For all that she loved her man, and the son he gave her, Elisabeth Fahrenheit née Tepes was sick to her stomach with having to deal with his paranoia. She was certain that Adrian hadn't come with her because he was suddenly interested in the herbs that made up her trade or how the young blacksmith's wife was carrying her new baby. No, Adrian was sweet and polite, and so very, very easily manipulated. Vlad had no doubt suggested that he ought to accompany his mother to market, and perhaps run around in the shadows. Her poor baby probably thought the idea was his own. The Volvoide was a master at getting people to do what he wanted, and he had both his natural and unnatural lives to perfect the art.
Occasionally, she thought she could see a glimpse of misplaced shadow, or a blur of pretty, pale hair, but it was always gone before she could turn her head. Lisa bit back a sigh and turned her attention to the turnips. Adrian hated them, he hated anything that grew in the ground, but Lisa loved them, and therefore Vlad loved them by extent. He couldn't eat, but he always made an effort for her, even if it was a spoonful of broth or a bite of very rare steak.
He always denied that it made him ill, or whatever passed for illness among the undead. He was such a foolish man, but he was her foolish man.
A passing woman clipped her shoulder and Lisa stumbled, nearly knocking the small booth over. She bit back the curl of her lip as she helped the matronly old woman pick up a few scattered root vegetables. She had gotten herself into this situation; Vlad made it clear that everything that happened between them was entirely up to her. They had never married, but what use would 'to death do us part' have for a vampire? Let the church women have their scorn and sneers, she would keep her man and their precious little boy.
Lisa caught a flicker of shadow in the corner of her eye. Her precious little boy, who was going to get cuffed on the ear the second she managed to catch him. She turned back to her vegetables and payed for the turnips. The sensation of being watched grew as she wandered through the stalls. She was looking at some particularly nice wool, perfect for a new coat for Adrian, when she felt someone come up behind her. Lisa smiled.
"Boo!" She shouted, jumping around and flashing her hands up. Then the face registered -not her son, definitely not her son- and Lisa felt her face go red with embarrassment.
"Father Constantinescu, my apologies," she stammered out, "I though-"
"You," he cut her off with a wave of his hand, bedecked with sparkling rings, "were told to leave town."
Lisa drew up straight. At her full height, she could stare down her nose at the man, if only slightly. "I will not be harassed and bullied from the village where I was born."
He stared at her, but a mere man was nothing to the woman who lived with the Dragon, with the Devil himself, and he glanced away after a few tense seconds.
Constantinescu spat at her feet. "We do not welcome the Devil's whores and witches here!"
"I am no witch!" she hissed through her clenched teeth, "and I am no whore!"
"Do you deny your bastard then?"
Deny Adrian? Her precious baby? She had nursed him and held him when he cried and chased away the terrors of the night with a candle and a nursery tale.
"He is my son!"
Father Constantinescu grabbed her arm and squeezed hard enough to bruise. "He is a monster!"
"How dare you!" Lisa wrenched her arm out of his grip.
"How dare you! You bring the Devil here with your witchery and you live with him up in that mountain; you are hardly a human anymore, let alone a woman! You do not deserve to live here!"
He shoved her and she fell to the ground, her shopping scattering in the dirt around her. The villagers were distinctly not looking at her, or the priest. Lisa saw a few nervous grimaces, a few sneers. She saw Adrian.
"Leave her alone!" He hit Constantinescu with all the ineffectual force a child had to offer, his tiny fists hammering useless against the embroidered vestments.
"Brat!" He raised his hand and Adrian cowered, his hands coming up over his head.
"Enough," Lisa said, thunder behind her words. The market went silent. Her voice had tamed a demon. It could certainly tame a man.
Constantinescu paused, a flicker of fear twisting his lip. Adrian ran to Lisa, hiding behind the bulk of her skirts. She calmly crouched over and collected her basket and vegetables.
"Do not," Lisa wet her lips, "touch my son. Father.""
"Out," Constantinescu's face was white with fear. "Get out."
Lisa reached down and found Adrian's hand, tugging him gently. The villagers parted in front of her. She squared her shoulders and held her head high. It wasn't until they were outside the gates that she felt tears prickle at the corners if her eyes.
"Ma?" Adrian's voice was thick. Lisa dropped to her knees and embraced him. He buried his face in her shoulder, sniffling quietly.
"Oh, shh, shh, baby," she ran her fingers through his hair. It had gotten all knotted. "It's alright."
"I hate them." His voice was muffled by cloth.
Lisa pulled away from him and held him by his shoulders. Adrian's face was red and puffy.
"Adrian…"
"I do," he stamped his foot, "I hate them all. Why don't they like you? Why don't they like father?"
"Adrian, listen to me," Lisa gently turned his chin, "they're scared. They don't understand and it terrifies them."
"Then how do we make them understand?" Desperation and frustration were etched across his face. It was cruel, for a child to live in a world that forced him to understand why people hated him, and why he shouldn't hate them back.
Lisa stood up and brushed the pine needles from her dress. It was ruined, perhaps beyond repair. She frowned. Perhaps one of the immortal crones who lurked in the shadowy corners of Vlad's castle knew how to fix it. She pulled a handkerchief from the pouch in her waistband and wiped Adrian's face, then dabbed at the corners of her eyes.
"Adrian," she pulled him to his feet, "you can't change someone's thoughts. They have to do that on their own."
Adrian trudged after her, towards the mountain path to the castle. Gravel crunched under their shoes.
"But," Adrian hurried up the path, "it isn't fair."
"No," Lisa agreed, "sometimes it isn't."
They reached their carriage, a sturdy wooden construct manned by a ghostly coachman and his equally undead horse. He bowed to her, the hollow pits of his eyes lingering on the short tears in her dress. Lisa frowned. Perhaps she would claim she had tripped. Vlad was short-sighted when it came to her. Of course he knew the consequences of massacring a village, he was a strategist at heart, but in this case, in her case, he would very easily ignore them.
Bitterness welled in her breast. Perhaps she wanted him to ignore them, too. It was easy to expose wisdom to Adrian. It was less easy to let go of the hurt and see the big picture.
It took over an hour to scrub the dirt off of Adrian, herself, and then the floor afterwards.
"Mother, please," Adrian whined through the thick towel on his head.
"What's that?" Lisa ruffled the towel, "I can't hear you."
Adrian had inherited his father's color, but Lisa's dense hair. It was slow to dry, and easy to knot. She flicked the towel away and hung it over the rim of the tub.
"Come here, dear," Lisa retrieved a wide toothed comb from the vanity and patted her knees. Adrian slumped over, dragging the hems of his trousers through the remnant puddles. She ran the comb loosely through his hair, tugging gently through the knots.
"I still hate them. Is that bad?"
Lisa paused, and laid the comb back on the vanity.
"Do you think it's bad?" She divided his hair into three sections and began to braid it.
"I- no! They hate us. They hurt you. You've never done anything to them. I didn't do anything to them!"
"So it's okay to hate them back?"
"Yes," Adrian stomped his feet, "they hated us first."
"Adrian," Lisa tied off his hair with a length of cord, and turned him around to face her, "I know it's hard to not want to hate them, but we need to be the bigger people."
"Why aren't they the bigger people? They started it."
"But we can end it. Life is hard enough without an endless cycle of hate."
Adrian refused to meet her eye.
"Even if you can't stand them, you don't need to make their lives worse."
"They make our lives worse."
Lisa closed her eyes. Was he wrong? No, but he wasn't right, either.
"And they make our lives worse, and we make their lives worse, and they make our lives worse, and the cycle spins on. Just because you can do something, doesn't mean it needs to be done."
Adrian's eyes flickered back and forth. He would understand, eventually. But right now, he didn't need to think about revenge and comeuppance.
"Come on," she picked him up and sat him on his feet, "why don't you run along while I cook something for us?"
Adrian stuck his tongue out. "Bleh. Soup is gross."
"Oh? And what would you like?"
He chewed on his lip. "Pheasant? Or goat?"
It would take too long to butcher anything and have it done before Vlad woke up. There was a bowl of pork drippings from yesterday, perhaps she would use that.
"I'll see what I can do. Now you," she tapped him on the nose, "go on, or I'll have to ask the librarian to give you more work to do."
Adrian was out the door before she finished her sentence. Lisa smiled to herself and slowly stood up. She wasn't old by any means, but she wasn't young enough to be tossed around on the dirt. There was a prickling aching along her back that promised no small amount of soreness tomorrow. Her arm though, that had already begun to bruise. She could distinctly see fingers in the mottled blue.
Lisa pulled her sleeve down.
She pulled a kirtle over her underdress and slippers over her hose, then headed down the hall, to the lift. The mechanical contraptions Vlad employed to move about his castle didn't even make her nervous anymore, but it took little effort to recall clinging to the floor in terror as the ground itself began to move. She stepped into the basket and pulled the lever down, holding onto the gate to keep from stumbling at the first jolt.
Her arm ached. She ought to make a poultice.
The lift thudded to a stop and Lisa stepped out, towards the kitchens. The majority of Vlad's expansive castle was abandoned, save for a few demonic maids and those who studied the black arts in his expansive library. The walk was lonely, but not intimidating. The last remnants of daylight poured wholeheartedly through the windows, bathing the rich tapestries in golden light.
The kitchens were equally as abandoned. Vlad had no use for food anymore, and whatever his servants ate, it wasn't what Lisa ate. He had offered to acquire a cook for her, but she declined. Cooking, once it became a leisure and not a necessity, was enjoyable. Besides, free run of the kitchens meant she never had to share medical workspace with whatever magics the student witches concocted in the laboratory.
Lisa had a pottage boiling over the wood stove by the time the sun finally sank behind the horizon.
"Adrian told me what happened at the market."
She closed her eyes and sighed. "Vlad."
Vlad stood, equidistant between her and the door. He looked calm, but it was the sort of placid surface that hid riptides beneath.
"Lisa, you don't want me to destroy them?"
"I," she paused, "I don't know what I want. I want them dead and I don't want to feel that way. I want to be left alone. Mostly I want the hate to go away. I told Adrian he shouldn't try to change the way that thought, that they had to do that for themselves. But I find myself doing just that. I feel… conflicted."
"I won't make any decisions harder for you. I'm not going to force the issue."
She walked over to him and cupped his cold cheek with her palm. "You're kind to me, dear. I'm being ambivalent and I hate it. I hate that I'll have to make a decision about this eventually."
"I wouldn't kill them. Not if it would hurt you."
"I know, dear."
The pot lid clattered to the floor. Lisa jumped.
"Ohh," she rushed over to pull the pot off of the heat, "it's boiled over."
"Are you sure you don't want a cook?" Vlad shut the vent on the stove, stifling the flame, "It'd make your life easier."
"My life is easy enough, thanks," Lisa dipped a wooden spoon in the bowl and tasted her pottage. Passable, at the very least. Hopefully Adrian wouldn't complain much.
"Adrian!" she shouted, "come eat!"
Vlad took two bowls to the grand hall of his castle. They only ever used a fraction of the long table, but it felt proper to use it, instead of waiting at whatever bench they happened upon. Lisa stood in the center of the kitchens, and fisted her hand in the fabric of her dress, trying to force down the uneasiness in the pit of her stomach.
Lucky. She felt very, very lucky.
It wasn't a good feeling.
Hum is medieval slang for a strong liquor.
Baggage is slang for a loose woman.
Please do not ever try to consume straight lye, no matter what bad language you happen to hear. Historically, religion-based curses (hell, damn, etc) were considered much worse than body-based curses (ass/arse, shit, etc.)
I gave Lisa the last name of Farenheit, because I feel like Alucard would have taken something of his mother's name.
Pottage is a sort of medieval stew, made from vegetables cooked in a gravy base.