~Beginning~

"Peter, get over here!"

"Coming, my lord," He called,

A tall slender man dressed in fine red clothes stood in the doorway of his large home. When the boy came to the lord, he was slapped leaving his right cheek of his face pulsing a bright red color a clear sign that there'll be welts in the coming minutes.

"What took you so long?!" The lord demanded clearly crossed.

" I apologize, my lord, I was cleaning the stables," Peter answered carefully. The lord snorted and crossed his long mantis-like arms. "Well you definitely smell like one, go get cleaned up we'll be having VERY important guests for dinner," He narrowed his eyes when he said the word very trying to get the point across that the guests will be of high status.

"Yes my lord," Peter answered and ran off to the kitchen. He ran to the backside of the huge house to the kitchens' back door. When he opened the door his nose was greeted with the delightful smell of fresh bread and duck cooking among other wonderful smells. One of the ladies among the four cooks noticed Peter and gasped. She had dark graying long hair pinned up in a bun at the back of her head, her eyes a pale soft blue, and face round with soft features giving her this aura of comfort and calmness. She looked after him for many years now and he thought of her as his mother.

"Oh, Peter, did the lord strike you again?" She said with a worried motherly voice.

Clearly, he wanted to say but he held his tongue. Everyone else stopped what they were doing looked at him not surprised to see his face swelling up and went back to work. "You can't let him keep on hitting you like this, you'll be covered in bruises, " She said her brows scrunching together.

"Gracie, yes he can, the lord can do what he wants and we can't stop him, you know that,"

She closed her eyes for a couple of seconds reopened them turned around and like scolding a child she said, "That doesn't mean he should be hit, Annie, he's just a child,"

"He's hardly a child anymore, he's almost seventeen," She answered sharply.

" I know but that still comes back to he shouldn't be hit, now keep your mouth shut or I'll be giving you a good smacking worse than the lord would,"

Annie's dark brown eyes widened at Gracie before looking back at the sauce she was cooking and kept quiet.

"Peter, dear, hears a bread roll to take with you before you get cleaned up," Gracie said handing him a warm newly baked bread roll. His eyes lit up as he took it and thanked her before leaving.

He went to the shed where a tub of cold water sat, he took off his soiled clothes and dropped them onto the wooden floorboards. As he sat in the tub eating the roll Gracie gave to him, still warm in his left hand. After it was gone he cleaned all the dirt and grime off and put on the clean clothes that were tucked away in the shed. Peter shook out his dark long brown hair of water before leaving.