Free Boyett-Compo, Charlotte - WindTales 02 by WindChance

my
    childhood was like. You have no conception of how evil people can really be. I was a mistake, Weir, a
    slip-up. I wasn't supposed to have ever been born, and my mother never, ever, let me forget that.
    Because of me, she was forced to leave her beloved Holy Dale. She never forgave me for that, either."
    He held up his free hand, the fist balled tightly closed. “You see this? This is the only touch I ever felt
    from my mother. She never held me; she never hugged me; she never kissed me or sang to me or
    comforted me. My god! She didn't even suckle me! I had a wet nurse for that. If she could have let me
    die, she would have. She tried to kill me before I was even born, but it didn't take. She tried twice, twice,
    and both times it failed. By the time she found someone else to try, she was too far along in her
    pregnancy and the old woman refused to do it."
    There was horror spreading across Saur's face. “What about your father? Where was he when..."
    “Did you ever see him?” Syn-Jern shuddered, seeing his father's face flash across his vision. “The man
    was hideous! He was grossly fat, obscenely so, and he reeked of body odor. I don't think he ever
    bathed. He had a bulbous nose, most of his teeth were missing, and what little hair he had was as orange
    as a carrot. He was as uncouth as he was foul.
    “To my knowledge, he only slept with my mother the one time. He was visiting Prince Doron McGregor
    at Norus Keep. My mother's father, Ruan McGregor, a second cousin to Prince Doron, knew Giles
    Sorn would be there. He had tried to foist his daughter Anne off on Sorn once before, but my father
    would have no part of it. Angry and with every intention of joining the two houses, my grandfather had
    Giles drugged, then ‘found’ his daughter and Giles together in bed. The old man threatened to go to the
    Prince for recompense for his daughter's loss of her maidenhood if Giles didn't marry her. My mother
    once yelled at me that Giles had raped her while he was drunk, that he had forced her into his bed. I
    don't suppose I'll ever know the truth of it. All I do know for a fact is I was conceived that night at Norus
    Keep."
    “So according to your father, he was blackmailed into the marriage?"
    “Aye, and was infuriated by it. Theirs was a marriage neither wanted, but my father couldn't afford a
    reprimand from King Drude McGregor, Doron's father, and my mother's great uncle, so he wed her, but
    he never stayed with her. When he found out she was pregnant, he packed her off to Tern Keep, his
    manor house near Ciona, because he said he didn't want to see how ugly she would become while she
    was carrying his heir. He never came to visit."
    “Was there no one to champion her, then? What of her mother?"
    “My maternal grandmother, Monique McGregor, had no idea how things stood. She did not hear of it
    until years later when I was brought to Holy Dale to live. Had she known, perhaps things would have
    been better for me; but she was estranged from her daughter and had no great love for her."
    “I take it your mother took her anger out on you,” Weir said quietly.
    Syn-Jern smiled sadly. “Never did I feel a loving touch, Weir. Not once. The women who watched me
    were as cruel as they came. They seemed to enjoy hearing me cry. The least little thing I did wrong
    warranted a beating. If I spilled something at the table, I went without food for a day. If I soiled my
    clothes, I was locked in my armoire for hours on end. If I dared to talk back to them, and believe me that
    was a mistake I made only once or twice, I had my mouth washed out with the foulest-tasting concoction
    they could find."
    “And your father knew of this?” Weir was stunned that a child could be treated to such abuse.
    “What did he care?"
    “Had he no feeling for you at all?"
    “The only person he ever loved was Alicia Jamar, his mistress. Within a year after he married my
    mother, Alicia was carrying his child, a child he wanted to inherit all