Azzo, the Forest, and the Wedding.
Well, Azzo thought to himself. That felt rather odd. The wedding had proceeded without a hitch, seamlessly even, but, and he could not quite place his finger precisely upon it, despite all his myriad gifts...but something he thought, something felt remiss about the entire affair, as though it lacked a peculiar element of just the right something to render it glorious.
Alberto had nearly fainted when he saw the girl, and with good reason. A vision in white, her gown dripping in opulence and refinement, strands of gossamer hair lingering upon her face, dancing here and there in the wind to frame it. Supple curves drew the eye, a classic beauty. No girl at all, truly, she carried herself with a steely resilience and a bearing more noble than her husbands. As a queen even. Alberto had lost his smile despite himself, breathtaken, clamoring forward to help her off the ship, awkwardly stumbling upon the ramp as he extended his hand to hers, a clear contrast. Unphased, a polite, benign smile, infinitely light and free crept across her face, excusing him. My god, Azzo thought, this Genoan girl possesses an ethereal calm, alien to this Island. Her husband certainly does not possess any such facilities.
Of course, Azzo thought, Alberto never troubled himself to operate on so high a level, no, affairs of state were hardly his province. He contented himself to allow Azzo to push papers already written across his desk with a pen in hand, oblivious to the words upon them. Most Lords would know to question at a minimum. The most diligent would insist upon authoring the documents themselves. Alberto never bothered with either. Others might consider it a failing in him, his father’s indolence manifest in him as an idle if amiable man, content to coast on the competency of those committed to him out of need, indebted to his station for their livelihood.
Azzo, however, did not count himself amongst them. Nor had he ever. Born to a local peasant, the youngest son of a youngest son who promptly died following his birth. Azzo counted himself a native of the hills around Ajaccio. He retained vivid memories of childhood, struggling to make the feeble patch given to his family to work make just that little bit extra for him, after his brothers took their share, always looking ahead for the next meal, aware it might not come. He became adept at traps of necessity, designing intricate devices of twigs, rock, and materials begged from neighbors to catch game in, ever expanding his range to increase their efficacy. He knew every inch of the Island, and reveled in each part. He grew extremely proficient, his devices marveled at by his peers and his reputation growing.
The Count’s personal forest ringed the Island, taunting the serfs with its exclusivity, its abundant game. Azzo hunted is sparingly, and only at night, concealing his traps in the brush. One day, inevitably perhaps, one of the Castle’s men had happened upon him and captured him. Drug to the citadel, he found he was not alone, but part of a small group of men rounded up as part of an Island-wide campaign. The master at arms, eager to impress his superior, the Lady Giuditta, Alberto’s mother and guardian of the Island in this his 13th year, brought them into keep to present.
The Lady Giuditta inspired fear throughout the Island. Known to be bitter of her station, she had long deputized various ruffians to maximize the taxes, and cared for little else. Like her husband, she abhorred the ‘exile’ of Corsica, reflecting fondly upon the bright days of wealth and splendor in Genoa, her husband’s feasts and his father’s bountiful wealth. She married an Obertenghi thinking to enjoy that life forever, and faced the cruel disappointment, or so she thought, of now ruling for her son the least of Obert’s possessions, the product of a passing crusading fancy. Expanding the Count’s demesne in the forest had been the most recent of her fundraising ploys, seeking to thereby force the locals to pay for the privilege of hunting on it.
She appeared drunk when they brought the men before her, a cup dangling in her hand, a dismissive nod offered in response to the master of arms’ grandiloquent description of the heroic efforts his men had gone to in capturing these so called villains.
Alberto had emerged as if from nowhere. He was scarcely fifteen, though the stubble on his chin which he’d clearly neglected shaving in the hopes that it might develop into something more testified to his eagerness to grow up. “Lucio,” he addressed the master of arms, “ Why are these men being held?”
Lucio paused in his recitation to direct his words to the young Lord, “My Lord, they are thieves. They have stolen from your forest.”
“My forest? What did they take?” Alberto seemed incredulous about the prospect of such thieving, his mother could be seen visibly rolling her eyes with boredom.
“Why, my Lord, they viola-“ Here Azzo interjected. He still could not remember why to this day, other than he felt he must. “Your Lord, your people suffer. The forest is intolerably large. It suffocates your Island. I trap only that which I must take for myself and my family, no more.”
“You vil-“ Lucio moved to strike him.
“No” Alberto spoke. Stay your hand. His voice carried the calm, quiet confidence that seemed born to nobility, the kind of confidence that comes from knowing your word is law.
His mother roused herself from stupor at the hint of conflict. “Alberto, go back upstairs. We shall speak of this later” Her words were plaintive, calm even; Alberto’s brow began to relax, as though to delay this perhaps inevitable argument for another day.
Azzo hurried to steel the young Lord’s resolve intuitively sensing a moment of crisis. “With all due respect to your mother, my Lord. We starve. We starve so that she may entertain courtiers from Genoa and throw banquets finer than this Island has ever known. We starve my Lord, and starve we would for our Lord if we must, but we ought not starve so that your mother may be entertained. You are our Lord. I ask only that you judge us yourself, if we be in error, condemn us, but at least judge us.” The words lept from his mouth with the a fire of desperation, his fellow prisoners visibly stunned by his insolence.
Giuditta shrieked, her eyes widening as the last of the alcohol’s lingering effects left her. “Take them Lucio, take them all and hang them!” Alberto’s eyes caught Azzo’s for a moment, as if searching for truth, then his jaw hardened and he spoke.
“Lucio. You will do no such thing. Release these men. The forest is to be returned to its limits under my Grandfather, with license to all who may prove need to hunt freely upon it. Mother, to your rooms.” Again, he spoke with the quiet, earnest resolve he was born to. Lucio grudgingly complied and Giuditta, stunned, did the same. Thus without a proclamation or fanfare Alberto assumed his majority. The entire Island hailed him as a saint, forgiving him immediately for his mother’s trespasses, Giuditta herself, furious, left a week later on a boat for Parma; abandoning her son and Corsica, never to return.
Afterwards, Alberto sought Azzo out and the two spoke at length, the young Count thanking him for his candor, striking upon an idea which he voiced to the peasant, perhaps a decade his senior, Azzo showing him his traps, which impressed Alberto for the degree of skill they displayed. “Azzo. I am going to send you to Milan. There, I wish for you to learn the art of state. My mother’s people..I feel they do not understand Corsica…I wish someone trained in the world and Corsica…You will be that man.” Azzo opened his mouth to protest, but Alberto raised his hand and spoke in the same earnest tones. “You will.”
And so Azzo had gone to Milan, he excelled in his studies there at Alberto’s expense, in many ways the arts of state resembled his traps, there subtle intricacies and various devices of state coming together to catch a desired goal in their grasp, like any prey. Several lords offered him a positions at their courts, but he declined. Azzo could not deny Corsica. Upon his return Alberto appointed him chancellor, in truth delegating much of the business of running the Island to him.
For this reason Azzo did not disparage his Lord for not reading the forms, whatever Alberto’s failings, Azzo knew from experience his heart and desire were right, and that the man had an earnest, good faith desire to do the right thing and the confidence to believe he could. Azzo did not judge.
Perhaps this, he thought had been what struck him as remiss about the nuptials. Although bride and groom went together well, Alberto seemed lacking in confidence in comparison to her, unsure of himself in a way beyond the typical insecurities of his poverty which generally afflicted him. Perhaps Azzo thought, but whatever came of it, his master would not lose the quality of earnest lordship that Azzo and his people so admired of him, he could not lose his birthright. Corsica would endure the vision from Genoa, indeed, like the waves, the sea, and Alberto himself, Corsica, Azzo knew, would do its best to make her its own.