Chapter 3: Family Troubles

I didn’t particularly like talking about the war or my time in the legions even if it was, three years after the end of the war and my honorable discharge, still the one thing that most people seemed to ever want to talk to me about. Somehow my conversation with the Lindenberry’s had been more trying than most, leaving me feeling unsettled and drained in the end. I’d complain about it more but could I really blame people? In my twenty-six years of life I had no other accomplishments to my name, nothing else of note that I had done or achieved. How could I fault people for talking about the one event of note in my life when at times it felt like there was literally nothing else to my life at all?

My feet took me automatically back to the main house, ignoring the beautiful gardens and barely mustering up the energy to greet the few workers I passed along the way. Entering the house and walking through the dining room I was surprised by who I found sitting there. At the head of the table was my father, reading what appeared to be a stack of business correspondence while breaking his fast later than usual. A few seats down from him sat someone who was many worlds more pleasant and appealing as an individual. It was my younger sister, Catherine, absently chewing on a piece of bacon with an uncharacteristically far away look in her eyes. There was something unusually melancholy and heavy about her that morning that I didn’t like. However all of that vanished as soon as she noticed me standing by the doorway.

Her pale blue eyes lit up when she saw me, glee and mischief filling them with equal measure. Even feeling terrible as I was, I still managed to muster up a small but genuine smile for her. She grinned widely at that, her smile lighting up the room, and moved to get up out of her chair to greet me before stopping herself. Her smile dimmed as her eyes slid over to our father, his presence keeping her rooted firmly in her chair when she might otherwise have run over to greet me.

Sadness and anger spiked heavily in my chest as my eyes turned to glare at Orlandus seemingly on their own. What did it say about our father, about our family, when my little sister didn’t even feel secure enough to get up to greet her older brother in his presence?

Father finally looked up and noticed me, putting his papers down to fix all of his attention squarely on me. “How did it go, boy?” he asked, no, he demanded of me. Asked was entirely too nice a word for his tone of voice.

“It went well enough,” I answered breezily, unwilling to be cowed. “I satisfied their curiosity about me and finalized their order. Nothing untoward or of particular note. Just a routine delivery.”

“There is no such thing as ‘just routine’. Every meeting with a client leaves them with either a better or a worse impression of you, even if you don’t realize it,” Orlandus replied. “I hate to ask knowing you, but it needs to be done. Did you leave them with a more favorable or unfavorable impression of you, and by extension, the family business as a whole?”

I knew very well what the truth of it had been. But I wasn’t in the mood for one of father’s condescending lectures. I affected a casual shrug and said, “Favorable, I’m almost certain. They seemed quite taken with my history. I think it went very well.”

For some reason, out of the corner of my eye I saw Catherine bury her face in her palm.

Orlandus narrowed his eyes and scrutinized me for a few moments before shaking his head and making a disgusted sound. “You’re a shit liar, Garrett. About the worst I’ve ever seen, and I’ve met a lot of liars in my day.”

Well, shit. I wasn’t that bad, was I?

“Now I’m going to have to go out of my way to make whatever damage your clumsy fumbling has caused doesn’t do any permanent damage to our business relationship with the Lindenberrys. That means letters, possibly gifts, discounts. Lost profits,” he hissed the last two words, face suddenly going red with anger as he tried to melt me with his glare. “Useless. Sometimes I have some hope for you, fool that I am, but then you once again prove useless. Useless! Just like Marcus. Both of you, useless at business, completely inept.” He spit on the floor, and I saw Catherine’s face waver between still wariness and disgust as she kept her eyes on our father as if he were a dangerous animal. “Who is going to continue to grow the business, grow our family’s name and legacy once I’m gone? Huh? Who is it going to be, Garrett? My two sons, one a stupid violent brute and the other an uncaring lout with all the social grace of a pig! Should I just expect our name to fade into obscurity, forgotten like the common rabble? Is that it?”

I said nothing, just continued to stare my father down impassively, but inside I was seething. Not at the fact that he was ranting at me yet again, no. That I had become well used and inured to. I was instead feeling furious that he was forcing little eleven year old Catherine to see and hear this level of bile and poison being slung from one family member to the other.

“Whatever. I’ll have to unruffle feathers and clean up one of your messes yet again, just like I always do,” said Orlandus dismissively, as he at last got his temper under control and began to put himself together again. “If you want to be so much like your brother, boy, then make yourself useful and go help him unload our latest shipment in the warehouse. If I can’t trust you to talk to clients then maybe some manual labor is the best use for you for now.”

With that, Orlandus turned away from me and went back to his meal and his letters, a clear sign of dismissal. I turned to look at Catherine, and my sister gave me a strained and shaky smile that wasn’t entirely convincing. My return smile hopefully was more convincing but I wouldn’t have given you great odds that it was. I mouthed I’ll see you later to Cat. She gave me a little nod, her strained smile easing slightly into something a little more genuine.

Then I turned and left, holding back an exhausted sigh as I went to find my brother.

00000

Did I love my family? After giving it quite a bit of thought I reluctantly concluded that yes, I did indeed love my family. All of the members in it without exception in point of fact.

That didn’t mean I actually liked all of them, however. Or particularly wanted to spend much time in their presence. Or had many positive things to say about some of them at all, in point of fact.

Still, family was family. They needed me, and I was loyal. Familia Ante Omnia. So what did I do? Well, what else could I do? I put my head down, endured, and moved forward. There was nothing else to do and I would not leave the youngest among us to endure all alone.

I found my brother inside one of our warehouses unloading crates from a wagon. Taking a moment to examine him, I was struck by how much Marcus looked like father. Other than having more tanned skin and being perhaps an inch shorter, their resemblance was nothing short of uncanny. The same granite jaw, the same trunk like limbs, the same impression of great size and strength. Marcus was also rather more handsome than me, the lucky bastard, looking far more classically handsome than me with my long face, wide mouth and too-large nose. The expression on his face as he worked was a slight frown, working quickly and efficiently while he unloaded the crates from two wagons and doing so a little more roughly than was strictly necessary.

Then he spotted me, and his lips curled into a half-sneer of distaste.

Marcus and I had never been what you would call close. Since coming back things were now often downright hostile. Who was responsible for that? Mostly I blamed him.

“What do you want?” Marcus snapped, his voice noticeably higher and more shrill than you would expect form a man his size. Truly his worst feature, if you could somehow find it in you to discount his personality.

I debated the merits of trying to make small talk or just flippantly irritating him, but in truth I was feeling just too tired to do either one. “Father sent me to help you unload the shipment,” I said, nodding at the large wagons.

Marcus looked at me suspiciously for a few moments, before spitting on the ground and continuing with his work. “Whatever. Just don’t get in my way.”

The atmosphere was tense as I moved and started unloading the crates. Marcus was making an effort to ignore my existence, which was rather undermined by the fact that we were working practically on top of each other to unload the wagons. I should have just kept my mouth shut and worked in silence, but the situation was awkward and uncomfortable, and I might have been craving some human interaction that wasn’t strictly nerve wracking or unpleasant on that day. Why I thought that Marcus of all people might be able to provide that, I’ll never know.

Out of idle curiosity, and maybe out of the hope it would give me a safe topic to talk about, I went ahead and subtly used my [Observe] skill on him when he had his back to me.

Level: 13 [9 Merchant, 4 Brawler]

Name: Marcus Julius Chapman

Skills: None

Status: Healthy

Stones of Apotheosis: 0/4

“Oh hey, you leveled up again,” I said. “Another level in [Brawler], that’s… good. Congratulations.”

I saw Marcus stiffen, his back going ramrod straight before he turned around just enough to give me a furious glare. “We can’t all reach [Level 20] by the time we’re twenty-three, Garrett. I don’t need your damn pity or your fake sympathy.”

My irritation spiked at his response and I found my mouth running away from me. “I was trying to give you a compliment, not give you pity or whatever else you dreamt up in that empty head of yours. If you got your head out of your ass maybe father would stop giving you these crap jobs and actually let you do things like deal with the Lindenberry family that just left. Celestials know doing that should be your job instead of mine.”

Marcus glared at me before returning to work, throwing the next crate down way harder than was strictly necessary. “Sure, you say that, but we both know you’re father’s favorite now. I’m the eldest. I should be the one he favors. But how can he see me, when you, Ser Garrett, are always running around showing off and constantly going out of your way to remind everyone what a great and wonderful war hero you are?”

His words froze me in place as my brain struggled to process the sheer absurdity of what was coming out of my brother’s mouth. “Excuse me?” I demanded.

“You heard what I said.”

“What the hells are you talking about?” I asked, genuinely baffled. “I never do any of those things. In fact, I don’t particularly like talking about the war, at all.”

Marcus shot me a disbelieving look. “Oh, really?” he drawled.

“Yes,” I insisted hotly, practically throwing down the crate in my arms before turning to face my brother. “Honestly, Marcus. Name even one way in which I ‘show off’ or try to constantly bring attention to my war record. Because I have never done that.”

Honestly, I was getting so tired of dealing with that kind of shit. Yes, the war may have been the only thing of note that I had ever done with my life. But I sure as hells didn’t need everyone, even my own damn brother, constantly bringing it up all of the damn time.

For some reason, that seemed to set Marcus off. Suddenly he was in my face, too close for comfort, giving me an unpleasant feeling of deja vu. “Oh really? You have the gall to just straight up lie to me to my face? You little shit. Then what would you call what you did this morning?”

I resisted the urge to step back or push him backwards, confusion and heat suddenly warring in my head and chest. “What? What did I do?”

“You know damn well what you were doing,” he sneered at me.

“No,” I said, growing more confused and annoyed by the moment. “I really don’t.”

Marcuss scoffed. “Sure. Then what would you call getting up at the crack of dawn and swinging a sword around for hours where all the servants and workers could see you?”

I blinked, mind momentarily going blank. People had seen me? I thought the spot where I did my morning practice was out of sight. “I don’t-”

“I was actually up at that hour, coming back from – from an errand,” he said quickly. “Caught a couple of servants looking at something through some bushes. And what were they doing but watching you going through your little soldier routine and whispering to themselves about how amazing they think you are and how impressed they are with you? It’s pathetic, the things you do for attention. You’ve been out of the legions for three years. When are you going to stop rubbing your past glories in everyone’s faces and actually get on with your life? You’re not a legionnaire anymore. If you love it so much, you should have just stayed in the service and never come back.”

That actually made me take half a step back, and I could feel my face drain of color at his words. It took two tries before I could speak. “I know I’m not in the legions anymore.”

“Do you really?” Marcus said, his lips drawing back into a cruel twist. “Well, let’s take stock shall we? Your still wear your hair shorn short and keep your face clean shaven in the style of the legions, even though it looks terrible on you. You insist on making your own bed with military corners instead of letting the help do their jobs and the servants tell me you still get up every day before dawn. The only footwear I’ve ever seen you wear in the last three years have been legion issued boots, and I know that you’ve even gone as far as to special order new ones from one from one of our suppliers. Apparently now you’re swinging your little pigsticker around for hours at a time so that everyone can see. And what about your levels? You’ve been back for three years, supposedly to work in the family business, but has even one of your levels shifted to [Merchant] in that time? I don’t have the [Observe] skill but I’m willing to bet the answer is still no. Or am I wrong brother? Has your inner self finally started to accept that you’re a [Merchant] now? Or deep down, are you still clinging to your old military glory days, too good to step down to the level of us mere [Merchants] and commoners? Go on Ser Garrett, pull up your stats. I’m dying to know.”

Lightly shaking, and torn between punching my brother and suddenly fearing that maybe he actually had some kind of point, I nonetheless pulled up my own abbreviated stats.

Level: 20 [20 Imperial Scout]

Name: Garrett Julius Chapman

Skills: Observe I, Swift Strike I, Recover I

Status: Fatigued

Stones of Apotheosis: 0/4

It didn’t come as a surprise that nothing had changed, since I’m certain the Divine System would have notified me if it had. Something must have shown on my face because Marcus’ expression suddenly became self satisfied and smug.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” he said. “It’s not too late you know. You could still re-enlist. Last I heard the nearest legion encampment is a hard week’s ride north from here. You obviously don’t belong here among us commoners and [Merchants]. Why don’t you go back to slaughtering barbarians on the edges of the empire and leave my home where you obviously don’t fit in and aren’t even wanted?”

My brother’s words hurt and struck more deeply than I would ever care to admit. Suddenly I just felt deeply bone weary, a large chunk of my anger and outrage draining out of me like from a broken cask. I looked up at my brother’s smug and triumphant face and wondered if fighting barbarians might be the better place to be after all.

“Whatever, Marcus,” came my weak reply. “I’m done here. You can finish unloading the carts yourself.”

I turned around and walked away without saying anything else. However my brother always had to have the last word. “Yeah, you’re only running away because you know I’m right! And don’t think I’ll simply let it slide that you’re skipping out of work. You can be sure that I’ll be telling father about your terrible work ethic!”

I ignored him and kept walking.

Our property was just outside the city proper, with the rear of it bordering a large wood. I felt a strong need to get away from people, to spend to time by myself, so I left everything behind and went for a walk among the trees. The day was beautiful, the sun shinning, the temperature with just enough of a chilly bite to feel refreshing. Yet none of it did much good in soothing my mind. As much as I didn’t like it, I couldn’t help but feel that my brother’s words had at least some truth to them, even if the reason he’d said them had clearly been to get under my skin.

He was right. I wasn’t fitting in. Coming back home, I still didn’t feel like I belonged even three years later. Like there just wasn’t a place for me here that fit. However Marcus had also been wrong. I didn’t belong back in the legions either. While I didn’t regret my service, I couldn’t deny that it had left something that felt bent and broken in it’s place. For seven years the 13th Legion and Marvelous Company had been my family. Now both were gone and I couldn’t see myself serving with anyone but them. I wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

Aching, and no closer to any solution, I made my way back to our estate several hours later. I ignored the few workers that were around and entered the house, my feet finding their way to our family’s private sitting room. With a heavy sigh I sat down on one of the luxurious couches and, seeing that no one else was around, leaned forward and allowed my head to fall into my hands.

My situation was simultaneously infuriating, exhausting and it also filled me with a deep sense of what could only be called unease or dissatisfaction. At times I felt stuck, trapped, bound, like I couldn’t escape and thus could never move forward. More and more often I felt this way and it just seemed like there was nothing I could do about it. My fingers dug into my skull, tears of frustration stinging my eyes and I had to bite my lips just so I wouldn’t scream.

I don’t know how long I sat there, but I must have been extremely distracted since I didn’t notice someone else enter the room. That is, I didn’t notice until her slim form sat down on the couch next to me. Without a word she put her thin arm around my shoulders and leaned into my side.

Her touch startled me since I hadn’t been expecting it. I let the hug linger for a few moments, enjoying the warmth and comforting presence against my side and letting out a heavy, tension filled breath. However I wasn’t terribly comfortable with open displays of affection, especially out in the open where anyone could walk by and see. Reluctantly I sat up and the person next to me took the hint, pulling back her arm but staying close enough that our hips still touched, steadying and reassuring.

I turned to look at my sister, and her look was somewhere between assessment and concern, her pale blue eyes surprisingly alert and discerning for someone her age. Catherine’s black hair was tied back in a tight braid and the lighting made her already pale skin look almost porcelain white. Looking at the both of us side by side no one would have doubted for a second that we were siblings. While she was a good deal paler, had blue eyes and had thankfully ended up with far better luck in the looks department than me, we had both inherited mother’s long thin face and wide expressive mouth. That same mouth was currently twisted in concern as her clever eyes searched my face.

“You haven’t been sleeping again, have you Gar?” she asked, though it came out as more of a statement than a question.

I swallowed before looking away and shaking my head. I didn’t want to worry her. “No, of course not. Nothing like that.”

Catherine gave me a wry smile, her eyes both amused and concerned. “You’re a terrible liar, brother.”

I huffed at that. “Yeah, well. Some might say that not being good at lying is a good thing.”

“Yeah. Probably only people that are trying to cheat you out of something. You’re right, at least some people would think it’s a good thing.”

That got a raised eyebrow from me as I turned to face her fully, my lips quirking up at one corner despite myself. “Since when did you become such a little pessimist?”

“I’m not a pessimist,” she said, trying to sound serious but unable to fully keep the humor from her face. “I merely understand that everyone in this world will scratch and crawl all over each other in a desperate, violent struggle to get to the top.”

“Really?” I asked, my mouth slowly stretching into something that at least somewhat resembled a smile. “And I suppose it is your many years of life that have granted you this deep wisdom?”

“One hardly needs many years of life to understand that everyone will try to step on you sooner or later,” she said in a haughty tone, but her eyes still betrayed her laughter. “Useless, of course, because in the end, all of us will be food for the crows.” She paused for a thoughtful moment before continuing. “Except for me, of course. I’m quite certain that I will live forever.”

I gave her my best unimpressed look, while she looked back at me with the best haughty, arrogant look lifted straight from a noble that she could muster. We stared each other down for a few long seconds before she cracked first. Cat broke down and lost it in a fit of giggles, causing me to crack a smile and let out a few tired chuckles of my own. We laughed for a bit, making me feel a little lighter, before the laughter naturally petered off into a comfortable silence. I let my eyes drift shut for a few moments and for the first time that day it didn’t feel quite so awful to simply be alive.

“Seriously though,” Catherine asked after a few minutes of companionable silence, turning to look at me with concern. “How are you doing?”

I let out a sigh and ran a hand through my hair. “Honestly? Not great. Just… today has been a lot, and I’m not even sure it’s past noon yet.” I let out another sigh. That was something that seemed to have become a more common trend recently. “Dealing with father and Marcus just makes it so much worse. Father is just so demanding and Marcus… well, you know what the both of them are like.”

Catherine nodded, her normally bright eyes dimming at my words. “Yeah… I know.”

The two of us lapsed back into silence. However, before it could become too uncomfortable, Catherine stood up and went over to a small trunk we kept in the family room, pulling out a deck of cards from it and brandishing it with a flourish.

“Bet I can beat you in a game of murder commander,” she said brightly, her enthusiasm perhaps a little bit over the top. But I wasn’t going to begrudge her for it.

“You’re on,” I said, my own enthusiasm not entirely feigned. I was quite a deft hand at murder commander after all.

We played for a good while and I tried not too show too much amusement at the faces she made when I kept beating her about four out of five times. The tension gradually eased off my shoulders as we played, the trials from earlier that day slowly sitting somewhat easier on my mind. I played with Catherine, even joking and laughing together a bit, until my ears caught the sound of the front door opening.

The unknown voices of strangers drifted through the house.

Suddenly I was wary and alert. Could be nothing, but customers knew to go to our shop by the road and not come to the house itself.

“Brother?” Catherine asked, her tone worried as she caught sight of my tense shoulders and how utterly still I’d suddenly gone.

“Just a minute,” I said to her under my breath, holding up a hand to silence her. Catherine looked briefly rebellious before pulling herself together and giving me a worried nod.

The voices had become louder and more insistent but I was still too far away to hear anything but badly muffled sounds through the walls and hallways. Luckily, I had a way to help with that problem. With a minor exercise of will I silently activated my [Observe] skill.

You see, I’d found out through experimentation that skills were a lot more flexible than their names and System descriptions would imply. For example, the description of my [Observe I] skill read as “increases the amount of information the user may gain from a target”. Most simply took it to mean the most obvious, that by looking at an object the Divine System would show you a status screen giving you additional information. What most failed to consider was that you didn’t necessarily have to see the subject with your eyes in order for the skill to activate, or that the skill could actually give you more information that just a situationally useful status screen. In this case since I could hear the voices by the front of the house that meant that I could actually target the speakers. Targeting the people with my ears instead of my eyes allowed me to twist [Observe], giving me different information than I would receive if I were targeting someone with my eyes. In this case, the Divine System gave me a floating transcript of the conversation happening by displaying it as the written word in front of my eyes.

SPEAKER 1: - rregular. Please, the master of the house has strict instructions that unexpected guests are all to be received at the shop and not in the family’s home. You do not want to incite his anger.

SPEAKER 2: And I’ll tell you again, servant, our business is urgent and cannot wait. We’re not here to buy perfume or some exotic trinket. Why don’t you go tell the master of the house that we are here to speak to him?

SPEAKER 1: Please, Lord Priest, I beg of you. The master of the house will be happy to receive you most promptly, as he always does, but you must observe guest right and wait in the shop as the orders Master Orlandus gave insist you must.

SPEAKER 3: Come now, you fool! You will go get the master of the house. Our business here is not mercantile in nature. In fact, our business here is likely to have far reaching implications, both secular and theological. We do not have time for your obtuse obstructionism.

SPEAKER 1: Please, Lord Priest, you really are putting me in an impossible position-

SPEAKER 4: What is going on here?

I could recognize that baritone even through the walls. It seemed the poor servant wouldn’t have to go search for my father after all.

SPEAKER 5: Greetings. Are you Orlandus Chapman, master of this household?

SPEAKER 4: I am.

SPEAKER 5: My name is Rama Damatir, senior High Priest of the cult of Abadeth here in Coria. These two with me are junior priests acting as my escort, Junior Priest Golden and Junior Priest Danec.

SPEAKER 4: I see. Well met, High Priest. Now I must ask that you tell me what is so urgent that you cannot be bothered to observe proper hospitality.

SPEAKER 5: Of course. I apologize for the discourtesy. However I believe our issue serious enough that such measures are justified, no matter how rude and unpleasant they may appear to be.

SPEAKER 4: Oh? Well now you have me interested. So tell me High Priest, what is this issue that simply could not wait?

SPEAKER 5: It is an issue that involves your family and it is… sensitive in nature. Perhaps we could retire to your office to discuss it further? I know the help can be counted on to be discreet but in this case I believe you might prefer not to take any unnecessary chances.

SPEAKER 4: … Very well. Follow me, then. But I hope you have a damn good reason for barging into my home like this, High Priest.

My father and the three priests began walking further down a hallway away from us towards father’s office, so I canceled my skill with a frown. What I had heard had certainly been somewhat disquieting. However most of all it had just been puzzling. Abadeth was the most popular God among the common people of Iskander, said to be the father of Beleth, the patron God of all of Iskander, and also mostly known as the God of Purification and Prophecy. What possible business could a High Priest of Abadeth have with our family? As far as I knew the priests only interacted with people who came to them for spiritual advice or healing and I’d never heard of them going out of their way to seek someone out. I was no learned scholar but to me it seemed bizarre and highly irregular.

Did they want something with our whole family, or just one of us?

I was drawn out of my musings by my sister trying to catch my eye. She looked uncharacteristically fidgety and nervous. I raised a questioning eyebrow at her.

“Well?” she practically demanded of me, seemingly very invested in the answer. For a moment I was puzzled as to how she knew I had any information to share at all. It took me a moment to remember that I’d already let Catherine in on my little eavesdropping secret.

Trusting my instincts that something odd was going on, I kept a very close eye on Catherine as I told her the truth. “Three men showed up to speak to father, something about an urgent matter having to do with our family. A High Priest of Abadeth and two Junior Priests.”

I’m glad I was watching her carefully, but even if I hadn’t been I don’t think I could have missed her reaction. Her breath hitched, and a flash fear passed through her face. Her eyes widened and her already pale skin lost even more color until she looked positively corpse-like.

“I – I have to go,” she stuttered out, sounding more unsettled than I had ever heard her before.

“Catherine, wha-” I began to ask. However before I could even finish my sentence Catherine had already jumped to her feet and practically ran for the back door. I just sat there looking in the direction she had gone until I heard the back door open and shut, dumbly staring after her as I felt the icy knives of fear and anxiety begin to stab me through my guts.