1

Where I was born is not of particular interest. Whenever a soul asks me such a question I understand them to truly be asking, 'how was I born.' So let's get that out of the way to begin with. I was born normal. With normal legs and the normal ability to walk and dance and crawl and run. This was taken from me. I was also born a free person. With the normal ability to do as I pleased, when I pleased, and be punished under a legal law not within the whim of a master. This was also taken from me. Furthermore, I was born a reasonably moral person. With the normal ability to forgive, to forget, and to love again. This quality... was dismembered.

What is particularly important is that this is the story of how I destroyed the man who destroyed me.

*

I was sold into the Brabantio household when I was around eighteen. Generally speaking I wish you would forget the first twenty one years of my life. For personal reasons, you'll understand at a later date, perhaps. I never took a liking the condition of slavery or the place or the people, but neither did I ever take a disliking to the condition of slavery, or the place, a rolling country villa, or the people, namely the Brabantio family.

Dianna was the central figure in the family. She had mother, who died one way or another. She had a step-mother, who was not as stereotypically wicked as one would think. And she also had in her possession a father, who was as stereotypically wicked as one would think.

The father was a strange man. The mother who died one way or another may have died at his hand or at her own hand or at a foreign hand or by God's thumb for all I know. When he married the newer model of Dianna's mother it was because the political ties it secured. He was never very amorously inclined to the opposite sex and had been endued with peculiar notions about the somatic value of younger males. He had once been a great warrior, but now he was reduced to a senator.

That's all you need to concern yourself with him. Dianna is the particularly interesting one in this chapter. She was born... well I suppose that's not particularly relevant either. She was wed. That is all.

She was wed. Where is not the issue. Why? She loved a man. Who? The question is what, dear friend. How? There's the thing... In the pitch black of the night, without her father's knowledge, the fair angel floated from heaven into the arms of the blackest of devils. She finally managed to sever the umbilical cord twenty three years in the wrapping and returned to her home only to fetch her bags and her favored slave, the younger cripple she looked on as more of a trained pet than a human man.

I prepared all her things for our journey, taking the most valuable as I knew her father would destroy whatever she left. The lovable girl had not been quite so clever to pack for her last voyage away from her native land. I was to remain and act as a sentry, telling her father she was ill, if he asked. I agreed to this all, of course. A sense of elation had fallen over me ever since I saw the end of my tumultuous stay in the Brabantio household and I found myself curious about where the future would take me. Curious as opposed to fearful, which was quite a positive change for me.

Even without ever meeting the husband, I knew she loved him. It was in her smile, her dancing joy, the extra hour she spent soaking in the warm bath scrubbing her ivory skin. This fabled creature called Love worked wonders on the already glowing nymph turning her into a beaming angel at the mere thought of her suitor. And because her heart was filled with him so was her mind. And I was happy, simply because she was happy, as had ever been the case between us. I was never particularly bothered by her innocent disregard for my humanity, nor was I overly concerned that she was to belong to another man. You must not confuse my love for the girl with anything more than it was, simply because I happen to be a male and she a female. What I felt for the girl was purely admiration for her divine nature and I would not care to defile it with my own maculated self.

As for the husband, she deemed him worthy, and so in my simple and somewhat naive mind, I assumed he was. That trusting naive was not to last.

*

The castle was a dark grey in stone, built into a lush gray mountain, on top of earth that was a very drab shade of light black. The ocean, also rather achromatic, kissed the foundation of the towering building, spraying up to the pediment of the smokey place, though the disastrous depths were gentle that day, mild, and easily forgotten.

I stood besides the young woman, soaking in the rain. Her radiance repelled the drops of water and even with her white blonde hair clinging to her flushed cheeks and pale face she was gorgeously excited. I smiled at her then at the dour place that was our new home, so filled with whispered potential. "I dare say, Dianna, this place needs a woman's touch."

She smiled. "It will be beautiful in the spring. You'll help me to re-design the gardens, won't you?"

"Course." I replied, not doubting she would point at the pictures, while I did most of the designing, sketching the new landscape, at least until my withered hand grew to tired to sketch further.

I shouldered the bulk of the luggage and was immediately rebuked. "Let me carry some."

It was not a command nor was it an action Dianna would have taken with any other slave. I really had no other choice but to obey her as she swept the better half of her packages and cases from me.

"Oh, I've missed him so!" She glided up the beach as if the wind were carrying her packages while I struggled back weighted by the smaller number. She wondered to me, excitably."How many days has it been since I last saw him? I feel nearly dead without him!"

"You married him less than twelve hours ago, Dianna." I replied, accidentally looking back at the beach and noticing the difference in our foot prints. Her's a light skip, mine an incessant line. I directed my attentions on the distant door, I hoped I could reach and laughed with her."And if you are nearly dead prancing about as you are I hope whatever you're dying of is highly contagious."

"Love is a pleasant illness." My lady laughed in reply. She glanced back at me to make sure I was still following. I was having difficulty making my way through the slippery sand and to the top of the hill. "Oh! You're going to love him too. I know you will. My husband is the gentlest of souls."

She giggled at the novel idea of her marriage. "My husband... I'm so happy!"

I laughed as she trilled and danced in a large circle about the garden path and continued to smile at her when Dianna fell in step besides me. "I'll bet you're just pleased to be away from my father, in spite of the odd occasion."

"Don't think me so bitter, my dear." I smiled at her as she tried to force her excitement into a slower walk for me and ended up bouncing. "Your father is a good and noble man."

"Oh, don't be a fool." She glittered. "He's a horrible person and you know it."

"More of a colostomy bag than a person wouldn't you say?" I remarked, to her giddy enjoyment. I paused as she laughed. "Or a withered adolescent, though he needs far more care than any infant I ever laid eyes on."

"Oh, stop." She cried. "I can't hardly breathe from laughing."

"Well, you're just a giddy fool, Dianna." I smiled at her. "And it's a wonderful thing."

She smiled heavenly and I gestured to the huge house as we passed through the archway into the courtyard. "And this castle? Will be beautiful in the spring and have Eden as a garden and an angel for its queen."

She giggled again. "Oh, you... You spend far too much time in your poetry books."

"May that ever be my curse." I shuffled after her into the greyed courtyard.

*

Dianna's new husband was parted from her before I ever met him. He had been called to urgent business in a foreign place and though it was his wedding night, he had no choice but to attend to that particular business. She was rather depressed by the event and unwilling to be in anyone's company any more, she rang for the groundskeeper to escort me to the slave's house, after I had helped her to unpack, of course.

Within a matter of moments a surly looking man sauntered half-way through the door. He was as strange and stout a fellow as I had ever seen, plodding up the stairs. Nothing in any of his features struck me as odd, it was the combination of them that created the goblin finesse of his rugged and dirty appearance. All expression seemed lost to the worn leather of his skin save an annoyed scowl. He was scorned enough to bow, with a clumsy grace as if clumsiness were his fashion. He said in a brusque tone. "Mistress?"

"Hello, good sir. You must be the groundskeeper? " Dianna smiled, cheerful, but her mirth was blackened by the stranger. It occurred to me that he would have been a handsome man if it had not been for his unsmiling ugliness. She gestured to me and cleared her throat when he only nodded in reply. "Seeing as you know this estate so well and have full knowledge of..."

"You want me to take him to the slave house?" He pointed at me.

She smiled and nodded. "Exactly."

The man looked at me, a moment, as if his stare was verbal communication. Then he turned and went down the hall.

"Oh, and groundskeeper!" He turned slowly at the fair woman's delicate call. She smiled at him with impossibly melting sweetness. "Do see that he gets a room that has a lot of light at night is possible. It would mean ever so much to me."

Even such a gray creature as this could not resist the charm of my lady. The edge of his mouth twisted into a smile, as broad as I could imagine the worn person wearing. He nodded then turned away again and lead me into the hall. I tried to keep up with him, following the gargoyle into the innards of the castle looking back to return the wave of the angel I served.