by Bobby Adair
When they’d finished moving the bodies, William walked back and stood next to them. He wiped his hands on his pants. He cleared his throat.
And then he strode off again, ducking through the trees and heading toward the remains of the campfire.
Ella watched him with worry. She listened for sounds of other creatures but heard nothing. The attack felt over, but that didn’t make her feel any less uneasy.
“Did you see how he acted?” Melora whispered, after he was out of earshot.
Ella nodded. William’s behavior was getting odder and odder. But what could they do? She shook her head sadly. “I saw it,” she answered. “He thinks he can control them, somehow. I’m worried we won’t have much time left with him.”
“He seemed so…normal up until now. I hadn’t seen it,” Melora reinforced, as if the comments might reverse what she’d seen him do.
“He’s been good for the past day. I held out the hope that he was in some way cured.” Ella lowered her head in shame. “I realize how foolish that sounds now.”
“Have you ever been around someone who was infected?” Melora asked.
“Not until they were revealed at The Cleansing,” said Ella as she shook her head in answer. It went without saying that those people were promptly burned on the pyre.
“Me, neither,” Melora said.
“I expected he’d be fine for a while, but it’s only been days. If there was a healer, we could take him to…” Ella knew her hopes were useless.
“I’ve only just met him.” Melora wiped her eyes, filled with the anticipation of another loss. “I’m not sure how I can go through this…”
“When the time comes, we’ll do what we have to do,” Ella whispered.
They fell silent, and Ella pulled her daughter in for a hug, holding her while the cool wind swayed through the trees.
Chapter 46: Fitzgerald
Fitz was mature enough that patience came easily to her. In fact, much of her life had been centered around waiting and enduring. Sitting at the most opulent table she’d ever imagined, in the largest room she’d ever seen, patience was easy. The giant, warm fire staved off the cold wind outside. The smell of breakfast hung lazily in the air.
As she sat there, taking her mind off the smell of the food, she mulled over how she was going to deal with General Blackthorn. Though the three ministers were supposed to share power equally, everyone in the townships knew General Blackthorn ruled at his whim. The other two ministers, while having all the power over the citizenry that Blackthorn had, didn’t have an army of Blue Shirts to enforce their will. The other ministers were General Blackthorn’s subordinates in all but name.
If Fitz had any doubts about that, she saw it as she sat through that meeting in Father Winthrop’s temple. She recalled how Blackthorn sat up on the stage, occupying Winthrop’s precious throne, while Winthrop groveled and bemoaned his fears from the pew at Blackthorn’s feet.
Blackthorn was power.
The only thing that didn’t make sense to Fitz that day was the look on General Blackthorn’s face when he saw her.
She’d seen that look a thousand times on other men’s faces. It wasn’t lust. It was another look. Normally the men had lust on their faces, and she forced herself to turn her head away and stare at the wall while they fondled and grunted. They treated her like a body without a soul, a thing whose only purpose was to serve their physical need. She treated them like beasts pulling a plow. She moved as was required, voiced the right sounds, and sweated through her chore.
And truly, when she put herself in the right frame of mind, it was no worse than working a stupid animal at the plow or wallowing in a stinking sty with the pigs. She’d wash when she was finished and put the night’s labors out of her mind.
Of course, sometimes her patrons left her with bruises, but Housemother Mary was always good in that situation. Men who felt the need to raise a hand to the girls were not welcome to return. Mary had an arrangement with several of the city guards to enforce it.
The men that Fitz had difficulty with tended to be young. They were either unwed, and looking for something more than physical pleasure, or wed and dissatisfied with their brides. For those men, the satisfaction of their physical need was bound inextricably to the infatuated love that lived in their simple, immature hearts. It always showed on their faces when they looked at her with longing eyes and lightly pained pleasure on their faces.
General Blackthorn, even with his time-grizzled, battle-scarred face, had that look.
It had frightened Fitz at first. How would she handle General Blackthorn? The pups of men who came to her at The House of Barren Women were easy enough. It didn’t trouble her one bit to take advantage of the wealthiest ones, saying enough of the right things, showing extra enthusiasm during the fondling and grunting, laying entwined under the sheets for a while after the act was finished.
In the men’s minds, she was reciprocating love. It was one pretense on top of another, creating an illusion of mutual pleasure.
The ones who could afford it left her with the gift of a coin. A fair trade. They had more coin than they needed. She provided a service that cost her nothing to give. She only had to be good at pretending, at pushing her thoughts away through the vileness of it, and being patient for the day when her efforts bought her freedom.
Unfortunately, with some young men, the fiction of love ended in possessive jealousy and raised fists.
General Blackthorn was the one man in town with the power to do anything, to grant her anything. He was also the one man in town who feared no repercussions should his feelings for her turn to jealousy or worse.
If the stories were true, he’d put all of his old lovers on the pyre.
Fitz shuddered at the thought.
Still, she understood the stakes in the game she was planning to play.
She looked around the room, her eye settling on those three enigmatic boxes on the mantle. Her curiosity urged her to peek inside, but her situation was precarious enough. By sitting there in General Blackthorn’s dining hall, she was already playing a game that could cost her life.
Chapter 47: William
William heard them. They didn’t think he did, but he did. Every word. He kicked at the burnt embers around the campfire, staring at the bloodstains on his boots. He tried to look busy while he listened through the trees to Ella and Melora.
They continued talking, speaking about him with worried gestures. They were afraid. Afraid of what he was becoming. While they grew closer together, they pushed him away.
He could see what they were asking each other. The real question wasn’t how fast the spore was growing, or how it was affecting him, but how soon they’d kill him.
A part of William wanted to run into the forest, to join the ranks of the demons, but he knew he couldn’t take care of himself. He’d been learning from Bray, Ella, and Melora, but he wasn’t ready yet. He needed more practice. More time. Time to figure things out. Time to learn to hunt, to build his own shelter, and to survive.
The wind blew, temporarily drowning out Ella’s and Melora’s conversation. William stopped moving and strained his ears. When the gust had passed, he heard them talking about people at The Cleansing, people they’d known that were afflicted.
Even though he’d seen the unclean for brief periods of time, William knew he was different than them. He wasn’t crazed and delusional. He knew what he was seeing, what he was experiencing.
What he saw was real.
He smiled as he ground ashes into the dirt, smearing them from side to side, pretending to be preoccupied. He thought about how the demons had reacted when he’d spoken to them. Mom and Melora might not have noticed, but he’d seen them hesitate. That was the real reason the demons were dead. They’d heard William’s words, and they’d listened, and that’s why they’d f
allen to Mom’s and Melora’s swords.
He knew he couldn’t hold the demons back for long. They had a vendetta against humanity, and he couldn’t blame them. But he had a feeling he could control them, even more than he just had. He’d test that later. Maybe when he reached the Ancient City.
William was looking forward to it.
He moved so he could see Mom and Melora through the trees. They embraced, and he felt a sting of jealousy. For years, he’d been the one looking after his mother, helping her with everything she needed. Especially after Ethan died. And here was Melora, solidifying her position, planning his demise, while Mom plotted with her. He bit his lip in anger. A spurt of blood flowed over William’s tongue, warm and salty in his mouth.
You’re not going to kill me, he thought. No way.
Chapter 48: Fitzgerald
Sounds had stopped coming from Blackthorn’s kitchen as the morning wore on. Fitzgerald wondered if noon had yet arrived. The great house felt empty. Only vague sounds from the outside made their way through the thick walls to keep her company.
Prior to arriving, she’d decided she was going to tell the lie that she was there to display the dress that Father Winthrop had acquired at General Blackthorn’s behest. She wanted to ensure it was acceptable. If Blackthorn still had that forlorn infatuation in his eyes, she’d leverage that into a commitment by him to put Father Winthrop’s enormous ass on a horse and ride him out of Brighton with the army.
It was a plan that called for reading a man’s heart through his eyes and manipulating him. A game she was used to. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was riding on a handful of hope.
The longer she sat in the dining room, the more Fitzgerald realized her opportunity lay upstairs. Many men were awkward in that transition from eye contact to bed sheets. Even in The House of Barren Women, a place where everyone understood exactly what was going to happen, that was true.
Perhaps Blackthorn had grown uncomfortable in his relations with women. He hadn’t had a wife in many years, after all.
Maybe she could use that discomfort to her advantage.
Fitz stood up, her nerves making her hands tremble.
She cast one last, pointless look around the room, then headed for the stairs.
**
At the top of the stairs, a long hall ran the length of Blackthorn’s mansion. The doors on both sides of the hall were closed. Which one was Blackthorn’s? For a brief moment, Fitz considered abandoning her mission and going back downstairs to wait. The thought of checking each door for General Blackthorn seemed like a plan that would surely end in disaster. Then she noticed a pair of doors with shiny metal handles at the end of the hall. That had to be the room in which the General slept.
On light, soundless steps, Fitz glided up the hall.
She stopped at the double doors and listened, discerning the snoring of a man sleeping within.
It had to be the General. The serving woman wasn’t lying. He really was sleeping.
Fitz steeled her nerves. No point in second guessing now. She’d already thought things through a hundred times. She was committed to the hope that it would all work out.
She put a hand on one of the door handles and opened it up.
In the center of a room that put Father Winthrop’s chamber to shame sat the largest bed she’d ever seen. Sleeping on his back in that bed lay General Blackthorn.
Fitz walked into the room and quietly closed the door behind her. She shivered at the cold, noticing that the fire had died down during the night. No maid had come in to put fresh logs in the fireplace.
Fitz walked over to the bed and looked down on General Blackthorn. Even in sleep, he looked regal and determined. Perhaps his face was so used to holding that look that it remained that way, even in relaxation.
She sat on the bed beside General Blackthorn’s sleeping form. Her heart beat maddeningly. She thought about Franklin. How would he feel about what she was about to do?
The question surprised her. Franklin harbored no illusions about Fitz’s role in Brighton. He’d even been forced to stand outside Father Winthrop’s door on numerous occasions while Winthrop fumbled through his business, bellowing like a wounded pig at climax. How could Franklin possibly not know? Still, this one seemed different to her. It was as if the moment that Fitz had been taken out of The House and put into service as a cleaning woman in the temple, she’d decided that she belonged to Franklin.
The physical act she was planning seemed like a betrayal.
Fitz took a deep breath and put those thoughts out of her mind. Just as Franklin had sacrificed something of his soul to beat Oliver, Fitz was going to sacrifice whatever ambivalence she was feeling for the good of her and Franklin.
She reached over and caressed General Blackthorns face.
With eyes closed, he flinched, and then accepted her touch. He seemed pleased, almost comforted.
Fitz placed her palm fully against his face, and his eyes half-opened, looking up at her.
Fitz held her breath. This was the moment when her plan would fork toward success, or spiral down to an end on the pyre pole. It took all her control to keep her hand steady on General Blackthorn’s face, conveying love instead of nerves.
General Blackthorn’s hard features softened, and he smiled, muttering something Fitz didn’t understand, but she knew the tone of his utterance. He was pleased.
Fitz breathed.
With the General still half asleep, Fitz knew she could get away with anything.
She slid a hand under the blankets and put it on his chest. Even old, his body was as hard as a young man’s, not fat and soft like the older merchants that sometimes visited her in The House.
She caressed the rippled muscles on his belly as she passed his bellybutton and felt some kind of thick undergarment over his private parts. She pushed her hand beneath, trying to find his manhood, realizing as she did that the garment was soaking wet.
General Blackthorn’s eyes snapped full open.
Fitz half-smiled and leaned close to kiss him.
She felt an iron grip clamping her shoulder, pushing her away.
“Emma?”
Fitz didn’t know whether to respond with words or touch.
Her hand found what it was looking for in the wet undergarment.
Blackthorn roughly shoved Fitz. She tumbled off the bed and onto the floor.
In a flash, Blackthorn was on his feet, the wet cloth wrapped into that undergarment falling to the floor, leaving his lean body naked. “What—?”
Shying away from a flaming rage burning in Blackthorn’s eyes, Fitz was at a loss. She hadn’t expected this reaction, hadn’t guessed anything like it might happen. She tried to put on a smile. She gestured at her dress, mostly at her breasts beneath the fine cloth. She knew how men loved those. “I thought—”
“Out!” Blackthorn shouted.
Fitz scrambled backward.
Blackthorn came at her, fists balled, a scowl on his face. “Out!”
Fitz tried to get to her feet. Blackthorn kicked her. She tumbled over.
He yelled at her again.
She tried to stand. He grabbed her upper arm, dragging her up with the strength of a man lifting a child.
Fitz cried at the pain of his grip.
Blackthorn flung his door open, and with one hand, tossed her onto the floor in the hall. He slammed the door behind her.
Fitz cried as the humiliation and physical pain sunk in. Her crying turned desperate as she heard feet on the stairs. The game she’d been betting her life on was lost.
Chapter 49: Fitzgerald
Shuffling sounds in Blackthorn’s room told her nothing about what was going on in there. Was he getting dressed? Was he having a tantrum?
That didn’t matter.
/>
Fitz stared at the dark spots on the floor where her tears were discoloring the wooden floor planks.
Footsteps marched deliberately up the hall.
The footsteps were terror and the promise of a pyre pole.
She dared not look.
They were coming to get her, and she could do nothing except cry and start to miss all she was about to lose. She’d had a chance to be happy with Franklin despite Brighton’s cruelty. All she’d had to do was endure and forget, just as she’d always done. But she’d become a greedy whore for happiness. She wanted more than she’d deserved. Now her future was on a path to a moment in which she’d see Franklin standing in the dirt at the edge of the fire’s heat, as the flames burned away her fine, expensive dress and crusted her dark eyes in burned skin.
She’d sob and scream once that flame wrapped its first blazing tendril around her thigh. She knew she would.
She shuddered at the thought.
A pair of boots came to a stop on the floor in front of her.
She sniffled, trying to stop her tears.
“Stand, woman.”
Hanging her head, Fitz got to her knees, but fear of what she knew was coming froze her muscles in place.
A hand reached under one of her arms. The voice, gentle this time, said, “Please, stand up.”
Fitz gulped down her sobs and got to her feet. Strands of her black hair pasted themselves to the tears across her face. As she blinked to clear her eyes, she hoped she would die at that moment to avoid the pain that was to come.
