“Why would they treat you like that?” I asked. Hadn't the woman told me something about his parentage? Was that it?
“My ma and da wouldn't speak of it, but I learned the story from the other children. It was when they were betrothed to marry, my ma began to have strange dreams. Dreams of a fairy man who... who made love to her, and filled her belly with a strong son, who grew and was born within minutes. The same dream haunted her for months. Then her belly started to swell up, and the village shaman pronounced she was with child. That was ten days before the wedding.”
“A child outside of wedlock, eh?”
“My da's family denounced my ma as w-whore and betrayer. She told them she was innocent, that it was the dreams at fault. She was examined by the shaman to divine the truth. The shaman refused to answer.” He swallowed. “My da said he loved my ma and wanted to wed her regardless. His family were outraged, they demanded my ma to get rid of me at birth, but our family wouldn't take that lying down. People were attacking each other in the streets. It would've ripped the whole village apart if the elder hadn't told us of the prophecy.
“Once I was b-born, nobody could ever find a proper use for me. I wasn't good at anything. The elder insisted I was meant for a great purpose, that my fate was bound up with the sword, but I don't think my da ever believed it. I wonder if anybody did.”
I nodded and put a hand on his shoulder. “Life may have dealt you a bad hand, boy, but that happens to a lot of us. There's no reason to give up the game so soon.”
He looked up at me with eyes full of fear and pain, then turned away, shaking his head angrily. “You don't understand,” he pouted, and refused to say any more.
I'd had enough of his attitude. I grabbed him by the tunic and wrenched him up onto his tiptoes, speaking in a soft, dangerous voice.
“Listen real close. I have no patience for unruly children. I don't want to see any more escape attempts out of you, understand? You can either behave or get thrown into a locked room with the Harari girl, and I cannot wait to find out how long you'll last.”
He jerked back, sucked in a panicky hiss of breath, nodded in abject terror. I smiled nastily and let him go. My point was made.
We reached the Fire and Wine without any further hilarity. I bundled Adar into a room, gave an eager Sir Erroll his marching orders to the inner city, checked to make sure Yazizi was still there, and finally hit the bottle with a vengeance.
I staggered into the stables late at night, candlestick in hand. I felt low and mean and drunk in the worst way. I'd been downing mead by the pint and mead always brought me to the darkest places of my soul when it stopped flowing. But it was alcoholic, and cheap, and there.
Now the inn was empty, the taps closed and locked, but I still couldn't sleep. Quite the opposite. Whenever I lay myself down I dreamt of long brown hair and full red lips, nakedness so seductive that no red-blooded man could resist it. Then, each time, it would bring me back to the cross with ropes chafing my wrists raw and the lash biting into my soul.
I hadn't told Yazizi everything. I'd never told anyone what happened once the whip was put away, when they did what simple physical pain could never do. I could still see her lord husband stripping her naked before the cross. I could feel her forced up against me like a dog, neither of us able to fight, her body made to ride me until I couldn't contain myself. She never cried until the moment I came. Then he declared her worthless, ruined, and threw her to his soldiers. I looked into her eyes while she lay there and knew there was nothing left of the noble spirit with which I'd fallen in love.
And I'd enjoyed it. Enough to have spent myself inside her when I adored her with all my heart. What sort of man could do that?
Now this new woman haunted my nights as well as my days, stirring up old needs and desires. Filling my head with her all-consuming allure. My infatuation came perilously close to love, something I couldn't allow myself to feel. She was beyond my reach. However, there was another more accessible body to hand to release those demons...
A pile of clothes by our wagon stirred as I shuffled across the dirt and straw. Yazizi's head poked out and blinked sleepily against the candlelight, yawned. “F-Faro?”
I grinned and dropped to my knees next to her, pulling the blanket away despite her protests. “Karl, what are you doing?” she gasped, all the way awake now. “You shouldn't be here.”
She rolled onto her back and tried to crawl away from me but the chains held her firmly in place.
“We're alone,” I slurred. “Nobody around to bother us.”
“To bother what?” Quiver of fear in her voice. If she was unsure about my intentions, there was no doubting them when my hands found the hem of her dress and lifted. Goose-pimpled flesh came exposed to the light. She cried out, her shackled hands feebly trying to cover herself and stop me at the same time.
I couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculous show of modesty. “Don't pretend you don't want it.”
I moved to push her down but was stopped cold by a rock-hard heel driving into my stomach. Falling away from her, I doubled over and retched up a belly full of fermented honey and mutton.
“You're drunk,” she accused, while I coughed burning acid out of my throat. My distress was temporary, though, leaving only frustration, lust and anger. I lashed out.
The back of my hand made a loud crack against her face.
The force of it knocked her down, left her lying on her belly, stunned and sobbing softly while I threw up her skirts. She had nothing to wear underneath. Her whole body shuddered as I entered her.
Everything was still for a moment. Then she began to grind against me while the tears rolled down her face. The whip-scars rippled sinuously across her back.
“Come on then,” she growled over her shoulder, teeth clenched. “Do it if you mean to.”
“I mean to,” I muttered. Even through my haze her reaction shocked me. Not enough, however, to stop me.
My hands held her by the hips while I moved. She tried to bring herself up on all fours but the chains weren't long enough, leaving her on her face with fingers digging in the dirt. Fortunately Sir Erroll had left the key in my charge. I took it from my pocket, looked at it for a few seconds, almost entranced by the feeling of Yazizi pushing back against me. Then I went to undo the lock around her wrists. She saw the key and jerked away from it.
“Leave them on,” she pleaded breathlessly. “Just... Leave them.”
I was too drunk to care, and too eager to keep going. She began to moan, then, and mouthed breathless little phrases in Harari that didn't sound at all like curses. She screamed out when I finished, then lay panting next to me, her wet cheeks covered in dirt and grime and bits of straw. An angry purple bruise was starting to form where I'd hit her.
“Why?” she asked in a small voice. I didn't respond. She raised herself onto her elbows, her face hidden behind a mussed waterfall of ink-black hair. More tears pattered on the ground below her, individual wet spots in the dirt. “Am I your wife now, that you may take me when you will?”
“Go to sleep,” I told her as I gathered my clothes.
I tried to ignore the cold edge of sobriety that hammered further into my head with each step up to my room. I could feel her eyes on me even after I'd disappeared up the stairs, and it provoked some uncomfortable new thoughts. She wasn't some Newmond whore or camp follower who'd throw herself at any man in a uniform. No passing body from which to buy a few hours of relief. She was a girl, in chains, defenceless. And me the only person in the world besides her squire in whom she'd placed the slightest bit of trust.
Oh, Hell...
My guilt poisoned all attempts at sleep. Part of me wanted to go to her, to beg forgiveness, to try and explain. The part of me that liked to wallow in shameless self-pity. Then came harder thoughts. There could be no explanation or reparation, not for this. I shouldn't have let myself be so weak if I couldn't live with the consequences.
I didn't know what to do. I tossed and turned and h
ated myself until the sun came up.
As a momentary distraction I went to check on Adar, who had settled back into meekness. I kept the door locked just in case. Then I went down to the common room. A handful of patrons were busily choking down their breakfasts, and though my stomach was empty, the very sight of food made me sick.
I went into the street and wandered around for an hour of pure frustration, never seeing the streets around me, never paying attention to the people. I almost wished for more of a hangover. The pain would've been a relief, something to take my mind off the emotions churning in my belly, but I was left to wrestle them alone.
When I surfaced from my dark trance I found myself back in front of the Fire and Wine with the stable door in my hand. I dragged my feet inside one step at a time, though they felt like lead.
Yazizi looked up at me from her place by the wagon. She didn't move, just watched my approach without expression. Then she pointed at the floor beside her. I slumped down onto it.
“I was drunk,” I said feebly. “I'm sorry.”
“You expect forgiveness?”
“No.”
“Then it is given.” Without warning, she leaned in close to kiss my cheek, chains jangling from her wrists. Her lips touched me only lightly but I felt them like a lightning bolt. “Perhaps I should not have denied you the second time, after the first.”
As much as I might have liked to shift the blame, I balked. “No. It's on my head, don't you dare make it your fault.”
“You do not understand Harari. We see things in a different way. And I did not find it entirely unpleasant.” She smiled and stroked the great big bruise on her cheek, a disturbingly erotic gesture. I seized her wrist just to stop her from doing it.
I hissed desperately, “Didn't I hurt you?”
“There is not such a difference between pain and pleasure. I know what drink does to men, and I know that you are decent underneath it. That helped.”
I shook my head and hid my face in my hands. This wasn't what I came for. I didn't want absolution; I wanted her to rage and cry and hate me. That would have made it easier.
“I do not know if it pleases you to hear, and I understand that you cannot wed a slave,” she shifted uncomfortably, placing a tentative hand on my arm, “but if things were different I would be proud to be your wife.”
“Don't be a fool,” I told her. As wrong as she was, the compliment made me feel a little better. “I'm an old soldier. We make poor husbands. Besides, your heart already belongs to someone else.”
She started to protest, then thought better of it. There was no reason to lie to me. “I... I did not think my feelings showed.”
“He seems a good boy.”
“He is kind to me,” she said softly, her eyes distant. “I only wish he felt for me as I feel for him.”
For a moment I considered telling her what Faro had said to me around the campfire. Couldn't quite bring myself to do it, though I didn't know what stopped me. Instead I said, “This is no place for love. Give him time.”
She nodded and chewed the red scab on her split lip. “Time we have. He will survive, and so shall I.” She paused for a moment, lost in thought. “He would have helped you in the woods if he hadn't been busy protecting me and the child. Strong enough to stand and fight, strong enough to do his duty, strong enough to hold a lash when he has to, yet kind and just and merciful. I have never met anyone like him.”
“He won't be under his master's thumb forever,” I told her. “All squires turn into knights sooner or later.”
And your chances of wedding any kind of noble-born are less than nothing, I added inside my own head.
We sat in silence for a long while, she wrapped up in her own thoughts, me without a clue about what to say. Then, suddenly, “There is a thing I would beg of you, Karl. A minute away from this cart. You can hold my reins, no?”
I searched her face but found no deception. What could it hurt? I considered unchaining her altogether, but even if that was what she wanted, I was honour-bound to keep her here. So I loosed the heavy iron lock on the cart, pulled the chains free, and let them dangle as Yazizi steadied herself on the wagon. She swayed on her feet but didn't give up, limping painfully to one of the stalls where we housed our horses.
The tawny yellow palfrey raised its head and came up to the gate to nuzzle Yazizi's outstretched hands. She whispered something to it in Harari. It neighed in reply.
“Is she yours?” I asked curiously.
“Taken from me when I was captured. Bought by the lady, as I was.” She closed her eyes while her gentle fingers stroked the mare's face. Some kind of life seemed to come back to her just from touching it. Horses were sacred to the Harari, I remembered, and they bonded deeper with their animals than any other rider in the world.
Yazizi continued, “Zayara is her name. In your language it means 'Sand Spirit'. I can survive as a slave, a whore, anything, as long as I am close to her. If we'd been separated I would have killed myself months ago.”
I kept a respectful silence until she turned to me, smiling, and cupped my cheeks in her shackled hands. “Do not be ashamed. I can't be your wife, but I can do things for you if you would return the favour.” She stepped closer to kiss my jaw, traced her forefinger down my chest to my breeches. “You have the key to my irons, and I have a body that you want. All I ask is to sleep with Zayara at nights, in her stall or next to her on the road. I don't care how many more chains you put on me. If you have any mercy in you at all, please grant me that much.”
A torrent of confusion welled up inside of me, tortured morality and guilt crashing against desire, need, frustration. It was all too much. I jerked away and ran out of the stable with my heart hammering and my head in pieces. Nothing made sense anymore, and I kicked myself again for breaking the second rule.
Only once I made it outside did I realise I'd left her unlocked, yet I didn't think for an instant that she'd try to run away. She, too, had gotten herself involved.
“You poor twisted girl,” I grunted, ducking into the taproom for a few emergency drinks. “What in God's name am I going to do with you?”
I spent the evening and most of the following day plastered beyond words. No amount of drink could quite kill my self-loathing, but at least I'd switched to wine, and didn't touch Yazizi again. Once I peered in through a crack in the stable door but didn't see her. Didn't want her to know I was there. Then I went back to my bottle, where feelings were dulled into blessed numbness with each swig.
Well, almost.
That night I lay on my bed staring out into the night when I noticed an orange glow flickering in the window. I blinked a few times, my mind still a fog, and sat up. I saw flames. A pillar of fire rose out of the buildings by the inner city wall, right next to one of the fortified gatehouses. Distant shouts echoed through the streets. I stood up, and saw what was going on beneath my window. Mobs of people moved in every direction, waving torches and primitive weapons ‒ clubs, pitchforks, knives, razors. One man roared something in Northern and flung his torch through an unshuttered windowframe across the street. The timber-and-straw structure lit up like a candle. Red and yellow pinpricks appeared across the outer city as other buildings began to burn.
Suddenly I was wide awake and sober as a monk. This went well beyond some drunken streetfight. This was a riot.
I threw on my swordbelt and breastplate, then burst across the hall into Adar's room. The boy cringed as he looked up from his cot. He'd clearly heard something but was too frightened to look.
“No time for arguments,” I said with as much authority as I could muster. “Do exactly what I say and I may be able to keep us alive.”
“Wh-What's going on?”
“Bad news the likes of which you've never seen.” I took his trousers and scabbard hanging from a hook by the door and threw them at him. He put them on lethargically. “Stay close. Draw your sword and don't drop the point until I tell you.”
He started to protest but I too
k him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him down the stairs. The proprietor and a handful of conscious patrons were upending tables, barricading the doors and windows with every piece of furniture they could lift. Another man ran upstairs, started pounding on the doors to wake everybody up. He shouted that anyone who could hold a weapon should do so.
“Whore-born Northerners!” spat the owner, a true Haler with a belly the size of a wine barrel. “They're going to burn down the whole city!”
“They can't be that daft,” someone argued.
A tall man in a long cloak and cowl shook his head. “No, but they are that desperate. I heard there's food in the inner city. Stockpiles that'll keep for years.” I caught a trace of an accent and glanced down at his hands, which were the colour of cherrywood and calloused like a swordsman. He followed my gaze and nodded at me, showing his empty palms in a gesture of peace. I nodded in return. If anyone else noticed, he'd be lynched.
The owner snarled, “Let 'em starve. Refugees, pah! Should've stayed where they belong!”
I said nothing, but a whirlwind of thoughts blew around my head. They're going to slaughter everybody who isn't the same colour, I realised first. Then, a stab of panic. The stables aren't locked.
“Do you have a back door?” I hissed, grabbing the innkeep by the arm. “A way into the stables?”
“A back door, aye, but you can't go that way. We blocked it up in case they try to get in.”
His stupidity staggered me. “What if they set this place on fire? What if we need to get out?”
A look of horrified realisation dawned on the innkeep's face and he rushed into the back to clear the barricade there. I followed him into what looked like a battlefield ‒ cups and cutlery strewn over the floor, heavy chests and cupboards moved in front of the doors and windows. The idiots had trapped us like rats without even realising it, and were now hard at work correcting their mistake too slowly and too late. A shriek echoed from outside and my heart froze. I had to act.
Written in Blood Page 6
