A Tale of Flynnigan Rider

Chapter 3

It had been a bad idea. He should not have eaten anything. He didn't have any idea what hurt so much or why, but he had lurched inward, curling himself into a ball again. Maybe he was feeling ill from having finally eaten something, but he had gone for just as long without food before.

Was he ill suddenly in addition to his injuries? That just wouldn't be fair, but he recognized with loathing how much his mouth was watering, how clammy his skin suddenly felt, the feeling of his stomach being forced up his throat - he was going to throw up and he had practically no way to move. Eugene was tempted to contaminate the Master's personal supplies, but he wouldn't in hope that someone more deserving might benefit from them.

He was definitely about to throw up. Eugene pushed himself up despite how his back screamed at him for it and stumbled, half walking and half dragging himself to the far corner. The cellar was dirt, anything rancid could easily be disposed of. Fortunately he hadn't eaten much, but by the time he was done he was sorry that he had eaten anything. Now he felt even weaker and he could not stop trembling. Great. Just great.

Eugene fell to his knees and forced himself to crawl back to where he had been lying. Relocated or not, his shoulder did not enjoy being moved, and Eugene enjoyed moving it even less. He finally lay down and let a quiet moan escape from his lips. From somewhere deep in forgotten memory he remembered the ill feeling in his gut, he felt a calm, gentle hand smoothing his hair down. That was too long ago and not very long ago.

"Mom." His lips said before he passed into a fitful sleep.

It was nearly nine o'clock before the Master finally called the confused children to order. There were to be no studies that day. Instead, the children were to clean the whole place, top to bottom. Wash bedding, wash and mend their clothes, sweep, scrub, and dust as had never been done before.

Kay took this as a good sign though she did not feel up to the task. Aside from being worried sick for Eugene she had not felt quite herself the last week. That was why she confessed her knowledge to Eugene, who was close to finishing "The Tales of Flynnigan Rider" for the fifth time. She doubted that the master knew - though oddly enough Eugene thought that he did - but if he did then he didn't care a bit that she was slowly dying.

Kay walked out with the others, prodding the children before her with gentle words as they filed to the bed chambers. She kept casting desperate side glances into the few doorways that they passed in hopes that the Master had had some mercy on Eugene. She didn't see him anywhere. Was he just planning to hide Eugene until after the king came?

She had to sit and think that out later. The Master was already pacing the hall before the last of the children had seeped into their respective rooms. Why did he do that? What exactly did he expect them to do but remove the coarse bedding and compose it in two large piles near the center of the room? Break out of this chamber of hell only to be caught and returned and punished severely beyond reason? No. None of them were as foolish as that.

"The older girls-" everyone startled and stood at attention. They had not seen him enter, but adversely he had not seemed to notice. "-will take the bed things out of doors and wash them. Not you, Kay. You will stay in with the younger girls and conduct a thorough cleaning of this apartment." All of the girls curtsied as they had been taught and the master left before watching them get to it. There was a tangible relief in the room when he did not shout at or revile a single one of them for not having immediately acknowledged his entrance.

The older girls went to their task without a word while Kay sent a several of the younger girls for the soap and water and brushes. She walked to the far side of the room to make her plan of action and almost stopped cold. Did the master realize - or perhaps this was the reason that he was commanding them to clean their apartment. There was a light smear of blood close to the window where she knew that Eugene had got in. Closer to her bed there was a larger stain, scarcely visible upon the darkened wood floor but clearly there none the less. She felt under the nearest unclothed bed, where she found her scarf stiff and stained with cracking dry blood. She hid it away immediately lest the master enter.

Across from her was the bed that Eugene had been cast against, and while his head had not been hit with enough force to make it bleed, the entire bedpost was covered in a strange coat of crackling red-brown. And right there in the middle of the floor were certainly bloodstains that must have fallen as he threatened her younger friend. Was he still bleeding this badly? Because this looked far worse than she had imagined. There was a noise at the door and she started, only to see the girls returning with their cleaning supplies. How could she possibly preserve the bloodstains without attracting the master's attention? Perhaps, she thought, he would be too preoccupied to notice. She dearly hoped that that was the case, because this would make their case before the king even stronger.

"You girls start here." She smiled as she approached and indicated the front of the room. "I'll start in the back and work my way toward you." The girls nodded and obeyed. They were too afraid of Antoine to be idle for longer than necessary, but Kay knew that they cleaned very frugally and very closely where it concerned his whims. That or get a lashing, and that none of them wanted. She started at the wall and cleaned as thoroughly as she needed, glancing back here and again to see that the girls were only to the second floor board while she was at the first bunk. She cleaned around the blood spots and spatter that Eugene had left behind. The wood was very dark. Even when it was freshly scrubbed it was dark, and she could barely see the blood. The emissary may not in that case see it either, but that was a risk that she decided to take. Besides, Eugene's treatment should be enough to convince them of that, that is, if they ever saw him.

The girls were set their task. Kay was out of the way for the time being, Eugene was probably too weak to scream loudly if he was to be moved. Antoine made his way through the kitchen, dismissing the scullery maids elsewhere - to help the boys in their tasks, he said, but truly it was to remove them from the area. The master opened the door to cellar and crept down before he could be observed. He shivered as he went down the stairs. It was cold when one got away from the sun. Now, where was that little ingrate - ugh! He recognized an ungodly stench immediately and decided to search for it before the orphan drowned in his own vomit. He tripped over a soft lump but kept going until he found the source of the smell - but it was in a small corner away from the food and there was no one about. He took a shovel from the corner and turned the earth over it several inches deep before the smell could spread. Served him right for trying to keep the beggar alive.

"Where are you, Eugene?" He growled, making sure that no one else could hear him. "Where are y- oh, heck! Who put a sack in the middle of -" and then he took a closer look. The lump hadn't moved or groaned though he had run into it twice. It had a face mostly covered over with a mop of unruly chocolate hair. Antoine got down on his knees, feeling Eugene's face, which was as clammy as the dirt floor that it was lying on. His hands were cold as death.

The master started to panic. If he lost another child to a 'sudden illness' that had not stricken another of the other children he would be deeply investigated and almost certainly found out. He pulled the boy up and shook him hard, but Eugene's head just fell back as he did so. Finally he put his ear to the boy's chest.

It seemed a long time in that dark, wet cellar before he finally heard a heart beat.

So he was still alive, and that was good news in its own way. The king's emissary would arrive any day now - his brother could not be more specific with a message that was not supposed to be sent, and this was meant to be a surprise inspection. Well, the orphans knew better than to speak a word outside of what he had allowed them to say as mild a consolation as that was. But right now it was clear that he had to get this boy warm immediately. There was no way that he could explain a young boy dead of such a severe lashing. He wanted to reason his way out of the responsibility, but he knew that it was fully on him.

"Wake up, darn you." He muttered, striking Eugene across the face. He moaned faintly, but there was no other reaction. What was he going to do? Where could he put him for that time? If it wasn't for the girls in the kitchen then he would leave him by the fireplace. That wasn't an option. But there was another room in the orphanage that had a fireplace, one that perhaps the emissary would not inspect. He grudgingly lifted the boy up and threw him over his shoulder. Eugene moaned again but still didn't move.

Grumbling to himself, he climbed the flight of stairs and peeked through the door before stepping out and locking it behind him. He lay Eugene down in the hearth and lurked down the hall, closing the doors and locking them as he passed. Kay saw him though he didn't notice. Finally he came to his own quarters and unlocked the door, entering a scene that seemed far removed from the rest of the orphanage. The bed was large, the posts hand carved, the bed curtain heavy velvet that kept out the cold of the night air while he was about searching the floors for insubordination. A thick rug covered the greater portion of the floor. To the farthest wall he walked, where the embers of the night's fire lay as ready to obey him as the orphans that had never seen nor imagined the state of this abode.

He cringed for a moment at the thought of laying the whelp on his own bed, but quickly thought better of it. Instead he pulled out a few blankets from the chest at the foot of the bed, laying them out in a pile on the floor something like a mattress, and covered them finally with the rough wool blanket that the orphans all used. There was no need or reasons for a commission to enter his private living quarters, so as long as the brat made no sound, they would never know. He had no worries as to what the other children might say. They knew better.

He surveyed the room a moment before drawing the curtain - on the off chance that someone would look in the window. There. That should do it. He would sleep in his office until he could throw Eugene back in the cellar, which would be the minute that the commission was out of sight. Finally he turned about and trudged back to the kitchen.

Kay had seen him close the door and she had seen the look in his eyes as he did so. Utterly heartless like usual, but in this instance just so very very bitter and angry. She was always wary when that look came upon him, but right now she was terrified by it. He had closed and locked the door, and what else could he be doing but bringing Eugene through...and putting him where? She couldn't chase him down, that would cause too much commotion amongst the children, especially if Eugene were very bad at this point. Plus she would be forced to climb out the window, which just would not work well.

She shuddered at the thought of most of these children doomed to be raised here, and yet shuddered still more in the thought of them being attacked by some manner of forest creature if they tried to escape, because there was a lot of forest in between them and the surrounding towns and villages, and the cries of wolves could often be heard. There only chance ever was after night fall and still they had no chance.

Anyway, Eugene. Kay was by now one bed beyond the place that was decorated in blood and hoped that Antoine would not see. This was her fail safe if the master hid Eugene away somewhere beyond help. If Eugene was in the root cellar then certainly he would have to be moved, for the food stuffs and stores were checked. Just how bad was he? Would she ever saw him alive again? Kay woke from her thoughts and glanced at the younger girls only to see them all staring at her. She looked herself over quickly, noticing nothing shocking or unusual, when one of the girls finally spoke up in a scared whisper.

"He locked us in, Kay. He locked the door. Is he - is he going to set the orphanage on fire?" The look on Kay's face turned from one concerned question to that of sudden laughter.

"Oh no, no, no, dear. No. He would never do that." She laughed but added under her breath, "Not when everyone would know what had happened." But why would she think that? Perhaps not all of the tales of Flynnigan Rider were appropriate for all of the children. She heard the footsteps of the master pass the door again, this time testing the lock, and then recede down the hall.

"I don't know what he's doing, girls, but we had better get back to work before he comes back, huh?" She chided. The older girls nodded and wrung their rags into the bucket. The younger ones just followed suit. As long as they avoided the Master they didn't really seem to care very much what went one way or the other. Kay was most afraid for them. If they never left this place they would be just as lifeless as the poor scullery maids in the orphanage kitchen. She wished that she knew some way to give them some hope, some reason to fight. If only they could understand that this was not what life was meant to be. If only Eugene's fight and feistiness would rub off on them. Thinking of which, she hadn't noticed whether the footsteps had returned or no. She suddenly thought that maybe she did know what Antoine was doing.

The master stalked back to the kitchen, checking the doors as he went just to be certain that they were locked. It wouldn't do to have any of the children peeping out and seeing one of their leaders draped over his shoulder like a dead thing. He wished that Eugene was dead for all the trouble that he'd caused him. Not that he was all that different from all of the orphans, but he kept telling them all stories, and telling them that things would get better. The heck they would. He was an orphan, just as unwanted and unloved as the rest of the orphans there and the master really didn't see a reason to tell them otherwise.

And then there was the fiasco that had started this entire thing. The couple who would willingly have taken an older orphan couldn't even see Eugene because he had run off, and the other few boys older than him were very nearly come of age. No, he'd had to give up one of the newer orphans, one that could have been useful for a long time and easily beaten down instead of keeping Eugene. High-spirited boys were not meant for his orphanage, and this one just never seemed to give up. He may perhaps have been somewhat hasty in his anger, but the boy knew that he was in for a beating. He hadn't even tried to hide. And then he had just stood there - as long as he could stand - taking the beating without more than a few gasps, though near the end he wasn't able to hold it in any longer.

Antoine finally turned in to the kitchen, pleased to find that no one was standing there gaping at Eugene. The boy hadn't moved and there was still no color in his cheeks. The only change with him was that he'd been slightly warmed by the fire. He whimpered when he was lifted up, but the sound didn't touch the master's heart in the slightest, but neither had his strangled cries the night before. Antoine bent and examined the stones of the hearth to be certain that no tell-tale traces of blood upon them. There was nothing. He turned around with a satisfied smirk and hauled Eugene down to his room, down the long corridor with its closed doors hiding the children who meticulously cleaned each crack in the floor boards rather than getting a slap from the master's belt. He closed his door immediately, even sliding the draw bolt closed for fear that someone might come in. Ugh, Eugene was getting too heavy to be carted around like this anymore - another reason to have gotten rid of him.

He started grumbling to himself as he walked to the fireplace and dropped the boy onto the floor with a satisfying 'thump'. Not a peep. Antoine rolled his eyes and stretched his back as if he'd been working the whole day through. The misguided concern that he had felt when he thought that the boy might have been dead had completely worn off. As long as he wasn't dead, the master really didn't care whether he was ill or not - so long as he didn't get caught.

Antoine looked Eugene over briefly. He was still breathing, not making too much noise, though he was kind of cold for a living thing. He grabbed another wool blanket from his stash and threw it over Eugene, careful not to get the edges too near the fire. Eugene moaned again. Probably because of his back, which through all of this Antoine had not actually looked at once. He sneered and got down on his knees, pulling the blankets back and turning the boy over to get a look at his back. Eugene whined, but the master almost yelped and spent the next few minutes trying to regain his color. That was - horrible. And if the king ever found out? If he were caught? No. No, that wasn't going to happen! His brother would make sure of it. It was this torture for ten more years or to go to prison for ten more years if he was found incompetent. If the king ever found out about his deal he and several others would be done for! He didn't want this to cost him his freedom. Antoine stood up, cursed the young boy and left the room quickly, making sure that he locked the door behind him.