That’s a really nice idea, I like the way following or not following their expected obligations affects them, and then the relationship between them afterwards.
I went with something a bit different after some exploration:
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It is a virtue to know ones place in the world, but the ambition to exceed it is perhaps a greater virtue still.
I was born in a small village in the Great Mwangi Expanse, although I have no memory of the place. My people, I’m told, were herders, but the slavers came and my village was no more. I can only remember being sold in the slave market, in chains. The children were crying, all of them except me. That is why the Praetor chose me he said.
We lived in the fortress in Eledor. Each day I was put in the middle of a hall with sand on the floor, given a wooden sword to hold, while a boy my age with skin as pale as the moon pretended he was a great knight and tried to hit me. I learned the game quickly, I had to let him win just enough that he wouldn’t complain to his father. The hall seemed enormous back then, but it grew smaller.
His father would watch sometimes, studying us both, telling his son, Jaelis, how to beat me; where I was weak, what I would do next. It made the boy angry when, even though he knew what to do, he wasn’t quick enough to hit me. Not until I let him. The Praetor laughed and named me ‘Immaculatis’, which means untouchable in his language. In our language.
When important people came to visit he would display me. I would fight and recite the Asmodean Disciplines. They would be impressed and that made the Praetor proud. They marvelled at how well a native could learn their ways. Even so, when the masters were gone the slave women tried to teach us some of their old magic, like how to talk to animals or light a fire without flint or tinder. I sometimes wonder how this weak magic could have endured for so long, and I hated them for being so wretched, for knowing only how to milk goats and pluck chickens while living in the shadow of true power. It seemed true, what Jaelis said, that some people were meant to be nothing more than slaves.
That moon faced boy grew fond of a slave girl, one of such beauty the Praetor would not even let her walk in the market. She was scared, but I calmed her, and told her how she could love him back but not mean it. Almendra was her name. I could see that he thought she was special.
Some men came one day with a prisoner, a man who looked much like them, not a slave but a knight. They accused him of bringing dishonour upon his order, and for amusement they bade me to judge him. I stated the seventh edict on knightly conduct, specifying his right to trial, and to this they conceded. I was surprised when the Praetor laughed and said “Since we have made you his judge, you may as well be his executioner,” and the prisoner and I were given swords.
We fought in a hall I had never set foot in before, and this time the sword in my hand was made of iron. I was quicker by far, but his experience more than made up for what he lacked in speed. I was out manoeuvred and bled from many cuts. However he was already suffering many injuries inflicted upon him by his captors and he quickly tired, he mistimed one parry and I drove my iron through him. He doubled over and fell to his knees. Blood ran between the stones. He stopped breathing.
According to Asmodean law I was allowed to claim a prize from my vanquished foe. There was one thing he had that I wanted more than any other. I claimed his freedom. The knights balked, but they were bound by the disciplines. To honour their obligation they granted me one single day of freedom.
I wandered that day through the city. Men staggered drunk from the inns and fought over imagined insults. Women flaunted themselves outside brothels and tossed unwanted infants into the water. Merchants and moneylenders counted their gold while cheating the unwary. It is written that life is slavery. I saw that every free man is indeed a slave to flesh and coin. If this is freedom I will carry my chains with pride.
That night I prayed to Asmodeus for the first time. The stars seemed brighter across the bay than ever before. I slept but I did not dream. When I returned, Jaelis laughed, he thought he might have to come looking for me. I assured him that I knew my rightful place was here at his side. When I told him that our fates were bound together I was speaking truthfully.
Almendra was soon with child and the Praetor somehow found out. He had the poor girl fed to the hounds. Jaelis was sorely aggrieved. He had been besotted with her and, i am certain, fathered the child. After the Praetor succumbed to poison, it was in his sons quarters that the poison bottle was found. I warned Jaelis they were coming but I was just too late. He was arrested, screaming his protests.
When I told the old knight on his death bed that I knew his son was innocent and that I would stop at nothing to procure his release, I was again speaking truthfully. A slave confessed under torture that it was he who had administered the poison and planted the bottle out of a secret love for Almendra. Jaelis was exhonerated and took the title of Praetor once his father was buried. From that moment on I truly was untouchable.
The Inquisitor was summoned to examine the slave with magic before he was to be executed, but he somehow escaped. I was accorded the rank of Fidelis, or faithful one, a high honour for a slave. I eagerly volounteered for the job of apprehending the escapee, who was believed to be making to a safe haven along the coast. The young Praetor handed me his own fathers sword with a letter of marque and bade me swift justice. We embraced as kin before I took passage on a merchant caravel, destined for one of the most lawless places in the known world.
