History of Beauty

by Meraki P. Lyhne

  A scream laced with anguish and rage caused everyone to remain quiet, and Elakdon felt sorrow as Randr fell to a knee, the left side of his face split open from forehead to chin. The Earl had taken his eye.

  “A fool’s dream,” Earl Knud said, circling the wounded man.

  “Honor!” Randr shouted. Then he stood back up.

  Knud attacked again, his sword coming in from Randr’s blind side. One strike was all it took, yet Randr’s axe was in the way as the blade’s weight struck his side.

  Everything went quiet, and Elakdon held his breath as he stared at the two men standing so close that their noses almost touched. Had the weight of the sword caused Randr’s own axe to make the fatal wound?

  Then the Earl fell back, and Randr pulled his weight back not to be dragged along down onto the ground, as the Earl slipped off his blade to land heavily in the grass.

  Randr teetered for a moment, then fell back onto his ass, letting go of his bloody sword.

  Three of the Earl’s men ran directly for Randr, and Elakdon’s rage reached its pinnacle, sending him in from the sideline to punch the one who got there first. Another managed to land a punch in Elakdon’s face, but that was it. Foldon’s muscular body flew past Elakdon’s head, knocking down a third, while a pair of purple eyes was all Elakdon got to see of the one who took down the last.

  Elakdon made it to Randr and pulled him up to lie in his lap, ignoring the pained sounds he made.

  Randr stopped struggling and looked up at Elakdon, half his face covered in blood and opening up in a grizzly sight. “The touch of a King was not what I expected now.”

  “You hoped for the reach of a Valkyrie, I know.”

  Randr chuckled, then groaned in pain. “Do you think that…that I went back on my word to my Earl?”

  “No. I agree with you. Dishonor deserves only dishonor, and if he sold his gods for gold and a wooden cross, then he has none to be repaid. But you do.”

  Randr smiled. Then he faded out of consciousness.

  Elakdon held on, feeling his face. “Help! Help him!”

  Dendon crouched in front of Elakdon, shuffled the possibly dead, but hopefully not, brave man into his arms, stood, and stalked off toward the Hall.

  Father pulled Elakdon to his feet and turned him to face him. He cupped his face and looked him over. “A Nol in a brawl. This night will be remembered, I’m sure of it.”

  Elakdon remembered the men who had attacked the winner of the battle, but they were no longer there. “Where are they? The three men?”

  “The Guards took them away. One will regret putting a hand on you.”

  “They didn’t respect the winner. Fighting on my land, they will respect my rules.”

  “Then will you punish them?”

  “Myself?”

  “Yes. You have already shown your people that disobeying your rules will mean you take the matter in-hand yourself.” Father poked the bruise, making Elakdon wince. “But showing them again will let them see you strong. A war is coming, after all, and gaining us friends is a feat, yet action is also required of a King.”

  Elakdon looked down, nodding. He then looked up and around himself, finding Nil-Savadin and Nol-Plydon close by. They both nodded.

  “Do not fear making too harsh an example out of them,” Nol-Plydon said.

  “What are the Cubi laws for disobeying?”

  “In a House, the High Father or High Mother makes most of the laws, yet treason is always and only punished by ghosting.”

  An involuntary shiver tore through Elakdon. He’d heard about that. “And humans?”

  “If he or she belongs to the House of the King, then it is at his discretion. These do not, though, so…I don’t know.”

  “The rules are simple, your House, your law,” Nil-Savadin said.

  “And no agreements with humans of this Kingdom, that I know of, state otherwise,” Father said.

  Elakdon nodded, then looked toward the Hall. He then turned and stalked that way, hearing the others follow him. He went directly to his high chair and sat, the blood on his clothes and hands a distant second on his list of priorities. Yet, he was his mother’s first priority, and she came to check on his face.

  “It is only a bruise, Mother. I’ve had worse.”

  “I know, but I may fuss over my son no matter what.”

  More and more people joined them, Trygve, Gunhild, and her men and women finding their place out of the way. Everyone else were Cubi as far as Elakdon could see.

  “Bring me those three!” Elakdon shouted, and Windin stepped back, folding her hands. A King did not need to be fussed about, and he was glad that she saw that, too.

  Dendon hauled two of them in, Guard Lady Lildin bringing…also two. They were all sneering at Elakdon, so he stood.

  “I don’t care whether you come to my home with a newfound belief in another God, but you disrespect my House by not heeding to the rules here. That, I will not allow! Whatever your God says about hospitality or how to treat one extended to you is a matter I don’t know, but what would your men of cloth think if they invite me into their impressive buildings, and I started out by pissing on the floor?”

  “The new God is not mine,” one of the men said.

  “Then why attack?”

  The man shrugged. “He promised me Randr’s place.”

  “So you’re what…a bought lifeguard?”

  “Like yours are not!”

  Elakdon shook his head. “They’re not.” He looked at the other three, thinking he might have counted wrong. “Which one of you struck me in an attempt to keep me from upholding the laws I laid down regarding that match?” Silence, yet two of them kept looking at one of them until the hired muscle finally shoved the man toward Elakdon. What a coward.

  The man quickly gained his footing and stood back—his head held high.

  “You three attacked at the same time as this one, so you were not mere followers.”

  “Pardon me, Nol, but this one did not attack,” the Guard Lady said, nodding to one of the men.”

  Elakdon looked at the man. “Why not?”

  “It was a fair fight.”

  Elakdon nodded, thinking. He then looked at the other three. “Yet you three attack someone who won a battle of honor. You lost all yours doing so.”

  The man, who’d been pushed to stand in front of Elakdon, spat hitting him in the face, and Elakdon promptly retaliated by punching him in the face. The man fell to the floor like dead weight and stayed down.

  “I will show you what dishonorable men earn on my land. Follow me!” Elakdon left the Hall, hearing everybody following again. He took them around to where the Earl still lay dead on the grass now stained red by the blood of two men. He wondered if Randr had survived, yet now was not the time to ask.

  “You three, pick up your Earl and carry him as you follow me. This will be the last opportunity you have to show him in any respect.”

  The men did, the fourth hanging limply over Foldon’s shoulder. Again, the almost hundred people followed to where Elakdon knew Father had previously buried people for disrespecting his House.

  Elakdon waved Father over. “Where will they not strike bone?”

  Father went to stand on a spot and placed a stick there. He then returned to stand at Elakdon’s right.

  “Dig a hole for your Earl,” Elakdon said.

  The men did, but that had to be because they didn’t know what Elakdon had in mind.

  “Foldon, drop that dead weight and fetch me the Earl’s sword, axe, and shield.”

  “Yes, Nol.” Foldon placed the unconscious man on the ground and ran off. It took a while since he had to make it through a ring of people watching, and by the time he’d returned, the three men were at knee depth. The fourth was coming around, scrambling around groggily.

  “Will you let me in on your plan for them?” Father whispered.

  “They are done, soon. But I will need help.”

  “You have it.”

  Ela
kdon smiled despite every muscle in his body quivering from rage, grateful to know he could trust him in anything.

  They watched as the three kept digging. The fourth sat up and stared at the corpse of the dead Earl and the hole his friends were digging.

  “Are you going to let your friends bury your Earl all alone?” Foldon asked the man.

  Elakdon chuckled. “Oh, he gets to help out, too.”

  The men crawled out of the hole.

  “Now what?” the one who had honored Elakdon’s rules asked.

  “Well, you stay there,” Elakdon told him. He then looked at the man next to him. “You get back in the hole and wait. Foldon, the axe?” Elakdon held out his hand and closed it when he felt the hard wood in his hand. He then went to the dead Earl and swung the axe the few tries it took to sever the head from the body. He held it out for the blood to soak the broken shield. It ran dry, and Elakdon tossed the head to the other guy still standing above the hole.

  The guy caught it and stared at it, disgust on his face.

  Elakdon grabbed the belt of what was left of the Earl, and with more ease than he remembered being able to move a weight that heavy, lifted it to the hole. He dumped the body into it where the other man stood. “He dishonored my home and my people. You dishonored my House by not following the law I laid down. Dishonor followed this man to his grave, and he will be buried with it. So you…” Elakdon looked at the man in the grave. “Pull your Earl’s pants down, and you…” Elakdon looked at the man with the head. “Place your Earl’s head with its face in his own ass.”

  “No!”

  “Then your friend will have to dig a bit more to make room for you being buried with your face in your Earl’s ass, and the Earl’s face in yours.”

  The men looked at each other, the gravity of the situation definitely not escaping them. Defeated, the man in the hole tugged the pants of Earl Knud to the knees.

  “Your turn,” Elakdon said to the man with the head.

  Hesitantly, he jumped into the hole and placed the head at the ass-end of the Earl.

  “I said face in his ass.”

  “Then, you do it!” the man shouted.

  “Fine. Get out.” The men did, and Elakdon hopped into the hole, shoved the face of the Earl firmly into the ass crack, and stomped some dirt behind the head to keep it there. He then hopped out from the hole again and went to the man who’d been unconscious for the majority of it. “Your turn. Bury him.”

  The guy stood and reached for the Earl’s sword.

  “No. He will be buried with nothing. I will not take what is on his corpse, but I understand that his new God says he provides everything in that Heaven of his, so there is no need to secure him in the afterlife. Now cover him up.”

  The man did while the other three glared at Elakdon. He ignored that, yet he tried to keep a discreet eye on Earl Gunhild to see if he could guess her reaction. Trygve looked horrified, yet the hatred in his eyes as he’d stared at the Earl meant that Elakdon didn’t really know the full reason behind the horrified part.

  The man finished the task of covering the Earl’s shamed body and looked at Elakdon. All four of them were covered in blood and dirt. Not far from there, a trough of water for the pigs was full.

  “Go wash yourselves in there.”

  The men shuffled that way with two Guard Lords following, the Cubi around them mumbling and shrugging. Was that his punishment? Absolutely not. He could even see the question in Father’s eyes.

  “I need two to hold them down individually, and someone to hold the others back while I finish this.”

  “What is your plan?” Father asked, curiosity and a sense of…not really knowing Elakdon shone in his eyes.

  Elakdon put his hand on his knife. The one Father had given him upon reaching the age of a man. “Something that will leave a mark.”

  “I shall hold the one you mark, then.”

  The men returned, shivering a bit from the cold of the water.

  “You sold your honor to the highest bidder, you act like a sheep and blindly follow, and you spat in my face. Earl Knud must have surrounded himself with cowards, yet one stood his ground. How long was Randr with him?”

  “We don’t know,” the one who had not participated in attacking Randr said. “Far longer than us.”

  “Twelve years, Nol.”

  Elakdon turned to find the blue-eye he’d taken in from Nil-Savadin’s Kingdom. “Twelve?”

  She had blood on her clothes and was wiping her hands. “I have sewn up his injuries and treated his wounds. He is alive and conscious. He spoke of twelve years watching a childhood friend be twisted by power that he had helped him obtain. He watched a man of great vision fall, and he blames himself for not being able to keep his friend on a path of honor. He feels he failed his friend.”

  “He killed his childhood friend?”

  She nodded, looking heartbroken. “He could not stand by and do nothing anymore.”

  Elakdon’s respect for Randr grew. But the three who had attacked him? He turned to face them again. “Did he promise all of you wealth and power in return for loyalty?”

  None of them answered. They merely glared at him, stupidly stubborn.

  “You sold yourselves. That makes you thralls. With your Earl’s death, Randr holds the title now, and you belong to him.”

  “No!” they shouted.

  “Except you.” Elakdon pointed at the one who’d struck him and spat on him. “I will buy you from him when he is well again. Hold him down.”

  Father rushed forward, grabbed the man, and placed him on his back.

  “I need two to hold him. He will lose his hair and beard first so that no one will mistake him for a Karl.”

  Dendon helped Father, and Elakdon pulled his knife. He then cut the beard off the man’s face and the hair from his head. And he wasn’t being neat about it.

  Elakdon looked at Father. “I shall have your clothes washed out by morning.” Father looked puzzled for a moment, then held on more tightly as Elakdon grabbed the man’s ear and cut it off, the blood instantly spraying and soaking Father’s clothes. “And you will never spit on me or my people again. And looking at you, no one will doubt whether I hold honor to be strived for!” Elakdon then proceeded by cutting the man’s nose off.

  Elakdon stood, the screams of the man whose nose and ear Elakdon still held in one hand, making him nauseous. “Next!”

  The last three struggled as Father helped secure them one by one, and Elakdon repeated cutting their hair, their beard, and an ear, but only one lost his nose. The last man, though, the one who had not attacked Randr, he kept his ear, too.

  Finally, Elakdon stood back with the bloody knife in one hand, and the nose and ears in the other. The area looked like he’d butchered an animal, and he felt horrified at what he’d done. But also accomplished.

  The fourth man sat still, shivering, a hand finally going to the still intact ears.

  “As I said.” Elakdon crouched in front of the man, holding out the ears and nose. “I respect honor, and you honored a fair fight by not intervening. But you did not stand up to a man who blatantly disrespected everything around him. By allowing him to do that and supporting him in the power to speak for you, you allowed him to drag you down with him. You, unlike the others, can earn your freedom again. May you regain your honor to once again stand a freeman.”

  “Thank you,” he whispered.

  Elakdon stood. “Take them away and clean their wounds. Then lock them up.”

  “Yes, Nol!” Guard Lords pulled the messes of men away, the fourth following, his head down and his heart heavy with shame.

  Elakdon raised his hand and looked at the cooling pieces of flesh, sticking to his hand in coagulating blood.

  “My, my, young Prince,” Nol-Plydon said. “I have seen the humans of this Kingdom be brutal, yet I feared that your inexperience with battle had left you without the necessary life experiences to pull something like this off.”

  “Experie
nce only robs me of one thing,” Elakdon said, swallowing the thin saliva running freely in his mouth, yet he refused to throw up with the Cubi people watching him.

  “Which is?” the old King asked.

  “The stomach for it.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Windin grabbed Elakdon by the arm as soon as he made it back to his seat, yet she didn’t let him sit down—she took him out back. A bowl with steaming water waited, and she wasted no time pulling at his blood-drenched clothes.

  He let her, noticing that fresh clothes had been laid out.

  “Father told me what the Earl said about me. Is that part of why you chose to bury him in shame?”

  “No, Mom, I have seen you defend your own honor against ignorant humans, and I believe you more than capable of doing that yourself. But the rising dishonor shown to Cubi is something I have heard from many sides now. At some point, it will come out that I do not accept my home to be dishonored. The Earl even thought he could speak for me and tell his enemy that nothing about him was attractive. His honor certainly is. That is also why I allow the last of the Earl’s men to be able to earn his freedom.”

  “You have always been a man who focused on honor.” She smiled and caressed his cheek. “I am a proud mother.” She then began washing his body, and he was too tired to try to help.

  “I want to sleep,” he said.

  She snorted and gave no further comments or advice.

  “I wonder what Earl Gunhild thinks of my hospitality when I butcher my guests before dinner.”

  She laughed.

  “You did not butcher him, Ela. The ear and nose part…it was rather grisly. That you buried the parts with the Earl that had cost his men so much was…insightful.”

  “Now, I don’t want to sleep. I want to go see how the honorable human is doing.”

  “What was his name?” she asked.

  “Randr.”

  She nodded, whispering his name to herself—a habit she had to remember something she’d been told. “Once I have finished with you, I shall go sit with him so that you may focus on establishing a friendship with the shieldmaiden.”