by Daniel Caet
“Sadith, as much as I like this new craving for blood of yours, that wouldn't help us in the least. The two creatures that I killed in that palace were members of the angelic guard. At this point the entire angelic court will have felt their death and will be looking for us. I can hide from them, but my tricks will be of no use if we remain in the palace. Margaret is the first person they will go to since it was her who told them I was there."
“And what do you suggest we do?” I said noticing how rage seized me. “I will not leave Eleanor in her prison. If you don't help me I will find the way by myself.”
“Enough, Sadith!” he yelled at me in vain attempt to calm me down. “I have promised you that I will release Eleanor and I will, but this is not the way. If you don't mind,” he said visibly angry, “let me get dressed and take you to a safe place and then I'll take care of Eleanor. I understand that after our moment of intimacy you will be used to my cock, but it's cold, you know?”
The blow I dealt to him threw him several meters away and left him bleeding slightly from his mouth.
“Don't you ever talk to me like that again! What has happened in the palace will never be repeated. And get dressed!” I yelled while I turned my back, and all I could hear was his background laugh.
I asked Helel to transport me to a village near Saint Albans called Saint Michael where I had left Isobel in the care of a good woman whom I used to take care of in her backaches with herbs and massages. I knew I could trust her, and that Isobel would be safe there. Helel had asked me to pick up the girl and we would wait for him hidden in a nearby abandoned mill, where he would meet us once he had released Eleanor. He had promised me that no one would realise that Eleanor had left her prison, but he had refused to explain to me how he intended to do so, which made me especially nervous. But all those immediate plans changed when we arrived at the old woman's house to pick up Isobel.
As soon as we appeared, the bristly skin of my whole body told me that something was not right. The door of the tiny hut where the woman lived was broken. I ran inside the house to find everything scrambled and broken as if there had been a fight inside. I shouted calling Isobel and the old woman, but I received no response until, suddenly, from the darkness of a corner at the bottom of the hut something ran out to hold on to my legs. It was Isobel, absolutely terrified.
“Isobel, honey, what happened?” Her face was a mask of terror and her eyes full of tears didn't want to tell me what happened. “Honey, it's all over, you're safe, I'm with you, but I need to know where old Judith is. Do you know how to tell me what happened to her?”
The girl, still in fear, looked at me and Helel again, and she seemed to understand that we needed her help and showed us what happened in the only way she knew. The images began to materialise around us. The light was made in the living room and we could see the old Judith sitting in a chair while Isobel sitting on her legs was balancing as if it were a rocker. The two laughed full of happiness and Isobel, feeling safe, began projecting images of flowers and a creek around her, dotted with images of little fairies that her mind had conceived for her entertainment. None of that was unusual. Judith had witnessed those little miracles, as she called them before and accepted that Isobel was a special child without question. Unfortunately, not everyone had that open mind and the images disappeared when Isobel realised that someone was watching them through the only window of the hut. The following images were dark and terrible. Men armed with sticks and axes broke into the house and forcibly took old Judith accusing her of witchcraft and summoning the spirits of hell to cradle the girl. A man tore the little girl out of Judith's arms who tried to tell them in vain that they were wrong, and he threw her in the corner where I had found her while dragging the woman away.
I handed the girl to Helel's arms and ran towards the town square knowing inside me what I could find. The smell filled my nostrils long before I reached the center of town, a sour smell, impossible to forget. The unmistakable scent of burned human flesh. The square was empty. The embers of the fire in the center of the square were the only light that illuminated the darkness of that scene. What was left of Judith's charred body watched me tied to the center post of the pire. The anger and helplessness that this scene caused me made me fall to my knees and cry loudly as I had not cried since the death of my parents. That woman, like them, had only been a good person who had made the mistake of letting me and a girl into her life, simply loving her like that, like a girl, and not like a supernatural creature. A noise came to me from the back of the square. A drunk man who was heading home after the show.
“You've missed everything, woman,” he said, dragging the words as much as the feet that made him stumble. “And what a show, yes! The priest was very happy, who was going to say that in a little town like this we were going to have a witch of those who fornicate with the devil? Well, this one will no longer fornicate here or in the next life because before burning her, the priest ordered her pussy to be sealed on fire. If you saw how she screamed, it looked like a sow on the day of slaughter,” he said, laughing out loud. “But it was short-lived, she lost consciousness and did not even know that they were roasting her whole.”
The way that drunk described the torture for which Judith had to go through because of me, made me lose control. In a second the flames lit his clothes and spread to his hair and beard. The man tried to scream, but I silenced his screams so that he died in the most terrible pain without even the relief of the shrieks. I approached him as he burned to look into his eyes, so that he knew that I was the cause of his death and with the greatest contempt I have ever felt I spit on him while he exhaled his last breath.
In case that act of revenge carried by rage had not been a big enough mistake, the door of the church that was in the same square opened, and a figure went outside alerted by the flames that devoured that unfortunate bastard. It was the village priest, responsible for the death of Judith, who saw the scene before him and was clear that what he had in front was the same concubine of the devil and began to shout at me praises conceived to return me to hell. My mind, in an act of unbridled madness, decided to give that man consumed by a toxic and false faith what he wanted. With a movement of my hand the man rose from the ground until he was placed at the height of the roof of the church where a large wooden cross was enough to announce to everyone where the so-called house of God was. With my eyes blank and making use of all my power, I threw the man against the wood of the cross that immediately began to generate branches as if it were a gigantic rose bush. The branches pierced the members of the priest who shouted consumed by pain while his body was literally nailed to the cross by the work and grace of the cross itself. But that was not enough to quench my desire for revenge, and with a movement of my fingers I made the edge of an invisible blade cut his throat causing his blood to spurt like a fountain covering the entrance of the church. The noises emitted by the priest had attracted the attention of other people who approached the square from the farthest parts of the town, and my body tensed preparing to continue with the carnage, but suddenly something clouded my vision and a second later I was in my own house with Isobel in front of me looking scared and Helel holding me with his arms trying to stop my attempts to get rid of that prison.
“Enough, Sadith, enough!” he whispered in my ear and his words were like a kind of balm that made my body begin to convulse less violently and gradually abandon itself to his embrace until the forces completely abandoned my body and my legs failed me. Helel took me in his arms and led me to the straw bed on the other side of the room. He laid me gently on the bed and asked Isobel to stay with me for a second while he took care of something. He went outside and returned a moment later.
“The house is now protected from intruders, nobody will know that we are here,” he said, and with a wave of his hand he made a warm and pleasant fire appear in the home. I was exhausted by sustained anger, unable to formulate a word, so my body was abandoned to that feeling of well-being and carelessness in Hele
l's care and with Isobel holding my hand. I remember that my body was so exhausted that I began to fall asleep when, suddenly, I felt like something warm flooded my legs. My mind immediately recognised what it was and made me wake up in an instant.
“Isobel, honey!” I called the girl tenderly trying not to scare her using the few remaining strengths, “do you remember that thing we have been preparing for a long time? Very well,” I said when I saw a girl nodding, “because the time has come, can you help me prepare everything?”
Isobel got out of bed and immediately began to prepare a boiling pan with water as I had taught her months ago. I had been preparing the little girl for a long time knowing that, when the time came, she was probably the only help I could count on. I tried to get up to help her, but a contraction shook my body so intensely that I couldn't help screaming alerting Helel who came running to me.
“What happens? You're good?”
“I'm perfectly well, Helel, I'm just going to have a child,” I said as a new contraction made me curl in pain. “And I'm afraid I'll have it now.”
“Right now? Really?”
“Do you think I'm kidding?” I replied irritably. “You will have to help Helel, Isobel is too small, and I am afraid I will need help.”
“As you wish, but I warn you that bringing creatures to this world is not among my talents.”
“We'll have to live with that because you're the only help available.” And a new contraction went through me like a spear making me scream.
“Is that normal?”
“The contractions are too continuous, I don't have time to catch air, it seems that the child is in a hurry to get out.” A new contraction beat my body up and down. “No, it's not normal!”
Isobel brought to the bed the water that she had heated on the fire and some pieces of cloth that we had prepared weeks ago. An instant later she placed herself behind me trying to help me remain slightly erect as I had taught her.
“Very good, honey, you are doing very well!” I said with almost no resolve. “Now it’s my turn. Helel, I need you to look between my legs and tell me what you see.”
“Really?” he said looking at me surprised.
“Helel, I don't have time for your stupidities, tell me what you see.”
Without being convinced, Helel obeyed me and told me that he could see what seemed to be the child’s head between my legs.
“But it seems that the cord is wrapped around his neck.”
“That is not a good sign. If the cord is strangling him, we will need him to come out as soon as possible,” I said as I snorted trying to recover the air I needed. The contractions continued with an almost constant and very fast frequency. I had seen that in many women with dire results in almost every occasion. Children who seemed to detect that they were dying, and somehow their mothers' bodies induced a sudden birth as if the little ones had shouted at them that they needed to get out. Births in which many times the fetus was not even in the right position and that exhausted the mother preventing any effort to bring the creature to this world making opening the belly the only way to get the child out. A decision that inevitably meant the death of the mother and in many cases of the child if the midwife did not have the necessary experience.
“Okay, tell me what to do.”
“What I need is for you to help the boy out. I will do everything I can to push, but if the forces fail me I want you to put your hands in and take it out, can you hear me?”
“But if I do that, I can tear you apart if you're not dilated enough, Sadith.”
“I know, but you have to do what I tell you, Helel, the boy can't wait. This child must live, Helel, do you understand me? I can't lose him too,” I said, looking straight into his eyes with mine full of tears until a contraction cut me in half again. I did not say another word, with all the forces that I could gather I pushed trying to expel the little one, but all I got was to cause me enormous pain. Twice more I tried without getting the fetus to move one iota and exhausting the few remaining forces.
“Helel, I can’t go on anymore, it's useless. I need you to do it, I can't do it, it's impossible.”
“No, Sadith, I can't, if I take him out, the damage I will cause you, it will be your death, I will not do that.”
“You promised, Helel, you owe me!” I shouted.
“No, I will not put this creature above you, Sadith, ever!”
I wanted to yell at him, hit him, but my strength didn't allow me any of that. I could tell how I was about to faint, and I knew that if that happened it would be the death of my little one. Impotence flooded me, and I felt how I abandoned myself to the inevitable, but, suddenly, Isobel's small hand grabbed mine with an unexpected force. It was my little girl's way of telling me that I was not alone, that her strength also counted at that time and that together we could get it. Suddenly, I felt like my forces renewed slightly, just a little, just enough to not give up, what was necessary to concentrate my energy in my belly and push, push as if it were the last thing I could do in this life. The pain was indiscribible, so much that for an instant I felt like my body was disconnected from reality and a warm and pleasant blue light enveloped me and made me feel protected. At that moment, I knew that it was the same goddess who was hugging me, who was protecting me from pain, fear and helplessness, who added her strength to mine as I had done with so many other mothers whom I had attended.
My ears came back to reality before my eyes, and I could hear the most beautiful sound in the world, the strong and powerful cry of my son that intermingled with the words of Helel’s that seemed to whisper to my ear that I had achieved it, that I had a strong and healthy son. As if envious of what I could hear, my eyes widened to show Helel that was tilting a small lump wrapped in the linen rags that Isobel had prepared. As he leaned over me, the face of the most beautiful boy I had ever seen illuminated my world suddenly, and never stopped doing it since the day I took him in my arms.
“You have to give it a name, a child must be named as soon as it is born so that the world knows who the newcomer is,” Helel smiled.
“His name will be Oswald. William's family was of Saxon origin,” I explained when I saw Helel's strange face. “In the Saxon language Oswald means the strength of God, and we both know that you will need all that strength and more being a member of this family.”
“Very well,” said Helel, “so be it. Welcome to the family, Oswald!”
“Oswald,” Isobel said, using the only word she uttered in her entire life as a huge smile filled her face.
I woke up suddenly startled. I didn't remember falling asleep and the place surrounding me was unknown to me. I tried to get up, but my sore body from childbirth prevented me, and I could not avoid a groan of pain.
“Don't move, you're very weak,” said Helel, who appeared at my side in an instant.
“Where am I, Helel? Where is my son?”
“Quiet. You are in a safe place and your son is sleeping in his crib oblivious to the problems of this world,” he replied, showing me a small basket by my bed that I had not seen until that moment. I leaned over as I could to see for myself that everything was fine and that my little one was as real as I remembered.
“How did I get here?” I asked when I finally convinced myself that everything was as it should.
“We couldn't stay in that hut for a long time. Sooner or later we would have been discovered by the men who killed your Judith or the angels. When you fell asleep from exhaustion I thought it was the best time to move, so I transported you here. We are in France, in one of my houses. One that is now yours so you can raise your child safely. Here nobody knows you, tomorrow I will announce that my sister has become a widow and has come to live in my house. The people of the neighbouring village will be delighted, they hardly see me here, and that makes them nervous.”
“I can't stay here, Helel, I appreciate it, but no. I already told you that I have to make sure to release Eleanor, for Isobel at least, but also for Eleanor herself. As soon
as I recover my strength, I would be grateful if you would return us to England, Isobel and I will find a way to protect ourselves, do not worry. By the way, where is Isobel?”
“That's what I try to tell you if you can shut up for a second and let me talk. Isobel is in the garden spending a well-deserved time with her mother; a mother, I think, who has realised how much she has missed all these years because she has not separated from her since she arrived.”
“How?” I said more in disbelief than deafness.
“I don't know why you’re so surprised. I told you I would release her, right?”
“Yes, but ... how did you do it?”
“I've done what was necessary, Sadith, neither more nor less. And before you ask, no, nobody will chase you for it.”
Helel explained to me how he had replaced Eleanor with a young woman on whom he had thrown a magical veil of concealment so that everyone who looked at her could only see Eleanor's face. Evidently the young woman was not going to do that willingly, so he had made sure that she was silent so that she could not reveal her cover. In the eyes of his captors, Eleanor had gone mad due to her captivity and had lost the ability to speak, beyond guttural sounds and screams. I wanted to ask who this girl was, where she had come from. I couldn't help thinking that this young woman probably had a family, maybe a husband or children who wouldn't know where she was or what had become of her. I could feel the anguish of what was happening to her; but Helel, as if reading my thoughts, took my hand and led me to the room’s stone window and, from there, I could see how Isobel and Eleanor danced in the sun turning constantly, holding hands and laughing in pure happiness. Eleanor was emaciated, thin, aged, but I had never seen her so honestly happy. And then Helel's words silenced my doubts forever.
“All that is necessary for my children’s safety, Sadith. That was your promise.”
And I silenced at the same time the voice of my throat and that of my heart.
