[WFRP2e] The Power of One - Part 2 - "Transire Benefaciendo"

[MrAbdiel]

You sit with him for a few moments as his panic settles.

"Hello? Hey - is he... Do you need help?"

Maso closes his eyes at the voice of his son Biagio, calling up with concern for him. But the moment of first flight and fear is over.

"Can you... tell him I'll come back to the shop..? I just need a moment..."

When you lean over the edge to convey the message, you see the relief in Biagio's face. He rubs his cheeks with his palms, and nods a little. "Alright. Alright, I'll... Tell your friend you're on your way back shortly. Ah... Nice to meet you."

And off he goes, stooping to pick up the fine little tinker tools he has dropped on the way.

* * * * *

Signore Cestié explains, in the quiet few minutes you are alone on that Miragliano rooftop.

Cestié's father is the third generation of his family to operate the shop. The name is established and honoured for security and quality products, requested by the families of merchant princes all through the city and the petty merchants in the towns beyond. A good business, based on trust, which his father took seriously, and intended to pass on to his children. There are four of them, all boys. Franchino was the first; a few years later came Maso. After him came Salvi; and finally the youngest, Neri. Maso was eight years old when Neri was born. He remembers it clearly, because it is the year his mother was killed.

"It was the rats, as it often is. A bigger attack on the city than they usually muster - I never knew why. But my mother - her name was Tomisina -... well, she happened to be in a boat in the canal with Neri, on her way home. They took her, and left Neri - I suppose they have little use for infant slaves. The marsh rangers found my mother's body in the swamp outside the city. Papa had to hire a wetnurse for Neri, and otherwise raised us alone. Or.. we raised each other, maybe. I don't know."

But a several years into learning the trade like his older brother, alongside looking out for his younger brothers, Maso was enticed by a new offer - a gang of thieves called the Weevers, after a venomous fish in the Gulf of Pearls. He can't quite pick out why he fell in with them - some combination of slow grief, and fear of responsibility, and (you guess) maybe some misplaced resentment for his father who failed in his role that a father possesses in the minds of their children - a wall against all outside harms to the family. But the Weevers recruited Maso, and he learned their craft; and in turn he greatly increased their success rate. After all - he knew which homes in the wealthy districts had which locks, and just how to pick them.

"My father was furious when he found out, naturally. With every reason - a huge betrayal, when out family products were getting routinely popped open under the owner's noses. But the Weevers felt, stupidly, like a kind of family too. It wasn't until Lumi that I got my head halfway on straight."

Illuminata was Cestié's first real love - a young woman of wry glances and the kind of fearless taste to be dipping her toes in the water where the Weevers swim. They fell in love quickly, and quickly she was with child - and suddenly the raucous life in a thieves' guild seemed pale compared to the home he had forsaken.

"So I went home, hat in hand. It wasn't easy but we all ended up getting along. The Weevers harassed us sometimes; but never too sorely. Franchino and Salvi both went into the business; Neri was always the smartest, and soon he became a petty merchant in his own right, trading out to the border forts with Remas. Biagio was born a little early, but not troublesomely so; and Lumi was a good mother. But she never let me marry her, and that caused the family some shame and strife. I didn't find out why, until it was well late."

Illuminata was a con-artist. Whether she ever loved Maso was up for debate; but the fact was that she was the mistress of a merchant prince in Pavona who was Biagio's genuine blood father. She had become pregnant, but with her lover unwilling to discard his wife and nervous about having a mistress and a lovechild in his city, she scornfully fled to Miragliano and shacked up with a handsome young sap with compromised morals, but whose name was attached to stability and reliable wealth. Twelve years later, when her Pavonan lover's wife 'fortunately' died of the plague, he sent for her. She left Maso a note, took Biagio, and left.

This devastated Cestié. He worked in the family business while trying first to convince Illuminata to come back, and then to let him see Biagio, or atleast come visit. When denied, he tried to force his way into the merchant's home in Pavona and got kicked halfway to death when discovered by Biagio's father's guards.

After a few years, he gave up; packed up; and left. A blight on his family's name, a fool for a manipulative woman, a cuckolded non-father - Miragliano was a yawning gulf of regrets for him. Papa Peppe, Franchino, Salvi, Neri - all would be just fine, even better, without him.

"I went first to Remas, but couldn't break into the guild politics there. But it had been two years - I sent a letter home so they wouldn't worry for me, and headed further south, eventually to Verezzo and Bella Collina. I ran into Grifone by accident about six years ago by sheer chance, in Verezzo - he was a Weever back in the day, too. I thought we might just... stop at his farm and move on by. I thought papa would be in Morr's Garden by now, for sure. But I haven't seen Miragliano in... thirty eight, thirty nine years. And I never expected Biagio - he should be in the lap of luxury in Pavona!"

He rests his face in his palms.

"Taalia, he must have just... come back of his own accord, when he was a little older. And I never knew, because I never checked! My gods, Taalia, I've missed his whole life! How am I supposed to look him in the eye?"