the bloodless

born a bastard to a wealthy french lord, laurent is granted private acknowledgment through the villiers name and most of the comforts permitted to legitimate offspring. he learns early, and on his own, why. an educated bastard is a useful one, and a comfortable bastard is less likely to make a fuss. regardless, he loves his family and believes they love him too, molding himself into the sort of son he thinks they will find easy to keep loving.

he becomes clever, discreet, and persuasive. rooms open themselves to a funny, handsome bastard, and his illegitimacy makes it easy to coax others into lowering their guard before he slips back into the shadows with whatever he came for. he takes meetings with unwanted visitors and makes them feel vital. he handles matters too delicate for his father and brothers to be seen muddling with. he is good at cleaning up messes, and he knows enough to consider himself lucky. the perfect bastard.

at twenty-one, he is sent to the caribbean as a liaison for his family’s commercial interests. the rigidity of french society loosens thousands of miles from home, and it feels like an exhale. for the first time, he steps out from beneath his family’s grand eclipse and finds there is sun enough for him too.

at twenty-three, while traveling aboard a merchant ship, he is taken hostage by the widow’s wake. he nearly meets the same end as the rest until he invokes his family name, and even the captain recognizes the fortune that might be made from a villiers. a ransom is demanded, and they wait. laurent is frightened, of course, but assumes the matter will be settled within days. perhaps a week, if his father finds the price excessive. he is useful, after all.

days become weeks before a letter bearing fine, elaborate handwriting and the family seal is finally placed into the captain’s hands. “monsieur villiers has no legitimate son by the name laurent and accepts no obligation concerning the debts or circumstances of the aforementioned man.” perhaps out of pity, the captain lets him read it. laurent reads it three times, then asks if he may keep it. it still sits in his bedside drawer, folded and unfolded a hundred times since.

the pirata codex leaves them with an ugly problem. laurent is no longer worth ransoming, and a captive who refuses to serve cannot simply be released. the captain gives him a choice: join the wake or die. laurent has little argument with that. hell, as far as he is concerned, he has no family anymore. no ties to hierarchy, wealth, or duty. stripped of everything that had once decided his place for him, he finds something almost like freedom in the choice.

he chooses to become a silk. what use is his cleverness now, if not to keep opening things that were never meant to open for him? only now, instead of slipping into grand halls and private meetings, he slips into beds when necessary, or when he feels like it, and gets his hands on key rings, shipping schedules, guard rotations, private correspondence. he lies beautifully, and the widow’s wake thrives for it. he becomes a favorite of the captain’s, partly because he is good at what he does and partly because he is good company. laurent offers an impartial voice when others flatter and a frank one when others fear to speak. in time, he becomes fiercely loyal to the man who offered him a second life after his father condemned the first.

the golden age begins tarnishing around them. pirate ranks thin beneath naval campaigns, pardons, and the gallows, and laurent adapts faster than most. faster than the captain, certainly. traditional piracy is becoming a sure route to the noose. burning ships invite investigation. open battles create witnesses, wanted posters, and bounties. subterfuge is cleaner. take the riches before anyone realizes they are gone, and perhaps they might survive long enough to spend them. better yet, they might thrive.

the captain does not adapt with him. perhaps it is age, or fear, or the crown tightening its grip around the caribbean, but something in him begins to change. betrayal appears everywhere he looks. simple misunderstandings earn harsh punishments. unnecessary risks cost them good sailors. a temper once kept on a short leash begins to lash out like a whip. laurent starts intervening beyond his station, at first to protect both the crew and the man commanding it. sailors begin bringing their concerns to him before the captain, and laurent still defends the man when their doubts turn ugly. then comes an incident he cannot excuse. laurent confronts him privately and appeals to his better sense, to the safety of the crew, to the man he remembers. the captain answers by reminding laurent who commands the ship, and who gave him the life he now enjoys.

it never begins as an intentional mutiny. laurent would never admit how much it pains him to watch the captain become inflexible, paranoid, and cruel. still, by the time he finally confronts him on deck before the assembled crew, the outcome has already been decided. the silks trust laurent. the whispers bring their findings to him first. the mirrors seek his counsel before carrying out orders they no longer trust. the captain reaches for his weapon and finds it gone. nobody moves to defend him. not a drop of blood is spilled. betrayal may be punishable by death, but laurent would wager the captain betrayed his crew long before they betrayed him.

a wiser man might have executed the former captain. laurent, in spite of everything, cannot quite carve out the part of himself that clings to loyalty like a rock in a squall. instead, he has the man marooned. the captain laughs when he realizes what is happening. “don’t have the stomach to kill me, lordling?” laurent only tilts his head, as though the answer should be obvious. “we’re even now. captain.”

more than a decade has passed since then. laurent remains as disarming and lovely as he was when he was young, and later when he was a silk, though something sharper has settled beneath it with age. it surfaces when the stakes are high. he survived a family that would not pay for him and became a man the crown would gladly pay a fortune to hang. he survived the captain who offered him a second life, only to learn that the gift had come with chains attached. none of it sits lightly with him. he invites his crew to challenge him, though he expects it done in private. trust comes slowly, but once given, it is difficult to shake. those he calls his own are put to work, listened to, protected, and fought for.

misc.

he earned the moniker “the bloodless” well after the mutiny, more a descriptor of how the captain of the widow’s wake can steal everything from underneath you without drawing a single drop of blood. some mistake it to mean that he is merciful; he doesn’t mind being underestimated. to laurent, spilling blood is a sure sign things were poorly planned.

as a silk, he had different monikers. the darling, officially; someone had suggested it as a callback to his “noble” heritage. to those most intimate to him, they thought of another: sweetmouth. using either now to his face is a sure way to tempt fate.

a decent swordfighter, a good assassin, an exemplary spy, but a poor shot.