A Pound of Flesh

by Susan Wright

  The demons infesting the master house eagerly snatched at Numian’s inua as it drifted away from her body, empowered by the words of her executioner. But Numian’s godling spirit would not be easily absorbed. I hoped their struggle would occupy them while we made our escape. I would have to deal with the consequences later.

  I straightened up. "Listen, everyone! It’s time to escape. I’ve done this before. I used to be a pleasure slave, too, but now . . ." I had to stop and swallow. "Now I’m free. I’ve been working with my friends to rescue you."

  "We can’t just walk out of here," Grete protested. "They’ll kill us."

  "Everyone’s asleep," I insisted. "Besides, if we see someone, we can overwhelm them before they know it. Look how many of us there are."

  Another slave unexpectedly spoke up. "Maybe it is possible." It was the boy who reminded me of Sverker, with his overbearing ways. He held up a twisted length of cloth and snapped it. I could envision him putting it over a master’s neck and choking him.

  "Yes, and bring the water bucket," I suggested. "Grab anything that can be used as a weapon. If we pile on all at once, no one can stop us."

  One of the slaves had pulled over a rug to hide the bloody smear on the floor. I forced myself to step onto it and swing the gate open. "Quietly now, let’s go!"

  I didn’t get the rousing response I had hoped for. But when I stepped outside, one by one they slipped out. They weren’t inspired by my words—none of them wanted to stay behind with Numian.

  I didn’t care why they came. I prayed that they wouldn’t scatter at the first sight of a master. I would not give up without a fight, and I readied myself to commit more outrage.

  I had entertained so many different masters that I had become quite familiar with the tunnels. After the first turn, I led the slaves downward, preferring to meet up with servants rather than masters. We could hopefully frighten the servants away.

  Twenty people made a lot of noise even barefoot. They coughed and let out slight cries of fright whenever they bumped together. I let only the slave next to me carry a lantern, afraid the light would betray us.

  We passed by archways and tunnels that probably led to servants’ chambers and storerooms. Several large spaces were empty except for tables stacked to one side.

  Then the tunnel angled upward. We intersected another passageway from the masters’ quarters. The scent of the sea was strong now.

  We emerged into an astonishing room. The chamber was in the cliff face, open to the twinkling lights of the city spread out below. The ceiling was crossed by heavy wooden beams instead of rock.

  The slaves spilled into the room. I ran forward to see if there was a way down. But there was only the cliff below us. After my fall off the Londinium wall, I knew it was too dangerous to jump down. I got my bearings and decided to go over and down one level to reach the entrance to the master house.

  As I turned, a master sat up from one of the benches where he had been reclining. A mistress was next to him. We had interrupted them rutting. I had bedded both of them and knew their names, but I didn’t want to remember that.

  "Get them!" I cried, leading the charge. "Don’t let them take you!"

  I had farther to go than the others, so the slaves reached them first. Along the way they had picked up brooms and stools. Other slaves grabbed what was at hand. One brawny young man lifted a table and brought it down on the master’s head. The mistress screamed, but the sound was abruptly cut off as she disappeared in a flurry of makeshift weapons.

  I didn’t have to do a thing. Once unleashed, I had to call off the slaves. The master and mistress lay shattered on the floor. I hated it, but I said nothing to diminish their blood lust.

  I led them up the spiral stairs to the chamber above. The master house was a maze, but in the neighboring chamber, another staircase led back down two levels. I dashed through an archway and another corridor, finally emerging from the entrance at the base of the cliff. Ahead of us was the squat stone building surrounded by lean-tos and small sheds. My nose told me it was the kitchens.

  In the lantern light, some of the slaves were blood splattered and wild eyed. Grete had a grip on Ileana as if fearing the girl would crumple to the ground in a panic.

  "Put out the lantern," I ordered. The slave instantly complied, leaving us in darkness.

  I led them around the kitchen, to the path down to the city gate. There were two lanterns lit there, casting a pool of light.

  "There’s a gatekeeper at the bottom," I hissed. "Don’t let him stop us."

  I was shouldered aside by the young men who had taken eagerly to my revolt. They were impatient to attack, incited to murder by how we had been treated.

  The gatekeeper had no forewarning of us descending on him. He cried out as the slaves tackled him with an animal sound.

  I pushed open the gate, letting it clash against the pillar. The lanterns hung high on either side, casting yellow light around us.

  "Go!" I ordered the slaves. The path was too narrow for us to gather. "Wait for me down below."

  I stayed behind to pull the boys away. They were kicking the downed gatekeeper with their bare feet. As the last one came through the gate, I heard someone jump down onto the path.

  "Marja!" Lexander exclaimed.

  I turned to see Lexander, looking quite astonished. Then his arms went around me, and it was real—his body hard against me, the smell of his skin, and his face pressing my hair.

  In a rush we came together. His emotion was too great for words. He had been frantic over losing me, knowing what went on inside Saaladet. He knew because he had done it all himself—cut innocent flesh, used slaves for his own needs, and cast the ones who rebelled into the dank, dark cells to die.

  But this was Lexander, my lover. He was fighting his own training and even his domineering nature to make amends for the harm he had done. He was destroying his own people with his own hands.

  Just as I had now killed. There was no going back for either of us.

  27

  Lexander came to himself in a rush, remembering where we stood. He grabbed my hand to pull me away.

  I resisted. "I have to finish this. I have to stop them." "Not now—"

  I wrenched away from them. "Yes, now, before they realize we’re gone. Before they find their dead."

  I went back through the gate, looking for an exposed rock surface. Most of the steep hillside was cloaked with dirt and rubble.

  "Marja, what are you doing? They must be coming."

  "They will be soon." I put my hands on the cool naked rock in the darkness beyond the reach of the lantern light. "Please, Lexander, take the slaves away."

  "You’re coming with us," he insisted.

  I pressed my body against the cliff, resting my cheek on the rock. "Lexander, listen to me. I must do this now. Don’t interfere!"

  I closed my eyes and sank into the rock. I had to release everything—my thoughts, my feelings, even the dreadful sight of Numian’s blank, dead eyes.

  Then nothing else mattered but the spirits in the rock.

  The demons pricked my mind, trying to distract me, but they longed for more death. They had welcomed my sacrifice of Numian. Her inua would be forever trapped, theirs to torment. They were hungry for more. In some twisted way, I was their creature now, serving their needs, for I swore all of the deaths I wrought here would belong to the demons.

  I took a deep breath and managed to descend below their wicked frenzy to the detached embrace of the rock. These ancient spirits wanted no stories or sacrifices. They moved far beyond that.

  They knew me now, having let me dwell among them as I had slowly died in the cell. Only a powerful connection such as that would allow me to merge with them now. Though I had sensed the spirits deep in the rock in Helluland, where the land was old, and in Issland, where it was newly made, never had I been able to commune with them in this way, as if we were one.

  There was room for only one word, one emotion, and I became its very ess
ence—move!

  It was torturous, as if my mind was tearing apart under the tremendous strain. I almost lost myself inside the rock that stretched deep beyond the hill into the surrounding land and down under the sea. I was part of something unfathomable, but a tiny seed inside me remembered, move.

  I felt myself shift as if the lower half of my body was sliced away. The rock screamed with the reverberations, ringing through me, deafening me—

  The path shifted, jolting me into awareness. I tried to continue, but I was being shaken. Something hit my thigh and the sharp pain cut everything short.

  Lexander grabbed my arm. "Marja, we must get away!"

  He dragged me a few steps as I tried to keep my balance. The earth trembled and slipped underneath me. Large rocks were bouncing down through the light cast by the lanterns.

  But I couldn’t walk. Every bit of energy had been drained from my body. The sky was brightening with the coming dawn. Had I stood there unmoving throughout the night?

  Lexander picked me up and ran to the gate.

  I could feel him staggering as a boulder hit his back, but he shielded me and kept on going. A dull roaring rose behind us.

  I clung to him as the hillside collapsed. The sound grew louder as the rocks hit the high enclosing wall behind us. The evil spirits intended to claim me as theirs, along with the masters.

  But Lexander kept on running and the ground gradually stopped trembling. Bells were ringing around us, and shouts filled the air as people appeared in the doorways and windows.

  I finally let go.

  The sun was shining on the wall across from me when I awoke, forming a latticed pattern of shadow and light. For a moment, I was not sure where I was. The air smelled of cinnamon, and the heat was intense despite the early hour. I had become accustomed to the damp chill of the caves.

  I escaped! was my first thought. In my heart I had feared I was truly a slave. The sunlit air rushed into me, infused with the living scent of the sea. I was free!

  As I rolled over, Lexander appeared in an arched doorway. "How do you feel, Marja?"

  He was so concerned that I sat up before I was ready. I hid the slight queasiness that it caused. I could tell from the aching of my body that I had fought with demons as I slept. It was too soon to tell if I had been tainted by evil.

  There weren’t any olfs in the room. I tried to put it out of my mind. It seemed a petty thing to quibble with the price of freedom.

  "Where are the others?" I asked.

  "In various places nearby. There were too many of them for our old quarters, though Bene and Eshter are keeping a few of the more fragile ones with them."

  I stood up, testing my limbs. I was sore everywhere, as if I had been squeezed in a vise. "Were any of them injured in the rock slide?"

  "I sent them away with Bene long before that. He was watching nearby." Lexander reached out to help steady me.

  Through his touch, he was open to me. Startled, I met his eyes.

  Lexander had been there constantly, haunting the master house, searching for a way to get in. He had never left.

  His detached expression couldn’t fool me. He loved me, deeply and ardently. For Lexander, knowing what was happening inside the master house but being unable to stop it was the worst fate he could have been dealt.

  "What happened to Saaladet?" I asked.

  "You destroyed it. The whole side of the butte caved in. If it hadn’t been for the surrounding wall, the debris would have crashed into the houses below."

  "The rock answered me." I remembered how it felt to enter that endless plane, as if my very inua had transformed in connecting with the spirits. "All those hours it felt like only a few moments."

  The masters were dead, covered in the rock. Along with the servants in their beds. No one who served in a place like that was truly innocent, but they hadn’t deserved to die.

  Lexander sat in front of the latticed window. The rays of light fell behind him, casting his face in shadow. The blue sky was a welcome sight. I had grown so weary of darkness.

  "Forgive me, Marja," he finally murmured. "I could not get through the sea gate, though I tried over and over again."

  That seemed like a long time ago. "It wasn’t your fault, Lexander. The demons stopped you because of the poison you carried. Your people used them to protect Saaladet."

  His eyes widened. "I didn’t think that my people could interact with the spirits of your world."

  "Perhaps these are your own demons. They were there, infesting the very rock. They fed off the pain and anguish. They even took the death I wrought." I took a deep breath. "I struck down one of the mistresses in front of the other slaves. It was the only way to force them to follow me."

  "Surely you don’t look to me for absolution." His misery was clear. "I’m worse. I lured young people into slavery, making them leave their homes and sending them away forever to be used and discarded without a thought."

  There was a charged silence, broken only by the tinkling of bells hanging from the lattice.

  "I’m sorry, Marja." His tone was desperate, as if he had been driven to his brink, just as I had. "I molded your will to answer to mine, even after I freed you."

  "I thought of you often in there," I forced myself to admit. "I thought of how you must have been during your training, and as a master. The things you did to the slaves."

  He looked at me as if I had struck him. "Yes. I’ve done everything you saw, everything you hate." He didn’t take his eyes from mine. "That’s why I left you behind in Danelaw, Marja."

  "I thought you wanted to protect me."

  "Yes, but even more . . . I couldn’t let you see my people. Ukerald is not the worst of us. Yet he was everything I have been in my life. I have been vicious to slaves just because I was thwarted in my own desires. I had been that selfish, that mean . . . and I knew you would see it in me."

  So that was why he had built a wall between us. "I’ve always known that, Lexander. You can hide nothing from me when we are together."

  "You didn’t know the full extent of my sins until you saw Castropiero," he insisted. "And now Saaladet. You have every reason for not loving me."

  "That’s never stopped me."

  "I know," he admitted, in the raw tones of honesty. "You give so freely to everyone around you, Marja. I have no doubt you would love me, simply because I need you so much. But I have been a monster too long to take the role of master with you. If I admit the truth . . . it’s better for you to keep away from me. When you found out I was not a man, you thought it would be impossible for us to love each other. I believe you were right. I should not have lured you back into my arms."

  I stood up and went to him at the window. It was difficult for him to reveal himself to me. There was so little I knew about him, and yet I had delved as deeply as I could. Anything more would come slowly, as he discovered himself.

  Standing in front of him, I put my hands on his shoulders. He was cool to the touch as all his people were. "I’ve loved you for so long, Lexander. Since that winter’s day in Vidaris when I touched you and a tear slid down your cheek."

  He went very still beneath my hands. "You saw . . . ?"

  I slipped my arms around him, leaning in closer so I could whisper in his ear. "You were miserable that day, and I didn’t understand. How could I? It was this, wasn’t it? You were thinking of your people, of your part in what they do to us."

  "The futility of it all," he agreed. "It filled me up, snuffing out all else. I cared for nothing. But you"—he put his hands on mine, holding on tightly—"you are pure, open to everything around you. You never dealt out suffering, though surely enough has been inflicted on you. Instead you stood stronger than ever to protect others." His voice broke. "You were there when I realized the waste my life has been, spreading such horror . . ."

  My hands smoothed his chest as I gently kissed his neck, murmuring, "Then how could you doubt me now?"

  I slipped into his lap, kissing him on the lips.

>   For a moment he hesitated, as if fearing that I was merely responding to his need. "Marja . . ."

  I dug my nails in, drawing him closer to me. I would not let him go until he could hold himself back no further.

  "Marja," he murmured.

  His arms went around me tightly. Our lips caressed each other—mouth, cheeks, neck—I needed to feel every part of him. He was urgent, fervent, holding me as if he would fight all the demons of the world to keep me safe.

  "Oh, Lexander . . ." I breathed. It had been far too long.

  I swung my leg around to straddle him, pressing my body against his. He was ready, already straining toward me, and I gave a throaty laugh as I released him. I, too, was ready for him.

  I reached out to him as I did to the olfs. He was open to me, and he would be forever. I would never doubt his love for me again. I could feel it coursing through him, like his lifeblood. I was a part of him in a way I had not imagined, as if our inua were entwined.

  As he entered me, pulling me against him, we joined together. I strained, my feet braced against the mat and my hands holding on to his shoulders. His hands were insistent, pinning my hips against him.

  I knew his exultation at possessing me again. In that moment, he reveled in his nature, owning me completely. He could because I gave myself to him.

  And when I thought we could reach heights never seen before, a burst of light and exhilaration filled the room as olfs suddenly appeared. The creatures wheeled about in the effusions we gave off, rocking together in ecstasy. I had not lost them in spite of all that I had done.

  The olfs lingered after our prolonged lovemaking. Every time I thought we had done all we could do, one of us would rouse and tantalize the other into ecstasy over again.

  We might have gone on well past sunset, but there was a knock at our door. I quailed inside, but Lexander rose and loomed reassuringly in the doorway.

  Then Bene rushed past Lexander, kneeling down beside the bed."Are you truly unharmed, Marja? The others have been telling me what the masters did to you."