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There was a boy in Amato’s house.
There wasn’t supposed to be a boy in Amato’s house, not since he himself had been one. Besides the fact that he had no children for quite obvious reasons, none of his brothers nor the small household they kept had either, and a little street urchin like that one was the last thing that should be there. Still, this one was clearly just that: from his dirty clothes to the dirtier face, there was no doubt about it.
Amato kept no slaves since his father’s death and had promptly gotten rid of most paid servants, including those too young to be bound to service. It was dreadful business, he believed, those small, uneducated children working in big estates or, worse yet, big factories, but it was completely legal.
He was baffled by how the boy had ended up there—how such business had somehow ended up shaking, prostrated by his feet, somehow his to deal with.
It was just Amato’s luck, too. It was the first time in months he’d been able to get out of his room, the first time in days he’d even managed to get out of bed. That last week, like all weeks since he could first remember, had been filled by a dull pain and a deep shame of his face that made him quite unwilling to be seen even by Andrea or Adamo, a feeling certainly not helped by the boy’s full body flinch when he saw him, or the way he’d thrown himself on the floor immediately. Amato took it as well as he could. Had been more than used to being seen as a monster for a long time already, after all.
Yet, still too shocked and sore to move, he could only stare.
No one but Amato went to the third floor of the house unless absolutely necessary, that much had been decided by his late father the moment he’d been born with such a face. As a baby, that meant a pregnant slave was sent when he needed to be nursed, and as a kid it meant that a slave was sent to clean when the smell became too bad, and an old, free tutor came every other day to teach him, struggling not to startle too badly any time his eyes found Amato.
Those days, it meant Andrea or Adamo went to him every few days, so he could hear what’d been happening at the house from them, if he just so happened to be found in a fit state to open the door for them. Every odd week, if he hadn’t called for anyone, a free maid would come and take the entire day to clean things up, whether he wanted it or not. He was sure, some days, that the maid only opened his door so cautiously because she feared finding him already dead.
When he felt good enough to walk, he’d do so struggling with his cane within the security of those corridors, where he knew he wouldn’t find anyone. Had never found anyone. Wasn’t supposed to find a little street-boy cowering and crying. Amato stared at the top of his dark hair, unable to quite catch or understand the pleas he was desperately saying.
“Now,” he said out loud. His voice sounded very low and coarse, mostly because he hadn’t spoken to anyone in a very long time, ruff as he asked, “Who are you, boy?”
It took some time for him to calm himself down enough to speak coherently. Amato waited, stiff, as he struggled to breathe normally. Finally, “Can call me anything, sir,” he wheezed to the floor, wiping his cheeks.
Just as well. Everyone spoke to the floor when they were around Amato. The answer itself made his eyebrows go up.
“Let’s start with what you are already called, shall we?”
“It’s Basil, sir.”
“And who is your real sir, Basil?”
If it were possible, he made himself even smaller. A second passed, and then two, but Amato was just as patient then as he had been with his first question. Always was. Gods, he had to be, with the life he lived: trapped in that room, that corridor, that body.
“Sir Andrea took me here, sir, but I serve everyone.”
“My brother Andrea took you,” repeated Amato.
His voice sounded faint, just then. He felt faint, for reasons that had nothing to do with how little food he’d managed to eat without getting ill those last days. He stared at that dark head of hair. Heard those soft little whimpers and sniffles the boy so desperately tried to keep to himself. Andrea had done that. Andrea had taken a boy in, predictably as cheap and easily bulliable work, predictably using Amato’s money, and hadn’t mentioned anything of the sort on the many financial detailings and household inventory he showed to Amato.
He let the disgust shudder inside, for one second too long.
Then, Amato blurted out, “Has my brother taught you chess?”
The words were brusque. At them, the little boy lifted his head, shocked, and then flinched so violently as soon as his eyes found Amato’s face, the man himself couldn’t help but cringe.
“He hasn’t, sir.”
“Get up, then. I will teach you.”
His rooms were perfect for someone like him. Fit for an heir, but dirtied and soiled by the life of a cursed recluse. He felt ashamed every time his brothers came to see him, so much so that he was as likely to send them away because of shame as he was from pain.
He found it just as easy to feel the same old humiliation around that street boy, suddenly all too aware of how untidy it all was, of the dirty sheets and the smell, which was never Amato’s biggest worry when he fell on his longer fits of melancholy, but also never failed in making him too mortified to ever ask for help when he came even the slightest bit out of it. It was all too dark, too. He struggled to get to the fireplace.
“I can help, sir!” exclaimed the boy, that Basil, and he seemed so relieved to be given some way he could serve Amato, the man almost didn’t feel the sting of being such an invalid. Almost.
He watched, silent, as Basil ran to light the fire, before Amato turned to find his chessboard. There’d been a long time since he last played, longer than he could remember since he played against anyone but himself, alone in the dark, not quite seeing the pieces, but not needing to see to make a move. When he set it on the table and let himself fall heavily on the chair, he looked to see the boy still kneeling by the fire, staring at Amato’s feet.
“Come,” he called and Basil shivered, but he came. “Have you ever seen someone play?”
“Only from far away.”
“So you know what the objective is, I imagine?”
“To take the most pieces?”
“To take one’s King. Taking other pieces is only a way to get closer to it.” At the boy’s furrowed brows, Amato smiled. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done so, but he was glad Basil wasn’t looking. Amato knew his smile was quite a scary sight, especially to children. There’d been a reason none of his brothers used to be able to be around him without crying when they were all small. “The King is one of the pieces. There are sixteen pieces, with six different kinds, and each kind is only allowed to move in a specific way.”
“How do you remember it all?”
“I suppose I will be reminding you, at the start.”
He hadn’t sat, still. He looked at the chair in front of Amato, his eyes flickering, his hands twitching as if not daring even to touch it, before he looked back to the floor. “Sorry, sir. I don’t know how I’ll do it from the floor.”
Besides his tutors, Amato had only ever been around free people who were part of his family. His interactions with free servants were minimal and never accounted for any talking—it seemed they acted a lot like slaves.
“You can sit on the chair,” he told him, soft with shame for not having said so before. Amato watched the boy sit gingerly, almost as if scared of the furniture, something inside him tightening. “Here. This is the King, boy.”
He showed him each piece, told him how they ought to move, tried not to feel too odd at the unusual feeling of being listened to so intently, his words taken in like law, like something so important and all-consuming they turned godly. Basil watched his hands, listened to each explanation, focused on him as if Amato was the only thing that mattered in the world.
“There is a game I used to play once,” he told him. “To each piece one of us takes, we can ask a question to our opponent and they have to answer as honestly as they can. We will do it, too.”
“You can ask me anything, sir.”
“I prefer it this way.”
Perhaps it was selfish. If the boy truly didn’t wish to play, if he had no interest in being shown how, it had a hint of cruelty to it, making a game out of questioning him, a game he was more than likely to lose. Still, Amato wasn’t good with people. Wasn’t good at talking, or asking questions, or dealing with answers. Chess would make it easier. Chess made everything easier.
He asked him, when he took his first pawn, “How old are you?”
Basil stared at the board intently.
“Gonna’ be fourteen next summer, sir.”
Young. How young he was, how small, and the question that had been haunting the back of Amato’s mind since he first laid eyes on him came to the forefront, panicked and urgent: what need did his brother have for a child like that? How strong was that need that he saw to hide it from Amato?
“My brother took you in from where specifically?" he asked at the next taken piece, and watched the way the boy wrung his hands.
“Red Street, sir.”
He was one of those poor working boys for sure, then. Amato had never been allowed outside of that home and knew he hadn’t been taught even half of what normal people knew about the outside, but he remembered his brothers talking about the Red Street. He remembered Adamo saying it was a good place to find cheap labor and shutting it down, right at the beginning. He’d been almost overwhelmingly grateful, at the time, that they had agreed with his request with so little arguing.
Amato swallowed through the lump in his throat.
As the questions went and the pieces were taken, Amato learned that Basil had been there for close to six months already, and he indeed served Andrea closely, as he was the one who acquired him, but he obeyed Adamo and the other servants just as much. He’d been warned not to go to the third floor, but he said he’d gotten lost. Amato suspected he’d been hiding from his duties, and couldn’t fault him for the childish urge. Andrea and Adamo, too, had used that corridor to hide from school, once upon a time.
When he took his first pawn, Basil froze.
“Take it,” he told him, careful as the boy hesitated as if very terrified of Amato turning against him because of such a small slight. He took it, but his hand shook, and he didn’t seem to know what to do then. Amato huffed. “Ask a question.”
He looked down at the piece, held tightly in his palm.
“Are you the master of the house, sir?” he whispered.
Amato nodded, but Basil wasn’t looking at him. Couldn’t stomach it, surely. “I should be, I suppose. I often find myself indisposed, so my brothers take care of things, most of the time.” He pressed his lips. “They weren’t supposed to hire children. I was very clear about that.”
Basil looked up.
“Hire—”
“Brother?” There was a knock on the door, sudden and loud. Basil flinched away from it, curling into himself, as Amato turned to it, frowning. “Do you—?”
“Enter,” Amato called, trying to make his voice louder, although it only made him have a coughing fit.
The kid looked terrified of Andrea. It was the only thing Amato could concentrate on, that pure, panicked fear as Andrea entered warily and Basil stared at him. He almost dropped the piece in his hand, before tightening his grip until his knuckles were stretched pale and his hold trembled. Andrea stared back, startled shock making his face go white. His eyes darted back to Amato.
“I can—”
“I have met the new servant,” he said gruffly, and received two equally frozen looks. Amato frowned, although both had already lowered their eyes. “You did not tell me you hired someone.”
He’d never seen his brother look truly abashed. He knew the other had been politely afraid of his parents as a boy, as was children’s nature, but usually, when caught doing something wrong, he’d manage to find a way to pin it on Amato or Adamo. Without that possibility, Amato discovered his excuses to be oddly lacking.
“He’s only temporary.”
“After six months, I would say he is quite permanent.” They had agreed with Amato asking for no slaves or children in their home. It’d been the first and only thing he’d ever demanded. The anger hit him suddenly, to know they had likely been agreeing just to pacify him: treating him like an infant, like an invalid, like some little freak with power on paper they only needed to find a way to get around as quietly as possible. With it burning inside himself, Amato said, “I want him in my chambers.”
“Excuse me?” let out Andrea, sounding indignant. His eyes found Amato’s face briefly, full of angry surprise.
“Every morning,” he said. “I want the boy to come to me.”
Trying to make his voice sound louder and firmer only made him cough again, a dry sound that came from deep within his sore throat. It startled Basil, but Andrea was used enough to only stare, baffled by Amato’s orders.
“I am not sure you understand.”
“I believe I do,” he replied and it hurt a bit, talking. Scratched, when he’d gone for so long without doing it. He let out one last cough, before gesticulating lamely at the boy, “As the heir of the house, I do believe I can choose whatever servant I want. Now, if you may leave us.”
“Amato!” he snapped, his face horrified for reasons Amato was ashamed to admit he didn’t understand, just as his brothers always said he couldn’t. He had so little context about the world and people, all he could do was grind his jaw.
Basil watched the exchange silently, his fists curled so tightly they shook as they held onto his chair. At Andrea’s raised voice, he flinched one last time, before weakly whispering, “Gotta’ game to finish.”
Andrea turned his eyes towards him with pure hate. Amato, for his part, sent the boy a long look. It took him more than he wanted to admit to recognize that feeling fluttering in his chest as some faint amusement, unused to it as he was.
“Sure, we do.”
-
He took a bath, the next morning.
Amato did not like taking baths. Standing for long enough to clean himself was a pain, but submerging himself in the cold water was a sure way of getting himself sick and miserable, and the mere idea of stopping the servant girl to ask for a warm bath when she already took so long bringing the water up to the third floor left him too mortified to even open his mouth. He used to have a strict schedule for cleaning as a child, anyway, with baths set so far apart he had grown used to the filth. Ashamed, still, and disgusted by himself, but used. It’d been the point of it, he was sure.
He didn’t want the child to know of his filth, so he called for a bath first thing after the sun rose, and was harshly scrubbing himself when the door opened and Basil walked in gingerly.
Amato found his reaction perfectly reasonable, which included snapping and cursing for him to get out, as the young boy froze, trembling hands touching the laces of his flimsy shirt, as if ready to take it out and get in the bath to help Amato.
“I am not an invalid,” he spat after, dried, clothed and frowning at Basil. He felt as surly as a little boy. “I can wash my damn self, boy.”
He nodded urgently, his eyes so round that Amato had a feeling someone not like him would have found it funny, in a situation not like that one.
“I’m sorry!”
Amato huffed, tightening his hold on his cane. “You didn’t bathe my brother, I am sure. There’s no need for you to do it for me.”
“I did.” He blinked. “Sir, I helped him with it, I mean.”
“Did you?” Amato sneered at the idea. “Well. I don’t want it. You should knock on the door before coming in.”
“I will, sir.”
Now his anger was gone, he felt the embarrassment setting at having snapped at Basil. Now, a badly slept night had passed and his anger at Andrea was nothing but a dim memory, he felt the uncertainty hitting him—what business did he have with a child servant? Amato shouldn’t be allowed around children at all, as he’d always known and much heard from the adults around him while growing up. He had no business being around anyone, with his moods and his pains, and his general unpleasantness.
Basil kneeled, while Amato thought it out. Leaning against the same table they had played chess in, Amato watched his movements, struck between pity and an uncomfortable desire to tell him to just go away.
“What can I do for you, sir?”
What indeed.
At his uncertainty, the boy grew uncomfortable. When Amato’s silence lingered, he jumped up, eyes wide, twisting his hands nervously in front of his body. “I can clean for you.”
He hated that. Hated when the maid came to do it and would just as well hate this servant boy doing it. It was that old shame again and Amato pulled his lips as he shook his head.
“We can play,” he said instead and Basil nodded eagerly. Amato sent him a dry look. “That I can be sure you didn’t do with my brother.”
“Oh, we did that too.” The corner of his lips twitched, although he didn’t look amused. Hugging himself, Basil looked around. “Do you want me to open the curtains, sir?”
“Of course not!” he snapped. “They stay closed.”
Basil swallowed. “Alright, sir.”
He was a terrible player. He wasn’t able to memorize what each piece was and how each one moved, and was too shy to ask, so Amato had to pay attention to him to see when he wasn’t moving because he didn’t know what to do, so he could help. Amato was terrible at paying attention to people’s expressions. He hated it even more than all the rest.
When lunch came, Amato watched Basil eat as quickly as he could and managed half of his own meal, before dumping the meat into him, stomach too upset to bear all of it. Basil looked at him with awe, before flinching and dropping his eyes.
“Sorry.”
“It is fine, boy. No one likes to look.”
Basil blinked, eyes fixed on Amato’s hands. “It isn’t that, sir.”
He snorted.
“I’m sure.”
“It isn’t you, sir. My type should not be looking at nobles.”
“I would prefer it if you did.”
He said it with the bitter certainty that Basil wouldn’t be able to, so when he warily raised his gaze, it was a shock how much worse it made Amato feel. At least he was used to eyes being averted. He hadn’t been looked directly at in what felt like a lifetime, and never by an eager, nervous child, tightening his grip around the freshly refilled bowl. “Is it really for me?”
Amato huffed. “Who else.”
“Will you really call me tomorrow too?”
“Suppose I’ve told Andrea I will,” he replied grumpily. What a terrible choice. “Suppose as long as you answer the call—”
The boy nodded fervently.
“Yes, please, sir,” although he said it so fast, it was more of a yespleasesir, followed by a just as babbling thankyousirthankyousomuch. Amato ducked his head, because now that Basil was looking at his face, he felt like hiding his attempt at a smile, hideous as it was.
“There’s not a lot to do around here.”
“Won’t complain.” He sat straighter. “I can learn your game better, sir, and I can—I know you said you don’t want me to clean, but I still can do it, a little bit. Can help bring you food instead of Francesca,” which Amato imagined to be the name of the usual maid, “and—and help you in your baths, and your clothes—”
“You will not do that,” he cut, trying to smother that stubborn anger that made him want to snap cruelly at anyone close enough. Amato made a face. “You will finish your food. Now.”
And so Basil did.
-
The three of them didn’t have the same mother.
Amato’s had been a slave, belted to death for giving a noble a bastard baby as disfigured and wrong as him. The only reason he hadn’t been killed himself, or sold to some cheap street show, was because his father’s wife, Andrea and Adamo’s own mother, had been trying to get pregnant and failing for more than three decades already, and had convinced her husband to legitimize the little freak he’d made.
When she managed to get pregnant with the twins only one year after his birth and they’d been born healthy, normal children his father actually wanted to have as his heirs, Amato had almost been gone once more. She saved him again. Talked to the old man until she somehow made him believe that accepting Amato despite it all had been such a kind gesture it’d made God bless them, and keeping him would keep them lucky. She’d been too old to be pregnant, and it would have already been a danger even if she weren’t, with twins. Amato thought she might have actually believed herself blessed.
When their father had died first, she’d been the lady of the house for a good ten years and, for some reason, had made Amato her heir. After she was gone, their lands and their gold were all his, even if he did so little to care for it himself.
She hasn’t been kind. She’d visited him just as little as his father and refused to look at his face just like all others. Had been the one to slap him for trying to peek through the curtains when he was six, the one to lock him in his rooms for days on end when he’d been too little to understand why he couldn’t just walk downstairs to stay with the family, ignoring his pounding and his cries and his screams and scratches. Had been the one to tell the maid not to bring him food for four days, when he questioned if he’d be able to go to his father’s funeral.
But she visited him, even if rarely. She sat and played chess with him, the one who taught it to him in the first place. She asked him if his tutor beat him and changed the first one when Amato told her he did, and made her sons call him brother even when she slapped him for trying to call her mother once. She’d been so terribly cruel and frankly strange—but he’d loved her and somehow, she’d made him her heir as if she loved him too.
They’d all known that father would want Andrea to inherit it all. She hadn’t wanted to. She ’d chosen Amato. She’d been the only one to ever do it and he still didn’t know why. He still hadn’t done anything worthy to justify her choice.
Now there was a kid in his house. In his corridors.
Basil came every morning. He played a game he obviously didn’t care for, and smiled at Amato every time he gave him his fill of lunch and some of Amato’s own fill, and watched the room with more interest than disgust, as he offered once again to clean things.
Amato had lived in that sense of nothing for longer than his own understanding of life and things, but Basil was new to those rooms, to that misery. When his gaze lingered on the closed curtains, the crusted and forgotten cups and plates by the table, the dust and the dirt, all the maid couldn’t bother with because she knew Amato didn’t bother, he seemed a little bit surprised. He still didn’t seem to have understood why the master of a noble house would live like that, but he seemed to want to continue there. He was earnest about it. He was desperate. And, somehow, he wanted to help.
“I could open it,” he said, watching the window. “Just a little bit. Just so some sun would get in.” Amato let a dark little sound from the depths of his throat, staring at their food instead. Basil paused. “Why not, sir?”
The masters of the house don’t allow it, he thought, but that wasn’t true, was it? Amato was the master of the house. Amato was a grown man, had been for twenty years, and had never shaken the old learned shame that made him decide, by himself, to keep the curtains closed. He kept his eyes down.
“People will look.”
“Will they, sir?” Basil blinked his big, round eyes. “Most people don’t look up to the windows when they’re walking around, and I don’t think they’d see you all that well anyway, from down there.”
His stepmother had slapped him for trying to peek. His father’s methods had been different—he’d snapped the curtains open. Had taken hold of Amato’s neck, his hand so very big and so very forceful, and made him stand there staring down, sobbing and listening to all that the people down on the street would think if they saw him until Amato almost threw up, so overwhelmed that he was. Until he truly did it, once or twice. He closed his eyes, his breathing coming out slow and heavy, and when he opened them, Basil was looking, his eyes big and full of worry.
It’s the worry that did it. Worry, soft around his eyes, and not cold and hard disgust.
“You can try to open it,” he whispered. “I will not get close to it.”
And so, Basil did.
The midday sun felt too bright. Amato blinked through the burn, even as he kept his back to the window, but when Basil went back to the table, he had a wary smile on his face. “Is this alright?”
He didn’t like the dark. No matter how many candles Amato kept, he could tell just from that look that Basil hated not having the curtains open. That he was terrified of it.
“Alright,” sighed Amato. “It’s worse for you, no?”
Basil blinked. “Why?”
Amato didn’t keep the bitterness away from his scoff.
“Can see me better.”
“That’s not so bad, sir.” He shrugged lamely. “One of the boys got his face run over by a carriage once. Your face doesn’t look as painful as his, sir. And I have—had a friend who got frostbite once. Lost his nose and all.”
Amato looked up, frowning.
“How could such a thing happen?”
“My friend? He got kicked right out of the workhouse during a snowstorm. Idiot picked too many fights and all.” Basil picked at his food nervously. Amato knew this new line of conversation was distressing him: he’d never seen Basil picking at food instead of shoving it down his throat as quickly as he could without choking. “The other boy just fell at the wrong time in the wrong street, from what I heard. Pity. He was pretty popular, too.”
Amato had no idea what that last comment could ever mean. He frowned.
“This friend of yours,” he said, “with the frostbite. Where is he now?”
“His name’s Damiano,” Basil told Amato. He said it like it was the most important thing in the world, but he almost immediately flinched, lowering his face. “He’s in the workhouse still, sir. Isn’t really asked for as much, last time I knew. Even the ones who want brute workers don’t like looking at him all that much. But that’s stupid. He was a lot stronger than I and a lot better when they needed help at the docks than any of the other boys. That night didn’t change that.” He tensed. His eyes flickered towards Amato. “Sorry. That’s a lot.”
“I see why you thought a game to ask questions wasn’t necessary,” Amato replied coolly. “You give out a lot even without it.”
“They said that too, in the workhouse.” There was a faint blush to his cheeks. “But I keep my mouth really close around your brothers, sir! They never complained or anything.”
“My brother took you from that kind of place, then,” Amato said, slowly, trying to understand why. He’d known his brothers since they’d been born, but in such an odd, twisted way that he didn’t know them at all. He had no hope of understanding Andrea’s reasoning.
“He rented me for some days,” Basil said. “Did it again a couple of times. He liked me, so he rented me for the next two years.” He received a careful look. “You mentioned you didn’t know.”
Two years from then, Basil would be fifteen. He would need to be paid more—a man’s wage, instead of a boy’s. And for that, Andrea would simply stop paying him at all.
Amato let disgust churn inside his stomach. “I told him,” he said, and couldn’t stop the gruffy annoyance from seeping into his tone. “Both of them. No slaves. No children. It was my only demand.”
There was a long pause. It felt cold and miserable, there in the shaking in Basil’s hand and the way he frowned down at the table:
“I’m not the first,” he confessed, dread seeping into his voice. “The older boys knew him already, sir. Sir Andrea had rented plenty of them before me. Some for a day, some for more than even two years.” He looked up. “You really didn’t know? Do you really just stay here?”
Embarrassment and shame burned on Amato’s face. He looked away, huffing, and that was his only answer, to what seemed to be Basil’s bafflement.
“But why!”
The masters of the house wouldn’t allow it. Amato huffed again, noncommittal, and took a long sip of lukewarm tea. “No desire to.”
Basil blew out his cheeks.
“Will you please let me clean this room for you, sir?”
He sent him a scalding look.
“What for?”
“Because I want to,” he begged. “Please. It will help. Won’t you just let me try?” Amato didn’t answer. Instead, he ate. Basil slumped on his seat, before he attempted, his voice more careful, “Can I tell you about Damianos, at least? He attended your brother, once. I can tell you about the boys that did.”
I hadn’t even noticed them. What a rotten half-life. Amato nodded, feeling exhaustion seeping deep into his bones at even the thought of it, and sighed so deeply it took Basil a second to gather his courage and get at it.
It took Amato himself more than he’d like to admit to think that perhaps the boy was talking so much and so fast because he wanted to distract Amato from the open window, so he wouldn’t get lost in his thoughts and demand to close it again.
-
Amato knew, sooner rather than later, he’d have one of his spells with him around. One of the days when he couldn’t get out of bed, couldn’t so much as twitch in the mattress, because either the pain was too loud, or his dread was, or both.
It took Basil an hour to get the nerve to slip inside the room, as he had been told not to do it without knocking and being allowed in, but once he did, he closed the curtains and didn’t light any candles, shuffling around in the dark. He made so much noise that Amato had half the thought he was stealing everything, and too much apathy to try to stop him.
Basil shifted things around, and dropped something once, and made as much noise as an elephant trying to be sneaky in a too-small room. He slipped out of the room, and slipped back, and Amato kept his eyes shut close, shaking. When Basil slipped into the bed, it was to touch his shoulder and force him to drink water, only the taste was so bad that Amato was sure it was mixed with the medicine he had been refusing to take for decades. He took it, that day. He refused the food, later, but he accepted the water, just because refusing felt like too much effort.
The boy was a damn little scamp, Amato so discovered, blinking back into awareness to a cleaner room than he’d ever had. He let Basil know his opinion, a muffled, rough murmur that made him lift his face, kneeling by the floor next to the bed.
“I didn’t mean to bother,” he defended. “But it was needed, sir.”
Amato groaned. He wished to roll over and close his eyes again. He wished to wallow in his own dirt for days. It was what he would have done, what he had been doing for years, but having Basil around, wide-eyed and eager with worry, made the thought so humiliating he couldn’t bear to continue like that. He took a careful breath, closing his eyes, steeling himself for the terrible chore of whispering, “Can you help me, Basil?”
“‘Course!” He was there immediately, his hands careful as he helped Amato sit up. When Amato resolutely didn’t look his way, he said, voice lower, “It’s alright, sir. I helped the boys when they were recovering all the time. Edmondo said I’d have been a good healer.”
There was some strange pride there. Shy and self-conscious, as if he knew the idea was embarrassingly impossible, but so very soft, so very beautiful. He sent Amato an embarrassed smile, before he was taking Amato’s cane and helping him up.
“Francesca said you walk around the corridor, to stretch. I will help you.”
And that he did.
He was the first one to.
-
“Brother,” Adamo said, eyes locked in Basil behind him, lips thin with discomfort, “I must ask, is this truly what you want?”
When Amato suggested something dumb, Andrea dealt with it by laughing and repeating Amato in such a mocking way that it made him almost instantly clump up. Adamo, however, was good at that specific tone. When he questioned Amato‘s choices, his voice had such a soft drawl, a comforting tilt, a warm sadness, and it made Amato question everything he had ever said or asked for. He knew when to use it, too: hadn’t when Amato said he didn’t want them to keep slaves or children, but had deployed it when he suggested to give their current servants better wages, or doing some renovation in the wing where they slept, or perhaps finding where, exactly, Amato’s mother had been buried. None of that had been done, in the end. Adamo was too good at it. Amato was too much of a tired coward to argue.
Basil held Adamo’s chair tighter. Amato sent him a brief glance.
“I have no idea what you mean. Continue.”
Andrea had been avoiding him. Amato had never been avoided in such a way, but for the last couple of weeks, Andrea had been sending Adamo, alone, to their usual meetings, to tell Amato the goings of the household. They were the strangest meetings they ever had, too—every time he spoke, Adamo sent Basil a look, slow with his explanations in a way he had scarcely ever been. Amato supposed they’d never had an audience for any of their talks, even if the audience was a silent, nervous boy who didn’t dare to be anywhere besides safely hiding behind Amato. Basil frowned a lot, seemingly lost on how a noble house should be run. Not much different from Amato himself, then.
Adamo frowned at Basil, before leaving the room. He told Amato, serious, “If that is what you think you want,” in that way that made Amato feel like he’d never been sure about anything he had ever thought his entire life.
-
There was nothing for a child to do around there. Amato would know, having been a deeply bored, deeply sorrowful child in those same four walls, and he could force Basil to participate in as many games as he wished, but it wasn’t enough and so, he gathered himself.
He had old books from when he was learning, dusty and long forgotten. His chessboard. A bunch of old games and toys Andrea and Adamo had outgrown and dumped there with him, as young boys. Basil sat on the floor as Amato took a seat in the corner of the bed, looking at all the meager distractions he had to offer. It was nothing much, but Basil seemed fascinated by the books and the toys, even if they’d seen much better days.
“Can I organize it for you, sir?”
“I’m hardly in the right age for any of it,” said Amato, huffing. “You can organize it for yourself to use, while you are here,” and he beamed so brightly, Amato had to look away.
He still made the boy play a game of chess with him, when Amato was up to it. But when he wasn’t, he sat on the bed or by the fireplace, gripping his cane, and let Basil fuss over him, and shuffle things around the room, and sit on the floor to do his own little things, mostly lying belly down as he scowled down at terribly-kept children’s books. It was so strange to have someone around like that. Basil forced the windows open. There were days Amato couldn’t get up from bed, but while before there’d been so many where he could, but didn’t have a reason to go through the painful task of it all, Basil forced him up. Basil made him too embarrassed not to take his medicine, for the first time in his life.
Every day, when it came time to eat, Basil accepted an extra helping of food and asked, wary, “Tomorrow too?”, to which Amato huffed and nodded.
When he asked, “Will you come down, someday?”, Amato froze.
“No.”
“Why not?” Basil sat straighter. “I can help you with the stairs.”
And what about the stares?
Amato sneered. “Don’t say such things.”
Basil blinked.
“The workhouse was a dreadful place, sir. Your brothers can be mean,” and Amato paused to frown, because they could be, as children, but those days, he only saw them as condescendingly distant, and what could they have done to show Basil their old, boyish cruelty? “But I like this house more, even with them. How long’s it been since you saw all of it?”
Amato snorted.
“I have not,” he said, “seen it. It has never been a need.”
Not a possibility, even when it had been a child’s want.
Basil’s eyes flickered to the window. “This side of town is very pretty, sir. You would like it.”
“And the side you come from?”
The corner of his lips twisted, a ghost of a smile.
“Not so much,” he admitted and Amato let out a small sound, a ghost of a laugh to match Basil’s faint expression. The boy turned to him. “Andrea sleeps in the master bedroom.”
“So he does.”
“There’s a tree by the window. A peach tree, sir. Francesca told me, if your brother isn’t around when we are cleaning for him, there’s nothing too wrong about taking one or two. He never notices and the cook makes these sweets for us, if we give them to her.” He was a little scamp, as Amato had known. Basil grinned as he looked down at his fingers. “It’s a great tree, sir. And in the morning, it fills with all these birds. I never saw them in the workhouse. We just got a lot of pigeons. His birds sing so much prettier. And—and his bed is so soft. Sometimes I feel like crying, just touching his sheets. He has a bathroom for himself, with the biggest tub. A room just for his clothes.”
“And?”
“And that should be your bedroom, no, sir?”
This time, he laughed. It was a foreign sound, low and rough on his throat, and Amato wouldn’t think of himself as someone capable of fondness, but he felt it, just then. Fond and amused, shaking his head. “That was never in question.”
“But you are the master of the house. Of the family.”
“Only by law.” Amato looked at his face, small and confused and looking right back at him with no distaste. “I’m not made for such things, boy. Even if I’m older, I’m hardly fit.”
“But you are,” he said. “Your brothers do nothing but—”
“Basil,” Amato interrupted, a sharp warning. Not a snap, for now, but a reprimand all the same. “It’s no good to think of it.”
Basil looked down, and didn’t speak of it anymore.
He spoke to the cook, Amato thought. He’d always been fed light foods, largely tasteless, strictly the most utilitarian of cooking, and he’d in mind he was fed the servant’s meals, instead of what the family ate. The best of it for sure—the biggest pieces of meat and the fresher vegetables from the downstairs table, which would’ve been better enjoyed by them anyway. If not for the kid eating all that Amato didn’t, most would be returned untouched.
Basil started to bring him even lighter broth than the usual, and softer vegetables, and pulled meat cooked for so long it melted into his mouth, which came with the uneasy knowledge he ought to have been paying attention to what Amato had an easier time eating, all that time, and telling it all to the kitchen. He brought him sweets, sometimes, and didn’t seem too disappointed when Amato could eat only some bites before giving him the rest. Amato could’ve laughed. He could’ve cried, almost.
“If you don’t want to see the trees,” was what Basil told Amato when questioned, a stubborn edge to his voice. Bafflingly, he left his statement at that.
Oh, to have known how willful children could be beforehand.
-
It’s months after Basil started to attend to him that Amato was startled awake by the sound of the door opening in the middle of the night. He was never a heavy sleeper, when sleep seemed like a privilege that often evaded him and looked to run away at any small excuse given, and the sound of barefoot steps, no matter how silent and careful, was enough to have him blinking away exhausted confusion.
“Sir?” was murmured in the dark, right beside him.
“Basil?”
“Sir,” he repeated, his voice trembling. “Can I stay here?”
A nightmare. A nightmare?
Amato—he remembered being Basil’s age, he supposed. Even then, he’d slept little and when he did, it was almost always a dreamless affair. The little nightmares he had, had been nonsensical and so terrifying that they had left him dry heaving on the cold floor next to his bed, sobbing and shaking. He’d never looked for anyone, then. Never had anyone to look for. He’d never been someone others looked for when in distress.
Feeling heavy with sleep and not all there, Amato let out, “Come here, boy,” and felt the shifting of the bed when Basil did, crawling into the mattress.
When he buried his face against Amato’s back, he was crying, a soundless thing.
-
The workhouse hadn’t been kind to the boy and, thinking of it through the childish part of him that didn’t wish to think like that of his own little brothers, Amato could tell neither had Andrea nor Adamo been. His flinches told a story, and the little tidbits he so often blurted out told an even louder one, not to speak of the nightmares. His panic to eat more. His eagerness to serve and please Amato. His shy, grateful smile when Amato didn’t ask about his crying the morning after.
He kept sniffing and hiding his weeping, wiping at his cheeks with a snotty sleeve. He looked so small, so sad, that when he asked Amato if they could get a little closer to the window, Amato asked, “Why?” instead of snapping no as he always did. Should always do.
“We can blow out the candles,” replied Basil. “I promise no one will see you.”
“That doesn’t answer it.”
Basil bit the inside of his cheek.
“You’re so kind to me, sir. Can’t you just do this one other thing?”
Oh, how he wished not to.
It wasn’t only that Amato was hideous, although being so didn’t help. He’d heard enough from both the last masters of the house. His stepmother thought of his appearance as a divine trial they had passed, and his father saw it as a cruel punishment for his adultery, but either way, it was God showing in Amato’s face the sickness of his soul. It wasn’t something as simple as being ugly—it was that that ugliness was a reflection of who he was, deep down, wretched since his mother’s womb.
He had never been allowed the simple pleasures others enjoyed since childhood, because he hadn’t been clean enough for it since conception. He had never been allowed to want for more. It was kinder to himself, simpler, to accept: those were the corridors that had birthed him and would, one day, smother him to death. A window wasn’t to be opened. The sun was not to be felt, for what was the sun but the heaven’s light reflecting into earth, and what was he but a creature of sin? There was no joy, not in a world where there was nothing to spare for the wicked.
Basil took his hand to the windowsill. When he let go of it, Amato held onto the chipped wood with a trembling grip as if it were the only thing keeping him standing.
A few people were walking on the square below him. Still in the window, in the pretend-safety of his dark room, he did what he used to do as a child, wishing to disappear when visited by his father—he closed his eyes and imagined himself to be dead.
A ghost, or a spectre, or a mere forgotten shadow, for even a memory he knew he wouldn’t be after he was gone. He imagined what it would be like, a life in which he could be more. To wear the same noble clothes his brothers did, the latest of fashions, and walk with confidence to a carriage that could take him to wherever in the country, his only limitation being his own imagination. He imagined the way the sun would feel on his skin. To have the brush of shoulders against his own as he passed through a crowd, and noises all around, and warmth. The taste of years lost, or never had at all.
“Mister Amato,” Basil said, tugging at his sleeve, and he opened his eyes. “When we weren’t working, me and the boys used to play on the streets. They aren’t like these, around Red Street. The alleys are more narrow and the buildings are all very tight and tall to house the most people possible, so it’s darker than this all the time. But we had fun. Damiano s—” He stumbled a bit. “Got us a ball, once. We could do a lot, kicking or throwing it. Sometimes the older boys liked beating each other, ‘cause if your face was fucked up, you got assigned to the other, not-dirty work. Damiano didn’t let them beat me, though.” Amato was stupidly grateful for that. Basil scoffed. “He didn’t even let me be part of their dares, like when they bet who’d be the first to drink from a puddle or mess with the butcher. He was no fun, sometimes, but he was the best, so I forgive him.”
Amato knew, by now, that babbling on and on about his life before was what Basil did to make him too distracted to panic. It worked: Amato’s eyes were open, and he was so close to the window he could feel the sun escaping through the glass and seeping onto his skin, and all he could do, in that blessed moment he never thought he would feel, was send the boy a glance.
“Do you cry because you miss them?”
“I cry,” he said, and paused. “I cry because your brother is a cunt, sir.”
Amato stared at him, shocked, and surprised even himself when a startled laugh left his mouth after a beat. “He can be,” he agreed, chuckling, and Basil relaxed his shoulders. He sent Amato a grateful look.
“Do you see that spot?” he asked, pointing and watching Amato when he nodded. Basil turned his face towards it. “Every seventh day of the month, there’s a puppet show for the kids. The cook helps me slip away to watch it, when she can. And there’s the baker’s shop. I knew ‘em even before, when your brother only rented me for the day. When I was slipping away in the morning, he always let me have the old bread from the day before to share with the boys. Don’t—don’t know if you’d like me saying it, but that corner is where some of the older whores stay. Not a lot of them. The guards don’t like ‘em if they let themselves be seen, but the ones I see are always kind to me. They like patting my head, they do. And that’s where the guards patrol with their horses. They don’t like us that much. Street shit, they call us. Can tell when we are from Red Street. But one of them let me pet their horse once.”
Amato felt his features going soft and fond, watching the view with Basil’s eyes. The kid turned to him.
“It’s scarier when it’s night,” he admitted. “But it isn’t deadly. I don’t know what they told you, but it isn’t even that scary, if you aren’t small like me.”
“Or you don’t look like me.”
Basil shook his head. “You’re a lord, ” he pronounced it with great emphasis. “You’re tall, even if you don’t eat to be as big as you could. They could say all kinds of cruel things behind your back, but they wouldn’t ever say or do it to you.” He blinked. “Sir.”
Amusement tugged at the corner of Amato’s lips. He touched the top of Basil’s head, which he had never dared to do before.
“You speak too much.”
“Not around your brothers,” he promised, bright-eyed. Basil smiled at him. “Will we do this again?”
“Why?”
“You asked before.”
“Your answer simply wasn’t that good, kid.”
There’s something sly in his eyes. Basil said, “And if I say you’re just too pale, sir?”
“I’d say that’s the last of my problems.”
Basil grinned. “But will you do it? For me?”
Amato shook his head. “Only with the candles blown out.”
The boy took it as a victory anyway.
-
He watched the outside.
During the day, Amato only did it with Basil next to him, and in the night, even when it was so much darker and the streets emptier, he could only dare to do it peeking through the closed curtains, gripping the heavy cloth. It terrified him. It made the fog of his mind retreat and that made the very crux of what he was so very afraid he was left a boy again, raw and full of senseless dreams.
He didn’t know what he was watching. He didn’t know the world, not at all.
The distant scenes danced in front of his eyes, all the more tantalizing and sun-touched. People made crowds down in the busy days, shoving against one another and gathering together to watch the puppet shows, and to check boarded notices when the guards left them, and pull themselves up stone benches to make announcements themselves, and they parted crowds to make their way, unknowing of how lucky being able to be one in between many made them. They strolled along lazily, and ran through as fast as wips, which Amato knew better than he would ever know the real feeling of running, and they galloped through the streets in their horses, which Amato knew even less of.
They lived. That, Amato knew nothing about, besides knowing that when Basil slipped into his room at night, shaking, the trust of the act made him proud as he’d never been before, and that something about it felt like being awake for the first time.
He told Basil to go watch the next show and that felt right, right there in the happiness of the beaming smile he received as an answer. Amato so much as dared to keep an eye on the boy as he stood with the other children, to see the puppets. He thought them silly from so far away. He wondered if he would feel different, if he could truly see them—he wondered what it would feel like, to stand behind Basil with a hand on his shoulders, as he saw others do with the children gathered there. Wondered how small the chances were of it not ending up with the show being cut short.
He knew who Basil was because he had watched him leave the house. Amato’s vision was not so good as to completely tell what was happening, and he had to squint when, after the show ended and Basil was coming back, someone walked to the boy. He had to think for far too long before he recognized it was Andrea taking the boy’s arm in a far too tight grip, pulling him back to the house.
He didn’t need to wonder about the violence the exchange promised. In that, Andrea had acted just like their father.
To get up was instinct, gripping at his cane as he snapped his room’s door open. The mere image of Basil being grabbed and dragged so carelessly had made the urgency pound at his heart, only, as Amato got to the stairs, he stopped. He stood there, where the line between the family and him had always been drawn, never to be crossed by Amato. It felt like his father was laughing at him, because why did he get up? What did he think he could ever do?
All he’d been doing for months was ignoring the question of what Andrea wanted with Basil. All he’d been doing for years was refusing to cross the lines drawn by the dead.
He took a step down and stopped again, clinging to the wall. Took a deep breath before he tried even one more step, because he was useless, and he was no more than a cripple, and there was something so wrong about his brain that the simple idea of going down some stairs made everything inside him want to shrivel up and die.
Getting to the second floor seems like torture, so slow, if Basil had been in real danger then Amato could have as well as have left him to die. The fact that he managed to get so close to the end made it all the more embarrassing when, on just the last steps, he stumbled and fell on his knee, a startled curse leaving his lips. It left him shaking, reeling at the sharp pain, when hands helped him pull himself up.
The mousy young maid—Francesca. She stared at him, her face pale and horrified. “Sir! Oh, sir, sir, what happened—”
Amato managed to scowl and spit out, “Basil’s with Andrea.”
She shook.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“He is,” he spat. “So bring me to them.”
She nodded, running to help him and guide him through a house he owned and didn’t know, a house that he had spent his entire life in without so much as going into more than half of it, unknown hallways with turns he didn’t know where led him, doors to rooms he could only imagine what were, walls lined by family paintings that didn’t show him. When Francesca stopped, she stared at him.
“It’s his room,” she said, “but I don’t know if—”
Amato threw it open and was met with the sign of Andrea keeping Basil under him in the bed, a hand around his neck.
Andrea let go of him, eyes wide. Basil—who seemed so small next to Andrea, who seemed so young and so much like a little boy that it made Amato sick—scrambled away, gasping for air and holding his neck, red-faced. When he looked at Amato, there was fear. It was the fear that made it. The hint of hopeless despair, as if Basil somehow thought that would end up badly for him, not Andrea.
“What are you doing down here?” Andrea snapped, getting off the bed. “You cannot be down! This is not allowed!”
Basil’s arm would bruise. Amato knew it would, from a plentitude of gripping holds he had received as a child that left him bruised and empty. His breathing was frantic and his eyes wild, but his face was growing less red. He was whole. It was all that kept Amato standing still.
“Francesca.” He spoke it in a low voice, but the woman bolted upright, her eyes so wide there was no doubt she had no idea Amato knew her name. Before Basil, he hadn’t, and the thought churned inside him. “Get the guards, will you?”
Andrea started, “Amato—”
“The house is mine,” he said, and tried not to react when Francesca slipped away behind him. He knew he was trembling just as badly as the woman. “So was the money used to rent this boy. I can decide who stays here and you and Adamo, at the moment, aren’t welcomed.”
“The house is yours,” Andrea repeated, full of disbelief, a desperate laugh leaving his lips. “Yours? You know nothing. Mother left you everything because she knew if I had received it, I would have kicked Adamo out, and so would he have done it to me if he were the heir. Mother left you everything because she knew you were so weak and pathetic that it would make us play nice. Do you not understand that? Do you think anything is truly yours? You think a—”
“I think,” he interrupted, his voice cracking, “that what your mother thought of me matters nothing to the lawyers with whom she left her last will.”
“You do not even understand what you are saying. You know nothing. You do not understand how a household is run. You do not understand what those little whores are for. You look at me and say anything is yours? You tell me to go away because you want my bitch?”
Basil flinched. The image would be stitched into Amato’s head forever.
“I tell you to go away,” he said, “because guards are being called and the place is under my name, whether I know how to run it or not.”
“That’s not how it works—”
“It is,” Basil said, his voice shaking. “It is, ‘cause if your brother took you to court for all the money you took and lied about what you used for, you know who’d win.”
Took and lied. Amato’s eyes went from Basil to Andrea.
“Took,” he repeated out loud. “What did you take?”
Andrea’s eyes were blown wide, his lips shiny and puffy. He looked frenzied in a way Amato had never known his brother to be.
With disgust, he scoffed, “Nothing—”
“A lot,” corrected Basil and there was a desperate edge to his voice. He turned to Amato. “You have to believe in me, sir. Please. The finances they show you ain’t—”
“I believe,” he said softly and, to Andrea, “and I believe the guards don’t patrol so far, so perhaps you should find Adamo before this gets out of hand.”
“You do not know,” he spat again and when he went by Amato in the doorway, Andrea shoved him, which would perhaps be nothing more than the most childish of reactions if not for Amato’s bad leg, which made it a painful thing, taking away his balance and making his stumble against the door, hitting his (also terrible) hip onto the heavy wood.
Basil ran to him.
“Amato?” he asked, his eyes wide and panicked. “Oh, oh, are you—”
Amato blinked slowly.
“Basil,” he said and his voice felt far away. “I think I need to be back inside now.”
The boy’s nod was fervent and there was little time to even think before he was helping Amato back up the stairs he never should have gone down, to the hallways he never was supposed to leave, the run that was his birthright and his tomb. Amato was shaking so terribly he knew it was scaring Basil as the boy led him to the bed. Sitting made him aware of his body as he hadn’t allowed himself to be before, when panic and protectiveness had ruled his thoughts, and it crashed down as he gasped and hugged himself, leaning forward. He rocked a bit, closing his eyes.
The masters will kill you, he thought, although there were no masters. There was only him, and a boy no older than fourteen his little brother had hit, had touched, had called his whore in such a way it left no doubt (I’m not the first, Basil had said, Andrea had rented plenty of them before me). The tears burned. The sobs hurt as they left his throat.
“Mister Amato?” The kid’s voice was small. It sounded one breath away from crying. “Mister, I’m sorry, mister, I’m sorry, can I touch you?”
“Oh, Basil,” he gasped and he must have nodded, because soon, there were arms around his chest and a child all but burying himself against Amato.
Basil sobbed.
“Thank you,” he cried out. “Thank you, thank you, thank you—”
Tentatively, Amato put his own arms around his shaking shoulders and pulled him closer.
-
“He rented you,” Amato said, when eyes had long become too dry, and guards had come and gone, and Basil had been carefully wrapped around a mantle by Francesca and both were given some fresh tea to warm their nerves. He watched the boy, throat dry, and repeated, “He rented you. For sex.”
Basil’s nod was tiny and he looked anywhere that wasn’t Amato’s way.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” he whispered. His voice sounded as dry and wrecked as Amato’s usually did. “I didn’t think—you were very kind to me. I thought you knew and you wanted me in your room for it, and then I knew you didn’t and wouldn’t, but I didn’t think you’d want me anywhere near you if you knew. So I kept my mouth shut. It’s stupid.”
Amato scowled, because he didn’t know what other expression he could ever make.
“You’re here,” he told him, gruffly, because he didn’t want to sound weepy. “So I do want you here, even knowing.”
Basil sniffed, wiping his runny nose with his sleeve. “I’m street shit,” he said. “The guards aren’t wrong.”
“I don’t know enough about outside to know what that means,” admitted Amato. “Suppose I will judge you for what I know, and that is that my brother has been a cunt.” Basil let out a watery laugh. Amato sent him a soft look. “How’s your throat?”
“He didn’t strangle me or anythin’. He tried, but he just knows how to choke, and he’s weak about it.” It was no reassurance, but Basil shrugged as if it was. Amato pursed his lips.
“Should I even dare to ask what else my brothers have lied about?”
Basil looked up with red-rimmed, swollen eyes. “I thought you knew at first, too. Couldn’t believe myself when I started to think you didn’t.”
Because, as it turned out, Francesca, who had brought him his meals every day for the last ten years and made sure nothing in his room was spoiled or soiled even when he was in his lowest of lows, was a slave. So was their cook, who sneaked Basil sweet little treats behind Andrea’s back, and half the kitchen staff, and both his brothers’ personal servants.
They’d promised him they’d freed all their family slaves, the same way they’d promised no children would be forced to work under his roof, and just like it’d been with Basil, Amato had been so blind in his misery and shame that he had failed every slaved servant they had kept right behind his back.
It had been years of weekly meetings being shown every cent they supposedly spent. Years being shown what those same servants were paid. Basil left him only to slip quickly into Andrea’s office and, reading the books himself for the first time, the depth of their betrayal made Amato’s hands shake—ten slaves, they’d kept, and used every coin they said they’d used for their wages to buy the best of clothes and food, to throw parties and gamble away, to drink and snort. To buy children.
Amato thought he’d been keeping Basil safe by taking him from Andrea during the day, but that wasn’t true, was it? He was sent away at night. For what his little brother had been using the boy, it was more than proper to call for him late. For what his brother had been doing to him, it was no wonder the boy came crawling back to Amato after. No wonder he’d cling to Amato at that moment, ducking under his arm, looking for any little safety.
Amato petted his arm warily.
“There,” he said, stiff.
“You’d have freed them,” said Basil. “If you knew.”
“I thought I had.” The admission was filled with embarrassment now he knew just how naive he had been for so many years. Amato closed his eyes. The long breath he took burned in his lungs. “Basil.”
“Sir.”
He said it like his parents’ slaves used to say master. How had Amato not noticed that? When he opened his eyes, Basil’s were as red as his cheeks, and as full of trust as they were full of misery. “You will not go back to that workhouse.”
Basil sniffed.
“I’m a shitty companion.”
“Certainly not.”
“Am.” He sent him a small glance. “I’m just a prostitute, sir. I know you don’t know a lot about the outside, but street shit like me doesn’t get much better than that.”
“You would be a good doctor,” was all Amato could dumbly say, because Basil would.
He shrank into himself.
“Please, don’t be cruel. I just—I just talk a lot. I know I do. I didn’t mean to tell you that, I know it’s just some dumb joke the other boys tell sometimes. I can’t help you. I can’t do anything for you.”
“You were the first reason I ever had to get out of this room,” he replied, keeping his voice firm and doing all he could not to make it sound grumpy. “You will not be returning to the workhouse. You will stay here, you hear?”
He would stay, and Amato would learn what it was that he had to do to fix all Andrea and Adamo had broken.
-
Getting out of that room remained the hardest part of it all. He needed Basil by his side and Francesca by the stairs, and he needed the woman to be looking somewhere else than his face. It was not so much the physical chore of it, as a deep unsettling sensation that crawled through his body as he did it, something that sank into his skin and made him desperate to scratch it out. He was grateful that Basil held his arm. He was grateful that Basil grounded him in reality.
“One of the proper bedrooms should be prepared for you,” Francesca said at the end of the stairs, looking at the wall by Amato’s side instead of at his face directly.
Amato swallowed.
“Basil’s things should be brought to Andrea’s room.”
The boy in question sent him a confused look. “Will we sleep together?”
“You will sleep there.” Amato pursed his lips. He fought to get the words out, “I will take Adamo’s bedroom.”
“Sir—”
Amato thought, for the first time, that Basil might have bad memories relating to that room. Scowling, he huffed, “You can choose somewhere. Not my problem. But I cannot take it,” the thought of having the master bedroom for himself, with all its quiet luxuries and amenities, was enough to make his stomach hurt, “so at least you could enjoy it.”
Basil wetted his lips. “Are you sure?”
Amato sent him the smallest of smiles, hoping that keeping it small would keep it from looking too hideous. “Quite, kid.”
He suffered enough taking Adamo’s room for himself. It was too big and too comfortable, and too bright. Amato had to ask Francesca to change the curtains to something that hid him better and he still stayed far from it, shaking and cringing at the thought of getting close. But it was closer to Basil and closer to the household Amato had learned he had so terribly failed, and he knew if he wanted to fix something, he would need to stop hiding upstairs. Even if he deeply hated that knowledge. Even if he spent so many hours of his days thinking about how he wished to hide. It couldn’t be an option anymore.
Francesca cried in front of him when he offered her freedom and a position, if she wished to stay.
“Master Adamo won’t come back?” she asked in between sobs. “Truly, sir?” and when he promised he wouldn’t, she found it easy to say she wanted to stay, yes, please, as long as she was paid. She looked Amato right in the eyes when Basil said Amato had been told she already was.
Adamo’s personal servant accepted a heavy sum as compensation for his unpaid work those last three years and took his freedom to leave, as did half the kitchen staff. Amato was glad for it—meant those that stayed, at least didn’t stay for fear the offer wasn’t real.
Basil, of course, stayed. Basil followed Amato like a small shadow, staying in his room in the days Amato couldn’t get out of bed, reading quietly by his bed and helping Amato drink his medicine; and standing right by his side every time Amato braved going downstairs to the first floor. Sometimes, he still found his way to Amato’s bed, crying from a nightmare, a memory, a fear.
The cook, who was some years older than him and had been a kitchen slave since their father’s time, from what he was able to gather from the old books, looked him in the face with soft eyes when given her freedom, no disgust or fear to be found, and only told Amato, “Your mother was a lovely woman, sir. She helped train me when I was only seven and I still remember her kindness. Did they tell you where she was buried?”
Of course they hadn’t.
It was an unmarked grave in the house’s backyard, but he had always known it would be. She—Leonora, she said—walked him to it, holding him because the ground was difficult with his cane, and she pointed out the exact spot his damned mother had been laid to her damned rest. There was no way to know it was the right spot. Not only was it unmarked, but Amato had only agreed to be outside at the dead of night, when it was so dark he couldn’t be seen and they, as such, could hardly see which specific spot of dirt they were looking at. Leonora’s certainty and her stories of many, many slaves coming to pray for her soul for the last thirty years and so left little space for him to doubt her.
“Did they tell you her name?”
He swallowed through the lump in his throat. Amato couldn’t speak, couldn’t even dream of making a single animal sound, and so he simply shook his head. Leonora squeezed his arm, warm and solid as his mind attempted to drift.
“Filippa,” she whispered. “We called her Filippa, and she called you her little sparrow.” Her eyes looked his face over carefully, and when she spoke again, Leonora had dipped her voice even lower, as if afraid of being overheard by long-dead, all-seeing masters, “She helped raise me and I know, I know she wouldn’t have accepted the way they raised you. She loved you, the only time she got to hold you.”
And, though Leonora seemed embarrassed to say out loud, they both knew Amato had been visibly deformed even then, a squirming newborn in her arms. Half-formed, his stepmother called. Mishappen, for how his brothers had described. And from the father, there’d always only been one phrase: a sin made into monstrous flesh.
“Filippa’s little Amato,” Leonora said, her voice soft.
“Would it have been the name she chose?”
“They never would’ve let her choose anything,” Leonora admitted honestly. Her face was kind. He still wasn’t sure how to take it, the kind face of someone who knew his mother and still thought him worthy of gentleness. “You would always have been her little sparrow, no matter what.”
“Years,” he said, “and I was never brave enough to visit her.”
She hummed. “No,” she agreed. “She would’ve forgiven you. She wouldn’t believe it, her own son freeing this house. She would’ve been prouder than she knew how to handle.”
If Amato didn’t manage to choke down his tears, Lenora and his mother’s grave were the only ones to know of it, and the cover of darkness was the only alibi they needed.