Chapter Text
The next day.
"Careful, doctor."
The rogue revelled in the sound of those rapidly retreating footsteps — just audible and no more over the rain smashing the roof of the castle. The storm forbade any lasting sunlight from finding its way into the storage room, and the Knights had warned Sir Thaddeus to limit the use of fire, as not to put the antiques at risk of voyaging cinders. Of course, he did not need to be told twice to avoid igniting the air around this particular patient.
The soundless, miasmic cloud, distributed liberally from Jules' hindquarters, drove the royally-appointed physician into a not-distant-enough corner of the disarranged space, as well as engulfing the rest of it in a pitiless acridness.
"Tch! A little late for a warning!"
"Then let me be so kind as to warn you now." Jules unhurriedly swung his chin over his shoulder and smirked unpleasantly. "That will happen again."
Grumbling disapprovingly (but nevertheless recommencing his work), Sir Thaddeus observed the misfit from as much distance as his profession could allow, describing a wide circle through the disarray, taking care not to tread on any of the mislaid valuables. His skilful eyes surveyed and scrunitized Jules' form.
"Do you think you're the first patient to have broken wind in front of me?" He asked matter-of-factly.
"I should think not, or else you can't have been practising for too long. And how's that supposed to reassure me?" Jules' attention was locked to the physician, his head turning this way and that without ever breaking his statuesque stance. His pale eyes were shrewd, hawk-like. Whenever he decided he was getting too close — and whether Sir Thaddeus had an instrument in hand or not — he would fire off another malodorous repellent. Sometimes he would do so even when he hadn't gotten too close.
"But I'd wager I'm the very worst," he airily boasted.
The lack of reply affirmed what he already knew. It had also failed to daunt Sir Thaddeus, who was proving to be tough to discourage. Supplying a grumble of his own, Jules folded his arms across his downy chest and impatiently bounced his left leg. No amount of flatulence seemed to be getting him closer to the end of this examination, nor was it changing how exposed he was, standing bare before this stranger, unclothed and unprotected.
"How much longer? It's been close to an hour now. Haven't you considered I might get a chill at some point?"
"It wouldn't take so long if you were not being deliberately ill-mannered." Sir Thaddeus hummed and ran his fingers over his white stubble, and this gave Jules cause to worry, for he had come to know what this gesture preceded.
"Oh, not again—"
The physician saw a chance to throw Jules' smirk back at him and gleefully took it as he unbuttoned another compartment of his bulging bag. His hand fetched a metal rod, bearing a yellow sphere at one end and a green triangle at the other.
"Yes, again. What do you take me for, boy, a roadside charlatan? I'm a Royal physician!"
"Whoopee..."
"Stand at peace. Arms tucked in. There's a good lad. I trust you haven't behaved this improperly in front of the Lord, or else you wouldn't be here still, would you?"
"Haven't you heard that this Lord is most forgiving?" Jules' nails scraped his lower back, just above his tailbone, scratching indulgently at the scored flesh that was only now beginning to heal from where the Knights had lashed him during his capture. Whatever Sir Thaddeus could achieve with that tool, the doctor had deduced it was unnecessary — before Jules knew it, he had exchanged it for a strip of tape, which he unfurled along his patient's broad shoulders.
"You did this already, at the very start," Jules objected.
"I promised your Lord I would examine you thoroughly." Sir Thaddeus confirmed his earlier measurements, then moved on to press two fingers to various points along Jules' neck. He tugged his earlobes, squeezed his collarbone, and counted the grooves in what he could make out of his spine beneath a layer of unsparing fat. It was a trial to stand so close.
Even for an elevated peasant (for that was all this outsider was, really), his odors were extraordinarily offensive. That brutal musk which baked all day long in his armpits and nested in other humid zones across his anatomy would have made a believer of a doctor of lower intelligence, for surely no human could smell so badly. There was no other reason Sir Thaddeus needed him to keep his arms latched to his sides; he could tolerate the sweat or the farting, but not both.
A low growl of displeasure drew his attention to Jules' rotund stomach, though it was not easily concealed. It had been complaining as fearsomely as the skies themselves since the examination began, erratically bubbling like an untended pot.
"With the amount of wind you suffer from, I would expect more distension than this." And what he thought was under his breath — "How does this work, I wonder?"
"You're not exactly inspiring much confidence in your expertise," Jules grunted.
"And you're not exactly a normal patient. Are you in pain?"
"The tedium of this inspection pains me dreadfully, yes."
"But if I were to make contact with your stomach, would it cause you any great discomfort?"
Jules chewed on this for a moment, then slapped his gut, loosing an amusingly high-pitched fart from between his bald cheeks. "Let's find out!"
Why shouldn't he take advantage of some free kneading? It was tiresome tending to himself all the time. Sir Thaddeus graced the pouch around his belly button with a series of calculated strokes, some erring more on the side of poking and prodding, which incited Jules to twitch and groan, and some that were more considered, slow and circular, and received most pleasurably in his hips and around the small of his back. The racket of his overloaded cavity increased as the knots dissolved under Sir Thaddeus' consummate hands and the air swifted along his tract. The physician, who had a habit of muttering his observations, had much to mutter about Jules' bloated state.
"Remarkable — feels almost bovine in nature..."
With uncomplication made grimmer by Sir Thaddeus' assistance, a spurt of crackling flatulence was suddenly and explosively untethered from Jules' bowels. The ten-second blast steadily held its course, and along the way the rogue drained his lungs with a relieved sigh.
"Most definitely like a cow," Sir Thaddeus added, after issuing a single pathetic cough in protest of the growing smog.
"Your fault," Jules professed. He tutted and shook his head. "You've only gone and caused me the greatest of discomforts, Sir Royally-Appointed… wait, wait. Hold on, now. We may have an encore on our hands!"
He masked his mischief with an impression of intense concentration, leaned the slightest bit sideways, and eased out a thick and meaty sputter. Then another. Then a disorderly batch of cacophonic bursts that rang in Sir Thaddeus' ears for seconds afterwards. "There we go. All better. No harm done, really."
"That is debatable," the doctor griped.
Compared to others of the Court — Eustace and the maids, chiefly — the physician was unfazed, and this Jules found vexing. Perhaps he should have judged his audience more wisely; Sir Thaddeus had probably attended to his share of plagues and disease breakouts. But he was not without some small wins. The black man's nose was running as though he had ingested severe spice. He had, in a way, since last night's mutton stew had a dangerous kick to it, Rose's guidance having clearly fallen on deaf ears. (And thanks to the kitchen's laxity, the castle staff now had burnt noses, too.)
Ridding himself of the snot trail with his sleeve (Jules of all people would be the last to comment on such a habit), he turned over the young man's hands, artfully twisting his thumb to raise the veins further down the forearm. Presently, he half-scoffed, half-gagged, and was forced to remove his glasses as he blinked the water from his small mole's eyes.
"You bloody fiend!"
"That was all me, that time," Jules needlessly announced.
Sir Thaddeus wandered from him then. His departure was not as hasty as it had been previously. He occasionally looked Jules over with a distinctly frustrated mien as he buffed his eyeglasses.
"Well?" Jules asked.
The thumb on one hand caressed the curve of his gurgling gut. The physician's efforts appeared to have counted for nothing, for just as much gas as before stirred restlessly within his chamber. His was not a pantry that stayed empty for very long. An impossible bounty of rancid flatulence was coiling in his pipes, gripping at his tender, overworked innards. It was the sort of feeling he hoped he would have become numb to by now.
Not so.
The physician shrugged dejectedly.
"'Well' what, boy? You're as healthy as a horse."
Bemused by his downtrodden reaction, Jules scoffed a laugh. "Alright! Try not to sound so bloody gutted about it."
"No irregular appendages, no unusual keratin growths..."
"Oh, for goodness' sake — do you people not communicate with the Lord and Lady Rose? I have already declared that I am Common-born. Oh, what's that now—"
"I am not you people — I am a professional," Sir Thaddeus said. He wagged the narrow tool with its tiny mirror before Jules' nose. "And I have personal standards to meet. My last look, I promise. Open up."
"Oh, but..."
"Open up."
With more gentleness than the rogue's attitude truthfully deserved, he clasped Jules' round jaw and examined his mouth.
"Nof 'angs," Jules tried to say, hindered by the awkward contact.
"I know you have no fangs." Sir Thaddeus exhaled wearily. "I'm more curious about these remarkably unspoiled teeth…"
"Eh-mar-kuh-bly? ‘ow ‘ery ‘are you, ‘ir!"
"For someone in your situation, they're in fine condition. Healthier than most of the villagers I see! This is not what I would expect from someone living in the veritable wilderness."
His grip on Jules' jaw became unnervingly solid, so that Jules felt a sharp stab of fear enter below his ribs. The knife twisted as they met eyes. It was not only gas filling his belly, now, but dread.
This time, the muttering was purposeful, meant to be heard: "I wonder if that has anything to do with those herbs in your satchel..."
The younger man's brows shot up in surprise — at the very same time that a pocket of hot air rocketed up his throat and blasted Sir Thaddeus in his face.
"Oh shit—"
"Charming!" Sir Thaddeus spat, making Jules stumble when he forcibly released him.
"Now that was an accident, truly!" The fear wormed in Jules' middle and compounded the hubbub of his bowels. "H-How do you know about those?"
"The Lord handed your belongings over to me to investigate." Unbothered by the young man's plummeting jaw, Sir Thaddeus lifted a quill and scribed neatly on a parchment sheet.
Jules gaped disbelievingly. "Did he now? And who exactly permitted him to take it, and for you to stick your hairy nose into it?"
"Don't be a dunce, boy. You've been here long enough to know how it works. I did not anticipate needing my botany texts today, but I would assume that those herbs are natural."
"Of course they're natural," Jules crisply returned. "I do not take anything to do with anything that's not. They are all from what Mother Earth provides. I use peppermint for my teeth — I rub it on my gums. Works just as well as that awful paste some make out of it, and it doesn't smart half as much. And I thread my teeth twice daily, to get rid of any stowaways. It's like having seconds, sometimes!"
"And the others?"
"The other what?"
"Don't be coy. It doesn't suit you. We both know you had much more than one sack in there."
Had? What did that mean for the rest of his stash? Tamping down his concern, Jules jerked his shoulders in a careless half-shrug. "I am not a medicine man like you. I am a gatherer. It's not for me to know what they are for."
"Gathering for whom?"
"My mother. Our people's healer."
The feathery pen abruptly stilled. Sir Thaddeus' small eyes found Jules through the darkness closing in. They widened hungrily.
"The troll?"
When Jules begrudgingly answered with a small nod, the doctor smiled and pulled a stool toward the worn children's school desk, as though the tale would be gladly recited for him then and there.
"Most curious business, this is. The Lord — or rather, the Lady Rose, told me that they took you in, but I wasn't sure they weren't having me on. How long have you lived among them?"
"Are you aware that I'm still naked?" Jules gestured to the unmissable starkness of his body, then to the leisure robe draped over a moth-eaten armchair. "If you wouldn't mind, doctor."
The maids had taken the opportunity to wash (or, as Mr. Ambrose advised, destroy) the clothes Jules had been wearing when he was brought to Campion. He was deplorably devoted to them, choosing the stained, threadbare and sweat-drenched garments over any of the overpriced fashion stocked in the wardrobe in his quarters. He would have a new set of daywear waiting for him upon his return, and no choice but to don it.
"Did you hear me?" Sir Thaddeus asked as he handed the pile to Jules.
"Yes. For the better half of my life." Jules buried himself inside the heavy, decadent material. The pressure was comforting, like being swaddled as a babe, though the feeling was fleeting under these circumstances. "I'm not sure I like that look on your face. What else are you thinking?"
"I estimate you to be twenty-four or five years old, by your teeth. Does that sound right? How many of those years were spent with the beasts?"
"I already told you that I don't know. Is it all that important? You said I was healthy enough. Oogh..." A tremoring moan was pried from his lips. Both hands massaged his painfully full stomach, creaking with the weighted pressure of its growing burden, and shortly after, he passed gas without any of his former deliberateness.
"How long have you lived with the cave-folk?" Sir Thaddeus repeated. He was unaffected by the younger man's sneer, and only wrinkled his nose at the massive, dung-rich effusion. "You cannot blame a man for being curious."
"I can when the intent is not always to learn, but to judge and be critical," Jules coolly replied.
"By trade, I must be impartial. I have seen many strange things in my time — though I must say, none as strange as this."
"Hm."
"My interest is not in criticising them, but in alleviating any suffering caused by them. Surely you know how unique your situation is. I feel like a child, at the feet of my grandfather, listening to him weave tales of Old…"
Jules now stood before Sir Thaddeus. The physician wondered whether he would be subjected to a foul prank, but instead the young man gripped the sides of the desk and pushed his stomach against an edge which had been sanded down by time and repeated use. Breathing slowly, he used the angular solidness to help him force the jammed air pockets through his pipes. A sickly-slow series of wet farts was soon plucked from his garmentless behind, and he moaned once more after the very largest and last of them released in a bass-full drone.
"Stomach giving you especial trouble today?" Sir Thaddeus questioned politely.
"And tomorrow and the next," Jules huffed, nearly breathless with the mounting tension. The bloat was enough to crush him. "Won't be too long before I'll get you a shit sample to go along with that," he said, indicating the bottle of urine on the floor.
"I know it won't enlighten me. Your humors give me no cause for concern. Your digestion is another matter, but I don't have to tell you that." Sir Thaddeus tented his fingers. "You're a little soft around the middle, but I think you'll grow out of it. Your youth lingers. You're a young twenty-whatever-you-are, Jules."
The physician fell silent, bowing his head and fatiguedly rubbing his temples with an index finger.
"I told you it would happen again." Jules mistook the reaction as being attributed to another cloud of his. "Perhaps it'd be best if I left you now, hm? Unless you're keen to discover more of what I had for breakfast, which I'm starting to think I might not be on the best terms with..."
His stomach painted a dramatic picture of rage with its most recent rumble. Sir Thaddeus glanced up, opening his mouth at an inopportune time; Jules had lain down another blanket of his oppressive stink.
"This castle food — Gods above," he complained around a tight frown.
"You don't really think it's the food doing this, do you?"
Sensing a shift in the stale air that hung between them that he could never have articulated, Jules' pale eyes steeled. Sir Thaddeus held his gaze.
"I do hope you know what you're doing, boy."
Dread washed over Jules from head to toe. "What do you—"
Sir Thaddeus looked at the door, as though it had been knocked. Jules' eyes followed. Sir Thaddeus made a beckoning motion with his finger, the other pressed to his lips. Both men moved toward the one dirty, cobweb-streaked window, as far in these closed quarters as they could be from listening ears.
"I already know I won't find anything in an additional sample that will convince me that the cave-folk have infected you with something — or at least something that makes you symptomatic in this manner," Sir Thaddeus whispered. "But this will not be acceptable to the Lord and his Court. There must be some explanation. Now you see where our problem lies, don't you?"
"No." He did, he just didn't want to admit it. The crushing weight of his bloat was migrating up to his chest and sitting heavily, suffocatingly, at the base of his throat. "Speak plainly now."
"I place the laws of my trade before all else. I serve this Lord gladly, for — and believe me, boy — he has a heart that the others lack, or have even knowingly discarded in favor of bettering their position. But even he—"
"Tell me what you know." Jules' voice trembled, like the last of the season's leaves, clinging to the bare branches with a final, wretched hope, afraid of the fate waiting to meet it on the forest floor.
Sir Thaddeus fixed him with a meaningful look.
"Your attempts to deter me when I was behind you failed. I saw your mark, Jules."
The physician's words stole his breath. Jules hadn't felt this cold even when he was unclothed.
"The Lord can never learn of this, nor anyone in Campion. Nor anyone anywhere, for that matter."
"Do you think I don't—" But Jules' breath had hitched, fatally catching just as his voice had begun to pitch in terror, and he looked away curtly, in case this terror had melted the ice in his eyes.
He felt as though the walls were pushing in on him. He desired fiercely to break free of this awful lair, surrounded by the gluttony of the Royals. It was as stomach-turning as being encircled by knife-bearing men. Here was a treasure trove brimming with riches enough to pay off a hundred villager debts, with all the room needed for a bed and a fireplace to warm someone without a home of their own... forgotten, tossed aside, and left to rot.
His building panic ebbed into a misplaced fury. This castle was no different to the other cages he had known. He loathed this place, these people. He hated being cooped up all day long, only ever permitted to leave when accompanied by another who wanted nothing to do with him, and said as much to his face. Unable to choose for himself when to have a fresh breeze thrill his skin, the sun warm his back...
He could not see down into the courtyard through the grime that had crusted over the glass, nor could he find comfort in admiring the trees in the nearby forest. The nightly frosts were teasing the yellow and reds out, so that the susseration flurrying the canopy made it dance like firelight. He would stay out there forever if Eustace could tolerate it. (The page boy had terrible allergies — and poor reflexes, and nonexistent stamina, and…)
Sir Thaddeus cleared Jules' mind — shoved his terror right back at the forefront, unignorable. The elder's voice rose as much as he could afford it to, wishing for his warning to be heard without question. "There are circumstances that render even him powerless. When all is said and done, your Lord works for the King; he adheres to his agenda, his wishes, his laws..."
"He is not my Lord, and I know all this!" Jules snapped miserably. "I know," he added, weak and desolate.
Sir Thaddeus' tone gentled. "How long have you lived this way?"
Jules strove to make something out through the cobwebs and dirt, to escape in the only way he could, but the bleared glass was too murky. His future now felt similar.
"I was born like this," he said flatly.
"And it has never been disclosed to a reigning Lord? Were you born in Badlands, some patch of lawless territory?"
The only response was that of his fingernails shearing away some rotten wood on the windowsill, and the forever-tumult of his stomach.
"I wish to help you, boy. I will do all that I can, but I must know your story."
"You do not need to know—"
"I must know something, at least!" Sir Thaddeus pushed in, braving the stench. "I need facts to bolster my version of your situation. How else am I to sell it to the Lord? How else can he be convinced? How else can we save you?"
Panic ruled Jules' mind. It thundered in his chest, jolted his muscles to harden for flight. He wanted to run, fast and far.
"Why help me?" He demanded to know. "Are you not disturbed to even stand so close? You of all men should revile me. Aren't I a contradiction to science and fact, to all you believe in?"
"Do not attribute such malignancy to me!" Sir Thaddeus passionately retorted. "You do not know me, boy. Do not pretend to know my beliefs. What happened to you goes against everything I believe in — as a nobleman and a professional! I am one of the few who believe that none of you deserve what happened to you, no matter the events that may have led to it. I do not wish to see a young man lose his life for something he has no control over. Please tell me what you can, Jules. It doesn't have to be everything. Just enough."
Jules' fingers sank into the plush material of the robe, curling into a fist. His nails were too short to draw blood, but it did not stop him from trying.
"Jules," Sir Thaddeus coaxed.
"In a village." The physician had to strain to hear him over the howling wind driving the rain against the glass. Thunder rolled over the castle, and a crack of lightning dressed the room in a blinding white flash. In it, Sir Thaddeus caught a glimpse of how despairing Jules looked, before he was all shadows again. "I was born in a Lord's village."
"Where?"
"On the other side of the sun's shadow. I do not remember its name — I remember nothing about it, really, except for swathes of red sand as far as the eye could see. The Lord there was as negligent as they come. He did not abide by the Code; his ways were not the Once Ways. He did not want the King's attention. When he learned of it — of my birth, and all that had come with it — he ordered my mother and father to move into an old cottage on the outskirts, beyond his territory. Separated from our community. He never reported it, and he struck fear into the hearts of anyone who may have dared to. He cast us aside, forgot about us."
"A desert? Near the mountains?"
"That is not where I met my people — the trolls," Jules said, allaying the doctor's confusion. "They rescued me when I was still in my boyhood, but it was years after I left the village."
"So they did not steal you from here?"
Jules scoffed shakily. "You cannot steal what is not wanted, can you?"
Another aresnic-white scar of light divided the sky. This time, Jules had the sense to turn his face away from its revealing illumination.
He added, "They never took me. I wanted to be with them."
"So you were hiding with the cave-folk. They had not captured you. The Lord's men... they captured you. Tore you from the animals to which you feel you belonged. Is that so?"
Jules pressed his forehead against the glass, clouding what was visible with a sigh shuddering its way into a sob.
"I have betrayed them — I have put my people's lives at stake; I should never have ventured out!" The guilt that had been eating away at him hurtled up his throat, as uncontrolled as any other sickness. "One among us fell ill, and my mother could do nothing for her. The ever-root grows in the valley below the mountain, beyond the safety of our tunnels. The eagles had warned of men in their hordes travelling through, owing to the landslide on the trail they ordinarily take. It was too risky for my people. But I could not bear to see my mother blame herself any longer."
He grew quiet, and still.
His mother.
Confronted with her image, longing wrenched at his chest violently enough that he was sure it had caved in. How he wanted more than anything to be near her, now and forever! If it was true that Death granted each of them, be it man or beast, one last look into the life that was to be left behind, to carry with them into Beyond so that they might not forget themselves among the stars, his would be to be there with her in their welcoming den. Listening to her sing as she ground her poultices, to the rake of her trusted spoon as she stirred the sap that was reducing into life-sustaining ointments… how he was doted on by her, understood by her the way no one else had bothered to — cushioned and comforted by her tenderness, asked for whenever his head tipped, a request for reassurance that the warm weight of her heavy hand dependably fulfilled.
She would hold him as long as he needed — sometimes, when he tried to move away, she would carefully guide him back into her love; she had an insight for knowing exactly when things had been made all right. Some medicine was made from ingredients unseen. Her claws, dextrous enough to stitch wounds with, fine enough to chisel jewels from clods, sturdy enough to crumble rock, had never dented his fragile skin.
Homesickness brittled his voice, robbed him of his bravado. "I left. I only wanted to help," he croaked. "It was my duty, my promise to be useful to my people — it was my gift that I could be visible, to go where they could not. I had never been anyone's gift before. And now I am here, and this Lord intends to wring every last drop of information from me..."
Sir Thaddeus expected tears to spring. He did not anticipate Jules' resolve to have been so thoroughly revived, to have been made all the stronger by his outpouring of grief.
"But he shall not have it," Jules promised resolutely.
"What if he learns of what you are? It would matter not whether they strike a deal with you — your freedom in exchange for your knowledge. If he knows what you are…"
Jules locked unblinking eyes with him. "They can spill the blood they seek. All that these so-called noblemen can stomach. I shall die with my secrets. That way, I can keep my family safe."
"This is not going to be simple — to hide the truth, I'll have to weave a tale that may threaten the trolls even more. I will have to tell them that this condition of yours comes from the caves. From your... your people," Sir Thaddeus intoned remorsefully. The word felt strange in his mouth, but he had said it, and that was more than others of the Court had managed.
Jules' pulse galloped. "Then they will be targeted even more than they already are. Perhaps it is best to confess."
"No! You cannot sacrifice yourself for these monsters!"
"They are not—"
"They are to everyone else! For Merlin's sake, Jules, you were Common once. You know this! Whether you are dead or alive, they will be persecuted," Sir Thaddeus argued. "Lord Muchty — he works closely with the elves. He owes them many favors... and your Lord has much to prove to his associates. You have no idea how precarious this can get."
The storm raged on.
"I have done what was asked of me," Sir Thaddeus' voice was thin and quiverous, as though coming out of a reverie. He had never meant to get in so deep, and the enormity of the task ahead was beginning to smother him more than the rogue's musk. He backed away from Jules, distractedly collecting his bag and shambling for the door. "I have fulfilled my duty to the Lord... the rest, whatever happens after, has nothing to do with me..."
Jules watched him leave. "But you will not confess to your knowing of what I am?" He asked, in a small, hopeful voice.
"No. On that, you have my word. But I must have your word, also, that you will not contradict our tale. You must be careful what you say to these people. What has been said in here can never be repeated," he instructed. "Be wary of those who look to be allies, at first. Be wary of making friends."
Jules snorted feebly, turning to look away again. "That's never been an issue for me."
"And what about her?"
He flinched. "Her?"
"I misspoke. The Lady Rose. She is fond of you."
For a single heartbeat, joy overwhelmed him, blotting out the sadness. Only the longing remained, though now it was reserved for more than only his mother.
"Fond of… me?" He faintly echoed.
"Perhaps it was not clear to her Father—" The doctor knew little ever was. "But it was crystalline to me. No one else in this Court speaks of you that way. No one sees you the way she has chosen to. You have earned her affections, somehow. The mind boggles to think of how. By that look on your face, I dare say this is not one-sided. You will want to exercise the utmost prudence. Master your temptations."
Jules shook his head once and laughed mirthlessly. "There are none to master. It matters not what the Lady Rose thinks of me. I have nothing to fear in that regard. I will always be beneath her. Beneath all of these people. I could never be her friend. Only a pet — or a jester. Something inconsequential."
Sir Thaddeus considered him with sympathy that would remain unspoken.
"Luck has been on your side, Jules. There could be no other rational explanation for how you have come this far. But you are marked for life, and a man in your situation must never forget it."
The Knights spoke lightly to Sir Thaddeus as he exited, and with less respect to Jules, when he finally felt ready to face them again.
The rain had confined all but the watchmen to Campion's castle. Aware of his tendency to roam, and once more at the advice of Mr. Ambrose, Jules was to be escorted back to his domain. He trailed mindlessly behind the Lord's Guards, their path taking him far from the attic and far from the domiciles of the rest of the castle's occupants. Jules was atypically barren of jokes and jabs, and any gas passed was without intention; a consequence of his condition. Where everything else he knew and loved was gone, that one element endured. It was the only thing in his life he had learned to count on.
Marked for life.
"Will you pick up the pace, beast? Don't you think we have better things to do than smelling your fat arse all day?"
"Gods, and doesn't he stink worse with each new dawn?"
"Those bloody women don't help; they're supposed to be bathing him. They can't even manage to pull that off successfully, the useless lot..."
"And yet how they whinge about how tired they are!"
"Blame them not. A pig and its filth are not easily parted."
A man in your situation
"What's wrong, beast? You're never so quiet. Is our speech too refined for you?"
"Perhaps we would be better understood if we grunted and snorted instead!"
"Too right!"
"Would you like that, beast?"
Must never forget it.
"We could take him back to the barn, lock him in there–"
"He'd have all the mud and slop he could handle!"
"I said, would you like that, beast?"
"Answer him now, rogue!"
"Brute!"
"Beast!"
As if he could.