and light it drifted like a cool breeze in harmony with the melodies and buried itself deep within Ruple's delicate little heart. It seemed as though there, in that cathedral, with the music flowing through his body, and the smell of his mother's elderflower perfume rising to his nostrils, Ruple was being whispered to by God.

The source of this wondrous music remained hidden from Ruple but the warm glow it filled him with, would stay in his heart forever, and that precise combination of music, architecture and maternal love would be something that Ruple sought for the rest of his life.