The journey home was a cold and silent one, but my head still spun in elation. We nodded our goodbyes to the other merchants in irksome formality before making our way back down to the village. A wall of silence lay between us, shimmering with my father's obvious anger and my own blank indifference to it. I could feel his disapproving stare burning into my back as I pushed open our door and stepped inside. I loosened my cravat and laid down my soft gloves.

Moments later I felt a shove hard enough to slam me to the wall. My head jerked up to find my father's fleshy hands were pulling the lapels of my coat. His face was flushed with anger and sudden exertion as if I could see the very blood boiling in his veins. His round eyes had grown small with a familiar contempt. I was not his son anymore, but then I had not been since the moment I left college to study the violin. I made to shrug him off with a quick motion of my arm. My hands balled into fists.

All of my life I had been pushed into one thing after another so our family would be esteemed in a society that cared only for wealth and position. There was nothing my father wouldn’t buy me, yet with all the money that had ever passed through his greedy hands he could not buy my love or my respect. That well had grown dry many years before. I think I can honestly say that I despised my father. Cristophe de Lenfent was an avaricious bastard who only knew contentment when his purse was heavy with coins.

"You will do as I say for as long as you live under my roof!" he yelled, pulling me closer before pushing me against the wall again to make his point, "I will have no more of this! You are a disgrace to this family!"

Our little visit with the Marquis’ son had not gone as he had planned it. I had spoken more than just the deferential words I had been told to speak and humiliated him and my family in front of them all. Half the superstitious village already thought I was wildly eccentric at best or that I had sold my soul to the devil at worst, so what difference did it make to me if the Marquis de Lioncourt had assumed the same? Everything about me was like so much dust. The thought of careless blasphemy could still quicken my soul but my father could rant and rave until he lost his voice for all I cared.

There had been an undeniable connection between Lestat and I, some spark that existed beyond the shallow confines of my father’s narrow ambition. It was as though some secret had passed between us and no one could take that way from me not even him.

His round face was flushed with exertion and his short heavy arms trembled beneath his coat as he held me there, as much with the force of his anger as with brute strength. I made no move to push him away, looking past him in numb apathy. We had played this little game before. This was certainly not the end of it. I was no longer the scrawny young boy that would do everything to please him and a faceless God. I was a man now, standing nearly 6 feet in height with broad shoulders and a stubbornness that rivalled even his. I just wasn’t afraid of him anymore.

The rage never left his eyes but he released his grip on my coat and turned his back on me for a moment if to gather his thoughts by blocking me from them.

"You will have no more of what?" I questioned my voice icy soft and insolent to my own ears. He turned to face me, surprised by my tone and I felt something flare to life within me.

"What should I do, Father? Do you want me to return to university to dutifully beg their forgiveness? Should I plead for yours?” Something like a smile curled on my lips. “Perhaps I should bow in obeisance at the feet of the Lord Marquis?” He moved in outrage to speak and I gestured with one hand for him to keep quiet. To my shock and absolute delight his mouth sealed in silence.

"I have lost my heart in those books you bought for me, I have no place in the world you constrain me into, but there is something that you can never take from me..." I continued, my voice growing louder with every word, "Music!" I slammed my palm down on a nearby table to emphasize my point. A glass toppled over and fell to the floor with a crash. My long suffering mother, who had been watching us silently quickly made her way into the next room, made nervous by our anger.

"You sin against God and against this family!" My father roared. "Have you no fear for your soul, boy?! You play the devil’s instrument with the skill of Satan himself in pride and disobedience and you want me to give you my blessing?!"

"God?" I laughed, mocking him with the word. "What has God done for me? When is the last time he has graced you with his omnipotent presence to lead you to certain salvation?" I moved past him, no longer able to stomach the close confinement of the room. "Is greed not a sin, father? Your soul is just as damned as my own!"

I disappeared into the night before he could say another word, the door banging on its hinges behind me. The wind was as bitter as my mood and as I trudged on through the muddy streets lacking destination or reason, the full force of realisation struck me. All the stories the priests had told us as children were all lies and God was as powerless as my father. Ancient fables had no place in my world. I would live by my own Commandments and I would call them forth with my bow.