Sufferborn

by J C Hartcarver

  “Not really.”

  “Well, at least you’re honest about that. But in confession you have to. Don’t worry, I won’t judge you. As your confessor, I’ll be as professional as can be, and I’ll assign you a penance, and then you’ll be absolved. You’ll feel better.”

  “Are you sure I’ll feel better?”

  “Yes.”

  His hesitation continued. A quick peek at him revealed his bowed head and his white-knuckled fists grasping the hem of his tabard.

  “Could it be so bad?” she asked. “Because more extreme sins require more extreme penances, like lashings. But if it’s a paltry unclean thought, you don’t have to worry. You’ll just have to recite prayers.”

  “Lashings?”

  “Surely you know this word. Lashing? As in getting whipped on your back.”

  Another few seconds of silence passed. “Did that happen to you?”

  The neatly healing lash wounds on her back burned after a sudden flare of pain. “What are you talking about?”

  “Did you get lashed? On your back?”

  Kalea’s heart accelerated to pounding in her ears. Dropping her professional confessor’s demeanor, she turned to him. He remained staring at the ground, gripping his tabard hem.

  “Did you get lashed after we met?”

  “Dorhen…how would you know?”

  “Your back. It was all ripped up. Red and raw. Did it hurt?”

  “How did you see my back?”

  “Does it still hurt?”

  “How?” She clenched her own fists to keep a hold on her panic.

  “I saw you in the bath.”

  “When? How?”

  He paused to swallow, avoiding her eyes. “On the night you were attacked and you ran from me, I followed you all the way to this building. They took you through the gate, and I couldn’t slip in with you. So I climbed the wall.”

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to lose you. I got in here and looked for you. I waited in the shadows…over there.” He pointed generally toward the corner at the other end of the courtyard. “Until I heard a girl say your name. It echoed above me.”

  He must’ve meant Joy.

  “And?”

  “I climbed the wall again, and from there I stepped onto that awning. I walked across there and stepped onto the adjoining sloped roof. Your voice sounded in the open window above it.” He pointed to the window belonging to the room with the bathtubs. “The window stood halfway open.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to find you.” His eyes met hers for an instant and sprang away. “I didn’t know you’d be naked in there.”

  “And then what? You watched me? Why did you watch me?”

  “I couldn’t help it.”

  “How much did you see?” Kalea’s fingernails stabbed into her palms.

  He shifted uncomfortably. “You were talking to your friend. In the bath. As she rubbed something on your back. I worried about you. I saw you wince and I felt pain for a moment too, like scratches raking across my back. I resisted the urge to go in.”

  Kalea’s throat closed up and a shiver rattled her entire body. “What else did you see?” The words escaped through her clenched teeth.

  “Your warm skin. It had steam swirling off of it. And you stood up. I couldn’t look away. Your long hair trailed down your back like ribbons of wet silk. And to your front where it…clung around your breasts, flashing hints of flesh when you moved.”

  “Enough!” She shot to her feet too fast and fought an oncoming faint. “Get out!” She pointed to the wall. He rose too and put up his hands. “Climb back over the wall and leave, or I’ll scream and we’ll turn you over to the guard!”

  “But you said confessing was good and I could get absolved!”

  “This is different.” She sat again and crossed her arms. “I said that before knowing you were a pervert.”

  “You said we all do things wrong.”

  “It’s still different.”

  “How?”

  “Tell me what happened after.”

  “I climbed off the roof and went back to the forest.”

  “What next? Did you have unclean thoughts about me?”

  “That’s not what I’d call them, but to answer your question…yes, after getting over the nausea of knowing you endured such pain.”

  She stood again and thrust her palm at his stomach. “Leave! Don’t ever come back!”

  She moved too fast and swayed to the side, precariously keeping her footing. He exhaled at her strike, but collected himself fast enough to catch her and ease her back onto the stool.

  “Kalea, I’m sorry.” His voice cracked. She batted him away with flailing arms. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I want forgiveness. I want your forgiveness…and the Creator’s.”

  Kalea bowed over on her seat to try and get her vision back. She panted. Her head spun and she grasped it in both hands. “I can’t believe you saw me. You saw me.” The heavy sighs puffing out of her lungs turned to sobs.

  His heavy breathing became apparent when she covered her embarrassed face with shaky hands. His feet stayed planted on the compacted earth before her. “Are you still standing there? I told you to leave me.”

  She raised her head again, knowing how red her face must be. He stood with his hands limp by his sides, frowning.

  He ripped open the buttons on his outer russet mantle and threw the whole thing to the ground. Underneath that, his blue hood showed as a scarf-like drapery about his shoulders. He took off his belt and threw it down. He untied the laces on the sides of his outer tabard and threw it onto the forming pile.

  “What are you doing?”

  He untied the laces which kept his undershirt closed at the sides, drew it past his narrow but muscled shoulders and off his tight, sinewy arms. He threw the undershirt aside.

  “Stop it! What are you doing?” Only the blue hood and a vibrant white stone hanging around his neck on a leather thong were left on his upper body.

  “I’m going to let you see my body so we can be even. It’s penance.”

  “That’s not penance!”

  “It’s fair,” he said as his hands moved to his mismatched brown and grey leggings to untie the tight, bulging codpiece which joined all the pieces together.

  “Don’t!” Kalea rose again and lurched for him.

  He dodged, continuing to work through the undressing process.

  The codpiece came off.

  By the time she had grabbed his wrists and pushed him against the wall, he wore nothing all the way to his knees, where he’d peeled down his leggings. Nothing at all.

  She pinned him there and paused long enough to process what had happened. His pulse hammered in his wrists under her grip. He stared at her, as serious as she’d ever seen him. His blue hood remained draped around his shoulders. Smooth, milky skin glowed below it with no hint of body hair anywhere. She saw a stomach with a soft composition of hills and valleys—an artful mingle of bone and muscle. His protruding ribs pumped up and down. And his penis dangled in the open air for Kalea and all to see, plump and colored rosier than the rest of him. A thick vein ran the length of it. A gathered bit of skin pinched together at its tip.

  The warm smell of his flesh registered. She caught herself staring at it, trembling delicately with each beat of his heart. Her eyes trailed back up, over all the smooth elven skin, over his intricate ab muscles, his ribs, then stopping at his deep turquoise eyes. He offered no words. He waited instead, rosy lips pouting.

  Kalea swallowed, but her mouth had gone dry. “What if someone comes out here?”

  He answered in a voice both deep and serious, “That’s why I left the blue hood on. Can I have your forgiveness now?”

  “Only if you put your clothes back on.” She released his wrists and stepped back. She thought to turn her back, but she’d already seen him in great detail.

  No hair grew on his legs either, she noted as he pulled the skin-ti
ght leggings back over them. The codpiece dangled off to one side, and he pulled it over and fastened it to the other side, doing a little dance to situate his genitals within. His eyes lingered on her with a dark intensity while he dressed. Not resentful, more like he wanted to know her impression, or if he’d obtained her forgiveness. He next put on the white linen undershirt, overlapped its lapels, and tied them in place at the sides.

  Her mouth poised on the edge of speaking as she watched him. She might’ve offered some words, but they kept getting lost under the rhythm of heartbeats in her ears. She dropped to the stool.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice running hard. He pulled the tabard over his head and made sure the blue hood was accessible through the neck hole.

  Her voice slid out as a whisper. “Yeah.”

  His voice. The sound of it, so dark and deep, brought back the nervous jitters which wracked her body and carried hot tingles through her belly and flared up her thighs. She tore her eyes away at last, but longed to return them. When she did, his eyes were still boring into her, demanding an answer. He’d never come across so…mature before now. He even seemed taller than before.

  “Kalea,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry.” He stood over her, no groveling this time. “I’m sorry a thousand times. Have I redeemed myself?”

  Her head bobbed. “I forgive you.”

  Chapter 11

  A Cake for the Courier

  Mhina hummed her favorite song, the one about Grandfather’s magic bow, as she patted the little cakes together. Gaije and Grandfather called them “power cakes” because the ingredients of oats and other good things gave them energy to practice longer. The tea kettle whistled on the stove under the rustling of the leaves in the wind. Holding her shawl tighter so it wouldn’t blow away, she left the cakes on the tray and hurried over to the kettle.

  “Mhina, what are you doing?” Mother asked, coming out of the house along the stones embedded in the earth.

  “Being a good faerhain, Mother.” Mhina resumed her humming as she prepared to grab the kettle handle with the rag.

  “Hold on! You’ll burn your hands. What are we doing here?”

  “We’re making a lunch for Togha.”

  “For Togha?”

  She handed the rag to Mother. “Yes. I can’t bring a lunch to Gaije anymore.”

  “You can take a lunch to your father as he trains the horses.” Mother poured the hot water into the tea kettle Mhina had loaded with the raspberry tea from Mother’s collection of canisters.

  “But you already do that. You also were the one who made the lunch for Gaije. But now Gaije is gone and Togha and I will be together someday, so why not start now? I also need to learn how to cook. Right now, I only know how to make power cakes. Can you start teaching me already?”

  Mother laughed into her long sleeve. “You’re a better farhah than I was. I didn’t learn to cook until I was twelve.”

  Mhina returned to her cakes and bundled them together in a handkerchief. “Even Grandfather has Anonhet to make his lunch. Togha will have me.”

  “Well, all right. It can’t hurt to make a lunch for Togha. He is one of our saehgahn, after all. How do you expect to deliver this tea to him, though? Is he going to sip from the cup as he rides around on his donkey?”

  Mhina reached over and took the waterskin off the wall. “I have it all figured out.”

  Mother’s face shifted into a new smile before another laugh erupted.

  During the part of the afternoon when Togha usually rode through, Mhina waited for him where the road curved, unable to keep her smile away. A yelling voice and a bray sounded in the distance, and around he came, running with the donkey keeping pace beside him. The corners of his black poncho waved like a flag.

  With the waterskin and tied handkerchief hanging off one arm, she raised her other and called, “Togha!”

  His mailbag bounced with each of his steps. She raised her voice louder and called again until he finally noticed her. He raised an eyebrow after coming to a halt with his donkey.

  “Togha, can you stop for a minute?”

  Gritting his teeth, he looked behind him and snapped his head back. “Yeah, let’s go down the road farther.”

  “If you insist. I brought you some lunch. Can you stop and eat it?”

  His gorgeous grey eyes finally landed on her things, and he grinned. “As long as we can eat it in a quiet place with no one around.”

  “Of course, but not my house, my mother will talk over me. If my father is home, he’ll talk over her.”

  Togha nodded rapidly. “Sure, let’s go.”

  In a small clearing off the path from her house, Togha tied Haggis’s reins to a tree. Haggis was his donkey’s name. Mhina took off her apron, which the females usually wore to protect their treasured hanbohiks, and spread it on the ground.

  “So,” Mhina began, “Gaije went off to the army about a week ago. Has he sent any letters to me yet?”

  “Nope.” Togha sat beside her spread apron, upon which she laid the handkerchief and untied it to display the cakes. He sighed. “Power cakes, huh?”

  “There’s tea in this waterskin.” She held it high and shook it.

  Smirking, he reached out and took the skin.

  “So what happened back there?” she asked.

  He hurried to swallow the hot tea, seeming surprised at its temperature. “Nothing. I mean…they think I was ogling a faerhain too long. The Desteer were yelling at me.”

  “One of the widows again?”

  “Yeah. Can you do me a favor?”

  “Of course!”

  “Tell ‘em you saw the whole thing. I did not do whatever they say I did.”

  Mhina cocked her head, gazing at his beautiful face with raven-black hair shimmering in the shady grove. It had barely grown past his shoulders as of yet. He’d only been saehgahn for several months. Only full saehgahn could grow their hair past their shoulders.

  “But did you do it?” she asked.

  He stuffed a cake into his mouth and shook his head, his eyebrows sinking low.

  “I believe you, saehgahn.”

  He managed to smile despite the wide bulge of food in his cheek. He was still beautiful. She laid her face on her hand, watching him.

  “Togha, why do you always wear that old black poncho?”

  “You got a problem with my poncho?”

  She shrugged. “No. But I could make you a new one. A bluish one to accentuate your eyes. I’ll spin the wool and everything.”

  He looked over the power cakes to choose which one to eat next. “Well,” he began in that short-voiced way of his, “I wear this poncho because it was my father’s.”

  Mhina rounded her mouth, saying, “Ooooh, forgive me, saehgahn.”

  He smiled sweetly. “You know he died right before I was born.”

  “I do.” Her own smile weakened. “I’m sorry you never got to meet your pawbhen.”

  “It’s okay.”

  She continued, “I just met mine, and we’re best friends already. I never thought I’d meet him in the first place.”

  Togha leaned forward, extending his hand when she got a little teary-eyed. “Don’t cry. It’s nothing to cry about.”

  She took his hand and squeezed it.

  “You don’t see me cryin’.”

  A laugh pushed past her tears. “I would hope not.” Saehgahn were never supposed to cry, ever. That’s why she would do all the crying for him. As his wife. “I’ll bet your mother gets lonely since you joined the army.”

  “Perhaps not, since I’ve been delivering letters almost every day.”

  “My grandfather has been checking on her a lot since then. Two days ago, he cleaned her chimney.”

  Togha leaned back. “Is that so?”

  Mhina nodded. “Why doesn’t she get a house-guardian to protect her and do those kinds of chores?”

  Togha’s eyes had spaced out. “Maybe she will.”

&n
bsp; “Oh, guess what, Togha, I’m gonna learn how to cook,” she said.

  “That’s nice.” He reached for another cake.

  “So, you know, the lunches will get better. I’m going to bring one to you every day.”

  He cocked his head. “But sometimes, I don’t come near enough.” He bit off a bite of the next one.

  “I know,” she said. “I’ll meet you at the front of the village where you usually enter.”

  His chewing slowed. “Sounds good, but…”

  “But what?”

  He looked around them even though they were completely alone. “Mhina. There might be some days when I don’t come back.”

  “I know that. Sometimes there aren’t letters to deliver here. But I can make your lunch anyway, and if you don’t show up, my father will enjoy it.”

  He shook his head and opened his mouth; instead of talking, he crammed the rest of the cake into it. “It’s good,” he said with a full mouth.

  Chapter 12

  Her Dreams

  After the incident in the courtyard, Dorhen plagued Kalea’s dreams throughout the night, beginning with a return visitation to the incident in which he had taken off his clothes.

  She woke up in a sweat before each dream concluded, her heart fluttering. She’d drift off again to find him standing over her, shielding her under a long dark shadow, or standing behind her, his arms embracing her as she fell back into him.

  “I’ll keep you safe,” he whispered into her ear.

  She turned to embrace him back. And soon they melded into a tangle, kissing, groping, and exploring. Dorhen acted far less ashamed to bare himself or allow her to touch him than she was at first. And with her shy demeanor at the beginning of each dream, he never pressured her. Their exploration advanced on the terms of her own curiosity. He didn’t frighten her like Kemp did either. He remained patient and warm, always promising to protect her.

  She gave in to her curiosity each time, wrapping her arms around him, tasting his flesh, breathing his name, and accepting his own attempts to touch and kiss and pin her down under his long, sinewy body. To an onlooker, they must’ve looked like the couple in the love manual…