Those of My Kind

by Loring, Jennifer

  Dorika, leaving Árpád and Gazsi to the business of building shelter, opened a canteen and wet her headscarf then handed it to Anasztaizia. She tore two strips of cloth from her apron and wrapped them into crude shoes around Anasztaizia’s feet. “Yes, he quite probably will do all of those things. But the important thing is you are away from him. Whether it is for an hour or a day or a decade, you are free.”

  Anasztaizia turned away and scrubbed the blood from her legs as well as the muck clinging to her arms. She’d have a proper bath when they reached the stream; for now, she gladly erased the remnants of Ispán Gergo’s attack in any way possible. Dorika was right. She ought to enjoy these moments, and certainly would once the pain subsided.

  “Árpád,” she said when she finished washing, “tell me of this costume.”

  He grinned and pulled out a leather coxcomb to which were sewn ass’ ears. “You, my dear, are officially a jester, and we are all traveling minstrels.”

  “It’s wonderful!” She clapped with glee. “But you will have to teach me—I haven’t your ear for music, or your wit, or your talent for tricks.”

  “You have everything you need.” He knelt down beside her and placed the cap on her head. “But I shall do my very best. My brave girl, you must be exhausted. Come, lie down and rest.”

  “I’m not brave at all. Not like the three of you. I couldn’t even…” She tried to push the memory out of her mind, but it rose up, monstrous, from the dark place where it had carved out a permanent home. His body. His breath. The pain. His ghostly weight crushed the air out of her lungs, and she gasped.

  “Oh, no you don’t. Don’t you dare blame yourself.” Árpád gently cupped her chin and regarded her with his kind brown eyes. “Ispán Gergo has gone mad, but even a madman knows better than to harm his own daughter. I won’t have you punishing yourself. Were I a man with any sort of power, I’d see the bastard hanged by his—”

  “That’s quite enough, Árpád.” Dorika smiled and patted her husband’s shoulders. “See what you’ll be putting up with, Lady? Into the hut with you. There’s meat, some fruit, and water inside. I’ll take care of this one.”

  “‘This one?’ Woman, if I didn’t love you so much, I’d—”

  “You’d be naked and hungry, that’s what. You can take the first shift. Off with you, now.” Dorika kissed his cheek and waved him toward the edge of the clearing.

  Gazsi had dug a shallow pit and filled it with the leftover leaves and twigs from their hut. He rubbed two small sticks together until the smoke curling up from them became a tiny orange flame.

  Anasztaizia climbed into the hut and lay down on the blankets Dorika had spread out over the ground. She pulled her cloak tight around herself. A long, leathery ear flopped over into her face; she removed the cap and held it against her chest like a talisman.

  A warm fire, a place to sleep, and the people she loved. Even when forced to live in the woods like hermits, she wished for nothing but they had run away sooner.

  Sleep, when it came, was fitful at best. Her unconscious mind, unable to block his intrusion, made her vulnerable all over again. He was a terrible dragon she did not know how to slay. The ebb and flow of pain brought with it other dreams, too, of hounds tracking a trail of blood that glistened black in the moonlight. She thought the bleeding had stopped, but her own body betrayed her, leading her father and his men straight to the camp. The hounds bayed and—

  Her eyes snapped open. The fire still crackled, with Árpád and Gazsi asleep beside it. Dorika sat at the edge of the clearing, keeping watch. They had no weapons. The best they could do was to run.

  Anasztaizia did not try to sleep again. It was spring, and a fine mist clung to the trees, chilling her despite the fire. She lay within the tent and gazed out at the camp, at her friends. Gazsi would suffer the worst if the time came. Had Ispán Gergo any mercy, he might simply banish the others. But not a heretic. No heretic, once captured, lived to tell about it. How ironic Gazsi lived in fear of execution while his king reveled in sorcery.

  If Ispán Gergo caught up to them, if he meant to kill them, he would have to slay his own daughter first.

  It was still dark when the time came to pack up the encampment, but the kites nesting in the highest branches screeched of dawn’s approach. Anasztaizia gathered the blankets and rolled them up while Árpád dismantled the hut. Dorika doused the remnants of the fire, and Gazsi kicked dirt and branches over the pit, trying to make the spot appear as natural as possible. The sky lightened to a murky gray, though on the forest floor, beneath a thick canopy of evergreens, day was still hours off.

  “Shh,” Árpád said.

  All movement stopped. A distant howl echoed through the trees, and Anasztaizia’s blood froze. A bonfire of pain roared up from the center of her body as if warning her of the king’s approach.

  Dorika cocked her head. “A wolf. The bloodhounds are silent when they’re scenting.”

  “Are you certain? What if they’re using the other hounds? The sight hounds?”

  “And why use the hounds that would alert us to their approach?” Dorika set her fists on her hips and glowered at her husband. “Ispán Gergo may be mad, but he’s not an idiot. Besides, the other hounds bay, they don’t howl. I’m in the bailey next to the blasted things all day while you’re prancing about the donjon. The wolves are after the boar piglets.”

  Árpád smiled and gave Dorika a peck on the cheek. Goading her, he’d admitted once, amused him almost as much as performing. “I shall never doubt you again. Do we have everything?”

  “Yes,” Dorika and Gazsi said.

  “Let me carry something. You wouldn’t be doing this were it not for me.” Anasztaizia held out her empty arms.

  “You’re carrying enough.” Árpád hoisted a sack over his shoulder. “The stream is this way. Follow the stag tracks. And stay close.”

  The dense foliage obscured them from eyes both human and hound, but it did not mask the odor of dried blood. Anasztaizia prayed they made it to the stream in time to erase her scent.

  ~

  Anasztaizia ducked behind an old oak and lifted her damp, filthy shift. A crimson rivulet dribbled down her inner thigh. The ache crept through her like an assassin, and when it struck, she doubled over and cupped the throbbing place between her legs.

  “Anasztaizia!”

  “I’m here!” she called to Dorika. “But I…I need to rest. Just for a moment.”

  Dorika hurried to her side and held her until the pain abated, her face lined with the maternal concern Anasztaizia had never seen in her own mother’s features. She supposed the lady, had she the opportunity, would have been a suitable mother. By all accounts, she had been generous and kind. But as Lady, more urgent matters than her child’s care had demanded her attention. The nursemaid took charge of Anasztaizia almost immediately. Anasztaizia was no different, in that respect, from any other child of noble birth.

  “God, in His wisdom, decided I was not to bear children of my own,” Dorika said softly. “It was what led Árpád and me to the heresies long after we were already married. Perhaps He meant for me to take care of you all along.”

  Anasztaizia nuzzled closer to her. Dorika and Árpád would have made brilliant parents, but Anasztaizia enjoyed the satisfaction of having them all to herself.

  “Sit a while,” Dorika said. “Let me get you something to eat.”

  Anasztaizia sank to the forest floor, a bed of samaras and acorns, her skin cool and clammy from the moist air. Near the treetops, dozens of purple and yellow butterflies flitted amongst the leaves and rested upon the trunks. She’d never seen them anywhere else before.

  A swirl of butterflies billowed up from the trees when Dorika’s scream shattered the wood. Her heart in her throat, Anasztaizia peered around the tree trunk.

  Several of her father’s archers stepped out from the shadows, with a complement of torch-bearing knights. Swords gleamed at their sides. And Ispán Gergo himself, brandishing his single-hand arming
sword, stood in their center. No houndsmen accompanied him. Perhaps he had known of the escape plan all along and worked out exactly where they would go. No court was without its spies.

  “Do you take me for a fool?” He backhanded Dorika. She lost her balance and cracked the back of her head against a tree then slumped over like a discarded doll.

  Árpád, his cheeks ablaze, gathered her limp body into his arms.

  Anasztaizia’s hands flew to her mouth to stifle a scream. If she stayed quiet, maybe he would not notice her. Maybe he would go away.

  “Beast!” Flecks of spittle flew from Árpád’s lips. “You deserve all the misery this world can heap upon you. May your name be cursed for eternity!”

  “Kill them.” Ispán Gergo waved his sword at Dorika and Árpád. Two archers nocked their arrows and aimed.

  They tried to rescue you. You owe them.

  “No!” She scrambled out from her hiding place and dropped to her knees before the ispán, hands clasped in supplication. “Spare them, I beg you!”

  “Why should I do this? They have committed treason! The only punishment for treason is execution.” He turned to Gazsi, and his glare fell upon the small red amulet that had tumbled out from beneath the priest’s cowled robe. Anasztaizia’s stomach flipped up into her throat. There would be no argument; the ispán decreed Gaszi’s death sentence without a word.

  “Heretic! You have betrayed my household!”

  The old priest, kneeling beside Árpád, rose and stepped forward. He respired deeply, his face divulging no hint of fear. “All who sought my guidance received what they came for. Nothing more, nothing less. But do you not ask yourself why the lady would be so eager to flee the castle with a heretic?”

  “She would never flee!”

  “I did! I went willingly! Please spare them; they only wished to help!”

  Ispán Gergo’s mouth turned down at the corners. His eyes glistened in the firelight, and in them raged his appalling and incurable hunger. “Help? Help with what? You deceive me for these wretches. No. I cannot believe it. You lie to me so I will not punish them. What example does this set if I let them go? Especially Gazsi. Think of how he lied to your mother all those years!”

  “And yet you call upon sorcery,” said Árpád. “And you’ve done it before. Why don’t you tell her, Ispán Gergo? Tell her the truth about the dresses you gave to her mother, not the ridiculous story you paid the scribe to concoct. Tell her—”

  An arrow burrowed itself into Árpád’s forehead, the snick of its release muffled by bird songs and the drone of insects. His head fell back against the tree trunk, one arm still cradling Dorika, who lay in his lap. A horrified shriek echoed through the trees, having torn itself free from Anasztaizia’s own throat. A nightmare, that was all. She’d wake up any moment with Dorika at her side.

  A second arrow plunged into Dorika’s chest. Anasztaizia threw herself over their bodies, praying as she clung to the few threads left of her sanity that her tears might hold some nameless magic of their own, able to restore them to life.

  “Anasztaizia.” Gazsi pulled her away from the dead couple. Tears rolled into the creases of his cheeks like the achingly close waters of the Duna through the valley. Love, not the ispán’s poisonous strain but the genuine devotion of a father to his child, reflected back at her from his eyes.

  “Because you were beloved of my lady,” Ispán Gergo said, “I will allow you your last words.”

  Gazsi bowed his head. “We have come before God that we may receive pardon and penance for all our sins in thought, word, and deed from our birth until now, and we ask of God mercy and that He forgive us.”

  Steel flashed in the torchlight. Anasztaizia was powerless against her tears, but Gazsi, unperturbed, continued. “Let us worship God and declare all our sins and numerous offenses in the sight of the Father, the Son, and the honored Holy Spirit, of the honored Holy Gospels and the honored Holy Apostles, by prayer and faith, for their sake we ask you, Holy Lord, to pardon all our sins.”

  “Benedicte, Parcite Nobis,” Anasztaizia whispered, and she wept not only for Gazsi, for Dorika and Árpád, but for her own soul. Without Gazsi to baptize her, she remained in darkness, her prospects as a light-bearer extinguished forever. “Amen.”

  Ispán Gergo issued a savage kick to the old man’s stomach. The air rushed out of him in a loud woof; Gazsi doubled over and dropped to his hands and knees. Anasztaizia fell with him. She tugged at the hem of her father’s tunic and through the relentless flow of tears shrieked, “Please!” as if it would somehow break through the ispán’s heart of stone.

  He swung the sword. The blade was dull and had seen little use, for her father was as cowardly as he was cruel. He hacked at the priest’s neck but, despite Gazsi’s screams, the ispán’s face bore no trace of compassion. Anasztaizia found no humanity left in his eyes. He would never let her leave the forest alive.

  Spouts of blood soaked her shift, splashed her face and arms, before his headless body crumpled into a heap. Coppery, salty fluid splattered her lips. Lightheaded, Anasztaizia stared down at her father’s leather ankle boots. The earth swallowed droplets of blood falling from the sword’s tip. She remembered the minnesinger, the rings of muscle and tissue, the white knob of spine. She heaved.

  “I know you would not consent to such villainy. He put an enchantment on you, didn’t he? You can tell me. I will show mercy upon you, for you are my own blood.”

  Her head hurt from weeping, and she could scarcely breathe. She knelt beside Gazsi’s body and held his withered hand then met her father’s stare as firmly as the priest had. “You know all about enchantment, you deceitful monster. Human hands did not make those dresses.” It all made perfect, ghastly sense. Mother believed she had fallen in love; she’d been a simple girl, ignorant of the darkness in men’s souls. “When Dorika saw the dress, she knew. And they tried to spare me.” She bowed her head to Gazsi’s chest. “They tried, God rest their souls.”

  “You wound me with these words,” said the ispán, his voice as cold as the iron blade in his hand. “We will have you exorcized before the wedding. I will speak to the physician about a trepanation to release any persisting evil spirits. All will be right again.”

  “There will be no wedding! I am your daughter!”

  Ispán Gergo tightened his grip around the sword’s cruciform hilt. With his other hand, he clenched her upper arm as if he meant to throw her on the ground and ravage her again, right there in front of his men. “I am the sovereign of this land, and I have chosen my new bride. We will be wed tomorrow.”

  “We will not!” She wrenched her arm away. Pain seared her shoulder. “I want nothing to do with you!”

  Her father’s expression contorted into a demonic mask befitting the Devil himself. The blade flashed as he lifted the sword. “Then none shall have you!”

  A streak of fire split her stomach in two. Iron penetrated deep into her belly, punched through the muscle and skin of her back. The metal hurt no less than his fleshly weapon had. Far less, in many ways, for she did not have to touch him this time. Blood flooded into her throat and mouth. She tried to speak, but the words dribbled in a senseless crimson burble from her lips. The blade twisted once, severing tissue and veins, and withdrew. The fire persisted. She pressed her hand to the wound in a futile attempt to hold in her life as it oozed between her fingers.

  Ispán Gergo dropped the sword. He fell to his knees, face cradled in his hands. His men gathered around him.

  “Why?” he moaned. “Why did you make me do this…?”

  Her knees buckled and she tumbled onto her back, a dreadful coldness already permeating her limbs and her insides. Urine, hot as molten metal, flowed down her thigh. Blood blossomed across the fabric of her gown, smearing the palm of her hand in the shape of a terrible red dragon. Above her, the forest’s verdant roof swirled into a colorless mass. Butterflies fluttered about her arms and legs. When the end came, did they mourn the brevity of their lives? Or did they rest
quietly upon a leaf, fold up their wings, and accept their fate, content for the wind to blow their husks away?

  She wished for such peace but found only a storm of rage swirling within her heart. He should lie there in the blood of his companions, suffer and die at the hands of one who wished only for his love, a love uncorrupted by magic and madness.

  Was I a wicked girl?

  She reached for the butterflies, but they floated away from her, shimmering like purple and yellow jewels, into the darkness. The web of her life unraveled in a red tangle upon her shift.

  O Adonai, she implored, in the holy remembrance of Yeshua Messiah, I pray that you receive me this day and that you anoint me with the Chrism of the Spirit; O El Shaddai, when I go down in the living waters, let me die and be reborn, I pray that you send forth the Light from above and uplift me into the Pleroma of Light…

  How strange, she thought, that she should see of all people as she lay dying Yongnian, though she recognized him only by his clothing. How strange he should flicker amongst the trees like a human comet, trailing light, his flesh illuminated with the strange greenish-white glow of swamp gas; and how she wished she had identified that omen of doom for what he was. How strange that fine white hair should cover him or his fingernails should have become as sharp and black as a bird’s talons, that he should bear the serrated teeth of some terrible predator and his tongue should unfold so obscenely from between them like another appendage.

  Then her father’s face appeared in the periphery. She imagined herself a deer in the wood.

  Anasztaizia thanked God when she died.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You never talk about them.” Blessing positioned her Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife at a twenty-degree angle against the whetstone and pushed it in smooth strokes away from her body. She had always preferred spears, or any weapon made of wood, really. More natural. Tristan insisted steel was more efficient and less messy. And it didn’t leave behind splinters the police could trace back to them. If she’d had her own way, Blessing would never use a weapon at all. Magic was her armament. Tristan, however, insisted she needed both for her test, whatever it might entail.