Paragraph Prompt #3 - "Olive Trees"
(Credit for the prompt goes to Aurelia once again. Thank you!)
[This story contains the closest thing to "period-typical homophobia" that I think I've written of late, and it's still only a brief implication.]
Winter had departed the countryside at last, and through the window he could see the gardens in abundant bloom. The blazing sunset illuminated all beneath it, making the landscape outside the villa look like a painting by one of the revered master artists in Florence. Far from here, somewhere in the vast distance, the peasants would be returning home from their work. They would eat their modest evening meals, chatter amongst themselves about their mundane lives, and bicker with their wayward children before heading off to sleep in humble beds. Such would be their lives until the grim day of their funerals dawned.
Voldo breathed a sigh. Even now, amidst all this luxury, his thoughts had traveled back to the circumstances of his birth. He should be grateful for his new life…and he was! Nary a day passed when he wasn’t tempted to kiss his master’s golden buckles as thanks for what he’d been granted. Rightfully so, given his station as a servant in such a proper, prosperous home. Still, his traitorous heart craved more, more still. He gripped a bundle of his recently cropped dark locks with a fist, relishing the stinging protest from his scalp.
No, he wouldn’t pull any of his hair out this time. Doing that had forced Master’s hand last week, and the barber had only just arrived and departed yesterday. But today was Giovedi. How fitting, for this tidy little drama to play out in his thoughts! He breathed through gritted teeth.
What right, what divinely given privilege, did Master Vercci have to tease him so? Love betwixt men was not something prized as a virtue by the Church, but every man of sense saw that the rich across the city-states were afforded far more leniency than the average fearful peasant could ever dream of. Besides, Voldo had learnt from his time aboard ship that there were places the eyes of judgement never beheld, whether through carelessness or willful apathy. And though he’d held conflicting thoughts in his darkest moments about whether there existed a Being above to pray to, he was coming to question the dual edge of the blessing bestowed upon him.
Does he love me, or does he not? The question echoed in his mind, addressed to no one and to Someone all at once. His heart longed for another to understand his pain and confusion, if only for a solitary moment. Were those stares, those cunning smiles, and the untoward, lengthy glimpses of flesh his master allowed him in the morning signs of something more? Or were they mere jests, a mockery of the feelings written so obviously across his foolish face? Not for nothing had Master Vercci taken to calling him “zanni”; was it his plan to turn the rest of his servant’s life into a comedy?
Voldo regarded the olive trees outside with tearful eyes. It was in their nature to freely bloom, to live as they were meant to in freedom beneath the expansive blue skies. Why couldn’t he?
Yet an olive tree had no fear of being rejected by the one it loved. It had no fears at all. He was worlds apart from the blissful, ignorant happiness of the gardens, and perhaps always would be. Perhaps he would have sobbed if it hadn’t been for the words that brought him back to cold reality.
“Voldo!” called Master Vercci from his chamber. “Remove yourself from the window at once and make haste! My bedlinens cannot turn themselves down, sirrah.”
Voldo heard a smile in those words, and he despised the way it made his heart thrill.
In obedient silence, he bowed his head, and wrenched himself away from his portal to the world outside. There was servant’s work to attend to.
