People often said that in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust, only cockroaches would survive. It was useful, then, that Orpheus spent most of his time living below ground, that his devoted subjects, his people, were regarded as exactly that - vermin, unworthy, substandard. The rich, the famous, they looked into the shadows with a haughty curiosity, and when they did not like the darkness that started them square in the face, they heaped insults upon it, not knowing in their arrogance that when the trial by fire began, they would be the first to burn.
The bombing of the Palio di Verona had been no exception to this rule, the smouldering rubble of the Colosseum proved it true. Through their petty squabbling, their desire for power, the elite had only done harm to other members of their gilded circle, and left the paupers of Verona mostly untouched, and whilst the wealthy had retreated into their palaces to nurse wounds and tend to bruises, the downtrodden had crawled forth from their holes, unafraid of being hindered. Orpheus had made considerable profit in these days after the bombing, as the fear, the laxity of Verona’s upper echelons had allowed petty crime to rise.
And this windfall brought with it an eve greater atmosphere of jubilant triumph than usually surrounded Verona’s black-hearted Robin Hood, saw him striding through the city with an even greater confidence (if such a thing were even possible), mouth permanently fixed into a dagger of a smile, eyes alight with a bright, white flame. He noticed the dropped paper before it was pointed out to him, had felt the small white square flutter from his grasp and turned to look for it. On it was the reason he’d been at the Phoenix and Turtle, a single name given to him by one of the many sources he had embedded throughout the city, the name of a potentially valuable asset. Inclining his head in gratitude, Orpheus bent to retrieve the paper.
“Grazie,” he intoned as he straightened up, and paused to study the woman who had spoken. “Italian is not your native tongue, is it.” It wasn’t a question, for he was sure of the answer, merely a revelation that the dissonance he had heard in her pronunciation, had been too striking not to comment on.
The first thing she had noticed was the sheer magnitude of his size — tall, broad, and seemingly indomitable, he was a person that could be easily picked out in crowd. His gruff voice matched his physique adding to the persona he no doubt cultivated as a leader or someone to look towards in fearful reverence. If the stranger didn’t use those two God-given traits to garner a following, it would have certainly been a waste in her eyes — after all, the men in Saint Petersburg certainly used it to their advantage.
As that thought crossed her mind, the dull pang of homesickness momentarily took over. Now, more than ever, Brielle yearned for her place in Russia. Although it wasn’t the safest city in the world, for almost twenty-one years, she had avoided being blown skyward by a planted explosive device. The only way through was forward however, and even though the desire to look back with rose-tinted glasses was overbearing at times, the young jockey knew that only regret lay that way. Nostalgia was dangerous, especially at times like this. She had known long ago that she had outgrown Saint Petersburg and she wasn’t about to let herself get frightened into forgetting about that so easily.
“Is it really that obvious?” She asked rhetorically, her expression bordering on sheepish. Her father had ensured that she had gotten the best education he could afford, including classes on language and its structure. Brielle had learned bits and pieces of English and smatterings of Italian, fully expecting to leave the confines of comfort, but even with all the practice she did, there was no disguising that pronounced Russian undertone much to her dismay. “You are correct of course, my native tongue is русский or Russian as you know it. I suppose there’s no sense in hiding it.”
