by D Murray
“Come on, move.” Higgs shoved at Evelyne’s shoulder, sending her stumbling forward a couple of steps.
She turned on him and sneered. “You don’t get to touch me like that, remember.”
“Walk on,” Higgs laughed, “and you remember me and the weight of my touch on you.”
Evelyne turned her back to the guard, and followed on in the direction Grunnxe had stalked off in. Other guests. Not exactly a private poisoning.
When she entered, the dining room was full of a dozen officers from Grunnxe’s army. They stood in three groups around the long rectangular table, tin cups of ale in hand, and engaged in good-humoured conversation. As she entered, the chatter died down, and the faces turned to greet her.
“Ah!” Grunnxe exclaimed, throwing his arms out widely, sending ale over the Ravenmayne officer who stood to his right. The Ravenmayne kept his blazing eyes fixed on Evelyne. “Here she is, the flower of our table.”
Evelyne’s eyes flicked around the faces before her. Then her eyes fell on Yara. The serving girl stood holding a copper ale jug just behind the archway leading into an antechamber. That’s where Yara could serve up the Slowblood. This is where it has to happen. To them all. She held Yara’s eyes for a moment. A ghost of fear seemed to flit across the woman’s face, and her mouth tightened before she nodded imperceptibly to Evelyne.
“Your Highness,” Evelyne cleared her throat, and turned her hands over palm first in front of her, “if you wouldn’t mind, could I possibly wash a little before we dine? My hands are still filthy from our journey.”
Grunnxe walked around the table and took Evelyne’s hands in his, inspecting her palms.
“Why yes, your hands are filthy. Please, Fork,” Grunnxe turned and looked to the serving woman, “take Lady Evelyne here and see she can wash up for dinner.” Yara nodded, placing the jug on the table before stepping over to Evelyne. “Higgs, go with them,” Grunnxe added.
Yara led Evelyne and Higgs into the antechamber, where a dozen plates were laid out. Jugs of wine and pots of steaming pork with vegetables were spread across the broad, rough-hewn wooden table. “There’s some hot water in the kitchen. Follow me.” She led them through a small doorway draped in a thick curtain of hemp, and into the kitchen. The room was square, with an arched stone ceiling and a broad fireplace at the end of the room, with various black metal arms hung with pots over the fire. A large table stood before the fire with a red-faced woman chopping at vegetables.
“Hurry up,” Higgs grunted as he shoved past Evelyne and towards where the cook had chopped some carrots and parsnips into cubes.
Evelyne watched as Higgs scooped up a handful of the vegetables, tossed his head back and poured them into his mouth. As he looked away, she flicked her eyes to the hand in her pocket and mouthed the word ‘Slowblood’. She inclined her head towards the cook, and Yara nodded, swallowing hard. Evelyne removed her cloak and placed it on the thick wooden worktop in front of Yara.
“I said hurry the shitting hells up!” Higgs hissed, turning around from where he stood in front of the frowning cook. He turned back and reached for another handful of vegetables when the cook slapped her broad hand across his.
“Piss off with your grabbing hands or the king will hear of it.”
Higgs thrust his head forward and snapped his teeth at the cook, causing her to step back with a gasp. He laughed and grabbed another handful of carrots, then dragged his feet across the flagstones of the floor. “Fucking starving.” He tossed a chunk of carrot into his mouth and winked at Evelyne as he approached. He leaned in and whispered, his stinking breath enveloping Evelyne’s face. “Make sure you wash up good. He likes a clean one, does the old man.”
“Get out of here,” the cook shouted. “You’ll spoil the food with the rot of you. Go on!”
“Can’t leave her out of my sight. The old man wouldn’t like that.” Higgs turned back to the cook, spreading his arms in a thin mockery of helplessness.
“Give her some privacy at least, and turn your back. Show some decency.” The ruddy-faced cook stepped around from her work surface, her chopping knife still in hand.
“Ooh!” Higgs pursed his thick lips and held up his hands in surrender. “Please, don’t.” He chuckled and, with a seedy look up and down Evelyne’s body, he turned his back, leaning his shoulder against the arching block stonework. “Quick now.”
Yara wasted no time pulling the Slowblood from the pocket of Evelyne’s cloak. “Missy,” she called over her shoulder to the cook, “have you any hot water for the lady to wash with?”
“Aye,” the cook said, stepping back to her vegetables. “Over by the fire, there’s a pot of hot water next to the stew.”
“That for them out there?” Yara asked as she walked over to the fireplace where the pots hung on blackened iron arms towards the flames.
“Aye, not that it’ll please old high-born-bollocks out there.”
“Careful of that tongue,” Higgs said over his shoulder with a mouthful of carrot. “Tone like that’ll see a tongue stew for dinner before the evening’s out.”
The cook pointed the knife silently at Higgs' back and mouthed ‘fuck yourself’ to him.
Evelyne looked back at Yara as she stood with her back turned in front of the fire. She used a long metal hook to pull the arm holding the water pot back from the flames, before placing it aside, and looking over her shoulder with a quick glance. She pulled her hand from her pocket and tossed a handful of the mix of lichens into the large cauldron of stew that hung beside the water pot. Her elbow moved back and forth a few times as she stirred it in. She picked up a wide wooden bowl from the rack beside the fire. She scooped several ladles of hot water from the pot and into the bowl, before picking up a cloth and walking back across the kitchen to where Evelyne stood waiting.
“Thank you,” Evelyne said in a quiet voice. Her heart was racing hard and her hands trembled as she reached out and took hold of the wet cloth. She wrung it out and began to wash down her hands.
“Nearly done yet?” Higgs asked over his shoulder.
“Nearly,” Evelyne replied.
“Yara, can you dish out the stew?” the cook asked.
“Aye, Missy,” Yara said, before mouthing ‘long enough?’ to Evelyne.
Evelyne shrugged.
Missy spoke again. “It’ll need to cool before you serve it. Can’t have them burning their tongues.”
Higgs chuckled at that, and farted. “There’s some extra flavour for it,” he said over his shoulder to them.
“Fucking Salt-Marsh savage,” Missy scolded, receiving only another ragged chuckle from Higgs in response.
“I’ll get to it,” Yara said, mouthing an apology to Evelyne before she turned and headed back to the stew pot.
“Come on, you must be clean by now.” Higgs hauled himself up from where he leaned facing the door, and turned back to them.
She wiped the cloth over her face, indulging in the feeling of the warm, wet cloth as it cleansed away her terror for a moment. “I’m done.” She tossed the cloth into the water bowl, and turned away from the sight of Yara spooning the stew into large bowls for Grunnxe and his party.
“Good. Move.” Higgs shoved Evelyne out of the kitchen. “You smell nice,” he said, drawing a long breath through his nose as he bent close to her. He laughed, and pushed her on through the antechamber and into the dining room.
“Ah!” Grunnxe said, turning over his shoulder and smiling. “I trust you’re feeling more refreshed?”
“Yes, thank you,” she replied as Higgs took up his position at ease against the wall behind her.
“Excellent,” Grunnxe replied as she sat back into her seat.
She caught one of the officers around the table smiling lewdly at her. His eyes dropped from her face to the newly clean hollow where her neck met her chest. She smiled back at him. Smile all you like now. Your fun is over.
Yara stepped into the dining room with a tray full of steaming bowls. She placed it onto the table
to the right of Grunnxe before setting a bowl down in front of the king.
“My thanks, Fork,” he said, smiling up at her as he grabbed his spoon. “Spoon! Spoon!” He waved the utensil in front of her face and laughed.
Yara smiled and began to distribute the bowls around the officers before picking up the empty tray.
Evelyne watched as Grunnxe leaned over his bowl and breathed in loudly through his nose. “I could eat a bloody horse.” He turned his head and shouted over his shoulder, “Hurry it up, Fork. I’m forking starving.” He laughed again, the sound echoed by the sycophants around the table.
“By all means,” a black-haired officer without a bowl of stew spoke up after a bout of over-enthusiastic laughter, “you may start without us, Your Highness.”
Grunnxe’s head turned back in a slow, measured manner. He stared at the officer, his eyes narrowing. “May I?” The officer looked about him to his peers, fear etched upon his face, but all eyes were cast down; all eyes but for Evelyne’s. “I don’t seek, nor do I require permission to eat from you.”
“I beg your forgiveness, Your Highness. I spoke out of turn.”
“Yes, you did,” Grunnxe said with a smile, “and you do so again.” Grunnxe tightened his grip around his spoon as Yara entered the room once more, again laden with bowls. “Open your mouth once more this night to do anything but put stew in it, and I’ll see you get fed a belly of the cook’s coals and then have your corpse bled out for our most beloved god. I’m sure a man as fervent in his devotion as you would go some way to restoring the almighty.” The officer nodded stiffly, and then stared hard at the bowl of stew as it was placed before him by Yara.
“Good. Now eat your food.” Grunnxe turned and smiled at Evelyne as Yara placed the last bowl down before her. “I’m sure you are famished, my dear. After all, I can see you’re eating for two.”
Evelyne’s eyes shot up and held the king’s gaze. He only smiled back at her and dipped his spoon into the gravy of the stew. He inclined his head toward his steaming spoonful, and then ate it. Grunnxe dug his spoon into the bowl once more, his action repeated by those sat around the table. Within seconds the clinking of spoons on bowls and the grunting of happy feeding resonated around the room.
Evelyne spooned at the contents of her bowl, torn between the desire to eat, and the knowledge that to do so would mean death. A death that could set Dajda free, but a death, also, that would deny life to her unborn child. Her stomach growled with hunger. The monstrosity of the decision coiled about her throat as the fear grew within her.
“Why don’t you eat, then? We can all hear your belly roar.” Grunnxe chewed through his words. “Is it the company?” He sucked at his teeth, and then picked at the morsel that was caught between them. He inspected it on the end of his finger before rubbing it onto the table. “Our manner displeases you, eh?”
“It is not the manner, Your Highness,” Evelyne replied, rubbing her forehead with a trembling hand. “I am nauseous.”
“You're sick?” Grunnxe asked. “Is it the child–”
A belch sounded from the other end of the table, where a sunken-eyed officer sat. The man looked surprised by his own action, and then belched loudly again.
Grunnxe stared at the man with incredulity for a moment. “Manners, Deckerd,” Grunnxe said through laughter, “we’ve polite company here.”
The officer’s head jolted back a moment, and his face contorted into a grimace of pain. The officer beside him belched aloud and doubled over, his chair screeching back from the table.
“What in the hells is going–” Grunnxe snapped, before a gassy belch escaped from his own lips, cutting off his words. He looked about the table with confusion dawning across his face. He looked to Evelyne, and then to her untouched bowl of stew, before looking down at his own supper. His eyes flicked back up to hers before narrowing. “The bitch has–” Grunnxe’s head jolted back and a spray of bloody vomit spewed onto the table before him. Chairs screeched back on the floor as those around the table reacted in horror.
Evelyne sensed Higgs approach from behind and stood, spinning around. She grabbed the bowl of steaming stew and flung its contents and the vessel into his face. His knife was only half drawn from its sheath as he released it and raised his hands to cover his face. Evelyne grabbed at the hilt of the knife and pulled it free with a metallic hiss before slamming it home in Higgs’ chest with a thumping upward stroke. He whooped, and his stew-slick hands grabbed at her wrists. Higgs could not grab any real purchase on her with his greasy hands weakening from the knife stroke. She pulled it free from his chest with a sucking noise, and Higgs exhaled loudly before clumsily collapsing to his knees, his hands grabbing at the tablecloth and pulling it as he dropped. Ale cups clattered onto the table, spilling their contents onto the already blood-stained tablecloth. Evelyne drove home the point of the knife into Higgs' eye, right up to the handle. The big man stuck his tongue out with a retch, and then collapsed onto his side.
Others around the table tried to stand and stumbled, falling over their chairs, blood spewing from their mouths and noses.
Grunnxe groaned and tried to wipe at the blackened blood that dripped from his beard and onto the chest of his jerkin. He retched again, sending a wave of dark blood pumping across the already gore-slick table, before grabbing a hold of the table edge and trying to stand. At the same time, another of the diners vomited blood onto the table, before keeling over in his seat and falling stiff onto the floor.
Yara came running out of the kitchen, the cook behind her.
“What’ve you done?” Missy the cook squealed, her hand covering her mouth as she witnessed the horror.
Yara ignored the question and strode over to where Grunnxe half stood, his arms trembling as he tried to prop himself up despite the pulses of bloody, black vomit trailing down his bearded chin. Grunnxe’s head turned toward Yara as she approached him. She grabbed a handful of Grunnxe’s hair in her left hand, slamming him down into his chair, and pulled the king’s head back. She stretched out his blood-slick neck. A flash of silver caught Evelyne’s eye, and then a flood of red. The knife was in and out of Grunnxe’s neck in an instant.
Grunnxe’s trembling fingers climbed their way up his neck to the gushing hole the knife had made. His fingertips teased at the wound as his wide eyes searched Evelyne's. Then his eyes closed.
Yara released Grunnxe’s hair, and the old king slumped into his chair, his bloody chin resting on the mess of his tabard and his lifeless legs stretched out under the table.
“What’ve you done?” Missy asked again, tears streaming down her face. “We’re all dead.”
“They’re all dead,” Evelyne said, pointing to the table. “I think we put in too much.” All but two of the Ravenmayne and Solansian officers were in their last throes of dying, and they choked out their last breaths like stranded fish. The rest lay still at their places or on the floor. Dark blood covered the entire table in a sheen of death. The tablecloth had puckered where it had been pulled this way and that. Thick, dark pools of blood and bile lay before the corpses.
“Come on. We need to get out of here,” Yara said, stepping around the head of the table and towards Evelyne.
“How?” Evelyne asked. “There are guards.”
“I’ll be taking you back to where the rest of the townsfolk are. It’ll be nothing out of the ordinary.”
“What about her?” Evelyne asked, looking at Missy who stood staring at the back of Grunnxe’s chair. Her face was deathly pale. “We need to take her with us.”
“We can’t. She’ll give us away,” Yara said, turning towards the cook with the knife still gripped in her right hand. Grunnxe’s blood still shone on the blade.
“No!” Evelyne snapped, causing the cook to startle, then realise the threat before her. Missy stepped back as Yara advanced, ignoring Evelyne’s plea.
A splutter sounded from the table where Grunnxe sat, causing everyone to turn their attention towards the source of the noise. A
wheezing sound issued from Grunnxe. Yara’s eyes flicked up towards Evelyne and then back at Grunnxe as his back began to rise and fall, accompanied by a high-pitched wheeze. He flopped up and leaned back in his chair.
“Fuck this!” Yara stepped up and thumped the knife into Grunnxe’s chest once, then twice, and once more. They stood in heavy silence for a moment, eyes fixed on the corpse. The silence stretched and thickened in the room. Then the old king’s chest began to rise again. Once more the wheezing sound of breath came from him.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here. Come on.” Yara looked back to the cook. “Shit on it. Come with us, or stay here and die.” Yara grabbed Evelyne’s hand as she rushed by her. Missy came up behind as they reached the door.
Evelyne took one last look back to the table, and chill terror ran through her. She felt a scream within. Grunnxe had raised his head and was looking at her. But the jet-black eyes did not belong to the old king. Her voice trembled, low and urgent. “Run.”
Thirty-Two
Stranger Danger
Ruah watched as Culver was shoved hard in the back by one of the grey-skinned men. He slipped on the snow underfoot, sliding forward, then stumbled, before falling head over feet and tumbling several feet down the steep slope that ran down the mountainside and into the valley below.
“Hey!” she shouted, shouldering the odd-eyed man who walked to her left. He felt like stone against her shoulder, and she bounced from him, falling onto her right side, face half-buried in snow.
The man laughed and leaned down, grabbing two handfuls of Ruah’s coat. He drew her close to his face, his brows tightening with anger over his mismatched eyes. “Listen to me, little girl. One time I’ll say this. One time I’ll give you a chance to behave. If you try any more games, I’ll have you and your friends here buried up to your necks in the snow and left there for the chill and spirits to take you.” He stared hard at her for a moment. “Then I’ll eat your dog.”
Ruah looked back at where Tusk growled behind them. She felt her defiance flare in her gut. She tightened her lower lip, drawing it over her teeth. Odd-eyes hauled her to her feet. Her defiance fled then as the pain flared in her knee and slithered up her pelvis and into her back. She grimaced.
