Tragedy (Part II)

My parents had been bidding the guests goodbye, who had far to travel and so were leaving before breakfast, intending to eat at their next destination. As they reached their carriages, Lord Lekal, the leader of the party, had turned to them and said almost as an afterthought that "one of the lads had had trouble sleeping, so he'd helped himself to one of the servant girls that had caught his eye." They'd taken care of her in the kitchen where it would make less mess, but didn't know where we wanted the body disposed, and by the way, here were some boxings to pay for a replacement.

My mother had spun on her heel and run for the house as fast as she could, leaving my father behind to make excuses for her and finish bidding the guests goodbye. But she was probably still running as I first knelt down, and she got to the kitchen just in time for me to start screaming.

I didn't understand. I was too young. I knew what death was, I'd seen animals being slaughtered, I understood that she was dead… I didn't understand how, or why? She wasn't an animal to be butchered, she was a person, she was my friend! How could this happen?

Well, how do you even begin to explain something like that to a child? One who knows that there are some people who wear fancy clothes and live in fine houses, and others who wash those clothes and clean those houses… One who talks to them, knows them, knows their families… but had never been told what it really meant to be skaa, how they were regarded and treated in most of the empire. I didn't even know what intercourse was, let alone know about the laws regarding skaa women who were bedded by nobles.

But most of all, I didn't understand how these strangers were allowed to come into our house and do this. Why my father couldn't have stopped them. Why my father wasn't going to do anything to punish them. I knew that when you did wrong, you got punished, and what could be more wrong than this? How do you try to explain how skaa aren't people, they're property, and that Lord Lekal had already paid more than the law required for a replacement skaa and that as far as he was concerned, the matter was settled. My father knew this. Even if there had been some legal recourse, these were powerful Luthadel nobles, and we were a small impoverished house in a distant dominion. What hope would we have of receiving justice, for the life of a skaa of all things.

Knowing all this, my father hadn't even asked to know who had been responsible.

It took a long time for me to truly understand what happened that day. That was the day that I began to learn how the world really worked. My father was right, the most important things couldn't be bought with money… things like innocence, friendship, security, justice... precious things that could be snatched away so easily. You couldn't buy them with money…

...but perhaps you could buy them with another currency. Perhaps you could buy them with power, and with secrets.

That was the start of my path to power. I never wanted to feel as powerless as I did that day, as powerless as my parents were to protect or console me. I would have power to protect those I loved, power to get justice for those who were wronged.

Power enough to get my revenge.