The False Martyr

by H. Nathan Wilcox

  “I know you’re there,” she said after what seemed like a long time. Cary had been so caught in wondering what to do – tell Juhn, tell Nyel, tell Ambassador Chulters, tell no one – that he thought he had missed someone else entering the room. He did not even notice that she had spoken in his language. He looked through the hole for some clues as to who it might be, but the girl made no indication of another person being there. She rolled gingerly to sit, holding her back with one hand and neck with the other, face turned away.

  Cary marveled. She had to have the fairest, smoothest skin he had ever seen, the perfect amount of plumpness about her hips and breasts. Her belly rose round from beneath those breasts, but not so big as he had initially thought – likely a couple of months behind Nyel’s daughters. Despite the scene he had just witnessed, he felt himself imagining himself in the position of her husband and growing hard at the prospect.

  “I know you’re there,” the girl said again and turned to look directly at him. Cary leapt from the hole. Had she actually looked at him? Had she spoken in the Imperial tongue? “I know you’re not an order keeper, so you must be an outsider. I need only raise an alarm, and they’ll kill you.”

  By the Order, she knows I’m here! She knows I’m an outsider. They’ll kill me. I’m dead. The same words ran through his mind over and over. His heart felt like it would pound from his chest. His whole body shook. His arousal turned into a prayer that he not wet himself. Images ran through his mind of Morgs pulling from the passage and chopping him to pieces. His only hope was that they would start with his head. You have to run. By the Order, run!

  Cary didn’t run. He returned to the hole, expecting to see the girl go to the door, expecting to hear her call for help. Instead, she reached slowly to the floor and retrieved her dress from where her husband had thrown it. With slow, stiff movements, she slipped it over her head and let it cover her. She turned back to the peephole, trying to be threatening, but Cary was frozen by his first full view of her face. She was beautiful – ice-blue eyes, light brows, strong and angular jaw, long and lean neck. Full ruddy cheeks and lips contrasting the porcelain white of her flawless skin. Yet the beauty barely registered for the deformity that marred it. A gap split the left side of her top lip, running like a chasm all the way to her nose. Though it was not the first hair lip Cary had seen, it was the most horrible for the beauty it had ruined. He could not help but wonder at the cruelty of an order that could create a woman so perfect then mar her with such as that.

  It only took seconds for her resolution to fail. Her hands came to her face, one to cover the deformity in her lip, the other to hide her red eyes. “You’re supposed to run,” she nearly begged, voice rising as much as possible through her pain and humiliation. Cary noticed now the distortion of her words created by the break in her lip, the heavy lisp that affected otherwise nearly perfect use of the Imperial tongue. “There is no more to see. Just go away. Leave me alone.” She paused and adjusted herself on the bed, wincing from the pain she still felt. She turned her face away and hid it in her hands. “Just go away.”

  Cary felt the adrenaline rush from him in an instant, leaving him trembling. She wants me to run, wants me to forget. She’s afraid. She’s humiliated. She’s not going to report me.

  Relief washed over him. Guilt followed. What about her? I can’t just leave her. The thought spurred memories that he’d spent nearly ten years trying to bury. It’s Allysa all over again. He flashed unbidden to the image of her battered body. Had it been like this? Had he done this to her? His teeth clenched. He fought those images, made them go away, reminded himself of the lesson he’d learned. It IS just like Allysa. She’s just like her. She doesn’t want your help. They never do.

  The hidden door opened slowly. The girl spun and looked at him in terror as he emerged. Pulling back the hood of his robe, Cary locked eyes with her, saw Allysa. She had looked at him exactly the same way when he had found her. He hated the girl for making him remember that. They’re the same. Just watch. “By the Order, I can’t believe what he did to you,” he lied, forcing his voice to tremble. “You can’t let him . . . . You need . . . . I’ll get help. I’ll tell Nyel. We’ll make sure he never . . . .” He’d said all the words before, would never forget them no matter how he tried. And he knew exactly where they’d lead.

  “No!” the girl nearly screamed. Her eyes became desperate.

  Cary forced himself to look concerned even through his vindication. All she has to say is yes. I’m right here. I can help her, but she won’t because she wants what she gets. Just like Allysa. Just like Mrs. Polk – How many times did mother offer to help her? How many times did she beg her not to say anything, not to do anything?

  “I don’t . . . there is no . . . . I am . . . I would be . . . cast out,” the girl rambled. Tears formed in her eyes. She stammered as if Cary held her very life in his hands. “Please, don’t tell anyone. Please . . . I will do anything. I . . . I . . . . Zhurn will kill you.” She latched onto the last with the desperation of a drowning man finding a log.

  The words were so familiar that Cary nearly staggered. Don’t tell. Please, you can’t. Father will throw me out. He’s the son of a duke. He’ll kill you. Please, I’ll do anything. Cary shook his head to clear the images. You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved, he reminded himself. In a fire, heroes burn and carpenters profit. Wasn’t that what his father always said? He’d spent enough of his life being a hero, of getting burnt for people who didn’t want to be saved. After Allysa, he had resolved to be the carpenter.

  The one thing he’d learned from his sisters was how to find the girls who will do anything to feel loved, the girls who will go with any man who looks at them, who says a kind word, who pays them the slightest attention. He found them in every town he visited. They were usually the ugly girls, scrawny, awkward, stupid. They lived their lives with insults, were defined by rejection and neglect. Some were abused – never like this, but the end was the same. All they wanted was to feel special, and Cary knew exactly how to do it, and exactly what reward he would get in return.

  Though he was handsome in a way, Cary was also short and slight, his features dainty like the rest of him. He looked more like a china doll than a man. A beautiful woman might have him for a friend, the cute confidant that she barely considered a man. But to a girl who had been scorned, abused, rejected, neglected, his pretty face and kind words made him the most attractive man they had ever met. And they never had the confidence to say no, to risk losing the one man who paid attention to them, smiled at them, complimented them, made them feel special. And wasn’t it better that they find that in him rather than the bastards who beat them, insulted them, used them at night and scorned them in the morning? And if he should profit? At least he was kind while he was with them, kissed them before he rode from town, never insulted them or hit them or forced them.

  He approached the bed, watching the girl as he came: beautiful, broken, perfect. Even with the deformity, she might be the most beautiful woman he had ever been with. Still, she was just like all those others. If she put up with that bastard of a husband, she’d have anyone. Some attention, a few nice words, and she would be his. He would be the first outsider in history to bed a Morg woman. He would be a legend.

  For a long time, he just watched her. She did the same, eyes trying to be strong but betrayed by pain and humiliation so long established to have left her with almost no strength to show. She had caught him in a terrible crime, had him red-handed, held his very life, the fate of his nation and everyone he loved in her hands, and yet he was the one with power over her. His very presence was forcing her back through everything that had just happened, was making her consider it through the eyes of this interloper, making her live it anew. Cary waited, allowed those thoughts to fester, allowed her find the bottom. Carpenters always tear down before they build.

  “I . . . I won’t say anything,” he said slowly, making it seem as if he were still debating. “I promise.
” For a flash, he remembered what he had seen and felt all the shame for having participated in it, for having, at some horrific level, enjoyed it, for taking advantage of it. He shook off the thought just as fast. She doesn’t want to be saved, he reminded himself. This is the best thing you can do for her. “I promise,” he repeated more strongly and watched her tension ease. “How did you know I was there?” he asked, wanting only to get her talking. His voice was gentle, sympathetic, sad. His eyes darted strategically to the red gap in her lip. She caught him and brought a hand to it.

  “I just knew,” she said from behind her hand. She turned to the wall, shifted her body on the bed to close it from him.

  He sat next to her and put a hand on her back. She flinched. “What’s your name?” he asked, feeling her warmth through the wool, watching the curve of her breast, white expanse of her neck, golden hair, ruddy cheek, and unmarred half of her lips. She was slightly taller than a typical woman with a slim figure that had been filled by her child. She would be taller than him, might weigh more, but that was no hindrance to him.

  “Noé,” she sighed. “I am Mother of Eselhelt Lodge.” She said the title as if an apology.

  Cary moved his hand on her back, used the other to brush a strand of hair away from her face. She recoiled. We’ll have to get past that. “My name is Cary Lanark. I am a corporal in the Liandrin Royal Couriers, and I think you are beautiful.”

  Noé laughed, a sharp, bitter chuckle. “You’re a liar and a spy. I don’t know which is worse.”

  “I am both of those things, but neither right now. I promise, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

  “Stop it!” she shouted loud enough to make Cary jump. “Why taunt me? Do you think I’ve never seen a mirror? I know how horrible I am. I have heard every insult. Here have your look and see if you can find a new one.” She brushed him off and turned, drawing her lips apart to highlight the crevice that marred them. It ran on through her lips to split her teeth and the top of her mouth, a great chasm that cut through her beauty like a worm in an apple. It took all his will, but Cary kept himself from retracting, kept his attention focused on her blue eyes.

  “If Zhurn hadn’t chosen me, I’d be a yuté.” She cried her words when Cary did not give her what she wanted. “No man would ever join me. If the Order Master had not saved me, I would have been left for the wolves as a babe. I was never meant to be. I should not even be here. I have no place, but Zhurn, he . . . .Zhurn . . . he . . . he saved me. He gave me a child. He has elevated me more . . . more than anyone like me could ever deserve.” She held the child insider her. “I . . . I should be grateful.”

  “But I . . . I don’t understand. I am an outsider, but I don’t understand how he can treat you like that. I thought Morgs revered their women.”

  “I get the reverence I deserve,” she told the wall more than him. “I defied him, and he punished me. He knows I deserve shame so that is what he gives me. If my sisters knew . . . .” she caught herself, voice cracking. “Look at me,” she blurted after a pause. “I am horrible. I don’t deserve to be alive, but he’s made me Mother of our lodge. He could have taken anyone, but he picked me. He has given me everything, so why can’t I just do what he says?”

  “He should be grateful,” Cary whispered. “You are beautiful. Men would fight to their last breath to treat you like the queen you were always meant to be.” Cary realized as he said the words that he had gone too far – the girls most dying for compliments are the first to see through the false ones.

  Noé laughed again, but it was hard and humorless. “So what, you will seduce me? Is that who you are? You think to bed an ugly Morg girl with a few frilly words?” She turned on him, voice rough with emotion. Cary cursed himself for being caught but knew better than to think that it changed anything. Nearly every girl he had been with came to this same conclusion.

  “So you think because you have a split in your lip that you must be treated like less than you are?” Cary ignored her accusation, allowing it to linger, an offer tabled for later, and turned the discussion back to her. “You are the Mother of a lodge. How can any man treat you like that? I thought he was going to kill you the way he pushed your face into the mattress while he . . . .” Cary trailed off, having made his point. Still, the images came back to him of the huge hand pressing her face into the sheets to muffle her cries. For a second, it was Allysa. His resolve trembled then strengthened. At least I’ll be nice to her.

  “His passion overwhelms him,” Noé snuffled, obviously remembering the same thing and somehow trying to convince herself that even that was her fault. “He buries my face so he won’t have to see it. Sometimes, he . . . . Can you blame him?” She turned away, unable to maintain the lie. Her eyes were wet, cheeks stained with tears, nose red and running. There was a pause. Cary somehow knew that now was not the time to fill it. “It could have . . . should have been worse,” she continued, voice catching. “I . . . I deserved worse. He could have made me . . . . I mean . . . he has made . . . I mean, I have . . . it doesn’t matter . . . I did them. I did things that no sister would ever do. If they knew, they would cast me out. And . . . and he’d take . . . he’d take my . . . my . . . .” She could not finish. She clutched her belly and folded over it crying. Suddenly Cary knew exactly what Zhurn had told her when his hand was on her child.

  “So you must put up with this for the rest of your life?” Cary asked, hoping to suggest the implied alternative.

  “It is not always so bad,” she snuffled, pulling herself together and looking toward the wall. “The first few times he was kind. He did not like to see my face, but he was gentle and no man had ever . . . . So when he asked me . . . . I knew it was wrong, that I was shaming myself, but . . . but I owed him everything. So I did what he asked. He changed after that, got rougher, more demanding, but I knew that I had shamed myself, that I deserved to be treated that way.” She brushed tears from her eyes and changed tack. “I used to pass out, but I’ve learned to make a space with my hand. I . . . I don’t know . . . . I . . . . He does not come often, and I know that I should not defy him. It only makes it worse, but . . . .” She looked back at Cary just then seeming to realize what she was saying. “Why am I tell you this? You’re a guth. You can’t possibly understand.”

  “I understand perfectly.” Cary almost wished it weren’t true. “And I think you’re telling me because I’m the only one who will listen. I think you need to tell someone. I’m just glad it can be me.”

  She stared at him for a long time after that. He held it, let her feel the warmth of his attention, let her know how good it could feel. When he left, she’d long for nothing more.

  There was a knock at the door. Cary leapt from the bed, eyes darting from the door to the passage. Could he make it to safety before someone entered and saw him? The answer was a definitive no. “Noé ut Eselhelt,” a woman’s voice called then followed with a few words that Cary could not understand. Noé responded. Her eyes remained on Cary as she spoke, considering. The first voice spoke again – a few short words – then departed.

  “I must go,” Noé said after the footsteps had faded. “They have prepared a bath for me. I do not know why I have told you all this. It was wrong. Please, do not come here again and . . . and please, forget . . . forget everything you have seen and heard. I beg you. It would be . . . he would . . . .” She seemed unable to state what her husband would do, but Cary had a pretty good idea how it would end for both of them if anyone found out.

  “I will go, but I will not stay away.” He turned and looked back at her. He barely noticed the deformity now, was able to look past it. He somehow knew that this was meant to be that she would give herself to him, that it would only take a little more time, a little more effort. The foundation was already set. “No one deserves this life, least of all one so kind and beautiful as you. I will prove it to you, I swear that. I will prove to you that you are beautiful, that you deserve to be a Mother in truth, and then maybe you will see i
t as well.”

  Noé watched him. Their eyes locked, then she turned away. “Just go,” she demanded but Cary could see the slightest smile in her eyes. “Please, stay away. You can only make things worse.”

  Though he somehow knew that she was correct, Cary could not help but hold on to his promise and the possibility it represented, to let it keep him awake all that night, to let it control his every action in the days to come.

  Chapter 36

  The 32nd Day of Summer

  “What do we do now, Kian?” a voice asked. Dasen heard it through a fog.

  “Should turn them in for the ransom, you fools,” another voice said. Despite the pounding in his head, Dasen forced himself to lie still and listen, to keep his eyes shut even though they saw nothing but light. Feeling the stone floor beneath him, he guessed he was lying in the exact place where he had landed, did not seem to be bound in any way, must not have been out for long.

  “You’re the fool, Mark,” the voice from the alley snapped. “He’s the key to the whole thing. Without him, we don’t stand a chance. All the silver in the world’s no use if some bastard’s going to kill your family and burn your house. Do you even trust the tyrant to deliver the money? After the lies he told in Thoren, I wouldn’t trust that bastard to hold his cock when he’s pissing.”

  Dasen did not even have the chance to feel relief that they would not be turned in for the bounty before his anxiety doubled. He knew that man’s voice. It was the same one he had heard outside the temple. This was the man that wanted to use him as a weapon, that wanted him to defend the city against the invaders, that wanted him to kill, wanted him to destroy. He would almost rather be back in the alley.