The Hand Of Fate

Every now and then, there was a person who caught the attention of Fate.

She knew how the people saw her; they made up little sayings, calling her cruel and fickle, a faithless mistress. And she knew herself to be capricious, that was her prerogative. But some people... well, she could say they brought it on themselves. There was something indefinable about them, it almost shone out of them, marking them out as different, full of potential and who was she to resist?

Take this child, for example. This dark-haired, hazel-eyed boy passing her on the street. To the other people, he was nothing more than a ragged, dirty urchin, one of thousands just the same and in many ways he was – the child of a whore and whichever of her many forgotten customers it was that had managed to plant his seed, never knowing or caring. Judging by his clothes, the lack of care taken over the boy, she was a cheap whore, too, and there was no shortage of them in this city either.

But the boy... what was it about him? Fate allowed herself to read a little deeper. Named for royalty, despite his humblest of beginning. Perhaps his careless mother hadn't always been so. Maybe at his birth she had hoped for more for him, but what could she do? A woman who made her living on her back would not have been overburdened with schooling, and therefore, neither was this child. To earn his keep, he ran errands, fetching food, firewood, visiting the apothecary for his mother and the other whores for supplies so that they would not be blessed by the arrival of more children – Fate was surprised to learn he did not even know which one of them was his mother, thought of them all as his mothers because he knew no different. Fate knew; could see who the boy's father was too, not that it mattered. The boy would never meet him and the father wouldn't care if he did. No joyous family reunion awaited them – indeed, both the mother and father would be dead before long, she to the pox, he to some messy accident in the street, an ignominious end.

Perhaps that was why he didn't know which woman was his mother – she knew she'd never live to see him grow to manhood, and wanted him to still have a mother after she was gone. Perhaps not so careless after all. Though none of the whores would live all that long. In a few short years they would all be gone, leaving the boy free to... what? He deserved more. Not for him the short, desperate life of so many of his fellows. He should live. A long life. A full life. An... interesting life.

Fate reached out a hand and touched the boy's shoulder as he passed her, fingertips barely brushing him but enough to plant within a restlessness, a dissatisfaction with the life he had been born into. A hunger. This child would not just get to grow up, handsome and strong and full of life; he would see the world, and he would devour it. Nowhere would be closed to him and the circumstances of his birth would not hold him back; indeed, no-one but him need ever know. He could reinvent himself, over and over, a new man each time, and who would be the wiser?

Fate smiled. Her hand would clearly be seen on the life of this boy, but as to what he did, what he chose, those were his own. She would watch with interest.

Intent on his errand – the brothel keeper would beat him if he did not return swiftly – the boy didn't notice the lady at first. He knew he shouldn't stare at finely dressed people in the street; they didn't like it, not from children like him. He'd been knocked down by enough stuck-up servants in his short life to learn that lesson. But this lady had no servants. What's more, she was smiling at him, directly at him and no-one else seemed to notice that she was there. He stopped, oblivious to those around him whose way he blocked. Who was she, that beautiful rich lady who smiled at him?

A huge hand shoved him to the ground, out of the path of the cursing man who stomped by.

"Whoreson!" the man grunted, splashing mud over the boy, and by the time he'd picked himself up again, the lady had gone.

Begrudgingly, the boy went on with his errand. It wasn't fair that this was his life, that he should forever be pushed down further into the mud because of how others saw him and his mothers. He should be the one knocking them down, and one day, he would be. He was named for the king, was he not? His real name, that is, not the shortened version everyone called him, as if five letters was too long. And that king himself had taken the throne by force, by killing the man who had sat on it before him – that cycle went back centuries, even the boy's limited schooling had taught him that much. All it took was the right set of circumstances, the right opportunities, none of which would be found if he stayed here. He had to make his own life. And so he would.

And what a life it would be.