Victor Rosevale's Arc

Chapter 18 of 18

Seraphina's words stayed with Victor after she left. His old boss wanted him back on shifts. The baby was one day old. Sable was still bleeding under the blanket. He looked at the cradle he had built by the wall and felt his jaw set. He waited until Sable slept. Then he took his coat off the peg and went out. He kept to the alleys and walked the long way to the castle, where fireflies drifted around the mossy stone walls and the ivy on the towers. The lantern above the arched door was already lit. He knocked at the kitchen entrance instead of the gate. A boy let him in. His old boss was at the long table, sleeves rolled, sorting a crate of onions. He was a wide man with a burned forearm and a voice that carried through stone. He looked up and stopped sorting. "Rosevale." He set an onion down. "About time. I need you tomorrow at four. And the night after." "No, sir." The boy in the corner went still. His boss looked at him for a long moment. "No?" "My wife had our daughter yesterday," Victor said. "She's still weak. The baby needs feeding through the night. I'm not leaving that house at four in the morning for onions." "You work here because I let you work here." His boss's voice dropped. "You know what I know." Victor knew. His boss knew he had deserted the gate. His boss had kept it quiet and paid him half wages for it. Victor put both hands on the table. "You've had your price out of me for months," Victor said. "I've come when you called. I've taken the shifts no one wanted. I'm asking for two weeks. After that I'll work what you set. But you don't send for me again while my wife is in bed. You wait until I come to you." His boss stared. Victor did not look away. He had stood a gate through wind and rain. He could stand this table. "Two weeks," his boss said finally. "Then you're back on the rota. Full nights." "Two weeks," Victor said. "And you send no one to my door. Not a runner. Not a soldier. If Seraphina brings word, I'll come." His boss picked up the onion again. "Get out of my kitchen, Rosevale." Victor walked home under the drifting lights around the castle walls. His hands were shaking, but only from the cold. He had bought his family two weeks. He had also made a promise he would have to keep, and his boss now owned the shape of the months ahead. Sable was awake when he came in. The baby was at her breast. She looked up. "Where did you go?" "To settle something," he said. He sat on the edge of the bed. "We have two weeks. Just us." She smiled big and threw her arms around Victor’s neck as she said in relief, “Oh baby, thank you!”