The Ballad of Cassius Basolus: Talisman of a Guilty Heart

“He’s pulled through, but I’m afraid he doesn’t want to see you Cassius.” Bedelia informed him from over the stoop of her nose. The farm boy her son had brought with them was a sorry sight now despite the year he had spent with them. He still hadn’t changed out his capers outfit, the checkerboard pattern breeches and offensively bright and glaring mummers tunic were bedraggled and unwashed. 

If Bedelia had to give the hick of a halfling her Lew had chosen one thing it would be that the fool was persistent. He had spent from half the day before, yesterday night and all day to the very evening hovering about the chirurgeons tent to wait for news.c

 

“Please Bedelia I need to see him! Even if it’s only to apologize.” Cassius begged all ragged exhaustion and half wolf with grief and guilt. 

Obviously he hadn’t slept by the bags under his eyes, or stopped crying by the red of them either. Bedelia couldn’t bring herself to care. 

‘It’s nothing less than he deserves.’ She thought even as she derided the fool.

“Absolutely not. You almost kill my boy and now you want to apologize!” The halfling matriarch cried as she stormed down the steps to push Cassius. “You think he wants your apology? That he’s still going to want you?” 

 

Cassius fell to the ground by the seat of his pants as he was pushed and his scarred hands scraped through the dirt in a poor attempt at grounding himself from the accusation. From his prone position he merely looked up to the hateful face of Lews mother, tears welling and streaming down his face. 

 

“Please… I’d never purposefully harm Lew. You know me Aunt Bee… I love him.”

“Fat lot of good that’s done him.” She spat with disdain. “I’ll make this clear for you boy. You’re dirt! Worthless Dirt! No good to Lew or to us.” 

Bedelia punctuated her point by kicking a heel of dirt and mud at Cassius. 

“I’ll make this clear for you Cassius. You have till morning in order to return to his wagon to clear out. There’s no place for you anymore with Lew, so there’s no place for you with us.”

“H…he said this?” 

The question made Bedelia want to tear her hair out in frustration. The idiot would just not take anything but the words from Lews mouth into consideration. As much vitriol she and the family heaped on him, he just bowed himself under it and stayed just outside the door. Like some stray dog you’d fed the once. So she would provide the words from Lews mouth. 

 

“Yes you backwater mooncalf! Just before the chirurgeon gave him medicine to help him rest and recover.”

 

“…Oh.” 

That atleast had shut him up. 

 

Cassius amidst the distraught exhaustion and toxic grief roiling in his stomach accepted defeat at those words. It was over, and he had ruined things in horrific and spectacular fashion. He felt as if everything that he’d been building over the last year and a half had suddenly burned down around his ears, all while he’d been the one holding the match. 

 

Bedelia seemed if not content then appeased by the lack of response. She simply turned her back and huffed her way back up the stairs into the canvass topped medics wagon. Cassius didn’t really register her departure. Neither was he sure how long he sat there in the dirt of the camp before picking himself up and trudging to their… to Lews wagon in a fugue. To his perceptions he had simply blinked and afternoon had given way to late evening, and he had the entirety of his life packed away in a sad little rucksack. It didn’t even really empty out the wagon. Just cleared a little of the clutter. He felt similarly. Like Lew was just getting rid of the clutter in his life. Only in this case the clutter had done him irreparable harm. It was that sobering thought that actually managed to force himself to get going. 

 

With himself largely packed up Cassius began to shuck his performers costume, stiff and dirty with two days and a nights worth of worries and dirt. Instead he dressed in his old farmhand clothes. They were sturdy, and warm enough; perfect travelling attire. He pulled on a set of tough wooden breeches, the legs cut off just above his ankles and tied them off with a length of soft rope he’d used as a belt for years. Over this he put on an induced linen tunic, and draped a goatskin vest over his shoulders before he shrugged on his pack. He didn’t bother with shoes or boots. He never had on the orchard or farm, and he had only take. To the practice of wearing them since Lews family seemed more uptight about those well to do sensibilities. 

 

Cassius couldn’t help but take one last look around the space he had shared and called his own with Lew for the last year and change. Nothing had really changed… and he guessed that’s how it would be for Lew as well. The only thing that gave him pause was the leather bandolier Lew had gotten for him when he first started to practice his acts with knives. 

 

It was a handsome bit of leatherwork inarguably. A set of crossed belts designed to be worn over the shoulders to form an X across his chest that had been dyed to a rich and dark brown that highlighted the embossing on the straps; fanciful scenes of wood land idyll; Wolves, rabbits, deer and songbirds ran all along its edges in a grand chase, leaving the Center of the leather bands to be covered in complex knot work. It was beautiful, and a gift. And the only reason he was even contemplating leaving it behind where the array of still shining throwing knives, neatly slotted into their scabbards set in equal distances along the bandolier. Each of the scabbards had a neat little triangular embellishment that sat empty. When Lew had first gotten it for him, he had told Cassius that they were for patches. Patches for all the places they would go and see together; a seemingly broken promise now. 

 

Cassius couldn’t help but hate the knives almost as much as himself right now…. But he couldn’t leave them for Lew to clean up after. That would be even crueler still. So with a good deal of trepidation and distaste Cassius set the bandolier on around his waist instead, doubling over as belt loops instead of wearing it across his chest. It was still a princely gift, worth far more than anything Cassius had ever been able to t fo Lew in return. It felt wrong to take it without explanation. So despite himself Cassius found himself loitering again as he wrote a brief letter apologizing to Lew certainly, but also explaining. He left it behind under a coinpurse of what had been his earnings. Hopefully enough to make up for taking the knives and bandolier, never enough to make up for what he had taken from Lew though. 

 

After that it was almost easier to leave. The sun was setting and darkness was growing, but Cassius never had any fear of the dark and he didn’t think he could bring himself to stay another night. He didn’t see or encounter any of the other troupe members on his way out which he was thankful for and so with a heavy heart Cassius simply took the road he knew would lead him back home….Eventually.