Inheritance

Month 2- Week 1

Vincent – Compound of the Inheritor

“WHERE IN ALL THE NECROMANTIC CIRCLES OF DEATH IS SHE?” Vincent screeched and the house servants ducked as he whirled around in his tantrum and hurled another one of the new vases at a wall behind them. It was the forth one he’d broken this week and the house staff was running out of creative excuses to explain to the mistress of the compound what was happening to her expensive and fragile display pieces. She had begun docking their pay weeks ago when it became clear that they would not betray her husband’s confidence and continued trying to hide his activities.

It was a rainy spring day in the capital city and Vincent’s mood was darker than the clouds obscuring the sky. Having not found satisfaction in breaking the vase, he turned to find some other object that would shatter. There was nothing small left for him to break as his wife had most everything she cared about removed from the rooms that were accessible to Vincent and his cronies.

All that remained in the public rooms were the things that were Vincent’s own belongings…, or things that Atricia had purchased and placed there with the specific instructions that if they were broken their cost would be recouped from the servants’ salaries. Unless they could tell her that the breaking was someone else’s fault.

She’d smiled saccharinely as she’d told them watching the way their shoulders slumped and their loyalty to the miserable man they served had begun to falter. Was it really worth the financial hardship to protect a man who only had his own interests at heart? True, he was fighting for more rights for men. But what did that really mean?

Men were allowed to own property. They could have jobs and careers. They had their own money. They were active in politics. They just couldn’t inherit positions of power. Men could even be heads of households just not the head of a noble family. Men couldn’t rule provinces. Men couldn’t rule at all.

It wasn’t like men were hampered in any other way really. They just weren’t used as the line of inheritance. After all, a woman could claim any man was the sire of their children. A man could not prove beyond any doubt that a child was his. So, inheritance was traced through the female line. And the treaty with the Orc Hordes was conditional on The Matriarchy’s continued system of government remaining a matriarchy.

“Where did she go?” Vincent raged again. He wanted to hit something. Anything. The word was miserable and it all needed to die. “Two wretched females? How could two women have the wherewithal to elude us? Me?”

If Covina and that mewling apprentice had gone to The Matriarch, Vincent would have known. One of his people in the palace would have intercepted them and they would have been found dead. Perhaps just the apprentice. Vincent needed Covina.

Not her, per se. But her resources. The authority of House Feggotti. Her visible presence in the capital so that when he forged her name on documents people could believe it was really her. And when his forgeries of The Matriarch’s authority on documents were discovered and The Matriarchy eventually overthrown, the pettiness of women was to be his reason for taking control.

Covina Feggotti needed to get back to her rightful place as the worthless little scapegoat she was. Preferably while sucking his dick or bent over a desk taking it from behind. Women.

“Send another message to our brothers in arms.” The startled butler jumped back a pace as the raving lord of the house whirled on him, his greasy face shining with sweat and red with fury. “Finding the two of them is…” It wouldn’t do for anyone to realize how much his plans had revolved around one woman. No. That would make the daring leader of their noble resistance appear weak. “…They are traitors to our cause. When they are found, the girl may be killed, but Covina must be returned for appropriate punishment.”

“Yes…?” The butler responded almost hesitantly yet the preoccupied Vincent didn’t notice. “The message will be sent?” The butler glanced around at the other petrified staff who had been forced to endure the angry man’s ranting and the look on their faces matched the mortified butler’s. They were all thinking it – Is this really the guy who we want in a position of power? “By your leave, lord?”

The fuming schemer missed the note of disgust in the butler’s voice as he said the word ‘lord’. Lord wasn’t a title in The Matriarchy. It was a title in lands where men could rule. But it wasn’t here. Their ‘Lord’ just made his servants call him that because ‘someday he would be a lord if their work was a success’.

Yet, none of Vincent’s flunkies, at least, not the ones who were reputable enough to pass the screening to work in the Compound of the Inheritor, quite felt he was worthy of that title anymore. They gave each other knowing glances while trying to ascertain which among them were ‘true believers’ in the cause and which they could trust their real feelings with. It seemed as though they had all come to the same conclusions and waited anxiously to be dismissed.

“Yes. Yes.” The reply came distractedly. “Leave and get on with your duties at once.” They shuffled hurriedly away from the madman they served. A slight congestion formed in the foot traffic trying to remove themselves from his presence and they jostled quietly for a place in line to get out of the room before he hurt one of them. Each servant sighed with relief once there was a closed door between them and the man they served.

Vincent didn’t notice. He was already preoccupied with dreaming up appropriate punishments for Covina. How dare she leave him.

Him?!

He had given her purpose. He had made her into an object of value with his attention. His use of her had given her purpose. She had just been a woman, before. Now she had value. How dare she spurn that and leave before he was done with her?

He plotted. Small petty vengeance. While Covina fled.