Slave's Love (Pirate!Spamano)

Capítulo 18 (dieciocho)

Roderich's POV:

Work came in small outbursts for me, interrupted by occasional sleeping. I could not forget the young child's voice erupting in the middle of the night. Never in my life have I heard such desperate cry for help and the mess of evenings that followed it...

"Ugh." I groaned, leaning back in my seat with the palm of my hand stroking my hair. My glasses were left forgotten somewhere on the lilac wood table, piles of paper stocked on the unimportant edges of the furniture. There was so much work for me to do but alas! Did I care? The empire wasn't going anywhere, there weren't any wars for me to worry about and my dear emperor Joseph the First could go somewhere, too. Into the arms of another comfort woman, for example.

And he ought to be married soon. Touché.

A pounding ache was slowly building its way into my head regardless my attempts of shooing it away by massaging my temples. By this I was reminded even more of my rather sleepless night. The scream came unexpectedly, at around two at night. No wonder it surprised me so much; everything was silent, not even a single whistle of wind could've been heard in the outside world and then it happened. No-one was there to hold me back from jerking awake and right into flawless attention.

There was a candle just next to me, like it should've been, and I lit it up in matters of seconds. Nothing. Despite my uncontrolled swinging with the light around, I couldn't find an intruder, something I should protect myself from. That was until I heard fast but light footsteps. They were echoing off of the walls of my summer house. They soon disappeared into the blackness of a night and I thought everything was well and yet, another pair of legs drummed against the floor.

Note my nerves were still in the process of calming down and thus I wasn't eternally sure as to what to do. I should've gone at least check what was that all about, being the master of this household, but somehow, I was frozen to the ground. I couldn't move an inch and therefore, I stood there, not so far away from my bedside, in a warm nightdress with a lit candle in my hand. There were no sounds in the next quarter an hour or so. My heartbeat was back to normal, the same went with my breathing but my brain was still restless. It demanded answers and explanation, and that didn't let me sleep well for the next hours of night.

The companion at my breakfast table was in an even worse condition. He didn't speak, barely ate and looked about to fall apart. If I didn't look the same, I'd have judged him and be disgusted but the fact he haven't lived in good settings reminded me of being coy towards him.

My dearest Elizabetha was worth crying, too. For a lady her position she wasn't supposed to look the way she did. Her dressing was unorganised and her hair was an unprofessional mess of strands sticking out in every direction even though she tried her hardest to rule over it with her tender hand. When the meal was finished, an unusual show of affection took me by notice.

Just by the two wings door, in shadows where only a trained eye could see, stood two females, wrapped in each other's arms. Or rather, after taking a better look, I noticed only the Hungarian's arms were tightly put around the other's slender body. The maid looked fragile in the embrace of her friend, shaking violently and the cooing hand of my love wasn't helping the poor soul in relaxing. Her lips were moving but I couldn't make out the silent words she spoke. Later on, I was informed the woman was the one who endured the scream as first.

"Alles war so ruhig. Das Kind war so schwach und geräuschlos und dann-" Her brown-green stare was blurred with tears, the liquid rolling down her puffy cheeks and being soaked into uniform sleeves as she tried to wipe them off. Her shoulders were trembling in the morning sunlight, arms of the star caressing her hair softly. I told her to take some time to calm down, no matter how long it'd take and left her with a soft statement to Elizabetha.