Cursed

by R D Blake

  ______Ω______

  As the last of the light from the day’s sun left the sky, Erick wearily climbed the last steps to the pavement that led to his own room. He stripped off his filthy tunic as he walked the remaining distance — covered in soot, lime and more dirt than he thought the entire world could contain. Only the bear walked beside him. In the glimmer of the single candle he carried, the one kindness the woman had granted him, the eyes of the bear glinted. To Erick this creature seemed to be in good humour. “What? You think this whole day one big joke? One full of mirth?”

  The bear’s reply was by way of a gentle swiping at Erick’s back. “You do, don’t you? Well, I do not. I hurt everywhere. Who knew such menial work would take so much out of a man? My back which you so kindly have thumped is sore from bending into that cramped oven and scrubbing away more than what my cooking accident caused. And the ends of my finger tips are gone! The lime did that.” Erick stopped to rotate his neck about to rid himself of the worst of several stiff kinks. “And there are yet several more days before the kitchen will be set to rights. You have a hard mistress, bear!”

  That remark earned Erick more than just a slap, for the beast’s claws cut deeply into his skin. “Oh! That hurt!” But Erick ended his complaint for the bear looked more than ready to administer another swat. “All right. I take your meaning. You will suffer no insults to her. And truly I meant not. It was a jest. Just like the one I think you and your companions fully intended to make happen, now that I think more upon it.”

  As if to confirm it, the bear opened his mouth and allowed his teeth to gleam in the light of the candle. Erick considered his burly guard carefully. “If ever I leave this place and return, I have a friend you should meet. I think you and he are cut much from the same cloth, and choose to believe me or not, but even you might be challenged to treat him as you treat me.” The bear perked his small black ears at Erick’s words and his glistening smile seemed only to broaden.

  ______Ω______

  Teton rose to his feet and briefly touched the cold stone of the memorial to his friend. Months had passed, but the hurt had not. Erick was gone. Gone. Just like that. Gored and then dragged off by a herd of wild boar — Connor only escaping after suffering many wounds and loss of blood — returning to the camp on foot — both horses killed in the aftermath. Despite their efforts and Connor’s, they had not been able to backtrack through the woods to where Erick might have been taken — all of them reluctantly being forced to accept the fact that he had been eaten by the wild pigs. With chagrin, they had ended their search earlier than a person of Erick’s station merited, for Connor required more care than they could provide out in that wilderness.

  Weeks later, Teton had returned and had wandered again through those northern wilds but had been just as unsuccessful as earlier, and no trace of Erick had he discovered. He had come back anguished, more laden with sorrow than Teton ever thought possible for any man.

  Since then his grief had only grown. What would he do without his friend? He had sworn Ehorim to Erick and now that was an empty vow. Empty as Teton felt and perhaps he feared would always be.

  ______Ω______

  More days were required to make ready the kitchen again than Erick had thought, but it had given him further opportunity to observe the lady of these ruins. Though she said little to him, pointing, gesturing more than with words, she did speak at times in that odd, raspy, low voice — so much like a man with a terrible cold. The kitchen had been emptied of all it contained, washed and scrubbed, finally painted again with a white wash of lime. Implements and pots and pans were scoured until they gleamed (Erick had thought that these would only require a dunk in the basin to restore them, but this woman seemed to take some grim pleasure in this extra work she assigned him) yet Erick persevered through it all and when he was given a break to rest, he played upon his lute. Once or twice, she stopped to listen when she passed by through the kitchen, much like she had those weeks ago when he first learned to play; but for the most part his music seemed only to compel her to leave more quickly.

  Finally all was remade and the kitchen was as it had been before. The final touch was the flowers. The lady had brought the first of the bundles in and Erick put aside his lute and followed her thinking to assist her. Once outside she seemed to realize he was with you and came to a sudden stop. “Allow me to help, mistress,” Erick begged. “I brought ruin to what you held precious. Grant me a kindness to do this for you.”

  A sigh was breathed out behind her mask after a long moment of silence. Then she gestured him to follow. As they journeyed out to the far fields and Erick studied her profile as he followed along. Definitely she was a bent over creature and she shuffled more than walked, though her movements were quick and light despite that. Of a certainty a hump rode up near the top of her left shoulder that caused her head to twist to the right ever so slightly.

  Observing her, all those old questions rose up in Erick. Who was she? How did she come to be in this place? Who were her people? Had she been abandoned? Sent away? And how had she come to be so stricken? How many long years had she been here? Alone? And yet there was more than sad resignation within her. Erick sensed that. There was a strength of sorts: a determination to accept what was.

  A bite was in the air this day. Day by day, over the last weeks, Erick had seen the snow on the southern mountains descend down their flanks. Soon this land would join with the mountains and winter would gather itself and hold this vale in its icy grip.

  Finally, they came to the part of the meadow where she had been gathering her flowers. There were mounds and mounds of them — all tied up. And arranged in a manner that Erick had learned and observed in his time at court that he knew his mother would value as coming from a highly trained artisan. But there were far more here than needed for the kitchen. “Why so many?” he asked, forgetting that she would not permit him to question her.

  But surprisingly she answered. “Winter comes and these must last through that season until the first buds open in the spring.” Then a stiffness came suddenly to her body as she added: “I wished for you to be sent back — to your own home wherever that might be. But they would not agree. And now it is too late. They did not save you only to be sent to your death again in the mountains.”

  This woman had said more to him in those few words than Erick had heard from her over the last several days. But they were words that gave him no comfort for Erick found he did not want to leave: this place or her. He inclined his head toward her. “Then give my thanks to your companions for if they and you will allow, I would stay here.”

  She looked away from him to survey the southern border of the vale. “In the spring you must go.” Thereafter she picked up two bundles, carrying them as if they were precious young children and walked away, casting one last warning back to him. “Be careful. They will be bruise easily if you mistreat them.”

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  Winter is considered a dreary season for most; bound inside; always cold; drafts finding their way into your beds, rooms and clothes; food becoming staler, less filling, plainer, dwindling away to the last remnants, soft and less appetizing. But if that was so, Erick hardly deigned to notice, for though the winter was indeed bitter, inside the fortress he found it not that way. The first wisps of spring came sooner than he wished. For it only meant one thing and he did not want to think of that.

  His relationship with the lady of this vale was never one of ease between them. Words were seldom spoken despite life, for the most part, jointly spent in the kitchen. It was deepest down in the ruin and barred most of the worst of the winter season, and it was where the animals and birds that did not sleep through the winter or speed on fast wings to the warmer climes of the south remained mostly — for a fire was always set and kept the chamber warm.

  Erick had spent the last weeks before the winter storms closed up the outside, gathering fuel from the forest. The dogs and wolves loped beside him and travelled with him into the firs
t fringes of the woods and led him to where dead stands of trees were most easily got at. The dogs with their travois and he with his own, stacked and filled the adjacent chambers to the kitchen until none more could be added. When he had come in chilled by the first frosts and the blustery winds blowing down from the mountains, the lady would have something warm ready for him, though she was absent, with the mug sitting alone steaming on the table — a kindness like so many others that had been granted to him. Erick had tried to return that thoughtfulness, but she forbade him from ever assisting her in the cooking of their meals.

  Yet try as he might, Erick could not always stay away from those questions he had of her. When he would inadvertently give voice to them, he was only met with a stony silence from the woman, and those enquiries would only serve to cast the animals gathered in the chamber into a similar mood. The bear would cuff him about the kitchen and follow him on his return to his own cold chambers.

  “I know, I know. Stupid,” Erick would admit to when he had been shoved one more time to the pavement by the bear. And after those inadvertent, seemingly impertinent questions, the woman would not show up for days. Erick wondered about that. Perhaps she was not as strong as he thought, and as the bear had pointed out with his pummelling and the wolves with their nips and sharp barks, he feared that he was wounding her in some fashion. But what could he do? Stay in his rooms all the time? Erick needed her company as sparse as it was, and admittedly, her presence warmed him as did these other magical animals.

  So in her absence, he practised with his lute, and played with the animals. In the midst of the winter, with a fierce gale blowing outside, he began to tell them tales he had learned as a child, and regaled them with events he knew of in his world to the south. They seemed to listen with an avidity that he wished his patroness would share in also. But once, though his ears might have done him false, he thought there had been a sound near to the exit which the lady took to her own private chambers. Perhaps she had stayed her feet to listen in too. So in hope Erick kept up his stories with the wish that they would entertain her.

  But as one day followed the next, it came apparent that he was a poor story teller; for his tales would not make the woman stay for long in the kitchen. His voice grew almost as hoarse as his benefactor’s with days of talk. So to fill in the long enclosed days, Erick made a deck of cards from scraps of paper that he found within a small chest which the young dogs had led him to, and using some inks within that same box, he drew out the cards and cut the paper to size and began some games he used to play when he was still a lad.

  Birds gathered about him, and other of the animals, weasels, martens, a few of the rats, even a hare hopped up onto the table to watch as he played. Odd as everything else in this ruin, these creatures seemed to hold their breath when he was about to misplay a hand or shake their heads when he had to end the game earlier due to some poor thinking. But the games entertained them as if they were something new that these animals had never seen before. More often than not, many mornings they were urging him to hurry and break his fast, so he could begin playing at the cards again.

  These pastimes not only caught the attention of the animals and birds but of the silent mistress of this fortress; for she seemed to stay longer in the kitchen, busying herself with the food preparations or the cleaning of the pots or the sweeping of the floor or the readying of something else. Erick began to talk again explaining the rules of the various games — as if to the animals but truly to the woman herself. Perhaps he was mistaken, perhaps not, but it seemed to Erick that she hovered minutely nearer to him as he played on.

  And at times he laughed out loud when the birds would twitter at him when he made a particular bad play. “Yes, yes I am a dolt. I should have played the queen instead of the king.” When he admitted to such things, the animals added their own voices to his laughter and once, just once, Erick thought the woman had joined in too, but she left immediately afterwards when he turned to silently regard her.

  And so it went, day after cold day; but finally one afternoon after she had made preparations for their evening meal, she sat down across from him, surrounded by the animals. Some crawled up onto her lap where she idly petted them, or alternately at other times she cradled them, and as always, permitted any who chose to, to rub up against her. But no other action did she take other than to watch on.

  When he was about to discard a deuce from the deck, he heard her murmur, and as Erick looked up, she was shaking her head at him and then hesitantly pointed to the third pile of a stack of cards where, of course, the deuce should be laid to complete a series. “Thank you, my lady, how could have I have missed that?”

  She gave him no answer other than a slight shrug of her shoulders hidden under all those robes. But she watched on and became bolder as the next hours passed by, pointing out more plays that he could make. And near the end, Erick grew bold himself. “There are other games that I could teach you, my lady: games where we would play against each other.” She met his offer with that far too familiar stony silence and within moments left him and the room in a shuffling scurry of feet.

  Soon all the animals departed, following the woman in a flurry of wings and paws. Erick waited for it. But the heavy cuff of the black bear did not come. He glanced over at the great beast, who earlier, had sprawled out in front of the open fire. The bear only returned his own stare and with a huff turned over to face the fire again shaking his great head as if in despair that Erick was incapable of learning even the simplest of things. And Erick, to his regret, thought that true.

  ______Ω______

  For several days after, the lady did not reappear and Erick regretted with every hour that passed, his impulsive rash words. He had presumed too much. Again.

  But the next morning as the bear accompanied him down to the kitchen from his own chamber up on the battlements, and as the smells of the kitchen wafted by his nose, whetting his appetite and enticing him to move along quicker, the creature stopped in front of him at the entranceway to the kitchen and would only allow Erick to squeeze by him until he could see through the doorway but no farther. To his amazement, he discovered the woman at the table playing with his cards. Erick looked down at the bear and the bear looked up at him, and an understanding passed between the two of them.

  Erick made no further sound or speech. With the bear he continued to watch on. Here and there, he espied birds and other of the animals and they followed the woman’s movements in silence as he did. At times, there were soft murmurings and even what would have been a tinkle of low laughter as she played the cards, if hoarse, dry tones can deemed as such. And as Erick observed the woman in wonder, all those mysteries and questions rose afresh in his mind. Who was she? What did she carry inside her in her silence?

  Finally, the bear moved back and released Erick from being pressed up within the door frame. Erick moved back a pace or two and then strode in the room as if he had not seen her. She started at his entrance, the cards slipping from her gloved hands onto the floor. She stood, giving every evidence of preparing to flee the chamber. “Be peace, my lady, I made them for you as much as myself. Play on if you would. And allow me to ready our morning repast for I can smell that you have busied yourself much this day while I have loitered in my own chambers letting you once again serve me. Please, grant me a wish this day and allow me to serve you.” But she left none the less, ignoring the plea in his voice.

  Erick looked at the creatures about him and the bear who had joined in at his side. “Is it impossible for me to do nothing but hurt her by my words? You know I would do anything to ease the pain within her, but all I seen capable of is wounding her afresh.” Wearily, Erick sat down on the bench where the lady had been just moments ago and glanced down at the cards scattered about on the table and floor. That earlier hunger he had felt was gone just as she was.

  ______Ω______

  Chapter Seven

  Nonetheless, the woman appeared again later in the day, going about the tasks o
f the kitchen, ignoring him and seemingly acting on a pretence that Erick had not spoken to her in the morning. Yet it seemed to his perceptions that she stayed purposely as far from him as the room would permit. During that long afternoon, Erick had pondered afresh what he could do to bring comfort to this woman. She liked stories and games — that much he had gleaned of the scant leavings that she would allow herself to disclose. Making another deck of cards, he had left them on the table — for her to choose to take with her or not as she would wish, and while doing that, another thought had come to him and he had gone to the wood pile and over the next hour had selected several pieces to work with.

  Now he sat by the fire with the drowsy bear beside him working on the pieces of a new entertainment. For the first time since he had been brought to this vale, Erick chose to join in the game she had played with him over the past three seasons. He ignored her and no longer watched for her movements about the kitchen and deigned that if he spoke he would not say words directly to her or speak of her. That was the mistake he had made. She would accept no direct communication or any favour or offer of aid. If she chose to wrap herself not only in silence but in a solitude that barred little of human interaction, he would make no attempt to breach it. He would abide by her rules. The next move, perhaps many moves, would be her own.

  As he worked away, slowly removing flakes of wood, considering the piece in front him and imagining the figure within it that he wished to draw forth, Erick began to hum and sing words of his own — songs of his young youth, songs from his nurses, from his mother, and from the sister who had played with him as a young boy, she who had died years before — though Erick had never been told quite how that had come to be. She had simply no longer visited his room. But her death had changed everything for him and brought upon him what he desired least among men. No one knew, save one or two, his true feelings about a future he wanted no part of. Yet here, now, in this kitchen, that destiny seemed less sure and Erick forced himself to turn his thoughts away from it. Instead he sought for another song.