Canon: Remove if not applicable.He wasn’t sure why his father was going up to the North. He knews that it was supposed to be for an important reason, but he had not told him why.
He’s only nine, Astolphe reasons. A nine year old didn’t need to be privy to the business of adults, if the adults didn’t want them to be. Not that he wasn’t curious about what kind of business his father might have with someone from an unwelcoming place like Ellvaldez.
And Ellvaldez was the most unwelcoming place that Astolphe had ever visited. He already knew that it was a mountainous region covered in snow, even before they entered the region, but it was late spring, and in the rest of the Empire the snow had already melted away. Yet the horses strapped in front of the carriage laboured in deep snow once they entered the mountain country.
It was dark, and not even the stars and the moon helped much in lighting the way. He could see the craggly, dangerous mountains rising high above them. It was cold, so cold that he felt as if he might never be warm again.
And people actually lived there.
“There it is,” his father pointed out, and Astolphe peered out into the darkness, looking ahead of the horses and searching for what it was that his father had seen, but he could only see the lights of some lamps among even more shadows.
It wasn’t until he stepped out of the carriage and onto a courtyard that he could actually see something. The manor wasn’t particularly impressive. It hunkered under more of the snow that was everywhere in sight, and looked as if it wore the the snow on the ground as a scarf that was drawn up high over the face. The courtyard may be shoveled, but there was still no snow-free ground visible despite that.
He trudged after his father, who headed toward the big doors without hesitation. Behind them, Astolphe could hear the coachman in discussion with a stablehand, who had come to show him where the carriage might stand and the horses may rest, until it was time for them to return home.
They were met in the entrance hall by a very tall man and another tall, but much younger, man. The older man was still young though, he wasn’t old enough to be around his father’s age. “Marquis Camus, welcome! It is good to see you again,” the older of the men greeted his father amicably. The younger of the two stood quietly by the side of a flight of stairs, watching them with a stare that seemed as cold as the ice Astolphe had seen hanging from low hanging roofs and the beards of their horses. The younger stranger seemed to notice Astolphe’s gaze on him, because his focused on Astolphe in turn. His pale blue gaze was not only ice. It was steel, too.
“This is my son, Astolphe,” his father said, and Astolphe realized that he had entirely missed the introduction of the strangers. Berlurik, he recalled his father had said that they were called, when they were initially setting out. But he didn’t remember hearing him mention any title, though they were clearly landed in some way, since they had a manor and staff. Astolphe had at least seen a stable hand, and there was an aged maid taking their coats.
Astolphe bowed, doing his best to get through the formalities of an introduction without knowing the proper way of addressing either man.
The man turned his attention toward the younger stranger, and motioned at him to come closer. When he moved, Astolphe realized that his hair was longer than he had had first thought. He had thought that it must be just long enough to lay over his shoulders and onto the top of his back. He wasn’t entirely wrong, not technically, but he had also been wrong. His pale yellow hair reached over half the way down his back, loose and obscuring part of his face. “This is Gralat, my younger brother,” Lord Berlurik, as Astolphe decided to call him in his head for the lack of anything better, said, gesturing to the ice-eyed man. “I believe that he is close in age to your boy?”
Apparently, Astolphe’s father had heard of Gralat and Gralat’s older brother had heard of Astolphe.
But that wasn’t surprising. What was surprising, what was shocking was that Gralat apparently turned nine years old earlier the same year. He was actually younger than Astolphe, and nearly by a year, at that. Astolphe couldn’t keep the wide-eyed look off his face, as he watched the man—the boy—who was more than a little taller than Astolphe.
While Astolphe was occupied by his shock - to his father’s amusement, apparently - it was decided that Gralat would entertain Astolphe while they were visiting.
He wasn’t sure about how he felt about that. Gralat gave off an air of intimidation, as if he was irritated by the whole situation.