Lanfranco Covi was a man three armspans
in height, with a head of raven black hair. His father, Salvi was a
dockworker in Goshen and by the gods, Lanfranco was going to be
raised as one too. The only education Lanfranco received was on the
river docks, from passing merchant barges and paddle boats or from
the noticably opinionated recollections of his fellow guild members
of the Otterman River Guild. The docks taught him how to do basic
numbers, basic business reading, how to communicate a few words of the Tribes and Orcish, and
certain forms of less than savory articulation.
By the time he'd seen twenty two
summers, sweating his ass off on the docks, Lanfranco became one of
the luckiest bastards of the guild. His ambition and work ethic got
him promoted to dock overseer, but that was one only part of the good
fortune. Lanfranco's dock master sent him and his team upriver to
dislodge a cog stranded on the banks. One of the passengers on the
cog was a green eyed Amsernan lass, with a voice that even charmed
her aloof elven passengers. A voice from the heavens, said Akab (one
of Lanfranco's workmates), that would even give cherubim pause. Her
hair was brown, with golden strands from her love of the sun. She
helped pull the cog from the mud along with Lanfranco's crew.
Lanfranco, true to his Jilipothan heritage, charmed the woman's name
from her lips; Meridiana, eldest daughter of a general goods
merchant.
Meridiana was a young woman of 19 when
she met Lanfranco. Like her siblings, Meridiana was privately
schooled with as many tutors as her father could afford. Meridiana
wasn't content to be her father's dandizette on his estate in the
Stonedale province. She had the fire for adventure and knowledge,
always begging her father to allow her passage on his many forays
down the Aisne River. Eventually her father relented and she was
promoted to 'attache' status. Meridiana fell under Lanfranco's sway
that fateful day. Before she accepted Lanfranco's proposal she
visited a old seeress as was the tradition. The seeress gently
grabbed her hands, looked into her eyes and said, 'My poor dear,
there is a saying, 'Love will go where it is sent, even if it's up a
pig's asshole.'” Meridiana did not heed the kindly old woman's
advice. She married Lanfranco on the banks of the Cefron River the
next spring, on the very spot where the cog that took her to him ran
aground.
As with most marriages, the early years
were blissful. The Covis moved to the Spire District of Goshen into a
two floor apartment. Meridiana was able to educate Lanfranco with
her knowledge of the Bright Empire and folklore. She encouraged him
learn to read literature besides inventories and shipping ledgers.
She would sing and submit to impromptu performances for their
neighbors and some of the dockers at Lanfranco's employment.
Lanfranco even toned down his nights of late drinking with his
guildsmen. But it didn't last. Eventually Lanfranco insisted on
continuing his nightly debaucheries. Meridiana was often alone many
nights of the week. She would book passage on a river cog back
upriver to where the Cefron met the Aisne, leaving Lanfranco for
days. Things continued on a descending spiral until Meridiana found
out she was with child.
In their third year of their marriage,
Lanfranco and Meridiana Covi had a baby boy. Young Arrigo spared the
union some more deterioration until his fifth year of age. At that
time, the Senate passed the Universal Education Program which created
public education for children throughout Anfekor from the ages of
five to seventeen. This was unheard of in many lands. Lanfranco
didn't like it, as his plan was to raise Arrigo as another docker in
the Covi tradition. Meridiana loved the idea of little Arrigo
receiving education outside of the expensive approach of her father's
(and the upper classes) methods. This conflict was just one crack in
the illusory mirror of the Covi marriage. Arrigo was blessedly
unaware of this, but he had trials of his own to contend with. For
many youth, some of the most heart-wrenching trials in their path to
the loss of innocence; trials of social acceptance, of peer pressure,
of the difficult passage to learn morality, or a lack thereof.
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