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The wall of Sept Tours was old and pitted, leaving plenty of hand- and footholds for an enterprising vampire to climb. Matthew scaled it quickly and quietly.
It was already evening, so the yard below was empty of anyone who might question his actions.
Above, his father's study's window was ajar, light spilling out and the summer night's air spilling in. Also spilling out were Baldwin's yelps as Philippe took a riding crop to his backside.
Matthew drew himself up to the lowest edge of the window and peeked in. His brother was bent over their father's desk, bare bottom squirming as Philippe punished him. It was a rich red already, only darkening with each swing. Individual lines had been lost and every part had been tanned to the best of their father's ability. And Matthew knew from his own experience quite how great that ability was.
He almost felt sorry for Baldwin, if he hadn't deserved it quite so much, Matthew might have felt a twinge of sympathy. Instead, he felt only satisfaction at justice being served.
"Attacking an unarmed man," Philippe scolded. "If you must brawl with Matthiaos, do it when you are equally equipped."
Nothing about the large chip Baldwin had taken out of both the sword and the stair, since apparently damaging Matthew's property wasn't a problem, but it was very satisfying nonetheless. Matthew grinned, feeling completely in the right for once. He'd have to make a point of sitting comfortably the next time he saw his brother.
Baldwin sobbed wordlessly into the desk.
"Matthieu?!"
Matthew started at the sound of his mother's voice from below. Then he made the mistake of looking down.
On the climb up, he'd focused on the wall, finding places to put his hands and feet, and his destination. It wasn't too far, with vampiric agility he knew he could jump near as high without any ill effects when he came down, but panic made the couple of storeys stretch into an endless abyss.
"What are you doing up there?" Ysabeau demanded to know.
The sound of leather meeting flesh stopped and Matthew looked back up again to see Philippe striding towards him. No doubt that he'd been caught.
Instinct made him try to get away and with a sickening jerk, Matthew's foot slipped.
He fell.
For half a second he believed he was going to become a crumpled heap of near lifeless flesh for Ysabeau to discover.
Again.
Then his mother's arms wrapped around him, catching Matthew and cushioning any blow. With vampiric reflexes and durability, he would likely have been fine, but he shivered anyway. Ysabeau clutched him against her chest, her enhanced strength holding his greater weight up with ease.
Above, Philippe leaned out of the window. "Matthiaos?!"
"I am unhurt," Matthew called up, a sinking feeling setting in as he realised that was unlikely to last. He could still hear Baldwin sniffling, not daring to rise from the desk to investigate.
Philippe's tone changed. "You will go to the hazel hedge in the gardens and cut a switch, Matthiaos. Then you will come to my study."
Matthew closed his eyes and hid his face against Ysabeau's shoulder, inhaling the comforting scent of his mother.
She hoisted him with one hand, taking his weight completely off the other.
He cringed, the sharp smack she delivered to his backside entirely expected.
"Spying on your brother's punishment?" Ysabeau scolded as though she couldn't believe his actions. "Do as your father has told you and do not think that either your curiosity or your recklessness will go unpunished." She set him firmly on his feet and gave him another swat. "Now."
Matthew became aware that they were not alone in the courtyard. A handful of servants and Louisa had been drawn by the commotion. He drew himself up to his full height, pulling the shreds of his dignity around him.
His sister smiled like a shark.
Up in Philippe's study, Baldwin's punishment recommenced.
"A nice whippy switch, Matthieu," Ysabeau reminded him, too loudly. "For your too curious backside."
Embarrassment burning in his veins, Matthew strode towards the archway that led to the correct garden. Two servants jumped out of his way, despite already giving him several feet of clearance.
So much for being in the right. He yanked his dagger out of its sheath on his belt and grabbed the first suitable branch he found on the hedge. The back of his neck prickled and he half-turned, expecting to need to remind Louisa that he was her elder brother and even if their stepfather thrashed him, it changed nothing about his ability to command her.
It wasn't her. Instead a young gardener opened his mouth, eyed the switch Matthew had just cut like he feared it was intended for him, then backed out of the garden as though Matthew was a monarch who wouldn't tolerate anyone turning their backs on him.
Feeling a little better, even if he wasn't the scariest vampire in Sept Tours, he could still inspire dread, Matthew stripped the switch of leaves and offshoots. He'd chosen well. When he tried swishing it through the air, the hissing sound made him wince.
Regret was already sinking into his heart and he hadn't even felt the switch yet. Listening to Baldwin's punishment through the open window should have been plenty. Climbing the wall was only a minor risk, but still an unnecessary one.
Matthew tucked the switch under his arm, hiding it with his cloak and trudged into the castle to meet his fate. To meet his father.
He had learned the hard way not to try and avoid or delay when he had been younger. The first couple of centuries, before he'd truly accepted Ysabeau and Philippe as his family, Matthew had methodically broken every rule they'd set him. It had been jarring, going from a respected member of the community, a father, husband and builder, to a second childhood that had lasted eight times as long as he'd been human.
And now he was experiencing it from the other side with Louis and Louisa. More Louisa, honestly, Ysabeau and Philippe seemed happy to let her run wild, leaving her discipline to her brother. Perhaps they thought it would scare Matthew off the idea of having a child if his own, perhaps they were just more lenient towards girls.
Matthew knocked lightly on the door of the study. Plenty loud enough for vampiric ears.
"Enter," Philippe ordered.
He opened the metal gate, then the equally heavy wooden door. Both swung smoothly and near silently, well-maintained at Philippe's insistence.
Matthew halted on the threshold. "Father?"
Ysabeau gave him a stern look from where she had an arm around Louisa's shoulders. Louis gave his brother a sheepish glance, then returned to studying his feet. Hugh leaned against the wall at the back, expression impassive. Baldwin was still a little teary, but not so much he couldn't give Matthew a smug smirk.
"You did not care to offer your brother privacy, Matthiaos," Philippe said, as though it should have been obvious why he'd called all the family who were in residence to his study. "Therefore, you get none. Bare your backside and bend over my desk."
Matthew carefully closed the door behind him, family was one thing, the servants were another. He offered the switch he'd cut to Philippe for judgement.
Philippe took it and gave it a practice swing. "Suitable. If it breaks before I'm done, I'll send you for another with your clothes down."
Trying to pretend there weren't extra eyes on him, Matthew went to the desk and removed his cloak, hanging it over a nearby chair. His fingers trembled on the laces of his breeches. Any other audiences he'd had to his discipline had been either strangers or also facing punishment. This calculated humiliation was new and awful.
He wished he hadn't brought the twins with him. Matthew had hoped that time with their family might teach Louisa restraint, but he feared witnessing him brought so low would destroy what little respect she had for her brother.
For a moment, as his fingers froze on his waistband, Matthew considered refusing outright. But the only thing more embarrassing than submitting to a punishment from his father in front of his siblings would be being forced to take one in front of the same.
With a soft sigh, Matthew bared himself and bent.
"Well done, Matthiaos," Philippe said. He had opened the study door again, so any servant who passed could glimpse him receiving his punishment. "You understand why you are in trouble?"
Matthew nodded into his folded arms. "I put myself in danger climbing the wall and disrespected Baldwin by peeking at his punishment."
Hugh made an amused noise that he covered with an unconvincing cough.
"Correct." Philippe lifted the long back of Matthew's shirt and folded it up out of the way. "Your punishment for those actions is a switching to your naked bottom in front of our family. The humiliation you are feeling right now, Matthiaos, is what you made Baldwin feel when he did not deserve it."
"He came at me with a sword!" Matthew couldn't bite back his arguments any longer. Being in position, facing the inevitability of punishment, made it difficult to remember there was still a worse he could make it.
"And he has been soundly punished for it," Philippe replied, unmoved. "As you saw."
Matthew did have to admit he considered Baldwin sufficiently chastised for escalating their argument without giving Matthew time to arm himself as well. He sincerely wished he'd had a sword in hand too. Philippe might have thrashed them both in that case, but it would have been with no more audience than each other.
"Any more arguments?" Philippe asked. "I would rather have them out now than when you are crying too hard to be understood."
"No, sir." Matthew shifted very slightly, not exactly offering himself for punishment, just making sure he was relatively comfortable and his father had a clear swing.
The switch hissed down and bit like a venomous snake. With belt, crop or cane, Philippe took his time, pacing the strokes so the pain of the last was just starting to ebb when the next landed. A switch was a fast implement, one he wielded with an uncanny precision despite the increase in speed.
Matthew clung onto the opposite edge of the desk as the switch stripped away his defences and, it felt like, at least one layer of skin. His strongest feeling was still embarrassment though. Staying stoic and silent was the most important thing, even as the pain burned like Philippe was branding his son like cattle.
A few more passes across the flesh of his backside and Matthew twitched. He had sat in a fire, fallen on his arse from a great height, been sliced by a hundred blades bound together. And Philippe wasn't letting up.
Matthew knew his father would only be satisfied with complete surrender to what he was feeling, but he fought his responses anyway. It became vitally important that he last longer than Baldwin had. Of course, Matthew wasn't entirely sure when Baldwin had started squirming, a switch wasn't a crop and he couldn't see his own backside to compare how red they were.
All he had to go by were his senses, which screamed at him to do something about the pain he was feeling.
Philippe moved back up to the top of his backside for another agonising procession downwards. Each step lower caught the whippy stick against skin that had felt it many times before.
Matthew's breath hitched and a thin whine was forced out of a throat desperately trying to hold it back.
"I know, Matthiaos," Philippe said, now offering sympathy as though he wasn't the cause of his son's suffering. "Had a sword been within your reach, you would have fought hard enough that you would have been stretched across my desk next to Baldwin. Feeling left out is no good reason to risk your neck climbing walls."
The switch danced low again, nipping into the more tender skin between thigh and buttocks where Matthew would feel it most when he sat. It returned to that spot again and again until its efforts were rewarded with an unhappy twist of Matthew's hips.
"This is a lesson I hope I never have to repeat," Philippe said. "For any of you. If my study door is closed and you can hear a punishment being delivered, that is not an invitation to watch."
Rather than return to the highest stripe, the switch headed even further south, decorating Matthew's thighs with yet more thin lines. His leg lifted and stamped down without consulting his brain first.
Another pained gasp escaped. Matthew's eyes prickled with stinging tears.
It was a relief to give in to his honest reactions.
He kept his bottom available for punishment, even as he shifted his hips from side to side in an attempt to evade the unerring strikes. From much experience, Matthew knew that was insufficient to break Philippe's aim or rhythm.
His gasps and whines grew louder. The threatening tears arrived. Still the switch fell and fell, painting his thighs with the same methodical thoroughness it had his backside.
As Matthew had known he would, Philippe only ended the punishment when he stopped fighting. No more twisting, just lying limp over the desk and taking it with only the occasional whimper. Too worn out to keep struggling.
The switch was laid on the desk next to him, signalling the end of his punishment.
At least, that from his father.
He heard his mother's footsteps approach and winced.
"Matthew," Ysabeau said, with none of the softness she'd given his name when she had been scared for him. "How do you think I felt when I saw you fall? Again."
"I ..." He didn't have the words to describe that feeling, but he knew it was nearly as awful as the falling itself. "I'm sorry, mother. I think you felt like you should whip me yourself?"
Her hand caught the back of his neck and she shook him slightly, like one might a misbehaving puppy. "You have had enough for now, Matthieu, but you will report to my rooms once you have rested. One of us must take your safety seriously and, if it is me, I will provide consequences when you fail. Up."
Ysabeau lifted him as much as Matthew stood up. His shirt fell back down to cover him, but he wasn't sure he could bear to face his family after that.
Philippe gave him no choice, turning Matthew and pulling him into a tight hug. It was brief, but conveyed a depth of feeling that let Matthew know his father had been just as fearful about the danger as his mother.
"Never do that again, Matthiaos," Philippe ordered. He nodded towards Baldwin. "Embrace your brother and put whatever quarrel you had aside."
Honestly, Matthew could hardly remember what the initial conflict had been about. Still avoiding looking at Louis or Louisa, he hitched his breeches up and laced them again. Even the finest silk would have made him wince after a dose of Philippe's discipline and he preferred hard wearing to purely decorative.
Every step rubbed the seat of his breeches against inflamed flesh, but soon he was standing in front of Baldwin. "I'm sorry, brother," Matthew told him, with a sincerity he couldn't have managed before the switching.
Baldwin scowled for a moment, irritated that he had to follow Matthew onto the high road. He opened his arms. "And I'm sorry, brother." His sincerity could have done with another dose of the crop.
They embraced stiffly, holding it for a tense moment to satisfy Philippe. Their father was talking softly to Ysabeau in a language too old for them to fully understand, so Baldwin hissed, "Worth it?"
"Of course not," Matthew replied, at a normal volume. "My stairs are never going to recover from your vicious attack."
Philippe cleared his throat in warning.
They should probably wait until they were healed to get back at each other's throats. Tempting as it was.