Citadels of Fire

by L.K. Hill

  Chapter 1

  August 1530

  "More vodka!”

  A fist pounded the table above; six-year-old Inga shuddered, curling into a ball beneath it. She’d been scrambling around on all fours for hours, trying to snatch falling scraps from the tables of the filthy tavern, but few fell. Two large dogs belonging to the tavern owner lay in the corner. When scraps did fall, the dogs were swifter and meaner than Inga, so they ate better than she did.

  “You’ll have no more drink until I see some coin,” the tavern keeper’s wife barked. “You owe for two rounds already.”

  Hunger gnawed at Inga’s belly so terribly that it ached. Papa acted mean when he drank too much. Now he'd run out of money, which always meant trouble. Minutes went by with Papa glaring at his empty cup, and Inga could stand it no longer. She crawled out from under the table and got to her feet. Her father didn’t notice.

  She tapped him on the knee. He didn’t look up at her, so she did it again. She must have tapped him ten times before he moved. When he did, he struck her across the face. Inga flew eight feet across the room and crashed into an empty chair. The pain from the chair was dull compared to the ache in her cheek where he’d backhanded her.

  Several of the tavern’s patrons looked up. When they realized what was happening, they turned away, leaving Inga all but alone with her father. Inga gazed up into her father’s eyes. Surprise registered on his stone-planed face, as though he hadn’t realized what he'd done until he caught sight of her on the floor. For a glimmer of an instant, Inga saw pity in his eyes.

  She had an oft-lived fantasy that came alive for a moment in her mind. In it, her father’s eyes moistened and he lifted her into his lap, gently holding her against his chest. He apologized for his harshness, and then got her something to eat. Watching her father stare at her now, she wanted that fantasy to come true so much that she could feel the warmth of his embrace against her cold, skinny arms. Her hands and lower lip shook. Surely he would scoop her up at any moment. And then . . . he turned and went back to his drink.

  Cold, hungry, and alone, Inga pulled her knees into her chest and cried.

  A moment later, her father murmured about getting some more coin. He stood and left the tavern, which Inga thought odd. Most taverns she visited with her father enforced strict rules.

  Minutes passed and Papa did not come back. The tavern owner’s wife sneered at Inga, so she crawled under the nearest table to wait for Papa to return.

  “You should not have let him leave,” the woman said sharply.

  “He said he would return with more coin,” the tavern owner said.

  “But he hasn’t yet,” his wife shot back. “If he’s not back in an hour, take it out of his flesh.”

  “He’s not here,” the man said. “How will I find him?”

  “His little whelp is still here. Take it from her if he doesn’t return—flesh of his flesh.”

  Inga didn’t know what they were talking about. As the minutes passed, she grew tired and lay down on the floor. She awakened sometime later at a rude tugging on her ankle. She gasped as something dragged her out from under the table. The dogs grew excited, their booming barks filled her ears.

  The tavern owner dragged her across the filthy floor and out the door. Her head thudded against stone as he dragged her down several steps into a dark alley behind the tavern. He dropped Inga in a heap.

  Before she could do more than sit up, he unfastened his leather belt and swung it hard across her face. Inga screamed. A second blow, hard on the heels of the first, snapped her mouth shut. Blow after great whaling blow rained down on her arms, bare legs, stomach, back, and head. The beating went on for what felt like hours. After a while, the tavern owner used not only his belt but his fists, elbows, and boots to beat what her father owed out of her.

  This is what life is, Inga thought. To be cold, hungry, and hurting.

  Her body became numb to the blows, and Inga shrank into herself. She wished for death. She wished for an end. No one in the world would know or care what happened to her in this alley. Existence was too much to bear, so she longed for the deep quiet of the earth. Perhaps becoming one with the earth would show bring her to her mother.

  As sweet, relieving darkness closed around the edges of her vision, and hope for the end rose in her heaving chest, a high-pitched voice cut through the commotion. To Inga, it seemed to come from miles away.

  “Excuse me, sir. Would you stop?” a voice said. A woman’s voice, though it sounded rough enough not to be afraid of the tavern keeper. “Why are you beating this child?”

  “Her father ran out on his bill,” the tavern keeper said, his voice deep and menacing.

  “I see.”

  Silence met Inga's ears for a time. Without the strike of the leather against her body, the cold began to seep into Inga’s bones. It was more unpleasant than the beating had been. It made her aches and pains, both physical and otherwise, harder to hide from.

  The woman’s voice broke the silence again. “What is the amount?”

  He gave an amount that Inga couldn’t comprehend. Again, a long silence. She did not understand what was taking so long. Why couldn’t the woman leave and let the man finish her? An hour before, Inga would have reached out to the woman pathetically for help and understanding, but father had abandoned her. She lay like a dead dog in the snow.

  “Is she dead?” The woman’s voice sounded businesslike. The man poked Inga in the ribs with his toe. Inga's splintered bones shift under the solid toe of his boot. She groaned.

  “Not yet.” He sounded remorseful about that fact.

  The woman sighed. “Will you be obliged to desist, sir, if I compensate you for her debt?” The tavern owner gave no answer. The woman clicked her tongue. “Will you stop beating her and allow me to take her away if I pay what her father owes?”

  The man grunted. “I suppose. But the amount I told you was not enough. It’s twice that.”

  “Of course, of course,” the woman sounded impatient, and the jangling of coins accompanied her words. A few minutes later, the sound of heavy boots crunched away from Inga in the snow.

  The woman picked her up, putting Inga over her shoulder as she would a babe after feeding. The ends of shattered ribs ground together, and Inga tried to scream but didn’t have the energy or inclination to force it past her raw throat. She rested her face on the woman's shoulder and opened her eyes, watching the alley grow smaller and smaller.

  In the snow outside the tavern door, surrounding the shape of Inga’s curled-up little body, a ring of bright red blood marred the snow. The story her father always told her about her birth rang out in her head like the peal of a bell on a silent morning. Blood. In the snow. Around you. Her father’s words haunted her. She'd been born surrounded by blood, and she left some part of herself in that alley.