They simply wouldn't stop staring. Not that Marcello blamed them. With an awakened sense of realization, he wondered why no one tried to threaten him, stab him, kill him. The citizens of Trodain instead gave him a wide berth as the guardsmen walked alongside.
"Their Highnesses weren't sure if you'd be visiting them, beggin' your pardon, but posted us to watch out for you," said the armored gentleman to his left.
"We was gonna stop the watch in a few hours until you showed up," his companion seconded.
"I appear to be fond of continually defying everyone's expectations, including my own," Marcello murmured. Louder, he asked, "Is everyone else present and accounted for?"
"Yes, sir. Everyone else got here a few days ago."
Well, that would at least save on repeating himself more than once. Steeling his courage for the task, he clenched a travel bag tight in his hands.
When he told the orphanage workers he'd be visiting Trodain, the uniform blank looks conveyed their confusion, if not their surprise. He never highlighted the reason for his sojourn, but he gathered a few of them came to the correct conclusion.
Whether a delusion of his own imaginings or no, a number of the staff seemed...kinder? Sympathetic? Hardly. Not to someone like him. Not to someone still privately reeling with newly discovered grief.
Lest his mind travel down that painful path littered with broken glass, Marcello mentally drew himself in and steadied his hand. All he wanted to do was deliver the journal to the people who really ought to read it. They're his family. They would appreciate having his last words to always have on hand to read.
He'd read a few more stories, reading on the adventures the party experienced on the way to saving the world. Did they really find a land of Dragovians? Fight a ghost of a pirate? Traverse the castle in the sky?
Some stories even Angelo never quite told. After a usual ramble about the orphanage, several pages appeared ripped from near the spine of the book. A large sentence dominated the next page:
--IT WAS ONLY A DREAM.--
More tales of events past and that time's present continued from there.
"They're through here, sir."
"Thank you." Marcello proceeded through the garden alone.
A brilliant sun dipped in the west, painting the sky pink and purple. Lanterns already stood lit in their posts. The heady scent of flowers filled the air, almost making him sneeze. Winding his way through the sculpted paths of foliage, Marcello reached the end of the garden and the beginning of the open swatch of grassy hill. At the top of hill sat a majestic tree. The type, he couldn't determine, but it was the kind of tree that invited people to sit underneath it, shaded by its mighty branches.
He froze. I can't do this.
How many times in the last few days did he tell himself this? He'd honestly lost count. Trembling in place, his gaze wandered over the length of the tree.
I said I couldn't enter the room and I did. I said I couldn't touch anything in the room and I did. I said I wouldn't take the book and I did. I said I wouldn't read it and I did. I said I didn't want to know and understand and I think I might be. I said I didn't want to visit them on the anniversary of his death and here I am. So pick up your bloody feet, Marcello, and WALK.
One. Two. Three. Four. Step by painful step, he drew ever closer to the picnic.
Wait, picnic?
On the opposite side of the tree, Akagi, Medea, Trode, Yangus and Jessica gathered around a spread of food, drinking, talking and occasionally laughing.
Well. He certainly hadn't expected this. It might make the task marginally more bearable.
No one spotted him until he nearly stepped on them. King Trode, who looked remarkably the same despite being human now, saw him first. "Well! Here's a face we weren't sure of seeing. Marcello!"
"King Trode," Marcello replied. "You look...much improved without a curse."
The others in turn turned to look at him, displaying surprise. After a period of unbroken silence, Jessica ventured, "Marcello. We had no idea if you'd be here, but we saved a place for you."
"Thank you." He noted any kind of levity before his arrival abruptly vanished. Not surprising I cast a dark pall on everything. Facing away from the tree seemed the best way to get this over with quickly.
"I'm glad you accepted my invitation," Akagi said. "You never responded, so we didn't know what to think."
"I would not have accepted it normally, save for recent events. I have found...oh forgive me, I didn't notice." With his mind elsewhere, Marcello failed to realize the bundle Medea held in her arms. "I suppose congratulations are in order?"
"Blimey! Another excuse for a round of drinks? Don't mind if I do!" The short, stout man, with looks not even some mothers could love, poured wine into goblets. "The guv's been tellin' us stories about 'is little one, Troicia."
"She is a darling thing, only fusses a bit here and there," said her mom, patting her on the back.
"Obviously gets her looks from you. Oh, maybe some Akagi thrown in there too," Jessica teased, sipping her goblet.
"You're too kind."
"My granddaughter's birth was quite the celebration a few months back! Of course she'll be the finest princess this kingdom has ever has. Well, saving my daughter, of course."
As Trode nattered on, Akagi raised his goblet and smiled wryly to Marcello. "Isn't it lovely to hear all these things about my daughter as though I had nothing to do with it?"
Not expecting the comment, Marcello nearly choked. It sounded so like something Angelo would say it took him off guard. He did say they all started bleeding into each other as the journey progressed. "Well, I believe you might have had just a little to do with it."
"That's why I tell people and then they go back to cooing over how beautiful she is."
"But she is so sweet," Jessica said, taking the tiny bundle from Medea's arms.
"Gettin' in some practice?"
"Shut your face, Yangus. You're disturbing Troicia."
So easy. It would be so easy to sit and relax here and imagine being welcomed in. But he had a task to fulfill. Setting the travel pack to the ground, Marcello slipped out the journal.
"Here. This really belongs to all of you. I happened upon it by chance at the orphanage."
"Let's see that." While Akagi picked up the book and idly thumbed through it, Jessica said, "So how are you getting on there?"
"At where? The orphanage? It proceeds as well as can be. We find homes for children, they sometimes get into trouble. The workers there truly care for their welfare. I've learned how to deal with more children afoot as I was growing up in the abbey."
"Oh, I remember that scheme! Too bad we never tied Charmless to a tree," Akagi said aloud, chuckling.
Several heads swiveled his way. "Whassit, guv?"
"It's a journal written by Angelo."
The simple statement resulted in a barely contained uproar of "let me see!"
Marcello could not quite restrain the curl of a smile at his lips as they all fought amongst themselves to read his brother's words. Yes, this is where this belongs. He'd wait until their attention became truly diverted, then quietly walk away, never to return.
"I remember some o' these tales! But 'e left out the one about poker."
Groans ensued. "Goddess, not the poker," Akagi sighed.
The former Templar captain froze in the act of rising, sitting himself quickly. A story not in the journal? The insatiable need to know more about the brother he'd lost forced him to abort his plan. "My brother was overly fond of the game. I never understood it."
"We didn't either. Even when he tried to teach us in..." The mage stilled her sentence and looked away.
"Taught you where?" Marcello asked.
Trode supplied the answer, his voice quiet. "Probably on that bloody Purgatory Island."
Angelo bit back a curse. "For the last time, two of a kind is good, three of a kind is better and flushes trump either of those. How hard can that possibly be to keep straight?"
"Wait wot about a straight now?"
"Goddess, I could MURDER you, Yangus!" The Templar would have continued his tirade if not for the ungentle yank upon his grey locks of hair. "Gah!"
"Would you settle down, choirboy! We're all new at this and trying to learn as best we can." Jessica resettled her pile of pebbles next to her cards. "It doesn't help the light isn't so good around here."
"I've forgotten how many points a large pebble is as opposed to a smaller one." The party leader squinted at his gathering of gravel scratched into the dungeon floor.
Steepling his hands over the bridge of his nose, Angelo inhaled and exhaled audibly for a few moments. "Perhaps I'm the one at fault here. We need to think about a change in scenery." Abruptly he leaped to his feet and walked in a circle around the party.
"First of all, imagine we're in somewhere like the Baccarat casino, only more costly and elegant. It's a private room, reserved for only the well-known players. The richest of woods makes up the intricately carved gaming table."
Jessica closed her eyes, seeing the room take shape behind her lids. "If it's a nice room like you say, I'm sure there's a lovely stand of flowers in the corner. Maybe some statues like my mother has in her home. Only much nicer."
"Now you're putting it together."
"Oh, wot about food? I hear the rich ristcrats get all kinds of food we only 'ere about!"
"Of course there is. This is a casino, after all. The sort of place that does anything to cater to the wealthy. All you need to do is wave up your hand and someone will flutter about, quick to get your order."
Eyes squeezed shut, Yangus waved his fingers in what he thought would be a genteel manner. "'Ey, miss bunnygirl, you mind gettin' me a mug of yer frothiest ale and some of yer best meat?"
"A little pedestrian in taste, Yangus, but you're getting the idea."
"Don't the rich usually wear all kinds of furs and silks? So all the men would be in heavy cloaks and Jessica would be in a dress that attracts all the men?"
Angelo chuckled. "Good point, Akagi. But I thought the way Jessica dressed attracted all men on general principle anyway."
"Listen you..!"
"What a childish game you're all indulging in."
High Priest Rolo's voice hacked away the casino into so many cobwebs of dream. Everyone opened their eyes and gazed upon the dirt floor, rock walls and iron bars of their prison. "I don't believe I asked your opinion," Angelo responded rudely.
"You didn't. I'm merely expressing it because I couldn't resist. A group of adults playing pretend. Don't you have any idea of what we're all in for here?"
Before anyone else had a time to think, the Templar stalked the distance to the High Priest and grabbed him roughly by the collar. "Listen here, you little bribetaker," he snarled. "I think everyone in this prison is aware of where we are and what we're in for. Do you honestly think I want to dwell every second of every day wondering what in the name of the Goddess my brother is doing up there with that staff in his hands? If he's still sane?
"I can't break metal with my hands, I can't pass through rock. My body can't leave this place, but I'll be damned if my mind can't take a break from this hellhole every so often! If all I can do is paint a picture, a beautiful picture of where I'd rather be, I'll do so. And I'm taking everyone I care about with me.
"You can sit and sniff to yourself about the position you lost, being my brother's bootlicker. We, on the other hand, will be wining and dining in the finest casino around, playing poker, a game for the civilized." Tossing the High Priest aside, Angelo went back to his seat and started dealing out another hand.
"Angelo," Akagi started.
Not looking up, the Templar dealt out the rest of the hand. "Gentlemen and lady, let's continue the game. And remember what I said about pairs, Yangus."
"Wot if I got two fives and Jess 'as got two sevens? Who wins then?"
Angelo's sigh seemed so heavy as to weight down the air. "Let me try this again..."
"I never did get all them rules straight. Even when 'e told 'em t' me over and over," Yangus said, sighing heavily.
"Although I gather trying to learn them under the most trying of conditions didn't help." Jessica looked pointedly at Marcello.
Well, finally someone decided to broach that subject. He'd wondered when that business would start. "I take it you mean me by that statement, Miss Albert? Because if you are, then yes, I know what I did to you all."
Oddly, to his eyes, Jessica seemed a bit taken aback. Did she think I'd argue the point? Pretend as if I didn't know what she was referring to?
"What, no preaching about how you know better? How we got what we deserved?"
"Oh, and what a truly glorious plan that turned out to be." Marcello's voice dripped in scorn. "String along the rich with promises in bribes while I was in turn strung along by Rhapthorne, reach the highest pinnacle of power only to have it swept away by my own hand. Well, to be fair, it was the Lord of Darkness' hand, but he used my body and my ambition to do it. I'm sure you can relate to that kind of situation, can you not, Miss Albert?"
Silence ensued, only broken by the soft babbling of little Troicia.
"I don't think we expected you to come here and admit any wrongdoing," Medea ventured finally.
Marcello dropped his gaze to the ground. "It wasn't my intention of doing so. Only...only that these past few days I've had cause to rethink a great many of my sins. But the one thing I came here for was to give you Angelo's journal. It deserves to be with the people he loved the best. He says as much, if you page through it."
"We appreciate that, Marcello. But can I ask you something?"
"Certainly, Your Highness."
"Don't you think that you yourself are..?"
"'Ey granddad! Lookit this here." Yangus waved the journal under his nose. "Some of the pages 'ave been ripped out."
The former Templar captain shrugged. "It was like that when I first paged through it. I don't know what it means any more than you do. Maybe he needed the paper as notes. I really couldn't tell you."
Dusk settled on the grounds, the lanterns now providing much needed illumination. A scattering of fireflies flashed in the air, creating a sea of small moving stars.
"You seem very different, you know."
"I what? How so, prince?"
Akagi gestured toward him with his hand. "It's in your face. All your anger seems to be gone. Replaced with something else."
A retort started on Marcello's lips but died quickly. It's hard to be angry when you feel like you're bleeding from self-inflicted wounds.
"Well that's funny. Marcello, did you ever flip through this entire thing?"
"Flip through it? It stops almost three quarters in, so no."
The mage balanced the book on the tops of her thighs, opening the back cover. A small leather pocket pressed itself into the cover. "It's sealed with a symbol of some kind. It has to be some kind of magic because I can't budge it."
Curious, all assembled peered at the hidden pocket. "What do you suppose is in there?"
"I'm not sure, your Highness. But the symbol looks familiar."
"Oh, guv! I know wot it is. 'S that ring. You know, the one that got us inside the abbey from the old abbey? 'S wot it looks like."
Sighs escaped nearly everyone. "A Templar's ring? The only one we had is now with..." Jessica trailed off.
Had Marcello tried to speak at that exact moment, his voice would have failed. Taking a sip of wine, he tried again. "I have my captain's ring. When I found this book, I found the ring in a drawer. It might work." Fishing from his pocket, hand trembling, he offered it to the group. "Take it. See if it works."
"Should we be invading his privacy like this? Maybe it's something important," Medea fretted, patting her daughter on the back.
"It could be something he wanted us to have. He wouldn't know we had him...had him buried with his ring on," Akagi finished. He took the ring and fit it into the symbol.
It's not just me. The thought finally sunk into Marcello's mind. It's not just me who wishes he were still here. They just loved him all along, so it's much easier for them to grieve. Did they feel like the pain was so great it could rip them apart?
The pouch opened easily. "Let's see what we have here." Akagi reached inside and removed several pages of paper, the edges to one side ragged.
"'Ey, that's the pages tore up inside! Why'd 'e 'ide 'em like that?"
The deathly gasp from the prince of Trodain provided an answer as the pages fell from boneless fingers. On the topmost sheet, large slashes of ink formed one sentence that covered the paper:
-- Rhapthorne is waiting for me. --
To be continued...