Chapter 498: A Father Who Was Not Permitted to Follow

Chapter 497: A Father Who Was Not Permitted to Follow

Content Warning: This Chapter contains references to sexual abuse of children, the killing of children under the guise of tradition, abuse of power, and the forced separation of families. These subjects are discussed but not depicted graphically.

Lyria’s POV

Duke Thorncrest nodded, though the expression upon his face did not soften.

"Twins are forbidden in Highmoor, Your Highness. The prohibition has existed for longer than I have been alive. Twins are regarded as ill omens, and it is believed that their deaths will restore peace to the land and preserve its resources. Thus, when they are born, they are... sacrificed."

This had to be some manner of jest. A jest, yes, this was surely...

But no jest had ever been told in such a voice, nor with such a look upon the face of the teller.

"Some families have nevertheless concealed their children after the birth," he continued, interrupting my thoughts. "After all, twins are hardly uncommon in Highmoor. One would think that a practice so frequently challenged by nature might have been abandoned by now, but such reasoning has not prevailed."

He shook his head faintly, and went on.

"I remember a tale told to me when I was a boy. It concerned a Baroness who had been married to a Baron. She herself had been born a twin, though her twin had died. When her origins were discovered, the territory turned against her, and she was cast aside by those who had once received her among their own."

The lantern flames bowed in some draught I could not feel, and the shadows of the cavern leant closer, as though they too wished to hear.

"The Duke of that time made a spectacle of her death, compelling her son to watch as she was killed. Her husband, Ingelram, begged for days and nights that his wife and family might be spared. Yet the Duke did not spare his wife; he spared only the son, and that after ensuring that father and child alike looked upon her death. He declared that he would grant Ingelram’s petition upon one condition alone: if he wished his son to live, he must cast the boy away."

I stared at him, scarcely believing what I had heard.

A child forced to witness his mother’s death, and a father compelled to abandon his own son to preserve the boy’s life. What manner of justice demanded such sacrifices? What peace could possibly be secured through the suffering of those who had done no wrong?

"The Baron lives still," Duke Thorncrest continued, "though he is now an old man. He was of the opinion that his son had perished. I too was of that opinion, until I saw Jim, and recognised the resemblance between him and the Baron."

He drew a breath, and added softly:

"I believe the Baron would be overjoyed to learn that his son lives."

I looked at the parchment, attempting to imagine the years that must have passed between father and son, each believing the other lost to him. If Jim had been brought to Gallowshill to preserve his life, then his survival had been purchased at the cost of everything he had been born entitled to know. I thought of him in his house, hard-eyed, shouting at me across the couch that I knew nothing of suffering, and my heart turned over within me. He had been right about it all. I knew of suffering, I knew of hardships, I knew what it was to be nothing but a mere shadow but I did not know what it was to suffer as most of the townspeople had. I did not know abuse of this extent.

"W-why did the B-Baron not simply g-go with his s-son?" I asked.

Duke Thorncrest gave me a sorrowful smile.

"The Baron was not afforded a choice."

Lucian spoke then, his expression grave.

"Baron Ingelram was given an ultimatum. If his son was to live, he must sever every tie with the boy. Thereafter the son should answer to the Crown alone."

Duke Thorncrest nodded.

"The Baron is watched continually. Why he was permitted to retain his title, I cannot say. Perhaps they considered it sufficient punishment to leave him alive, with the knowledge that his son had been taken from him. Or perhaps there were other considerations of which I am ignorant."

I looked from one gentleman to the other.

The more I learnt, the less I understood how such things could continue. A child might be condemned for the mere misfortune of his birth; a mother might be killed for the same reason; and a father might be forced to surrender his own flesh and blood, all in obedience to a custom that had endured only because those with authority allowed it.

Gallowshill was not merely a place where the unfortunate had been abandoned. It was a place where the consequences of other persons’ cruelty had been deposited, far from the eyes of those who might otherwise have been compelled to answer for it.

"Then w-why do you not p-put a s-stop to all th-this?" I asked Duke Thorncrest.

"I beg your pardon?" he said.

"Are such p-practices s-still carried out in H-Highmoor?" I asked him.

He gave a small nod.

"Why h-have you not p-put a s-stop to it?" I asked. "Y-you are the c-current Duke, are you n-not?"

"Do you suppose, Your Highness, that I have not tried?" he asked, and I perceived that his voice held pain as he spoke. "Or that I do not still try to put an end to such practices?"

"B-but you are the D-Duke..."

"And sometimes, however much power one possesses, there are matters that remain beyond one," Lucian said. "Consider, Your Highness, that the age of consent is but twelve years, and for years bills have been laid before the court to raise it, for twelve is still a child. And nothing has been done to this day."

"Sometimes no amount of power one amasses avails anything, when it is most needed," Duke Valenridge said softly. "For there are always those, or systems, possessed of greater authority."