I had a face for sorrow then. Midnight hair, pale skin, shadows beneath the eyes. In the rain, I looked almost divine. In candlelight, I looked terminal. If I leaned one shoulder against a doorway and half-smiled as though remembering some old wound, people practically threw bread at me.
And so I told my story.
Not all of it at once. One must pace a tragedy.
A cruel mother here.
A faithless friend there.
A betrayal.
A misunderstood talent.
An injury that never healed properly.
A season of hardship.
The fact that I had βalways carried more than people knew.β
This last phrase served me wonderfully, as I was usually carrying very little.
What I wanted, you see, was not merely help. Help is crude. A sack lifted, a debt paid, a meal served, a bed offered. Useful, yes, but small.
What I wanted was reverence.
I wanted people to look at the wreckage around me and say, βHow bravely he suffers.β
I wanted them to scrub my stains from the floor and call it loyalty.
I wanted them to finance my idleness and name it recovery.
I wanted them to be grateful when I allowed them to rescue me.
This is only natural in a man marked by destiny.
There were moments, admittedly, when others failed me.
Once, in an inn beside a black lake, a serving girl brought me watered wine. Watered. I had spent the better part of an hour telling her, in confidence, about the difficulties of my life and the burden of never being understood. I even mentioned that I was on the verge of a great undertaking, though circumstances had delayed me unjustly. She listened with that blank peasant face of hers, nodded twice, and returned with watered wine.
When I looked at her, she gave the smallest twitch of her mouth.
Not even a smile. Worse.
A near-smile.
The kind of smile a person makes when they have placed you, like a beetle, under glass.
It scorched me.
I drank only half and left the cup. My heart was too bruised for more.
