Brothers Wittebane

02

1613, June 12

It was only a couple nights ago when Caleb had us running out of that barn at dawn. There was a cranky old man and his dogs chasing after us. Caleb was laughing and I barely had my shoes on, but I was laughing to. I think we're both the same that way. We both love trouble.

The two boys had moved from town to town. Catching rides, doing odd jobs, singing in the streets for coins in their hats. They were dirty and most nights hungry. But Caleb would tell Pip stories on nights they had to find shelter under trees or out in fields. "See that star up there?" asked Caleb, "Which one there's a million," Philip replied, hiding a smile in the cover of the night because he knew Caleb would be annoyed. True enough his brother elbowed him in the side and Philip could see his light grey eyes roll to the heavens. "The brightest one, that one there in the corner," and Caleb's hands became bird's wings that flew beneath the brightest star.

Philip laughed softly to himself. "Yeah, I see it," "That's your star," Philip raised an eyebrow. The barley blew softly around them, tickling the ink black sky with their green and gold. This was one of Philip's favorite nights. It was warm and the sky was clear. He can often see them laying in that field again, hidden in the tall grass, the smell of the sweet cereal. Thier own little bubble with nothing but the stars above them.

"How can it be my star?" he asked skeptical. "It's yours because I made it so," "You have that kind of power?" "Oh yes I do," "No you don't," "Do to, I'm the prince of the heavens and your the king of the earth," Philip laughed again. It's what Caleb did. He made them princes, and knights, kings and gods. They served King Aurthur's table; they sailed the seven seas. They chased the stars, and they hid from the sun.

But it seemed whenever they played witch hunt nothing good came of it. It had been a few months of the brother's moving from one place to another, without settling in any. "It has to be right Pip," Caleb had reasoned with him, "It has to feel like home," Philip sighed nothing would feel like home to him, not even the town they would end up spending the remainder of their lives in. It was always Caleb who Pip would call home.

1613, September 19

We're in a new place again. I think I like this one the least. Caleb agrees. The man who let us stay in his barn is a ripe ass shit head. I don't like the way he talks to Caleb. I swear he just has to give me a reason and I'll make his life hell.

It was the turn of the season and the leaves had begun to slip away from the branches that they had held so tightly to the whole of the warm months. There was no harvest that time of the year so Caleb had worked in the house of a wealthy merchant, Mr Taylor. He was a tyrant. Cruel and vindictive. Mrs Taylor had spent her days locked in her chambers. Only coming out to prepare her husband's supper when he'd stumble trough the foyer at dusk already smelling of whiskey and Tabacco. Philip didn't really like the smell of Tabacco; once sailors had tempted Caleb with a drag. He ended up coughing up a lung, with the sailors thumping him on the back, wiping tears from their eyes from laughing too hard.

The only time the two were seen together in public was on evenings when they hosted parties. The brother's had never experienced upper class social life and were dazzled. Mr Taylor was a popular man, becoming one of the richest to settle in the colonies, he had strived for opulence. A chance to recreate European aristocracy in the New World. Often, he throw wild parties with men and women who he thought he'd seen potential in exploiting. Their newly blooming business, farms, shipping. He aimed to be well connected.

That type of power, in a world were living was hard, were many didn't make it through the winter, and conflict between different people raged on all around them, it didn't exist if rare. There were whispers from towns folk in neighboring areas. "He'd made a deal with the devil" "Living like the King of England himself he is" "That money ani't honest". They hated him, while they starved and fought, he sat on a golden throne. Even his small group of society men and women would sneer behind closed doors. His popularity was nothing more than a folly. It made Mr Taylor feel like a God.