But wait, the three new men. They could have brought the apple in their bags when they arrived. But why would they break the rules? Why would they give me an apple? We’ve never even spoken, and we likely never will. Women don’t talk to men, especially not me, the Princess, the Prophet’s wife.
The hazy memory of me running into one of them flashes through my mind, but I push it away. I don’t want to be remembered of that humiliation.
I fold the brown paper, but wait, there’s something else hidden in the parcel. A small tube, no longer than my little finger. Antiseptic cream, it says on the label.
A shiver runs over my skin. While the apple may have been a grey zone, this is definitely forbidden. We’re not allowed to use creams and medicine. If the Angel wants us to suffer, we suffer. We’re not supposed to ease our pain with manmade substances.
I roll the tube in between my fingers, debating what to do. My back hurts and I’m sure this cream would help with the pain and the risk of infection, but is it worth the risk?
Petal could come any moment to help me wash my back, or Andros himself could show up demanding to know why I wasn’t at the prayer. And the Angel doesn’t allow it in any case.
This is a test.
Pain is salvation.
I take the little tube and push it into my hiding place. If I throw it away, someone might find it in the rubbish. I could bury it, but something stops me from destroying this tiny trace of hope. The hope that there’s someone out there who cares about me, who wants to stop my pain.
It’s probably a foolish notion, but I can’t help but feel hopeful. Maybe things will change.
I smile and lie back down, exposing my back once again to the cool air. I won’t be using the cream, but the knowledge that it’s there, under my mattress, is making me feel better already.
5
Andros left me alone for two days, but last night, he came to my room and forced himself on me, whispering how much he was enjoying being with his ‘little bird’, how the other women weren’t able to satisfy him as much as I do.
I wish it wasn’t this way. I’ve not returned his kisses, his touches, but still he feels like I’m wanting his attention. Sometimes I want to scream and fight, but I’ve done that in the past and have learned that it only makes things worse. If I resist, he will punish me, and that pain lasts much longer than the sharp ache between my legs when he enters me roughly.
He didn’t leave last night after he had spent himself inside me, telling me that he hoped this would finally be the time he got me pregnant. He’s still here, his arm wrapped around me like a shackle.
“I’m sorry I had to punish you,” he suddenly whispers and I freeze. I hadn’t realised he was awake. “It’s what the Angel demands, you understand? I wouldn’t hurt you if I didn’t have to. But the Angel demands discipline and we all have to follow his rules, especially the two of us. We’re examples to the community and we can’t be seen to bend his commandments. You understand that, right?”
His arm around me tightens and I stop breathing, anxiously waiting what he’s going to do next. Is he going to hurt me again?
“Do you understand?” His voice has turned harsher, with an underlying desperation. I realise he wants absolution. He wants me to confirm that it’s not Andros’s fault. He knows what he’s doing isn’t right, but if he can find a reason for it, he won’t have to feel guilty for it.
I wish I could give him absolution.
I wish I was strong enough to lie.
But I can’t.
“No,” I whisper, cringing as I seal my fate. “It’s you, not the Angel.”
I wait for the coming explosion, but Andros doesn't say anything. He's quiet, letting me quiver in fear of what's to come. He's always been a master of the dreaded silence, that moment when the entire world is about to crumble and he alone can make it stop by saying something. By disturbing the silence that he himself has created.
He takes his arm off my waist, stopping the painful embrace, and rolls away from me. Is he going to leave?
I don’t dare move, so I stay in the same position, suppressing the anxious whimper that is threatening to burst from my chest. I won’t give him the satisfaction. I’m going to stay quiet, no matter what he does to me. When I cry or beg, it just gets worse.
The blanket that was covering both of us is pulled back, exposing my naked body to the dim light of the dawn streaming through the dirty windows.
“Lie on your back,” Andros suddenly says quietly. His quiet voice is the worst. It’s a warning, a threat that he’s about to do some terrible things to me.
The urge to jump up and run burns through me, but as always, pain shoots through my ankle where the bracelet is fused to my skin. I know the pain is just in my mind, but that doesn’t make it any less agonising. I’m trapped, at the mercy of the Prophet, and he knows it.
I turn and look up at him. A cruel smile is twisting his lips, but his eyes are cold, staring down at me as if I’m nothing but dirt under his fingernails. Maybe that’s what I am. Not worthy of him, the man who has spoken to the Angel, who is ready for ascension.
I close my eyes and wait for whatever is to come.
“Look at me,” he orders and hesitantly, I do as he asks. He runs a finger over my cheek, then lower until he reaches my lips. Once, I would have thought this a gentle gesture but right now it’s possessive and foreboding.
“Keep your eyes on mine,” he warns, and there’s no doubt that he will punish me if I don’t do as he says. I look at him, but not in his eyes, I can’t bear to see the cruelty in them. I focus on his eyebrows instead, his smooth forehead, the tiny scar just below the hairline.
His fingers trail even lower until his hand is on my throat. He gently strokes my skin there, then, without warning, he’s on top of me, sitting on my hips, both his hands around my throat.
I struggle, trying to sit up, but he’s too strong. His thumbs press against my thorax and his grip tightens, cutting off my air supply. I try to breathe, gasp for air, but it’s no use. He’s strangling me and there’s nothing I can do. I reach for him, my fingers almost touching his face, but he just leans back and laughs at my feeble attempts to get him off me. I grasp his hands, squeezing my fingernails into his flesh, but already dark spots are dancing before my eyes and I can feel all strength leave my weak body.
“It’s the Angel’s command,” he tells me calmly. “He doesn’t want you to disobey him.”
I want to tell him that the Angel would never want him to choke someone, but pain and darkness overwhelm me, taking me into their gentle arms and carrying me far, far away.
Life flows back into me, slowly, painfully. I’m almost disappointed. Death seems like the only escape I have and even that Andros is refusing me. He must have stopped once I was unconscious. I sit up with a groan which hurts my throat. I’m aching all over, not just my neck. There’s wetness between my legs. I run a finger over my skin there and it’s covered in blood when I look at it. What did he do to me? He must have been incredibly rough. There’s a pain deep inside of me, a dumb ache that makes me suspect that he injured me somehow. He’s made me bleed before, but this is different. I grab a towel and press it between my legs, soaking up the blood. Hopefully it’ll stop soon so I can go outside and… and do what, exactly? Am I expected to go back to the office and work there? Or does he want me to stay here to punish me some more?
I gingerly touch my throat. It’s sore and swollen. I bet there’s bruising, but I don’t have a mirror to check. Usually, we’re only allowed to wear scarves in winter, but I’ll break that rule today. Maybe he’ll even approve; I don’t know if Andros wants everyone to know what he did to me. He always keeps the bruises to places people can’t see. The women who help clean me up after his whippings are the only ones who see the extent of his violence. Well, until he took me in public. I’m sure everyone saw the scars on my back then. I shudder in a mixture of fear and anger. The past months have been nothing but pain. He’s been getting worse
and instead of weekly beatings, they’ve become almost daily. Sometimes even more than once a day. My wounds no longer have time to heal. He’ll kill me soon if he continues like it. Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe that’s what he wants. Destroy me bit by bit, until I’m nothing more than a shell that he can crumble into dust.
I won’t let that happen. I may not fight him, but that’s not because I give up. It’s because I’m saving my strength for the time I will be able to leave.
I ignore the pain in my ankle. Yes, I will leave. Somehow.
Even if it’s in a coffin. I can’t stay here any longer. The pain in my throat and my belly are proof of that. I can serve the Angel in other places, even if I’ll never reach ascension. Maybe the Angel will have mercy with me and talk to me, tell me how to be saved.
I see it now. I can still be one of the children of the Angel even if I’m not with Andros.
Leave. I will leave.
6
Nobody comes to clean me up. Nobody tells me to go to work. Around midday, an apple is thrown through my window, but I’m too sore to get up in time to see who threw it in. There are two letters and a question mark scratched into the peel.
OK?
No, I’m not. But how am I supposed to tell that my mystery messenger? If this is a trap, any reaction to it would be dangerous.
I nibble on the apple, but my throat hurts when I try to swallow. I hide it under my blankets for later.
Blood is still seeping into the towel between my legs. The pain is getting worse and a dumb throbbing has started to tear through my lower body. I curl up on my side, which is the least painful way of lying down. All I can do is wait, either for the bleeding to stop, or for it to get so bad that I’ll bleed out. Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.
* * *
I don’t open my eyes when the door opens. It’s too difficult. I stay in my curled up position, cradling the pain within me, holding it close. If I let it go, I’ll break apart.
“Laya?”
A cool hand touches my forehead. It’s a woman, but I don’t recognise her. The fog in my brain doesn’t let me access my memories.
Footsteps go, then come, then go again.
The door opens several times and there are voices all around me.
I ignore them, floating away on my cloud of pain.
Someone touches my ankles and I whimper, expecting Andros to finish what he started. I can remember him, even if I can’t remember others. He’s all that fills my mind, his dark eyes, his discipline, his pain.
“Shhh, I’m a doctor.”
The voice isn’t Andros, that’s all I know.
I struggle weakly against the grip, but I’m like a moth fighting an elephant. I have no chance.
My body is moved until I’m lying on my back and my legs are spread. Pain shoots through me and I’m ripped apart.
I scream, but no sound leaves my throat.
His voice runs through my dreams.
“I’m a doctor.”
A doctor is someone who heals, saves, helps.
He says other things too, and I’m not sure if they’re a dream or real, but they make me feel safe. I stay in my dream world for a long time, refusing to wake up.
In my dreams, his voice is comforting me.
When I wake up, he may not be there. Maybe he’s not even real. Maybe all that awaits me is Andros and more pain.
Eventually though, I can’t stay asleep any longer.
As much as I want to avoid the reality of life, my brain refuses to stay unconscious. I leave the safety of my dream world and step back into my body.
* * *
“I think she’s waking up.”
A woman, familiar. Rose. Pretty, lovely Rose, married to Bryan, someone as wild as she is delicate.
“Laya?”
She touches my cheek, just below my left eye, and I blink.
“You can leave now,” she says, confusing me. She wants me to leave? I don’t think I can. I try moving my arms but they’re too heavy.
“I’ll need to do some tests first,” a deep voice says. I recognise it immediately. ‘I’m a doctor’ echoes through my mind. He’s real. I didn’t imagine him.
“Be quick about it.” Rose sounds harsh and shrill and I turn away from her voice. I want the doctor, not her. “The Prophet won’t like you being alone with her.”
“Well, that’s why she has you as her chaperone,” he replies calmly. “The Prophet told me to make her better, so that’s what I’m doing.”
A hand embraces my wrist, probably feeling my pulse.
“Laya, open your eyes,” he says softly, his voice caressing me, lulling me into the belief that everything will be alright. That I’ll be safe.
I do as he asked. Slowly, his face comes into focus. His red robe is the first thing I see. He’s one of the new men. A shadow of a beard covers his cheeks. I want to tell him that he’ll have to shave it, but my voice isn’t cooperating. I don’t want him to be punished. All men have to be clean shaven and have short hair, that’s the rule, just like all women have to have their hair shorn every two weeks.
He looks into my eyes, gently lifting my eyelids one after the other.
“Don’t speak,” he tells me, oblivious that I don’t have the strength to do so. “You’ll have to stay quiet for at least a day or two, so your throat can recover. Don’t get up either. Rose here will get you soup and water. I’ve managed to stop the bleeding, but without proper tools or medication there’s not much else I can do. Try to move as little as possible, and use the bedpan, don’t get up for that. I’ll come back to check on you soon.”
He makes it sound like a promise, like something special. I’m not used to people making promises that aren’t about hurting me. I think I like it.
Clouds are edging over my vision and my eyes flutter closed.
“Sleep and recover,” he says gently. I want to ask him his name, but I’m too far gone. Martin, Noran, Owen. It has to be one of those three.
Martin, Noran, Owen.
Martin, Noran, Owen.
The names become my mantra that lull me to sleep.
7
It takes four days until I’m able to get up. Four days of a grumpy Rose feeding me soup and emptying my bedpan. I try and talk to her, but talking hurts and she’s not interested anyway. I always thought her to be a gentle and caring woman, but she’s treating me with an indifference that makes me re-evaluate my perception of her.
The highlight of my days is when the doctor comes to visit. I still don’t know his name.
Martin, Noran, Owen.
Rose is there whenever he comes, and I don’t want to ask him in front of her. I don’t want her to tell Andros that I asked for the name of the doctor. Us women aren’t supposed to talk to the men of the community, unless we absolutely have to or they’re our husbands. So all I do is answer his questions about where it hurts and how I’m feeling.
Andros hasn’t visited once and I’m incredibly grateful for that. Not that I believe that he does it out of consideration for my wellbeing. No, he can’t stand to see his canvas spoilt and dirty. He’s waiting until I’m feeling better, and then he’s going to come and continue his art.
Until then, he’s probably using the other women of the community to satisfy his desires. I don’t think he hits any of them, but he certainly sleeps with them.
No, I’m his only canvas, the only one he marks with red stripes.
On the fourth day, Rose leaves with the bedpan, muttering something about how I should be cleaning up my own mess. As soon as she’s gone, the door opens again. It’s the doctor. He looks over his shoulder as if he’s very aware that he shouldn’t be alone with me.
In a few large steps, he’s by my side.
“We don’t have much time,” he whispers hurriedly. He hands me some pills and a bottle of water. “I had those smuggled in, so take them now. They’re antibiotics and iron tablets. The blood loss has made you anaemic, but Andros wouldn’t allow me to get you proper treatmen
t.”
For a moment, his frown tells me what he thinks about that, but then his expression smoothens as if he’s unaffected by the Prophet’s treatment of me, his wife.
“Has he done that before?” he asks quietly.
“Not this bad,” I croak, before quickly adding, “But I deserved it.”
Even though my heart is telling me that I can trust this man, I’ve learned to be cautious with everything I say.
He nods brusquely, neither confirming nor denying my statement. He’s careful as well. Good. That will keep him safe. He’s probably in Andros’s bad books for treating me with such care and gentleness, but if he keeps his head down, he’ll become a valuable part of the community. We haven’t had a doctor for a long time now, and even though we’re not allowed to use man-made treatments, it will be good to have him.
I take the tablets, ignoring the feeling of guilt spreading through my stomach. These are going to help me. I need to stay alive to serve the Angel. I can't stay weak and ill.
I pass the bottle of water back to him and he hides it under his dark red robes just in time. Rose doesn't bother knocking, but she stops in the doorframe when she sees the doctor kneeling by my side.
"Why are you here?" she asks him, but it sounds more like an accusation than a question.
"I needed to check on her earlier today because I've got lessons with the Prophet all afternoon," he explains calmly. "She's doing well, maybe she can get up and move around a bit tomorrow."
That brings a smile on Rose's face. She must be thinking of the prospect of not having to empty my bedpans anymore. Well, I'll be happy about that too. It's embarrassing to be so reliant on other people.
Broken Princess Page 4