Free The Blood List by Sarah Naughton

discussion
between them; now and again she gave a tinkling, almost girlish laugh. Barnaby smiled at the sight: it was rare to see his mother so animated, but then his eyes met his brother’s.
    ‘You are the devil,’ Abel breathed. Barnaby gave a quiet snort of laughter.
    Abel’s gaze did not falter.
    ‘Even Satan doth transform himself into an angel of light.’
he hissed.
    Barnaby made a face at him.
    ‘And the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.’
    ‘You’re off your head.’
    He concentrated on eating but his brother’s stare seared the top of his head. His heart began to beat harder.
    ‘Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty. Thou hast corrupted thy—’
The sprout struck Abel on the nose, spattering his face with onion gravy.
    ‘Barnaby!’ his father bellowed.
    His parents glared at him while Abel pressed his napkin to his eye and gave little whimpers of pain, which as far as Barnaby was concerned were entirely faked.
    ‘My eyeball is scalded!’ he wailed. Frances gave Henry a meaningful look before going to kneel down at Abel’s side.
    Henry glared at Barnaby.
    ‘Father, I just couldn’t stand—’
    ‘ENOUGH!’ Henry shouted, banging the flat of his hand on the table so hard the crockery rang. Then he stood up and, to Barnaby’s horrified disbelief, undid his belt buckle.
    ‘Father, what are you . . . ?’
    ‘It’s time you learned that you cannot do exactly as you please, Barnaby.’
    ‘Father, please, I didn’t mean to hurt him . . .’
    But Henry wrenched him out of his seat, dragging him through the kitchen, where Juliet stood staring in disbelief, and out to the stables.
    The sun was just setting and even the deepest recesses of the yard were bathed in a honeyed glow, visible to anyone who was passing.
    ‘No, Father!’ Barnaby cried. ‘Not here!’
    Henry was breathing hard. A vein the width of a finger had sprung out on his forehead, pulsing with blue blood. The tip of the belt dangling at his side flicked this way and that as his clenched
fist trembled.
    ‘Unfasten your breeches.’
    Barnaby stared at him. His father’s stomach wobbled and his face was shiny with sweat. The muscles of his youth were drowned in fat and both his shoulders were so stiff with arthritis it
would be simple for Barnaby to snatch the belt from him and toss it over the gate.
    ‘Unfasten your breeches,’ Henry said again.
    They stared at each other. His father’s faded blue eyes locked to Barnaby’s bright ones; the grey curls and the blond caught the glow of the sunset.
    Henry swallowed, then he glanced over at the kitchen window.
    If Barnaby chose he could humiliate his father now in front of the whole household, and anyone who happened to be passing: show him that the old order had changed, teach him a lesson he
wouldn’t forget. It wouldn’t take much – a kick to the old man’s behind to send him reeling into the pig dung, a backhanded slap that would sting but leave no mark. With
that he would assert his place in the household and no one would dare defy him again, including his foul brother.
    Barnaby sensed faces at the window. Juliet was there, surely, and Abel wouldn’t resist such a spectacle, though perhaps their mother would not choose to watch.
    Henry blinked rapidly and slapped the belt against his open palm.
    The sun had dropped lower in the sky even in those past few minutes. It threw Barnaby’s shadow across the yard, broad and ten times his normal height, entirely covering his father.
    He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, then he opened them and, in full view of the street and the faces at the window, he unfastened his breeches.
    Barnaby lay awake listening to the sounds of the evening as it gave way to night. The streets became suddenly noisier as the inns threw out the last remaining customers. A
drunk passed beneath his window, singing a love song punctuated by hiccoughs. Somewhere