Serpents and Stairways

Chapter 8* - Part 4

And so another year passed, and Gabriel had finally learned how old his teacher was—by the time he himself was 14, Rubedo was 21. How young he must've been when they had just met! Although, not much has changed since then. His stubble wasn't any thicker, his voice wasn't any deeper, sarcasm still seethed on his thin lips like foam of a rabid dog, and his hands were still bird-like fragile. Now, when thanks to his newly acquired height Gabriel had a view of his mentor's crown, he thought more and more that the end of their time together was drawing closer.

"Are you planning to marry?" he had once asked his friend during a game of bridge, "Well, not immediately, of course. Eventually."

"I'm planning to become the greatest revolutionary, to free each colony that I can get to from the shackles of imperial oppression, and then become the king of sky pirates," Rubedo answered thoughtfully, looking at the fan of cards in his hand, "And you?"

"So you haven't found a bride so far?"

"I don't think I'll ever have one, I'm not interested in women. Hello?"

"Huh?"

Rubedo sighed and put the cards away. He looked very young to Gabriel: familiar incongruent face features reminded him of snow-white Stone statues, and his heavy gaze from under the fur of brows—of fringes on closed theatre curtains.

"You think it's disgusting?" Rubedo asked across the table.

"No. To be honest... I mean, honestly, I've never thought about anything like this at all."

"Uh-huh." Rubedo shrugged, picking up the cards again, flashing his mourning ring, "Then let's pick this up a few years later."

When Gabriel said that he had never thought about it, he meant that he hadn't thought at all about the kinds of relationships that bound people in marriage. Well, besides living under the same roof, love, a promise to defend each other, and all the other clauses of the social contract that were usually enumerated at churches.

Gabriel wasn't a child anymore, and—though his life in sterile atmosphere of a distant manor had robbed him of opportunities to study infatuations and conversations of his peers—books, his own body, rumours of his descent, whispers at the club, and birth of a foal that he had been present at, suggested that besides the promises there was something else in families: something that lurked within unprinted whiteness of the pages.

"Is something troubling you?" his mother asked when they were left alone at the table. The Captain had just left them for another journey, "you've been more distracted lately."

The child raised his eyes to look at her. To put it plainly, he didn't feel troubled, but he didn't feel particularly untroubled either—but how to explain that?

Whenever he read books about knights, he'd imagine himself and Rubedo in their place, united in friendship so precious no villainous plot stood a chance against it. Of course, he recognized that his tutor was being paid for spending time with him. But other teachers would close the door on their way out the moment their lesson was concluded, only seldomly joining them for dinner; while Rubedo would occasionally spend an entire day with him. And sometimes they'd do things that were completely out there: once they held a bet on whether Rubedo was capable of sneaking into the gentlemen's club. And he was!

That was an odd image: his teacher seemed almost wider in his shoulders, paler, and for once his hair was made. He spoke little, as is expected from a hasty waiter, set tables with exceptional grace, and although he seemed to Gabriel an amusing parody of a Dickens's homegrown stuck-up butler from a rich house, who might worry over rules and silver more than their actual master, he had made an impression on the gentlemen of the club so lasting, they'd continue to complain about missing him.