Read Bastien for Free Online

Is a man not allowed time to grieve?”
    Jacques picks an invisible speck off his sleeve. “As I said, my Lord, it is very uncharacteristic of you.”
    My teeth grind together at the implications of that answer. “I am beginning to realize my staff is not very fond of their Lord and master,” I muse aloud. I never even considered this to be a possibility before. “Do you by chance harbor some wisdom as to why?”
    Jacques says nothing.
    “I own them. They live in a castle and they’re paid well for their service. They’re not beaten or abused in any way. What could they possibly have to complain about?”
    My butler offers no explanation.
    I shrug philosophically. I really do not care enough to press. “I want roses in the garden,” I say instead.
    “Yes, my Lord. Do you have a particular spot in mind?”
    “Yes. Everywhere.”
    Jacques nods. “I shall inform the head gardener.”
    Long after he leaves and my tray has gone cold, I am still sitting at that window, counting stars. I don’t want to go to sleep. It’s become a chore to dream. Either I’m swamped with memories of Lilith and wake up trying to fuck my pillow, or I am lost in the painted tarot world, chasing after a faceless woman dressed in rose petals. Neither is a welcome sight tonight. Lilith never stays long enough to bring me to come, and the strange woman always slips through my fingers and I can never find her.
    And then there is the hag. I saw her a few times as well. Half young maiden, half old crone, like a Faery spell gone awry. Her young eye is black as coal. Her old is white, obviously blind.
    She stares at me, waiting for something. What does she want? My soul? A woman as well versed in the dark arts as she should already know I don’t have one.

    By midnight I am sure God created woman in order to punish man. I take a candle and go down to the library. There are hundreds of books in here, surely one of them will be able to entertain me until morning. Maybe if I just sleep by the light of day my dreams will be more pleasant. Or at the very least, less exhausting.
    I peruse the subjects. History. I will be asleep after two pages. Politics. Only if I want the women in my dreams to band together against me. I pause at Poetry. There are only a couple of volumes in this category, as sentiment is not something I subscribe to. However, desperate times call for insipidity and, given that my only other option is Myth and Folk Tales, I take a book of poetry from the shelves and take a seat on the settee.
    The first verse has me rolling my eyes and snapping the book shut.
    Drivel. Another man brought to the brink of madness by woman, whining and pining after his tormentor. It’s not the sun kissed wheat of the woman’s hair, or the cherry red of her lips, or the peach pink of her cheek that bothers me—obviously the man was hungry when he wrote this.
    It’s not even that he describes this after he sneaked into the woman’s chamber in the twilight hours to watch her sleep—I can understand that not every man has the ballocks to wake the woman up for what he really wants from her. No, it’s the overblown desperation with which he states that without these features he shall cast himself into the sea and shatter his bleeding heart upon the jagged rocks of the shallows.
    I don’t relish the idea of destroying a book but in this case I make an exception and burn the damned thing in the hearth. Happy to be rid of it, I retrieve the second book of poetry. This one I open with more caution. I am pleasantly surprised to find the poet whining about war instead of a woman, and for the rest of the night I enjoy vivid imagery of severed limbs and spilling guts.
    When morning comes, I dress and order my horse prepared. It’s time to look in on my companions and find out what happened that night.
    Edgard and Gaspard are closest. I find them in their clothier’s shop, strangely subdued and reluctant to talk to me. All they say is that they were separated