That afternoon, the ship lay in port, its prow jutting out like a unicorn’s horn blessing those who graced its shores. The castle walls sent its rough silhouette across the village as the children shivered with glee, daring each other to touch the polished sides of the ship; the sound of a horn sending them scurrying back to their mothers. Mothers laden down with baskets of fresh fruit, berries dark blue and dripping with juices, untangling their little ones from their aprons with a “gone with ye!” and “you’ll be in for a thrashing!”  Baskets of linen piled high as a hillock to be pressed and ironed that evening, the stench of fish filling the streets.

It was no accident that brought Alden to the harbour that day. He had followed his father on horseback, insisting for once on undertaking his duties with uncommon vigour. He would acquaint himself with the lowly commoners- the villagers, and amaze them with extravagant gifts and lordly acts of charity as befitted his station, and they would love him for it. Or so he thought. As he rode through the town square, erect and winking his benevolent eye, disinterest and boredom greeted him tenderly. The ship’s grubby crew with their bleached skin and uncoordinated sea legs attracted more cripples that he could dream of drawing to his pale arms.

“Father, why are they not getting down on their knees to us?” he said between clenched teeth. “What’s the point of relaxing taxes for the new cycle if they’re not grateful?”

His father’s body was astride his black stallion Fury, but his soul was not. The pneumonia had weakened his heart, with a fifteen-year-old son to care for, the mind had retreated to a refuge none could follow. The castle grounds were the backdrop of his drama, as he wandered the mazes and rocky paths in nothing but his bed shirt, the clock would strike an ungodly hour. Dirt painted his toenails black, the soles of the king’s feet so covered in lesions that he could no longer walk without assistance as morning dawned. Nobody knew where he went, and if they tried to follow his ghostly apparition into the darkness, soon the night would swallow the path carved by his sleeping form.

His son took no concerns in this physicality. It embarrassed him to have a weak king as a father, but he would soon fix that. For now, he needed to be seen in public with such a figure of authority.

“For your wife, Sire.” Sprigs of pink roses pressed themselves into his father’s hands. The woman wore a lurid dress. She bobbed a curtsey and vanished into the crowds, Alden staring after her with a lingering repulsion.

“Your aunt’s arrival signals a grand occasion. She has fallen on hard times and your cousin may just be the bridge to repair this family. So look sharp and for the love of all Saints, drag a smile over that scowl before I do it for you.” The king’s sharp tongue peppered through Alden’s visage like a barrage of arrows. Alden busied himself with stroking the lead box, lost in thought. Within lay a dagger in ornate silver and gold, a large jade glittering in the hilt.

The knife had chronicled his first kill on its polished sheen, the sticky residue drying on its blade a memory indented like Morse code.  Even after he had thrust the dagger into the fire to disinfect, the cries of the dying man could still be heard through the mountain pass. Such murders however accidental, reaped just desserts. With an urge to fling it into the ocean, a perversity made him cling to this powerful instrument of torture. And now he was expected to surrender his beloved weapon to a babe barely out of the womb. It was sacrilege, a true catastrophe.

No, he would not have it.

As the naked, hairless thing was carried off the ship, Alden need only take one look at the mewing; insufficient scrap of an infant before he turned away.