Give Me Your Riches: Chapter Ten

Roland pressed his hand against the frame of the doorway of the auxiliary grounds entrance to the castle as he paused to catch his breath and steady his breathing. He had been summoned. He had been summoned by the King himself and Roland was terrified. He had only seen the King from afar, in parades or occasionally when he took walks around the grounds while Roland was working. It would be entirely out of character for the King to summon Roland, a lowly gardener, to be praised so the summons had immediately filled Roland with dread. In the hope of lessening the blow that was surely awaiting him, he had made quick time to the castle doors, pausing only now to brush his soil-stained hands against his pants and straighten his hair before walking into the castle.

The grounds of the Enchancian castle were never quite good enough for the king. They never would be. How could man-made work ever compete with magic the aristocracy had access to? But the King refused to provide the groundskeepers with any magical assistance. And so they continued to disappoint him and so the work hours continued to grow. The stress was becoming unbearable, but what could Roland do? He had to keep working. He had to continue providing for his family as best he could. Groundskeeping was his only skill and the meager money he made left no cent unspent. There would never be enough to move his family to another kingdom, or even to another town. He was stuck. Trapped under the bloated thumb of the King.

For several weeks, Roland had only seen a shadow of his family as he crept in and out of his home in the darkness of midnight or pre-dawn, praying not to disturb their slumbering. He knew that, more often than not, Ceres was awake when he left and when he returned. He sometimes caught her eyes, glistening faintly with tears, snapping shut as soon as he looked at her. She would conveniently shift away in her sleep when Roland leaned in to kiss her farewell. It left him feeling torn. Something was going on with her and he couldn't understand it. Children were supposed to bring such joy and yet she seemed listless, even when pretending to sleep. The two of them desperately needed to discuss the tension and distance that had grown between them. But it was so much easier to be two ships passing in the night, seeing and never speaking. And so Ceres continued to pretend to sleep and Roland continued to pretend he believed her as he left each day to lose himself in the impossible demands of his work.

Roland was escorted, not unkindly, by a guard into the Great Hall where the King, occasionally, listened to supplications from his people. But that was a joke, bitterly laughed at by villagers. The King didn't care for his people, no matter what facade he tried to occasionally tend to. Enchancia and its King did well enough without the love of its people. It was well defended and the people weren't starving. But it suffered from calculated neglect with just enough aid coming at just the right moment to quell the flames of hate and whispers of rebellion. It made Roland want to spit. A King was supposed to care for his people, to be involved and hands-on when the job required it. The people should be able to see their King as a man, just like them. They didn't deserve a pompous, egotist and the King didn't deserve them.

But for all Roland's dislike, distrust, and hate for his liege, standing mere feet away was unnerving enough to shake his rebellious resolve into submission before the King. King Cedric the Great.

King Cedric radiated threefold power. First, there was the power of his coin. He was impeccably clean and kempt, richly dressed, well fed and fit. A purple pendant was hanging around his neck on a long chain and a few rings weighed down his fingers. Then there was the power of his position as King. He sat upon a throne, made of rare dark wood inlaid with veins of gold with accented with a plush green cushion. From that throne, he held command and power over every person he saw, uncompromising in his own desires with little care for little else. Even being the youngest man in the room, he was intimidating. And then there was the power of his magic. It was said that everyone had the capacity to perform some level of magic, but it simply wasn't taught to the common folk. And King Cedric was said to be especially skilled. Even Roland could see it now that he stood this close to him, breathing in the same air; his Majesty seemed to quietly hum with magical energy, like heat shimmering off a hot stone. This threefold power made the King ooze a self-righteous confidence that unnerved Roland, chasing away his disdain and replacing it with a healthy amount of awed fear.

"Your Highness," the guard said, his voice weighted with respect, "this is the gardener you sent for." He urged Roland forward with a firm press against his shoulder and then stepped away, leaving Roland alone before the monarch.

King Cedric looked down at Roland. Roland, despite his near-constant personal feelings of loathing for the King, found it very difficult to meet his eye. He settled on staring at the King's chest, allowing his head to remain slightly dipped in a subservient posture. Roland hated himself for it, his skin immediately dripping in both self-loathing and sweat. The King continued to stare down at him, cruel and calculating. He made an offhanded gesture to the side door of the hall. It opened and a woman was escorted through it, a guard on each arm. Her face was flushed red with anger. While the guards may have been necessary to control her before, now she was calm. Rigid, but calm.

"I've been informed that...this belongs to you, gardener?"

Roland's mouth dropped open as his eyes darted between the King to his wife. He was unable speak, unable to form words on his tongue.

"She seemed to be having some sort of fit when she barged in," King Cedric said, idly spinning a golden ring around his finger. "She was screaming about how you've been so mistreated by the requirements of your station. That your work isn't fairly compensated." He locked eyes with Roland's, daring him to contradict his King. "Do you feel that way, gardener? For there are others who would happily shoulder the so-called burden of working for the crown. Others who would gladly accept its coin."

"N-n-no, your Majesty! No, please, no. I love my work here - m-m-my wife - stress. She's been so stressed, you see, we have twins and she - I apologize, your Majesty."

King Cedric narrowed his eyes in consideration of Roland's response and smirked. "I don't care, really."

Roland swallowed back bile, anxious and panicked at the prospect of losing his station. It was the only means of livelihood for his family. Forgoing his pride, he got down on his knees. King Cedric quirked a curious eyebrow.

"Please, your Majesty, I beg of you. My work is no burden. Please allow me to stay."

The satisfied tone that followed nearly made Roland sick upon the polished, marble floor as he bowed his head before his King. "Fortunately for you I'm feeling lenient this day. I warn you, however, to control your woman. Do not allow this to happen again, gardener."

"Y-yes, my King," Roland said with a deep bow as he stood. "Of course, my King. Never again, your Majesty." Roland was escorted out the door, Ceres and her guards alongside them. Once they were out the door, Roland asked one of them to pass a message along to his superiors that he needed to escort his wife home and would make up the missed time that evening

Ceres scoffed. Roland's eyes snapped to hers. One look, laden with embarrassment and anger, was enough to hold her tongue. They walked home in silence.

"Where are the children?" Roland asked woodenly as he opened the door to an empty house. He took his chair at the table and turned it around to straddle it, leaning his chest against the backing and scrubbing his hands over his face before resting them on his knees.

"Mrs. Hanshaw is watching them until tomorrow morning." Ceres stood in the middle of the room, her arms crossed, her face hauntingly blank.

"Isn't she about to burst, herself?"

"She said she didn't mind the practice."

"So you were planning on, what, getting thrown into stocks? Or a cell?! You left here, left your children, and went to yell at the King and -"

"I went to stand up for my family! To stand up to that bully who keeps my husband away from his family."

"He doesn't do it to keep me away. It's not directed solely at you, solely at us. It's this way for everyone."

"Oh sure, defend him. Go ahead and defend the man you claim to hate while you grovel at his feet."

"I didn't grovel," Roland said in a dangerous, low growl. "I did what I had to do to save my job; to fix your mistake."

"My mistake!?"

"Yes. Your mistake." He stood from his chair quickly, knocking it down to the floor. The clatter echoed in the room before Roland spoke again. "You could have lost me my job, Ceres. And then where would we be? Broke. Literally penniless."

"It would be better that way! Why can't you see that? You would be home. The twins would have their father. And I would have my husband back. We'd have a life together. I need you here, Roland. I can't do this on my own! It's too much for me!"

"We wouldn't have much of a life together while we all starved to death out in the cold with no roof over our heads! Gods, Ceres! I can't understand how you think it would somehow be okay if we had no money, if I had no job. Why can't you get it through your head that you and the twins being able to eat is more important than me spending time with my children?"

Ceres shook her head. "This is more important. Having you here is more important. Them having their father as a presence in their life. Not just a shadow -"

"Them having a mother is just as important, Ceres." Roland didn't bother to dilute the acid in his quiet, terse words. Ceres blanched and took a deep breath, trying to steady herself.

"I am trying. I am trying so hard. You just don't see it. You don't understand how hard it is for me. I'm doing as much as -"

"But it isn't enough," he snapped back, "or you wouldn't be so obsessed with my presence here. It isn't like I run off with the rise of every sun to skip through fields without a care in the world. I am a father to those children." His voice cracked as he bit back angry tears, pointing at their empty crib for emphasis. "The fact that they have a roof over their heads and food in their bellies shows what a damn good father I am. But what do you do for them?"

"I-"

But Roland's anger was boiling up from his gut. He rampaged on, spewing verbal rage. Months of loneliness, of exhaustion, of embarrassment sent his temper into a frenzy.

"You leave them with other people to go fruitlessly yell at a monarch and embarrass me. You endanger my job, endanger my ability to be a good father. You don't play with the children. You don't read to them, or hold them when they cry. And thank the Gods they have each other or they'd never know comfort as they certainly don't know it from you. You lament for your own suffering and think nothing of their well being. When will you stop putting yourself first and think of Amber and James instead?"

Ceres turned away from Roland, her lips pressed together in a tight line. "I don't have to stand here and listen to this," she said in a fierce whisper. She moved across the one-room house. She picked up a carpet bag beside the dresser, opened a drawer, and sloppily packed the contents into the bag. There was a long moment of silence as she packed and Roland watched. Ceres stopped and rested her hands against the dresser, leaning against it for support, her eyes focused on her hands.

"Where are you going to go?" His words bashed at her quiet resolve.

"Why do you care?" She turned her head to snarl up at him, her eyes shooting daggers. "I'm hurting. I'm suffering, but you don't bother to notice. You're so occupied by your station that you don't see me anymore." She shook her head, defeated, and looked back down to her hands.

"Something is wrong with me, Roland. Something I don't understand. I don't want to be touched. I can barely get out of bed...I...I feel like I'm standing at the bottom of a well and looking up at the circle of light where people are happy, and I'm just alone and abandoned and I can't get out and no one cares. I'm exhausted and on edge and just - just angry. Angry at the expectations you have of me. Angry at how much of a failure I am. I resent you, so much, for being able to leave every day. I resent James and Amber for being born. I wish-" tears started to stream down her cheeks, her face drawn. "I wish we could go back to before. I wish we could give them up. And I feel so guilty for wishing that. Guilty, and shamed, and worthless…"

Ceres looked up at Roland and was met by an unyielding expression of barely-contained rage. She let out a rueful laugh on an exhale of breath. She wiped her eyes and spoke with renewed vigor, voice bitter.

"Nevermind. It doesn't matter. You don't care anymore, not really. You're just a provider of funds, not father to my children, and certainly not my husband. Where I go and where the children go isn't your business." She moved to open the bottom drawer. Roland practically flew across the room and held the drawer closed with a booted foot. Her face turned up to his immediately.

"You're not taking my children," he roared at her. "Go ahead and run, like a coward, but don't you dare steal my children from me. They deserve the sort of nurturing that you aren't capable of, Ceres. You've said it yourself. You're a terrible mother. James and Amber deserve better than you."

Ceres stared up at him, holding his gaze. There was hate, there, in her eyes. Hate and betrayal and anger and unadulterated pain. But Roland could see nothing but red. He held to his words, to his actions. He could barely hold back his hands from shaking the husk of the woman he had married. He wanted to bring back the woman he knew that melancholy and motherhood had stolen away from him.

She turned away, bag in hand. Without another word, Ceres left, leaving the door open behind her. Roland stomped across the room and slammed the door with a yell, striking his palm against the frame of the door in frustration.

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Ceres wasn't home when Roland returned from work that evening at two bells after midnight. She wasn't home when the sun rose the next morning. And she wasn't home when there was a knock at the door an hour after dawn.

Roland found himself unable to speak as the patrolman handed over the dirtied carpet bag, now stained with a dried spattering of deep red. Highwaymen, the patrolman said. The King's Road isn't well monitored outside of the village. Funds for patrol only stretch so far. It looked like it was quick, he said. Looked like she didn't suffer much.

More might have been said. Roland found that he couldn't hear anything except for his own heartbeat, pounding like a blacksmith's hammer in his ears.

The patrolman said something else, clapped Roland's shoulder with something akin to routine sympathy, and left. Roland stared out the open door, his breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps. He found himself leaving his house. He trod along his well-worn path to the palace gardens and navigated the labyrinth inside by feel more than sight until he came to a familiar iron gate. He opened it, closed it behind him, fell to his knees, and started to weep.

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A/N: Some of this really hurt my heart to write. I hope I've done it justice. It's an important interlude to the story. There are two more parts to Roland's past that you need to know about. One of them is written, the other is not. I was going to present them both in my next posting, but I think I want to hold on to them for now so I can hold them for the best dramatic placement :) So, with that in mind. Next up: Cedric and Sofia visit Mystic Meadows.

Thank you, as ever, for your patience as I take my time with this story. I want to get it right. And thank you for your views, follows, favorites, and reviews. It means so much to me that you've taken the time to read my work, and it's even more inspiring to my writing when you take the time to share your thoughts with me about it.

**Supportive edit: I am so fortunate in that my husband is truly my best friend. We have an incredible relationship. Yes, we fight, but those fights pale in comparison to what I wrote above. I was also very fortunate in that I suffered very little PPD. Sure, there are days that are harder, darker than others, but for the most part, I had a very sunny postpartum experience. If you are hurting, if what Ceres spoke about when she finally described her feelings, rings actively true for you, please seek help. Whether that's a physician or just a friendly shoulder, those feelings are normal and natural and you don't have to go through them alone.