To say that Weslyn was surprised to see his parents in the streets and palace halls of Manatoa would be a understatement.
He grew up hearing Mullicynda's disdain of the Convocation and the stories of how they would have the Lady-mothers of inconvenient boy-children poisoned. That would have been the fate of his own mother had she stayed on the island of Firsthome. It was not hard to see that a young boy would be resentful of a culture bent on eliminating his existence through matricide.
The young man's reality was always a bit fatalistic to be sure. He should never have been, marooned on a beach under the guidance of a self-exiled courtier and her conflicted man-servant. His mother had no idea how to raise a child, much less a son, the concept of "family" being completely foreign to her beauty-queen training. She was always brushing out his hair and fussing over his appearance and posture, which seemed to mean much more to her than how he was spending his time.
His father was different but no better. There was fishing, fishing, and fishing, adopting a manly fate that neither father nor son had really chosen but did out of thoughtless habit and the need to eat something. As the boy grew older, Weslyn made himself scarce from the endless repair of fishing nets and the tiny home-made coracle that served as a fishing boat. He would hide in the trees near the shore until his father gave up searching for his work-mate and row out into the channel alone and angry. Weslyn would end up as no fisherman if he could help it.
Mostly to keep the boy from slouching about once he had given his father the slip, Mulls set him to learning to read and write. His mother acknowledged both skills as the only benefits she really pulled from her own schooling and taught her own progeny with all the unhappy resolve of a lowly dame bereft of some better fate. She once tussled over whether menial labor or contest prancing suited her better, and that tussle continued in her son's poor training. Once basic reading was acquired, Weslyn was left with the only reading material available - the large, leather-bound record from Kiyami of the earliest days of Firsthome. Out of her own desire for some novelty, the mother insisted that the boy read the book aloud to her over and over again for some detraction as she cleaned and dried her man's daily catch.
So, in addition to hating the profession of fishing, Weslyn was wearied to boredom with reading the same stories to his uninspired mother, fleeing into the trees just as much by what either of his parents thought it best that he should be doing. However, the effort it took to teach the boy to write was much better employed, for a hole in a tree was the repository of his own efforts at writing. Toward the end of his childhood on the beach, he definitely pleased neither of his parents, but found a little pleasure by himself.
Now, his parents were suddenly back in his proximity, invading in the life he fashioned for himself and doing inexplicable things that they had never done in his memory. His father knew things that no common fisherman had any right to know and his mother was recounting stories stolen from Weslyn's dreary childhood readings, both far more interesting characters in the past few weeks than they had ever been in his unhappy childhood. How dare they behave like real, interesting people!
He learned that Enis, his boyhood hero, was also near Manatoa and making a name for himself as a rising sport-fighter. Wes was excited for the chance to see the Waykeep chief beat up the local pretty boys in the arena, but the opportunity hadn't yet come.
There were far more important things to do just now. His role as the scribe for the Commoner's Council put his reading and writing skills to profitable use and he was a man of genuine stature among those who connived to leverage him to various purposes. He was lately "helping" Lanolylc, who styled himself the chief committee member, among other ambitious men within the Council who chaffed under the "foolishness" of the Convocation of Ladies. He was a force with which to be allied, especially given his lack of particular deference to women. He kept his eyes and ears open to what was said in committee and slurred in drinking houses, took meticulous notes, and otherwise kept his own counsel for the moment.
"What do you know of this Daavor?" Lanolylc pulled him into the private apartment that was a gift of the High Princess, who fancied him as her favorite consort of the moment.
Wes shrugged and shuffled through some notes. "He used to be a consort, though not a popular one. The Queen likes him though."
Lan rubbed his chin, which he did somewhat theatrically when he plotted. "I hear he can predict the future."
"Yes, they call him a prophet." Weslyn wasn't going to reveal that he was Daavor's son and had been making it a policy to avoid both his parents. He didn't have a clear idea whether such a fact would make much of a difference in anything. "He uncovered a robbery at the Royal treasury."
"No wonder she likes him so much, taking such a scrawny thing into her bed." Lanolylc snorted derisively.
This was the first time Wes had heard of his father being taken as a royal consort. His parents mostly kept to opposite sides of the family shack during his childhood, as what little relationship they had once enjoyed had cooled over the years. He wondered what his mother thought of Royals taking such attention of her little fisherman.
Lan's voice dropped even though they were alone. "Look into that, you know, discreetly."
Wes sighed and nodded. Everyone was after some scrap of intelligence that could be used for profit. Weslyn himself was cagey enough to do the same without helping others know he cradled his own selfish motives.
One day, working for others would turn to his own favor. Weslyn himself wondered what machinations his parents were working among the sorted webs of Manatoa.